It is hard to imagine that six months have gone by already and that are half way through a year again. We are both taking life so much more in stride since we came back and have learned to take each day, piano, piano…slowly, slowly…the way Italians feel life is to be lived to the fullest. This is something we fell into step with really well while we lived there and are finding it easy to do here now. Yes, we still have a calendar and it still has things listed on it, but we are not jamming many things back to back like before. We promised ourselves that we would come back and live our life the same, as much as possible, as we did in our wonderful Italian Way.
The garden is alive and bursting with color thanks to the skillful eyes and hands of John. He really loves to tend the garden and it is lush and lovely once again. He continues to do his Master Gardener stints each month and has worked the Annual Plant sale and a Saturday a month during the summer at the local University Farmer’ s Market. I am still working on my writing and will be submitting two articles hopefully for print. I continue to do research about writing the book and have contacted several authors and some have replied with some great advice…read a lot , don’t stop writing, and be persistent! John has submitted some photos for Festa Italia, which takes place in the later part of September and may be able to work a booth at Festa with some of his photos. We will keep you all posted on how that works out.
We have made some good contacts on Whidbey Island and continue to look at houses and areas. With John’s brother and sister-in-law already living there it makes it nice to have them as our advisors about good areas to look for a house. We have decided that Eastern Washington is out…so I will not get my grapevines but our neighbors here are growing some grapes on a trellis in the adjoining yard, so that will have to do for now. We will look a bit more south and then just wait until the first of the year to make our decision. We are in no big hurry with the economy and home sales what they are. We are just enjoying this house for now and looking forward to being in a new spot.
We have made some great road trips and just got back from a grand visit in Portland. That is such a great city and so many good restaurants, museums, and so much to do there. We saw our good friend Kate and really enjoyed being together again. We had dinner at a wonderful small Italian restaurant and found some Montefalco Rosso wine there so had to drink that! We will be going to Hawaii for about three weeks in July, In August, we will be taking a nice trip over to Montana to spend some time with my brother and sister-in-law and then who knows where we may decide to travel. We like having so many options.
We will both look for work in September…it will be time to go back into the workforce and earn some money again. I have no idea what I will do but know that I do not want to work full-time, if possible, and would like to be work in a field where I can make a difference in people’s lives somehow. That was the great part of working at the Commission, I always felt we did just that. So, we will see what is meant to happen for me. John has notified the school district that he has returned and can substitute teach when and where he wants to again. It is easy to watch each day go by in such a gentle way while you are at home so we both know that going back to work will be a jolt to our senses, for sure.
We continue on with our Italian lessons and have learned so much practical and useful parts of the language. Our tutor, Susan Wolf, is a dream to work with and she is an excellent teacher. Patient and calm, helpful and guiding us all the way. Our goal is to be able to speak better and easier when we return to Italy next year and shock all of our Italian and English speaking friends with our new language skills! And I, hopefully, will have learned some French along the way.
We continue to keep the blog alive as it keeps our life updated for you, our dear friends, and for us too. I enjoy writing and we will try to remember to take photos of this area too so those of you far away and who have never been to Seattle or the areas around Seattle can see how beautiful it is here. Thank you for staying in touch with us and for reading our blog.
June 16th, 2008
It is hard to believe that we are already through the first four months of 2008. We have celebrated my Dad’s 80th birthday, my brother and sister-in-law’s birthdays together, John’s birthday, my 15th year of being cancer free (yahooooo!), and we still have more fun things ahead of us. We are feeling settled in our house again and more than eager to begin our research of other places to live in Washington state…for now.The yard is looking great and John is enjoying being a Master Gardener again. Their huge plant sale is this weekend and he will help set up on Friday and then work the sale on Saturday and he has all of his dates for working the Farmer’s Market in the University District so he is back in his groove of gardening.
I am still in the throes of doing my research for writing our book which is a long and tedious process- for every 10 emails or letters I send, I get 1-2 answers back. We are offering ourselves up to speak anywhere and everywhere…showing photos and speaking about our incredible experience of living in Italy for a year. Surely that will open a door or two hopefully. We are discovering new things in this city once again, we will begin our Italian lessons next month (yahoo again), and have found some great websites to practice our language skills with. It all seems to be coming together for us as learn to live in the US.
We have re-connected with almost everyone as we blend back into Seattle life again but we do not live the hectic, crazed life we did Before Italy and that is by choice. We told ourselves that we wanted a better and more gentle lifestyle when we returned and so far, we have been able to keep that promise we made to ourselves. For those of you who knew what our calendar ALWAYS looked like, it is funny now to see that we have blanks in many dates and months once again. We loved our lifestyle in Italy with a pace that as slow and enjoyable and we are taking time to weave that into our life here. We take little trips like going to the Pike Place Market to just amble about, we visit museums and art galleries in the middle of the day, and we go out for lunch occasionally, and I just ordered a Yoga tape and will be doing that for myself. It is a nice way to take care of ourselves and each other.
