It's My Husband's Fault

Chöks (donuts)

“What you see before you, my friend, 

is the result of a lifetime of chocolate.”

~ Katherine Hepburn

I lied again. Technically, I really didn't lie because I said I might talk about the Boqueria, the castellars, and the correfoç soon. Soon doesn't necessarily mean tonight.  Actually, soon does not in any way mean tonight, but I don't think you'll mind as I'm talking chocolate and sweets. Blame my husband.

"Let's walk down here," Mike said to me Saturday morning.  I had nothing better to do, and he had the apartment key, so I went along.

We walked down a couple of alleys behind our apartment, and when we emerged on a main street, I saw an amazing site in front of me.  "Ooooo, look," I exhaled.  Across the street from where we stood was a beautiful store extolling the virtues of chocolate.  Chök. The Chocolate Kitchen.

 

The window at Chök

Staring at me from the huge window in front of Chök were stacks of Kronuts and Chöks (donuts). I looked inside and saw more Chöks calling my name.  Come in here, Cristina. Come in and see us.

Chöks on the wall

I have to tell you that I had been very good on this trip.  Before Mike joined me in Bologna, I had only two gelatos. Two.  Since he arrived 10 days ago, I've had five.  I've also had more chocolate since he got here than I had all six weeks added together, and that includes the jars (Yes, yes.  Plural. Two. Jars.) of Nutella that I had in Bologna. We were standing in front of Chök because *he* wanted to walk a different way.

"I have to go in," I said as I headed through the doorway.  Behind the counter were rods holding different kinds of Chöks. The counter groaned under the weight of cookies, truffles (18 kinds!), marshmallows, churros, and chocolate salami.

"What do you want?" Mike asked me.  I wanted it all, and had he not asked me, I would NOT HAVE BOUGHT ANYTHING.  But, he asked, and I had to be polite and get something so he wouldn't think I was rejecting his kindness.

"What are *you* getting?" Letting him decide first gave me a few extra seconds to decide.

Cookies and chocolate salami

"I think I'll get one of the cookies (above)," he answered after thinking a bit.  Now, you can't tell by looking at the photo, but those cookies were the size of his hand. I couldn't resist. We both ended up with chocolate chip cookies dipped in chocolate.

"What's that?" I asked the guy and pointed to what looked like chocolate muffins with a bit of chocolate on top (below).

"Chocolate muffin stuffed with Nutella," he told me. 

"Oh, my goodness." I almost passed out.

"You don't like Nutella?" he wanted to know.

"I love it," I said, and Mike simultaneously said, "She loves it."

Raspberry and Nutella stuffed muffins

 I was glad I got the cookie because had I not, I would have had to dive into one of those muffins right then and there.

"Come back tomorrow," the guy said to me, "sometimes we have muffins with raspberry sauce."

Chocolate-covered marshmallow logs

The cookies were wonderful. Chök doesn't use a lot of sugar, which is a good thing. The had added a bit of orange peel to the batter, and it blended so well with the dark chocolate chips and dip. I had to hand Mike my cookie after five minutes or so.

"Take this and hide it from me," I insisted.

"Don't you like it?" he wanted to know.

"I love it, but I'd inhale the entire thing if you don't take it." I shoved it in the bag he was carrying. "Keep it away from me."

Chök suckers (and muffins on left)

 He kept it for the rest of the day and hid it in the refrigerator when we got back to the apartment.  I found it after dinner and ate some then and the rest before bed. Who wants to let a good cookie get stale or, heaven forbid, go to waste?  Not I.  I'm sure those of you who went to St. Nick's Elementary School would agree that the Sr. Agnes Marie, O.S.U., would have a fit if I wasted food because there are starving children all over the world.  If Mike had hidden it better or eaten it himself, I would not have had to eat it myself. 

That's my story, and I'm sticking to it.


PS  If you're interested in reading about Chök, click here.  Some of the site is in Spanish, and some's translated, so flip through the pages.

