I love wine!

The past few days have been a blur. It is super humid here, sweating is just a natural part of life. They have air conditioners, but they are a lot like the refrigerators - cool things off a little but barely enough to notice. Nothin like luke warm milk in your cereal!
We're staying in a hotel room not far from base right now, the pictures are of the street right outside the hotel. We just found a house in little village about 10min away. The town is right at the foot of the mountains, they're a small part of the Alps range, but not nearly as big - just as beautiful. We won't be able to move in for a couple weeks (but that's okay since we won't have our stuff until late August anyway). It's definitely an old-style Italian house, just a few blocks from the town square, where they have the market once a week, I'm trying to learn my numbers quick so I halfway know how much I'm paying for stuff. I'll take some more pictures of it next week, we're going back to fill out paperwork with the owners who've learned most of their English playing farmville on facebook...fun!
So far the people are really friendly, if you attempt to speak Italian they seem to really appreciate it, and can speak English much better than they sometimes let on. We're working really hard on learning the language, we practice on each other at home as much as we can...so far Brown is way better than I am.
We went on a guided tour of the local areas/villages today with a program from base. They taught us how to buy bus and train tickets, eating etiquette (these people have three course meals for lunch!), and a bunch of other stuff. More importantly we did some wine tasting. I've always said I thought wine was liquid headache...but I honestly did not have one bad glass of wine today, even the dry champagne and red wines were good. I don't know what these guys do that's so different, but it works.
So far...I love this place. You can drive down the road and get fresh honey, bring your bottle or jug to the winery and fill it for a couple euro, it's even cheaper to buy fresh baked bread. Some of the food is a little different. Brown and I went with our friend Stacie to get some lunch the other day and he got a kick out of my face when the lady asked me if I wanted raw beef on mine pannini, seriously...not cool. You can stay dangerously American if you're not careful (I know, maybe I'll try the raw beef eventually), the shopping center on base feels just like walmart...and I've heard that a lot of the "wives" (such a weird group to be put in) hate it here. I've been warned that I'll have a hard time for the first six months or so, but I just don't see that happening. I already feel like our days are numbered.
Brown and I are trying to plan little weekend trips as often as possible, and longer trips whenever he has a few days off. We're going to do some local hiking this weekend, but I think we're feeling comfortable enough to head to Venice next weekend, at the rate he's going his Italian should be pretty good by then. It's about an hour train ride from here, now than we know how to buy a ticket, and the train is way better than trying to find parking, or driving for that matter...the laws and street signs are more like suggestions here.

I'll try to keep this current, I think once Brownie starts officially working I'll have more time on my hands...until I find out where the antique market is :)

*I'll be posting most pictures on facebook...it's much easier that way.