The Honeymoon

Arild and I spent 10 days in Italy for our honeymoon. While there, we visited France and Monaco as well. All beautiful places! I feel better posting my pictures here rather than Facebook because I feel as if people come here by choice rather than plastering them and torturing people with nice vacation pictures. 

I enjoyed our honeymoon very very much, but I realize now just how similar Norway and America is compared to southern Europe. When Arild and I first met, he told me culturally he probably has much much more in common with someone in Kentucky than in some parts of Europe. I can see what he means by that now and I think I've come to the conclusion northern Europe has the most in common with North America.

I've learned some things about my husband during our trip. I don't think I'll ever stop learning new things about him, but just to help with that we played a road trip questions game on our way to the Oslo airport. I printed off a list of questions to ask him like:

1) What are 3 pieces of advice you'd give to your 16 year old self?
2) Name 5 of your accomplishments.
3) What are 5 things that make you happy this very second?
4) If you could move and live anywhere in the world where would you move to?
5) What ideal(s) do you think society has wrong or misinterpreted?
6) What is something you wish you could be better at?
7) Where do you see yourself in 5 years, 10 years and 15 years?

and so on and so forth....

About to leave Norway - just hanging out with a viking troll statue at Gardermoen airport. 

I also learned that Arild hates traveling. He likes to visit new places, but the actual getting there part he absolutely hates. I had no idea. I was a bit disappointed when he went silent during our first plane ride and I was so excited to be on a plane again and having a layover in Germany before our next stop at the airport in Nice, France, then off to getting in our rental car and traveling up curvy, narrow mountain roads to Perinaldo, Italy. It didn't take me long though before I was tired of the Italian roads and the manic driving - and honking!!!

Absolutely delicious! Carrot ginger soup and German
gingerale at the Frankfurt airport. 

During our stay we traveled to many small mountain towns in the Liguria and Imperia areas of Italy.
My favorite of which was Dolceaqua. It's a town made famous by its bridge, which Claude Monet painted. The city was filled with artsy people - which I love! Inside the town many many artists have shops set up and you can purchase some very interesting pieces of artwork from them. We purchased a framed watercolor painting from one of the locals to hang behind our couch.

The famous Monet bridge. In the background you'll see the
Doria Castle - built around 1100. 

Another small town we visited was Seborga. This was an interesting little place. It has its own flag, calls itself the Principality of Seborga, wants to be acknowledged as its own independent region, but is legally a part of Italy as any other place. Even more interesting - they have a one man army. Seriously.

The GPS we had was more confused than we were. It was sending us in people's driveways (not that you can tell a difference between someone's personal driveway and the road) and ordering us to go off a mountain cliff or into a tree. However, we got to Seborga. What was just a short distance for us turned out to be an hour and a half drive and we got there traveling on a road much too narrow for our car - which had the horse power of about 3 lawn mowers. By the time we reached Seborga we were unbelievably carsick and had to rest for a while and promised neither of us would complain about Norwegian roads ever again, but nevertheless we enjoyed our time there. 

We went to yet another small town called Apricale. For the life of me, I couldn't remember the names of these places we visited or remember how to pronounce some, so what did I do? Gave them names. Apricale I couldn't remember, so I called it Apricot. Seborga I called Suburbia a few times. Another place (I can't remember where) I called Cyprus. All of this had Arild laughing at me. Anyways, we thought we'd give Apricale a visit because a local in Dolceaqua (who was fluent in English!) told us it was a romantic, beautiful place. Eh, we didn't think that about it after traveling to so many other tiny mountain towns. 

Every tiny town we went to had something unique about them to set them apart from the rest. Dolceaqua has the famous bridge, Seborga has their own principality, Apricale has paintings and art all throughout the walls and doorways of the city. Perinaldo, Italy was the town we lived in during our stay and what set it apart was the observatory and it being known for the famous astronomer, G.D. Cassini.

We learned to use more body language than verbal language as it soon dawned on us the majority of the locals in smaller towns know no English. I was especially amazed at how no one understood me saying Coke Zero in just plain American English. The waiter or waitress or server would just pause and stare at my foreignness. Arild had to jump in and pronounce Coke Zero as they would in Italian, "Co-kah
 Zeh-rroo."

