Under the Tuscan Sun

Sam and Nick at the top of the Torre' di Pisa

The tower climbers.

Sam holding up the tower.

The farmhouse where we stayed.

Isabelle and her favorite horse.

For the European Labor Day, May 1, we had a little visit to the Tuscany area of Italy. We stayed on a horse farm in a beautiful apartment with a pool, plenty of green space and a million dollar view of the mountains and beautiful race horses across the garden. We also visited the Leaning Tower of Pisa (of course) and the marble mines of Carrara, the largest deposit of white marble in the world (in Italiano, "cave di marmo). It was a wonderful and relaxing weekend.

La Zia & La Nonna Vanno a Roma

In early March, my mother and sister came for a visit. It was really wonderful of them to come; my sister has to get away from work and find someone reliable to watch over Natasha & Gypsy and my grandmother's death was only 2 months behind my mom. But they came and we had a typical "indie film style" loving, contentious and exciting visit. We of course dragged them to our favorite restaurants & places in Padova, we made side trips to Verona and Venice and we had a long weekend in Rome. Unfortunately, their visit and subsequently our visit to Rome, coincided with the European Rugby championship and the Rome Marathon. Rome was very crowded, but our Italian friends tell us that Rome is always like that and something is always going on. This really made getting around town difficult. But we saw all the big highlights including the Vatican Museum, Sistine Chapel, St. Peter's, Trevi Fountain, Pantheon and the Coliseum. There were two especially memorable stories from this trip.

First, the only time we used a guide was for our Vatican visit. The lines to get into Vatican City are LONG (like in a a couple of hours long)! We paid for a private guide which involved a mini-van picking us up from the hotel which showed up 2 hours early by mistake. We left the hotel with our guide and the 7 of us and arrived at the Vatican where we met with an older gentlemen who gave our guide a small slip of paper and instructions to hand to the guards at the gate. (We have no idea what was written on the little piece of paper and come to think of it, we probably don't want to know.) This allowed us to not only cut in front of all the "regular" visitors standing in a line that snaked around for I don't know how long, but also into the front of the tour group line. Once inside, we bypassed one set of ticket counters up to another which required our guide to then make a phone call and to tell us that if anyone asked, we were all just "friends" and that we shouldn't act like he was a "guide." While the whole "cutting in front of everyone in line thing" was a bit shadowy, I think we all agreed that it was well worth the cost and had a very Italian "we are breaking some (okay, a lot of) rules, but we really aren't hurting anybody" kind of feeling. I am sure that we would have stood in line for at least 2-3 hours if we had arrived any later than 7 am. Anyway, we got into the museum and it was jam-packed and we had a quick tour, pausing in my favorite room (remember, Terri?) of maps which is just connected to the walkway to the Sistine Chapel. This was also packed but it is very cool and I had read a book about how Michelangelo was commissioned to and completed painting the chapel ceiling. Also, our guide then took us in the "back door" of St. Peters (which is really part of the Sistine Chapel excursion). St. Peters really is a unique church given the international wealth and prestige that the catholic church has enjoyed throughout history. The kids especially liked the dead pope on display, its one of the popes that died in the 1960's, and his face is wax now (or something) - whatever, we just called him the "wax pope."

Second, we missed getting into the Coliseum on Friday, so we tried again on Sunday but were running late because we had lunch at the Hard Rock Cafe' with every other English speaking person in Rome. So, Bill and I went back across town to get the luggage for 7 people while my mom & sister took the kids on a Coliseum tour. The Rome marathon ended at the Coliseum and thus, no cabs or buses were able to get down there and it involved the kind of subway rides for all of us that require you to literally push your way on. It was all very rushed, including the kids and their aunt & grandma arriving for the train 4 minutes before it left - the kids running through the Roma train station to get on the train. It was all very stressful, but we didn't miss our train and we settled in and had a smooth ride home.

All I can say, is Rome is cool, we visited a church which features artwork that was created with the bones of 4000 dead capuchin monks. Rome is the epicenter of everything Italian - I would love to go on a sabbatical there! Are you listening honey? We also heard more people speaking English there than anywhere else in Italy.

I really have to thank my mom and Monica for coming. I believe they left with enough shoes, rosaries, purses, chocolate treat eggs, soccer jerseys and jewelery to call it a successful trip. Hopefully, my sister will email me some good digital pictures that I can add to this blog because all I have are hard copies.

Carnevale

Carnevale, in the rain.

The everpresent shower of confetti.

Nick with his official Venice carnival mask.

Sam with his mask.

