The journey begins...

Life in bella Italia! European travels! This is the story of a family transplanted from their home on one continent to the unknowns of another.

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Rainy season is back again. We'd had such a nice run of warm and dry... Now Vicenza is in danger of flooding (again) and everything is dreary. On a fantastic note, the weather has warmed back up. The only silver lining of the endless winter raining is that it is always colder when it is dry and it warms up when it rains. I'm sorry for being the most boring blogger ever. I've been dealing with a lot of personal stuff and haven't had the energy to write here. (Everyone is fine, don't worry, I've just been taking some me time to really sort some things out. It's actually going pretty well. I'm quilting, painting, and writing a book for NaNoWriMo. Movin on up in the world.)

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This was the best door-to-door visitor I've ever had. I'm all for giving money to an artist in need. Hand drawn. All I know is that his name is Pavel and his Italian is as rudimentary as mine.

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Words- a lesson

It really amazes me how many people live here and have no idea how to pronounce and/or spell common words relating to the area. Here's a primer on a few of them.

Vicenza:

How the locals say it: Vee-CHAINZ-uh. 

Where people mess it up: Please notice there is only one "N". It is not Vinchenza. Vich-en-zuh is perfectly acceptable, just watch out for the phantom extra "n".

Caserma Ederle:

How it should be pronounced: Cus-erm-uh Ed-er-lee

How people often pronounce it: Elderly, Ed-earl (I'm guilty of that one. I had to ask once we got here).

One extra thing to note: There are quite a few military spots in Vicenza. They're all smallish and spread apart. The two main ones are Caserma Ederle and Caserma Del Din. People often call them "Del Din" and "Caserma". If someone just says "caserma", you may want to clarify which one they actually mean.

Riposo:

This one is the biggest offender on the list. Riposo is the Italian version of siesta. It's the time in the middle of the day when most businesses close and everyone goes home for lunch and a nap. 

How it is pronounced: Ree-POS-oh (the "pos" part rhymes with close, the opposite of synonym of near. Can you tell I'm tired?)

How you'll see it spelled: Riposto, Reposo, Raposo, and any variation thereof. There is no "t" in the word.

Carabinieri:

This one still trips me up. Cara-bin-yair-ee. (Car like what you drive)

These are the Italian police. They have some snappy uniforms (designed by Valentino- in case that sort of thing matters to you). They do most of their pulling-over with a nifty little stick that we call "the lollipop". It is green on one side and red on the other. If you see the red, you pull over.

Ciao:

Should be easy right? Not so.

The pronunciation of "ciao" varies depending on who is saying it and whether they are using it as a greeting or a farewell. It ranges from "Dow" to "Tzow" to the hard "ch" sound that we are accustomed to. It's also a very lyrical word. It seems like the greeting form starts low and ends on a higher note, but only slightly. When leaving, there are usually many "ciao"s, never just one. Actually leaving can be a lengthy process.

Oh, and while I'm at it-

When greeting someone you say either "buon giorno" or "buona sera". When leaving you say "buona giornata" or "buona serata". Apparently the reason is this: When greeting, "buon giorno" means "good morning". This is what is happening right now. "Buona giornata" essentially refers to enjoying the rest of your day, from here on out. 

Buona notte is only used when you are saying goodnight for the rest of the night. If you're leaving but may see the person again, you would use "buona serata". Buona notte is final.

There more you know...

By the way, if you learn to spell bureaucracy from memory, you're a winner. I still have to look it up, and I spell it every few months or so.

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Venice, I love you.

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Italia, never change*.

*with the exception of your bureaucracy. Change that asap, per favore.

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I just wanted to remind you guys that I have been blogging over on wordpress more than I have here. Tumblr is great for really quick updates but I’m trying to be a bit wordier. So drop by over there, if you like.

Ciao, grazie.

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I'd like to introduce the newest member I our family. This is Chili. She is a chinchilla. Her family is moving back to the states this week so we have inherited her. We will keep her either until we find the right family for her or until we have to move back ourselves. Before anyone gives me a hard time, I want to say something. America will not allow us to take her back to the states. She has to stay here in Italy. So we will give her a great home and love and spoil her until we no longer can, then we will find her a new, great home. She's so soft! And polite and curious and not smelly! We've made up so many songs and nicknames for her already. Even the dog is smitten.

