Italy- The Fashion

Right before we went to Italy 2 years ago I bought these Birkenstock sandals because I liked the look and most importantly, they were comfortable :


Joe made fun of me because he had never seen anyone wearing sandals in that style and frankly, he thought they looked silly. (I'll admit these sandals were few and far between at that time.) We show up in Europe a few days later and I swear every single woman was wearing that shoe or one just like it. Joe ate his words and I consider this to be my greatest fashion feat to date.

This was the sandal that appeared on every European woman's foot this summer, in some form or fashion:

I don't care WHAT you say; I will not be sporting these sandals EVER. All I have to do is look at them and my foot gets hot. The reason I wear sandals is to keep my feet cool in the sweltering heat of summer. Some styles of this particular sandal has the sleeve thingy reaching all the way up the calf getting dangerously close to the KNEE. I mean, c'mon. When do we stop calling this a sandal?

The really troubling thing is that these sandals are indeed already appearing on sites like Piperlime and Zappos this summer, so chances are they will be catching on with the general public in the next couple of years. Sheesh.

And while I was in a shoe store taking secret pictures of the merchandise I snapped these:

Why? Because I saw many woman wearing these through the airports. And right or wrong, when I see someone teetering along, juggling children and bags in these shoes I just lose a little respect for them. I know it's horrible. I don't have any clue how wonderful and giving these people really are and there I am making snap judgments about them based on their footwear. But WHY ON EARTH do you need to impress people in the airport? And don't even tell me they're comfortable. Nope.

I will now back slowly off my soapbox.

Moving along to sweeping generalizations of German mens' footwear:

Every single German man wore these. Actually, I'm not kidding about this one. There is not even much of a generalization to make here. I know this isn't huge news, we've all seen these before. Heck, I even owned a pair in high school. But they were EVERYWHERE. And I must say, the ones above were one of the cooler pair, and at least this guy wasn't wearing socks.

And now on to these pants:


These must be a holdover from the 80s- they are alive and well in Italy. All fabrics, colors, some more balloon-y than others, but all of them with elastic just under the knee. Of course I bought 3 pairs.

I kid.

To wrap up this post a couple of notes about what the tourists looked like in Riva from the knee up: the Germans have a knack for putting together ensembles that are ill-fitting and unfortunate in every sense of the word. And I should mention that the mullet is a still a favored hair style. Americans may not be known as the best dressed people, but we have nothing on the Germans. The Italian women dress very sexy with a touch of scandal. The men wear suits around town or at least pants and a jacket. Of course they sweat profusely and to me the trade-off wouldn't be worth it.

And there you have my completely expert opinion on fashion in Italy, summer 2010. Next up: Excursions!

Italy- The Food

Obviously, Italy is known the world over for its food. As mentioned in the last post, I was not up for enjoying any food the last time I was there. So I am going to relive those fantastic meals today because I deserve to.

A few people have asked what our favorite meals were. All of them. No, not really. But everything tastes better there because the cheese, tomatoes, and olive oil are FRESH...not to mention the wine that comes from the hills around you.

Joe's favorite meal was a "pub crawl" that we did in Venice. This will be described in detail in the "Alessandro" post.

My favorite meal was at Al Volt, a restaurant we found in The Rough Guide to the Italian Lakes. (Because this book was spot on at every point, we recommend The Rough Guide travel books)

Anyways, Al Volt was tucked away in the old city area of Riva. Think winding cobbled walkways about 10 ft wide lined with shops and restaurants on the bottom floor of quaint, colorful buildings. This restaurant is decorated for Valentine's Day year round:


Red glass tableware and lace table cloths, lit with lamps and candlelight only- it was like a scene out of a fairy tale. Of course we didn't realize before walking in how elegant a place it was and in my opinion were not dressed appropriately. We asked the host before entering and they were gracious enough to seat us anyway. However, I'm sure they were rolling their eyes at the casual dressing American turistas who have no respect for nice places.

I actually had to lighten this picture considerably because the place was romantically lit. Poor Erin had come to dinner with us that night, again, not knowing what type of place it was and so the three of us gazed in each others' eyes during dinner. But she was there to take the above picture.

OK, back to the food.

This was our first course, some type of squash soup. They said it was pumpkin, but something was lost in translation, because it wasn't exactly pumpkin.
It was, however, very yummy. In fact, Erin practically licked hers clean and then finished mine.

We had this for the second course:

Beef Carpaccio Salad. I was scared of this beforehand, yet intrigued. It is very thinly sliced beef that has been cured and packed tightly with lots of spices for some amount of time that I can't exactly remember. They wrap it around greens and add shavings of grana padano cheese.