Hello - I haven't posted in forever, no excuses - but I do have lots of good pictures, so I will start to post some of them. Here are a couple from Carnevale, the original Mardi Gras. It is also the Italian version of Halloween, since all the kids get a few opportunities to wear costumes and people give them candy. We went to Venice on the day before the "official" Carnevale because we had heard it was more of a drunken, party time - so we went on kids day. Unfortunately, it was cold and rainy but we had lots of fun anyways.

More Ski Pictures

Pranzo fuori.

Some quick chess before skiing - apparently, the helmet and goggles is good for Isabelle's game.

Bill and kids in front of the cell tower at the top of the ski area.

Sam

Nick

Ready to ride the mountain!

Photos from White Week

Here is Bill, looking like he is standing in front of a postcard.

Mia famiglia.

Isabelle waiting for ski school.

The "line" to get on the gondola in the morning.

Isabelle with her ski school class -

she is in the middle with the white helmet.

Settimana Bianca

Settimana bianca, “white week,” is the Italian version of winter break and many people go on vacation and it seemed that most of the schools are closed. We headed off to the mountains for our annual ski vacation. We always go out west to Colorado, which involves a long day of travel. This year was great because we only had a very easy, 3-hour car ride up into the mountains from Padova. We went to Brunico in the Alto Adige region of Italy. This area is a semi-autonomous region of Italy, but the first language is German and this is the area of Italy that was passed back and forth between the Germans, Austrians and Italians during the various wars in this part of Europe. Brunico is the Italian name of the city, but its “real” name is Brunek (apparently Mussolini changed all the German names to Italian names during WWII, so all the cities, mountains, etc. have two names). We stayed at a spa resort and they did all the cooking! We had fantastic tasting, healthy food – they modified the presentation for the kids (e.g., no sauces) and we all liked the spa health drinks they gave us each night as an appetizer.

We skied on a mountain known as Kronplatz (Plan de Corones). The kids were very excited to go skiing, it is something that we all love and this year we could all ski together (meaning that Isabelle can keep up with us and I can still keep up with the boys!). We had “heard” about the European process of getting on the gondolas/chair lifts that take you up the mountain for skiing, but thought that the reports of how bad it is were exaggerated by crabby, insensitive types. We were wrong! There is no process. The reports weren’t exaggerated. Everyone stands in a crowd, jostles for space, jockeys for position and pushes, literally pushes, their way on to the gondolas. It was terrible. Let me say it again – it was awful! The gondolas and chair lifts up on the mountain, were a little, only a little, better. Bill thinks there is a great Art Buchwaldian essay on the comparison between lift lines, universal health care and the contrast between Europe and the U.S. I agree, but I think he wants me to write it and I will if I am inspired enough some afternoon. Okay, so the lift lines were terrible, but to ski in the Alps is just amazing. While every year we ooh and ahh at the beauty of Colorado, these mountains here were even more dramatic and breath-taking. The peaks were more jagged and because this was a low snow year, they were not uniformly covered in snow providing a panorama of enormous, textured beauty, 360 degrees. While the lift lines were very crowded, once up on the mountain, the ski runs were not particularly busy and there were many times that we were skiing around very few other people. The kids balked at going to ski school with instructors that spoke primarily German, but we just forced them to go and surprise (not to us of course), they loved it. Most of the instructors spoke Italian and they know enough Italian to get by and most know a few words of English. Although, this was primarily a German/Austrian resort area and that was the dominant language.

We took one day off from skiing and drove over to the famous Cortina where the 1956 Olympics were held. We visited with the family of a little girl, Elena, in Isabelle’s class. The parents are both pediatricians, he is a surgeon and she is a hospital doctor and they cooked us lunch & walked us around Cortina. Cortina is a magical city and it doesn’t matter which way you look, you are surrounded by beauty. The shopping looked wonderful, although we were walking around with 6 kids, 8 and under, so there was no shopping and mostly watching to make sure that no one got run over by one of the zillions of cars trying to drive around the tiny, old mountain streets. Also, when we complained about the lift lines, Stefano assured us that they were much better organized from when he was a kid and that they improve every year! We had a wonderful afternoon and all the kids fell in love with their 15 month old baby, Silvia, and the boys are pestering me to learn how to make the ragu (Bolognese-style) sauce that Maria put on everyone’s pasta. Maria wants me to visit so she can practice her English so maybe I can trade English lessons for a cooking lesson on pasta sauce. Confession – I still just buy the canned stuff over here.

