All Good Things Must Come To An End

Today is the last day of our three months in Italy. We are spending it by cleaning our apartment and packing. Tomorrow we will have been abroad 90 days.  As of Day 91 we would be persona non grata having not gotten a visa to stay longer.  While we are registered with our embassy (an online process), we didn't want to go through all the problems of getting a visa. We've been told that Italy doesn't make it easy.  They always seem to come up with a new piece of paper you just have to have for the first 3 or 4 times you go register with the police.

So what have we learned about Italy in our 3 month individual study program?

1.) Don't even attempt an immersion language school unless you are well grounded in another romance language.  It can get ugly.  And when you go watch their Italian movies and they tell you there are subtitles?....The subtitles are in Italian, too.  The Italians have been using their hands for thousands of years to say what they mean.  It still works.
2.) If you are female, dye your hair.....preferably red if you are older.   Grey hair is not a color choice for older women.  Doesn't matter if the dye causes your  hair to thin out.  Dye it anyway.  Grey hair is absolutely verboten.  Only those stupid Americanos have it.
3.)  If you are older, do not expect any young Italian male to give you his seat on the bus.  Canadian men...yes. German men....maybe.   Italian woman.....yes. 
4.)  Believe it when people in Italy tell you where you should visit.  They've lived here longer than you have.  They know the burgs that should be avoided.  If you insist on going, however, they will demonstrate how to hold your pocketbook so it won't get stolen.
5.) The money is as follows:  All denominations below 3 Euro are in coins.  The smallest paper money is 5 Euro.  No matter what you purchase, the cashier will ask for change (coins).  Must be some kind of coin shortage.
6.)  No matter what the food, it will probably be better than what you get in America.  You may still lose weight because you will walk to wherever you are going...including restaurants.  There is something to be said about a country that has far more gelato stores than McDs.
7.)  Just because it's a church doesn't mean you can see it for free.  This is especially true of Florence.  Chances are you will have to pay at least 3E to 8E to see their treasures.  Sometimes they don't charge you to get in, just to turn on the lights so you can see where you are going.
8.) Just because it's a regional dish doesn't mean you are going to want it.  Lampredoto, probably one of the most famous dishes of Florence, is the 4th stomach of a cow.  No thank you very much.  Bistecca Florentina is a 2.2 pound steak cooked less than 3 minutes and is basically raw on the inside and sprinkled with oil and salt.  Don't ever expect butter with your incredibly great bread.  Oil-yes.  Butter-why would you want butter?  (Even this didn't dissuade Ken from eating bread - the man who will eat a plain pat of butter whenever he can .)
9.)  Don't believe the US Food and Drug Administration when they brag about having the world's safest food supply.  Would we feed our babies raw egg at one year of age to see if they have an egg allergy? This is a common recommendation of Italian pediatricians.   There is rarely a case of salmonella in Italy. 
10.)  Where else could anyone come and, when they do their shopping, stand in the cashier line with the local beggars of the area?  Stores like beggars.  They have lots of change.   

So tomorrow we get up around 5:50 AM (we hope....the alarm clock has been a little iffy lately.), get dressed, cart our 150 pounds of luggage to the curb (Ken needs the body building exercise) for the taxi and head out to the airport.  We are supposed to be home by around 7 PM EDT Tuesday night.  But we all know how plane travel is now-a-days.  Just hope we are home some time this week.

To all of you who have followed our blog, thanks for coming along with us.  To Julia, who has taken care of our house for us even though the refrigerator and the golf cart chose to conk out, there is a special place in Heaven for you.  To Bud, our neighbor, who is manning his computer to see just when we will get in so he can pick us up at the airport, how can we thank you enough?  To our son Dan who took care of our mail and paid our bills while we were gone, you get a bye on reading the blog which you won't know because you don't read the blog.  And to God who has kept us safe and obviously put angels in our path to keep us safe and help us on our journey......you made your presence known in so many ways.

Now it's home to grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup, bagels, and good friends.  The last was the most missed.