Varese, Italy Part 3 ... Sept 07, 2008

Post wedding day, I got a text message from me sister telling me that we the witnesses had to go back to church to sign the document as the Padre in all his story telling, had us sign the Marriage Register but not the Marriage Certificate - ahahha so all 4 witnesses had to troop back to church and get that done.

Running down to the car, I saw the girls with the even bigger bread van packing their suitcases in and readying to leave for Rome via a few pit stops ... so it was a round of hug hug kiss kiss and keep in touch. A drive to the church, sign sign and then its off to lunch - a group of 13 - it's shrinking now as everyone is heading off after the wedding ...

Then it was off to lunch Ristoro Agrituristico La Nuova Fattoria - what a mouthful and mind you the food was awesomely porky pork again eheheh and the servings I cannot even begin to explain. This was a tourist stop on a farm - everything you ate except perhaps for the gelato (aka ice cream) was home grown and reaped or slaughtered for the table ...

By the end of lunch, Aarathi and gang head off to Lake Como, Verona and then to Venice ... we reminded them to all get a grab at Juliet's breast - apparently it brings good luck ... kinda sounds a tad bit sleazy grabbing a statues breast but if it brings me luck - what the hell am all game to use my squeeze too :)) who knows what might transpire from that strange act ... But Verona is not yet in our itinerary ...

After such a feast, we had a light left over thrown together type dinner and then the heavens opened and pissed on us again major big time ... Thank God! it didn't the night before - the whole evening was rather enchanting ...

The 4 of us head back to Vecchia Riva, and snuggle into bed for a night's sleep and me on medication as I've picked up a nasty cough and sinus congestion (me thinks it's due to the cat fur from the apartment's resident cat ...

We have plans to go sight seeing tomorrow ...

~to be continued~

Varese, Italy Part 2 ... Sept 06, 2008

On the 4th, my sister's oldest friend Aarathi arrived in Varese in her little bread van which was to be used to ferry her mom, 2 aunts and hubby when they all got into Varese. We all herded out to Varese Centro (town) and had ourselves a lovely pizza lunch - we are in Italy afterall and the size of the medium from Pizzahut back home is the size of an individual meal here - hahaah GOD! I have pizza popping outta my ears by now and we're into day 9 in Italy.

The 5th was a last minute dash to the town for this that, everyone here there ... it was crazy ... the momentum for the next evening was building. By this time 5 more friends had rolled into town with their scary stories of totally 2 jaguars within a week :) - yes yes they be all ladies in the car ... but these were some scary stories :)) ...

The whole troop, including Guiseppe, Anna and their son Davide joined us making it 28 very merry happy pre-wedding night dinner with friends that Babs and Tim had organised. It was at a lovely restaurant La Matranella (I think) where the food just kept coming in - here starters or antipasto as it is called is unlimited amounts of pork in every imaginable form of salami, ham, bacon, sausage - if you are a 'paandi' fan - this is heaven for you :)), if it is not, you're in awful lot of trouble trying to get something else more to your palate.

Dinner with a lot of noisy was over around 11pm, and everyone scurried back to get some rest for the next day - the evening had been one of constant intermittent drizzle, and I could see a little worry on the couple's faces as their reception was an outdoor garden event at a Villa.

Cometh 6th morning and the skies are dark, cloud overcast and then by noon there is rain. Tension is a little high now ... the wedding service is at 4pm. Finally with all the house in full frenzy and the Bomberdali Apartment was the bride's home away from home, we managed to get dad into the car, and the flower girls into the bride's car which incidenttaly was a BMW convertible (ehehhe do I see you drool) and we got to church about 15 minutes past 4pm - me thinks Tim might have thought Babs had changed her mind last minute or something.

The Padre who has known Tim all his life often went off the 'scripted' service with his lengthy reminesces of Tim as a boy which naturally was all in Italian - which had some of us non Italian speakers in a blur ...

It wedding was beautiful, and there were several comical moments but after the wedding, it was just simply blessed to see blue skies and happy clouds ... the caterers had brought out their best and it was simply too mouth watering to describe the food that was served during the cocktails before dinner, the dinner itself and the desserts during the cake cutting ceremony post dinner.

Here in Italy, you can invite people to the cake cutting and not invite them to dinner - no one gets offended (I think Asians esp. Indians need to learn this) and the crowd post dinner was even more huge.

There was life band, with the singer Lorenzo (he's played with Bruce Springsteen aka THE BOSS in New Jersey in 2006) and he's a good pass off for Keith Urban maybe even Keanu Reeves (hehehe yummylicious me thought!!) - he sang loads of songs from the 80s and a lot of good numbers that had a lot of people tapping their feet, even jumping in for a jig or two ...

I caught up with Bern and Sergio who drove up from Genoa, enjoyed chit chatting with Hanim, Ann Lee, Cynthia, Amelia and Wendy, Aarathi, Devan and the mom and aunts ... Emanuela was really funny and Sara too ... the Italians do try even if they cannot converse in English.

Irma and Angelo who have been the total darlings in lending their apartment and their car(s) to us, Lele who is an absolute darling even with the Brat Angels (me thinks the girls have got a soft sport for Uncle Lele) - all that chatter in Italian, but even though the language is foreign, the warmth and love from these people has been extremely touching! ... I wish I had spent some time learning simple Italian, to express how much I have enjoyed my days here with them.

~to be continued~

Varese, Italy Part 1 ... Sept 04, 2008

It has been quite a while since I blogged or even commented on anyone's blog (AD might be going into withdrawal symptoms by now ehehhe) but I have been busy in Varese, Italy.

Yuppers people, I hopped on a SQ flight with Mom, Dad, the BratAngels and Auntie J to Singapore on 30th August and headed out from Singapore to Zurich, Switzerland - there were no direct flights available to Malpensa which is the closest international airport to Varese. It's the end of summer and the Europeans were heading back.

We landed in Zurich, 20:30 local time which was something like 2am back home in Malaysia. We were met at the airport by my sister, her fiance Tim and his 'twin' or gemello called affectionately Lele. The night was spent in a Allegra Hotel in Zurich - very close to the airport.

On the 31st after breakfast, we hopped into 2 cars and all the luggage piled into the booths to the max and we started our drive to Varese (the town is about 10km or so from the closest Swiss border) - this took us about 3+hours with a stop for lunch midway.

The scenery was awesome, all the hill slopes minus the snow that makes it so famous for ski enthusiasts ... I must have taken literally hundreds of pictures which am loading slowly online.

We we've had sorta 2 homes homes in Varese, Auntie J, the kids and I stay in Vecchia Riva - an awesome hotel on the banks of Lake Varese and we have an awesome view of the lake from our room. Mom and dad have been housed at the Bomberdali Apartment via Aussimo - the apartment belongs to friends of Tim who graciously loaned us their apartment with everything at our disposal, and their Mercedes-Benz A-Class (eheheheh) but I can't drive it - it's a manual *sniff sniff sniff* -which shuttles us around Varese.

The few days prior to my sister's wedding, it was pissing like hell here in Varese - you could hardly step outside - it rained rained rained ... one evening when the sun shone for a while, we did a walk up to Sacre Monte and managed to cover 7 out of the 14 stations before kids got tired and grouchy and we turned back - plan to complete the remainder stations and take more pictures - the view from Sacre Monte is amazing!

~to be continued~