Mom & Dad Visit

Mom & Dad are safe & sound back at home in Maryland and I think we can safely say we all had a great time.  We met in Paris this weekend which was awesome, but I haven't loaded the photos yet, so those stories will be featured in the next post. 

Mom and Dad arrived Friday morning in Turin where I picked them up.  We headed straight to Saluzzo for them to meet the Olney pup.  He was not sure about these new people and all their luggage, but everyone quickly became friends when Mom & Dad brought out the liver treats.

Friday afternoon after Fabri got home from work we all went for a private tour of the Convent of Saluzzo.  Fabri had been the doctor of a monk from the convent and the other brothers were happy to thank him.  We got to see a lot of behind the scenes murals and woodwork.  The Chapel was breathtaking and it was extra special to have the brother as a guide.  They're Franciscan monks and gave Fabri a book full of amazing pictures of Franciscan monk convents.  I think Fabri & I will be going back soon as they're having a festival this weekend and invited us to come.

Saturday we woke up and headed to the Saluzzo market.  It's always neat to walk around the market especially the food stalls.  Olney came with us, and his favorite part is the food stalls as well.  We bought food to make for dinner that night as Maria Pia & Antonio were coming over.  We also bought some fresh pasta for lunch and some plants and flowers.  We went home and had a type of cheese ravioli with butter and sage or with oil and parmesan.  We ate on the balcony as it was beautiful and sunny for the first half of the day.

Saturday afternoon we headed to Manta Castle.  It's the most beautiful castle I've ever been to.  It is beautifully decorated inside and there's a small chapel next door full or paintings as well.  Though the chapel has had many of the paintings destroyed by water damage.  There are photos in the slide show below.

Saturday night we had a nice dinner with our parents.  Dad helped by smoking some chicken & pork.  I made steamed clams with garlic oil and cauliflower popcorn to start.  Then I made chicken and sauteed veggies to go with the smoked meat.  We had cookies and pastries Mom bought when we were at the market.  We drank the dolcetto wine we made last fall with Gaetano.  It was finally really good.  When we've drank it earlier it's been too sweet.  We ate on our fancy Butterfly Meadow china.  It was a special occasion to have both sets of parents over for dinner and the dinner went very well.



Sunday we woke up early and headed up past Limone to the Colle de Tende.  It's a passage through the alps between Italy and France and part of the old salt road from the middle ages.  Fabri, Olney and I hiked it before in better weather.  There was a possibility of scattered storms, but hiking in the alps was something Mom & Dad had wanted to do, and we were all willing to risk it.  It was getting sunny in Saluzzo, so we all opted to wear shorts.  That was sort of a silly decision, but we were fine.  When we got up to the mountains, we opened the trunk of the car and put on all the layers we brought especially the wind breakers.  You can see the photos in the slide show.  After hiking and visiting the forts, we had lunch at Le Marmotte refuge up in the mountains.  We had some delicious mountain food: polenta, boar, cheese, tagliata and wild mushrooms.

On Monday I took Mom & Dad to the museum to see where I work.  It was fun to show them around and we of course received a private tour from the museum director and Gian, the museum entomologist.  For the rest of Monday we took it easy, played with the pup, Mom and I went shopping.  Monday night we went out for burgers and beer at Fabri's & my favorite risto-pub.  Then Tuesday morning I drove Mom & Dad back to Turin and they flew to Nice where they caught a train to Holland.

Haven't written

Ok, I'm bad.  I haven't written for practically a month.  It's been a busy month.  Classes started up again so I've been trying to get back into the groove of teaching.  It turns out I don't actually like teaching English, so that's been a bit difficult.  Also we had the dog neutered (poor pup) and he had to be watched closely and kept from licking his wound for a week.  Finally I was studying hard for my driving theory test for my Italian driver's license.  I took that & passed on September 15.  Now I'm practicing and taking lessons for the actual driving exam.  I'll probably take that next week (we'll see what the instructor says this afternoon). 

So that was the busyness, but there was some funness too!  Mom & Dad were here visiting for a few days.  Pictures and stories of the visit to be added soon!

Party Weekend

Fabri's birthday party on Saturday was a major success. We worked hard Saturday morning cutting the grass and setting up the pool chairs. Friends began arriving around 4 in the afternoon and we all began enjoying the pool. Olney was of course in the pool right along side us. Also Antonio (Fabri's Dad) brought Tom (English Setter) to the party too. Tom and Olney have played many times before, but I think Olney's at a point where he's trying to show that he's ahead of Tom in the pack, so Olney can be aggressive towards Tom when he doesn't want him around. Especially when we're at the table and Olney's guarding food. But there was a third little puppy there and Olney was very good with her. Zoe, a 3 month old Australian Shepard played with Olney for hours. It was really cute watching the two puppies play together and they wore each other out.

At 8:30 or so we began dinner. Some girlfriends of Fabri's planned and cooked everything. I mostly just showed them where things were in the kitchen. There was a lot of aperitivo/appetizer food and by the time it came time for pasta, we were all full! My favorite were rolls of speck (smoked prosciutto) with gorgonzola inside and heated. They were delicious!

The party continued all night and included a midnight swim which was a lot of fun. At about 3am a storm started brewing. With thunder and lightening in the distance, Fabri and I took this opportunity to kick everyone out; I mean end the party. We were very tired and my eyes were all red from the chlorine (so were poor Olney's). We got to bed at about 4:00 after cleaning up and closing all the shutters to prevent them from being blown around in the storm. The storm ended up being very mild with little wind and light rain, so everything was fine, but we did not sleep well. After a 12 hour party that's to be expected.

