Lis and Tyler in Germany

When in Rome, we ate dinner at the Beehive every night.  We got to chatting with Laura, the cook, and learned that she had a friend from a small mountain town in Tuscany who was coming to stay with her for the week, leaving his apartment free.  We took the intercity bus through th beautiful (even in winter) countryside to Stia which is outside of Arezzo (we still haven’t bothered to find it on a map).  At Bar Roma, across the street from  the bus stop, I used my broken Spanish to ask to use the phone so we could call Pierro, who had the keys.  You could almost see the gossip spread as we lugged our packs through town trying to find the aparment, turning heads and causing people to lean just a little further out their windows.

It was fun to create an image of Hilaire O’loughlin, Irishman turned Italian, as we got to know his home, his town and his neighbors.  The electricity is touchy…only a few lights and one of the two hot water heaters at a time or you’ll blow a fuse.  Only a fire for heat (which we actually really needed the whole time we were there…this part of Italy is not warm year round) and no phone.  So he leads a simple life at a slow pace.  His bookshelves are lined with books in French, Italian and English on topics such as photography, architecture, interior decorating and poetry.  He’s good friends with his butcher and told us if we needed help in English, we could go see the barber.  Vito the barber actually came in quite handy.  I left my coat on the bus and couldn’t manage to get a hold of anyone at the bus station who spoke any English and my terrible Spanish was not cutting it.  I took my scrap of paper with the phone number to the station in Florence to Vito and asked him to give it a shot.  He handed the paper right back to me and said he knew one of the bus drivers…he’d just call him.  He should be at Bar Roma right about now.  We loved small-town life.

We stopped in Pisa (we flew from Pisa to Spain to save ourselves a day on the train) and saw the tower.  Boy does it lean.  It was POURING down rain and we were too stubborn to buy an umbrella so got absolutely soaked.  We really didn’t see much of Pisa, but I have to say, it didn’t seem like there was much to see.  However, we did find the best pizzeria in the world.  Filippo’s, right by our hotel and across the street from the train station, serves Cicino (not sure on the spelling), which is a thin chickpea pancake fried in olive oil and sprinkled with pepper that just melts in your mouth.  We had that as an appetizer and thought nothing could be better.  Then we had the pizza.  Oh wow.  It’s worth a trip to Pisa.

Now we’re in Sevilla, Spain.  My Spanish is improving (the fact that they actually speak Spanish here, not Italian, might help) and it’s actually quite useful. Fewer people speak English and when you ask them something in Spanish, even really broken Spanish, they still answer in Spanish.   I know this seems obvious, but in Germany it’s hard to learn or practice your German because if someone sees you’re struggling, they just reply in their perfect English to save you both the hassle.  Last night we enjoyed tapas, paella and a flamenco show.  The dancing was unlike anything I’ve ever seen before.  And I’ve seen flamenco.  I can’t even describe it. You’ll just have to come to Sevilla, the capital of flamenco dancing, and see it for yourself.

P.S. For those participating in the countdown: two weeks and one day!!!