About Me

Friday, June 26, 2009

Sardinia

Tutto va bene! We've been in Sardinia now for about a week. Its beautiful here. Thankfully, its not humid (my hair doesn't respond well to humidity!). Its very rocky and dry here, but lots of beautiful flowers whose names I do not know. Sorry, I'm not a botanist! The prettiest beach we've been to so far is La Cinta in San Teodoro, a town a few miles away from where we're staying.

Its official. I'm coming back a heffer. Because, seriously, each meal is like several courses and, although its all pretty healthy, I mean, we eat A LOT. Each meal has like a carb, a meat, a vegetable, and a fruit. Most of the meat is some version of a pig. The concept of turkey and chicken isn't big over here. But, we do have coffee after EVERY meal. So, I am DOWN. Oh! And there are these delicious little chocolate wafers called Pan di Stelle - I highly recommend them if you come to Italy.

The kids are good. They are very nice to me, but fight a lot with each other! They broke their GameBoy (literally in half) this morning fighting over it. Its was quite a tragedy! To ease the pain, I introduced them to Mary Kate and Ashley movies. It went over well. We watched "When In Rome" (MK and A as Charli and Leila go to Rome to be interns for a fashion designer...) and they LOVED it. Probably because it had some Italian in it. We also watched "Kicking and Screaming," a soccer movie with Will Ferrell. They didn't get all of the jokes (the english is a bit fast and a bit slang for them), but they loved it when the bad team recruited Italians. They're repeating lines from that movie all the time now. Tomorrow, I think I might try out some Jon and Kate plus 8 on them......

Speaking of.....J and K divorce?!? Michael Jackson and Farah Fawcett die?!? The editors at people and US Weekly are probably going nuts right now!!!

I think I am seriously the only person on this island who speaks English and so whenever I yell at the kids in English ("Stop that! Listen to me! If you can hear me, clap once! Stop screaming! No means no!) I get a lot of stares and, one time, some one goes "inglese perfecto!" I was like, no shit sherlock! My Italian is coming along - meaning I can say a few more words and a few more phrases. The kids teach me a lot! I swear, me being here is probably better for my Italian than their English.

Oh! The 5 year old (little boy) gave me a "massage" on the beach yesterday so I could "relax." He used about a half a bottle of sunscreen on me and then used flip flops and a snorkel to beat/tap me with. It was so cute! He ever twirled my pony tail around and tried to wiggle my feet. It was so cute!

All for now. Gotta run! Ciao!

Sunday, June 21, 2009

Come Si Fa....

...the title is the new Italian book I'm obsessed with. Its supposed to tell you how to do everything in life and, I mean, it does tell you everything!!! From how to tie a tie to how to do a keg stand to what wines go best with what foods. It has a whole section of fashion and one on love....which was hysterical. I can't tell what age group the book is targeted at as it has some adult themes I guess you would say. But, it was a gift to the little girl here so she showed it to me today.

Got to go on a run today. 45 minutes so I'm guessing a little over 4 miles probably. I have no clue how far I went because I basically just ran around the town I'm in and tried not to get lost (success!!!). But, dear lord, this dog like jumped out at me and barked at me really meanly and I jumped like 3 feet in the air. It was a frightening little dog. Not too many stares as most people were in church (being the good Catholics that they are).

We went to this bridge today  that Da Vinci built. He built the canal it runs over so they could carry bricks and sand and stone to Milan to build the duomo (big church) and castle. I'll try and post a pic of the bridge. Its not ornate like the Ponte Neuf or anything, but its cool that Da Vinci designed and built it. After we went there, we got gelato and seriously, what do they do to this stuff?!? I got strawberry (fragola) and fiord di latte (kind of like vanilla). I could like of strawberry gelato for the rest of my life.

If I didn't mention this earlier, the grandmother and grandfather live next door and have a whole garden (lettuce, cabbage, tomato, grapes, basil, pear tree, apple tree, etc) and hens and rabbits that they kill and eat. Seriously. I'm so enamored with them raising animals. I wanna see a hen lay an egg as well.

I'm pretty sure the kids don't understand half of what I say and me vice versa as they talk to me a lot in Italian! So, both parties are learning.

We eat a lot of vegetables here. And fruit. Both from the garden. And carbs. I'm into it. Bread at every meal, I'm down. We had tagliata (thinly slice steak with argula and parmesan) and some spaghetti dish with a light tomato sauce and seafood (no clue exactly what it was, but I ate it). And it was good. 

Ciao for now! Sardinia tomorrow!

Saturday, June 20, 2009

Buona Sera

Ciao from Italy. Still a bit jet-lagged as I woke up around 3:30 this morning wide awake! I contemplated watching Keeping Up With the Kardashians, but decided I should try to sleep and acclimate myself to the time change. I'm newly obsessed with Kardashians. They are so ridic, but I love it.

We are leaving for Sardinia monday. Today we hung out at their house (the people I'm nannying for) and basically swam in their pool all day. The kids were really enamored with my handstand (the verticale di Meggie!) and cartwheel. They were NOT so impressed with my soccer "skills." We "played" a game - I have no clue what I'm doing. I can kick it, but that's about it. My defense mechanism is to just turn my back and try and "dribble" (its that what its called) backwards. And keep my feet close together so its harder for them to put their foot in between. This strategy does NOT work at all. Thankfully, we lost the ball over the fence so we did handstands instead (I'm much better at that).

We are making pizza for dinner. Sorry, Er, not sure if I can take a picture of it tonight haha. They eat tons of bread over here so I am DOWN. And they buy it fresh every day. And, although most Americans don't like the milk over here (its like creamier I think), I'm a fan. They refrigerate theirs whereas I don't think everyone does. Its irradiated.

The little girl is obsessed with Hannah Montana. And Jonas Brothers. So, I think I worked my way onto her good side when I did the Hoedown Throwdown for her (google it, it was in the hannah montana movie). 

The kids speak english ok. The oldest boy speaks and understands the best. I think they have trouble understanding my "expressions" as I'm sure you don't learn how I speak in a text book. They pronounce my name "Meegggggg-IE." They're very nice to me, but I've learned very quickly that Italians speak with a lot of passion. They don't just say, "No thanks....I don't want any." They REALLY don't want any (No! No! No! then some Italian I can't understand.)

I've learned a few Italian words, but not much. The little boy will randomly run up to me and give me Italian - English translations which is adorable (Meggie! Brown is Marrone!). I still need to figure out how to say, "Nice to meet you." I've got "ciao" and "grazie" down pretty well though.

Alright, all for now. Hope to hear from people back home! (TN and NYC that is.)

Also, special shout out to ATC as she turns three today!

Thursday, June 18, 2009

CIAO

Ciao! Off to Italy for 6 weeks. Just took some lunesta and hoping to PASS out on the flight. Upgraded myself to one of those big chairs. And downloaded some Mary Kate and Ashley movies. I'm ready. 

Hoping to not eat ALL the gelato in the country. And hoping its not a bumpy flight. I can't deal with turbulence. And, if Jon and Kate divorce, please let me know via email or facebook or carrier pigeon or something. Fingers crossed they stay together.

OH....and I forgot my SNUGGIE! How am I going to self-soothe when we go through turbulence?!? I need my backwards robe!

Ciao!