Good.

Aside from sex, food is probably humanity’s greatest physical pleasure. While people are understandably reluctant to ask others how the sex was in other countries, they certainly ask about the food! So I took pictures of an array of foodstuffs (don’t worry, I won’t publish any sex pictures) we encountered during our trip to Italy. Well, there is in fact one sex pic below. Apologies in advance to my Mom.

Speaking of which, this is about as sexy as chicken gets! Actually, the reason for this picture is that this is a “chicken salad” as ordered from the menu. Granted, it was in an inexplicably inexpensive restaurant on the outskirts of Rome, but still. Technically it is a chicken salad, if the recipe for one is as follows: Dump some lettuce on the plate. Throw a piece of cooked chicken on top. Voila! Even I can follow that recipe!

This was part of the menu of said restaurant. Yes, two euros for a Pizza marinara and three for a Pizza Margherita, which is pretty much their pizza staple. And they were of decent size as well. Although after the chicken salad I wondered if the Margherita pizza simply consisted of some dough with a margarita placed on top. Which would have been a great deal actually, but I was still throwing up from my hangover so had no desire for another margarita.

You can’t go to Italy without eating some spaghetti. I think it’s illegal, actually. So Carolyn enthusiastically stuffs her face to prove she didn’t need to be hauled off to jail.

This is how you store leftovers while in an AirBnB. Plus it’s further proof that we ate spaghetti in case they raided our apartment to check.

By the way, after you eat spaghetti, do you refer to it in the pasta tense?

Our companions were on a quest to find the best gelato in Rome, even being willing to brave this madhouse. The jury is still out on which was the best. Guess we need more tasting.

Speaking of madhouses, welcome to the asylum! Actually this was a very nice Michelin-rated restaurant (although none of the food tasted like tires, for which I was grateful) with rain forest decor and the finest group of traveling companions we’ve ever had the pleasure of being with. At least in April of 2018. In Italy. In that particular restaurant anyway.

Just like the two euro pizza restaurant, their servings were actually pretty generous.

You’d be a cuddle bunny too if you’d just imbibed two gallons of wine (which is 1.15 stones in metric, which is also 11.5 pebbles, or 11,111,111.5 grains of sand).

I can’t tell if this is before lunch, but it’s definitely after the two gallons of wine. Our Dutch friend Astrid is checking with me to make sure Carolyn’s really going to be okay.

Pastries are a big thing in Rome. After a polite sharing of the pastry by Wilco (he’s from Holland, so of course we went dutch on all the food), I demonstrate the advantages of sporting facial hair. You get to taste whatever you ate for a long time.

Unless it’s fish. After one unfortunate experience, I learned that you shouldn’t keep fish in your mustache. Anyway, if this handsome dude had a mustache, it would be like a Hitler mustache, only sideways. He’s better looking than Adolph either way.

On a tour we were told that Rome is like lasagna due to all of its archeological layers. So I made sure to order lasagna at the next restaurant we went. Here, our friends are comparing the photos they took of their own food.

I think the food you’re raised on may be the most important determiner of what you’ll like to eat for the rest of your life. I mean, I ordered frickin’ lasagna in frickin’ the heart of Rome, and I still like my Mom’s better. Even if she did make it with 30% fat hamburger, tomato juice mixed with flour (because sauce was more expensive), and lasagna noodles she rescued from the dumpster. Just kiddin’. But I do love my Mom’s lasagna. And my Mom.

Burro soap. Who would’ve thunk? I thought maybe it was good for cleaning, you know, your ass. Except burro means butter in Italian, which I quickly discovered the first time I washed my hands with it.

Now for the sex pic! These are the penis cookies I was so generously given for kissing a bride and giving her two euros. I promise I won’t make a joke about the dark one being bigger.

Aperol is an Italian apéritif made of bitter orange, gentian (which is a flower), rhubarb, and cinchona (which is another flower), and a secret combination of herbs. So with all those ingredients taken from a garden, it’s an essential component to a healthy diet. Here Wilco demonstrates a typical nutritious Dutch lunch.

After enough Aperol you’re about ready to kiss anyone. Although who could resist a handsome dog like Wilco?

Wine with dinner. A must in Italy. Along with being with a woman who doesn’t object to having her butt pinched. By me anyway.

The Italians must like their sweets. This is a shop filled with nothing but clever ways to make sugar look better, because of course the taste is otherwise so bad.

And that’s no yolk.

Are my puns driving you bananas?

I’m not sure what these are supposed to be. But it’s either a barrel o’ fun or 450,000 calories, or both.

There’s no doubt that eating sugar in the shape of a pizza slice gives you all the nutritional benefits of, um, sugar.

If you throw these in your mouth you get to claim exercise points while eating sugar!

The gorilla wasn’t licorice. In fact, it tasted a lot like plastic (and the store clerk didn’t appreciate me licking her ape).

Gelato. The King of Desserts as far as I’m concerned. In Rome, there are one of these shops every twenty meters or so. I think it might be by law.

The Romans eat so much fart-inducing food that they have hotlines you can call if your partner’s farting (or confartigianato in Italian) gets out of hand.

This puffy pastry looks delicious but it ain’t no gelato.

