Food

We don't ignore requests, so tonight we are not discussing apartments, but want to tell you about food! It is really good here, except for McDonald's and Burger King. They aren't any better than McDonald's and Burger King in the US of A.

First a story... the scene is a busy street in the town of Lugano. It's a crowded Saturday afternoon and an American couple approaches an ice cream stand and gets in line. There is a sign that shows 3 sizes and the price for each. It is also clear that the choice is cup or cone. Small is 3 francs, medium is 5, and large is 7. The American wife thinks she is awesome at Italian, because she has studied it for 2 days on the computer in her hotel room...

For the sake of my audience, I will translate how this went down. What you see in English was actually spoken in Italian.

American woman: "Two, Five, [English jibberish], chocolate chip"

Italian ice cream chick: "uh, you want two scoops of chocolate chip ice cream?"

American woman: "Two, Two!"

American husband: hides face and laughs.

Italian ice cream chick: "So you want two cones, I guess, but only chocolate chip?"

American woman: "Chocolate Chip!" and smiles because she is very proud of how great her Italian is.

Chocolate chip ice cream is given to the Americans and the curtain closes....

We have really enjoyed the Italian food. We took some pictures of our Sunday to give you a feel for what it's like. There are many restaurants around us, but they are all very similar. Most people eat outside under a tent. The food is all Italian and is very, very good and not cheap. Today we had lunch at this place on the right. I had some sort of ravioli (but that's not what it was called on the menu) and Malinda had this noodle concoction. Like I said, it's better than anything you'll find in Memphis and probably New Orleans when it comes to pasta. There is little or no meat in any dish. The meat seems to be mostly pork (think Italian prosciutto, salami, etc.) My lunch was either in butter or olive oil but it was soooo good! We asked for a beer at lunch and weren't given any choices, they just brought that out. It's some kind of German beer and it is also very good.

Tonight we went to a restaurant very close to our hotel (like 30 ft from the front door) and sat in great seats where we could see the lake. For a salad we had this tomato and mozzarella dish. It was like tomato's from your backyard and cheese that you just got out of the cheese maker (do cheese makers exist?). It has a little olive oil and some other herbs on top. It was disgusting. Just kidding. Malinda loved it.

PS - while eating this salad, we saw a Bentley and an Aston Martin drive by. Yesterday, on the way to Ikea, we saw a Ferrari dealership beside a Maserati dealership. On to the main course!


Okay, I had no idea what I ordered. My dinner is the one right in front here. It was like giant penne noodles with a tomato cream sauce, eggplant, and maybe some other vegetables. I'm tired already of saying how good everything is. So, just know that unless we say otherwise, it was like the best Italian food you've ever had. Malinda had spaghetti. It was the "store special" and we think it had churizzo ham in it. It tasted a little spicy and also had some other mystery vegetables in the mix. We had the house red wine, which is always Ticino Merlot. It's good and not as expensive as everything else. We tried to end the day with gelato (ice cream) at a place that has had our favorite chocolate so far, but they were closing when we walked up. So that's a day of food for you!

The Swiss take resting on Sunday's very seriously. No stores are open (other than some restaurants) and the buses have many fewer routes. We went to the park where we found out the public wi-fi works really well and caught up on e-mails and other necessary internet type stuff. There are lots of people at the lake taking it easy. There seem to be a lot of older people here, people with dogs, and people with young children. There is also a park right beside the lake that has tons of cool art in the grass off the paths. There are a lot of sculptures that were obviously by the same artist. There is also a huge wood carving made out of a big tree in the park. It's carved to look like two men standing back to back. See Malinda mimicking here. At the end of the park is a sitting area with a pirate scope thing that you can put 1 franc in and see across the lake. There are lots of sail boats docked nearby and you can take tours of the lake on bigger boats or paddle boats. It's all like a fantasy place.

Today was a good day and we appreciate all your thoughts and well wishes.