General Update

Last week Fabri and I kept pretty busy.  We had 3 dinner parties at our house, went to one dinner at a friend's and I taught my class & worked at the museum 2 or 3 days.  Fabri was on call so he was working very long hours and had to work on the weekend.  Sunday we went to lunch at the Motta's house and then walked around a flea market in Racconigi.  The prices were way too high, but I did find one thing, a lime green piggy bank for 2 euros!  Soooo cute.  

I skipped ahead to Sunday, but I wanted to talk about Saturday too.  We had a fancy Melting Pot style dinner party with Fabri's cousins Gaetano & Giovanni, their significant others, Detta & Brunella & the baby Lulu.  We started with fondue with bread, apples, celery & cauliflower.  Then we had hot oil & hot broth to cook broccoli, beef, sausage, turkey, chicken, potatoes, cauliflower, and carrots in.  They do the oil (bourgionne) here often, but they had never tried the broth before and that went over really well.  In fact, everyone agreed next time we don't even need the oil.  So that's good and healthier.  

Fabri and I had some bad news yesterday.  I shipped all my stuff to Italy back in December.  The American company I chose was very friendly and helpful.  They responded instantly to emails and I felt comfortable handing my stuff to them.  Basically their Italian agent that accepted my stuff is horrible.  They are doing everything to draw this experience out and charging us more & more money every day.  First they never contacted me when my items arrived and they told us they didn't have to.  Then they sent us a bill which we did not understand and asked for some explanation and a reduction.  They never responded to any of my emails about that, but Fabri & I weren't in a huge rush because we were waiting for my items to clear customs.   They were supposed to contact us when my items cleared customs and of course they didn't, so we called several times yesterday and finally spoke to the right person who told us that they don't allow customs to begin their process until after we pay their bill!!  We're going to end up spending so much money and we're really upset that these people are such dubious assholes.  I wrote a strongly worded email to the American company I contracted with complaining about their Italian agents who are holding my items.  I reviewed the protocol that my company sent me and the Italian agent is doing anything how we were told they would.  I am waiting to get a response from them and am expecting it today.  Meanwhile Fabri contacted his friend who is a lawyer in Turin and after we get my stuff (on Monday hopefully) he's going to contact  the company and maybe we can recoup a little of our losses.  I'm not very optimistic about that, but it made Fabri feel better, so that's good.

Anyway, I'm trying not to think about the condition my stuff is in.  Just a few more days.  

Tomorrow I teach my third class.  I'm looking forward to it; I like the students.  Then we're having dinner with friends.  Fabri and I have been spending a lot more time with couples then his general group of friends.  I think that's a good & bad thing.  Fabri and I have never been over-drinking and clubbing people like a lot of his single friends.  The couples are more like us inviting people over for dinner or going to restaurants together.  It's a whole different life stage and we just have to make sure not to alienate Fabri's single friends.  We had a single girl dinner last Wednesday when 4 girlfriends came over for fajitas.  Next step is to have some boys over I guess.  Or more dating couples...  Whatever, these are the things we have to think about.  And of course how not to offend anyone.  Such is life. 

I think I've gotten to the random babbling stage of this post, so I'm going to sign off here.  Leave me comments or I will pout a lot!!

Mountain Climbing Practice

We had some seriously gorgeous days last week.  It was warm and sunny with a clear sky.  The mountains looked amazing and I got bit by the springtime bug.  Last Sunday Fabri and I went to this discount store I really like (sort of like Big Lots or Tuesday Morning) and bought a bunch of pots and dirt and gardening tools.  I am ready for spring gardening.  In fact, I am going to plant some daffodil bulbs this week!  

Then on Wednesday I just couldn't stand looking at the gorgeous mountains with the sunlight reflecting off the snow covered peaks and not get closer.  Fabri got home from work and was relaxing on the couch when I walked up to him and said I'm going for a walk.  He asked where too and I said further up the Saluzzo hill than I've been before.  We bundled up (it's still winter after all) and headed out on foot.  We began by walking up the hill of old Saluzzo passing Il Bichio on the way.  

