Milan II

The second half of our day was dedicated to meeting with FAMILY!!!!!
A couple of years ago, one of my aunts that used to live in Venezuela, moved with her family to Italy and I just could not pass the opportunity to see them.

She really isn't  my aunt. She is my mom's niece of some cousin of the aunt that is related to a grandmas, or something like that. In Peru though, we are all cousins or aunts and uncles. So, no need to figure out the exact branch or twig you belong to, in Peru all it matters is that you belong to that tree.
 It's better not to look to closely, if you do, then my parents are related! (that might explain my brain!)

Our meeting place!
Yes, it is a McDonald's
Yes, those look like ATM machines, but they are really machines to place your order, then you go inside to pick up. Clever!
No, even though I thought so for a while, we were not eating there, it was just a meeting place.

You see, my aunt (the lady with the gorgeous smile) LOVES to cook, and she is really good at it. I thought it was weird to meet at McDonalds but I also thought they were living at their work, so we couldn't meet them at their place.

Well I was wrong, after we met with everyone. Karen, my cousin (amazing hair girl) and her boyfriend came to meet us after work and then Victor (the shadow that you see is actually my uncle!) met us at then left to get my little cousin.

Victor, aka "El negrito" Yes, he believes he is all THAT! man,he's funny.

My cousin's boyfriend and aunt made us some arepas. Oh the girls were SO happy!!

And just because they didn't know how addicted our kids are to arepas, and how in love they already were with them, (since they kept carrying them everywhere) they showed us the ..........
..........bathtub!

Turtles!!!!!! Oh my goodness, you should have seen Victoria's face,she was going to DIE of excitement.

She got to feed them and then Victor was trying to impress her with his muscles,but well, she ignored him, just like everyone else!

Then Elena came in and that is all they did.

This is how we ended the night! We had to scoot them in so we could sleep too.

After our fun evening we decided to skip our trip to Pisa and just go to Venice because one afternoon was just too short to visit our family.
*Trip to Venice to come*

Here is what happened that lovely Sunday.

Pulpo getting all ready to come and join his friends down below.

In case you are unfortunate to know. That (above)my friends is Ceviche in the making. *mouth watering*

Mr Boyfriend, now Mr Fiancee! making "Chicharron" which is the fish but fried with a coating of eggs and bread crumbs.

Cancha! (corn kernels all toasty) they don't pop like popcorn, they are Peruvian corns.

Luisa's first solid meal HAD to happen in Italy, so here she is about to devour her Italian Antipasto.

To be honest with the world, her first taste of food besides Mama's organic, farm fed and fee range milk was....... Gelato., raspberry :-)
Ok, in my defense, she was screaming so loud I got a call from Saudi Arabia! and well.... she is so cute..... and... I was afraid the double chin would dissapear!!!
and if you think about it, when she's 15 years old and her sister are talking about the time we all went to Venice and she get all "but I don't remember, I was just a baby!"
I can tell her, "but I let you have Gelato!"

Papas a la Huancaina! We drove so fast, got up super early and left Venice, just so we could have this guy for lunch!

and these guys too.

and the Primo!

That my friends is Rocoto, a spicy pepper sauce to make you  mouth burn!!!

And just because you didn't realize how dangerous it was to put abunch of Peruvian in Italy. Here is dinner.
Please take not that it took us about 2hours to eat lunch. Burp!

We did a lot of talking and got to watch my aunt play Volleyball with her team and then Daniel played soccer with his team too. Sadly they both lost but, I felt like a little kid again, we used to spend our Saturdays watching my Dad play soccer and eating big meals with our families. I loved it all.
Oh man, I'm hungry!