Steady As She Goes

I passed out.  Between the stress of coordinating three different flights, jet lag, lack of sleep, mild dehydration, lugging about 7 tons of luggage from the airport to the bus.  I was exhausted.  So this morning I set my alarm for six even though I didn’t need to be there to help the kids with breakfast for two hours.  I walked around Tuscania just to orient myself as I was pretty much zoned out when I got to my hotel the first time, fell asleep and was still a little asleep when we walked to dinner.  It was necessary to figure out where everything was.  At 6:30 am the town was quiet, although it is generally a quiet place, it has that feeling of restfulness about it.   The doors are crowned with creeping vines, and the stone is old and worn, the place has a old world feel to it.  A lot of Tuscania’s architecture and buildings are made out of volcanic stone, which were built around the time of the roman empire(over the Etruscan tombs).  Some parts were restored after an earthquake destroyed a good section of Rome and its surrounding areas.    

Fun fact did you know that in Latin that the original definitions of Lupa is either she-wolf or prostitute.  This interesting tidbit becomes especially fun when you think about the story of the founding fathers of Rome - Romulus and Remus.  They were have said in lore to have been raised by a mother wolf after being abandoned in the hills by their mother.  Some say that the she-wolf was added to give the story a bit more class and mystique but in reality – they were raised by a prostitute.  Honestly the stories you hear are so crazy they have to be true…  well…  they don’t have to be true (I'm looking at you Paul Bunion), but aren’t they fun?  Like the woman pope!  You don’t hear the Vatican bragging about that one, but it’s out there.  Or the man who ate 350 coins..  Speaking of weird things.  I was in the p   

There was many beautiful sections overlooking the hills of Tuscania, which I didn’t mention before, but is just 45 minutes outside of Rome(which is why what happens in Rome is so important to Tuscania, it directly effects them).  There are many olive trees here and there was some mention that the original hazelnut trees used to make Nutella were from Tuscania (although I have yet to google and confirm that story).  I also heard that while Tuscania is small it produces some of the best food(and that I am not arguing against*)

So I wandered around, saw the fountains, figured out where we are and felt much more confident in my directional ability.  Breakfast was fantastic, lunch was fantastic dinner was phenomenal- I hope you are sensing the trend by now.  For breakfast I went to a little bakery and bought a piping hot whole wheat hand-sized loaf of bread, that with my cup of blood orange juice was…  well I have ran out of awesome explanative adjectives but you get the picture.  Lunch was spaghetti with tomato’s and basil, and dinner…  well dinner needs its own paragraph to describe the utter bliss that was this meal but I will be brief.  I had spigatoni in pesto with truffle shavings as my prima piatte (or first plate), a steak with small salad as my secondo piatte (or second plate) and for desert slices of fresh pineapple.  Devine.  And that is all there is to say about that.  

While I was walking through the streets I saw a grandma walking with legit trays of what couldn’t be anything other than hand-made ravioli’s (down to the hand-cut pasta) with just those three trays it must have taken her hours to make.  There is a black lab that seems to live in the piazza near my hotel, she just hangs out with the locals and ambles around- I named it Mora.  Because it would just be silly to name a boy dog with an ‘a’ ending name so I decided it must be a girl.    

Its been a great few days,  and before I knew it the week was almost over!  This was crazy!   

  *Ever(**)

**Ever ever