Sunday... Church in Italy

When our friend Giliola found out that Doug is a Pastor at a Protestant church she quickly told us that there was a Protestant church just around the corner from her house.  She thought that it might start at 11.  So on Sunday we headed out the door to see what church would be like in Italy

Church in Italy

The church was not very full but there were a few families.  The Pastor was a woman and she and a younger woman each gave short talk.  The scripture was on First Corinthians 13... luckily a pretty familiar section.  After the service we were going to slip out, but an older gentleman stopped us on the way out to greet us.  He had read the Corinthians passage during the service with great passion.  It turns out that this man used to be the Pastor of this congregation.  He is retired now and they are trying to get younger leadership.  As one can imagine the Protestant church in Italy is pretty small and there is a shortage of Pastoral leadership.  This gentleman, whose name is Gioele (Joel) speaks wonderful english. He quickly asked Doug if he would like to preach some Sunday although he would have to check with the committee.  Doug said he would love to preach and was quite familiar with the committee process.  We're thinking maybe in February Doug could do something at this church.  So Joel walks around the sanctuary, talks with a few people and comes back to Doug and says "how about next Sunday?" !  Um... sure!  So next Sunday Doug will be preaching (with Joel translating) at the local protestant church.  It reminded us both of our last sabbatical in Scotland when we took a ferry to Northern Ireland and Doug preached a sermon there.  It will certainly be an experience to remember!

New Years Eve... Italian Style

Our Italian friend Giliola who had us over for tea on Christmas day invited us for a New Years Eve party!  She and her husband Antonio had two other couples over along with our family.  All I can say in hindsight is, Wow... and also, I'm still feeling full!

Everybody was very understanding and we made it through about four and a half hours of  "semi" conversation.  We were served food constantly and we all tried lots of new things...even Zoe, although she drew the line at the pigs feet (nope, I'm not kidding!)   Here is a rundown or our gastronomic spectacle...

We arrived at about 8PM for dinner (!) There were light hors d'oeuvres being served of chips, popcorn, crackers  etc. We all gathered around the table and then the food started coming...

1. Antipasti:  Olives, Mushrooms, Eggplant, Artichoke hearts, Mozzarella and salami.  Small amounts of all of these items - all were delicious even the eggplant (and if you know me well... enough said!)
2. Pasta Fagiola:  We thought this was the pasta course, but I think it was a sort of soup course.  Small pasta noodles some beans.  Super yummy.
3. Surprise!  More pasta:  This course was a yummy fettucini with porcini mushrooms, tomatoes and something that gave it a little bit of a spicy kick.
4. At home I would have said that was great and figured dinner was over but noooo.  Next came the Meat course:  Plates filled with sausages, chicken and ribs.  Again, normally I would have enjoyed a lot of this course... but I was already pretty full!  I took small pieces of each type of meat and enjoyed it very much. 
5. Salad was served with our meat course.  It was nice to have a slightly lighter fare!
6. Next... wait for it... Lentils and Pigs feet.  I happen to like lentils, and I did try the Pigs feet (it didn't actually resemble a pigs foot)  It was not bad, but remember I was already so full I though I might burst.  In Italy lentils are eaten as a symbol of good luck and prosperity because they resemble tiny coins... I'm not exactly sure how the pigs feet fit in - I'll need to look that one up!
7. Next came the fruit:  Ok... the Mandarin oranges here are to die for, and Giliola has a Kiwi tree in her yard.  As full as we all were, we all ate some amazing fresh fruit
8. Last, but not least was a plate of dolce that Giliola had made herself.  Wonderful cakes and cookies that were not just Italian, but also Belgian because Giliola and her husband are originally from Belgium.  
9. Zoe went on to top everything off with some gelato... 

An assortment of Dolce to top us all off!

Did you say gelato?  Sure, why not!

WOW!

As with all meals there was wine served and champagne at midnight.  After the toast Giliola offered me some Grand Marnier which absolutely made my chest catch fire... yuck!  Weirdest of all was an alcoholic drink that we were offered in a very small glass that they kept calling marijuana!  WHAT?  Is that even possible??  I will have to look that up as well.  

The evening ended with Zoe getting to hold their new puppy (only a few weeks old) named Balloo.  Such a cute fat little puppy!  It was a truly special evening.  We fell so blessed that people invited us into their lives to celebrate the new year.  God is good.

Zoe and baby Balloo

Regular Days

So, I haven't posted since Christmas day.  So much for posting a little something everyday we are here.
The truth is, there are days that we really don't do much of anything.  It is awesome!  We usually set Zoe up with some school work, read books, play games and take naps.  Rough life, I know.

One unusual thing about our life here is that we do a lot of shopping.  People usually just buy what they need for today or maybe tomorrow.  There is no big pantry here to keep all of our Costco sized items.  So... we end up walking into town a lot to just get some bread, or some fresh fruit.  Doug has his big backpack and we load all of the shopping into that and walk home.  We thought we would see more people walking but the truth is most people drive.  Driving could be a whole other blog entry so I'll just say that we prefer to walk for now - and given all that we are eating, we need to walk too!

Buon Appetito!

Getting home with the shopping (stores will be closed all weekend for New Years)

Christmas Day

Christmas day was wonderfully mellow.  Definitely in the spirit of Sabbatical.  We all slept in a bit.  Doug and I got up to walk the dogs and literally "Heard the bells on Christmas day"!  Somebody was really having fun ringing those bells - It reminded me a little bit of the Middle Schoolers on Sunday mornings in B'ham.

