This is a continuation of Italy Trip series. Here are the previous posts for Day 1, Day 2 and Day 3. The fourth day was pretty much the same as the other days as far as work was concerned. Lot's of time discussing topics and rehashing ideas in order to work out all of the finer details and come to a good consensus. Yep, the usual boring work stuff.
Lunch in the Cafeteria Since I have only a few items to talk about on this day I figured I would talk about some of the culture in the office. As my only experience for Italian lunches is this cafeteria I'll generalize but be forewarned that I am doing so. Lunch at the cafeteria is between 11:45am and 1:00pm. There are two lines but they serve the same food. The meals are definitely complete meals and everyone seems to get a plate full of food. As with dinner there are multiple courses but most of what I saw people do were to only choose two. There was the typical first course which was a choice of some sort of pasta or vegetables. Then the second course was some sort of meat. There were also salads, other side items and deserts but I didn't see the need for more food than the two many courses. The food itself was pretty good. Not as good as at the restaurants but better than most cafeterias I have encountered. The dining area was very typical in that it had long tables with many small and uncomfortable chairs meant to encourage people to eat and leave. There was an outdoor seating area with 6 or so tables with umbrellas that were on a patio overlooking the mountain lake and the vistas beyond. Of course because the weather was so wonderful those tables filled up fast so we were forced to sit inside for at least half of the time.
Dinner at Caracciolo One our Italian coworkers invited us to join him for dinner at a local restaurant/pizzeria named Caracciolo. I'm not certain if he is a regular there or has some sort of familial or other interest in the restaurant but we all went. As with the other meals everything was served family style and the food kept coming. Instead of having multiple courses there were a bunch of different dishes that all came out at about the same time. One dish was a seafood medley with muscles, shrimp, calamari, and fish. Another was penne with sausage. A third was a type of pasta that I have never had before and they used breadcrumbs instead of parmesan cheese. In fact, there were two bowl that came out with the dishes with one having parmesan and the other breadcrumbs. The food was great.
Italian TV We returned to the hotel rather early and we all retired to our rooms for the night. I was pretty tired as the long days and nights and the time zone shift was catching up to me. I got comfortable in bed and flicked on the TV. Italian TV is interesting because it is all in Italian. Other places in the world typically have channels that are broadcast in English (American English that is) and then would have the regional subtitles. But not here in Italy. They watch all of the American shows that we know and love but are completely dubbed over with Italian. The Simpsons is always interesting in other languages. There was a movie channel which I would say was like HBO™ except that the only movies I saw on there seemed like they were from the 80s. In fact on this particular night I came across The Hunger with Susan Sarandon and David Bowie. Of course I didn't know it was The Hunger until just now when I researched those two actors together. It seems like a really trippy movie and was even more so when I couldn't understand any of the dialog. It is now in my Netflix® queue.