Archives for May 2024

I woke up at my usual time after 8 1/2 hours of sleep feeling – still sleepy. It will be rather interesting to see my thyroid hormone levels next week, I might be a tad low on hormones but then I might not and it‘s something different. We‘ll see, I guess.

We set out pretty early again because again there were thunderstorms predicted. We didn‘t really have any but we couldn‘t know beforehand. My feet were still very painful from all the walking the days before so that was fun. Still, we ventured into the old part of Verona again and chose a way that led us along the river most of the way. We‘re starting to be familiar with some streets and bridges already.

We ate some yummy focacchia near the very old bridge and then took the funicular up the hill. It‘s really not that far but my feet were grateful. We walked around and had a splendid view of the whole city. The sky was not clear enough to see the mountains, though.

We sat down on a bench for a while and talked and then went back down and all the way back to the restaurant we had eaten at the first day. I had very yummy pasta with veggies and fontina cheese. We walked back to the apartment, rested for a bit, later went out for ice cream near the piazza Bra that was also delicious, went to the supermarket again and back to the apartment where we ate some bread, cheese, salami and cucumber. And crackers. And had some beer.

No pictures today, my phone took too long to send them to the cloud and I am in a bit of a hurry.

I had bought a train ticket that is only valid for one specific train and that would have meant getting home after 11 pm. But for some reason it has been saying for weeks now that it can also be used on other trains so yesterday afternoon while sitting on the steps of the Palazzo Barbieri I booked us two seats on an earlier train and so we will leave the apartment at 10, then walk to the train station and store our bags, walk back to a restaurant near the apartment and sit around with food and drink until it‘s time to leave for home at 5. We‘re supposed to be back home at about 9.15 which is still late but at least halfway civilized.

And some exceptional food.

I‘m a bit pressed for time today, so I‘ll try to keep it short. After all the rain the day before we looked carefully at the weather report and decided to go out earlier. We walked around, looked at the river, some very nice old bridges, a church with extremely intricate intarsia and the dome, then looked for a place to eat and found a very nice, very expensive restaurant where we sat outside and enjoyed our first ever bigoli with donkey ragù and the best panna cotta of my life. We meandered back to the apartment, bought some stuff for dinner and watched the last episode of the Samin Nosrat show.

My husband learned how to look Italian words up on his cell phone and how to use it for taking pictures which is momentous.

I slept like a log again and for 8 3/4 hours. Seems that is the amount of sleep I need. Which totally agrees with the nine hours I always needed before I had a kid. Now I just have to completely rearrange my life to include a 9-hour window for sleep every day. Easy.

We got up late, had a leisurely breakfast (yogurt, banana and pear for me, yum) and then started talking about some of the things that drive us both crazy in our marriage, so that was fun. On the other hand, not talking about those things is not the solution either.

By 12.30 we were ready to go out to find something to eat, look at some intarsia in a church and walk around some more. I taped my feet for the first time in months and felt instantly better, duh. The weather had cleared up and we almost did not take any rain gear.

We found a nice place right around the corner from where we‘re staying, ordered pizza and a beer each and then there was dramatic thunder and all the water fell from the sky. For the next two hours or so.

We took our time eating but couldn‘t really talk with each other because everybody around us was talking about twice as loud as we‘re used to. Germans are relatively quiet compared with people in other countries and that means every conversation we‘re trying to have is drowned out by the ones next to us. And yes, we should just talk louder but it feels like trying to have a conversation in a dance club.

The food was good if a little too much. First there was some free food:

And then some pizza:

We waited a bit and then walked back to our apartment because the rain was going on and on.

A couple of hours later we had changed our plan, walked out where it was still raining but at that stage where one is never quite sure if the umbrella should stay open or close. We went to the supermarket again for salad, bread and tissues, walked around the block a bit and saw a couple of landmarks and were back home after half an hour or so.

There was salad for dinner because we hadn‘t eaten a single vegetable in days:

Not pictured is the goat cheese and salami, very yummy. Then to stay on the topic of food we watched another episode of the Samin Nosrat documentary after my husband did the dishes. There is no dish towel in the apartment, so we‘re using one of our travel towels. Oh and no pot holders so we used one of the hand towels provided by our hosts.

Then I watched an episode of C-drama, started writing this post, did a short round of Duolingo and went to bed.

It was supposed to rain all day and in the morning when we woke up it was coming down hard. Here‘s the view outside out kitchen window:

I had slept better than expected. Sharing a bed and a blanket with my husband was certainly unusual. He is not a peaceful or quiet sleeper and was not feeling all that well. Breakfast was tea and cookies:

So we spent most of the day in the apartment. Around 11 we left and were very happy to see that the rain had stopped. We wandered around with a vague plan of seeing Castelvecchio and the river, go to the supermarket again and find a place to eat lunch.

(Sorry, no alt text again. I‘m pressed for time and blogging from my tablet makes it harder.)

The restaurant we eventually chose was not the one where you can eat a main dish for 240 Euros but instead one with a two-course meal for 15 Euros that was full of Italian-speaking people on their lunch break. We had mezze manche con ragù:

And pork cutlets with fries as a main course:

The main course was a bit dry, some sort of sauce or salad would have been a good idea. Then we went to the supermarket and back to the apartment. By then my feet were rather painful but my husband was feeling much better.

We spent the rest of the day in the apartment recuperating, ate focaccia from the supermarket for dinner (not the best meal I‘ve ever had but definitely not the worst either), I took a shower and did some exercises for my feet and we watched the „Salt“-episode of „Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat“.

Then I started writing this post, did Duolingo, read a bit and went to bed. I started another Margery Allingham novel, „Death of a Ghost“. I‘m still a bit unsure about this one. In the morning I reread the beginning of Dorothy L. Sayers‘ „Whose Body“ and found the pacing and humor so much easier to get. It might be because I‘ve read all the Lord Peter Whimsey novels several times and am so used to them but I don‘t think so.

So, lots of new experiences happening.

I had gone to bed a little late again and while I was full of good intentions regarding my morning routine, in the end I just didn‘t do it. I packed everything together, left all the dirty dishes for the boy, had to eat bread for breakfast instead of muesli because I didn‘t want to open a new container of yogurt and have it go bad before my return, and then my husband and I set out to catch our first train.

Everything went completely smooth, no delays, nothing. The train was pretty full when we set out from Munich and we were in one of those compartments that seat six people. There were only ever five of us in there at a time and for the first hour or so one of those five people was a toddler that was clearly hungry, tired and a bit overexcited. His father was doing a very good job, though, carrying him around and humoring him, reading and feeding and bouncing. I didn‘t really mind the inevitable crying.

My husband wasn‘t feeling all that well, he had his usual GI distress and felt almost sick. That continued on throughout the day, poor thing.

I finished reading a book and started two more, I ate sandwiches for lunch (and sandwiches for dinner, sob), I knitted for an hour or so and then had to rip it all back because the first sock in that particular pair turned out to have a peculiarly short cuff. Well, here is a picture of my lunch:

We arrived at Verona to gray skies at 5, then had to find the place where we could pick up our keys, walk to our rented apartment, figure out how to unlock the door (not as easy as you‘d think) and then we could finally relax a bit.

We rested for a while and then set off to find a supermarket to get something for dinner. We ended up with pastrami sandwiches. We had a beer each and watched the first episode of „Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat“ again, I ate some crackers and some chocolate, did Duolingo, started writing this post, made a cup of chamomile fennel tea and went to bed.

I actually have no idea what we‘re going to do today but I guess, we‘ll figure it out.