Allora, Aspetta!

A lot to Say

I hope everyone's weekends were good. Here in Italy, we had a typical All Saint's Day long weekend, which would normally include a "ponte" (bridge between a holiday and a weekend, incorporating the thursday or friday in between--kind of the American equivilent to long Thanksgiving weekends), but this year it wasn't even needed since Friday was also kind of a holiday--All Soul's Day. We spent the weekend well--visiting the cemetery on All Saint's Day with everyone else, a tradition here in Italy, and then using the rest of the weekend to relax and travel a bit. Our typical All Saint's Day weekend would mean going to the annual Caving Convention (this year it was in Tuscany), but at the last minute we decided against it. It was kind of a letdown--we had seriously wanted to go, and it really IS a tradition for us--so we decided to make up for it by making the weekend as good as possible.

That meant a day trip to Perugia, which we got to finally see without feeling crowded in by tourists and chocolate eaters (we are used to going to Perugia during festival times--in fact, I'd only ever been during the Eurochocolate Festival and the Umbria Jazz Fest), and we discovered parts of the city that we had never known existed. It was gorgeous, and the drive there was all about autumn--finally, finding colorful trees and Italy, mountains dressed in oranges and reds, was a perfect way to start November.

Sunday continued those colorful excursions, as we headed into the mountains of Le Marche with our friend Sergio, walking through the red and orange woods up to a lookout point where all of Le Marche stretched before us. We spent a lot of time just looking, amazed at how close by everything seemed--almost touchable.

And now, as the weekend has ended, I'm getting ready for another full week. Corrie is in Italy (welcome back, bella!!) for her graduation ceremony near Parma, and Cyndi and I are heading up there for the celebration (we're not ones to miss a party). Also, today is our friend Lori's birthday--Happy Birthday Lori! When are you coming to Italy next? I can't wait to see you, but in the meantime--celebrate well! And post something on that blog of yours!

Speaking of posts, I'm kind of late to join the crowds of people participating in this year's NaBloPoMo (or National Blog Posting Month), as it's already November 5th, but I'd still like to take the challenge, and post every day for the rest of the month. I hope that I can think of things to post about (sorry if the blog gets kind of dull over these next days--I'll really try to be exciting and interesting!), but I've got some ideas. Of course there is always Macerata Monday (oh wait, is TODAY Monday? I'd better get on that), and I think Corrie and I would also like to do a cheese-of-the-week, after my experience at the newly-improved Il Contadino grocery store a few weeks ago (and a whole delightful block of Castelmagno cheese!).

So keep reading--there's gonna be a lot of talking going on here over the next month!

-Jackie

posted by Stelle in Italia @ 6:02:00 PM