Too Close to the Maddening Crowd

The gegants

 “...I thought how I hate any kind of mob - 

I hate mobs of sports fans, mobs of 

... demonstrators... I tell you, mankind 

is bearable only when you get him on his own.” 

~ Steve Toltz

I hate crowds. We came to Barcelona for Feste de la Mercé, the major annual festival in Barcelona. Major festival means major crowds.  Major crowds means I am uncomfortable. Majorly uncomfortable. I won't go shopping on Black Friday or the day after Christmas or any day when stores expect a lot of shoppers because I cannot stand being pushed and shoved and being constrained by flesh.

We accidentally happened on La Mercé seven years ago when we first came to Barcelona, so I knew what we were getting into by coming for it.  It wasn't so bad on Friday night, so I was pretty hopeful. Last night we went to the parade of the Gegants (Giants) in the Plaça Sant Jaume (above), and it was packed (below). We were lucky enough to accidentally end up right near where the giants stopped, but people were too anxious to get photos of the giants and pushed and stepped on everyone in their way. Of course, they also raised their cameras, thus raising their arms. That would not have been bad except quite a few forgot to bathe this year, and almost asphyxiated those of us around them.

Plaça Sant Jaume filled for the gegants

At the end, we left with the crowd, inching forward for what seemed like forever until our crowd met another crowd walking in the opposite direction. Everyone was at a standstill. Everyone. A few drunks behind me started pushing.

"Stop pushing me. Where do you expect me to go? No one's moving." I was not happy.  Some idiot elbowed me between my shoulder blades. "#@* &*%^!! STOP PUSHING."  Somehow, Mike got me out of there before I got trampled or I killed someone.

"We're going to have to leave the apartment early tomorrow," I said to Mike as we headed back to the apartment after we escaped.  We were anxious to see the castellars and the correfoç today, and I knew that they were going to be crowded. (Note: The castellars build human towers, and the correfoç are fire runners...I'll explain those in the next day or so.)

"What time do they start?" he wanted to know.

"The castellars are at noon, so we better get there by 10," I advised.  "There are a few other activities, so we can watch those." I was hoping they wouldn't be as popular as the castellars.

Plaça Sant Jaume at 10

We got to Sant Juame at 9:30 or so, and found the plaza relatively empty (above).  We staked out a place across from the city hall because the castellars build the towers in front of it.  We were lucky enough to find a marble pillar that, including the huge ball on top, was about four-feet tall.

"You can stand on this to see better," Mike told me.

"You can stand on it. I can barely stand on level ground if it gets crowded."

Plaça Sant Jaume at 11

 By 11, the crowd had started to gather (above).  The falcons were performing on stage (More on them later, too), and they drew a larger crowd than the dancers had at 10.

Plaça Sant Jaume at 12

 At noon, the plaza was jammed (above).  I have no idea how anyone moved in that crowd. Since we had staked out a place away from the castellars, it wasn't quite as bad as yesterday. A few of the non-bathers showed up again.

"GAG," I said to Mike at one point. "Some people need to take a bath."  No one seemed overly concerned with my comment, so they either didn't hear me or they ignored me. By now, I'm used to both of those.

The Castellars of Barcelona surrounded by the mob

 In the midst of the group in the photo above are the castellars from Barcelona. You can see them with red in the center. We have no idea how they—or the castellars from Villafranca (below) or Tarragon— were able to move into the plaza and form a tower with the crowd crushing them. Perhaps that's a good thing, though.  If they fall, the take out a few crazy tourists.

The castellars of Villafranca building their tower

Tonight we headed to the correfoç (below). Basically, the participants dance down a street twirling huge sparklers above their and the crowd's heads.  There were a gazillion people there, too, but since they're lining a street, they weren't as jammed in on each other as they were in the plaza. The braver—or drunker—ones also danced along with the correfoç. 

The correfoç heading our way

Still, I couldn't wait to get out of there. I got stepped on by more than one person, pushed by a few others, and burned by one of the flying sparks.

"I'm going over there," I screamed above the drums to Mike and ran for cover in an alley away from the craziness. He stayed an videotaped them for a bit and then came to find me.

