Lazise > Disney World

This past weekend I traveled to Lazise to spend time with Rosetta and her wonderful family - what an amazing time! Rosetta is my grandmother's cousin and her three children - Christina, Leno and Roberta - all live near her. They are all in fact basically within walking distance!!! Rosetta is a sassy lady and talks really fast. If I spoke Italian fluently this would all be fine except that I don't, so the talking so fast was an issue but her sassiness was pretty amazing. I was warned that she talks very fast by multiple family members and I know on the phone some people have a hard time understanding her but she is so animated that if you are there and can see her talking and using her hands it is much easier to figure out what she is saying.

I arrived at the Pescheria del Garda train station in the afternoon last friday and Rosetta was waiting for me on the platform. We went to the parking lot where Christina was waiting with the car and Rosetta's dog, Stella, who is the most adorable thing! They drove me to Lazise and after getting my bag to Rosetta's appartment she and I walked around the town. SO BEAUTIFUL. Lazise was founded in 982, from what a plaque I found said, and it has an ancient castle and wall encirling the oldest part of the town in which Rosetta lives. Wikipedia tells me the castle and walls were built in the 13th and 14th centuries. Here are some pictures of the town!





After the walk I met Luca and Alberto, two of Rosetta's grandchildren, and then we drove with Christina and her husband, Livio, to Verona for dinner. After dinner we walked around Verona, which was beautiful, and came home. Saturday I spent some more time with Alberto as we walked Stella and then Alba, another of my grandmother's cousins, came for lunch. Rosetta is an AMAZING COOK and I literally ate far too much this weekend. She just kept telling me to "Eat! Eat!" and really, how many opportunities am I going to have to eat her amazing cooking that I've heard so much about?!

After eating we took a drive to Alba's house on Lago di Garda and, as usual, the drive and the house were beautiful. Many of the towns on Garda are mainly summer destination tourist towns and therefore in January and February everything is basically shut down because there are no tourists during these months. I can't wait to see this place in the spring and summer when there are leaves and flowers and the shops are all open! It's going to be amazing! After driving around we came back home and had dinner and then talked and watched some Italian TV game show. Italian television is another post completely but it was pretty amusing. Even though I didn't know what they were saying most of the time the over the top emotions of everyone on the show really made it pretty clear what was going on. Their emotions were so over the top that it was like these people were cartoon characters !

Sunday I went to church with Rosetta and then we walked around, came back, had a wonderful lunch and she drove me back to the train station. As we were (and by "we" I mean "she") cooking lunch I took this video for the family back home. Watch and enjoy and please forgive me for saying "ciao" so much. I was waving  at Rosetta and trying to get her to understand that I was video taping and she should say a message or something to the camera.


There you go! We also got a picture together which is here! I think I'm going to go back in March and I'm so excited because then it will be warmer and everything will be open and more wonderful than before!!!


When I showed her this picture she commented that we have the same hair but that hers is "non naturale." So sassy and adorable!
 Ciao!

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