I would also highly suggest bringing a dictionary to any restaurant in Italy if you don't understand Italian. We made this mistake the first night in Italy. Arild ended up getting sliced tomatoes with sliced cheese, covered in basil leaves and olive oil. Not so bad, but he hates tomatoes and thought he was getting a pizza with a tomato sauce, topped with mozzarella cheese and basil. Even after speaking German to the waiter who also knew German, this is what he was under the impression he was getting. Me on the other hand, I just saw something or another parmigiana and well, I know or thought I knew what that was as I've had it in America many times. I was served something that appeared to be mushrooms covered in sauce and parmesan cheese. Mushrooms are by far my arch-enemy and it's not the taste that bothers me, but the texture. I'm shuddering just thinking about it! What I ordered actually turned out to be eggplant after I got home and pulled out an Italian dictionary. I felt so bad wasting food, so I ate Arild's food and he thanked me for it and just ate when we got home.

The local bakery in Perinaldo, Italy. 

Oh yum!!! 

Perhaps one of the most interesting things about Italian culture in small mountain towns is the celebration of siesta. At midday shops close, people go home and rest. About 4 or so the shops open up again and will stay open until about 7.  Something else interesting - many restaurants never opened until about 7.  With siesta being a part of everyday life for many Italians, it was no surprise the most active and social times of the day were around 11 PM. 

Taking a walk down one of Perinaldo's streets during siesta. 

Showing some American pride and celebrating July 4th. 

Paintings of the Cassini family. 

A local restaurant in Perinaldo. If visiting, bring an Italian dictionary. 

Chocolate mousse. Nom nom nom. 

A warning the roads are too narrow. 

No hiding my adoration for the bakery in Perinaldo. 

Before ever visiting Italy I once remember reading somewhere Italy has the highest percentage of feral cats. I can believe it because there were cats everywhere. Some looked well fed and others looked heartbreakingly malnourished. I have posted a blog once before about the difference with Europe and America with how we view cats. American cats are generally kept indoors, European cats wander about freely. 

We also took day trips to France. We visited Nice, France and Cannes as well. Both of which I thought were nice cities and maybe hoped to spend more time in France in other nearby cities, but the traveling and walking everywhere was tiring for both of us. 

Boulder Man! This was one of our first sites as we were leaving the airport. 

There is a stereotype I think Americans have wrong. Before I met Arild, if I could have visited one place I would have chosen France. When saying this aloud many times I was told by people things like, "Oh the French are rude!" "They don't like Americans!" "It's smelly and dirty in France!!!" 

Never once have I experienced any of that. The American flag is an extremely popular flag I'm beginning to realize. We saw it many many places in Italy, France and not to mention, it's not hard to spot the American flag in Norway either. I didn't experience rudeness in France. When we spoke English to someone, they spoke English back. I didn't think it was smelly or dirty there either. I talked to Arild about this and he seems to think a lot of the anti-France comments were a product of France's outspokenness and disagreement of the Iraq-war several years ago. Perhaps there is some truth to that?

I now wish I had paid more attention in French class in high school though. Rather than doodling Smurfs and what have you on my papers I could have been paying more attention. It would have been interesting to have had that come in use for me. 

The type of graffiti in France. :-) 

Hanging out by the Mediterranean. 

A huge thumb statue in Nice, France. 

Then we drove to Cannes, France after visiting Nice. Cannes is known for the International Film Festival. So we saw many many paintings and pictures of actors and actresses as well as movie related paintings. 

An entire wall covered in movie characters. 

While in the area, we paid Monaco a visit. The scenery was beautiful in Monaco, but it is filled with flauntingly wealthy people. It's one thing to be wealthy, but to peacock yourself in it? I found this annoying and not in the sense I envy their lifestyle - my opinions are FAR from that! It was interesting however to see and walk down the same street as millionaires and billionaires dressed in suits, Rolex watches, smoking fine Cuban cigars, and walking past 5 star hotels, Prada stores and Lamborghini dealerships.  

It was nice to just visit Monaco and walk around the country. Yes, we can say we've walked through an entire country now! 

French Rivera - and a whole lot of yachts. 

The Royal Palace. 

A huge baby statue strangely enough. 

More yachts. 

Aaah sun!!! 

We took a quick walk and visit through Ventimiglia, Italy. I was excited about this as I read in a book Arild bought during our trip about Roman remains and a theatre built around 300 BC. 

One of the best pizzas I've ever had was at one of the pizzerias there. 

Overall, we had a wonderful honeymoon. We had a great time and got to see places neither of us had ever been. Experiencing southern Europe for myself has also led me to realize just how similar Norway (and northern Europe in general) is to America. I have more of that "at home" feeling in Norway. After just a few days in Italy, I concluded I could easily get homesick there. The way I look at it, I have two homes - Norway and America and both of them are my favorite countries.