Sabaudia - Day 2

We woke up to another beautiful day. With the shutters of our hotel rooms pulled closed everyone slept in. It was very nice having breakfast in the hotel's garden. Avery and Olivia ran around a bit; I downloaded my emails; Charlotte was doing Sudoku; and Josh read the paper. Soon enough, we changed into our swimsuits, and were off to the beach. Olivia obliged us by trying on the new "string bikini" that she'd received as a birthday gift, but she refused to wear it. Who knew she was such a modest girl? The bikini has hearts on it and looked super cute on her -- too bad.

We swam, we walked, we ate. We theorized about the weird guy running the beach club and food shack. We were getting our fill of strange people in Sabaudia; or more accurately, we are starting to see the non-functioning version of Italy. For instance, yesterday, we inquired about the specials hand-written on a large white-board behind the counter at the "food shack." The proprietor informed Josh that those were from the day before, but he had yet to erase them. But today, the same specials -- that are no longer available -- were still written on the white-board. Apparently, the proprietor has been so busy that he hasn't had time to erase the specials for two days now. In fact, when we arrived at the beach today, and the proprietor assigned us our lettinos, he mentioned to Josh that should he know what we'd like to eat for lunch ahead of time, that would be helpful because often at lunchtime he is busy. Can you even understand the nonsense of that statement? Maybe you had to be there, but trust me the guy is nutty.

As we settled in to our lettinos, we took notice that all the guests were crammed on one side of the beach while the other half remained empty. Why wouldn't the proprietor allow the guests to spread out instead of sitting on top of each other? Because the Italians like it that way -- the closer you are to your beach-chair neighbor, the better the people watching. Besides, in the summertime, with all the Italians on vacation at the beach, everyone is used to being three inches from their neighbor because that's the way it has to be.

In the afternoon, Charlotte and Olivia met some other girls from the Ambrit school in Rome. They are from Belgium, and good English speakers. Somehow Olivia becomes much less shy when English is spoken -- even though her Italian, when applied, is perfectly good.

When it was time to leave the beach, we showered and packed up at Il San Francesco. Just as Josh and I were heading downstairs to check out, Avery came running in with Olivia who reported that he had fallen into the Lake. Avery was soaking wet and one of his shoes was missing -- still swimming in the water while Charlotte was trying to rescue it (she succeeded and Avery got his shoe back).

We hit the road just past 5pm and, despite all the warnings about the terrible traffic we'd encounter if we tried to re-enter rome before 9pm, it wasn't bad. In fact, we made it home in two hours. Now, with a bare refrigerator, the question was what to do for dinner? I managed to put together some peas, caprese salad, pasta and a scrambled eggs with ricotta. Not bad. In fact, a lot better than last night's meal in Sabaudia!

Aside from the bizarre folks down there, I really liked the beach in Sabaudia and would go back in a minute. It'd be my "go-to" beach if I were a Roman.