"That was great," he said.

"It was," I agreed, "but I'm glad to be getting away from the madness."

"What are we going to do tomorrow?" he asked.  I didn't answer because, quite frankly, I don't know.

Whatever it is, however, will not involve crowds.

Goodnight, Sweet Prince...

The bed when we arrived.

I think insomnia is a sign that a person is interesting.

~ Avery Sawyer

Last night I said I might write about La Boqueria Market today, but I changed my mind. Sorry. I need another day at the market first. Besides, we had a bit of a rough evening last night. 

We decided to go to bed at 10:30, roughly about the time Alma Afrobeat Ensemble started playing in Plaça Catalunya which is about a half block from our apartment.  To add to the fun, there was a second concert by Baloji beginning at 1:30am. Luckily the street cleaners broke up the party at 3:00 or so.  That, however, was the easy part.

The bed after we added the blanket and pillows under it.

"I think these people bought the old mattress from my mother's house," Mike yelled to me as he went to bed a few minutes before I did.  The mattress at his mother's was old, and we rolled to the iddle whenever we slept there. 


I got in bed, and sure enough, I rolled to the middle.  "Great," I said. I have a hard time sleeping in strange beds to begin with, and one like that would not be fun.  "I'm taking a sleeping pill."  I take 1/2 an Ambien when I have a really hard time sleeping, and last night qualified.  I fell asleep but kept waking up every time I turned because I not only rolled to the center but also because the bed squeaked if you so much as breathed.  (Of course, I did have music to entertain me each time I woke.)

"You awake?" Mike asked me at some point this morning.

"Oh, yes," I replied. "It's not too easy to sleep on this thing."

Mike getting in the smelly elevator

"Yep," he answered, "I think this mattress is as old as the building. There's a blanket in the closet. I was thinking I might put it under the mattress to plump it up a bit."  I didn't say anything because, quite frankyl, I thought it would never work as the blanket wasn't really thick. "I might need you to help me."

The worst thing he could have said to me was that he wanted me to help him. If I saw a tear or a dirty mattress, I'd be sleeping in a chair for the next five nights. I knew, though, that I would have to help because he couldn't hold up the mattress and put the blanket down at the same time. (Note: The mattresses here do not have box springs. They sit on slats.)

Mike enclosed in the elevator

"Oh, geez," I whined.  "Don't make me do that. You know how squeamish I am. Why don't we hire one of those bogus sales guys to hold up the middle while we sleep?"  He ignored me and walked into the bedroom.

"It's okay," he called from there. "Come on and throw the blanket under there." 

I walked back and looked at the thin blanket. "It's not going to help," I insisted.  "Let's put the two throw pillows under there, too."  I threw them under and backed away.

"Great," Mike said. "Let's hope this works."

 Mike's just gone to bed, and The Jamboree Big Latin Band has started their 10:30 concert in Plaça Catalunya. The second group, La33, starts at 12:30, so the music might not go as long as last night.  Since we put the blanket and pillows under the mattress, we no longer have a valley in the middle of the bed, we now have a hill.  Instead of rolling to the middle, I'm afraid I'll just roll off of the darn thing.

Luckily European beds are about two inches off the floor, so I won't have far to go.

Changing Cultures

Genova Train Station

 “'Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?'
 

'That depends a good deal on where you want to get to'"

~Alice to the White Rabbit from Alice in Wonderland

by Lewis Carroll

I tried to get out of Genova early. Our Vueling Air tickets allowed us to take an earlier flight scheduled for the same day.  All we had to do was go to the airport two hours before the new flight and see if seats were available.  We might have actually done it if we had been willing to get up and get to the airport at 5 am. We might not like Genova that much, but we didn't dislike it enough to cause us to wake up at 4 am and head to the airport just to see we *could* leave earlier. Had the flight been full, we would have had to spend 16 hours in a 50s-era airport that has 8 gates and one small coffee bar.

