A wedding in Italy

When I last left you we had traveled to the south east of Italy for a wedding.
The whole point of the trip was the wedding right?

Soverato is a bit like Old Orchard Beach, its a tourist town. Its actually a bit smaller than OOB and I'd say its a tourist town for Italian tourists, not the kind of spot I'd expect North Americans in. English was uncommon which I think is one of the scary and fun things when traveling. We got lots of opportunities to pantomime and gesture. I also quite like not being exactly sure what will happen next. What is this thing that I'm being served? What will it taste like?

The wedding was on the beach, well at the beach. It started to sprinkle just as we arrived so they opted for "plan B" which was under cover although they did get pictures on the beach.

You can see the two photographers here, they were madmen. I've worked at a few weddings and I've never seen photographers like these guys, they were literally everywhere. Kurt tells me they have thousands of pictures.

I had asked Kurt about the dress code for the wedding and he bemoaned that Victoria was making him wear pants. Everybody was pretty casual which was fun. A few months later they had a ceremony in Massachusetts and we all dressed up more, unfortunately that day was stinking hot.

Angie and I thought that this room full of food was dinner and had a couple plates worth, it turns out that this was actually the appetizers...

This is the dinner menu for those who can read Italian.

And for those who cannot.

 I had more octopus in 3 days than I've had in the rest of my life put together.

Proof that Angie ate octopus.

Not everyone was so adventurous. Johanna got special chicken tenders.

The fish was amazing!

 After dinner the appetizer room had been converted to the desert room.

Amazing right?

There were the normal speeches and such but of course I had to get in. Angie and I started dating in 1996 (gads that seems so long ago) and I think the first family gathering I attended would have been Easter '97. Kurt and Johanna would have been quite young.
Angie and I used to always bring toys for Kurt and Johanna at Christmas. We stopped doing it at some point and I think some of the joy went out of Christmas. So while we were out wandering around I picked up some Kinder Joy eggs. I actually wanted Kinder surprise eggs but couldn't find any, they're illegal in the US...

I presented the eggs to Kurt, Victoria and Johanna and apparently a lot of people thought I was a high point for the night. It proves you don't have to spend a lot of money, or really think things through to make people happy.

Next time: Sorrento and the Charming Accommodation!