Oh, wow. I was a fan and had this dish no fewer than 4 times in the days to follow.

Then came the main course:

Spaghetti with Castelmagno cheese and truffles. Fantastico!

And then we got gelato on the way home like we did every night.

A couple other occurrences to note:

-Because of the great number of German tourists, EVERY single restaurant featured Schnitzel or Wurstel sausages. Kind of like the token hamburger for Americans.

- One especially warm evening our group was out to dinner and all but Dale ordered a beer. He rarely drinks alcohol and really enjoys his Diet Coke. Our waitress was an elderly Italian mama and she NEVER let him hear the end of it. Because of the extreme language barrier (she spoke not one word of English) we are pretty sure she thought Dale and Donna were on vacation with their 3 kids. And the fact that the man of the house was not drinking a beer while everyone else was- Mamma Mia!

-In the summer every meal is eaten outdoors. In fact, some restaurants don't have any tables inside- what a treat!

- Even though the food is amazing, there is no variety to speak of. All the restaurants are "Italian" and the one Chinese place we saw appeared sketchy.

Next post we'll move on to fashion!

Italia!

Some of you know that we spent two weeks and lots of dough in Italy 2 summers ago. We had been planning the trip with our best friends, the Hawkins, for a few years to celebrate 5 years of marriage. It coincided with the 8^th and 9^th weeks of my pregnancy with Grayson- in other words PRIME morning (all day) sickness time. I spent most everyday in the hotel room sleeping and puking while Joe, Sara, and Allen went sightseeing. Don’t worry, I wanted them to; I was so sick I didn’t want to see anybody. Anyhow, last week Joe and I got to redo our trip to Italy.

Now don’t get any big ideas about the one-salary Dickersons globetrotting on their own dollar. Nope. Joe attended a conference in Riva del Garda and I was able to tag-a-long because of airline miles. Garda is the largest lake in Italy and a part of the Italian lakes region (you might have heard of Lake Como because George Clooney has a house there). And did I mention the lake sits on the southernmost range of the Alps? Oh yes, it does. And it is GORGEOUS; the best of both worlds for mountain people and beach people. One fun thing about it is that Americans rarely vacation here so you really get the full “foreign” experience. It is more of an Italian/German destination with a few Englishmen thrown in. The English part is especially lucky for us language wise. (Although I think we do get on quite well with our very limited Italian language skills.)

In Riva we spent time with some fellow Washingtonians attending the conference: Dale, Donna, and Erin. We ate most meals together, did a few excursions and shared a lot of laughs. These 3 have known each other for 7 years or something since they lived in California (Dale and Donna are married and practically second parents to Erin).

After 6 days in Riva we moved on to Venice, home of gondoliers, water taxis and scary masks. We were thrilled to have this opportunity, because during our last trip we did Florence, Pisa, and Rome. In our minds Venice was the last city in Italy to check off our list. (Sorry, Milan).

Like it or not, I plan on doing several Italy posts to make up for not blogging for 2 weeks. Among the subjects of these posts: food, fashion, excursions, Alessandro, Venice and International Incidents.

Ciao! Or if you're feeling formal, Arrivederci!

30!

We recently celebrated Joe's 2nd annual 29th birthday. Birthdays are usually my thing. As in, I love for my birthday to be done up in a big way, preferably over many different days. Joe has always downplayed his, not asking for much besides a meal at his favorite restaurant (Ray's the Steaks) and a new pair of running shoes or something. But I needed to show him that his birthday is special too- and I didn't want it to be combined with Father's Day (something I am well aware of because I have a birthday near Christmas!). So at the last minute, and by last minute I mean 3 days before, I decided to throw him a Birthday Happy Hour. Of course many of our friends were out of town (not to mention out of state and country), but I was DE-termined to show this kid a good time.

I'll start with the food. I've never mentioned this before, but I love all things Pioneer Woman. I love her blog, I love her photos, but most of all I love her COOKING.

I made her BBQ Jalapeno Poppers (which I tried to link and this is the closest to the recipe). I made mine from her cookbook:
I need everyone to know that I spent over 3 hours making these puppies and my hands were on FIRE for days, even though I did use plastic bags while handling the peppers. Abby also pitched in and helped when I was just about to give up.

They were awesome!!!...but they were also NUCLEAR. As in, even with all the seeds and membranes scraped out we were crying, drinking milk, and shoveling bread in our mouths. But we ate them anyway because they were worth it.

I also made her potato skins: (Although this is also a slightly different version from the link. What gives?)
This picture shows their popularity. They were double stacked and overflowing on this plate. Good thing I made about 50 of them.

The rest of the food was good, but not worth the hoopla of pictures and web links.