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Hello, friends! Please excuse my inexcusable neglect of this and my Wordpress blogs lately. Life has been a wee bit crazy 'round these parts lately. What have we been up to? Please reference the above pictures. I call them "How I Spent My Spring Break" Ok, not really. One of those is orange juice. Fine, we didn't really do all that drinking. Ok, we did. And more. But those are several months worth of pictures. Our livers are safe, fear not. I know Italy is the home of wine, and 😒 really, yay for wine 👎 but I'd like to take a moment to discuss beer. Two years ago I hated beer. Then I would only drink two types, and only if they were cold. When I left the US I was still only drinking two types, but at least they were different. My, how things have changed. I've had beers now from Italy, France (my favorite), Belgium (also good), Spain, the Czech regions, Germany, and Jamaica. Sure, wine is nice and all... I really do like a good Prosecco. The problem is that I prefer my wine to be slightly sweet, and Pierro, our resident sommelier, has told us that if the wine is sweet it is the mark of a really low-quality wine being masked by sugar. In other words, if it's sweet, it's crap. Dammit. 🍺 Bring on the beer! 🍺 (Believe it or not, this post was not brought to you by beer. Think of it as a casual ode. An ode to deep, rich, foamy, multi-faceted beer. So happy.) More posts coming. Still editing Rome and more Venice pictures. Standby.

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Bellissima, Darling!

I've just posted the third part of my daytrip to Venice on my wordpress blog. It's about merchandise and shopping. It's only the broadest overview since we didn't have time to really shop there, and you couldn't have kept me inside the stores if you'd offered me a shopping spree. I had too much city to see!

Go check it out!

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Bellissima, Darling!

Alright. Here is the beginning of my new Wordpress blog. So far it is relatively lackluster, but that will change with time and experience. I'm not entirely sure that I like the Wordpress format, but it's a start. Go check it out!

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Venezia- Part one- Architecture

Saturday we were invited to a road trip with some friends of ours. As far as I had heard, we were going to take a train to Verona for the day, and I was thrilled. I've been wanting to see Verona for ages. When we got in the truck and started heading toward Padova, in the opposite direction, I was confused. After a trek through IKEA we loaded back into the truck and rode on to Venice.

Let me start by saying this: I am in love with Venice! It felt like a mix of many cities that I've visited in my life, with a large dash of something completely new. 

The architecture was beyond compare. I have never seen anything like it. 

One of the first buildings you see as you enter Venice. 

We wandered down winding pathways, sometimes following the crowds, other times entirely by ourselves. Our friends, who have visited Venice numerous times, were in a bit of a hurry so we moved much faster than I would have liked. 

I casually snapped this picture as we walked because I am enamored with signage and graphical lettering. I looked up the Scuola Grande di San Rocco, just out of curiosity and WOW. If you get bored, check it out.

This building was next to a Leonardo da Vinci museum. Next time....

Some of the buildings seemed as though they would have been at home in India.

Some rose out of nowhere, hidden to the casual tourist and discovered only by the experienced traveler (or the lost).

I would have taken triple the photos if I'd been on my own. 

The Rialto Bridge. It was much, much bigger than I expected. It was also packed.

Construction of the bridge began in 1551 after the previous bridge(s), made of wood, had been burned in a revolt in 1310 and collapsed under a crowd watching a boat parade in 1444. This was the fourth of five total collapses of this bridge, the final time occurring in 1524. After 40 years of building, in 1591, the bridge was finally completed, and has stood, proudly spanning the Grand Canal since that time. The stone railways were worn smooth from the hands of millions of tourists who have traversed it.

At the apex of the Rialto. I have researched like crazy and I can not tell you who this fellow is or why he is there. Perhaps he is Neptune. Perhaps he is the bridge designer, Antonio da Ponte. If I ever find out, I will be sure to let you know. Next time I am in Venice I will ask around until I have an answer.

I could stare at this view forever.

See the stones beneath the dragon?

Wide enough for three people to walk side by side.

The photo does not do it justice. This sign glistened in the sun.

Behind the Rialto Bridge. I almost walked right past it. It was hiding in plain sight.

I think you could spend a year in Venice and never see all of the buildings. Somehow we completely missed St. Mark's Square and the Basilica. Next time I will not leave until I've seen it.

So there you go! Buildings of Venice!

Stay tuned for future editions- canals, shopping, random things seen... I took so many pictures that I can't squeeze them all into one post.

Coming soon!

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On cameras:

Still preparing the Venice post, but I just wanted to show you how far technology and cameras have come these days. This really made my day...

This is the default version of this picture. It's just a quiet little canal somewhere in the back roads of Venice. It's a bit hard to call them roads since there are no cars and everybody is on foot. It's so charming. Anyway, here is the picture, completely unaltered.

