North Italy Road Trip

     December 26th we headed north for a family road trip. First stop: Modena.  Lots of people asked us, "Why are you going to Modena? What's in Modena?" We chose Modena because it is very close to Ferrari, Lambourghini and Ducati factories/museums. 
     Modena was very quiet.  Not much was happening in the town,etc.  We stayed in a nice hotel-the staff was very kind!  The first morning we drove out to Lambourghini.  It was awesome to see the show room from a distance.  So many beautiful cars in one place!!  I was so excited!  We drove in to find parking.  The man outside the museum stopped us and told us the museum was....CLOSED! Ahhhh!!  The website did not share this information.  I guess I should have called first but Aaron reminded me that no one would have answered the phone anyway.  I was definitely disappointed.. :-(
  So, back in the car to drive to Maranello for the Ferrari museum.  It was awesome!  Words won't do it justice so see pictures below and on my FB page :-) Actually, we went to 2 Ferrari museums for the price of 1,essentially. (We always love to enjoy the good deals) The 2nd museum was of Enzo Ferrari's house and an exhibition building where they change out the cars every 6 months.
  Along with seeing the museum, we splurged and paid for a test drive in a Ferrari.  That was a fun experience! Even though I didn't get to drive it, it was fun to ride in it!  So fun!

 These were some of the cars that people, really rich people, could rent.

 Below, me with my favorite car of the whole museum..pretty...(the car :-)

Another move and Christmas in Italy!

 

Our friends, the Zicks, hosted a Gingerbread construction party. It was a first for some Italian guests :-)

Juliann's house was so fun!

Juliann does such an awesome job decorating for Christmas. Snowflakes and strings of lights, galore

Stella and Alaina-friends we have met here

                    

Juliann made me this darling pillow! Thanks to friends who loaned us their sewing machine

  I couldn't resist buying Christmas children's books in Italian.

 It's hard to see but the packaging has some interesting words on it

 Juliann loves her new fur lined jacket-perfect timing before heading north

We enjoyed home made cannolis w/cocoa and pistacchios

We have learned that the tradition here is to have a big Christmas eve dinner mainly consisting of fish.  We didn't partake in that but the dinner we had was excellent. Thanks to the Pughs!!  Not to mention, we were showered with personalized gifts and stockings from our friends. We are so grateful :-)
    Another Italian tradition is to give stockings on January 6th.  Legend has it that La Befana (a 'good' witch) was looking for Jesus to give Him gifts and couldn't find Him so she swoops down in January and drops off little gifts for kids. or something to that effect...I didn't pay a lot of attention because I hate witches..haha.
    Christmas time is especially hard to be away from home but we are sincerely grateful for the care we have received by those we have met here.

Christmas in Italy

      Buon Natale! Merry Christmas! 

     Some of our family's holiday traditions are not being practiced this year but I'm happy to say we are experiencing some different events this year.  The kids and I did a cookie exchange with our friends Julianne Pugh and Leslie Ross (wives of Boeing engineers).  We made Nanaimo bars, Magic layer bars, decorated sugar cookies and exchanged a few other types.
    

      The day before we enjoyed a leisure walk around old Naples (Spaccanapoli).  We perused a few churches in the area, shopped and ate pasta! yum!!

Move #4?

 

     Well, we are back to hotel/bungalow living.  At least we have a kitchen,washer and dryer in our ‘bungalow’. We are staying at a nice resort-type establishment just a few kilometers outside of Naples. It is called Damiani’s.  There are 3 pools-one that is so warm it’s like a hot tub!, 4 tennis courts (too bad we don’t have our racquets with us-ugh) places to camp, and several out buildings,etc  where guests can congregate and drink caffe. ;-)   Did I mention there are 3 pianos here for Juliann to practice on too?!  I’ve been overjoyed to hear her play again.

      The bungalow has 2 bedrooms, a bathroom, dining/living room, and a small kitchen.   Like I mentioned, there is a washer and dryer-they are in the kitchen acting as counters as well.  Dryers are not always available here so it is nice to have one. The thing about this dryer is that it is tremendously loud!  We have to turn it on right before we leave for the day.

     Our current routine: Aaron leaves for work around 7:30 or 8, we all have breakfast and get ready for the day, then we hang out in the main building where the pianos are; we work on school studies and play cards and Juliann practices piano. She is working on a Peanuts Christmas song.  I hope to have a video to post of the completed performance J by Christmas.   Evening is usually when we like to take a dip in the pool-it’s the perfect thing to do to help us relax for the night.

 A kind friend loaned us a Christmas tree :-)

 Race and Ryan(American/Italian friend) cooking dinner the first night: gnocchi,grana(cheese), brasaola(meat),pesto

 Main hotel building. Piano to the left of the picture

      Damiani’s is close to the grocery store and a few other places to shop but unfortunately, it is very dangerous to walk to anything from here.  I went to the grocery store yesterday and almost got hit by a bus on the way home.  It was unnerving to say the least! Ahhhh!!  I just have to wait to get the car from Aaron and then shop.  However, he has been working such late hours that nothing is open when he gets home.   We have to finish Christmas shopping too so we will be those crazy last minute shoppers this weekend! haha

We are in the middle of several days of nasty weather here in Southern Italy. What a perfect day to update my blog, right?  However, we did have an absolutely fabulous ,fall day last Monday and I am so glad we were able to take advantage of it.

