Holiday Blues part 2

We're not sure yet what was the motive concerning the mass shooting at a holiday party in California.  My heart aches for the victims involved.  I was messaging my friend in Italy about the current events taking place here in the States, as well as our city in Chicago.  The mood is dreary wherever you go.  She was mentioning that she's been in funk over there as well.  She misses her old life sometimes.  It must be hard being a foreigner in a new country. 
Back to recapping my trip.  At this point my visit was coming to an end.  Me and my friend made our way to Bari to go see the Grotte di Castellano.  We spent the whole afternoon there.  We were getting hungry since the tour to the caves lasted 2 hours long.  Luckily we brought along a change of clothes.  Since the temperature dropped to 57 degrees in the caves, it was hot outside in the 90s.  We wanted to get out of our layers and wear our day dresses.  I bought some dresses in town the day before for 5 euros each!  The local fair was happening and we checked it out to see if we could find some goodies.  My friend was telling me of the scandal that was happening in Italy.  Apparently, some of the clothes in these markets are made in China, but Italian vendors have been sewing tags saying they are made in Italy.  I will say, you can tell by the quality right away where the garment is made.  But since I'm no stranger to bargains, I still bought some budget friendly day dresses.  They were cute after all!
We drove past Monopoli and my friend suggested we check it out for dinner.  We've already been in Bari a couple of times and we wanted something new.  She heard good things about Monopoli so I trusted we were in for another adventure.  The parking situation was a little crazy, for in this town, there were a lot of no parking signs.  We didn't want to risk the car being towed, so we drove around for nearly an hour trying to find an ok spot we felt comfortable with.  We asked around for a good restaurant and they suggested Il Guazzetto Ristorantino.  We walked past it and it wasn't opened, yet (despite it being 7:30pm) but they gave us an 8pm reservation and told us to come back.  My friend joked that Italians eat dinner no sooner than 9pm so they knew right away we were tourists.  Who cares I wondered.  I was hungry now.  Waiting around for 30 minutes was not such a bad idea.  The man who took our reservation also mentioned that the restaurant was completely booked for tonight.  Our table had to be ready for other guests coming in at 9pm.  We told him we shouldn't take no more than an hour for sure.  He seemed ok with that at the time.
We did another passagiata in centro and loved Monopoli!  Lots of outdoor seating for dining and live music playing.  It was a Friday night and there were a lot of people walking around.  We walked over to the dock and people watched there.  We knew we had to go back to the restaurant soon so we didn't walk too far away.
The Il Guazzetto Ristorantino was officially opened!  There were people already inside getting to their tables.  We got a bottle of wine and ordered the specialty fish of the day with pasta of course.  My friend wanted il fruta di mare so we murdered that dish.  It was seafood heaven!
Me and my friend were enjoying our evening, drinking wine and finishing things up at the table.  We decided on no dessert since we wanted to try the gelato there in Monopoli.  Remember, every town does things differently!  The man who took our reservation came up and asked if there was anything else we would need and we graciously said no; everything was perfect!  Then he kindly reminded us that we had to leave.  The guests that had the 9pm reservation have arrived and he needs our table.  Well that's a first!  So much for great hospitality!  We got up and before you knew it, they started to clean up our table to make way for the new patrons.  A great food experience although we were rushed out of there.  This place is definitely high on demand on a Friday night!
We went to the gelato place to sober up a bit.  That wine got us a little tipsy.  Nothing like a double scooped gelato to sober you up!  We did another passagiata for the rest of the night before we headed back to town.  It was sad knowing I had to leave the next day.  This day was perfect...

Beautiful Monopoli!

Il Guazzetto Ristorantino!

Fruta di Mare!

My friend urged me to suck the head of a prawn.  She knew I was grossed out by this...

The fish of the day with pasta of course!

Holiday Blues...

I hope everyone had a great holiday!  It was just me and my brothers over my mom's place on Thanksgiving.  We kept it small this year.  My mom was pretty emotional.  I know she misses her husband very much.  It took me a second to realize so much stuff happened this year.  Looking back at my trip to Paris and Italy, I feel I was blessed to have recognized the beauty of both these 2 countries.  Now the state of the world is in constant threat of terrorism.  It doesn't even feel like Christmas is coming.  We shouldn't be feeling anxiety and anguish.  We should be joyful and grateful for everything we have.  Why does it have to be like this?
Since the Paris attacks, our country has suffered domestic terrorism as well.  Last week it was at a Planned Parenthood, today it was at a social services location in California.  I cannot help but feel I am living in a world that is not familiar to me anymore.  Maybe this type of thing has been around and I never noticed, or maybe I'm just getting older.  No matter how you look at it, I'm beat.
I pray that we can learn of ways to control our issues, anger, depression, etc.  Instilling fear in others is not going to solve anything.  Maybe we could learn from others on how to handle life's demanding tasks?  Follow their lead to living a healthy, promising life?  I know everyday I try to better myself and my thinking because it would hurt me to know that I make people miserable.  As funny as it sounds, it's true!  It's one of my insecurities!
Since I've been blogging, (and trying to catch up to my events), I've learned to appreciate the past.  I realize how far I've come to my personal journey in life.  Depression is my kryptonite, but I try my best to handle my situations so I could be stronger in moving ahead and not getting "stuck" in a unhealthy zone.  It's hard especially when the news have been nothing but tragic lately.  I suggest everyone "tune out" from time to time, and get away from the madness, even if it's as simple as not watching the news or logging into Facebook (or any social media) for a week.  I think it might do us all good for a change.  Let's face it, all we're doing is passing and sharing horrible things that have happened and it's not making the world a better place.  It's making the world a feared place.
Back in recapping my trip.  I left off me and my friend driving back to town from Sorrento.  My friend had an appointment in the morning, so we figured we'll keep it local that Thursday.  We ran some errands, went to the beach for an hour to work on our Italian tans, and made our way to our favorite gelato spot!  Looking back, it was a nice change to the hustle and bustle of trying to catch a ferry somewhere.  We slowed down to smell the roses and it was nice. 
My friend decided to throw another dinner party.  I helped out setting the table.  We enjoyed pasta di vongole.  It was delish.  It was nice.  Very relaxing vibes.  I miss it so much now.

I got the recipe from my friend.  Hopefully it will turn out like hers...

The next day my friend decided we should checkout some caves before I fly out.  It was now Friday, but I had to catch a train out late Saturday to Rome to catch my flight on Sunday.  Yup.  My trip was ending and we now had limited time with one another.       
 We drove back out to Bari to see the Grotte di Castellana.  These caves were formed over 90 million years ago, and is one of the natural wonders in Puglia!  There were people from all over the world visiting that day.  Luckily, we had the opportunity to catch the English tour.  We went deep into the caves for close to two hours.  It was pretty cold down there!  Considering the temps were in the 90s, the temperature inside the caves dropped down to 55 degrees!  We did bundle up since my friend warned me how cold it can get.  I learned so much that day.  Unfortunately they do not allow pictures to be taken, but I did sneak in a few at the entrance.  I enjoyed the tour very much and would highly recommend it.  You'll never think Italy has something like this!

The opening of the cave!  Once described as the entrance to hell since it's so deep down below sea level...

The calcifications from conformations are amazing!

Gorgeous colors throughout the caves!

My only selfie.  No more pictures could be taken as the tour continued...