01/23/10

Today I went swimming in the Adriatic Sea. Well, sort of.

We all took a 20 minute train ride to Civitanova-Marche, which is right on the coast. There was something about the town that reminded me of home, probably just that it was on a body of water. My roommates and I figured out-at a dead run-we could get to the train station in 5 minutes if we were running late. So that was kind of a rush. Especially down the piaggias (I don't know if I spelled that right--but they are really steep, not-quite stairs in the city. Piaggia means steep). Anyway...every Saturday morning Civitanova has a huge market in the streets kind of like the one in Macerata on Wednesday mornings, but larger. Rows and rows of booths of bags and boots and clothes and fruit and plants and dishes...anything really. You can bargain too, if you know enough Italian to.

For lunch we met at a seafood restaurant. They served the same white wine that I bought, so I must have good instincts on wine because everyone liked it...a little too much maybe. The first course was pasta (it's always pasta) with clams, and for the second course, calamari, shrimp, and fish. We stick out as Americans when we travel in a group anywhere we go, but we must have looked pretty ridiculous taking pictures with our fishy friends, aka our food because they still had eyes. What can I say? We got some weird looks, but I did have to endure exploding shrimp brains onto my thumb just trying to eat my food.

After lunch, we all played on the beach like little kids...so much fun! I stole a bunch of beach glass. We took off our boots and rolled up our jeans and ran into the water...just so I could say I swam in the Adriatic Sea in January.