For the holidays, such as Easter, they go all out with their confections. In this case, these go in like a lamb, but out like crap. Actually not like crap, just crap, just like everything else you eat. My Mom still thinks crap is a swear word. At least I didn’t use the word shit.

Carolyn, honey, this should’ve been our wedding cake!

I think a sugar alien popped out of that egg.

It takes a lot of bread to live in Rome.

Cappuccino. The King of Hot Drinks. As demonstrated here by my queen.

Now you can say you’ve seen a plate of authentic spaghetti as served in Italy. The next day we took a tour through the spaghetti groves where we watched them harvest Angel Hair Pasta.

Carolyn demonstrates the proper way to eat spaghetti in Italy. You have to be careful because the pasta police can show up unexpectedly at any moment and give you a ticket if you’re not eating it properly.

This is supposed to be a one-person pizza. Between that and stopping at a gelato shop every twenty meters, it’s no wonder we gained 2 stone! (That’s 27.8 pounds.) Okay, maybe not two whole stones, but plenty of pebbles.

I haven’t got quite enough in my mustache for the rest of the day yet, although I’m saving the whipped cream on my nose for Carolyn.

Unlike many of our travel companions, we aren’t “foodies,” although I’ll try just about anything. Except I don’t really care for bleu cheese (they can’t even spell it right), green peppers, panda, siamese cat, and anything that tastes like you’re licking a pier. Carolyn likes most anything too as long as it’s been cooked to blackened perfection (her mother overcooked everything, so there you go). But Italy was filled with tempting offerings, and we enjoyed virtually every one of them, even the burro soap.

Although I have to now give a shout-out to the pastries of Portugal, lest Portugal become jealous of our love for Italian food. Click here for The Prettiest Pastries in Portugal, and How to Recognize Them.

And that wraps up our Italian adventure!

What a rip off! They say it’s a leaning tower- but just look at this picture. It’s almost as straight as an arrow!

Of course, they say perspective is everything.

The production of the Tower of Pisa began in 1173, and took almost 200 years to finish. That’s why they named it Pisa, because it takes a lot of pizzas to feed two centuries worth of workers.

The structure began to sink in 1178, after construction had progressed to the second floor. This was due to a too-shallow three meter foundation which was set in weak, unstable subsoil. The fact that they used all those leftover pizza boxes for the foundation didn’t help either.

Ironically, the flaw that created the lean is what makes it an enormously popular tourist attraction. Which just goes to show you, sometimes it’s the flaws that make you beautiful!

Okay, now do you believe the thing really leans?

So here’s the real deal with the actual lean. It’s quite a remarkable-looking building, especially with its lean physique.

I suppose the residents take the tower for granted, but it’d be a pretty cool structure to see on your way to get groceries every day, even if it doesn’t look like it’s leaning from every angle.

They were kind enough to provide parking for jet fighters, so you can get there in any one of a number of ways apparently.

I don’t know how many of these people arrived via jet fighter, but there were sure plenty of ’em. Tourism in Italy seems to be thriving just fine.

Fortunately, Carolyn arrived just in time to keep the building from leaning further. Or is it “farther.” I hate those two words. Leaning “more.” That’s good enough. In Portuguese we just say “mais.” Mais leano.

Psh. Everyone saw what she was doing and so started posing for fake pictures to look just like it. But Carolyn is the only one really holding it up, as you can tell by comparing the two photos.

Those who haven’t visited Pisa may not realize that the area, called the Piazza dei Miracoli (Square of Miracles) doesn’t only consist of the Leaning Tower of Pisa, but also features the Pisa Cathedral, the Pisa Baptistry, and the Camposanto Monumentale (Monumental Cemetery), as well as a couple of museums. I can attest to the fact that the Square of Miracles works, because it sure seems like a miracle that we live in Portugal and can hop on a plane to Rome and Italy and Pisa and points beyond for the price of a nice dinner. Okay, maybe with a nice bottle of wine or two included, but that’s my kind of miracle!

The baptistry is in the foreground. Construction was begun in 1152. It is the largest baptistry in Italy.

This is the Pisa Cathedral, construction of which began in 1063. It is the largest cathedral in this picture.

This is Moses, or at least someone as old as him. Oh wait, the statue is of Moses. Ah, I thought you meant the other old bearded guy.

This piece is entitled Fallen Angel, and is a temporary piece of contemporary art on display in the square. It was original simply entitled Angel, but then, you know, it fell.

Inside the Cathedral.

These are the stairs that take you to the top of the baptistry.

We swear they were this worn down before we stepped on ’em!

And these are the views that greeted us once we made it to the top. That’s a lot of space just for sprinkling water on a baby’s head!

Although the other buildings are beautiful, the Leaning Tower of Pisa is the main attraction of course. You have to pay extra and make a reservation to climb up the tower, and so we did. Security was pretty tight; not even any little old bags were allowed. But they let Carolyn in. Phew!

This isn’t the way to the top.

This is.

Heights aren’t necessarily my thing. Actually, I’m not afraid of heights, per se, I’m just nervous about the landing.

Although I love the views you get from above. It’s like practicing being in heaven.

I don’t remember going into the tower the first time I visited Pisa, but the top of it sure rings a bell! Note how the bells look like they’re hanging a bit crooked, they’re actually hanging straight.

Bucket list: Check!