ay CARAMBA!

Tonight we watched what is now my favorite episode of "No Reservations" ever. Bourdain (not a single crochety moment in the whole ep!) & Co. in Venice ... every building, every meal, every glint of color off the polluted canal water is beautiful. So beautiful you really are torn between booking a trip immediately - and honestly, sincerely not wanting to stress this amazing, ancient city with another pair of tourist feet - just being content to know that this kind of rustic, eccentric, ancient beauty exists somewhere in the world.

We want to go (woo! I so very rarely get to "we" anything - S and I are so different in our tastes and desires) but it's uncertain where we'll find the opportunity, given this new job of his, and other upcoming life events. It really feels like Italy (always my ideal honeymoon destination, followed by San Francisco with day trips to Sonoma and a Yosemite) should be the Big Trip that people keep talking about. As in, the Big Trip prima di avere bambini.

Anyway, this blog entry was actually not meant to be about how much we want to go to Italy, but about how I freaked out when S., watching Anthony Bourdain almost die of happiness over a bowl of risotto, said, "Too bad the risotto at that Italian restaurant in Hilo sucked."

Me: "What Italian restaurant?"

Him: "The one we ate at in Hilo."

Me: "When?!"

Him: "The day we went to Akaka Falls. It was so hard to find a place to eat, remember?"

Long story short: I could not remember one thing he was talking about. I remembered the things I took pictures of - some amazing cliff, the Mauna Loa factory tour, Ken's, fishing at Keauhou Bay. But I could not remember the Italian restaurant, or the sports bar he brought up next. I started to kind of panic. What 30-year-old can totally not remember events that happened on a vacation just two years ago? FINALLY, to my great relief, something he said about the road to Akaka Falls jogged my memory and the holes got filled with sights, sounds and tastes of Hilo town (the tiles on the Italian restaurant's walls, celery sticks with ranch dressing at the sports bar, coqui frogs. Er. I guess if we're going in order, I should reverse the celery sticks and coqui frogs.)

Anyway, I hope that doesn't happen again. (The memory lapse, not the trip.)