Work looms on the horizon for both of us but we want to put it off as long as possible. John will substitute teach again and I have no idea what I will do yet. I am looking at everything and know that I would like to work part-time, 3 days a week, and work enough hours to be part of the benefit program. I would love to do something where I can interact with people, ideally where I can use my new language skills and brush up on my Spanish skills too, and possibly work in a ”Green” type of environment. Not sure what that would mean but will see where those thoughts take me. I am also joining Women in Communications again as it is an excellent organization and it has some awesome women in it. It provided me wth a great sense of my communication skills in the past and I am sure it will once again.
We plan to take the summer off and will be taking two weeks in the middle of the summer to go to Hawaii to celebrate Richard’s (our good friend) 50th birthday on the Big Island of Hawaii, we decided to take an extra week and just go see how much things have changed there since Mom and Dad lived there. That will be another grand excursion we are truly looking forward to. We also will be going to Whidbey Island for our House Hunting Excursion #1 and that should prove to be very interesting. We will also be looking in other areas of the state too and then can make a decision of where to begin being serious about moving and living. That will certainly bring another new beginning!
If anyone has any good advice or helpful hints of how to go about telling our story, please let us know. We would love to hear from you all. Ciao for now.
April 29th, 2008
We have had some really strange weather here and it kind of sums up our feelings about being back to Seattle and the USA. Some days are beautiful, some days are cold and cloudy, and there even have been some days with snow! We are still putting items away, getting the yard in shape, doing more spring cleaning, and hopefully we will soon get to see some of our friends that we have not connected with yet. I get emails daily from friends in Italy who write long newsy emails about what is happening there and how much they miss us and ask when we will be back TO STAY! I purchase postcards when we go places to send off so they can see how beautiful this area of the country is and so they get a sense of our life here. All in all, we are moved back and settling in.
We spent a wonderful week with our whole family together in Birch Bay, north of Bellingham on the water, through our Vacation Internationale timeshares. Mom and Dad, Steve and Mary, and Jesse and Seth, our two nephews were in a beautiful 3 bedroom, 4 bathroom condo and we had a 2 bedroom, 2 bathroom condo next door. These are brand new and had been built as condos but were purchased by VI for timeshare owners. It was nice enough weather and we also gave my Dad a surprise party for his 80th birthday with ALL of the family together. And he was really surprised as many friends came to wish him well and drink champagne to celebrate this wonderful milestone. It was grand to have all of us together again as we have so many occasions to celebrate…birthdays, anniversaries, and special days. We also had a chance to check out some areas in the Bellingham/Lynden/Fernadale areas to see what life might be there and will go back for a more in-depth look soon.
We are looking forward to beginning our Italian lessons once again with a private tutor and I am also going to learn some basic French too. John is back into his Master Gardener volunteering, and I have begun doing research on how to write a book! I am also checking into the local newspapers and travel shops to see if we can speak about our experiences to get a feel for what people might be interested in hearing about our year in Umbria. We have gotten so many comments about doing such a variety of things that we need to zero in on what readers would like enough to buy a book. I am determined to do this so you know it will happen. I may have to get that cork board with all the colored 3×5 cards out again!
I had a nice long chat with our good friend, Carol, who now lives in Switzerland but was here visiting friends in Seattle for a couple of weeks. We had a discussion about how different it is to come back after living in a European environment and how hard it is to adapt to certain things around you here. We both felt that Seattle and maybe the US in general is so much more violent and that people are just conditioned to it whereas people in European countries would not be comfortable watching it day after day. This is not to say that they do not have violence but the media is not as infatuated with showing it as they are here. We also do not feel safe here…you have to be on your guard and watch out more, hold onto to your purse, watch out for people around you more…maybe it was always there but both of us are much more aware of it now. Also, she lives and we lived in a rural country environment and Seattle is a large metropolitan city so that could be another explanation. Enough said about this.
I hope everyone is doing well and that you are also getting into Spring and all the beauty that comes with it. Our tulips are up along with the daffodils and John is planting and pruning away. We have a couple of little road trips coming up and are looking forward to seeing you all soon. One day, I will have to go back to work and then we will be back to trying to fit all of this into 2-3 days out of our week so we are soaking it all up for now.
