Arezzo and on to Roma!

After we left Florence :( we went to Arrezo to stay with an old missionary contact that Rook and Daniel Taccone had met who turned out to be the nicest little lady you could ask for. I mean she really rolled out the red carpet for us. First off, after getting to Arrezo we were met by one of Rook's baptisms. His name is Fiorino and he is from Romania. At first I thought he was a little weird, but I really warmed up to him and he is a great harworking guy. He was so happy to show Rook his Maquina (he has a pretty cool red alpha romeo). Rook really wanted to get some piadinas from his favorite place in Arrezo (he served there for 6 months). I think its called il tuo piadina or your piadina in english. It was fun because Rook had taken grandpa and barbara there when they came and visited him... so it was nice thinking that grandpa had been in the exact same spot as I had just 6 years earlier.

After we finished up touring the city with Fiorino and calling and re-calling Angela Pasqui (the lady we stayed with) to tell her to expect us a little later we called up another of Rook's baptism named sueli a nice girl from brazil. She had since gotten married to an architect who was dead set on showing us his rental property. It was really cool and reminded me of the house on a good year the movie with russell crowe. It was pretty cool, but it seemed like he was trying to get us to rent it. He said it was 5,800 euros a week during the holidays hahaha... yeah right buddy! So after looking through their wedding fotos that they had in this huge leather bound book (way cool I want one it looks like an old bible or something) and doing an awkward kiss goodbye we headed off to Angela Pasquis.

When we got to Her house she wasn't what I was expecting. I thought she was going to be some nice middle aged tall thin woman for some reason. Big shock here... she was a tiny little in your face kinda lady, extremely nice and really reminded me of what my dad's nona would have been like. She is so warm and will let anyone stay in her house, fed us breakfast in bed... just told us to relax and she would take care of us! So when we got there it was around 10:00 at night she took us out to a restaurant with her twin sons and their wives and babies. Did I mention that Angela is blind as a freaking bat? Well she is. She was following her son the the restaurant and tried to drive up the side of a grassy hill and kept spinning her tires. She was all confused and didn't know what was going on. hahaha. So Rook said "why don't you drive on the street for a change" and then she got all embarressed and said "mama mia mama mia my sons will never let me live this down" it was freaking hilarious especially when she said that they will tease her about it for at least 3 months (she had Rook drive home)! The son's (Mario and Athos) both went to cooking school in spain and are bonafied freaking chef's (more on that later). So we went to the restaurant and got some great food. These people know how to eat, its just course after course after course. We had proschiutto and different kinds hams and salami's with different kinds of bread. It was amazing! Then we had our main course, I got gnocchi in a ragu sauce with bacon and a little bit of spice in it (de-lish) and Rook got his staple of tagliatelli with a wild boar meat sauce (I have pics I just can't upload them here). After that we had a chocholate brownie/pudding kind of like a flan type consistency desert that was very good. We had some great conversations and we felt like we were part of the family, mario speaks spanish so I was able to talk to him all night and that was a lot of fun for me, he is probably the coolest guy I have met in Italy. So after that amazing meal we said our goodbyes and did the kisses on the cheek and it no longer creeps me out doing it with the guys like it did before, probably because I like the family so much. After that we went home to sleep and wouldn't you know it Angela has 2 cats and surprise surprise they were both in heat and wouldn't leave me alone... agghhh! I don't know why all these italian cats like me so much its annoying.

So we got a great nights sleep and breakfats in bed that was hot milk and croissants filled with custard and fruit. We went out to open up Angela's tennis academy. Supposedly its the best tennis academy in Italy and people come from all over the world to train there, it was pretty cool. She and her two boy's own and run the place and also have a restaurant inside. So she gave us a tour, there are 8 clay courts all inside blow up domes. A school for the kids, a gym, 11 apartments for the kids who don't live close and the restaurant. She said they own everything but the apartments. It was a pretty big deal. So Athos came and cooked us an amazing meal. he made probably the best lasagne I have ever tasted in my life and it was a vegetarian lasagne it was so good I want another piece right now (it was also an Athos original). After that we had some roast suckling pig and fried potatoes, again really tasty. She gave us two different desserts one was a puff pastry kinda cream puff with cream and fruit and sweet balsamic vinegar (my fav of the two), the other was a really thick chocolate desert that was kinda like a really undercooked brownie, it was way good and way rich.

After eating Angela gave us one of her cars to use for as long as we wanted. We went up to siena and went all through the town. It is the town where the new james bond starts out with the horse race in the beggining. Way cool town it was like we went back in time. Did the usual, went to all the churches and crypts and museums. Rook had made plans to stay with the bonorino family, but angela wanted us to stay with her again and we obliged since she was so good to us. When we got back to Arezzo she had dinner ready for us in the restaurant and had made us a delicious plate of spaghetti with really thick noodles, tomatoes, basil, and big shavings of parmesean cheese! After that we had some proschuitto, pecorino romano cheese and some honey to dip it in (very tasty). Then she brought us out a kind of apple pie dessert that was way good. Did I mention this lady hooked us up big time? Well she did. She also gave us a really expensive bottle of old balsamic vinegar... it looks great. This lady is just so giving, we are thinking of something nice to do for her, so any ideas would help.

After all of this we went to bed and woke up at 6:20 to catch a train to Roma, we reserved 1st class tickets (supposedly we arent supposed to since our pass is 2 class), good thing Rook talked him into letting us stay and got into rome at 8:30! We ound a 4 star hotel for 45 dollars a night (sweet) and we are here for two nights waiting for our connections in Napoli to figure stuff out and let us come stay with them. More on Rome and everything else later, our laundry is done! Love you all.

Arezzo (where they filmed life is beautiful)

Siena (where they filmed james bond)

The Spanish steps (don't see what the big deal is)

Monument for vittorio something the second, its a way cool building

More later, I just wanted to put up some stock picks so you had an idea of where we are! Love you all.