Moose and Squirrel

Bottle of red, bottle of white. . . Okay, not really. More like a glass or a mezzo litre. But it's still good, baby! Here in the land of Romeo and Juliet, we're just taking it easy, walking, looking around. A bit laid back. Weather is wonderful and warm so we don't even have to carry rain gear. Verona is not that full of sights so you don't feel quite the pressure to always do something. Today we walked across the river and up the hill to get great views over the city from two different hills. We had the places to ourselves, which was nice. Tomorow we head to Venice and our last stop. We'll send one more blog before hopping on the plane at, ugh, 730 am (that means catching a 4am boat!). I ... read more

Ciao. Left the Dolomites behind this morning. Truly spectacular and hard to come up with the appropriate adjectives. Seeing Otzi, the ice man, was truly cool also. Chilling. Actually frozen. He is still kept pretty chilled so he doesn't decompose. We did some good hiking and I had a Radler in good old german fasion. We are now in Verona. Home of those young lovers Romeo and Juliet. Jim and I are a lot like those young star crossed lovers. Well, then again, maybe not a lot a like them. Verona is very pretty and we wrap things up in Venice in a few days. Pictures to follow when we get home. Squirrel The Alps are fantastico bellisimaximo! Freaking unbelievable, that's where-I-want-to die beautiful. Did I mention how breathtaking it was? Now we are in a ... read more

Ciao. Yes, I know, not much blogging lately. We left San Casciano yesterday. We wwoofed for 9 days and stayed and extra day cause we found out buses dont run on Pasqua (Easter). We did get to enjoy Easter lunch with our wwoof family. They were great. Kirsten, Pascal, Rudy, Oliver, and Anna. We had a great time and felt like part of a large italian family. And did I mention the food. Incredible. We learned to make homemade pasta (ravioli and noodles). Wonderful local wines. We had an apartment to ourselves. We did work pretty hard a few days (clearing out brambles, bamboo, etc.. off a bank that was in danger of taking over an olive garden). And did I mention we both made a couple of prints. You artsy folks would have loved it. ... read more

Okay,when we are paying by the hour, hard to take time to be creative. Mi scusi. All is well. We enjoyed hiking the Cinque Terre. Hiked our butts off cause a lot of up and down. MA Hoskins, you should come hike it. You would love it. We have been eating a lot and enjoying it. Jim ate a large portion of a whole cow last night. A la Vanessa style (it was still mooing). We are in Florence. One word for you. DAVID. Leaving in a bit to go to our next farm. Hope to come back to Florence for a day trip next week. Plus we have to complete our NCAA tourney brackets. And to the foodies out there, we had truffles in Paterno (our first farm). Forgot to include that. Delisimo. Ciao. Squirrel ... read more

Ciao. We continue to have a great time. We had a great local dining experience last night. The waiter did not speak English and Jim wasn't sure what he was ordering, but all turned out well. Jim also picked out a wonderfully delicious dessert by sight which we both enjoyed. The irony to the dining experience was the owner's children bringing in McDonald's bags and eating the stuff their in the restaurant as we enjoyed our riggotoni with pesto and pasta and seafood. I came very close to going over there and saying "molto malde" which translates as very bad. We go to Cinque Terre tomorrow which should be very beautiful. Ciao. Scoiattolo Genoa is a bit seedy, as fitting for a port town. The old city, where we are staying, is a strange maze of ... read more

ciao. scusi the typing. punctuation hard and im too lazy to find it and want to type fast since im paying per hour here at the internet place here in genoa. having a great time. wwoofing was great. darcy and adolpho were great hosts and yes we worked our butts off. but on the flip side, we were able to eat a lot. you are asking, what did we do. well, we scooped horse and donkey poop and filled buckets and dug out trenches around fruit trees and applied the manure around the trees. we moved bales of hay from a relatives barn to their barn. i didnt get to do this growing up cause it was considered mans work. ha i say. i have now worked in the hay. we dug holes, planted trees, built ... read more

Rome is over and now we're off to the country. Right now we are killing time in the Spoleto train station until our bus comes. We took the train from Rome this am--so far so good. I had booked us seats that were back to back by mistake but the train wasn't full so we just sat elsewhere. No problemo. Short trip of about an hour and a half. Squirrel just called our host and she said she would have lunch ready when we got there. Awesome! Meanwhile I haven't had my morning espresso (you should be proud, Joe, I'm drinking it like a real man now--no Americano for me, Italiano only!). A few more notes on Rome. Vatican Museum was a labryinth of tiny corridors followed by opulent halls, Sistine Chapel is Magnificent, we could ... read more

Ciao. In Rome. Computer keys a bit different so excusi for mistakes. Day of arrival. Napped one hour after getting to hotel (okay, so we are old), but then went and walked "all over" according to Mooseo. We did the Spanish Steps, Trevi Fountain, and a church (St. Maria I believe). Delicisio dinner and since Mooseo hates when I write about food, I'll tell you what we had. Antipasto was pruschetto (? spelling, ham), Jim had pasta carbonera and I had pasta something. Lots of wine, limoncello for dessert for me and an espresso for Jim (guess who had difficulty sleeping). Today we barely woke up in time for breakfast which ended at 9:30AM. Saw the colloseum and forum. And museums. Lots of really old stuff, but cool. Tonight we had more pasta and a seafood ... read more

I Love New York City! That said, Squirrel and Niece of Squirrel had a marvelous time. Well, at least I think we did. Squirrel of niece is a teenager, so I'm not completely sure about the marvelous time being mutual, but I think a good time was had by all. Banning fast food from our NYC diet seemed like a good idea to this 44 year old, but I think squirrelly niece, I mean Niece of Squirrel, might think differently. Hairspray, Wicked, Central Park, Saks, Tiffany and Co., The Rock Observatory, Staten Island Ferry with views of SOL and Ellis Island, subway rides, NYC pizza, bagels, Junior's cheesecake, Times Square. Those were the biggies with lots of other exciting smallies along the way. One noted event was the large number of Kosovans and Albanians celebrating on ... read more