Bits from Italy: MP’s view

The following post is courtesy of my wife, and “Movies 101” partner, Mary Pat Treuthart. She wrote this while I was trying to sleep off a nagging cold that a weekend touring Lake Como, Italy, didn’t cure:

Yes, TGWTDT movie was as good as the book (rather than the converse, as I am sure you recognize, you funny guy!)

BTW, oh intrepid blogger, if you just check on my iPad, you can also read the third Stieg Larsson book right now. Yes, downloading books from Amazon, etc., is the same price here in Italia as it is in the U.S. of A., which perhaps bodes ill for my two favorite bookstores in Firenze: the Paperback Book Exchange on Via dell Oche and Edsion on the Piazza della Repubblica. Usually by a week into my Florence stay I have filled up my frequent-buyer card at the Paperback Book Exchange.

I am not ready to abandon hard copy yet, however, as I discovered on the train returning from Como yesterday. I pulled out my iPad, pressed the button, and saw nothing but a black screen. Ooops! What happened???!!! Is it me or machine??? Che peccato! Hmmm. Then I realized. It was merely the fact that reading through my polarized Rayban sunglasses obscured the text. I guess they’re called “beach books” for a reason.

We are coming to the end of a four-day gelato festival in Florence. And you thought every day was a gelato festival in Italia? D’accordo! Posts from previous years have highlighted our favorite Italian gelaterie including Caribe for pistacchio and granite, Festival del gelato for berry flavors, Grom for convenience to our apartment, Vivoli for riso and gianduia, Carrerria for straciatella, Perche No for the name, Dei Neri for creamy texture. But we had an amazing pompelmo gelato in a little Sicilian neighborhood in Como this weekend where popcorn-flavored gelato was also featured - though, to be frank, we didn’t have the nerve (or stomach ) to try it.

Stay tuned because the ex-pats are already lining up for the premiere of SATC2, which begins Friday, June 4, at the Odeon Theatre in Florence. Where can a girl find a decent cosmo in Florence by the way?