Does a Belle by any other name not sound just as sweet?

We're here in beautiful Argegno (pronounced "Ar-jen-O"... kinda), Italy on Lake Como! Our villa is even more than we'd hoped it would be, and it's been nice to have a home base to go back to. So far we've stayed mainly in Como, but today we ventured out and drove to Verona.

Our plane ride over was definitely tougher than the last trip overseas! Our flight out of Birmingham was a little delayed, but it was enough that they didn't think we'd make our connections so instead of going from Birmingham to Cincinatti to JFK to Milan, they rebooked us to go from Birmingham to Atlanta to Milan. That worked out MUCH better (only 2 legs instead of 3), but we just had to make arrangements to make sure that we still met up with Ben in Milan since we weren't going to be on his flight from JFK. Annabelle did good on the flight again, except for the fact that she did NOT want to sleep! We'd been up all day and the flight from Atlanta to Milan was a red-eye, so dealing with a squirmy, sleepy-but-refusing-to-sleep baby was a challenge! She really didn't cry for more than about 3-5 minutes the whole trip, but ugh... we were exhausted when we arrived! She finally slept for a couple of hours toward the end of the flight, but only after I took her into the bathroom on the plane and laid her on the changing table and let her cry for a little while (while I was standing there, of course). It may sound cruel, but sometimes crying is the only thing that will tire her out! We arrived a little earlier than Ben didin Milan, and met up with both him and Jill (at another airport) with no problem. But getting to our villa... that's another story!

We've rented a car, so that's been our main form of transportation (that and our feet), but driving here is VERY different from what we're used to. We arrived in Italy armed with an Atlas and directions to the villa, but fortunately Keith and Ben decided to get a "NeverLost" along with our rental car. The NeverLost proved pretty reliable when it came to getting us from our airport to Jill's airport, but after that... ugh! Instead of following the directions that the villa manager gave us, we decided to type it into the NeverLost and let it do the navigating. The NeverLost took us the LONG way around the lake and even had us taking a ferry across the lake. We thought we were SOOOO lost and we were very late meeting the villa manager at our villa, so we called from one of the cities on the lake to let the manager know that we were still on our way. She couldn't believe we'd ended up where we were (in Bellagio)! To make things even more confusing, the town that we ended up in had a couple of the same landmarks as were listed in the directions that we had (Who'd have thought there would be TWO Hotel Belvederes and two Via Panoramicas?)! So, once we contacted the manager, we got on the ferry and it's wasn't TOO much longer before we finally made it to the villa... about 2 hours late! By the time that we arrived, most of the places in town were closed so we ate the Velveeta Shells and Cheese that I bought for Jill for dinner and called it a night.

Sunday morning we got up and drove to the town nearby that supposedly had a grocery store (supermercato) to buy some food for the week. They did have a grocery store, but it's closed on Sundays! So, we found a restaurant in that town and enjoyed a late breakfast on the lake, then strolled up the lake front through the town to see some of the beautiful buildings and gardens. Since we had gotten up so late, this killed most of our day, so we headed back to Argegno to find gelato and dinner (yes, in that order), then back home with our microwaved frozen pizzas (the ONLY food that we could find!) to enjoy dinner on our terrace al fresco.

Monday morning Keith got up and ran down to town (we're only meters away from "town", but because we're so high up on the side of the mountain, it's not just a hop, skip, and a jump to get there) to find us some basics. He came back with milk, cereal, OJ, bread, and cheese! We were all so happy to have food in our tummies! Once we weren't starving, Jill and Ben went to find the grocery store again, while Keith, Annabelle, and I cleaned up and finished getting settled in. When Jill and Ben returned with food to last us a few days, we ventured back down into town to check out our home town for the week. The best part of that day was the AWESOME hot chocolate that we had! It wasn't just hot chocolate... it was steamed and thick as jello pudding! It was SOOO yummy!

We decided that Tuesday we'd head into the town of Como (the largest and the main town on Lake Como) to check it out. After having some gelato (Annabelle's first gelato cone), we took a funicular to Brunato and hung out up there admiring the view and walking through the streets of the small city. We then went back into the city to find our dinner at the local meat and produce markets, then got back in the car to head back to our villa.

Tuesday night we decided that we'd venture out further on Wednesday, so we got up Wednesday with a later start than we'd hoped, but made it to the BEAUTIFUL city of Verona. The buildings there were amazing with their awesome paintings on the outside walls and the magnificent oversized wooden doors! And in what other city can you find a marble outdoor road down the main shopping strip? We ended up having dinner in a quaint square filled with street vendors, but our waiter told us that tomorrow the Pope is coming to Verona and will be going through that very square. After lunch, we walked around the streets of Verona looking for the house of the legendary Juliette Capulet (yes, I know she isn't real, but she still has a house in Verona, Giulietta's House). We wandered around the streets for a while before we discovered that the house was just steps from the square where we'd started out! We visited Juliette's house and, like the other tourists, paid our respects by rubbing Juliette's right breast, then Jill and I headed up to the (fake) famous balcony for a few pictures. Once we'd had our fill of the Capulets, we headed back through town to our car passing the Verona city wall (which was impressive!) and headed back home. A few wrong turns later (one turn got us stuck in a truck lane headed over the border to Switzerland!), we got home. :)

Ben's been doing all of the driving so far and he's only hit the wall once (no kidding!). :) I can totally see why most cars here are so small because the roads are TINY and drivers whiz in and out of traffic like there's no one else on the road! It's insane! And on top of all that, our place is on the side of a mountain so there are many VERY winding roads where cars come at you with no warning at all! I have NO desire to try to brave these roads myself. Also, I mentioned that Keith and Ben got us a NeverLost, but there's one major problem with it for us non-Italian tourists... the voice part of it is all in Italian. Thanks to this we're all learning a few Italian words (like left, right, a few numbers, recalculating route... ya know... the useful things), but it still doesn't help when the voice warns you to get into a certain lane and you don't know that until after you've passed your turn.

Finally... one of the highlights of my day today... I had an actual conversation with two older women who only spoke Italian and NO English. Granted it wasn't a complicated conversation and a lot of it was guided by gestures, but I was able to tell them that I only spoke a little Italian (after they started speaking to me VERY fast in Italian), understood them asking me how old Annabelle was (and was able to answer 8, although I don't know the word for "months"), asking her name (I said "her name is Annabelle", the Italians seem to love her name), verifying that she's a girl, asking me if Keith was her father, and them telling me that she looks like her "papa". It was SOOO cool! I wish that I'd had more time to learn more Italian before coming, but this conversation just renewed my interest in really learning Italian and returning to Italy again later to have more conversations in Italian. :) I maybe have to up my 43things goal to be more than just 10 Italian cities!

P.S. We're still on dial-up, so I haven't been able to upload pictures, but between me, Ben, and Jill, we've got TONS of pictures to share! I'll get them uploaded as soon as I'm able to. The picture that I've posted with this blog is one from the day that we walked around Argegno. Keith had Annabelle wrapped up under the jacket in her Baby Bjorn. This is one of my favorite pictures of them ever!

P.P.S. Heartland's song is now #1 on the Country Billboard chart!