Well, I intended to share more of my adventures in Rome last year than I did. I will have to play catch up later.
Have you ever had so much good food set in front of you that you were sorry you couldn't eat it all? I feel like my experience in Italy have been very much like that so far. Every cathedral we visit is exquisite and took years of talent and hard work to make. Every view looking out over Rome or Tuscany is breathtaking. Every meal makes your mouth water. But after a certain point your mind can't count the hours it must have taken to make a church, you have to stop letting the views take your breath away so you don't suffocate, and if your mouth doesn't stop watering you will drool on yourself. So I am just enjoying as much as I can and being grateful for the things that I would enjoy if I had room in my limited heart for them.
Siena is a gorgeous medieval town divided into 17 neighborhoods, called contrade, each with a mascot (Goose, Tower, Shell, Wave, etc). They have a horse race every year in the main piazza, and good fortune and bragging rights are on the line. This is a HUGE deal! Passions and tempers can run deep between rivaling contrade, and to come in second place is worse than coming in later, because it means you almost won.
My host family is the Carlini family. They are a sweet older couple with young hearts, kind eyes and amazing cooking skills. Their 24 year old son is smart and fun and studying to be a professor of medieval art. There are two poodles as well, Lily and Mimosa. They are a bit like paranoid old princesses, and every time you walk across the floor, or move suddenly, Mimosa starts barking like crazy, as if to say, "HEY! HEY! What are you doing in my house! Hey! Oh, it's you. Oh, ok. Well I'll let it slide this time." And Lily follows suit, "HEY! I don't know why we are barking but you are barking so I am barking! What's wrong? Somethings wrong! Oh, you stopped, ok." They do this even when their own family walks across the floor.
Our new babbo, Marco, informed us that we are in the Nicchio contrada; the team of the shell.
La vita e bella.
Have you ever had so much good food set in front of you that you were sorry you couldn't eat it all? I feel like my experience in Italy have been very much like that so far. Every cathedral we visit is exquisite and took years of talent and hard work to make. Every view looking out over Rome or Tuscany is breathtaking. Every meal makes your mouth water. But after a certain point your mind can't count the hours it must have taken to make a church, you have to stop letting the views take your breath away so you don't suffocate, and if your mouth doesn't stop watering you will drool on yourself. So I am just enjoying as much as I can and being grateful for the things that I would enjoy if I had room in my limited heart for them.
Siena is a gorgeous medieval town divided into 17 neighborhoods, called contrade, each with a mascot (Goose, Tower, Shell, Wave, etc). They have a horse race every year in the main piazza, and good fortune and bragging rights are on the line. This is a HUGE deal! Passions and tempers can run deep between rivaling contrade, and to come in second place is worse than coming in later, because it means you almost won.
My host family is the Carlini family. They are a sweet older couple with young hearts, kind eyes and amazing cooking skills. Their 24 year old son is smart and fun and studying to be a professor of medieval art. There are two poodles as well, Lily and Mimosa. They are a bit like paranoid old princesses, and every time you walk across the floor, or move suddenly, Mimosa starts barking like crazy, as if to say, "HEY! HEY! What are you doing in my house! Hey! Oh, it's you. Oh, ok. Well I'll let it slide this time." And Lily follows suit, "HEY! I don't know why we are barking but you are barking so I am barking! What's wrong? Somethings wrong! Oh, you stopped, ok." They do this even when their own family walks across the floor.
Our new babbo, Marco, informed us that we are in the Nicchio contrada; the team of the shell.
La vita e bella.
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