Barcelona Taxis

 

As it was, we slept in and wlked the city. The most interesting thing is that I discovered that there is an Eataly in Genova, so we headed there in the afternoon.  If you aren't familiar with Eataly, you can visit their website by clicking the link at the bottom of this post. Let me just say that it's an Italian market on steroids with fresh produce, meats, cheeses, breads, fish, and all of the Italian products you could ever want.  Mario Batali is part owner, and there are Eatalys in New York & Chicago.  (For my LV friends, Batali wants to open one in LV and is looking for land.)

On advice of the receptionist at our hotel, we decided to take Volabus to the airport because it stops in front of the train station which was a block from our hotel and because it cost 12 euro instead of 35 euro.  she told us to buy our tickets from the bus driver, but as we waited, a young girl who was also heading to Barcelona told me that we needed to buy the tickets from the news stand up the block.

First view from our living room

"Hurry because the bus is coming in two minutes," she urged me.  I obviously made it, but I was not too happy with the hotel receptionist, and if I ever go to Genova again, I'm going to give her a piece of my mind.

"Something makes me think she has nothing to worry about," Mike said. He's right, but I'm not letting him know.

As I mentioned, we took Vueling Airlines, the  low-cost carrier owned by Iberia Airlines. If you buy your tickets far enough in advance, you can fligh for as little as 19-49 euro one way depending on the route you're flying.  Vueling has three levels of ticket— Basic, Optima, and Executive. Each level allows you one carry-on.  Optima allows you to check one bag that weighs no more than 50 pounds, to choose your seat when you book the ticket, and to move your departure up same day if available.  While note refundable, it is transferable to another flight if you have to postpone. Executive gives you the Optima benefits plus supposedly bigger seats and priority boarding.

"We invite passengers holding business class tickts to board now," the gate agent announced at 8:50.  About 10 people got up and started down to the plane.  When the last headed through the door, she added, "Everyone is welcome to board at this time."  Of course, there was a mad rush to the gate even though everyone had an assigned seat. One guy pushed in front of me, and I said to Mike that he was probably afraid the plane was going to leave  him if he didn't break someone's foot on the way down.  Geez. (Side note: The inside of the plane looked just like a Southwest plane. In other words, there were no business-class seats. We had no idea what the business class tickets were all about.)

Mike and I had window and middle seat.  "I hope no one sits here," I said to Mike because I was in the middle.  Of course, I had no sooner uttered those words than a guy about 35-40 fell into the seat  beside me.

Las Ramblas

"Allo," he said.  We both returned the greeting.  A couple of times before the plane took off, he got out of his seat, fooled around with his carry-on, and fell back into his seat.  At some point a few minutes into the flight, he started talking.  Mike closed his eyes and pretended to sleep, so I got to listen to the dude go non-stop for the more than 90 minutes we were in the air.  In his defense, he did offer to buy me a beer (BTW, Vueling does not give any drinks to snacks to passengers.) or, when I refused that, anything I wanted.


Here's what I learned (Sorry, but if I had to listen to him, you can at least read his story):

• He's Australian and was going to Barcelona for a three-day weekend.
• He's staying in a hostel because, you know,  those people like to party.
• He shouldn't have worn a white shirt because it would be full of beer and whiskey within two hours of our landing in Barcelona.
• He's a steward on a private yacht owned by "three very rich guys."
• He does all the laundry on the yacht and has three washing machines going constantly fro 8-5 daily.
• He's been all over the world because of his job.
• He wished he'd been a better student in school and studied Spanish because it would have helped him in his job now.
• He got the job because his friend knew the captain who knew they needed to replace two crew members.
• There are 15 employees on the yacht.
• The yacht was in Savannah, GA for almost 12 months last year.
• His favorite stop was Mallorca because the beer is great there.
• He hates the beer they serve on the yacht (NO ONE on the crew likes it.), but they have it because the owners own part of that company.
• He had chicken and crunchy rice and the crappy beer for dinner on the yacht.
• The chef on the yacht used to be better, but he fell in love with some gal in Savannah, so now his cooking is suffering.
• He's going home to Australia for 12 days next month and refuses to fly Qantas airlines because the flight attendants aren't cute and fun.  "Believe it or not, there are some old men working as attendants." 
• He should have let me sleep like my mate, there, but was appreciative that I let him talk.