Then we made our way up a very steep hill to the old main square of medieval Saluzzo.  There we found the old town hall and the castle of Saluzzo.  It had been a prison which was recently moved and the castle is now being restored for visitors.  There are few different walking trails that leave from the castle so we decided to try out the shortest one to San Lorenzo church.  As I was panting and climbing and enjoying the views when Fabri mentioned that a nurse he works with goes hiking/climbing a lot.  The trail to the top of Mount Viso is a relatively easy one and we should ask her to take us sometime.  I thought that sounded pretty cool, but Fabri and I had started out on that trail before and did NOT get very far.  So we resolved to do a lot more walking and climbing and practice so we can go this summer and make it to the top!  By the way, Fabri doesn't remember this conversation, but I won't forget it.  

On our way to San Lorenzo we took a wrong turn and ended up walking through a small development of villas over looking the mountains and the valley.  They all had beautiful yards and gardens and Fabri and I discussed buying a villa on a hill someday.  I can't wait to have a big yard to turn into insect habitat!  When we got to the end of the neighborhood we knew we made a wrong turn and went back to climbing up, up, up!  When we reached San Lorenzo I was a little disappointed because it's not visitable.  It has been transformed into a vineyard, but that did offer some nice photo opportunities.  

Then we turned back and headed home stopping to take some photos of Saluzzo.  The duomo was very beautiful from up there and it was really interesting seeing it in relation to the rest of the city from that angle.  We took another route down which was less steep and therefore easier, but I was getting a cramp in my leg and was happy to stop for a tea and croissant at a bar at the bottom of the hill.  

Next time we're going to try the longer trail and go more prepared.  Bottle of water, comfy clothes, good shoes.  But it was great to get out in the sun and even though my legs were sore the next day, it was good to get the exercise.  

This week is not like last though.  It is back to being overcast and cold.  In fact on Monday I almost didn't get out of bed because it was so cold!  I probably wouldn't have if I hadn't said I would be at the museum on Monday.  Hopefully this weekend and next week will get better.  If it's not going to snow, then it should be spring!  That's what I think anyway.

Anywho, here's the slide show of our hike: Enjoy.

Professoressa

If you recall, last time I wrote I mentioned two interviews at English language schools.  The first one spent the first half of our interviewing trying to sell Fabri on this English in the Hospital class they have and she eventually mentioned that I would be teaching it if Fabri helped to drum up interest.  She said they don't really have anything for me now, but she would pass any translating work they get my way because they don't do that and then said if I'm still looking in September, I can take over their school in Saluzzo because the girl who runs it now will be going off to get married or something like that.  So that interview was a little strange.

There was a space of about 2 hours in between the two interviews, so Fabri and I walked around Cuneo.  We did a little shopping and a bit more window shopping which is always fun.  Then we went to a bar for a cappuccino and a hot chocolate.  

The second interview went very well.  Basically they told us about the job, complimented my CV and asked when I could start.  So that went pretty well.  I'm now teaching at the Wall Street Institute.  This past Friday I began my training and sat in on two lessons at the school.  Today I went for two more lessons with a different teacher.  Tomorrow evening I go for one more lesson and a big more training before I teach my first class on Thursday evening for 2 hours.  I'm going to teach at a company in Savigliano (I don't know which yet).  

Meanwhile, I'm still volunteering at the museum.  I go three days this week from ~9:30 to ~1:30.  That way I get plenty of insect time.  The weather has started warming up (though some people are predicting one last snow storm), so soon I can start collecting again and work on my own collection at the museum too.

Anyway, Fabri is very proud.  We started looking for a job for me in mid January and in less than a month I'm volunteering at a museum and teaching.  That's not bad.  I'm mostly happy to be teaching so that I can hopefully meet new people my age and make some friends of my own.

