Holidays holidays holidays holidays....and more holidays! The last couple of months have been pretty busy with so much holidaying and "relaxing myself" (one of my favourite incorrect italian - english translations made by my students) and even "making my skin brown" by "taking the sun". Ahhh yes. Respect to all my students for helping me understand how to have a fantastic holiday Italian style!

So, a cunning plan concocted by Paul and myself some time ago was to ship me off to his relatives on the eastern coast of Italy to a town called San Salvo in a region called Abruzzo for some intensive Italian speaking, eating and tanning. So I went to stay with the lovely Anna-Maria and family for the first week of August and I believe I achieved all three goals.....yes, I even obtained a luke-warm tan.

I was very grateful to receive such warm hospitality and my own personal guide, Andrea, the youngest son, who had returned from university for the summer holidays. I easily slotted into his holiday lifestyle for the six days of my visit. Get-up when you wake-up, watch the Italian MTV channel over breakfast, go to the beach, lie in the sun, go for a swim, lie in the sun some more, go for a walk, go back home for the family lunch, have a siesta, get-up when you wake-up, go back to the beach.....as above.....then go back for the family dinner, go for a walk or go back to the beach bars for a drink, go home to sleep, get-up when you wake up, go to the beach....etc. etc.

It was interesting to partake in the Italian beach culture which to me, is quite different from the Australian culture. It seems like a much more ritualistic activity in Italy invovling being beautiful, renting a spot on one of the privately owned sectons of the beach (you rent an umbrella and beach bed for a month or two which remains your exclusive spot for the whole of summer if you want), and finally, being beautiful. There is then much concern with tanning - even little children have tans which can be a bit confronting for a pale-skinned aussie like myself coming from a culture obsessed with avoiding skin cancer. No baggy tee-shirts or one-piece bathing costumes for any female under the age of 50 to be found. My bathing shorts must have been a humourous talking point for those on the front row.

The Adriatic sea is completely calm given it's sheltered position so no body-surfing, boogie boarding etc. My surfing dreams are unfortunately yet to be realised ;) It was of no surprise then that the translation of "I'm going to have a swim" is "faccio un bagno" - the direct english translation being "I'm making a bath". So anyway, I got right into making my baths and making my walks. I even "made" a shower of two at home.

So we spent a lot of time umbrella-hopping....Andrea was well connected down on the beach so we had a choice each day of people's spots that we could crash. I did get a little tired of pop music being blasted out of speakers onto the beach and the circling advertising cars blaring out messages about pizzas etc. Gave me a strange feeling of being exposed to propoganda messages circa WW2 but Paul and I don't know where this association comes from....can't recall being around for WW2.....maybe it was a film?

What else? The food was amazing of course, including my first porchetta party experience with an entire roasted pig.

I also had a fantastic trip out to the tremiti islands with Andrea where we took a boat around the islands into caves and dived off at a secluded spot with perfectly clear water. However the highlight was returning to the mainland 10 hours later to discover that what was once a carpark when we left had been transformed into a market.....with Andrea's car now right in the middle of it! Damn these agriculturalist, cottage-industrial, impromtu, keepin' it local-style Italians! We sheepishly appologised to the stall owners before making a quick getaway down the middle.

All in all, a fantastic experience and I'm looking forward to my next trip down south!