It's not a bad picture, but it's just not all that interesting. There is nothing to draw the eye or excite the senses. 

But, with a little bit of editing via iphoto, I can pull out the colors that were washed out when the image processed. I don't really know much yet about photo editing so all I did was increase the saturation and change the contrast. The result is a much more realistic depiction of this spot.

Here is what Venice REALLY looks like:

See the difference? I'm so grateful for my camera. 

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Working on a new blog post! We went to Venice for the first time yesterday. It was just fantastic. I expect that the post will be up tomorrow or the next day. Since I took approximately 600 pictures, it took over three hours to weed through and edit them. I still have far more than I probably should post, so tomorrow I'll finish selecting my shots and I'll write about them for you.

Here's a sneak peek:

Buona Pasqua, everyone! (That means Happy Easter.)

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Recently...

I want to apologize for not posting lately. Life has been a whirlwind these past few weeks. I've created a wordpress blog because I feel it would be a bit more expandable than tumblr, but every time I sit down to really work on the page, I become overwhelmed and close my laptop in disgust. It shouldn't be this difficult, but with the weather being so amazing, I haven't had the attention span for HTML. Soon.

In the past few weeks:

My kiddo turned 12. 

He received a Belgian waffle iron for his birthday. (Thanks, Bean!) He was ecstatic. Pardon the malformed waffle. We're beginners.

Pierro invited us to the Mayflower for a celebratory dinner for his and the kiddo's birthdays. He made us heart-shaped ravioli with asparagus pieces. I could happily eat only this for the rest of my life. The picture was an afterthought, which is why the plate is nearly empty. I'm not a food blogger.

We also ate cold cuts. This was prosciutto with an aged parmesan. My tastebuds sang. There was more food and a different variety of cold cuts, but I only snapped pictures when Pierro stepped away from the table to handle restaurant business. I didn't want to be rude.

I entertained myself. I always take a pencil with me to restaurants, just in case. Cavallo means horse. I'm thinking about making a series like this to help kids (and me) learn vocabulary words in a foreign language. 

We went to the market and saw this church. I am going to write more about the market in the future. It was overwhelming and I hope to go back sometime. FYI, the church doesn't lean (like some other landmarks in Italy). The photographer was being hurried along by her companions and took this desperate photo as she walked. The church was actually quite level, at least to the untrained eye.

Maya was pretty (not that this is anything new. Maya is always pretty). And look at those azaleas! I have another "bloomin yard" post to write soon. 

And, most importantly, we found an orange that looks like a pumpkin.

Ciao, amici! 

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The briefest of updates- we saw this enormous, palatial estate yesterday. I’m honestly not sure what it is. It could be a castle- there were sort-of moats. It might be a parliament building or something like that. Whatever it was, it was the size of a small shopping mall. We were invited out to a market with a new friend and since we (still) don’t have a car, I have very little knowledge of where she took us. This estate was adjacent to the market. It appeared that we could have toured it of we so desired (and I do.) I’ll write more about it soon, and I took a few more pictures, although I was sort of being rushed around so they aren’t the best. I have every intention to return on a non-market day so that I can take a bazillion photos. More later

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For a brief and shining moment, the lighting was perfect.

The weather here has been so wonderful lately, but yesterday, the day before my husband returned from 3 weeks in Africa, the skies opened and the heavens pelted Vicenza with a furious downpour. It was so intense that the rain came at a diagonal, flooding the windowsills on the rear-side of my house. I sat on my porch with my eyes shut, listening. It was glorious.

Today has been dark. Drizzly. The usual. We had been home for about 5 minutes when I looked out and saw this. I don’t really know how to use filters or photoshop or anything. This is natural, unedited lighting. 2 minutes later it was gone. I’m so glad I was able to capture it. I know it’s essentially the same picture over and over, but I couldn’t decide which I liked best. Enjoy.

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Spring has officially arrived in Vicenza! The weather has been delightful and since it rained all winter, everything is lush and green. Although it has not rained since the beginning of the month, my yard has gone from mowed to shaggy in a matter of three weeks. I'm glad we've let it grow because it has allowed the wildflowers to sprout up all over the place. All of these flowers, with the exception of the tulips, are in my yard. I can identify all of these with the exception of the purple bells and the white-ish flowers to the right of them. The purple bells may be muscari or grape hyacinth and I think the white six-petals are Ipheion. (Thank you, Google!)

I'm really loving this.