The view around 6:30 pm

Mother of God, I was so happy to land. We got the baggage and headed to the taxi stand which is an area separated from the rest of the airport exits.  As we started to go through the door, a man stopped Mike.

"Taxi?" he asked.  Mike nodded, and the guy asked where we were going.

"Hotel Alfa Aeropuerto," I replied.  He asked to see the paper with the hotel address.  I showed it to him, and he started walking toward an exit that was not where taxis were.  "Wait.  Are you licensed?"  He nodded and took out some piece of paper that he flashed in front of me.  He asked us to follow him.

"Wait, Mike said. "If the taxi sign is there, why are you going over this way?"

"I don't think he's legit," I said to Mike.  "Let's go to where the real taxis are.  I think this guy is a fraud."

Turns out, we were right.  The taxis in Barcelona are all black and yellow (Second photo above), and our driver told us that guy was pirating work from legitimate taxis.  "They're not allowed to do it, but they don't get caught," he told us. "The government regulates us. He would overcharge you, and there's nothing riders can do."


We dodged a bullet on that one.

This afternoon, we checked into our apartment which overlooks Las Ramblas in Barcelona (Photos above of the view).  It's great, and we've enjoyed just watching the wave of people walking up and down the street.  Luckily, I haven't seen the Aussie dude, but he's probably stuck in some bar somewhere.

Dude, I know an Australian looking for a party

Unluckily, we glanced up and saw this dude on a balcony a few buildings from ours.  Mike thinks he just wanted people to take his photo.  I think he ruined his shirt with whiskey and beer and was waiting for an Aussie to join him.

Tomorrow: The Boqueria (I think...)

Ciao, Italia.

 All great adventures have 

moments that are really crap.”
― Ellen Potter,

 Because it's late (almost 1 am our time), I'm not going to write much tonight.  We arrived in Barcelona this evening after an interesting flight (cough) on Vueling Airlines, a low-cost carrier owned by Iberia Airlines.  The Australian guy who sat next to me is a steward on a private yacht and was on his way to a three-day vacation in Barcelona because he felt the bar scene in the city would be great.

I've included in this post some photos I took in Genova today.  It was a gloomy day, and that made the gritty city seem even dirtier. 

 "It's probably good that we ended the Italy part of this trip in Genova," I said to Mike as we walked around this morning.

"Why is that?" he wanted to know.

"Because as sad as I am to leave Italy," I told him, "I'm glad to get out of Genova. Ugh. It takes a little of the edge off of my sadness."

 I know there are people who probably love the place, but I'd like to talk to them to see what I missed.  We both thought that it showed a lack of pride in the city to let it rot away the way Genova is.  Oh, well.  The street in the above photo is a main street filled with hotels, restaurants, and shops. It needs a good washing.

 The portico in the photo above is across from the Genova Aquarium, *the* main tourist attraction in the city.  Cheap souvenir stands, fish stalls, and cheap restaurants line the three-block portico. The cleanest place there was a McDonald's.

 I mentioned yesterday that there is a lot of trompe l'oeil in Genova. While we were walking around today, I found a few additional examples.  The peach-colored building above is painted to look like blocks. The building on the left is a block building.

 I think that they must have recently painted the building because I could see pencil lines that the painter followed (above).

 The Genovese didn't invent trompe l'oeil, but they do use it a lot.  According to law, the  historic buildings must maintain their decor. When the mortar deteriorates, it is less expensive to remove it and paint the fresco to look like the old decor.  Note the building below.  The side, which is the majority of the photo, is all trompe l'oeil while the front, which you can barely see, is still mortar.

 I also said yesterday that the buildings in Genova are filty.  The photo shows how much filth from exhaust covers buildings in town. In the two days we were in town, I saw only two cyclists.  Everyone else drove cars, rode on buses, or drove motor scooters.

