Meeting the Family – all 35 of them !

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We went to Giovanin's farm this morning and used the INTERNET to book a place to stay in Venice next week. We also got some details on an apartment that we are considering in Grenoble.

Around noon, Sandra picked us up to take us to the family get together in the town of Vidules. This family reunion was quite a large production taking place in a local restaurant with a long table. With some of the family unable to attend, we still reached 35 people seated at one very long table. Robbie, Evy's cousin from South Africa who speaks English, was seated near us which was nice as most of the relatives speak little English and only Evy speaks the local dialect, Furlan.

After a great lunch, we took a family photo out front of the restaurant before driving in the cars to a restored traditional farming community near by. This set up was similar to “Black Creek Pioneer Village” in Toronto with people demonstrating traditional crafts and skills. We started with the blacksmiths where Joshua got to try hammering the red hot iron. After this we had a very long presentation in Furlan on the workings and customs of a traditional kitchen and dinning room. The dining room table is only for the men and the woman do the serving. Somehow I don't think this would fly at home.

Other rooms in the compound had demonstrations of lace making (where the demonstrators hands just flew through the complex knots), as well as displays of farm equipment, honey collecting, silk worm rearing, wool spinning, beer making and a traditional school room.

After the tour we returned to Giovanin's farm for dinner. While we were there, Evy's cousin Stefano who had been unable to stay for the lunch called. We made plans for Evy and I to go out with him later that evening.

Stefano was a great host and ended up taking us to a tavern across the street from the restaurant where we had had lunch today. He and Evy had not seen each other for many years so that was a lot to catch up on. On hearing our plans to visit Venice on Tuesday, he insisted that he drive us to the train station, which will be nice.

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