      I had read about a tour near where we are currently living.  The tour is of a tunnel that runs through a nearby hill.  When I read about this tour I learned that the tunnel is not always open and it can be hard to reach anyone who has access to it.  So, I decided it would be best to just walk down to see if we could get into the tour; since we needed to get out and exercise anyway, I thought it wouldn’t hurt to go check it out.  When we got there, we were told we had to have a reservation (prenotazione). So I wrote down the number to call and told the gentleman(signore) that I would call later.  As we were walking away, I was stopped and asked to wait.  Signore made a phone call and then asked us to enter the gate for the tourJ.  It was sincerely nice that we were allowed to stay and the tour was free to boot!

     Our destination: Grotta di Seiano. Grotta is cave, essentially, in Italian. Di means ‘of’ and Seiano is the name of the individual who it was named after.   This cave is located in Posillipo; where we live right now. The original name is Pausylipon meaning: rest from grief or pain.  Posillipo is quite nice with beautiful views so I can understand why it was named as such.   The cave is 770 meters long and leads to a little cemetery that has long been deserted.  Beyond the cemetery is a pleasant path that leads to a large open area and ruins. (Side note: when we visited a nearby park, Parco Virgiliano, we saw a little bit of these ruins and sincerely wanted to figure out how to get down to explore, so it was a fun surprise that the tour led us here!)

      Our tour guide didn’t speak much English but he was very patient with us and spoke slow enough for us to understand most of what he said.   His name: Eugenio and he was delightful!  He was our photographer at each ideal picture spot too.  He also had us take a picture of our shadows in the cave. That was cool!  The icing on the cake, too, was that we were invited to have caffe with the gentleman at the tour. Delizioso! And Eugenio told me I needed to bring my Marito(Aaron) back for a tour. Of course, he told me call first for a reservation J!

      When we got home, Race said he learned more Italian from Eugenio than from what he had learned thus far.  I think he’s exaggerating a bit but I was so glad he got so much from the experience J  We all did. It was really fun!

Back to the hotel..

     We are in a holding pattern.  I really thought we would be in our Italy home before the holidays.  I'm grateful that we have a great place to be right now but it's a little hard knowing that we will be hotel hopping again and through Christmas.  It's especially difficult for Juliann and Race.  I pictured us getting into our permanent place before Thanksgiving, cooking a turkey with all the trimmings,etc. and then decorating,etc. for Christmas-complete with a tree. Well, that is not to be this year.  Especially this time of year, I see how much we need stability for the kids sake.  I've been praying that they will see that this is temporary and it's all part of the adventure that we are on.  In time, they will understand but in the mean time, it's difficult.  ugh..
    On another note, we are officially legal to be in the country now.  On Tuesday we all went to the Immigrazione office with tons of paper work-everything official is done on paper here. I know, old-school,right?! ha  Then, we spent a few hours at the post office finalizing the process.  I find it interesting that so many processes are taken care of at the post office. You would think one would just go to mail a letter or a package there but NO! It seems like everything is done at the post office or the Tabacchi stores. he he 

Shopping experiences

      There is lots of shopping to be done in Italy.  Italians love to shop and they love shopping malls!
We have shopped in town-many little store fronts up and down mainstreets and alleys, shopping malls-similar to what we are used to in the states, and open air markets.  I have found that the markets have the best prices but, similar to some stores we have been in, most merchandise is made in China. :(  

 Centro Campania mall-Scarpe & Scarpe (shoes and shoes :-)

 Kat, Beth and I could get in a lot of trouble-lots of tights here!! Fun :-)

    (confession: the above picture is actually in Belgium but I didn't have a good pic of the tights here in Italy)
    Grocery shopping is pretty similar to back home.  Of course, there are different brands,etc. but it's organized and priced similarly.  When choosing meat, I avoid carne di cavallo (horse meat :-(   There are rows and rows of pasta and formaggio(cheese).There have been very few food items we haven't been able to find. We have found peanut butter but it is quite expensive. A small jar costs 5-6 euros ($7-8). Race got to buy Doritos and Pop-Tarts on the base while he was with some friends. 

 I always think of Sarah as we pass all the make up here

 I love the markets here

 Here is a man making Preseppi-nativity or city/country diorama type structures. Naples is well known for these. See Juliann's blog:http://julesitalianadventures.blogspot.it/

 Let's not overlook buying.. gelato! Quite enjoyable.

   Did you get a kick out of the above pictures of the signs we saw at a little jewelry shop?  We were so confused, we didn't know what to do..haha