Please Mr. Postman

After breakfast and laundry we mentally steeled ourselves for the inevitable visit to the post office. No visit to Italy is really complete without experiencing the Posteialia. Once Jim finishes watching his morning episode of Starscono and Hutchirini we take a breath and in we go. First, you take a number and wait until the screen lights up telling you which window to approach and then purchase the ominous yellow box..this time, size grande. We come back to the room and begin packing the box and filling out the paperwork and believe me there is a lot of it! Back to the post office, take a ticket, wait for the number and approach the window....lift the (grande) box over the plexiglass divider and ...what you can't ship clothes?... Only "new clothes"...but can we write new on the tag?.... No, retrieve the box and Jim's passport, get a new form and borrow some "scotch" so it will appear as though we have removed all the offending clothes, the redo all of the,paperwork and head back to the post office. This time everything passes muster and our mission is complete! Had some tasty Volterran soup as a reward. We had dinner at a local favorite. The Volterra EMTs were having some kind of get-together...boy can they eat! We had gelato to finish the night... Jim didn't get a cookie, he blames me.

We started the morning at the weekly market. I bought figs from a farmer who weighed them on an antique hand held scale...Jim had doubts it would pass the weights and measures certification. I had some copies printed at the internet point (can't miss out on Stitches registration!) We had tripe at the Da Bado for lunch, ok I had tripe, Jim had pasta...he's not that adventurous yet! We spent the afternoon exploring the city and actually found a neighborhood where we had never been; hard to believe in this tiny town! The ladies here at the hotel gave us a wonderful bottle of wine, so we took it up to the garden, behind the hotel and drank to the sunset. At dinner tonight a guy at the next table had some kind of frozen desert that they doused in grappa and lite on fire...very spectacular! They also brought out a bottle of grappa that was about 4 feet tall and 6 inches diameter ....it was huge! It was so big there was actually a spigot on the bottle. They also had the elusive Tartufo Nero. It was listed with the requisite asterisk. Here in Italy any food that is frozen must be listed on the menu with an asterisk...very informative when you are discussing the difference between frozen fish or veggies and the fresh counterparts...however a little redundant when you are contemplating an ice cream desert! Tomorrow we hit the trains for Levanto...