Ciao Bella.

Sarah saying goodbye to Chanel, the most awesome dog in the world.

Yesterday was a sad day. We said ciao to one of our dear friends, Sarah. After being in Europe since May, she feels the desire to go home to her American comfy couch and rest. I guess working on French vineyards for two months kind of takes it out of you?

So we drove to Milan to drop Sarah off at the airport, and it seemed that everyone was leaving Italy. The traffic just to drop her off at the terminal was about a 20 minute wait, and Sarah was stressing about making her flight. However, that did not stop us from getting some departing shots with our love.

 On the way to the airport, we stopped at an Italian pastecierria, or pastry shop. It was funy because Anna dropped us off so she could go get gas, and the three non-Italian speaking Americans were stuck trying to buy sweets in Italian. The lady who was trying to help us thought she could speal English, but she definitely could not. We were soon saved by Anna, and we were quickly on our way with a tray full of sweets.

I wish this was my breakfast everyday.

Strawberry Tart.

After successfully dropping Sarah off at the airport, we made our way back to Seriate. The drive was not that bad, except we almost got hit by crazy Italian drivers about twice. Once we were home, we were informed we were invited to a backyard BBQ down the road.

Did we object to free food? What do you think?

The food looked like a typical American BBQ, but tasted a lot better. There is just something about how natural and strong all of the ingredients in Italy are, they are just so pleasing to the palette. The smoked cheese in the background was by far our favorite item, next to the Ukranian pork specialty made by a sweet Ukranian woman.

Ok, this man in the background was soooo weird. He kept staring us down the whole meal, and saying really odd things in English to us. I guess he though he was cool? I don't know. I do know we were really happy to leave. The people there were staring us down the whole time, and this one guy who kept talking to us about Denver in broken English even took a picture of us...

After our tummies were full. Never a bad thing.

Bellisima.

Anna's mom is in the background. She is pretty much a baller. Even though we can't communicate with words, we seem to understand each other's facial expressions and hand gestures. She is so sweet, and one of the best cooks in Italy. Don't worry Mom, she still has NOTHING on you :).

Andrea, Anna's dad, thought it was really funny that we were taking pictures. He expressed his desire to be in a shot, and gave us a kissy face. This is the end of the kiss, but you can still get the general idea. He really likes to call me Andreas, even though there is no "s" on the end of my name. Anna has tried to tell him this numerous times, but for some reason "Andreas" is permanently stuck in his head.

Well, we left the BBQ shortly after eating because it was so weird. There was a pool, one guy was swimming, they were blaring disco music, some people thought it was hilarious to shout weird things in English at us, one guy kept asking us if we knew the pharmacuetical company called "Abbot" in Denver, Colorado, the weird man in  the first picture kept looping around to our table, and we just felt really out of place. Thankfully, Anna recognized this as a weird social gathering, and we were allowed to walk home by ourselves.

When we arrived at the house, we changed clothes, and laid down for a short nap. This short nap ended up being 4 hours long. Ahhhh, it was wonderful and very much needed.

After the nap, we all wanted to go running. 3 pizzas in 3 days will definitely affect the way one feels about oneself haha. So Anna led the way to this park, and told Kate and I to stay on the path, always taking a right. The path did't loop around, so she said to just turn around after we ran 30 minutes, and come back. Anna was planning on doing the same.

I guess we didn't take into account numerous details prior to this adventure, but we soon realized a couple key things. One: Kate and I decided to run ahead so we could run faster, since we need to get in shape for our preseasons in a month. Two: we started running around 8, and didn't realize how far away from Anna's house we were going. Three: there were no lights on this path, it went straight through Italian countryside, behind smelly farms and in front of rivers. Four: the path was not ver populated, unless you can count the 23 bunny rabbits we saw jolt across in front of us. Five: we never specified with Anna where and when we would meet back up with her. Six: we did not realize just how far a person can run in an hour, especially at the pace we were going.

So, Kate and I ran for thirty minutes one way, and then we turned around on the path to run back. Kate did not realize that the path didn't loop around, and was freaking out about having to run that whole way back. I assured her she could do it, that she was a beast, and that we weren't going very fast at all. She was relieved.

However, we were not relieved to see how dark it was getting, that there were no people on the path, and that it was now lightening. At one point, we had to run  through a pitch black tunnel that was underneath some road. What did the two terrified, tired, and troubled American girls do? We decided, in order to scare off any potential hidden attackers that may be awaiting us in the tunnel, that we would run as fast as we could, while yelling our heads off. We figured the echoes of our voices would disorient the attackers, and we could run to the safety of the fading twilight.

After reaching the initial part of the path, where we originally split off from Anna, we began to freak out. It was raining, it was about 10pm, Anna was nowhere to be seen, and there was a creepy, lone car resting underneath the overpass. We began yelling for Anna, but we could not find her. We didn't know if she had been abducted, been hurt, or just gone home.

We were really scared and just kept praying for Jesus to keep her safe, guide us home, and protect us from anyone driving down that back road who might like some extra company of two teenage girls. Not only did we not speak Italian, not only were we dressed in blatant American clothing, not only was it starting to rain, not only were we exhausted from the 6 3/4 miles we just ran, but we weren't exactly sure how to get home from the path.

However, Jesus proved to be faithful and guided us home, as I remembered little landmarks from the run there. We were only whistled at, honked at, and yelled at a couple of times on the way home, and no one tried to stop and talk to us. When we got to Anna's house, we were greeted by her mother, and did not know how to ask whether or not Anna was there.

Just when we were about to reallyyyyy freak out, Anna walked out of the hallway, and we yelled in relief. She explained how worried she was about us, and we told her how worried we were about her. There had been some miscommunication betwen us, and Anna had apparently just ran home when she was finished on the path.

No one was kidnapped. No one was hurt. Everyone was ok. Thank you Jesus.

That will be the LAST time we run that late. Oh gosh, yes it will be.

We ate a yummy dinner of vegetables and mozzarella cheese, and slept like babies.