April 11th, 2008
Easter is a special day here and in Italy too. It is a day with family, food, and being together. In Italy, there are no easter egg hunts or giant bunnies but there is lots of chocolate and huge, foil wrapped eggs filled with toys and surprises for the kids. Everyone also eats panetone, a nice light cake, in the shape of a dove and either plain or filled with some delectable delight. Easter Monday, or Pasquetta, is the day after Easter and is day to visit cemetaries and place flowers on the grave of family members and friends AND to share the day with friends with lots of food and wine and chocolate! We will never forget our first Pasquetta with our friends Cecilia and Roberto and so many of their friends. It was a warm sunny day, lots of laughter and friendship, and tons of food and wine! It will always be a great memory for us.
We have finally unpacked the last box, have found all but two items which we went out and purchased new ones, and are feeling like we are back in the USA again. That is a good thing and not a good thing, depending on your point of view. We find so many things ODD here that we just must have taken for granted before. We do not read the newspaper or watch the news much as there is a lot of violence and the media seem to thrive on telling you all of the gory details and worse…showing you! We are bombarded with sound bites on television and so many ads that a program really is only about 15 minutes long and the rest are ads. There seems to be a lot of crudeness and grossness on tv, either for shock value or maybe some other reason we cannot figure out. I won’t go into details!
But there are many good things too. Today, I met a friend for lunch and stopped by Northgate Mall on my way to meeting her. There was a giant Easter Bunny that kids could get their photos taken sitting on the bunny’s lap. There were two small children all dressed up in their Easter outfits, so excited to see this giant bunny and they really loved that they got to see him and snuggle next to him. After their photo was taken, they both kissed the bunny and told their mother “Thank You, Mom for bringing us here!”. They really were in awe of this bunny and grinning ear to ear. So magic does still happen for kids and that made my day…along with a great lunch with a good friend.
We spent a day at the Seattle Art Museum to see the fantastic exhibit of “Roman Art from the Louvre”, a selection of ancient art here from the Louvre in Paris.  The exhibit shows nearly 400 years of Imperial Roman life and history in 180 pieces and many of these have never been show in the United States ever before and it is one of the richest collections of ancient Roman art in the world. We also got the bonus of seeing “The Gates of Paradise”, Lorenzo Ghiberti’s panels from the Italian Renaissance.  Once the panels conclude their tour in Seattle, they will be installed in the Museo dell’ Opera del Duomo in Florence permanently, never to travel again. The entire exhibit was so stunning and beautiful and we felt so fortunate to see it, taking our time.
John is working hard on the yard and it is looking beautiful once again. And now Spring is here and we are loving seeing all the flowers and plants budding all around us. Our flowering plum is all abloom, the daffodils are out -I had forgotton how many different varieties of flowers and plants we have -some plants did not survive so John has found new ones to plant in their place. All in all, it is looking like John is in charge again! He is also all signed up for his Master Gardener duties at the Saturday Markets, which is something we will enjoy much more now because we would rather buy our food from the farmers again, as we did in Italy.  He has not contacted the school district quite yet as we are enjoying our time together…not working.
I am in my research mode to find publishers and how to self-publish our book. We really want to pursue this and it will be really interesting to see what the steps involved are. I am feeling pretty confident that we should have a sure fire hit on our hands and that it will climb to the top of the Best Seller’s list in no time by the reaction of many of our friends who have said ” I want the first one when it comes off the press!” Dreams are what makes living so much fun!
We want to wish you all a Happy Spring too. We are looking forward to getting out and starting to consider our options for where we move next and what part of the state we will end up in. We plan to start our first trip in April to coincide with John’s birthday so we can celebrate along the way too. We will go back to Italy as soon as we can and see what options there might be for us there…but first, for a long visit with our friends there. We hope to see more of you in the next months and thank you all for keeping in touch while we “settled in” to Seattle. We will keep you updated on our progress on all fronts!
March 21st, 2008
We have been very busy moving back into our house in Seattle, unpacking boxes, deciding what we really need to keep and what we can donate, and John has been outside making the yard look ” John-like” again. He has missed his own yard and is rediscovering what lives there, and I am determined to NOT have the house look like it did before we left and am putting things away in different spots so we feel all new again. We are still acclimating to being back and there are days when we both miss our life in Italia a great dealand knowing that we will return again makes it all much easier. We are also taking it slowly as we see our friends again and we appreciate everyone having patience and respecting our re-entry into this US lifestyle again.
