The Mountains

Often I have days where I think my life must be a dream.
Recently, I had one of those days.

One Friday, I left work early (6pm) to head up to the mountains with 7 friends (well, 4 friends, and the other 3 became friends). We were heading to Madonna del Campiglio to spend a few days in the snow at Giovanni's cabin. Every Italian had the same reaction to my trip: "oooo, con i VIPs a Madonna del Campiglio!!" Needless to say, I was excited

The drive was pretty long and in Italian (aka small) cars, that means a lot. We made a pit stop at the AutoGrill, had a panino and bought some chocolate and continued on. Gio had all of one CD that worked, so you can imagine how much fun that was.

Madonna di Campiglio is absolutely beautiful. The town is set right at the bottom of gorgeous mountains and the scenery is just breathtaking. Saturday we went up to the top of the mountains to the ski lodge where we met the "men" for lunch. I swear to you, the lodge food was out of a nice restaurant at home. Only in Italy. Christina and I, being the people we are, split a huge piece of veggie lasagna (amazing) and AMAZING polenta and wild boar. Omygod, it was heavenly. And being up at the snow covered mountains, I truly felt I was in heaven. 

The lodge bumps the latest tunes and really feels like a party. People dance and drink outside, dancing on tabletops in their snowboarding jackets. Then Christina slid down a mini hill. And fell.

Carnevale 2010

It has happened again. Great night out!

Life's Adjustments

One of the greatest things about Italia is in fact it's cuisine. While I will argue until I die that you can never say it is the hands down BEST in the world, it is pretty ah-mazing. I can walk down the street from work and pick up a DELICIOUS and hearty portion of homemade gnocchi with a bowl licking tomato sauce or a scrumptous seven layer lasagna. However, this little golden star in this country is also one of my biggest weaknesses.

Christina and I have come to the conclusion that neither of us have any self control, what-so-ever. Especially in the food department. We like delicious food. Period. When we're bored, we don't read a book or go for a run, we want food. When we're sad, we don't starve ourselves, we EAT. When we're poor and have no money, we fork out the ten euro for the best plate of pasta you can find. So we are both pretty mortified at the fact that summer is fastly approaching. By "fastly" I do mean in about five months, HOWEVER, it is never too early to start to worry.

Before we went home, we decided we'd take it down a notch the month before we left so that we could binge eat and wolf down as many American delicacies as our little hands could find. Well, we "dieted" by eating chocolate, pizza, chocolate filled croisants and cappuccinos, pasta and chinese food, all in preparation. FAIL.
We have a new plan these days as we are failing in two main parts of life: MONEY and DIET. So, we figure we'll kill two birds with one stone: no money and no extra pounds, right?!

Our new plan is brilliant and very well thought out. Don't eat. Don't spend money. By don't eat, I of course mean, eat some pasta at home and occasionally go out for Chinese food down the block. O and we definitely can't rule out cappuccinos or brioches in the AM because, Raniero a.k.a. "Principino", our barista, would just miss us way too much and we can't do that to him. Also, any invites to dinner/aperitivo/drinks can't be ignored because that is just RUDE. I mean I don't see how our plan could fail....

I guess we'll see in five months on the beaches.

Milano.