We were in Piazza Ferrari this morning, and it appears someone is cleaning an absolutely beautiful building in that area.  If you look at the photo below, you can see that the stones on the left side of the photo are pinker than those on the right.

i hope that's what they're doing because the building (the top is below) is the most beautiful one we saw in Genova.

The biggest problem that I had with Genova, though, was that I never found any Genoa salami.  I saw Milano salami and Soppressata, but I never saw Genoa salami. My mother loved Genoa salami, and it's the only kind we had growing up. I even buy it in Las Vegas, but I can't find it in Genova, the place where it originated. I think that if you're going to name a salami after your city, you could at least have some of it available for tourists to buy.

Tomorrow (or much later tonight since it's already Friday here): Of Vueling, Australian stewards, and Spanish taxi drivers

Genova on the Coast

Stazione Piazza Principe

 "It abounds in the strangest contrasts; 

things that are picturesque, ugly, mean, 

magnificent, delightful, and offensive, 

break upon the view at every turn.” 

~ Charles Dickens on Genova

"One of the Tripadvisor reviews I read said the hotel is a 10-15 minute walk from the train station," I mentioned to Mike as we got ready to leave Lucca this morning.

"We can do that," he replied.  I wasn't too sure.  His feet are not swelling like hot air balloons every afternoon. "That's pretty close. If you have a problem, we'll get a taxi the rest of the way."

When we arrived at Stazione Genova Piazza Principe, I checked the map on my iPad, and we took off.  Genova, unlike some other towns in Italy (Modena!) actually has street signs, so we were in great shape.  We walked for about five minutes, and I thought I'd better check the iPad again.

"We walked past the street it's on," I said to Mike.

Our hotel room's living room

"How did we do that?" he wanted to know.  I know that he asks these as rhetoric questions, but I take them as a real question.  That means, of course, that I rolled my eyes.

"I have no idea.  We have to turn around."  We walked back up the slight hill for a few blocks.  "Let me check one more time."  I looked at the trusty iPad, and the flashing blue dot that was us was right in front of Hotel Continental...except that we were in front of a bar and farmacia.  "Let me ask the guy in the bar."  Said guy laughed and told me we ad to walk another 20 feet or so up the street, and we'd see the hotel.  Sure enough, it was right there.

 We checked in and found that they upgraded us to a suite. In addition to the bedroom and bathroom, we had a kitchen with eating space and a full living area (photo above).

Frozen pizza

"Holy crap," I exclaimed.  "I think the whole Lucca apartment can fit in this living room."

"Both the Lucca and Bologna apartments can fit in this living room," he quipped.  He was probably right.

Genova

After we got settled, we decided to head out to lunch and then take the Red Bus (Stop! Go!) around the city. We stopped at Ristorante Trieste and shared a pizza (above).  It took forever, but the waitress finally delivered it. We just stared at it.

"What's on top of it?" It looked to me like some kind of cheese puffs.

"Cheese, I think," Mike replied. "The pizza in the picture behind you has a lot more cheese on it."

"It's hot." I was trying to be positive, but it was horrible pizza.  I honestly think they took our order and ran to the Coop grocery store down the street, bought a frozen pizza, and cooked it.

As we paid, I asked the cashier for a business card, and she was more than happy to give me one because she thought that I was either going to come back or going to write a very nice review on Tripadvisor.  Oops.

Christopher Columbus Park (note the 3 ships)

We walked to the Porto Antico (Old Port) and caught the Genoa City Tour bus which is different from both the Genoa Red Bus and the Trenino Pippo, a tourist train.  All three basically take tourists around the city pointing out attractions while whizzing by without stopping.  Take, for example, the photo of the park above.  As we hurtled past it, the recording said was Christopher Columbus Park, and it somehow honored Columbus, who was born in the city. (Interesting fact that I did *not* learn from our tour: Christopher Columbus donated 10% of his income from the discovery of the Americas to Genova to help the poor.)