We are “wired” now with high speed internet, cell phones, and a new land line and we will be sending out all the information to everyone soon, we promise.We are unpacking box after box and finding new discoveries in each box. We also have decided that this is a good time to downsize our “things and stuff” so we are finding all kinds of wonderful places to donate items that other families can use. We have also decided that we are very fortunate people to have amassed as much as we have over all of these years and that it is time to share all of this. When we move again, this will make it all much easier too. We have not gone back to work yet and if lucky, we will be able to hold out for a few more months so we can enjoy getting back into our house first before we have to think about working for a living!
We are planning to take a trip to Spokane to celebrate birthdays for Steve, my brother, and Mary, our sister-in-law and to see our youngest nephew, Seth, perform in a Jazz club there. We also, as a family, will be spending a week together in Birch Bay in March/April. We love being able to talk to Mom and Dad and Steve and Mary as much as we want to and do! We will be taking some weekend trips around the state as we decide where we want to live next…in Washington state…for now. We know that this area is growing rapidly with condos and the traffic is really gotten worse in the year that we were gone. We would love to have grapes and olives in our backyard, but that probably will be hard to find here!.It will be a fun research project for us to do together. We are also having an adjustment to not being together 24/7 like we were in Italy and we find that we end the day having a glass of wine together and savoring our time.
We love having a dryer again, Costco, Chico’s, and Barnes and Noble, which is like walking into a candy store for me.We are just enjoying seeing all the new places in our neighborhood and nearby, and connecting with friends again. I write weekly to our friends in Italy in Italian which is helping me to keep my Italian “alive” in my mind.They arevery good about sending emails and they write in Italian and let us know what is happening there and telling us how much they miss us. We have a wonderful friend who we hope will be our Italian tutor once a week and maybe I can also learn some French too. My goal is to speak Italian as well as I did in Italy and to be able to learn some good solid French too by the end of the year. Wish me luck, please.
We will have a new email address although we will also keep our current one up and running as well. If you have not seen us yet or heard from us, please understand we are still adjusting to being here and all that goes with that. It is a very interesting time for us and we want to connect with everyone, piano, piano (slowly, slowly). Thank you for your understanding and patience, once again. We will keep you updated on our forward progress.
Ci vediamo presto, amici…we will see you soon, friends.
February 25th, 2008
We left Italy a week ago with a smooth and easy trip from Fumicino to Heathrow and then Heathrow to Seattle, on time and all 8 bags arriving intact. Not bad other than having to pay an outrageous sum of euros to bring our additional bags home AND pay to ship boxes back too. It is amazing to think we had collected that much over one year and it was fun to give so much away knowing that we were leaving some of US behind with our friends. It was one of the hardest things we have ever had to do…leave…..and there were many tears all around for many days. We were invited to lunches, teas, dinners, and evenings with Prosecco during the last three weeks of our life in Umbria and saying goodbye to all of our friends was much harder than I could have ever imagined it would be. We can hardly wait to see them all again and we know that these people will remain friends for our lifetime. There were many tears, hugs, and kisses and leaving Montefalco, Umbria, Baffo, and our friends but these are people and places that will remain in our hearts always .
We had a nice drive on Friday afternoon into town of Fumicino, near the airport but on the water. We arrived about 3:00 in the afternoon and stayed a wonderful hotel….Euro House in Fumicino…. if you ever want a nice and reasonable place near the airport. We explored the town, which during the summer months is a destination spot because of its waterfront and is also a huge fishing port. We ate at a local restaurant and had some of the best clams, calamari, and prawns and wonderful wine too. We had a great night’s rest and got up to head off to the airport.Â
We returned the car the next morning, checked our bags, and had a nice leisurely shopping…well I shopped….at the airport. We took a noon flight from Rome to London, and from London to Seattle with arrival in Seattle around 7:15 PM that same day. The flights were both on time and the flights were easy, the people nice, the planes clean, and the movies good. When we arrived at Sea-Tac airport, we made it through customs and passport controls with a smile and then went to claim our bags, where my loving and wonderful parents were waiting for us with a huge WELCOME HOME sign. We all cried, hugged, and collected our bags and drove back to their house for champagne and a good nights’ rest.
We took a trip to Seattle a few days later to meet our tenants…. two delightful, energetic, and wonderful women who we were so fortunate to have living our house while we were gone. We also saw Devon, our neighbor, who took care of the yard for the year and kept it looking like John would have! We saw our incredible neighbors, and saw Richard to make a hair appointment and share a bottle of champagne! Our tenants will be moving out the end of the month of January. We are off to Portland to celebrate my Dad’s 80th birthday and we can then move into our house again when we return. It will be a little crazy but we are enjoying our time with Mom and Dad’s now. We enjoy their company, and we are spending time laughing, eating, drinking, and playing Italian train. And it is making the transition so much easier and comfortable for us. We want to slowly, slowly …”piano, piano” in Italian….ease back into life here as it is so different than our life this past year.
