Sunday, February 20, 2011

Catch Up!

As I have mentioned before, correspondence is not one of my stronger points. I think the last time I posted, it was October or November. Well, a lot has happened since then. Here is a quick recap of the past couple of months. For the most part, this post is in reverse order. I will give a Sadie update next. For now, I am tired of waiting for pictures to upload on our Italian server. Allora!

__________________________________________________________________


Most recently, we went to Bulfon Winery and San Daniele with a group of friends. It was about 45 minutes from the base. The wine was great and it was fun to do our own private tasting. San Daniele is known for their cured meats, especially prosciutto. Being a person who HATES ham, I probably didn't appreciate it for what it was worth but I had fun just the same!

Lots and lots and lots of meat!

Enjoying prosciutto and prosecco with friends in San Daniele!

That mosaic is the same as their label. Isn't it pretty?

Wine in the making. I love it when you ask for a sample and they get it directly from the barrel.

Sadie enjoying the wineries with our friend, Jennifer.

__________________________________________________________________


Christmas vacation: We enjoyed a quiet Christmas Eve and Christmas at home in Italy. We even attempted to make a somewhat Italian dinner of turkey, vegetable parmesan, and creamy polenta. Then we headed off to visit friends in Austria and Switzerland.

Our B&B in Lausanne, Switzerland graciously left house shoes for us!

Lausanne is home to the Olympic Museum. In addition to seeing cool things like all of the medals and torches from the games, they had several interactive exhibits that tested skills like reaction time and balance. It was lots of fun.

Walking by the lake on the way to the museum.

Go Split Times Designs! www.splittimedesigns.com (a little free advertising can't hurt!)

Prior to skiing in Austria. I am not a seasoned skier but I enjoyed the ski in/ski out perk of our apartment. Thanks Mike and Trish!
__________________________________________________________________


Kwame's sister, Amy, and her boyfriend, Larry, came to visit us in early January as part of their European tour. We spent one day in Verona, a beautiful Italian city taken over by Romeo and Juliet madness. It was almost like going to Disney World. You can visit Romeo's house, Juliet's house, Juliet's tomb, . . . Keep in mind that Romeo and Juliet is a story!

Letters to Juliet posted on a Christmas tree. There actually is a group dedicated to answering letters written to Juliet. You can even send her an email and she will write back. The Juliet Club.

Juliet's (fake) balcony in her (fake) house.

Verona's Colosseum. One of the only colosseum's that is still in one piece and still in use for concerts and shows (not gladiatorial events!)

Sculpture outside the Colosseum.

Gates to one of the piazzas.

__________________________________________________________________


The Belluno Santa Claus race. For the bargain price of 13 Euro, you can run a 12K in a Santa suit. Imagine several hundred runners dressed as Santa. Incredible!


In December, we took a group trip to Salzburg to go to one of the big Christmas markets. In the week leading up to it, I was so excited to get gelato while we were out and about. After arriving and realizing that it was below 30 degrees, I quickly switched that desire to hot spiced wine!

Salzach River

Downtown Salzburg is filled with lots of cute shops.

The Christmas Market: opportunities to try different kids of food and desserts, get a nice buzz from all of the warm alcoholic drinks, and buy some Christmas stuff. A good way to spend an afternoon.

How can you say no to something as delicious looking as this?

Sadie on the bus ride there. She is so sweet!

__________________________________________________________________


We spent Thanksgiving weekend in Rome and enjoyed the tremendous history and culture that the city offers. We also enjoyed window shopping in some fancy stores and sushi:)

The Colosseum at night.

The three of us at the very top of St. Peter's Basilica. The view was incredible. As you can see, Sadie was enjoying herself.

St. Peter's Square . . . waiting in line to go in. . . the wait wasn't bad. It was definitely worth traveling during the winter.

View from the Vatican Museum.

Inside the Colosseum.

Infant sleeping accommodations at the Sleeping Beauty in Rome.

__________________________________________________________________


Kwame was the innkeeper in the Aviano Community Theater production of "Fiddler on the Roof." He had a great time being in the show and we loved watching him perform. Make sure you get a good look at that realistic beard that he wore!



Thursday, November 4, 2010

Venzone Pumpkin Festival

One of our new favorite things to do in Italy is go to festivals. Our latest, the Venzone Pumpkin Festival, was our favorite thus far. Venzone is about an hour east of Pordenone. The drive is beautiful and goes through the mountains and several little towns. Like most festivals, this one featured local artists, musicians, and foods. The pumpkin theme was evident throughout the food (think pumpkin soup, pumpkin gnocchi, pumpkin breads/strudal, pumpkin gelatto, and several other little pumpkin sweets) and drink (pumpkin grappa - no one tried it). The festival also had a medieval theme so we got to see lots of cool performances like flame throwers:) Fun, fun!

Flame throwers


Street performers


The crowd!


The beautiful view of the mountains from the town square. The entire town was destroyed by an earthquake in 1976. The people of the town decided to rebuild the entire thing exactly how it was before the quake!


Almost 1000 pounds of pumpkin


Pumpkin carving


Long ago, an artist was commissioned to design a gold ball for the top of the bell tower. However, the town decided when he finished the project to only pay him 1/3 of what they owed. He decided to switch the gold ball for a pumpkin that was spray painted gold and then skip town in the middle of the night! The citizens thought the "gold ball" was wonderful until it started rotting. . .


Venzone is a walled city. Thankfully, they let us in!


On our way to the gates

Venice with Mom

My Mom and I took Sadie on her first trip to Venice last week. While there were some crazy things that happened (none that I want to recount on here because they make me mad), we had a great trip and enjoyed beautiful weather. Plus, Venice was not as crowded as it is in the summer which was very nice. Sadie was great the entire day and even slept that night (as an added bonus. *not sure why part of this is underlined. hmmm*

Three generations of Jayne gals.


Us in 2002. San Giorgio is behind us. We are very close to where the next picture was taken.


Mom and the gondolas.

The view of San Marco Square from the vaporetto.

Where you have to feed your baby if you are too cheap to pay to sit in a cafe! Note the Halloween socks peeking out from the blanket.

October

October flew by and we enjoyed a wonderful month with beautiful weather here. While it does rain a lot here, we have plenty of days with sunshine and mild weather too. Here are some thing that happened in October.

Kwame and I took advantage of my Mom being here and had a night out while she babysat. She left on October 30:(


Sadie started showing us her beautiful smile. Now she likes to cheese it up for the camera or anyone else who will watch.


Baby's First Halloween! Nonna got to help Sadie try on her costume.


Beautiful ballerina


Another way to wear the tutu . . .

Sadie's awesome hat. Kwame agrees. Just ask him!

Like father, like daughter

Sadie's BFF, Tristan, in their costumes after Trunk or Treat on the base. They are both making their scariest faces. Eek!

Enjoying Trunk or Treat at the base. Since we (and Sadie) didn't care about the candy, we didn't have to wait in the 3 hour line to see all of the decorated cars.

Lazy Sunday afternoon.

More relaxing

Stay tuned for November!