Today was a day of firsts–I had to navigate a telephone call to a courier to see when my package would be delivered, and Eric had to go solo in search of goodies for breakfast and lunch. Turns out no one knows when a package will be delivered here. Apparently, they could learn something from Amazon. Anyway, see there were these Italian shoes that were on sale, and I really had to have them. They are one of my favorite brands, and I could have gotten them in the US for 5x the price, so I ordered them in my size from the Italian sale site. No problem. They tried to deliver them Friday and Saturday, just missing us both times. So, I stayed around the apartment while Eric went out for his coffee and a mission to bring back some strudel for breakfast. I sent him with some helpful phrases–“Sprechen Sie English,” “cafelatte,” and “mitnehmen (to-go).” If you order a “latte” in Italy, you will get milk because that’s what latte means. Americans just shorten it and drop the coffee part. Anyway, apparently, no one spoke English. However, Eric is an accomplished pointer and knows 1-10 in both Italian and German, so I had confidence in him. He came back with a cappuccino and 2 pieces of strudel. Well done. The strudel was well worth his effort, if I may say so. By lunch the shoes still hadn’t come, so out Eric and Nate went with the mission to bring back meats, bread, cheeses, and fruit for a picnic of sorts. Meanwhile, I did some laundry and admired the view with the doors open and the cool air coming in. Again, no one spoke English, but Eric pointed and used his best number and food vocabulary and came home with bread, strawberries, raspberries, watermelon, salami, and cheese. It was quite nice. The shoes arrived, and they were totally worth it. After lunch, we wandered around and found Nate an Italian soccer jersey he had wanted and the kind of sunglasses he wants. He wants the prescription put in them, but we know the style and brand now for when we get home. We had a great dinner in a Biergarten with an amazing molten flourless chocolate cake for dessert. Tomorrow we head to Innsbruck.

Gus got to go on a field trip to the tiny country of San Marino, which is totally surrounded by Italy, and he is keeping busy with lessons and classes. He is in a tiny town where no one speaks English, so he’s getting to use all of the Italian he self-studied.