We also ventured out to Costco, Trader Joe’s, and the mall and were a bit overwhelmed by the number of things you could buy and the selection all under one roof. Our observations are that people are much, much larger here and they definitely do not dress very well compared to the Italians. I actually saw someone in what looked like flannel pajamas at the mall shopping! There is so much traffic and so many cars zooming by on the freeway, people are not friendly and warm when you see them in the grocery stores or as you pass them on the street, and it all seems so fast paced. I asked for a macchiato at Starbuck’s and it came in a paper cup and no one was standing and drinking their espressos at the bar…AND it was awful and very expensive compared to coffee in Italy.
There are some things we LOVE …. like putting our clothes in the dryer!!! Being able to use electricity and know that we do not have to pay 2 Euros per hour to have heat; large refrigerators; being able to buy cranberry juice and cheddar cheese anywhere you go in the market.  Everything else, so far, we could find in Italy. We find that we cannot help but compare things to Italy and know that will not always be the case the longer we are here. We do miss Italy so much and will try very hard to keep that warm, loving feeling for all that is wonderful there alive in our hearts.
We have much to do as we move back into our house again, unpacking and figuring out what stays and what goes, taking some little trips in February to Portland, Canada, and hopefully to visit some friends who are here from Italy. We have many people to visit , renew old friendships and see all the wonderful friends who came to see us in Italy. We have to get GOOD haircuts from Richard, eat some Thai, Mexican, Vietnamese food, and John will be busy getting ready for spring in our yard. One day we will have to look for work again and decide how and what our book will look like. We will take our time doing all of this so we can keep that tranquil and calm feeling we had for a year. That is our goal for now….Speriamo, Speriamo.
We hope to keep the blog alive as we will return to Italy and Umbria again and this has been such a good way keep everyone updated as we continue on with La Nostra Vita in Umbria. Ciao per addesso, tutti..goodbye for now everyone.
January 20th, 2008
Buon Anno to you all! It is hard for us to imagine that we have spent one of the most incredible years of our lives here in Italy and that we will be coming back to Seattle in a very short time. What wonderful places we have seen in this year, both in Italy and other countries. What wonderful people we have met who will be people we will treasure for many years to come. John and I spent a lot of time putting the photos together to share with you all to see those places and people that mean so much to us as we feel that they speak very warmly and loudly about our experience and our love of this country… its people, culture, language, food, and the beauty of the land.
We also want to tell all of you who took the time, spent the money, and made the plans to spend your vacation time with us here. It meant the world to us! Thank you to our Fabulous Family… parents, Walter and Beverly, my brother, Steve, and sister-in-law, Mary; Our Good Friends, Carolyn and Colin, Len and Maggie, Richard, Mary, Dee, and Pat and Dan. You all made our life so exciting by coming and spending time with us. We loved planning sights for you to see here and hope that you enjoyed them as much as we enjoyed the planning.
We also want to thank everyone who took the time to correspond with us, send us emails, call us (!!!), and just keep in touch with us. We really loved hearing from you all and it also made our days to hear from each of you. You never know what it means to be in another country and hear about your lives and what is happening there too.Â
Our New Year’s Eve was spent thinking about how much we have loved our time together…after being married to each other for 33 years now, we learned more things about each other and really enjoyed being together! John did all of the driving but I was a great navigator and we laughed a lot at some of the places we ended up! We loved spending time seeing new places, new people, traveling new roads. We fell in love with each other all over again and we were always pretty in love with each other! We shared our frustrations about learning a new language, reading and understanding everything, and the feeling of exhilaration when we mastered something new.
We hope your New Year’s was celebratory and that everyone is looking forward to the new year with great anticipation! We certainly are….what will 2008 be for us? A new book in the works? John and his magnificent photos on their own website? A new job for Candace, a new home for us somewhere in Washington, new friends made in Italy and wonderful friends to see in Seattle and other spots…AND seeing our families and spending some good times together with them. We will continue this blog with updated information about what has happened once returning to Seattle.
Thanks again to everyone for following our life in Umbria for the past year! Stay tuned for more adventures….
January 2nd, 2008
Buon Feste and Happy Holidays Everyone. Our tree is decorated, we have shopped and wrapped gifts and will be delivering them over the next two days, and we had SNOW so we are set for our first Christmas in Italy. We have Christmas music on our IPOD and although the tree lights do not actually go with the music, they are delightfully blinking away in the corner of our apartment. We woke up last week to a few inches of snow and it was breathtaking, cold, and beautiful. The mountains looked like they had been dusted with sugar! Now it somewhat warmer, blue skies and sun so we are out a lot and enjoying seeing everyone out and about too.
