Her house is only 20 min outside the city so we arrived quickly and unpacked. Her house is beautiful and it is in the mountains. All around were wine vineyards and olive tree orchards. Her cousins have houses around her and other than that, there are not many houses around. We got a tour of her beautiful house and then headed to her favorite restaurant for dinner.
The restaurant is even more in the mountains and the roads are really windy. Abruzzo is the region where the earthquake happened, so a lot of the roads are partially blocked off because there were landslides and debris is on the road. We had really good homemade pasta and then had arostocini which is lamb on a stick. Everything was really good.
The next morning we made our rounds to Yaz's family and of course we had to eat at every place. At one of her cousin's house, we just happened to walk in as they were having lunch, so we ate with them and then told us about our plan to climb up the mountain. They told us our little rental car wouldn't make it, so they drove us. We had planned to park the car and hike, but they were with us so we settled on driving as far up as we could. The couple was so funny. They were about in their late 60s or early 70s and they were making fun of each other the whole time. They played some good country italian music on the way up and it reminded me of my grandpas polka music. We went to two different mountain tops and walked around for a while. It was really great to breath some fresh air. I didn't think the air in Rome was bad, but after being in such fresh air, I realized how different it really is.
After eating all day, we went back to her house to get ready to go to a big fish dinner in Pescara with another cousin! Since Pescara is right on the water, the fish was amazing. Her cousins Walter and Maurizio came with us. After a great dinner, we went more into the city to have a drink before heading back to the house.
Sunday morning we took one last walk around to the family, had 3 espressos, and then headed back to Rome. We had a bunch of extra food and Yaz had some old clothes that we were going to try and donate to the earthquake victims. L'Aquila isn't to far from Pescara, so we made the trip. As we were getting closer, we saw blue tents everywhere. They were the camps that the victims were staying at. We kept driving further to try and go into the city. L'Aquila is a city that is on top of a hill, so there is only one main road from the direction we were coming. The road was blocked for residents only, but we did see many buildings half fallen. We didn't see a lot of things fallen so I think the heart of the city is what was hit the worst. The firemen were lining the streets, but no one was doing anything. It was kinda strange. They told us that we had to bring the donations to the camps. When we got to the camps we asked where to drop the goods off at, and they said they were not able to take them. We were a little confused but the guards said that it was their policy. It somewhat makes sense that they only accept donations from organizations and Italy is not a 3rd world country so they have plenty of supplies, but we were still a little upset.
We then continued on our final road trip through Italy, and arrived safely in Rome. I only have 2 more weeks here and I am getting pretty sad. It has been the best trip and I am not ready to get back to the hustle and bustle of the US.
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