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Published: December 31st 2006
Alessandro and Claudio
I think my new favorite photo... this is on the Mediterranean in GenoaMerry Christmas and Happy New Year Everyone!
Well, it has been an exciting 8 days. I left Ljubljana early on the 23rd for Italy, to join my Zia Marlene and Zio Luigi for a wonderful Christmas is Genoa! Five uneventful hours on a train and an additional four by car, we arrived to a beatiful, sunny, 15 degree Mediterranean Coast that was absolutely refreshing after 2 months of fog in Ljubljana! Strange having palm trees and ocean spray on Christmas day, but I'm not complaining!
Christmas day, I woke up early (ahem... 9am) to my mom phoning (midnight her time!) to say Merry Christmas, which was great to wake up to! I then spent 3 hours preparing for everyone's arrival with my uncle's niece (Erika) running up and down 2 flights of stairs about 19 times to carry chairs, food, plates etc from Erika's mom's (Adelle's) place below. It was hard to keep calm with the high stress of Erika and all the other women in the room!
Dinner, of course, was perfect. Traditional italian cuisine combined with my Aunt Marlene's enormous turkey, gravy, and stuffing. There was a table for the men and one for the women,
but unfortunately there was one to many chairs at the men's table. Guess who got sat there?? Yup, so I spent two days eating and talking about (well, mostly listening to) politics, economics, cars... in Italian! It was great and by the end my Italian had improved 10 fold.
The next day (boxing day) was also a holiday called Santo Stephano, so again... we ate another feast! It really amazes me the incredible capacity of the women there... not only do they do all the preparations: cooking, cleaning, decoration, setting up tables and chairs, but also all the serving, cleaning up after, take down. And they do it two, sometimes three days in a row!
The 27th I returned to Bassano with my aunt and uncle, and the next day I had a quiet train ride back to Ljubljana, where I arrived to...
A house full of Quebecers!!! My roommate Elise currently has 8 of her friends from the little island she is from in Quebec called Iles de la Madelaine. All of them happened to be in Europe for the New Year, and so they chose Ljubljana as the place to converge and party! Needless to
say, its been a TON of fun. All of them are really great people (islanders always are...), and I've been able to practice my french a lot as well. The best part of course is the incredible cuisine they manage to cook in our little kitchen... last night we had a table of 9 set up in my bedroom, and tonight there are 10 of us for New Years Eve dinner! Yum! Yesterday I spent the day with Guillaume and Simon at the Museum of Modern Art and then Metelkova to get some daytime pictures, and today....
I took off with the four guys and went snowboarding!! YAAA!! haha...We went to what I thought was a little hill called Krvavec (http://www.rtc-krvavec.si/eng_Default.htm) that turned out to have at least 8 chair lifts, a few great little bars and restaurants, and even some accomodation! Anyway it was... well... it was sunny at least! haha There has been very little snow in Slovenia compared to most years, so the snow was icy and man made... but I didn't care so much! It was so great to have a board under my feet and cruise in the Slovenian Alps! Definitly different than riding
Nando and Luigi
... the very charming and cute italian boy i got to sit next to!
at home, but a great time non the less!
Anyway, I pray everyone back home has a GREAT and SAFE New Years! Happy 2007!
Love you all,
Mel.
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Nancy
non-member comment
happy 2007
Yeah......you're back!!! It was so good to see your photos in Genoa, I too loved the photo of Alessandro and Claudio! Eight chairs...and no snow. Watch Al Gore's movie on global warming..."The Inconvenient Truth"!! Glad you are having fun on your break. Was SOOO nice to talk to you at the cabin. Take care and Happy New Year. Love N.