We managed to take a drive to see Cortona, the hilltown made famous as Under the Tuscan Sun. It is a small and charming town and we were lucky enough to have another beautiful day to explore it. We looked in all of the shops and walked through it and around it. We then took a nice drive to Lake Trasimeno and had lunch on the lake in a wonderful local restaurant and had a great lazy lunch for a couple of hours and then drove back home. Another nice day and we hope to take another trip to Gubbio before we leave as it was always one of our favorite spots too.
Christmas shopping here is about the same as in America without all the hype and people are not so intense about it. People always have time to talk to each other and since Italians walk slower anyway, they are shopping slower too. They wrap everything beautifully when it is a REGALO(gift) and no matter how long it takes, they take the time to make it look beautiful. They also use baskets for all gifts and the stores are filled with empty baskets and people fill them with all kinds of dolce…Pannetone, a light cake filled with either fillings or candied fruits, Torreone, chocolate, and all kinds of goodies..and then wrap cellophane all around them, then finish them off with grand bows! Am I in the right place or what?! I have been having a ball making baskets for our friends and for the butcher, the baker, and the coffee bar!
We have been taking time to Passagiata(promenade and walk) in all of the towns near us each night and see the people out and about and enjoy the lights each town puts up for Christmas. It is beautiful and we have placed some of them on the blog for you to see too. We will go to midnight mass at a small church near us with some of the local people we know which should be another wonderful experience.
Eventhough we are not with our family and friends in person for the Christmas season, we feel so fortunate to be sharing this time with them and you. We will always appreciate and savor this special time in Italy—Christmas in Italy.
We wish you all a wonderful holiday season, a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year from us….love to you all, John and Candace
December 23rd, 2007
We have realized that it is now December! We have a ritual that we do each month together - that is to change the page of the calendars we have to a new month. And this month, the last page of the calendars is December and it made me cry. It is hard to imagine that we have turned these pages each month and now there are no more pages to turn while we are in Italy. But, we have new pages to turn and we have decided to make this a ritual when we return to Seattle too so we look forward to each month and what it will bring.
We were so fortunate to have TWO Thanksgivings this year and we loved each of them. Thanksgiving #1 was to be a true All American Thanksgiving…turkey with stuffing, giblet gravy, mashed potatoes, yams and sweet potatoes ( you can buy sweet potatoes here and they are called Patate Americani), green bean casserole, cranberry relish….the whole works. Susan, our wonderful friend here, invited her Italian and British friends to her house and they wanted to taste the American Thanksgiving that they had read about, seen in photos and on TV and in the movies. So, she took it on and with our help, we made a great meal. The table was a sight to behold, china with gold glass chargers, crystal, linens, candles, and red tulips in crystal vases. 10 of us had a wonderful meal on the Saturday evening before Thanksgiving. 5 Americans, 1 British, and 4 Italians devoured a delicious turkey dinner with all the trimmings, then ate pumpkin pie, apple crisp, and chocolate cheesecake. Susan even had the yams brought to her from Barcelona and London so she could have them for the everyone to taste. It was a wonderful evening.
Pat and Dan, our good friends from Seattle, arrived in the afternoon that Saturday and they were invited to join the festivities too. Pat was so happy to come but Dan was not …he had gotten a “Firenze Flu” bug and wanted nothing to do but sleep and feel better fast. Luckily, with Susan and her doctor’s help, Dan felt much better and we were off exploring places they had wanted to see. We went to Bevagna, took a nice long drive to Norcia and then up to Piano Grande in Mount Sibillini Park where we had snow, drove to Castelluccio and came back to Montefalco though a beautiful valley with all of the autumn colors still on the trees. We walked Spello in the early evening and also loved exploring and buying pottery in Deruta.Â
On the day before Thanksgiving, we all went to Montefalco to the macelleria and picked up our wonderful fresh turkey from “Max”, a lovely 6 kili (12 pound) turkey who was posed for a photo! We placed it into Pat and Dan’s refrigerator for the next day. We placed Tommaso (my name for the turkey) in the oven and left to explore Montefalco for a couple of hours. When we came back, the apartment smelled heavenly and we had our second wonderful Thanksgiving, complete with phone calls from Mom and Dad, and Steve and Mary. We so appreciate that Pat and Dan came to share Thanksgiving with us and we loved being with them for this Thanksgiving #2.
