The Good, The Bad, and the August

There are things I love about Italy.  Pizza and wine are good and cheap! I was allowed to take my dogs in to get the pizza and the wine. There's no rush to finish your food and vacate the table.  They will leave you sitting there all night unless you ask for the check. Italians will tell you that you speak Italian well even if you don't.  They just appreciate that you try.  Many "prescription" drugs can be bought over-the-counter.  This is super convenient! It's a complex culture...men will live at home with their parents until they get married (because a woman has to take care of them) but they will also wear pink skinny jeans and carry a man purse.  The definitions of masculinity are blurred.

There are things that I don't love about Italy.  Most places are closed on Sundays (especially in small towns) which means I have to do my errands like grocery shopping on Saturday and if I'm traveling, well, Allorah!  Many places close for riposa (basically the afternoon nap) including things like the gas station. Restaurants don't open until 7pm (or later!) and even then aren't ready to serve you food.  It's my bed time before you can eat :( The train system is privatized so there are several companies offering train service which makes it confusing and the so-called competition does not make it more efficient.  The Dutch and Germans have much better, cleaner, on-time service.

Weekday gas station hours (closed from 1230-1430).  They are only open in the morning on Saturdays and closed on Sundays.

Italians know how to August! August is the month when most Italians take vacation.  Who cares that there's an economy in decline.  Close the store/gas station/manufacturing plant for a month and go on holiday!  I'm not joking.  Not everything closes for the whole month but plenty do.  File this under "things I don't like." The gas station is closed for 2 weeks.  The cabinetry manufacturer (I work in construction) is closed for the whole month. Your car breaks down...there's a good chance you're waiting until September to get it fixed (my friend is facing this problem right now)!

Sign at the gas station.

I usually don't travel in August because places are crowded, prices are higher, trains are packed, roads are traffic-jammed.  But this past weekend I went to one of the local termes.  According to the community's website:

Abano Terme, the most important and oldest thermal center in Europe, stands in a location at the feet of the Euganean Hills and in the center of the Veneto Region.  Its name comes from the Greek, "a ponos," which means that it takes away pain.

According to legend

Hercules and his heroic companions set off from Greece to defeat Geryon. Finally exhausted and worn out after having killed him, they were restored by the miraculous virtues of that hot water and did not want to return to Greece. Also attracted by the beauty of the surrounding hills, they stayed to live there. The hills were named Euganean because of the nobility of their descent. The spring that had given much relief to warriors was called Aponon in Greek. Hercules himself, in order to purge the evil to Geryon, built a temple in Abano in his honor, permitting him to become an oracle. As Suetonius wrote, this legend was well known in the Roman world; the emperor Tiberius, one day when he was travelling to Illyria, wanted to listen to this famous oracle and he got a peremptory response, precisely to throw gold dice into the spring, exactly where Abano stands today, to be advised about his fate. Legend has it that the dice made the water precious, giving it special properties that can heal various diseases.

There are multiple hotel and spa complexes with pools of varying temperature.  Generally, getting into a swimming pool the temperature of bath water when it's 85-95 degrees outside is not my idea of a good time.  But I needed a get-away and it's close by.

One of the things I love about the Italians is that, despite having some rigid rules about how to dress (no sneakers at dinner, you wear a coat because it's November whether it's 80 degrees or 20 outside) they seem to have no issues with wearing whatever you want while swimming.  All types of bodies were on display and almost every woman, regardless of age or size, was wearing  bikini.  There was no expectation to cover C-section scars, belly rolls, back fat, cellulite...  Men wore trunks or tight little shorts or speedos.  Everyone walked/sat around as if their body was completely acceptable just the way it was.  As it should be!!  Seriously, that was the best part of the weekend for me.

I didn't take a lot of pictures because the rules said not to.  Now, the rules also said no smoking was allowed but people did that.  The rules also said no dogs were allowed but there were several. One rule that is strictly adhered to is the swim cap rule.  Everyone must wear a swim cap.  Even bald men!