Most of the day was spent reading, playing games and being lazy.  Then at noon, we got a call from a very sweet woman whose name is Gigliola (Lily).  She is best friends with Diane who usually lives in this house, and she invited our family over for tea.  We were all a bit nervous, but we made it there and were able to hold down a few conversations!  We were there for two hours, so we must have done OK.  It was so kind of her to have us over on Christmas!  She loaded us up with some fruit from her garden and also some kind of pasta with ricotta and spinach to bake another day.

When we got home we tried to Skype with my family in Santa Barbara... but it just wasn't staying connected.  It was a bummer not to get to talk to them much, but great to see them for a quick minute or two.

All in all it was a great day.  Doug is starting to catch a cold.  Pray that he shakes it off quickly and that Z and I don't get it!

Merry Christmas to everyone!

Zoe put up one of Doug's socks for her Christmas stocking... She got a 2 oranges  2 Baci candies a Kiwi and 2 Euro . Thanks Santa Clause!

Here is a little of what we did today!  Games, books, candy... a really great Christmas!

The Bitter and the Sweet

Well... Here we are.  Another December 24th.  I'm not quite sure that I can actually form the words for "Six Years".  How can it be??

Today has been a very quiet day in Italy.  Yesterday the propane was finally delivered and the temperature in the house jumped almost ten degrees right away.  With the house warmed up and hot showers taken the three of us just hung out together reading books, cooking our big lunch and playing games.  It was very mellow... sooo different from the work day Doug usually has.  Today (of all days) I was really experiencing the Sabbatical.

The three of us took some time together this evening to look at all of the photos on the "Friends of Zachary Bunnell" page on Facebook.  If you haven't joined you should (and feel free to add any photos you have)!  So many great memories that bring amazing joy and amazing sadness.

I thought that I had the Zachary slide show from the memorial service on my laptop.  It has been a tradition to watch it every Christmas Eve.  Turns out it's not on here!  So instead we just thought through all of the categories we put the photos into and shared memories.  Here are some of mine:

• Family Guy:  Zachary loved his family.  We have so many great photos of him with Grandmas and Grandpas, Aunts, Uncles and Cousins.  One funny memory we have is when we took him to Arkansas when he was probably 18 months old (see my FB profile pic).  Doug's side of the family was gathering for his Grandpa's memorial service and Zach got everybody sick. Now when we laugh about it we call it the season of "heaving and grieving"! 
• Big Brother:  We have Zachary on video "showing" his new sister their room, right before we left for VietNam. He was pretty clear with which side of the room was his, and that he didn't want her to "suck on his stuff".  He did, however give her brown bear when we were in VietNam (he took it back later - but the thought was magnanimous for a 4 year old!)  He loved Zoe with all of his heart and the wonderful photos we have of them together tell the story
• Great Friend:  We always say that Zachary was picky about who he liked to hang out with... but he always chose wisely.  One of my dear friends called him an old soul... I tend to agree.  From his earliest friends like Dave, Calvin, Jacob and Nolan (the list could go on and on) to his friends he made in B'ham right before he got sick like or neighbor Alec, Zachary always had great friends.
• Theater lover:  I think the first Musical Zachary ever went to was Annie in maybe the first grade. But it was really teacher Juanita encouraging him through "Daughter of the Regiment" and the Martin Luther King play that set him on fire!  Who knew that he would be singing and dancing in Oliver and Pirates of Penzance a few years later.  Even his blindness couldn't keep him off of the stage.
• Music/Sports/Disney... The list of all of Zachary's wonderful attributes could go on.  I remember when he was really small, we were listening to the Hanging of the Greens concert at First Pres Berkeley.  Every time one of the choirs would stop and the applause had died down Zachary would yell out "More Music"!  He wasn't the best athlete, but he had a deep love for basketball, for watching football with Doug and for all things Stanford.  He was a great fan.  Zach's love for Disney was admittedly thrust upon him, but he truly enjoyed the happiest place... At age 10 he had been to Disneyland, Disneyland Paris,, and took his Make a Wish trip to Disney World.

I could keep going on... but I can't go on... 

He would have loved Italy... I really miss that guy.

Christmas Concert

While we were in Veroli on Tuesday I noticed a poster on a shop door advertising a concert at the church that night.  I really wanted to go and listen to some Christmas music... Z took a little more convincing.  But we did venture out again last night and I was so glad we did!  It turns out it was a middle school concert with student voices and band/orchestra instruments.  The songs were all ones that we recognized - mostly in Italian, but some in English too.

Here was the run down for the evening:

Deck the Halls

Silent Night

O Tanenboum

Jingle Bells

Jingle Bell Rock

Angels we Have Heard on High

We wish you a Merry Christmas

Oh Happy Day...

And a happy day it was!  I'm  going to try and attach some of the video... don't watch it if you have a weak stomach as it is a wee bit bouncy!  

Merry Christmas!

Market Day

Today we drove back up the hill to Veroli.  Every Tuesday there is an open air market where people sell everything from socks and underwear to kitchen gadgets to food... it's a little like an outdoor Fred Meyer!  At first I was a bit disappointed because there really weren't that many stands, but wouldn't you know we were in the wrong area!  We learn something new every time we venture out.  The market really was rather large and we walked the whole thing.  I found a small decorated Christmas tree at a flower stand and convinced Doug that it would be a great idea to bring it home!  It's our one small not to Christmas decorations!  

When we got home the sun was shining and we decided to sit out on the terrace and have our lunch.  The sun didn't last for long but it helped us to thaw out a little bit.  And the antipasta was delish!

While we were in Veroli today I noticed a sign for a Christmas Concert this evening... not sure exactly what we'll be in for, but I really want to go to some local events - so off we go again tonight.  Later this week I think we're heading back to Rome (as long as there is no snow in the forcast!!) to see a really large display of Nativity scenes.  I'll keep you posted!