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!

Nonna has arrived!

My mom flew into Venice last Friday with our dog and two cats (yes, she may be a little crazy but it is only because she would do anything for anyone). We are so excited that she is here and gets to meet Sadie while she is little. Nonna is grandmother in Italian. Here is a little of what we have been doing since she got here:

Lots of cuddling

Hanging out at coffee shops

Taking fun day trips. This one was to Lake Barcis

Firsts

A bunch of firsts (in no particular order)

First family pic:)

First diaper change

First photo shoot with my awesome boots

First trip to the pool

First day home without Daddy:(

First bath

First trip to the doctor (two week check up)

First Trip to the Market

At 1 1/2 weeks old, we decided that Sadie needed to make a trip to the Pordenone market.

We did lots of things like shop for produce, cheese, and random articles of clothing.

Unfortunately, while Kwame and I thoroughly enjoyed ourselves, Sadie found the market to be rather boring! Maybe next time she will manage to stay awake for it.

Our Bambina!

As many of you know, we welcomed our beautiful little bundle of joy, Sadie Jayne, to the world on September 19 in the very early hours of the morning. Kwame is planning on writing an entry about her arrival but hasn't gotten to it yet*. In the meantime, I am posting this so that he has a place to write and I can get on with the rest of our Italian life.

*That isn't totally true. I asked him to delete or immediately edit the first one that he wrote so now we are just waiting for the newer version.

The Aviano Indoor Pool

After summer is over, the base pool closes and we can swim for free at the Aviano City Pool. It is actually a very nice pool, exceptionally clean with nice clear water. They do have a few rules that are slightly different from your average pool in America including:

1. Shoes must be left at the door to the locker room. You must put your flip flops on at that point (and you cannot accidentally wear the flip flops out of the building!)
2. Swim suits must be tight fitting - no board shorts for the boys
3. Robes are highly encouraged
4. Caps are required
5. You must shower before entering the pool (This is typical in America too but rarely enforced)
6. It is forbidden to shower without wearing a bathing suit
7. You cannot use your own hairdryer but must pay 10 cents to use one that is there

I didn't realize that Italians were such germ phobes. They sell several items at sporting goods stores to ensure that you never have to touch the floor and are comfortable while getting dressed. Here is an example of a pop-up mat that you can put down so that you have something to stand on while changing. The also make a hard fold-up disc that has some sort of carpeted material on the inside. If you ask me, I would rather take my chances with the germs on the locker room floor rather than what can grow inside those mats!

Anyway, all of this information is unrelated to the real reason for this post. Kwame and I went swimming yesterday. (Side note: I love it when Kwame swims with me but I can hardly ever get him to go. It was his suggestion yesterday!) He said that while he was in the locker room changing after our swim, there was an older man changing as well. The man's underwear said FRIDAY on it. I asked if he was wearing days of the week undies like a little girl (or boy?) might wear. Kwame said that FRIDAY was just written in there. I don't know what was funnier, the fact that the man had FRIDAY hand written in his undies or that it was Wednesday!

Ikea

Ikea's universal picture directions:)

Festivals!

It is Festival time . . .



We hit up a couple of local festivals the last two weekends. (By the way, I have no idea why this is all underlined . . . I don't even see an option for underline!). Our first stop was the Basket Festival in Polcenigo, which is about 15-20 minutes from our house. I know what you are thinking. Basket Festival, how boring! Well, we actually didn't buy a basket but totally fell in love with Polcenigo and the idea of festivals. This was the first time that we arrived at a festival in time to see stuff. We have happened across plenty of festivals as they were being set up but never got to see anything. If you actually get there when everything is ready to go and people are arriving, you can try wine and local food, hear music, and look at lots of booths.



A cool and old building on the top of the hill in Polcenigo. We never figured out what it was but it was fun to look at:)



Dear Dogs and Puppies, Do not poop here please (or these weird little tree men will get you while you are sleeping).



The next day we headed to Venice to see our friends, Abby and Greg Dennis. They were in town following a week of hiking in the Alps. After meeting up with them, we took the vaporetto (water bus) out to Murano to check out the glass factories. These nice men gave us a demonstration of glass blowing and then ushered us into their shop. It was amazing how quickly this guy made this vase. It took less than 10 minutes.




Then he made this horse in less than 5!



After Murano, we headed back to the main island to watch the annual regata. Like everything else in Europe, this has been going on for many years and features several different events. The sidewalks along the canals were lined with spectators. If visitors were to do it right, they would get a room in one of the fancy hotels overlooking the canal and watch from their window. We, of course, did not plan that far ahead and are far too cheap for that kind of entertainment!



All motorized boats were banned but the gondolas could still go. That would be second to your own hotel room for best spectator spot. I believe the guys in the striped shirts are former gondoliers.



Next, they had a youth race. Each team had two boats. It was fun watching them race. Unfortunately, they tended to run their boats into each other frequently.



The next event was the parade of old boats and people in traditional costumes. These boats were incredibly elaborate. Some were really big as well and took a small army to row.



Since we had only been walking for 10 or so hours by this point, we decided to head back to our hotel, quickly change clothes, and catch a vaporetto to the Venice Film Festival on the tiny island of Lido. First of all, while Lido is part of Venice, it is nothing like the Venice you will think of. It has cars and scooters, which is something you will never see in the main part of Venice. It also has beautiful houses, green space, and nice beaches allegedly - they are difficult to see at night! This picture is of the casino that housed most of the auxiliary events to the festival.



The main theater for fancy people. The public theater was down the street.



We watched the lead up to a Chilean film, Post Mortem, because that was what was going on when we got there. No idea who these stars are but they certainly did a good job hamming it up for cameras and fans! As luck would have it, everyone who we had heard of had either already made their appearance earlier that week or were scheduled for after we left! Next year . . .



Kwame outside the canal the back of the casino and theater.



On Monday, we took a quick (free) tour of San Marcos Basilica. You are not supposed to take pictures but I (along with the other 10,000 people in there) snuck in a few.



I was actually scolded for taking this one. It figures that out of everyone taking pictures, the security guard would pick me to tell to put my camera away. By the way, communion was happening a little to the left of this picture. Most people looked like tourists. This tiny little boy made his way to the front of the line. The priest talked to him for a second and proceeded to give it to him. Maybe he was very small for his age?



The last thing we did on this trip was go to the Leonardo da Vinci Machines in Motion exhibit. This is a traveling exhibit. I highly recommend it if you ever have the chance to see it. Some of the machines were hands on which was fun. It is amazing how much of our current technology was influenced by da Vinci's ideas and early inventions.



Last night, we headed to Budoia for the 43rd annual mushroom festival. Our friends, Hanna and Kevin, live in Budoia so we parked at their house and walked to the center of town. They take their mushrooms very seriously here. Apparently 23 people died trying to collect mushrooms this year for this festival!



This festival was mainly centered around incredible food and drink. We all ate too much (but it was worth it). The highlight of the evening was the entertainment, Giancarlo and the Santa Monica Band:)



Kwame won this gelatto cup for me. What a guy!