Workin' in a coal mine goin' down down down

In Italy the IDs have everyone's occupation as well as height, weight and eye color.  Mine currently says looking for work, but I told the woman who made it that wasn't correct, that I'm a princepessa.  Well, my days as a princess are numbered because Fabri's making me look for work.  He claims it's because I sit at home complaining about being bored.  

I have already started volunteering at a natural history museum near here.  (Storia Naturale Museo di Carmagnola)  I emailed an entomology professor at the University of Turin about 5 years ago when I was finishing up at SMC to see if there was a chance of my doing a master's in Italy.  That obviously didn't work out, but he was very nice and we emailed again a few months ago to see about possible opportunities for me when I moved here.  He hooked me up with Gianfranco, the entomologist at the museum.  We all met 2 Fridays ago.  We went around the museum, discussed research, and looked at the insect collection.  Then we went to lunch and took a field trip to a green house near the museum where Massimo, the university professor keeps and propagates his cactus collection.  Afterwards Gianfranco invited me to come to the museum as often as I like and curate the lepidoptera (butterfly & moth) collection.  So I've been going 3 days a week for 4 hours in the morning. 

In addition to looking for entomology work, Fabri and I have gone to several language schools in the area and inquired about work there.  In-fact I have 2 interviews tomorrow in Cuneo!  Fabri is going to come with me and then we're going to go out to dinner at this restaurant we liked up there.  

Speaking of Fabri, he had a hellish week this past one.  He had a night shift on Wednesday and bad cases for the hospice.  Then this weekend he worked even more than he does during the week!  He worked a boxing match with his dad for 13 hours on Saturday and 10 hours Sunday.  Tonight is his last night shift because he quit that job.  So we will be celebrating that and making sure this week is nicer than last in every way!  

Third Wedding!

How many brides get to have three weddings? It was my intention to get some decent use out of my wedding dresses. This final wedding celebration was a dinner with all of Fabri’s extended family most of who weren’t able to make it to the second wedding party back in September. This one was better though because my family including a Crow family representative were there.

There was no ceremony or grand entrance unfortunately. We had a lovely dinner of about 50 people. I had planned on wearing my long wedding dress, but it was snowy and cold and I didn’t want to get it dirty. Instead I wore a purple dress (purple is VERY IN in Italy this winter) and went as a groovy bride.

We began (of course) with an aperitivo at Gerry’s bar and met Danny & Mickey. Then we all moved on to Da Vincenzo’s for the dinner. Vincenzo and his family have been patients of Antionio’s for years & years and they are always very nice and accommodating. He had his head waiter with us while he was working in the kitchen. The reception began with an aperitivo drink with aperol (ick) and many hors d’ouevres both butler passed and stationary. This is an important distinction when there are 50 people standing around a relatively small space.

The tables were set up in a large U with one end longer than the other. There was no way you could talk to everyone, but at least we were all at the same table, which is the way Italians prefer to do it. The table was very lovely with a Christmas theme and I got a beautiful bouquet from Fabri’s cousins Luisa and Pasqualino.

Ok, the dinner. Most importantly, the wine was good. I believe the red was a Barbarera d’Alba. I only had a taste of the white, but it was good as well. I think most white wine is good as long as it’s not too sweet. The first antipasto was a variety of meats and cheeses typical of the south of Italy. The sun-dried tomatoes were particularly good and I ate them off of several people’s plates. Next was a spinach and cheese crepe, which was creamy and delicious. For pasta there was seafood pasta, which is always a favorite of Fabri’s. Then we had pasta fagioli (pasta with beans). It is a poor dish, but done well it’s really delicious (as is often the case with poor dishes). Antonio can’t have dinner at Vincenzo’s without that. Vincenzo brought it out in a big pot to serve us at the table and Antonio spooned out the first bowl.

The meat course was the one that was most important to me and I have to say I was disappointed. Maria Pia, Fabri & I met with Vincenzo to form this menu and he suggested this beef with a sauce served with polenta. I didn’t think the meat was very good at all. The polenta was good, but polenta is heavy. I would have preferred grilled vegetables or something. Oh well, live and learn.