The drinks:

Yum.

And best of all, the company:

Grayson and Chris

Nick, Maren and a fuzzy baby Julia

(It's very clear in these pictures that we still have no clue how to use this camera)

What on earth?! And how is Chris oblivious to the shenanigans going on next to her?

We moved outside to play some Bocce Ball...but we only had 4 players.

Everyone else was busy doing this:

this:

and this:

This, by the way, is Aaron, our 6 month old neighbor. I have moved WAY up in the friend rankings of Christine (his mom) after she saw this picture and LOVED it.

So there you have it. Happy Birthday to my sweet Joe! But we're not finished...tomorrow we go out with friends for a birthday dinner and then we are going on a super special trip to really commemorate the 30th birthday. (And we all know that I am also expecting a super special getaway come January)

p.s. After all the fuss, Joe has now decided that he likes his birthday to be a big deal!

p.p.s. Abby- I couldn't have done it without you.

About Abby

This Spring, Joe and I got involved in marriage mentoring at our church for engaged couples. One of our couples were Brian and Abby.


This may be the moment when we fell in love with Abby:
Brian's birthday is April Fool's Day and this was part of his present. Too cute!

As it turns out, Abby's lease ran out in May and they don't get married until the fall. So Team Dickerson has a new roommate to save the almost-newlyweds a little bit of cash.

Abby works for the church, is from Normal, Illinois and like Brian, is very creative. (Something Team Dickerson knows nothing about). Grayson loves Abby and she loves him. Brian also loves Grayson, but needs a little more training before they have a baby as witnessed in the following conversation:

Abby: Brian, we're going to watch Grayson on Sat. night while Ashleigh takes Joe out for Father's Day. We can walk up to the town center and get dinner while they're gone.

Brian: Umm....well, what are we going to do with Grayson? (incredulously) Take him with us???

Abby: Of course!

Brian: Well, do you know how to do that? I've never taken a baby anywhere.

Abby: Yes, Brian. I know how to do that.

The funny thing is that Brian may be Grayson's biggest fan. He just needs a little more information on the logistics of babies.

And I have to tell you (because it's so cool) that Brian just got a job working for the National Geographic Channel as a motion designer (What?!) I think he does intros and stuff for the shows- most recently "My Child is a Monkey" or something crazy like that.

We are having tons of fun with the both of them- they are such a blessing to our family- and we know the summer will go too fast!

We have a tomato, folks

Earlier this spring we decided we would try our hand at growing things. After much discussion, debate and the realization that the sun doesn't really hit our backyard, we planted the following:

Tomatoes
Bell pepper
Parsley
Cilantro
Basil
Mint (If we're being honest here, the mint is being grown purely for summer cocktail purposes)

You may be thinking, "Wait! Don't tomatoes need sun?" Yes, they do. After careful observation of said backyard, we realized that for a few hours in the afternoon the sun hits the house wall. So we did what anyone else would do and enlisted our friends at....



Topsy Turvy!


I tell you what, that plant took off like gangbusters! We have been waiting patiently for the actual fruit and yesterday noticed this:

(artsy tomato shot brought to you by Joe)

We actually started the whole thing in April when Joe brought home packets of seeds: basil, oregano and cilantro. I know that it can be difficult for the amateur to grow herbs from seeds. So, again, I did what anyone else would do and poured the entire packet in the pot. I think there were roughly 100-200 seeds per packet and I figured that from those numbers maybe at least one would take. This is what happened:

And I was all, "Look at me, I am growing stuff from seeds!"

At that point I took most of the shoots out to make room for the strongest ones.

Unfortunately, I must have picked the strong ones out because the plants never grew one more centimeter.

So we got plants at Home Depot and this is how they are looking right now. (We have yet to find a Cilantro plant)

We are still anxiously awaiting our first bell pepper.

Our project this week is to rid the backyard of the "brush" type plants: fountain grass and other ground-cover that is a good hiding place for SNAKES. I don't care if they are pretty- they are OUT!

I will leave you with a picture of the little boy during our gardening adventure.

15 Months

The little boy is 15 months.


He's cruising.
He's talking up a storm, an unintelligible storm, but a storm.
He's still takin' 2 naps.


He's loving the kiddie pool.
He's mama's little buddy all week and daddy's on the weekend.
He's not exactly on the growth chart- but we're working on it.
He's always happy to be outside.
He's studying everything intently and trying to figure it out.


He's doing the separation anxiety thing.
He's still not a fan of meal time.
He's crushin' on Ellis.

And now that it's summer, we've discovered he's a sweaty little thing. Bless his heart, he is his daddy's boy.


p.s. We finally got an SLR camera and this was our first photo-shoot.