It's my last week in Italy and there is no better way to spend it than on the coast.

Virgil and I came back from the mountains on Friday, it was so much fun. We hiked, swam in the river and just enjoyed the view. The town was about 30 minutes from the Austrian border so almost everyone spoke German and the food was also German. We had wiener schnitzel, sausages, potatoes overload and excellent beer. It was perfect weather, we even had to wear sweatshirts at night, definitely needed after surviving the heat wave in Italy right now. We had Saturday to run errands and get some things done because Sunday morning we were off to the beach.

Virgil's friend Alessandro's wife is from the coast so all of their friends decided to come down for the week since they are still on holiday and hang out. We found a Ryanair flight for 17 euros- great, downfall-it left from bologna at 6:30 am. We woke up at 2:30 for the hour drive, drove like zombies to bologna, flew to Bari (the Italian mafia headquarters apparently) and then took a train to Foggia for Siro to pick us up. When we got here we were exhausted. Antonella cooked us a huge Southern Italian lunch of focaccia bread with olives, pasta, broiled ribs and pistachio ice cream. We slept for 4 hours afterward.

Last night we hit the town and went to a local concert which was so fun. There were tons of people out, we were a group of 8 or 9 and we met tons of people along the way. Great night.

The only problem- after lunch, Virgil and I weren't so hungry and forgot to eat dinner. Just now, we went down to breakfast, talking the whole way about what style we wanted our eggs, how we were going to choose between salty and sweet, we hadn't eaten in about 20 hours. It's a really nice hotel and we were clearly spoiled by the mountain lodge life with delicious homemade butter and cheese and fresh eggs. We walk in to a bright yellow room with neon pink chairs, bad 80s music and packaged croissants from the grocery store next to warm yogurt and stale cornflakes. After staring at it for about 5 minutes, still a bit drunk, we just started laughing. We purposely set our alarms for this? Our room has remote controlled window shades and a rain shower from the ceiling but no eggs? The staff kept reminding us all day yeaterday what time breakfast would end (implying there was a breakfast) for this? Epic dissapointment. We decided we are gluttons and needed this shock to the system anyway, and then went back to our robot room.

It's a bit rainy today so Virgil is watching a horribly dubbed American movie and seems to be enjoying it. I found a coveted "Economist" magazine in English yesterday and will read that to fulfill my world politics craving. Quick aside: please watch the Jon Stewart clip on comedy central.com from August 9th about Mitt Romney and Obama using bad election puns and Romneys new campaign spokeswoman . He NAILS it and calls out Fox news hard on being a bulls*** propaganda medium. You will want to stand up and applaud afterward.

Anyway, Romania is going through a coup d'etat right now so Virgil is a bit worried because his mom, dad and brother are there right now. We are trying to figure out how bad it is but not a lot of information is coming out. They changed the election laws so that Romanians living abroad couldn't vote ( works out perfectly because they are the only ones with access to the news and education you need to make an informed decision)so he didn't vote in the referendum on the president. It's getting sketchy in Eastern Europe and the Balkans again, they can never stay normal for long. I'm fascinated, Virgil is over it. I guess living under communism will do that to you.
Savoring my final week in Italy, leave for the Netherlands on Sunday!
Lindsey