The next day, we took turkey sandwiches in our cooler along with the Miracel Whip that Pat brought for us ( Thank you, Pat!!!! Something I have missed a lot) and went to Orvieto for the day. It was actually warm enough to sit outside and have a picnic with beautiful Orvieto in front of us, with the Duomo shining in the sunlight. Off again to LeVelette to show them where we stayed for our first 4 months living in Italy and then back home to Montefalco for a fabulous dinner at L’Alchemista. A great visit with great friends! The next morning, we all left together on the train for Rome…Pat and Dan to explore Rome and John and I off to Paris to celebrate our anniversary.
PARIS!!!! For those of you who have been there before, you KNOW how incredible it is. If you have never been there…which would be us when we arrived, it is a special place to see, experience, soak up everything you can while you are there. It is open and airy and light, the architecture is beatiful, it is clean and everyone walks or rides a bike there. And then there is the ART, CULTURE, FOOD, WINE, CHAMPAGNE, HISTORY….and the PEOPLE! As you can tell, we loved it all. We stayed in a perfect place for us, the Rue Cler neighborhood, near the Eiffel Tower and within walking distance to so many places. In the 3 1/2 days we had there, we managed to see the Musee Rodin, the Musee d’Orsay, Notre Dame, Saint Chappelle, walk the Champs E’lysee’ a dusk, see the Arc d’ Triumph, one whole floor of the Louvre, walked and walked so much and took one of the Hop On/Hop Off busses too. We also managed to eat warm baguettes each morning fresh from the oven, warm croissants, cafe a’lait, drink good wines and champagnes, and wonderful French Onion Soup!
One of the most memorable things we did in Paris will always be this….taking the elevators to the top of the Eiffel Tower to celebrate our anniversary, at sunset, with a full moon rising on Paris. While we were there, all of the lights came on all over Paris and on the Tower itself and when we came down, there were thousand of little white strobe lights going and it looked like diamonds flashing all over it. We kissed and held each other tight and wished each other a wonderful Anniversary right there and said ” Hey, we are in Paris!!!”.Â
We spent our last night in a neighborhood bistro, Tribeca, with two wonderful waiters, Greg and Sabrina, ate the best food, drank incredible wine, all sitting outside under heaters watching people go about their shopping at the stalls all up and down the street. We walked back to our hotel, Hotel Champs du Mars, which we loved. A cozy, warm and friendly hotel right in the heart of the Rue Cler, www.hotelchampsdumars.com, and we want to stay there when we visit Paris again. We know that we barely scratched the surface of seeing the sights of Paris but we loved it and want to return again. The people are warm and helpful and I want to learn French now so I can be fluent enough to have a little conversation with people. I love my Italian so why not?!
 CANDACE’S TIP: Check out passes for the museums when you are in a large city. We were able to purchase a two day pass for €60 which got us into most all of the museums in Paris. We also bought a two day pass for the Hop On/Hop Off bus and we got to see where things were and saw more than we would have been able to see on foot. That was €44 and both were well worth it. Also, many museums have great places to eat so check out the museum restaurants and small cafes - they serve good food and wine and it is pretty fun to be sitting in ART and eating your baguette!
We look forward to seeing more of the places we love here, enjoying Buon Natale and visiting many towns where all of the lights will be up for Christmas. Check out our great photos too! Thank you to Pat and Dan again for making the journey to see us! It meant a lot to us.
December 2nd, 2007
We have realized that it is now December! We have a ritual that we do each month together - that is to change the page of the calendars we have to a new month. And this month, the last page of the calendars is December and it made me cry. It is hard to imagine that we have turned these pages each month and now there are no more pages to turn while we are in Italy. But, we have new pages to turn and we have decided to make this a ritual when we return to Seattle too so we look forward to each month and what it will bring.
We were so fortunate to have TWO Thanksgivings this year and we loved each of them. Thanksgiving #1 was to be a true All American Thanksgiving…turkey with stuffing, giblet gravy, mashed potatoes, yams and sweet potatoes ( you can buy sweet potatoes here and they are called Patate Americani), green bean casserole, cranberry relish….the whole works. Susan, our wonderful friend here, invited her Italian and British friends to her house and they wanted to taste the American Thanksgiving that they had read about, seen in photos and on TV and in the movies. So, she took it on and with our help, we made a great meal. The table was a sight to behold, china with gold glass chargers, crystal, linens, candles, and red tulips in crystal vases. 10 of us had a wonderful meal on the Saturday evening before Thanksgiving. 5 Americans, 1 British, and 4 Italians devoured a delicious turkey dinner with all the trimmings, then ate pumpkin pie, apple crisp, and chocolate cheesecake. Susan even had the yams brought to her from Barcelona and London so she could have them for the everyone to taste. It was a wonderful evening.
