There's No Place Like Home...

After being in Italy for six weeks, I'm glad to be back home! Its pretty quiet around here as my brother is at a tennis tournament and my sister took him to it. I'm plenty busy, though, as I still have to unpack a lot of my stuff from school (didn't have time before I left) and seriously need to get rid of some stuff in my closet as I fear my closet rod is going to break. I think I still have some stuff from high school in there...

Speaking of holding onto clothes, I found a picture of my dad and I when I was eight:

My dad still has this shirt. For the sake of my parents bank account, at least we have one cheapskate in the family.  My mom will probably yell at me for putting up this picture.

My new favorite show is "Keeping Up With the Kardashians." Khloe is seriously genius - the episode where she was convinced she was adopted and Kris wasn't her real mother (she made Kris take a DNA test) was hysterical. As was the episodes where Kris got a chicken so they could have fresh eggs (Bruce Jenner, her husband, was like, ummm I won the olympics eating store bought eggs!) and where the girls got Kris a monkey, Suzy, were epic.

On another note, I brought home some cheese and olive oil from Italy. And I must have had some serious dairy lackage the past few days as last night all I wanted was cheese and then, of course, ice cream. Six weeks in Italy eating their gelato still did not get rid of the addiction. Is there ice cream addicts anonymous?

Courmayeur

Focaccia con Mela (apple)

Garden (basil, lettuce here)

Courmayeur

Town of Verrand near Courmayeur

[they had an awesome playground for the kids]

Monte Bianco is hiding behind the clouds.....but you get the picture

I seriously wore a North Face fleece for an entire week (in July!) because it was pretty chilly there, especially in the mornings!

For some reason, the mountains made me crave chocolate (maybe because we were near Switzerland) and I had, ummm, like my bodyweight in chocolate (dark is my favorite, but we mostly had milk and hazelnut)....each night. Ooops!

There were red clay courts there I was dying to play on, but never got to. Guess I'll just have to get good enough to qualify for the French, ha!

Cenacolo + Medico

So, I am still half deaf. Basically, I swam so much in Sardinia (and haven't done that in a looong time) that my left ear got all inflamed and that created ear wax and then there was more inflammation and, yeah, basically, I have ear wax stuck somewhere in my ear. So, I'm still deaf. I went to the "medico" on Wednesday (mercoledi?) to check and make sure I didn't have an infection, which I didn't. I need to find an ENT here as they can unclog my ear. Wonderful. I know it sounds so gross. Sorry!

But, anyways, going to the doctor here was kind of cool I thought. It was definitely NOT like America. The town of Dairago is small (5000 people) so the doctors are much more involved in the community, especially those that are generalists. Anyways, the waiting room is very small, no receptionist or check in list or whatever. His office is also his examining room and he has his desk, all his pictures (including lots of pictures from kids - he doesn't treat children, but they all draw him pictures for some reason), etc. He also, seriously, had a black doctors bag - I don't think I've ever seen those except on some episode of Little House on the Prairie or something. And, my visit would be great for the PPS interpreter module as the doctor couldn't speak English. ha.

Yesterday, we went to see "The Last Supper" (Cenacolo) in Milan. You have to book tickets way in advance and, when you go, you are given a certain time. They only allow about 15 people at one time. The room where the fresco is is sealed off and the doors are opened only briefly. Only one set of doors is also open at a time. Even in the rooms directly adjacent to it (like the holding room you mus twait in before you go in) only open one set of doors at a time. So, a lot goes in to preserving the Cenacolo! The painting isn't in the church. It's actually in the the cafeteria where the friar's would eat. So, I guess having that painting there made them feel like they were eating with Jesus? haha. It was much bigger than I thought it was going to be and the level of detail is incredible. Its really worth seeing if you go to Milan. Be sure to plan ahead! There's the other painting on the wall directly across from "The Last Supper" but no one seems to care about it. I feel sorry for whoever painted that! (PS: the pictures above are from the church)

Dairago

Mural at Elementary School

Church in Dairago

[sorry, not the whole thing, but I'm not photographer]

La Cinta - San Teodoro - Sardinia

Porto Ottiolu - Sardinia

Me in San Teodoro

Bridge Built By Leonardo da Vinci