Also, the Italians will not be without their cell phones - they are everywhere. For example, yesterday, I saw a guy on a bike with his two children, one in a little seat in the back and one on a little seat between his legs & the handle bars, riding down the street, talking on the phone while he ran a red light! I even see nuns all the time walking down the street chatting on their cells. But I digress, how unusual for me. One of the problems when we go to Colorado, is keeping in touch with each other on the mountain because the cell reception is so bad. Not a problem here. There was a huge cell tower, right on the top of the mountain, with at least 25 little satellite dishes on it. I'll post a picture. It was great - it was very easy to keep in touch, because you will inevitabley get seperated while skiing and it was easy to call and find each other.

It was fantastico! It was a wonderful week in the mountains and we always have fun on our ski vacations. Honestly, we would probably never come back here to ski during the regular holidays, but Bill and I are already fantasizing our return in the future during the “off-season” when the kids are gone to college. Also, we are thinking we might return for a hanging out and hiking around the mountains vacation before we return to the States this summer.

Pictures from London

Nick and Isabelle at a park (I forget the name) near the War Museum.

Sam & Nick near our hotel waving the Union Jack!

Bill's friends and son from Stanford who live in London. (Yes, we are at the Hard Rock cafe.)

Playing around in the toy store.

Vacanza in Londra

I didn't get a chance to write about our Christmas vacation to London. After much discussion about what to do and being too late to book a ski trip, we decided to go to London for three reasons. First, everyone says it is a great place to go with kids. Second, it would be very easy for us because of the language. Three, the kids go to a British school, so they feel an affiliation of sorts, to the UK now - in some ways at the school since we are native English speakers, we are lumped in with "them," the "them" being the Brits. We had lots of advice about what to do from multiple sources and tried to do as much as we could in just 6 days. Here is a quick rundown of some of our fun.

The weather was rainy, but warm, 40's & 50's, so most of our walking around was pleasant and we just hopped into cabs at other times. We saw the changing of the guards at Buckingham Palace - well, I didn't see it because we moved our spot and then couldn't really see a thing so Bill hoisted the kids up on his shoulders, one at a time, multiple times to see the "parade" of the guards and horses. I believe we collectively rated it as "just okay." We went to both the Science and Natural History Museums. The Science museum was very similar to lots of things we have seen in the U.S. in the manner of science and technology; although they did have a special exhibit devoted to "gaming" from the earliest games in the 70's to state of the art virtual reality games. And the best part was, you could play ALL the games - from Pong (which I remembered as fun, but is in fact, slow and boring), to Space Invaders (I was hot at that game in college) to Simon Says to virtual reality tennis and eveything in-between. That was a lot of fun for me and and the kids. We even played "Guitar Hero," which I won the first time, but Sam handily won on the second go-around. Bill tells me some major league baseball pitcher this summer played too much "Guitar Hero" and hurt/damaged his wrist and then couldn't play in the play-offs. Isabelle was especially enchanted by Ms. Pac-Man and of course, the boys loved it all and were easily shooed away from a couple of inappropriate machines which did have the big warning signs on them! Of course, our children, who are a little group of natural-scientists-in-training anyway, loved the Natural History museum even more and we had a great time there among the earthquake, volcano, ecology, dinosaur, animal, etc. exhibits. We also went to Churchill's War Museum, which we weren't expecting to be all that interesting for the kids, but both Bill and I wanted to see it, so they really had no say in the matter. The War Museum is actually housed in the underground bunker where the British government operated during the war and somewhat surprisingly, it was a tremendous hit with the kids. I believe, in part, because each person had their own little audio-guide and the stories are told in a compelling and interesting way - it was more than just walking around looking at exhibits and listening to Mom & Dad tell the stories. It was their introduction to the history of WWII, which is probably appropriate given our current address and they asked a zillion questions, about half of which we could answer. I believe that was one of their highlights of the trip. Another day we went to the theatre and saw Stomp which Nick described in his journal as "a bunch of homeless people showing how to make music with garbage cans, brooms and other everyday things." We all enjoyed it as well as going to the movies to see a kid flick in English, Happy Feet, which we don't get to do here in Italy. Another tourist attraction that we visited was the Tower of London, essentially a collection of medieval castles/fortresses and that was fine. We rode the London Eye, a gigantic ferris wheel with enclosed little pods that offered a beautiful view of London at night. Hmm, what else am I forgetting? Oh, yes, a shopping trip to Hamley's, a 7 story toy store, courtesy of all their grandparents. Now, that was fun (for the kids)!Sam and I went to Harrod's for the post-xmas sales and snatched up some good deals. We also spent some time in many of the green spaces around London just hanging out and one evening stopped by a carnival in Hyde Park and went on a couple of rides. One of the most magical moments was watching the midnight fireworks from our hotel room on the 9th floor. While not planned, we couldn't have asked for a better place to watch them. All 5 of us enjoyed watching television, which we don't do all that much here and Bill and I got to watch Jon Stewart one evening and I think Bill even watched a football game. There are lots of other things we missed, most notably the British Museum, but there are more trips to be had to London, I'm sure of that.