The dessert was my favorite Italian dessert though, profiteroles!!! They are little pastry balls with whipped cream inside and they’re rolled in a sort of chocolate frosting with lots of extra chocolate on top. Fabri says they are not a classy dessert and are usually found in pizzerias, but they are my new favorite and I eat as many of them as I can classy or not.

Fabri and I made the rounds to all the tables between all the courses so that we were sure to talk with everyone. Afterwards we went to Gerry’s and then to Tricksy for some cocktails. I was exhausted by the end of the night, but we had a great time.

These are some of the pictures and they aren’t very good. On Wednesday I’m getting the photos from Brunella’s camera and I think there are one or two more cameras out there I have to get. This was the first time in years that all of Fabri’s family was together and we took a lot of photos of the different family combinations. Just like the Latchaws do at our reunions.

Post Holidays

Bad Jess, no new blogs for a month! Hopefully I haven't lost my entire audience.

The holidays were super busy. I was very focussed on getting the house ready for our post Christmas company! It was really great having Laura, Liz, Mom and Dad here and now that the house is back in order, I miss them. There are lots of new photos going up on my Picasa web album from that trip.  

As usual I guess I need to go back in time and talk about all the holiday madness, but first a more current update.  Fabri and I are of course still working on little projects around the house.  Today I'm going bird feeder hunting.  Then I'll have to find an Italian bird book so I can ID the birds we attract.  Fabri is supposed to be figuring out how to hang a shelf in our shower wall and we're both looking for rugs and a couple of small pieces of furniture for the master bathroom.  Exciting stuff huh?  Someday we're going to go up to IKEA and buy a shelving system for our cantina (cellar) which we've already picked out.  

So the holidays in Italy are really all about eating.  I guess most holidays around the world are like that, but the Italians bring it to another level.  Southern Italians begin with a Christmas Eve dinner of 7 fishes.  I think we made it up to 7 seafoods by eating: mussels, shrimp, clams, squid, octopus, salmon, and a fish that starts with a "b" and there were probably anchovies hidden in there as well.  I made Maryland style steamed shrimp with Old Bay as an appetizer and people loved it.  That was perfect because just about everyone got a can of Old Bay from Fabri and I in their Christmas goody bags.  While we were in MD for Thanksgiving Fabri and I bought a bunch of small gifts to go in reusable shopping bags to give to each family.  

Now after dinner Fabri usually tries to go to Midnight Mass, but dinner lasted too long and we didn't make it.  Christmas morning Fabri had to work (he worked pretty much everyday during the holidays), so we woke up at 7:30 or so and opened presents and stockings.  Then the poor thing had to go to work and I made chocolate chip cookies.  The weather was pretty bad.  It was snowing and foggy and we met at his parents' country house in Ruffia for Christmas lunch.  I brought the cookies and presents for everyone.  We had another huge lunch and afterwards had Gaetano, Detta, Giovanna, Paolo & Francesca back to our place to play games.  We played pictionary and Fabri & I taught everyone the card game 99 which was fun.  

In Italy the 26th is also a holiday, San Stefano.  That morning the snow was coming down very hard and Fabri and I assumed no one would make it to Ruffia for lunch and that he would only have to go to work if there was an emergency.  But the snow let up and Fabri was called into the hospice, so I headed to Ruffia or lunch.  The roads in Saluzzo were pretty bad, but once I got outside of the city, the roads were fine.  In the country, people just jump on their tractors and clear the snow themselves!  Fabri was stuck at the hospice for a while, so we had to start lunch without him.  By that time we were all sick of stuffing ourselves and happy that the food-fest was ending for a few days.  

The next day Laura and Liz arrived!  Fabri was still working and I went up to Turin to pick them up from the central bus station.  They had not had a relaxing trip and were very tired.  We did some sight seeing and a lot more eating and drinking as more of Fabri's extended family arrived for the January 3 wedding dinner.  I will write about that in the next post.  