Trompe L'oile

One interesting thing I learned on the tour was trompe l'oile was popular in Genova, and many architects utilized trompe l'oile on the old buildings. If you've never heard of trompe l'oile, it's a technique in which the artist paints something to create an optical illusion.  The painted object appears to be three-dimensional when, in fact, it is flat.  The building above is a good example.  Its façade is perfectly flat, but it appears to have columns and frames around the window.

Underwear hanging out to dry

 "I think I know why I'm not crazy about this city already," I mentioned to Mike as we walked back to our hotel.  "It reminds me of Naples. It's an old port city, the buildings are on top of each other, and underwear is hanging everywhere (photos above and below).
"

More underwear drying in city center

"It's just how it is," he replied. "Port cities tend to be like this.  I was thinking it doesn't really seem Italian as there is such an eclectic mix of people here."  We had noticed a lot of foreigners working in the port area. 

Underwear in courtyard by hotel

"It's disgustingly dirty," I added.  "They need to take a bunch of power washers. to these buildings"

 "They have porticoes."  My husband is no dummy. He knows I love porticoes.

"They're not like the porticoes in Bologna," I said.  "Did you notice they hang neon signs from the arches? They use the porticoes like billboards (photos below)."

Rolex neon arches

"I hadn't noticed." 

 I did. Things like that tend to bother me because they ruin the architecture.  It's the same with the stupid wraps that they put on buildings in Las Vegas (and in Venice. Come on! It's the Bridge of Sighs, not the Bridge of Buy Michael Kors Now!.) It's bad enough that taggers spray graffiti all over the walls, but now legitimate stores are shoving neon and plastic in front of our faces. 

"If I were mayor," I said to Mike who was, as usual, NOT listening to me, "I'd buy a bunch of power washers and spray the crap off of the buildings.  Then I'd hire a couple hundred painters to paint over the graffiti, and I'd yank the neon off of the porticoes. Finally, I'd pass a law that you couldn't

Neon arches

 hang your underwear out the window in the city center during business hours.  I'd clean this city up."   Mike said nothing because if he did hear me, he knew that people of Genova have nothing to worry about because the likelihood of my returning to Genova is slim.

On our way back to the hotel, we walked through an area that was full of little markets and such, and we saw sepia, a type of cuttlefish that is popular in this area (photo below).  Cuttlefish are not really fish but mollusks that are related to octopus and squid.  The cuttlefish are like chameleons in that they can change color and camouflage themselves to hide from predators.  I think that the sepia we passed had changed color to blend in with the grime on all of the buildings around the port.

Sepia

You have to agree that it could be true...

Carlo! Carlo!

"Jerry: Who's Cartwright?

George: I'm Cartwright!

Jerry: You're not Cartwri-

George: Of course I'm not Cartwright!"

From "The Chinese Restaurant"

The Jerry Seinfeld Show

 My maiden name was quite ethnic, and people were always misspelling it or mispronouncing it. I thought that when I married someone with an English last name, those days were far behind me.  HA!  There are people (Americans included) who cannot spell or pronounce "Cutler" correctly.  I can understand that foreigners (except Brits, Aussies, Irish, and the other residents of GB) might have a difficult time. I really do.

For some reason, Mike and I have had at least two "Seinfeld-esque" episodes with our last name. The first happened at a restaurant in Nashville, and it mirrored the Seinfeld Chinese scene almost to a "T," the only difference being the name.  The second instance was tonight.

Back story: Last night, Mike and I walked around looking for a place to eat and happened upon a little place stuck in the back of a tiny courtyard.  We didn't have reservations, but since we got there just as they opened for dinner (7pm), we got a seat.  We were lucky as people kept coming up and trying to get in. The obvious reason is that the food is wonderful, and the service is great.  The owner, Salvatore Di Leo (photo below), is personable and helpful.

 We ordered "country soup" (basically a vegetable soup), ravioli with walnut sauce, and pasta carbonara. They were all very good, although Mike said he wouldn't order that pasta again because it was too dry.  The best thing, we agreed, was the soup.  It was so good, as a matter of fact, that we decided we were going to go back tonight just for the soup.