We really had a nice time, the hotel was luxurious and everything in London is very expensive!! Ouch!! But, it was a great week for our us and we're glad we went. Finally, we met up with a couple that Bill knew from his Stanford post-doc (they are both scientists) and their son who is the same age as the boys. Apparently, Bill gets in touch with them about every 15 years, so the kids & I were a big surprise! We had lunch and their son taught our kids how to wiggle their ears, but Isabelle is especially good at it, ask her the next time you see her.

Whew, we did a lot, didn't we? It didn't really feel exhausting though and was a nice vacation. And while on an everyday basis, our language barrier gets smaller and less important, I am only a little ashamed to admit that going someplace where I can speak to anyone, at any time, was the "icing on the cake" as they say. Also, being away from the siesta system and being able to run out in the afternoon and grab a bottle of Tylenol or a couple of apples also lent some charm to the visit. The only low point was when we we were talking about "coming home" and meaning Padova, Isabelle thought we were getting on a plane to the US and had apparently been operating under that assumption the entire week. She was more than a little disappointed and there been some backlash. Even though, that being said, she is generally happy with school and life here. She told me the other day she was sad because she couldn't "remember how the face looks" of one of her favorite little friends, Caroline, from the Giving Tree year. We all have our little bouts of homesickness and this was her turn.

Now, next week we head north for Brunico, to spa & ski for "White Week" in the northern part of Italy that is bilingual in German & Italian. One Italian acquaintance said, "you're not going to Italy, you are really going to Austria." It is right on the border, just the other side of the Alps. This has not been a good snow year in this part of Europe, but we embark with open minds, the hope to do a little skiing at least one or two days, our bathing suits for the heated pool and no cooking for a week!

Tanti Auguri for Isabelle

We are posing here with Agnes and her siblings and mother.

Isabelle is thinking to karate chop the cake, while her fellow birthday girl, Agnes looks on to protect it!

The party gang!

Everyone coming down the moonwalk slide.

The birthday girl.

*Note - Isabelle had some face painting done which is not very clear in the picture, but the dark shadows on the side of her face and the red eyes are face paint and not bruises and/or the result of some consumptive-wasting disease.

Isabelle had a joint birthday party with one of her best friends, Agnes, who is in her class and turned 7 just two days after Isabelle had her 6th birthday. We had the party at a moonwalk place called "Hakunamattata" like from the Lion King. Isabelle and Agnes are in a class of only 14 children, so of course everyone was invited. It was a Sunday afternoon, so most of the parents came and as one of the Italian father's remarked, "Now this is really an international party!" Families from the party were from Sri Lanka, Germany, America (just us), the Netherlands, Croatia, Sweden and Italy. We sang Happy Birthday three times, first in Italian, second in English, and finally in German (for Agnes). Agnes' mom loves to bake, so she made a huge cake for the girls, they got lots of presents and a fun time was had by all - 4 solid hours of jumping, dancing, drinking soda pop, eating junk food and sweating. Can a group of 6 and 7 year olds ask for more? The photos are evidence of the fun and mayhem!

Natale in Italia

Here's Nick on Christmas morning building a new Lego toy and Isabelle proudly showing off a Barbie.

I am frantically writing blog posts to get myself caught up before I forget what has happened and never catch up.

Christmas Eve and Christmas Day were really pretty low-key. On Christmas Eve we had a traditional Italian dinner of fish with just the five of us. We had fresh swordfish that I bought at the market that morning, which we all love and one of those Italian Christmas cakes in the octagonal tube kind of boxes. You know those cakes, you see them around the holidays especially at Italian owned markets like Nino's (a reference for the Detroiters). They were EVERYWHERE during the holiday season. You couldn't walk down the street without seeing at least half the people carrying one, day and night. We tried a lemon flavored one - we didn't really like it. Earlier in the week we had a more traditional one which tasted kind of like raisin bread - that one was much better. The lemon one was like lemon flavored bread with a sugary creme filling that made my teeth hurt. I probably could have scored a much better dessert at any one of the gazillion bakeries in my neighborhood, but I was a lemming and really wanted to walk down the street with my cake in the box like everyone else. After dinner we opened up some presents and ate some really great swiss chocolate that we received as a gift. We were very homesick for the annual Christmas Eve Bala-fest that is usually at our house and I had my first real bout of overall homesickness at the holidays. But overall, we had a really nice, albeit quiet, family Christmas Eve. It was a lot like our Christmas day in the US because Bill's family is in Maryland, so we are used to having one of the days to ourselves.

