KnitFreak

The Radio Box is ready to head off!

I don't want to spoil the surprise for the recipient, but I can say that much: the Radio Box is going back to the US of A! So, watch out for the mailman!

Today, I rushed to the post office to get there in time before their lunch break. I made it in time, but the office was closed anyway - due to a works meeting. Aargh!!! And the worst thing is that I don't have time today to go to another post office... I'll have to postpone that until tomorrow. (...now I know why it's called "postpone"...)

The Radio Box arrived at my door today!

It travelled all the way from Iceland to the very rainy Munich. I will have to give the box a little rest so it can dry... Check out where it has been so far:

And just look at the content! It is so amazing what Carola packed for me - she outdid herself!

Isn't she crazy? (In a good way, that is!!!) Okay, what do we have here..? Clockwise from front center: A pair of toe socks in the front, 2 flip-flop-shaped note pads, 3 postcards with Icelandic recipes, Icelandic candy in a red box, a huge box of Icelandic chocolate puffed rice crisp bities, a postcard of Carola's home town Hafnarfjördur, a postcard with ponies in the snow (I love Icelandic ponies!), a bright'n'yellow keyring holder that you can squeeze and which stays in the shape you give it, a sheep magnet, a little sock full of lavender to keep the moths away (I love the smell!), and - last but not least - TWO HANKS OF LORNA'S LACES in a wonderful colorway named "Flames". I love it! Here's a close up (forgive me that it's blurry):

You just have to love that color! Thank you soooooo much Carola, you absolutely made my day! Everybody who gets you as their pal in a swap is really lucky.

Nope, that mysterious city isn't Rome. But I think it's a hard guess, because nobody would have thought of it as this city's quite small. It's Verona, a very beautiful city in the Veneto (that's the name of the region). The building in the picture is the Arena of Verona, where they stage outdoor operas each year. K and I spent there four nights, then went to another place - see below - where we spent two nights, and then we went back to Verona where we spent the last night of our holiday before going back to Munich on Monday. We didn't plan to do sightseeing all the time, which was perfect because we had time to sit in cafés, have some coffee, read a bit, relax a little.

I even found out where Adriafil sells some of their yarn in Italy because I wanted to look at their Charme-yarn. Remember the new issue of knitty? I saw Josephine there and almost instantly fell in love with it. If it wasn't for... the many many skeins you need! And Charme, being a cashmere-mix, isn't cheap... That's why I wanted to check it out before I buy it, and in Germany you can only buy it online. Adriafil told me there were two yarn shops in Verona, so I tried to find them on the map I had (which wasn't too great because it had mainly only the old part of Verona, the city center, but it was enough for the holiday), but I only found one. I didn't mind, so off we went. The ones of you who went to Italy before and wanted to go shopping knows that they tend to have long lunch breaks. I mean, really loooong ones - we arrived at the shop some time in the early afternoon, and they were still on lunch break. Which lasts from 12.30 to 3.30. Nice, huh? For the shop owner, I mean. Anyway, we went back a bit later (we were in no hurry anyway) and went in there (sorry, no photos! It wasn't a thrilling shop anyway, but the owner was really nice). So I was looking around a bit (it was really a small shop) to see if I could find Charme. She had quite a few other Adriafil yarns there, but not charme. Then, I wanted to ask her if she had it, and asked her if she could speak English, which she couldn't. Fair enough, but I don't speak Italian. I had Latin and French in school, and I do speak a little bit of restaurant menu-Italian, but sure not enough (at all!!) for a yarn-shop! So she keeps talking to me in Italian until I told her that I didn't speak it. Somehow, we made each other understand a little bit (ok, a very very tiny bit. Really tiny), and she showed me another yarn that was comparable to Charme. Unfortunately, I forgot with one that was. I'm trying to find it on their website now... can you really substitute a yarn with another yarn that has a different length? That would be my question of the day for you. She asked me what I wanted to knit with it, and somehow I told her that I wanted to make a jacket. But my little holiday language-guide didn't provide enough information to tell here what I really wanted to tell her (later I bought a small dictionary, although the guide got you through basically all situations of a holiday). Then, she managed to tell me - and I managed to understand - that she had ordered Charme, and it would be at the shop on Monday (last Monday, that is. The day that I left, but I left at lunch time). So I agreed to come back on Monday; I really had wanted to do that, because she was so nice and she was really trying to help me (you don't see that in many shops over here at all!! Did you have the same experiences at your lys?); I even prepared a few sentences in Italian (very basic Italian, that is) with the help of my new dictionary, to explain what I intended and what I really had wanted. But alas, when we went there Monday morning, the shop was closed. Quite a lot of shops are closed monday mornings in Verona. I was a bit disappointed, because I had wanted to see the yarn, and even if it hadn't been delivered to her yet, I would have bought some other yarn, or maybe one or two pattern magazines. I guess I'll have to do that some other time. I might order just a ball or two of Charme through their online shop, just to see if I still want to make that jacket with this yarn. The yarn cost for Josephine would be about 100€ (that's about US$120, quite a lot if you ask me)... that's why I'm still thinking: Do I really want to make it? It would take quite a while, and I don't think I could manage to get it done this year. The pattern is clearly a fall pattern, but I'd probably be wearing it not before next spring... Or do I simply buy a nice jacket like Josephine (if I can find one) that is less than 100€? Or is that... some kind of fraud? You know what's funny? I bought myself a mohair-like knit wrap-cardigan at Sisley in Verona, and I felt as if I was cheating. Knit stuff seems to be the big thing for this fall and winter, and every time I looked at a knit jumper or something I caught myself thinking "what technique were they using?" "that collar looks really interesting! Could I do that too?" "I could knit such a scarf for way less money!" "I could do that, too!" Does that sound familiar to you?

This is the other destination of my holiday. It's not too far from Verona, about an hour (or a bit more) by train, still in the Veneto ;-)

Where was I?

Where was I? Part two is coming tomorrow!

I started the little pants for my nephew-to-be on the way, but didn't get much done. I was away for only one week, and we were on the road most of the time; and when we went to the hotel to rest a bit before dinner, I read a book most of the time because watching TV is boring when you don't understand the language.

Guess where I was:

More will follow soon! I'll be away next week too, to another destination.