Arrivederci Italia...

Tomorrow, we leave Italy.

After 8 weeks and 3 days of trekking about in this sometimes chaotic, sometimes sublime, but always beautiful country, we present:

Things we´ll miss about Italy:

• Our morning coffee, usually an espresso, followed a few hours later with our mid-morning cappuccino. We´re like coffee-hobbits. Hobbits addicted to caffeine and running around in circles;
• Prosecco: in the US, champagne and other sparking wines are expensive. Here, prosecco flows like water. Just ask Kimberly;
• The abundance of wine, and more specifically, enoteca, which are wine bars. They´re everywhere, and generally pretty inexpensive;
• Trains, for their convenience and relative inexpensiveness;
• Kebab: not an Italian food, but a Middle Eastern thing. But they don´t sell them in the US, so we have to eat our fill of them while overseas;
  
• Never feeling rushed at a restaurant: except for a handful of instances in the more touristed cities, we have never felt rushed at a restaurant in Italy. If you want to sit for hours, savoring the last glass of wine, no problem. The waiter doesn´t even bring the check until you´ve asked for it;
• Food, in general: if you didn´t notice, we eaten pretty well on this trip. More specifically, prosciutto. And the wonderful selections of salami and cheese as we moved from region to region. More to come on the eating in future posts;
  
• Pedestrian-only zones. In pretty much every City in Italy, the central area is pedestrian only, which allows for lots of strolling while eating gelato and wonderful people watching;
  
• Gelato: Italian ice cream. Especially Kimberly;
• Cheap hotels\pensiones, with clean, efficient rooms and friendly staff. We went cheap most of the time, so we could spend our money on eating, and for the most part it worked out well;
• The Italian bar\cafe: if you want an espresso, a beer, a cocktail, a pack of cigarettes, a piece of pizza or a panini, these places do it all. And well, somehow;
• Italians: often warm and friendly;
• Friends and family, old and newly discovered.
  

Things we won´t miss about Italy:

• People smoking, everywhere. I really don´t care if you smoke, but eating dinner while the person next to you blows smoke in your face is something I pleaently forgot about while living in the states. And people throw their cigarette butts on the ground, no matter what, often times still burning. Very strange;
• Weaving while walking: I´m not sure if all Italians have an inner ear infection, but no one here can walk in a straight line. It is physically impossible for them to do so. Walking down the street in Italy is one of the most difficult things I have ever had to do;
• Crossing the street, especially in big cities: not only do you need to watch out for cars and buses, none of which slow or stop for you, but also the bikes and mopeds, which are sometimes cars and sometimes pedestrians, depending on the light cycle. Fear is not strong enough of a word for crossing the street in Rome;
• Bike riding in the pedestrian areas: would it kill you to walk your bike through heavily congested pedestrian areas, instead of riding up my ass, over my toes, and grazing my legs;
  
• Sciopero: we´ve said enough about these. But guess what, even though there is less than 24 hours left in Italy for us, the sciopero may rear its ugly head one more time. We´ll let you know;
• Cheap hotels: for their non-air conditioned rooms, hallways smelling of smoke, and shared bathrooms that smell like someone cleaned a salmon in;
  
• Trains, for their un-rigid schedules, lack of signage, and for their sometimes crowdedness;
• Temperatures in the mid to high 30´s in C (90 - 110 in F). Too hot. Sweating constantly. Kind of gross. Makes Kimberly irritable and Peter smell;
  
• Italians: sometimes self-centered and rude
  

And if you think we haven´t posted enough about our travels while over here (thanks, mostly, to the poor quality of internet cafes), stay tuned. We made a list over our morning coffee and we have at least 30 posts waiting to be written, not to mention the hundreds and hundreds of pictures to sort through and post.

And don´t forget, we have 5 more days of wackiness and fun left over here in Europe, so who knows what will happen.