Pat and Dan, our good friends from Seattle, arrived in the afternoon that Saturday and they were invited to join the festivities too. Pat was so happy to come but Dan was not …he had gotten a “Firenze Flu” bug and wanted nothing to do but sleep and feel better fast. Luckily, with Susan and her doctor’s help, Dan felt much better and we were off exploring places they had wanted to see. We went to Bevagna, took a nice long drive to Norcia and then up to Piano Grande in Mount Sibillini Park where we had snow, drove to Castelluccio and came back to Montefalco though a beautiful valley with all of the autumn colors still on the trees. We walked Spello in the early evening and also loved exploring and buying pottery in Deruta.Â
On the day before Thanksgiving, we all went to Montefalco to the macelleria and picked up our wonderful fresh turkey from “Max”, a lovely 6 kili (12 pound) turkey who was posed for a photo! We placed it into Pat and Dan’s refrigerator for the next day. We placed Tommaso (my name for the turkey) in the oven and left to explore Montefalco for a couple of hours. When we came back, the apartment smelled heavenly and we had our second wonderful Thanksgiving, complete with phone calls from Mom and Dad, and Steve and Mary. We so appreciate that Pat and Dan came to share Thanksgiving with us and we loved being with them for this Thanksgiving #2.
The next day, we took turkey sandwiches in our cooler along with the Miracel Whip that Pat brought for us ( Thank you, Pat!!!! Something I have missed a lot) and went to Orvieto for the day. It was actually warm enough to sit outside and have a picnic with beautiful Orvieto in front of us, with the Duomo shining in the sunlight. Off again to LeVelette to show them where we stayed for our first 4 months living in Italy and then back home to Montefalco for a fabulous dinner at L’Alchemista. A great visit with great friends! The next morning, we all left together on the train for Rome…Pat and Dan to explore Rome and John and I off to Paris to celebrate our anniversary.
PARIS!!!! For those of you who have been there before, you KNOW how incredible it is. If you have never been there…which would be us when we arrived, it is a special place to see, experience, soak up everything you can while you are there. It is open and airy and light, the architecture is beatiful, it is clean and everyone walks or rides a bike there. And then there is the ART, CULTURE, FOOD, WINE, CHAMPAGNE, HISTORY….and the PEOPLE! As you can tell, we loved it all. We stayed in a perfect place for us, the Rue Cler neighborhood, near the Eiffel Tower and within walking distance to so many places. In the 3 1/2 days we had there, we managed to see the Musee Rodin, the Musee d’Orsay, Notre Dame, Saint Chappelle, walk the Champs E’lysee’ a dusk, see the Arc d’ Triumph, one whole floor of the Louvre, walked and walked so much and took one of the Hop On/Hop Off busses too. We also managed to eat warm baguettes each morning fresh from the oven, warm croissants, cafe a’lait, drink good wines and champagnes, and wonderful French Onion Soup!
One of the most memorable things we did in Paris will always be this….taking the elevators to the top of the Eiffel Tower to celebrate our anniversary, at sunset, with a full moon rising on Paris. While we were there, all of the lights came on all over Paris and on the Tower itself and when we came down, there were thousand of little white strobe lights going and it looked like diamonds flashing all over it. We kissed and held each other tight and wished each other a wonderful Anniversary right there and said ” Hey, we are in Paris!!!”.Â
We spent our last night in a neighborhood bistro, Tribeca, with two wonderful waiters, Greg and Sabrina, ate the best food, drank incredible wine, all sitting outside under heaters watching people go about their shopping at the stalls all up and down the street. We walked back to our hotel, Hotel Champs du Mars, which we loved. A cozy, warm and friendly hotel right in the heart of the Rue Cler, www.hotelchampsdumars.com, and we want to stay there when we visit Paris again. We know that we barely scratched the surface of seeing the sights of Paris but we loved it and want to return again. The people are warm and helpful and I want to learn French now so I can be fluent enough to have a little conversation with people. I love my Italian so why not?!
 CANDACE’S TIP: Check out passes for the museums when you are in a large city. We were able to purchase a two day pass for €60 which got us into most all of the museums in Paris. We also bought a two day pass for the Hop On/Hop Off bus and we got to see where things were and saw more than we would have been able to see on foot. That was €44 and both were well worth it. Also, many museums have great places to eat so check out the museum restaurants and small cafes - they serve good food and wine and it is pretty fun to be sitting in ART and eating your baguette!
We look forward to seeing more of the places we love here, enjoying Buon Natale and visiting many towns where all of the lights will be up for Christmas. Check out our great photos too! Thank you to Pat and Dan again for making the journey to see us! It meant a lot to us.
December 2nd, 2007
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