Italy Journal
Thursday, July 26, 2012
Run, Colleen and Lori, run! See Colleen and Lori run! We had great fun on our run this morning. Of course, we were inspired by the promise of bakery goods when we returned home.
Off we went to purchase the clothes Victoria found at the corner store with Lisa’s 20% off card (Thank you, Lisa) and to find a bakery that Stephen loved. The Calabrese pane was at least 2 feel long and a little over a foot wide. The woman cut off a chunk of it for us to take home. We added 2 of everything else, and we were golden. Then, we stopped by our favorite chocolate/beer shop, and finally found a kilo of dark chocolate with whole nocciola all in it. We had small chunks of that yummy bark for lunch.
Peter and I left the group to go to our Italian lesson, and it was the best review we have had. Peter especially showed all sorts of improvement in understanding grammar details. He made sentences correctly all morning long. I think there’s hope for both of us!!!
After another great meal of Stephen’s left over jumbalaya, with some focaccia on the side, we left with Cristina to spend the afternoon with Lisa’s parents Ella and Giovani. Elettra met us there as official translator, too, while Demi and Beci went to swim with Victoria and Valerie. We had a lovely time, and we learned all sorts of things about the history of their family and of Bra. It seems that before there was Bra, Pollenzo had 40,000 inhabitants! That was unbelievable. Pollenzo now has 250 people, and 125 of those are university students and staff. Evidently, the whole populations of Pollenzo moved to the hill and renamed their town Bra. Giovani’s decendants actually dug up some of the remnants of the original Pollenzo town and have put them in the Archeological&Art Museum here in Bra… the one that I went to earlier. They had ancient books and stories to tell about foods and their family histories. We had a wonderful time with those dear people, and I hope to find a recipe book from Georgia to take them when we come back in September.
Valerie and Victoria now have invitations for tomorrow from Elettra and the twins to go to the street market in the morning, and join them for Aperitivo in the Streets after our cheese tasting in the evening. What a life!!! Elettra’s parents decided to delay a trip to Paris and Germany by one day so that all the girls could spend a little more time together. How lovely!
We had to rush around to get to Charlotte’s in time for aperitivo, only to find out that we had the time wrong, and we were 30 minutes early. She was gracious about that, and we thoroughly enjoyed a wonderful carrot spread with unbelievable bread, red onion tart, tomatoes and basil with black olives that Victoria claimed as her very own, and wine. It was so nice of her to invite all of us to join her for aperitivo. Thank you so much, Charlotte!
It was good to settle in for the evening, but even better when Lori and Stephen went out to move their car away from the lot where the street market will be tomorrow and came home with a large box of…gelato! Chocolate, limone and mint. YUM! Thank you, Lori and Stephen. You have made our day complete.
Buona notte!
Colleen
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