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Published: November 10th 2008
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So I haven’t made an entry in about a month, and as I’m sure you can guess, I have done A LOT since Oktoberfest. I suppose the best way to catch up is to make several different entries, and since I’m typing this one on a cruise, I’ll just probably post all of the entries at the same time. With that being said, I’ll start with the wedding between Diane and Fabio Pasquesi (I can’t remember her maiden name).
So for starters, this was when I met up with my parents. I met Mom and Dad in Venice, which was surprisingly easy to get to for me. I realize that Venice is one of the most notable tourist cities on earth, but to be honest, I’m not too impressed with it. Let me tell you why. Some of the things that make a city “bad” in Italy, such as Catania (which I’ll get to later), are crime and filth. Catania is in Sicily, so naturally it has crime from the Mafia, but also it is absolutely filthy from graffiti and just plain dirtiness on the streets. Venice doesn’t have streets; it has water. Also, Venice doesn’t have much crime
at all because it’s kinda hard to escape from the police on foot when all there is separating the islands that make up the town are bridges. The water is dirty, but trash still sinks. With these two combined, Venice, for me, turns into just another town and literally can’t become worse because the terrain won’t permit it. In my opinion, there are too many tourists (ya I know, I’m a tourist too), and too many pigeons. So, that being said, it’s pretty obvious that my parents and I headed out pretty quickly from Venice after I showed up.
Next we picked up the rental car and set up the GPS. Just a note, if you’re going to Europe, make sure that you update the software on your navigator. I forgot to tell the parents this and it turned into us trying to exit the autostrada at an exit that had been bulldozed about a month ago. We finally made it to Dolo, the town where the wedding was, and stayed at “Hotel Goetzen”, a German hotel run by Italians. The pictures speak pretty well for the wedding. Fabio is in the Carabinieri, the military branch of the police,
so him and his buddies were all decked out in formal Carabinieri outfits. It was pretty awesome. So they got married, and since the priest had a pretty rough Southern Italian accent and I have a short attention span, I started trying to figure out my mom’s camera, so of the pictures I’ve taken, you’re probably seeing about 30%. Diane, who is from South Africa, showed up in a carriage with her father in a dress that she made by herself. Ya, and you thought your mom could sew. So they got hitched and we headed off to the Italian Villa for the reception. The pictures that I have posted are of the outdoor area and the inside of the dining room, among other things. The ENTIRE dining room was covered in frescos. The picture that I took just doesn’t really do it justice. After about 3 hours of eating, it was time to dance. I danced for a bit, but I was the only one there my age so it was kinda hard to get going when I didn’t really know anyone. So my parents and I hung out for a little while longer, ate some more food, and
then headed back home. The next day we were to begin our little excursion with Alfredo, Fabio’s father, and Maria Teresa, Fabio’s mother. Neither of them spoke much English, so I got to be a translator, which was actually pretty cool. The problem for me normally is that I walways have the same conversation with people for the first 5 minutes that I know them, so they think that I’m way better at Italian than I actually am. Translating basically just got harder and harder as the day went on.
The next day we went to Aquilea and saw a cathedral with a floor that was completely a mosaic; the largest in Europe. It was amazing, as usual. I’ll let you look at the pics for an explanation of that one. After Aquilea we went to a WWI memorial. Obviously, for the Italians, WWI was their “Grande Guerra”. Both because they won, and they still believe that they were on the right side. Those weren’t really the case with WWII. Look at the pictures with that one too. Sweet.
The following Friday, we were invited by our Italian relatives to visit the Ferrari museum, just outside of where my family
comes from. All I have to say is wow. As a guy, and secondly an mechanical engineering student, you can’t help but be impressed. In Italy they have a saying of what order things matter in life: women, cars, food. I don’t disagree too much . After the factory, we went to each lunch which took about 3 hours. My parents and I were full by the time the pasta showed up, which was about 3 courses too early. We ordered the meat, which after one bite made me instantly hungry again. It was beef with Balsamic vinegar sprinkled on top of it with some incredible cheese shavings on top of it. After that, we had gelato with a web of sugar draped on top of it. That’s the only way I can describe it, just have a look.
After this we went to a car museum / cheese factory. They had cars from when Mazurati just started until now. Cars that they only make 12 of a year. Again, just check out the pics because they are amazing. The cheese factory was sweet too, I guess, but just wait until Asiago for that one. Next we headed to
an Italian sports club, which 3 years ago had celebrated its centennial and decided to make 2 encyclopedias just about the sports club. They gave us the books and some bags to go with them. Don’t tell my relatives, but my parents left them at my place because they couldn’t read them and they weigh about 40 pounds. So that about summed up the time with my relatives, but I should be making a trip back there in about 2 weeks to see Pievepelago again, which is the town where my family comes from. Stay tuned for more on that.
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