"Salvatore," I said when he delivered our main meal, "we want reservations for tomorrow."

"Eat. Enjoy," he told me. "We'll make them before you leave."  We did all three, and as we were paying, he brought out his huge reservation booklet.  "What is your name?"

"Cutler," I replied. He looked at me with such a puzzled expression.  "Coot-lair," I said trying to Italianize it.  He shook his head. 

I took out a business card and handed it to him.  "My name," I pointed out.

"Ah, yes," he said as he wrote.  "Where you staying?"  When I mentioned we were in an apartment, he wrote something else down.  "See you at 19:00."


 We arrived a few minutes before 7:00, and we saw that the table we'd had last night had a "reserved" sign on it.  I picked it up.

"This isn't our table," I said to Mike.  "It's for a Carlo." (Photo at top)  Personally, I was a little happy because some bug had decided to have dinner on my arm last night while we were eating, and I didn't want him coming back for seconds.

"That's all right," Mike answered. "He probably is giving us one of these other tables." There were only two other two-tops available.  At that point, Salvatore walked out and saw us.

"Welcome back, my friends," he greeted us. "Sit there.  You want the same table."

"This is not our table," I replied.

"Yes, it is yours," he insisted. "Carlo."

"No, remember us from last night?"

"Yes. Yes.  Carlo. I remember," he kept insisting. "Carlo.  That is your table. You want the same one as last night, right?"

 "Ok. Yes. Thank you," I answered.  To Mike, I added, "I guess we are sitting here."

"I'm not Carlo," Mike whispered to me.  I rolled my eyes.

"Of course you're not Carlo," I said.  "He got our name wrong somehow."

"How did he do that? You showed him your business card."

 "Cartwright.  Cartwright." I said, and we both laughed.  "Nobody came. I tell her you not here, she say bad word. I hang up."  I was laughing, and Salvatore was looking at me from the door.  I'm sure he thought I was a little pazza. "That's my favorite episode," I added.

"I wasn't wild about it," Mike said.  Of course not.

 At any rate, we shared another bowl of the country soup (above), a caprese salad (right), and grilled chicken (left).  Once again, the soup was wonderful, and we enjoyed having just the caprese and chicken. While you can't tell by looking at the chicken, but it was quite thin which is typical in Italy. 

"If we were in town tomorrow, I'd come back for this soup again," I said to Mike as we finished it.

"Maybe we can get him to give us a 'to-go' bag of soup," he replied.

"Salvatore," I said to Mike, "can you vacuum pack this for us so we can take it on the train? Carlo and I love your soup."

We were laughing again when an Australian couple got up from their table and walked by us.

"Weren't you here last night?" the lady asked me.

"We were," Mike answered.

"Weren't *you* here last night?" I asked them.

"We were, too," the man replied.  "If they were open tomorrow, we'd come back tomorrow."  They had also happened on the restaurant by accident and, liking their food, decided to come back for a sure thing.  "What did you have both nights?"  I told him and asked what they'd had.  "I had wild boar last night and rabbit tonight.

"You'd never get my wife to try rabbit," Mike interjected.

"It tastes something like chicken," the man said.

"Yes, there are tiny bones," the woman added.

"The bones wouldn't be the problem," Mike advised.  "My wife would not eat a little bunny."  Because I was in polite company, I didn't do my gag routine, but I sure was thinking it.

Throughout our entire meal, people walked up to the restaurant sign and then asked if they could sit. Most of the time, Salvatore had to turn them away because the restaurant was full. In case you are unaware of the Italian dining custom, eating is a time to enjoy life, food, friends, family. One never discusses business over dinner, nor does he/she hurry.  A restaurant in Italy will never throw you out, even if you sit for four hours.

We left, though, because we needed to pack for tomorrow's trip to Genova and because I needed to write a bit.  More importantly, we needed to stop and get a little gelato on the way home (left).


It was as good as it looks, too.