Day 13-14: Pescara

We arrived in Pescara on Saturday night. From the train we walked down the main strip to Rafael's place and were shocked to see how many people there were. Not only the amount of people, but the amount that were window shopping. Tim and I had never seen people line up at windows to observe the new fashions. Apparently it's true, fashion is a big part of the Italian culture. We went to bed following a cigar and were up for a jog on the beach the next morning.


The plan for Pescara was to hang out for a few days. Rafael's brother in law was having a birthday dinner, and we wanted to see Rafael's restaurant, Julius. The night prior to the birthday dinner, we set out on Rafael's bikes to tour around Pescara. The weather agreed and we had a great day of sun and exercise.




We were excited and perhaps a little intimidated at the dinner prospect in the evening. Around 20 or so of Rafael's brother in laws friends, most of which speak only Italian, were going to be there. However, once we arrived and met everyone, we felt at home. I've never been to a dinner like this before, the way people communicate is much different than most Americans I'm used to. Communication was much more of a physical thing, using hands and expressions much more than Americans. Even though I couldn't understand much of what was being said, I couldn't help but smile and laugh along with the people. It was quite an experience. Now to the meal, plates and plates of food kept coming. Some of the dishes included:

Raw squid, large shrimp halves, slices of red snapper, crab with parsley,

Sea snails, big plates of shrimp, clams,

Giant calamari, raw oysters,

Metzamanica (ziti) with shrimp red sauce

Linguinie clams with olive oil

Whole baked fish, shrimp skewer, sting ray tail, calamari kabobs

Theses were just to name a few, some of the things I didn't know the names or know how to describe them. To sum it up, it was delicious and over the top. We ended the night with cigars as usual :).