Santa Claus/Father Christmas/Babbo Natale found our apartment and brought everyone lots of nice gifts. Later that day we were invited to have dinner with a German family we met through the school. They have three children also; Agnes who is in Isabelle's class, Andreas who is in football club with the boys and Teresa who is in 6th grade. Regina cooked us a very wonderful, traditional dinner with soup, roast, potatoes and some incredible asparagus that was wrapped up in little "packets" with proscuitto and then baked . . . yummmm. I brought a homemade apple pie and a chocolate chip cake. It was incredibley generous of Regina to have us over, since I invited them to our apartment when I found out that they, too, would be without family on Christmas Day. However, they are here permanently and have a big house, so she insisted that we come to them and then did all the cooking! (She also baked Isabelle's birthday cake, but that is another story for the Isabelle-birthday blog.) It was a wonderful afternoon and the kids all had a lot of fun together and we only broke one of their good wine glasses (really, we did break one of their good wine glasses, I don't need to make this stuff up, it just happens). It was a memorable Christmas Day with some other expats and just another one of our great adventures.

Sam and Isabelle a little bit later in the day with some more of their Christmas loot.

Do you want a closer look?

I just realized that when you click on a picture on my blog, it shows you the image screen-size. I don't think it did this with the "old" version, that is, the blogger-host software from 2006. So, check it out. I think you might be able to get a closer look at how wrinkled all of our clothes really are since we don't have a dryer and this probably goes without saying, but, I don't iron (I guess you probably all knew that about me). Bill does iron his work shirts, but for some reason he isn't ironing mine or the kids' clothes (yet).

Seriously, all depending on how fast your computer connection/server is, it may take a couple of minutes. But some of the pictures are really worth a second look at (especially for the grandparents!).

Christmas at the International School of Padua

One of the oh-so-cool 7 Swans a Swimming; she loved her outfit and I expect this is just a preview of what she will wear to her senior prom or wedding someday!


Even though our school is obviously secular, in Italy you celebrate Christmas, period. It was convenient for us, since we go along with all of that anyway in the Episcopalian/Christianity-lite version of religion that we are using for the religious indoctrination of our children. Isabelle’s class performed a play about Mr. Patridge and the 12 Days of Christmas and she was one of the “seven swans a swimming.” As described by my friend Allison the film maker said, “I loved Isabelle's costume it looks like it was right out of a Matthew Barney film (the most artsy of art films).” Of course, I don’t know who Matthew Barney is, I may or may not have seen one of his films, but you have to agree - that is no cutesy Anne Geddes get-up. (By the way, Allison is long overdue on answering one of my emails and I may be able to shame her into action by begging for communication in this quasi-public forum. Allison, when you get home from your vacation this month – call, write, email or at least send me a signal telepathically!) But, I digress.

The boys' classes performed a musical version of Robin Hood along with the fourth and fifth grades. The older kids got all the individual roles and the third graders were all assigned the part of “villager.” It was very cute listening to 150 children singing in their British accented English, peppered with the Italian pronounciation of some of the vowels, about the “magic of Robin Hood.” We have a LOT of video of these performances, so you better be nice to us when we return stateside! The rest of the school’s Christmas activities were fairly standard with Christmas parties, pitching in to buy teacher gifts, Christmas crafts of trees, Father Christmas (as he is known in the UK and Babbo Natale in Italy), etc.



Here is a picture of Sam as a medieval villager. Nick is in the video version only!

Sleeping Beauty

Isabelle went to a birthday party last week after school on Thursday, had her face painted (like a cat I think) and came home to fall asleep on Daddy's shoulder. This was her last day of being 5 years old which she was quite happy about. Because she was bumped up in school to Year 1, she is the youngest one in her class and there are only two other kids even close to her age and they have already turned 6! The indignity of it all was more than she could bear! How dare the headmaster do that to her? She was refusing to go to school until she too turned 6 (fat chance of that happening). When I tried to comfort her by saying "Well, don't the kids in reception (i.e., kindergarden) kind of look baby-ish?" Her prompt response was, "No, they look like me." Ooops, strategic blunder on that one or fast thinking on her part or a little of both.

So, now she has turned 6 this weekend and is happy to be the "right" age as she tells it.

When did these kids get so tall?

Yes, I am standing up straight (mostly) in this picture. This is us standing in front of the Ercolano ruins and you can see Vesuvio in the background.