Ask and Ye shall recieve

Hi Friends!

Genova, Italy

After our night out enjoying the Carnevale festivities, Allison and I slept in all morning and just kind of lounged around. We also headed upstairs to hang out with the Nonne and Mattia. Poor Mattia was really sick all weekend and couldn't join in the Carnevale festivities. But while we visited with him and watched a bit on Sponge Bob in Italian we planned our trip for the next day. Allison and I weren't quite sure where we were going. We both really wanted to go to Venice but we weren't sure how to get there so our back up plan was to go to Genova which is a beautiful, colorful city in Italy that wasn't nearly as far. I honestly didn't care where we went. Sure Venice would've been nice and Genova would've been cool but I was just glad to hang out with my Gill. Seriously, just hanging out with her for 5 minutes was like a breath of fresh air. After much discussion we decided to plan for Venice.

We both had NO CLUE how we were going to get there but we had to make a plan and stick to it. We knew we had to take a train into Venice but getting to the train station from the top of the mountain was a problem considering Allison didn't have a car, there was no bus to take down the mountain, Allison's friend had offered but was REALLY wish-washy about the whole thing, and we certainly didn't want to walk, so what were we to do? Allison was also afraid to ask Simona about possibly getting a lift since she was so nice to give her the week off to hang out with me. Plus (understandably) Allison didn't want to appear to be needy to her boss. I felt so bad I really couldn't help because I didn't know what our "options" were, or anything about the area, OR any Italian so I was of no use to Allison in all the planning. Poor little dear.

We then decided to go get a bite to eat at this pizza place down the hill, can't think on an empty stomach. Allison had never been to this one place and I certainly hadn't so we decided to go check it out. What I found to be kind of funny was in Prato at this ski resort there were two ski schools. Naturally they were rivals. Now I've always been a believer that there is nothing wrong with a little friendly competition but this is not how it was up there. Apparently, it gets so bad up there Simona finds letters on her car threatening her and her family. Not cool. This rivalry didn't just go on between the schools but the schools were affiliated with certain restaurants and stores so it would be bad if Simona's Nanny and friend went into the wrong place. Thankfully, the pizza place we had in mind was neutral territory. Yes, it was Switzerland. Ha!

I was super excited one because I was about to engulf an entire pizza by myself and secondly this was my first pizza in ITALY! Awesome. I got the Margarita pizza which come to find out was a glorified  way of saying a big cheese pizza. I didn't mind though, sometimes you just gotta have a good cheese pizza. I asked Allison how to ask for "Ranch" in Italian and she just laughed at me. I didn't know why since everyone knows pizza is ALWAYS better when you can dip it in Ranch. Much to my dismay Allison told me that in Italy they don't "do" sauces they just stick with olive oil and balsalmic. UGH! Oh well, I guess when in Rome. HAHAHAH GET IT! Ok so I wasn't in Rome but you get the idea. Another restaurant fact: in Italy you don't tip your waiter but you do pay to sit down in a restaurant. Yea weird right. You can stand and eat your food all you want but if you even consider leaning on a chair, immediate two dollar fee. LAME! I guess that takes the place of the tip, you're renting the table for about an hour. Whatev!

Prato

After our yummy pizza, Allison wanted to show me the ruins on the mountain which was a great idea. I just ate that entire pizza, I had to walk it off. So we walked around Prato and went into a few shops just to look/ What I liked about this little town was that it was just so cool to look at. It reminded me of a town in movies or something it was just so cute. Once we got to where the ruins were I decided I wanted a closer look, Allison wasn't wearing her snowboots so I went by myself. I felt like an explorer. The ruins were pretty cool, you could see the layouts of the houses and the view of the mountains from where I stood was beautiful.

We then meet up with the other Au Pairs at Appetivos. I was still pretty full from the pizza so I didn't get anything. After hanging out with them we all agreed to hang out later that night after dinner which kind of fell through at the last second. All the Au Pairs wanted to go do their own thing and Allison and I still needed to pack for our trip plus figure out how to get to the train station. While I was downstairs packing, Allison was upstairs talking to Simona. Simona asked how our trip planning was coming along and Allison mentioned that she was worried about how to get to the train station (not expecting anything just a passing comment/thought) when Simona said the best thing ever. She said that she actually had a meeting somewhere down the mountain not far from the train station and would be glad to drop us off. YEA!!!!!!!!!!

The Lord answered our prayers! I think that was a little lesson Allison and I both learned that weekend, sometimes you just need to ask. By going about it in a round about way and never actually voicing your concerns because you don't want to seem "needy"  you actually make more work for yourself and undergo a lot of unnecessary stress. Vacations aren't supposed to be stressful anyhow. I've always felt when it comes to vacations, careers, or relationships that if it doesn't just naturally fall into place it's not meant to be. This trip and several others I've been on this year have just fallen into place with ease. Now that we "asked" our trip to Venice was suddenly looking like a breeze. :)
-Jen