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Published: November 28th 2011
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Halloween! Dear all of the awesome people in our lives,
Life certainly has a way of picking things up a warp speed and running with them, doesn’t it?
We miss you all more than you will ever know. Italy is teaching us many things, but one of the most prominent things is how much we love the people in our lives and how grateful we are for the blessings we have.
So, so, so many wonderful things to share with you! Where to begin??
Well, for starters, we’re feeling really good about our language skills. I practice weekly with my Italian teacher Leonardo, who is amazing! He laughs at me a lot because I’m ALWAYS asking questions and making up new weird phrases. Phil and I also took a leap of faith and started a “Language Swap” with a wonderful, 60 year old, retired Italian man named Gianluca. He has been absolutely fabulous and we love spending time with him! He is excited to learn English, and in return, helps us immensely with our Italian. YAY FOR GIANLUCA!!
We celebrated Halloween with a group called FESTA. It’s
an English-speaking theater group that does shows regularly with kids throughout the year. This year, for Halloween, we put together an event called “The Haunted Stables”. It was like the Haunted Ship in Duluth, except little kids put it on. It was hosted at the Corsini Stables (google it!), which was once “home” to a very wealthy and noble family in Florentine history. Pretty cool stuff! I had to step outside of my bubble and wear face make up and dress up in a scary costume…it was crazy! Much to my dismay, Phil has posted some pictures of the gruesome event on Facebook…enjoy! 😊
We are now helping with the next FESTA show – a sort of dark twist on Hansel and Gretel. It’s fun to expand our network and interesting to be on the “other side” of theater rather than playing the part of the audience. It’s a learning experience to say the least! I think I’ll probably stick to sports in the future…but it’s been awesome watching Phil’s creativity shine through as he helps with the set and the script. Cool stuff.
Phil and I haven’t been able to do the travelling
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Florence by Night we’ve hoped to do yet, but it’s OK because it takes time to set up a new life. I basically spent my first break in October recovering from the start-up of school – I know my education friends and family out there understand exactly what I mean. We have friends and family coming in the near future, so we are SUPER pumped to do some travelling and sight-seeing with them.
Dogs. There are dogs EVERYWHERE in Italy!! They also can do whatever they’d like…and by that, I mean that they can go in and out of places like department stores and restaurants at free will. The dogs are very well behaved and many of them are not on leashes. It actually stuns me when I hear dogs bark because it is happens so seldom. It makes me miss our beautiful Bailey and Phil’s beautiful Ginger…and excited to see our big St. Bernard Toby when we are home in July. It also makes me want to get our own dog here!!!!!! I know, I know…settle down, Gina…
We just celebrated Thanksgiving with a great group of people and it was a huge success!! Hooray!! Kuddos
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Palazzo Vecchio to Phil, who did his very own turkey for the first time in an oven with no temperature settings on it – it was fabulous. Tacchino is not something that is had very often in Italy…and usually it’s not the whole bird. Phil ordered it from the butcher around the corner. He’s making great friends with the people in our neighborhood, which is awesome. We also had all the regular Thanksgiving Fixin’s…My mom’s green bean casserole made the feast complete – even though there is no velveeta cheese (that would be a SIN over here!), I think we did a good job of getting by with other fresh cheese to make the dish. One highlight of the meal was Anna’s Squashed Smurf. We could not find sweet potatoes…so we used squash. We also were unable to find regular marshmallows…so we used Smurf marshmallows. They were very Peepish and when they were cooked with the squash and butter they made a lovely green liquid. It was delicious! (insert squirmy face from Gina here…) A yummy good time was had by all.
One of my favorite things right now is just listening and observing the situation around me during
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Ponte Vecchio by Night my walks. On my way home the other day, I walked past three couples. Couple number one was speaking in French. Couple number two was speaking in Italian. Couple number three was speaking in English. I continued walking down the street with a huge grin on my face – 2 months ago, I wouldn’t have been able to pick up the difference between French and Italian. 3.5 months ago, I wasn’t living in an area where I could walk down the street and hear 3 different languages within seconds of each other. It’s become a fun challenge in my head to listen and decide what languages I’m hearing as I stroll through Florence…I hear German from time to time, and a lot of Russian, Chinese and Japanese. Being surrounded by a variety of languages is the best!
A few weekends ago, Phil and I went to the countryside to get away for a night. It was absolutely magical!! The Italian countryside is a sight to behold. We spent the night in a town called Paterno, at our friend Cassie’s Agriturismo. The first day we walked around on the grounds of the Agriturismo, which had a pool and
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Cupola of the Duomo a lovely Olive Grove. It is/was time for the olive harvest, so workers were out and about picking olives. We then enjoyed an awesome evening in the beautiful apartment with a huge fireplace and a lovely pasta-filled meal. The next day we walked all around through the small towns and villages connected to Paterno, and we ended up at the bottom of this magnificent hill. When we reached the bottom, we felt like we were trespassing because the roads had gotten so small and the lives of the people living in the homes we were walking by seemed like they could be held in the palms of our hands. We made our way to a nice brick bridge over a beautiful creek. On that day, being in nature, I felt right at home. I love Florence, and it’s magnificent city life. But there’s something to be said about the peacefulness and tranquility of the Italian countryside.
The Christmas lights are being put up all around Florence and I’m greatly looking forward our Christmas light walking adventures in the near future. I love this time of year and am excited to experience the holidays in a new place
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View of San Lorenzo and the Medici Chapel from the top of the Duomo and in a new way!
Friends count: Season 4, Disk 4, Episode 3, The One with the Invitation
Until next time, abbracci per tutti.
Peace, love, thoughts, and prayers,
Gina and Phil 😊
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Michele Mogen
non-member comment
It's about time!
Hard to live vicariously through you if you don't share your experiences very often :-) Love you both and can't wait to see in LESS THAN A MONTH!!! Mom