As I sit down to finish this post FINALLY on Monday evening, I want to recap our weekend, but hate to say that much of what we did has escaped me, I need to start taking daily notes 🙂  So therefore, most likely to your benefit this post is going to be picture (with caption) heavy!

Friday night we had a wonderful evening with Luca and Anna, we met them in San Nicola where they live and they brought us by their garden to meet the dog that they co-own with Luca’s sister, Otto (meaning 8 in Italian).  He is a German Shepherd mix and cute as can be.  There are tons of dogs over here and even more irresponsible dog owners who do not like to clean up after their pets but I digress. Luca and Anna took us to a small suburb of Genova called Boccadasse. Boccadasse is a historical anchovy fishing port just south of the city that surrounds a small stone beach with villas tightly terracing up the hillsides. It is the epitome of the Italian Riviera.

Many people gather here in the evenings to hang out while having a drink or some gelato

Sunset in Boccadasee

We ate at Marechiaro, a small pizzeria that forms the edge of the main cove of the town and faces both the adjacent hill towns and the full breadth of the Mediterranean Sea. I ordered my first truly Italian Margherita pizza and Nick ordered the house special, Frutti di Mare.

Margharita Pizza

Frutti de Mare

We said his mom would have been in heaven eating this pizza 🙂

After dinner we enjoyed another tasty treat of gelato at one of the original gelateria’s.  I had panne cotta, which was delicious, nothing like the panne cotta that I have had in the States though, this had a caramel swirl in it?

On Saturday we took a little walking tour around Genova, still trying to get our bearings a bit.  There is not much to report other then the amazing granite (pronouced granita) that we had at Bar Don Paolo, per Luca they are known for their original form of Sicilian granite.  It was by far the best thing that I have eaten since I have arrived 🙂  We chose strawberry (fragola) and they put a homemade creme on the top.  I have going to have to contain myself not to go by there everyday for some!

My first ever Sicilian Granite

I guess when you have a bigger car – you just pull it up on the sidewalk!

Nick loved this jacket until he looked up and realized that there was NO WAY he would be able to afford it.

Nick leaving me in his dust up one of the salitas near the villa

On Sunday I went to mass with the Italian Language professor that is here from Clemson, Barbara, obviously it was very different as I understood nothing that was said, but since all masses are the same was able to keep up pretty well.

Early afternoon Nick and I ventured out for another walk around the city as he was scoping out sites for the student’s final project.  After 3 + hours of walking we made our way back in the villa in time for a nap, another round of Italian language lesson and dinner with Barbara and the students at Maniman.  It was a quaint restaurant in San Nicola, where we sat out on their patio.   We all got a little lesson ordering in Italian and in true Italian fashion sat down to dinner at 8 pm and didn’t leave the restaurant until 11 pm, this is something that I am going to have to get used to 🙂

This morning we all met in the villa at 8 am to make our way downtown to meet Silvia at the post office, this is where the students completed their immigration paperwork.  It surprisingly went very fast and we were all back to the villa by 10:30 am.  Nick had class this afternoon, and after a long nap I worked on some school work.  Tomorrow we take our first Tuesday field trip, so hopefully I will have some more exciting things to post afterwards.  Until then…