Everyone wearing their swim cap! Are there peculiar rules where you live? Do people know how to August?

There's More to Malaga

I posted last weekend about what I did on my recent trip to Malaga.  However, there's more to the city than just a beautiful coast.

Malaga is the birthplace of Pablo Picasso.  I visited the Picasso museum in Barcelona a couple years ago so I didn't feel like I was missing anything by not going to the one in Malaga.  I did walk past Pablo many times each day as he sits in one of the historic squares that was a 2-minute walk from the B&B where I stayed.

Malaga has some beautiful Spanish architecture.

 

There are Moorish ruins.

Not to mention some fantastic food!  There are a couple vegetarian/vegan restaurants that I stayed at a vegan B&B (Veganbnbspain) that served the most amazing breakfasts (made fresh every morning by Emma). And we're not talking some bread and a jar of jam. These were real, delicious and filling vegan breakfasts!

One of the salads at Alcazabilla

Homemade raw granola with strawberries, strawberry-banana smoothie, homemade almond milk.

Chocolate-chia pudding with bananas, fresh-squeezed orange juice with ginger.

Tofu, tomatoes and spinach scrambled on toast with fresh-squeezed lemonade.

And, like every city, there are some quirky odd bits to be found.

I didn't go inside as I figured watching burgers float around a tank of water wouldn't be very interesting.

I don't know if I'll get the chance to go back before I leave the continent in a few months but I certainly wouldn't mind spending some more time there!

Happy Earth Day

So very true :)

Sundays in My Kitchen

I usually spend several hours (at least) in my kitchen on Sundays.  I like to prepare most, if not all, of my food for the week in advance.  I work a lot of hours and have dogs to walk and if all my food is ready then I eat well. Plus, I'm extremely picky about what goes into and onto my body.  I make almost everything I eat from scratch using real, whole, natural foods.

I'm lucky that I don't mind eating the same thing over and over so I can get away with making 2 or 3 dishes for the week and eating them every day.  

Both the oven and stove going full force. Quinoa pasta and sauce, carrot-peanut butter soup, veggie meatballs...

A pot of black beans that teamed up with egg whites and spinach for breakfast omelets.

Germinated brown rice that became stir fry.

Baby corn and witloaf (a kind of white cabbage) also in the stir-fry.

A weeks-worth of stir-fry with germinated brown rice, carrots, baby corn, witloaf, sugar snaps and salmon.

Potatoes and kidney beans in a spicy tomato sauce I had in Afghanistan. Sadly, none of that wonderful Afghan bread here. This is currently in the freezer along with the carrot-peanut butter soup.

Oops, made a bit of a mess with some sweet potatoes!

I eat about a half-gallon of salad every day. No joke!

Mushrooms, tomatoes, broccoli, radishes, olives, feta, lettuce.

I make 2 giant salads and cut up the veggies for the remaining 3 so that during the week I just have to dump into the large bowls and add the lettuce.

Next some healthy snacks.

The compost bowl is overflowing by the time I'm done.

Here's what my fridge looks like by the end of the day (fridges here are much smaller than their American counterparts so it doesn't take much to fill mine). Breakfast, lunch and dinner plus healthy snacks for the whole week. Nothing from a package (except cheese). All fresh, real, whole foods.  Often I make extra and freeze so that when I'm busy or tired or out of town on the weekend I still have healthy, homemade food for the week.  

Cheyenne is always on hand to make sure anything I dropped gets cleaned up!

By Sunday the fridge is empty and ready for me to start over.

I also make most of my own hygiene products. It's so easy and inexpensive and they work better than the chemical-filled products.

The ingredients for shampoo, conditioner, face wash, lotion, deodorant...

Refill old containers.  Google "no poo method" for shampoo and conditioner recipes. I add a couple drops of tea tree oil to my shampoo and a couple drops of vitamin E oil plus lavender to my conditioner.

 Whipped coconut body lotion (just coconut oil and vitamin E).

To see what others are up to in their kitchens or elsewhere, check out Unknown Mami.