Udine. Everything's fine.

If you read the title of this blog, and it rhymed... you read it like an American. We were laughed at when we said we were going to ooh-dine. Now we know we are in ooh-din-ay. There you go. Italian lesson complete. :)

To review last night's Big Fat Italian Dinner... including some pics of playing with our Italian cousins. We spoke English, they spoke Italian, and we got along just fine.





This morning we said goodbye to Aunt Dolly and Pierpaolo took us to the train station. First, though, he pulled over and asked if we wanted to go to the bar. Seeing as it was 8:30 in the morning, I wasn't quite convinced... but, no worries, he meant a coffee bar. We were in!

Our hotel, discovered by Elizabeth Allen of Madera, California, was across the street from the train station. The lady inside was very helpful, especially since she spoke English. Just ten minutes from our hotel is the city center... Udine is another walled city, but most of the gate has been demolished. We discovered an AWESOME restaurant just outside of the main square (which, of course, has a hill leading up to castle... which any good city square should). The lady at the hotel gave us the directions but we also should have asked what to order because the menu was not only in Italian, but cursive Italian. It was muy dificil to figure out what we were ordering. I took a chance with what I thought was orzo and ravioli... I got refried beans soup. But no complaints here, it was the best orzo/ravioli/refried beans soup ever. Shandon thought she was safe ordering insalade, but it showed up with some strange sea creature raw on top.

This town completely shuts down for siesta, and we are not talking a ten-minute power siesta. We're talking 4 hours of closed stores and abandoned streets. We are now waiting for siesta to end so we can rejoin society.






Arrivederci.