Christmas, family and EEL

HOLIDAY ?
Luckily the sun is now shining, the temperature's come u

p, my plumbing's no longer running, the laundry is done and the canary next door is singing. Life is good. Now if someone would just put some order into this apartment... 

From the train:  We barely made our train (only because Tullio lied to me and told me it left 15 minutes earlier than it actually did - I love this man!!) and we're on our way to Rome to see his sister. Monday, we head down to his parents' house in Puglia. Hopefully we'll get some good weather. Christmas shopping in Rome can't be too bad, though... Two days in Rome, three days in Martina Franca, and then off to Houston. I wish it were Holi-weeks instead of -days. Merry Christmas to all of you.

So, we made it to Martina Franca for Christmas.! First, we spent time with Rita and Zelinda in Rome, and then we took a plane down to Martina. Mishaps at the airport ensued. Tullio's brother was supposed to leave Rome for Bari on an Alitalia flight before us and wait to drive with us to Martina. We were going to meet him in his terminal (we left from another terminal.) Instead, he made the mistake of already going through security in his terminal (he had checked in online) and we didn't get to see him. So we headed back to our terminal. Then, Alitalia cancelled his flight, and we ended up reserving him a flight from our terminal at Fiumicino Airport on AirOne, going back and forth between the two terminals to help get him on that flight. Crazy. Then, even that flight was late. But eventually we got to his parents' house, and the vacation began.

The most important parts of the vacation: pranzo, riposino, and passeggiata (lunch, nap and walk) - and FAMILY. It was great to spend time as a member of his family. His parents coddled me, and I got to know everyone a lot better. We ran into our old friends Gianfranco and Domenico, and I got to meet a ton more home-town friends of Tullio's as we walked around town desperately trying to find some last-minute gifts. It seems Tullio is even well-beloved everywhere. We had a hilarious evening with another Gianfranco, who was telling funny stories about Gianfranco Number One in grade-school. It seems some of our friends have always been nuts (in a good way!)

The star of Tullio's family is Giulia, the only grand-daughter. What I didn't know was that Tullio has been designated Santa for many years now. At two and a half, she wanted nothing to do with him, and started crying - - and who was she crying for?? UNCLE TULLIO! She must've realized on some subconscious level that it was him? Pretty funny.

What I didn't know were some traditions in Italy - at least in Tullio's family. For Christmas eve dinner, we had all fish. And EEL was the featured main dish of the evening. I guess it's like black eyed peas in their region - you have to eat some for good luck? I don't know. I tried it, but it's not really my thing unless in small doses on sushi. We did the "vigilia," which many families do - wait until midnight to celebrate Jesus's birthday. They sang a little song, did a little procession and then put the baby Jesus (missing until now in the creche) into his manger. Except Giulia wanted to keep Baby Jesus to herself. It's hard to give up toys when you're two and a half. We opened a multitude of too-generous gifts, and Tullio's dad went to the end of the Mass to see what was going on there. My big gift from Tullio was spectacular - - I had mentioned that it'd be nice to play the 'cello again and play some concrete music that's not word-related. So he bought me A VIOLONCELLO!! He's absolutely crazy. Now, I guess I'll really have to take lessons again! I'll have to start at zero, but it's a beautiful project.


In any case, a great time was had by all, and then I had to leave... at 4 am on Christmas morning.

EGYPT

Next big trip was Egypt. My father got a bee in his bonnet to go see the Great Pyramids this year. So, within a week of deciding he needed to see that in his lifetime, he'd booked himself, Mom, Lisa and me tickets on a whirlwind tour of Egypt the first two weeks of December. I guess he thought, "strike while the iron is hot," or better yet, "when your daughters have free time..." So, off in another suitacase we go. I got my visa done in San Francisco, and off I went to Egypt after a scant week at home in Turin. We all met up in Cairo.


The next 9 days still seem somewhat of a blur to me. Don't quote me on this, but I think that from Cairo we flew to Abu Simbal, then to Aswan, where we took a cruise ship up the Nile.
Then we went to Alexandria, then back to Cairo. It was incredible, and our guide, Tarek was more than helpful. He is an Egyptologist, so he really knows his stuff about ancient Egypt. We saw Giza - the Pyramids, the Sphinx, the Valley of the Kings, and a lot in between.

` I have put up pictures on picasa, if you're interested. We had a great time with our group, filled with Americans, Canadians and Australians. And we had a great time just spending time together as a family. Dad had a little bout of Tutankhamen's Revenge while we were there, but everyone else was fine - except me the day I got home. I had dysentery until today, when I finally gave in and took Immodium. And on top of that, I immediately came down with a cold when I got home. Not fun. The change in the weather from sunny and mild to cold, rainy and dismal did not agree with me, obviously.

Picasa Pictures of EGYPT



More soon!

christmas 2008

 I can't believe it's almost Christmas and I haven't written a blog in ages.  LOTS of things have been going on, obviously, otherwise I'd have had two minutes to write! 

TURIN

First, I moved!  I have now officially invaded Tullio's beautiful apartment, and the hunt is on for a new place in lovely Turin. My friends Anja and Serge helped me load all my things into the truck of  a gracious Syrian man named Fanous, who drove me in his big truck through the Swiss Alps to Turin - it took us over 14 hours, I think.   My two turtles were in shoe-boxes in the cab with us, scratching in frustration the entire trip.  At some point, one of them (the one I call A**hole) escaped and was wandering around under the seat.   Exciting trip.  Then, we finally arrived and made our way to the depot where I'm keeping the majority of my boxes.  Tullio was waiting for us there, and we unloaded everything into his car and the depot while Fanous snoozed.  Then Fanous turned around and DROVE BACK TO BELGIUM!  I hope he made it!!   Sweet guy.   

So, our apartment's on via San Donato in Turin, near a beautiful church with a quaint painted tower, with a schoolyard underneath.  The bell rings at every hour and half hour, and the children fill the air with their playing and yelling in the early part of the day.  There's a canary on our floor who sings his heart out every day there is sun, as his cage gets placed outdoors in the courtyard on those occasions.  We have a long balcony onto the courtyard which I have lined with plants and flowers.  (Well, most of the flowers are dead, as it has been quite cold...)  My two turtles (terrapins, to be exact) have taken up somewhat temporary residence in Tullio's lovely whirlpool bathtub.  It's not the perfect set-up yet, but eventually we will find a place for everything.  I HOPE!  On a clear day, you can see the snow-capped Alps which enring Turin.   Beautiful!  (Am I making up  the word "enring" or am I just taking it from Midsummer Night's Dream text?  Talk about waxing poetic!)  I'm trying to settle into life in Turin as much as possible when you're never there.         

Since last writing, I've been a lot of places...