Bella has an outing

Bella met online a South African college student named Adam who is also vacationing around Europe this summer. They enjoyed chatting with each other so much that they explored the idea of getting together for a date in Italy, each meeting halfway. So the girl who a year ago wasn't sure about flying by herself, planned to get on a train by herself and ride for three hours to meet a guy she'd never met in person. That's brave! I suspect that it's the kind of thing that if she didn't do it, she'd regret it. So best to do it and add it to the list of experiences.

The train station was about a 40-minute drive from our place, so we headed out about 6:45 am (I let Cristina sleep). She made her train in time and assured me that she'd send us updates so we'd know she was safe and sound.

Back at home, we had a leisurely morning. I got the CD player figured out (there's a decent collection of music here...a lot of the same stuff I listened to in high school and college) so I played some music while we ate breakfast. I worked on my blog some. Later on we turned the TV on and I fell asleep on the couch (I only got about 5 hours of sleep the night before).

View from the living room. All the doors had sliding screens, which was great for crossbreeze

Cristina and I finally got motivated to have an outing ourselves. We walked down to Barlá, a local establishment. We got drinks and sandwiches (I got a focaccia, Cristina got a piadina, which is like a wrap). When we were trying to ask questions about the menu, the bartender finally told us to wait and went outside. She came back in with a customer, an older woman, who is an English teacher here in Arlate. She kindly answered all our questions.

Barlá had swings inside

We walked around the village. We found a well which was built as a gift to the city forever ago. In the 50's, the women would bend over to do their wash and expose their legs, so they built a wall around it for privacy.

Our apartment from a distance

We made our way to the church which is literally right beside our apartment. In fact, where we park the car is right beside the drive that goes to the church. It looks like a slightly more modern church, and by modern I mean maybe only built within the past 200 years. In Italy, that's modern!

Since we had an afternoon without Bella, we drove to another church (Bella's burned out on churches) that had a spectacular view. The inside of the church was nothing special, not nearly as ornate as the others we've seen. But the outside views made up for it.

View from the church

On the way home, we decided to try a new grocery store for some dinner and breakfast items, but with a conscientious effort to not overbuy, as soon we will have two more people in our car. We went to a Conad and got some things to finish off some of the ingredients in our fridge. Basically, we were doing another tuna toss. I forgot a buy a lemon at Conad, so we stopped at a Euro Spin, which I thought was a laundromat, but it's another budget grocery store. The line was super long, and I was only buying an avocado and a lemon. The guy in front of me let me go before him, which was great since we had ice cream from Conad in the car.

After dinner, we were invited by the neighbors (Luca and Adele) to come over for wine and cheese. They were great hosts, serving up a variety of meats and cheeses and one of Luca's absolute favorite wines. We chatted about our trip and Luca gave us suggestions for things to do on Lake Como. He recommended the ferry. We got a message from Bella that her train was about 30 minutes from Bergamo, so we said our goodbyes to Luca and Adele and headed out to get Bella.

We both drove to Bergamo to pick up Bella and on the drive back she told us all about her date. The short version is that it went really well and she's glad they did it. Back home, she ate some leftover tuna toss and we chatted around the table until it was time for bed.