May 5-9, 2009: Casarsa, Italy

Visiting Paolo's Grandmother, Nona Nori, in Casarsa della Delizia first. This is the town that produces both the Carsasa & Moresutti brands of wine (which you can find in most NW grocery stores due to Paolo's father, Gary Raden.) Other than it being where Paolo's mom grew up, not much of note has happened or is happening here.

Small rural town, think Eastern WA with accents. Most prominent political question, "why did you vote for the black guy?" Let me tell you there is No night life. We spent many nights (midnight to 2a) walking around town trying to get Tristan back to sleep. Biggest thing happening, dogs barking at us. woohoo. Everything closes between 12:30 and 3:30p, I mean everything. (no grocery, no coffee, no bank...etc) And restaurants don't open up until

 7p at the earliest. Very problematic when your kid goes to sleep around 7p.

A note on jet lag: not helped when you have the wrong equipment. We have a very cute, very trendy (according to Ann) pup tent that weighs about 1#. I figured a better travel option than a foldable crib. My child hates it!! I mean scream and fight and wake up constantly won't go back to sleep hates it.  after 3 nights fighting with him, we broke down and begged the local baby store to sell us a pac-n-play. Best 60euros we ever spent!! Tristan slept through the night. Although, we had a bit of PTSD, waking up every time he moved assuming that he was waking up and was going to scream again.  We eventually got over it;)

And the happy baby got to play with little Italian babies at the local park after making a trip through the local plant nursery.

I just thought this plant, Pitcher Plant, was so cool. Had to document it somehow. Turns out its much cooler in concept than exciting in pictures.

Next: the other side of Italy