My parents arrived on the 31st from Dublin.  They were only in our house for a couple of hours when we had to leave to go to the NYE party at the Ruffia house.  There were something like 40 people in attendance for this food-fest and it was delicious.  Usually it is mostly southern style Italian food, but Maria Pia's friends helped with this meal, so there were a lot of Piemontese dishes as well.  We were stuffed afterwards and tired.  Unfortunately the weather was bad and it was icy and foggy, so we were not able to meet up with Fabri's friends after dinner.  That might have been best though because I heard some mixed reviews about their party and they were probably all incoherently drunk by that point.

January first was another holiday lunch.  Can you even imagine eating all of these several course high carb meals day after day?  No wonder the idea of making and eating pasta now is so unappealing.  Just recapping all of these food-fests is making me feel fat & bloated.  

Fabri and I are "dieting" now.  I put it in quotes because we aren't counting calories and aren't giving up anything, we're just eating healthier and eating less.  I'm making lots of whole grains and vegetables.  We've been eating vegetarian and even vegan dinners!  Fabri loves it all which was a little surprising to me.  I made grilled vegetables (eggplant, zucchini, and peppers), couscous with eggplant and raddichio and stirfried broccoli and mushrooms over brown rice.  Tonight we're going out for a pizza with another couple though.  I am not excited about that because I was trying to go a whole week with out eating pizza.  But that's the official date of Italy and Fabri did not convince the others to come to our house and try my cooking.  Oh, and we're not drinking beer.  Just very occasionally.  We have not given up wine or Martini though...

Trip Home

Ok, sorry for the break in the news flow. Fabri and I were in Maryland for Thanksgiving. We had a lovely time and were sorry we couldn't see more people and more of the people we did see. We did get downtown though which is always fun and we ate all of our favorite American/ethnic food. We also did a lot of shopping AND we packed all of my stuff and brought to a trucking company to ship it here to Italy. That was a stressful proposition, but I am so glad to have gotten it started. I need my stuff after all! But this blog is not about trips to the US, this blog is about adventures in Italy.

If I ever get into making iron on t-shirts again, I'm going to make one that says I heart IKEA. Fabri and I went for our second time last night. We're old pros now, so we knew hot to navigate through and which areas held which types of furniture. We purchased a bookshelf, desk, small file cabinet and a china closet along with some various odds and ends we had to pick up. I know it sounds like we're crazy and filling up the house, but that's it for furniture and we needed to have an office of sorts because I'm tired of just having piles on the floor and around the kitchen. Fabri really wanted the china closet and it will look great offsetting our credenza. We put together the credenza from our first IKEA trip on Saturday. We had a lot of fun doing it and it looks great. There were really no problems except that the Sky (satellite TV) technician came in the middle and kept talking and wouldn't leave. At least he fixed our Sky while he talked.

Sunday was a fun and interesting today. Fabri and I were invited to a quadruple birthday lunch celebrating the December birthdays of Gibo, Miriam, Albi and Simone. It was a huge party with over 60 people in attendance. The food was just so-so, but they had a singer with a keyboard and we danced and sang a lot which is always fun. Fabri and I sat with newlyweds (slightly less newly than us) Francesca & Andrea and they assured us that all of our issues we've had with the house are completely normal and they went through the same. That made Fabri feel better. I'm not so concerned with it's being normal or not, I'm more concerned with getting everything right. Anyway, the party was a lot of fun, but it was a little concerning because it started snowing very hard while we were there. And they were large wet/icy flakes. But it eventually turned to rain and we drove home slowly. Now I would kill for large icy snowflakes. It has been raining since Sunday and probably won't stop until Thursday. There isn't a lot of concern of flooding here though because in the hills and mountains there's snow, so the water is remaining trapped up there.

So I'm keeping busy running the house and running errands. We forgot the keys to the garage in Fabri's car yesterday, so all my errands will be wet and on foot today, but this afternoon we will go to the grocery store and maybe a couple other places. Fabri asked me "we have to go to the grocery store again!?" I replied, "yes, we have to go every week if you want to eat every week." That's just how it works.