Wake Me Up.. I Live Here?!

All I can say is, WOW. The last 24 hours have been a complete whirlwind. After packing my life up into two suitcases, I was en route to Venice! D and I had been apart for over 6 weeks, so I was so ready to be back with him. After a surprisingly mellow plane ride over and a quick layover in Zurich, I had arrived! My handsome husband was there, flowers in hand, to get me and I couldn't have been happier.

Our house isn't far from the airport and just driving the 10 minutes through the countryside I couldn't stop talking about how much I already loved Italy (D laughs because I can always make my mind up about a place within roughly 3 minutes).  This was just my second time in Italy, having been about 7 years ago on my first Eurotrip, but I had forgotten how absolutely beautiful it was. Our house is in Mestre, the mainland area of Venice, located about 15 minutes from the canal areas. When I asked D about our house, he just said "well theres a lot of halls and rooms everywhere" and I didn't understand what he meant until I got here. I feel like we live in a labyrinth and although it's not big, I still have gotten lost several times. It's quite different from the "open concept" living Americans love. 

Our neighborhood is really cute filled with a lot of charming, old Italian style villas, while ours is the only one that looks like it could be taken out of any city in America (go figure).  I'll post more pictures of the interior after I get it looking like it hasn't been a bachelor pad for the past six weeks (which it has). Don't worry, I'll include shots of the epic Austin Powers couches in the living room that look like they were hijacked from a Miami nightclub. Anyways, I am in love with our neighborhood. There are so many cute restaurants and bars and we are a quick walk to the Mestre center which has a mall, and a beautiful downtown area. 

Our new home.. the labyrinth.

A gorgeous Church on our street

Love this cafe around the corner <3

After getting settled in last night, we decided to go into Venice for dinner. There's a train that runs right from our city into the Venice area but we decided to drive instead. We parked our car and D lead me around the 400 bridges and dark sketchy corridors into the most beautiful city I've ever seen. I'm not sure what I was on the first time I came to Venice to not remember this feeling, but I was left completely speechless this time around. It was a totally surreal experience, being with D in this gorgeous place and thinking "holy shit.... we actually live here". I'm so overwhelmed with gratitude thinking about how lucky we are that D gets paid to do what he loves and that basketball has taken us to live in some pretty incredible places. (Side note: Screw Paris.. Venice is the most romantic city on Earth.)

I mean....there are worse places to live

Could there possibly be a more beautiful place to eat?

We stopped for Cicchettis (Venetian version of tapas) and wine in a small hole in the wall restaurant where I was almost moved to tears after tasting the best meatball of my life (sorry Mom). Those of you who know my Mom understand my absolute devotion & appreciation towards true Italian cooking. She learned to cook growing up as the only Irish family in a predominately Italian neighborhood and it's her authentic Italian cooking that has made it impossible for me to be impressed by any "Italian" restaurants in the states. Hers is just that good, period. D & I are complete foodies and will try just about anything, so we were clearly stoked about living in (arguably) the most famous gastronomical country in the world. I complimented the owner on his meatballs (that sounds way dirtier than it should) and he told me he would e-mail me the recipe. I died a little inside and decided I was never, ever leaving Italy.

After dinner, D took me to get gelato at one of the 10,000 gelaterias he had already conquered. He told me a teammate had to talk him out of going to two different gelato shops back to back the week before, arguing that he had two hands for a reason. I love this man. Anyways, the gelato was life changing and I couldn't stop thinking about how many burpees it would take to burn off all that I had consumed that night. Luckily, we tracked our walking and had trekked about 3.5 miles within a couple hours, so that somewhat helped ease my guilt.

The start of a beautiful relationship..

I somehow managed to sleep through the night, in spite of the 6 hour difference, and woke up ready for my second day in Italy! We went into Mestre for lunch and to our surprise, they had a huge international food festival with different vendors set up from all around the world (kinda hoping this is a weekly thing). Lavender from Provence, Austrian pretzels, Guinness on tap, Russian caviar and French cheese, among other goodies, were lined up down the Mestre Center. There was even "Cannabis Flavored Energy Drinks" from Holland, which kind of sounded contradictory if you asked me but who am I to judge. 

Cannolis in the making..

Post indulging in all of these goodies (cannabis excluded), we headed to the grocery store. It's always a fun/interesting experience for me to go to the grocery store for the first time in a new country, to see what i'll be able to find and not find over here. Unfortunately, D isn't always patient during this process,  so I decided to wait to thoroughly check the place out on my own. (I lose him EVERY.SINGLE.TIME we go into any grocery store, but luckily, he can predictably always be found in the chip/beer aisle ). 

yes, yes and yes.

D had to leave this afternoon for an away game but he'll be back tomorrow and we will head to Florence for two days since he has a couple days off! I remember Florence being my favorite part of Italy so I am absolutely ecstatic.

Mestre, city center

I am so excited about what this year has in store. I've promised myself to make the absolute most out of living here this season and I'm sure I'll have many hilarious stories to come. Thanks so much for reading :) 

A little preseason photoshoot for this cutie ;)