Venturing Out

So, those of you who've been reading regularly know that I've been cooped up in my little town in my little house without having really done anything FUN!  I made plans for last weekend that fell through and I pretty much told the hubs that we HAD to go out this weekend or I was going to go crazy.  So... I made plans for the two of us and our married couple friends to make a little trip to Cison, Italy and visit Castelbrando:

Picture Taken From Website

Picture Taken From Website

Picture Taken From Website

We called and got information about self-guided and paid guided tours and going through the many museums they have: CastelBrando Weapons, Power and Justice, The Costumes of Power, The Discovery of Lost Sounds, The Roman Street Claudia Augusta, and Historical Coaches.  We would get to tour the grounds and see the history and the spectacular views; we were all pumped to go and explore this beautiful place an hour away for the whole of Saturday, ending in dinner at one of the two restaurants on location.  That's not exactly how things went down.

We got there about 1pm on Saturday afternoon (little bit of a learning curve on how to get to a new place we'd never been to before!) and once we found parking, figured out the cable car to get up to the castle, and deciphered the signs all written in Italian to get to the front desk, we were quickly told that there were no tours on Saturday and that only 2 of the "museums" were open for business, the weapons and the coaches.  We could walk around the grounds where they hadn't closed it off (as the castle also doubled as a hotel and they still wanted guests to see some parts of the castle when not taking tours) and we could eat lunch in the pizzeria until they closed at 230 (where they would prep for dinner to reopen at 7 - don't even get me started on these Italians and their hours of operations!)  So we paid 3 euro each to do the tour of the weapons museum, which turned out to be three rooms with some suits of armor and random weapons, walked around exploring the grounds for about an hour, and had a quiet lunch with a waitress who didn't speak any English.

If everything had been open (like we'd been led to believe when we called the day before) the trip would've been a few hours longer and way more interesting, but we made the most of what we were able to do and enjoyed a fun afternoon with some friends who we hope to grow closer with over our four years here :D  It's definitely something we'll always remember (our first castle adventure together!!) and maybe one day we'll go back and pay the 400 euro per night price for a suite and get the full, grand tour (okay, maybe not, but a girl can dream, right?!).  I had fun - I mean seriously I was thrilled to get out and about - and the views of the countryside on the ride was an adventure enough for me.  The husband did have a funny reaction to something he ate/drank and for about half an hour had this hideously scary rash all over his body, which made the trip even more memorable!

Later that night I was lucky enough to finally meet some of my love's coworkers at a little Tex-Mex dinner party.  We ate some yummy, spicy food, got to know one another a bit, and the two of us were taught how to play spades.  It turned out to be a pretty solid day and I don't even harbor any ill feelings toward the uninformed CastelBrando employee whom we spoke with when planning our big day :)  I'm thinking that I'll like it here (even if I did have a little breakdown today when our cell phone quit working after we just paid for a 30-month plan), but it may take some time to adjust to the major changes in everyday life.  I'm learning how to deal and making some friends that I hope will make it just a little bit easier to be so far from home.  Until next time...

Can  you see his crazy rash here??  It was scary!