terracina - http://picasaweb.google.com/pat.gazzolo

I was wrong about the World Cup celebrations in Italy. When we arrived in Rome monday evening, the partying was in full effect. There were kids every where downtown, with beer in hand. It was a spectacle.
We stayed the night in downtown Rome before heading south to Terracina. My mom's friend, Giovanna, has an apartment downtown and she is an astrologist...so Michael and I learned a lot about our zodiac signs and psychic numbers, etc.
Tuesday morning we took the train south to Terracina. My mother grew up in this place and it was her first time back in 18 years. She had a lot of catching up to do with old friends. For Michael and I the old friends equated to copious amounts of wine and free meals. We also had to go through the same routine like 30 times, my mom would pull out the photo album and show the pictures of the rest of the family. That always resulted in the same conversation coming up. By the end, her friends thought Michael understood Italian. But he didn't, he just had heard the conversation like 30 times.
One of my favorite afternoons was with Nevio, just imagine this huge typical Italian guy with a grey beard and rosy cheeks (very Pavarotti like). We had been swimming on his beach and had up for lunch. My mom and his wife were not around and he immediately starts telling me, "how its too bad there was only one topless woman on the beach. Yesterday there were two and they were awesome." He also asked me if I saw the two lesbians making out on the rocks in the water. He was pantomiming the whole scene to michael and I. All of this was in italian, so I'm translating it to Michael as he is telling us. We were interrupted by the return of his wife and the start of lunch.
Another old friend of the family, Massimo, put us up for the duration of our stay. Massimo owns a restuarant/wine bar (emphasis on the wine). Every night we would hang out at the bar and he would bring by some cheese or wine or a dessert. He also let us borrow his car to drive around. Its a 97 Volvo 460, available exclusively in Europe. I love old Volvos.

Terracina used to be my summer playground up until I was 5 years old. In 1988 my grandparents sold their houses and ended up moving to the U.S. I hadn't been back since. A lot of the vague memories I had of the old home and the town were refreshed.

Sidenotes:
Pictures are up. http://picasaweb.google.com/pat.gazzolo

I'm using an italian keyboard, some keys are in different places, so I don't know if my apostrophes look fucked up or not.

The tobacco store is the best place to get postcards in Europe.