Day 5 - Going To Town

Hi folks!
Today I give you the 5th day of my Italy diary. I expect you may be finding it a bit boring by now, but for all I know you could be loving it! You don't comment, so how am I to know?? Hehehe...

Today, after waking up and enjoying another breakfast of pancakes, we all clambered into the car and headed off for the town of Umbertide to get some much-needed supplies. Umbertide is the nearest substantial town to La Selva, and last year we spent a lot of our time shopping there, not least because there's a fantastic ice-cream place in the centre that supplies a whole rage of flavours.
So we started off by trying to find a bookshop in the centre so we could get a map for Dad, but it turned out to be closed on Monday mornings. Instead, we had to make do with anything we could get from the Tourist Info across the road. Luckily they managed to provide some quite useful maps and guidebooks, and we can always get some more at another time. Next Pete tried to top up his mobile, whilst I had a quick scan of a magazine stall, but nothing really caught my eye. With no other shopping to be done in the centre, we headed to the ice-cream place where I got a bowl of custard and cherry flavours, as well as some grape juice. Whilst I wasn't convinced the custard one was that accurate, both were very sweet and refreshing, even if it did attract the wasps!
After a brief look around the Italian version of the Really Useful Shop, we jumped back in the car and drove to the Co-Op supermarket on the outskirts. After a brief hunt for a nearby bike shop which ALSO turned out to be closed (even after I'd asked for directions in Italian!), the others began shopping in the supermarket while I, expecting to probably just get in the way otherwise, explored the shop on my own. I ended up looking for, among other things, some yeast and some dried porcini mushrooms which I had to ask one of the staff about. To be honest, there were so many Brits in the supermarket it probably wouldn't have mattered whether I spoke in English or Italian, but I made the effort to speak in the native language.
Eventually, we loaded our €200 worth of shopping into the car and made our way back to the house. I hepled unload and opened some windows in my room, and before I knew it salady lunch was on the table again! I tucked in eagerly, and helped to tidy the same. Once all was sorted, Dad showed us how he could put his cycling routes onto Google Earth, even without an Internet connection! How clever is that?! We also had a look through the photos we'd taken so far, including Pete pulling some funny faces, Mum's squirrel impression and some incredible panoramas. At about this time the biggest ten-minute storm in the history of everything everywhere ever (so far) broke out, thunder growling overhead, the driving rain soon becoming hailstones the size of large grapes! I hurried to close up the windows I'd just opened, and then watched from the safety of the kitchen.
The storm soon eased off and I sat in the loggia updating my diary. I was quite far behind, so this occupied most of my afternoon. At about half five, I walked out to the Tower again, but it wasn't very enjoyable, because the rain had obviously brought out even more flying insects of various sorts, which kept getting in my face the whole time! No matter how much I swatted them away, thousands more kept coming back! What is the point of flies? They hardly do anything apart from annoy us and feed spiders, and I'm sure the spiders could find something else to eat.
Anyway, once I'd got back, it was time to make dinner! It was only spaghetti, but with a home-made sauce. After a while, Pete joined in as well, which was a bit of a shame. Nothing against him, but I prefer cooking on my own. At least we could get it done quicker with two of us. Apart from forgetting the mince, I think we did pretty well. It wasn't the best pasta ever, but it wasn't bad. Mum followed this up with a bowl of fruit (yay, fruit again!), including some rock-solid peach, which didn't really seem edible to me, no matter how much Mum reassured us.
So, with dinner and clearing-up out of the way, we all settled down to watch The Matrix Reloaded. It's been a while since I saw the first film, so it took me a while to remember what happened and who everyone was, but the fight scenes were still incredibly well-choreographed and, considering it was made all the way back in 2002, the special effects were breathtaking. It was a lot stranger than the first one, and quite hard to get your head round what was real and what was a computer program, and why there were lots of Mr Smiths, and stuff. But as long as you don't think about it too much, it is definitely a must-see.
So, once it had finished, we all dispersed and got some sleep. Or tried to. Unfortunately the many bites on my feet and legs kept rubbing together, and as a result I didn't get to bed for a very long time.

Man, those bites were serious! It was as though something had been munching on me all day... Ah well, at least SOMEONE finds me tasty! Hehehe... Check back another time for more Italy antics!

See ya 'round!

Jack