Eating, eating, and well... eating some more!

So we've been in Italy for about 10 days. Things have been a little hectic with orientation, Jon checking into the hospital, trying to get our car (which we finally did a few days ago), and looking for apartments. We haven't taken any long day trips in the area yet since we are trying to find either someone to walk Maya for us during the day, or find a reputable boarding place for her to be overnight in... we know, we know, Maya is our child who rules our lives :)

So what have we been doing this whole time? EATING!  Seriously, we're shocked that more Italians aren't obese. There are five courses to a typical Italian meal.. antipasto (appetizer), primi (1st course usually consisting of pasta), secondi (2nd course usually consisting of meat or fish), contorno (vegetable that usually accompanies dinner) and dolce (dessert).We really have tried to keep up with all of the courses, but we've typically been sharing the secondi course or not ordering one at all. Just the antipasto could be a meal on its own!! Also, dinner lasts at least two hours (no wonder with all of the courses) and if you go out before 8:30 for dinner you will be the only ones in the restaurant for a while. Some restaurants don't even open for dinner until 9pm!

Cheryl drinking vino rosso by the sunset.

Jon drinking a Peroni.

The other night we tried to go out to dinner to a place that we found in a book. If you didn't know this place was here you would never find it, which also means that it's more of a local restaurant sans tourists, plus no English is spoken. As we were driving towards it we got the impression that we were entering someone's backyard. We finally make it up a big hill and see that the place was closed for the month (Italians typically take most, if not all of the month of August off for vacation). No problemo! We just happened to stumble upon a different place a very short distance away. We walk in and using whatever Italian we think we know we say, "due per favore" (two, please). Nobody spoke English, but we got by with Spanish, which Jon knows how to speak. Anyway, the owner, Eduardo, asked us if we wanted to start out with some prosciutto and mozzarella so we said yes. That was the last time we spoke with him until the end of the meal. The plates of food that came out were never ending... there were mussels, fried anchovies, fried doughballs (zeppelinis), eggplant, baked clams, bruschetta, octopus, and squid. We were literally laughing as the food kept coming out. The waiter then came around and asked if we wanted to see the menu for the 1st course. Yeah, we were pretty stuffed so we passed. With wine and water we were wondering how much this was going to cost us. A whopping 35 euros! What?! The wine itself, and everywhere else for that matter, was just 5 euros. Simply awesome and a great experience.

Having some drinks at the hotel before we went out for pizza!

A specialty in Naples is pizza. Modern pizza originated in Italy as the Neapolitan pie with tomato. In 1889, during a visit to Naples, Queen Margherita of Italy was served a pizza resembling the colors of the Italian flag, red (tomato), white (mozzarella) and green (basil). This kind of pizza has been named after the Queen as Pizza Margherita, which is the pizza to get while you're in Naples. We've ordered pizza Margherita about 5 times since we've been here and we haven't been disappointed! We also buy an extra one, put it in our fridge and eat it cold the next day!

The pizza Margherita that we ate in about 2 seconds!