The next morning we woke up and started the final cleaning of the house. Fabri and Olney worked outside and I gave the kitchen a scrub down. On our way home we stopped in Savigliano to bring a little left over food and some things Antonio had forgotten at the house. Right after we pulled up to our house, while we were getting our things out of the car, our neighbor Mauro came down to say they're waiting on us for lunch (it was a bit after 1 I believe). He had mentioned lunch on Sunday, but plans hadn't been finalized so we were a little surprised. We said we needed a few minutes to clean up and ran upstairs to take showers. We got there a bit before 2 and our other neighbors from upstairs who we've been having meals with were there as well. We were exhausted, but at least I didn't have to make us lunch and they were drinking Nebbiolo wine, so I was happy. We had a lovely time and came home exhausted and a little drunk after 6! It was a long lunch. I don't even remember what we did the rest of the evening, but I'm sure it was mostly laying around the house.

There will be pictures once I get them from Fabri's friends.

One last thing, I would like to send out an SOS. I can't find any of my bookmarks! I read all the time and I have been using scraps of paper and business cards. If you could find it in your heart to drop a bookmark or two in the mail, I would greatly appreciate it.

Postage to Italy, 98 cents; having a free place to stay in Italian wine country, priceless.

Fabri's Birthday!!

Today is Fabri's 28th birthday so make sure to send him an email or card. We're getting to be so grown up! Tomorrow we're having a pool party for him so that should be awesome. There is a concern about rain though... All of our pool parties are rained out!

So this is silly, but I'm ready to talk a little about Thanksgiving. I know it's early, but living in Italy means I to need to plan far in advance. Fabri and I are coming to visit for the second half of October and that means no Thanksgiving at Lady's house a month later. Thanksgiving is one of my favorite meals ever, so I will be in charge of my first Thanksgiving dinner this year. I've decided to start freaking OWT about it early and I'm writing to get recipes and ideas. I want to arrive to the US in October with a shopping list of everything I'll need (that I can't find here) to make a traditional Thanksgiving dinner. Fabri's family & cousins are very excited about their first Thanksgiving, so I'll have their help. So start thinking about that and gathering your recipes and ideas a little earlier this year. You can post them or email them or save them for me in October! Thank you!

We celebrated our first anniversary last weekend. Our plan was to spend the whole weekend in the Alps at our apartment in Limone. When we arrived we were a bit disappointed to find it almost as hot and humid as in Saluzzo! The whole point of having a mountain retreat is to get a break from the summer heat! I suppose some people would say it's for the skiing... When we went down to the city center, it was full of people, a little too full. We walked around town a bit and decided on the restaurant for dinner, but when we got there, there was a mean, aggressive dog that barked and nipped at Olney. Olney didn't react at all, but we couldn't be there because the other people couldn't control their dog. So we went to another restaurant where we had very good wine, but the food wasn't as good. Then Friday night in the apartment Olney was not happy and kept waking up and barking. He's afraid of the elevator and just was not happy there. The plan was to wake up and go hiking Saturday morning, but Olney had been barking since the early morning (every 15 minutes or so) and we were too tired for that. Also it was another hot & humid day and we had packed for a cooler more comfortable climate. So we decided to head back to Saluzzo that evening.

When we were ready we hiked down to the center stopping to play with Olney in the river along the way. But even the trail was very crowded and it was hard to find a good spot for him to get in & out. When we got to town it was SUPER crowded not just of people, but of aggressive and annoying dogs. Olney got barked and growled at 4 or 5 times. He never really reacted and the owners pulled their dogs away, but it was unpleasant. We think it must have effected him because as we were eating lunch, he started barking & growling at a nice dog sitting next to us. Olney had never done that before. So we changed tables and he was good & fell asleep under the table while we had lunch. But that was the final straw, and we headed back to Saluzzo that afternoon. We went out to one of my favorite restaurants here, La Taverna del'Artista with the pup. We have been there several times and the waiter recognized us and tried to give us a table immediately, but some folks who had been waiting bitched about it and they got the table. It wasn't a big deal, but we're regulars and entitled to special perks! We had a delicious meal with my favorite wine and tried to ignore the heat.

Sunday we relaxed and Sunday night I made us a fancy dinner of porcini mushrooms and fresh pasta. We ate on our china for the first time and had candles and our special bottle of Dom Perignon 1990 which was a wedding gift.

So that was the anniversary weekend. Not what we planned, but very nice. Oh! I forgot the beautiful gift Fabri gave me. He got me a pretty silver cocktail ring. Hey, I found a picture! Isn't it pretty?

A Bit of Excitement

I just wanted to post a quick story before we began our anniversary weekend celebration.

Olney has a best friend who he plays with several times a week. She's a 3 year old mutt that lives at the other end of our apartment complex. Her owner invited Fabri, Olney and I to dinner last night. It was sooooo much food and soooooo much wine. Everything was really good, except the pasta didn't really do it for me. Olney got a LOT of treats as well. We were all stuffed by the end of a late night. We got home at about 12:30. When we walked in and turned the lights on I saw a shadow in the living room. When I walked forward to investigate I realized it was a bat circling around our living room!! I don't know how the poor thing got in, the windows were only open a crack. Fabri was a bit scared and stayed back saying "you're a biologist, you know what to do." Well all I knew was they're good fliers and he wanted to get out, so I opened the doors and windows all the way until he flew right out. It took less than a minute. So that was our excitement last night! Watch out for bats in your belfry!

Repetitive

Did anyone notice that my last blog post was very repetitive? Not within itself, but with the previous blog. At least I had some great pictures to go with each!

Last weekend we did the hiking thing again. This time in Valle Stura. It's pretty important around here to not know the different valleys and the main cities in each of them. You can't be a real Piemontese without knowing the valleys and the mountain peaks. I'm proud to say I'm doing pretty well! Below is Pietraporzio from above. We began our day down by that lake and ended it with some gelato from a restaurant/bar down there.

From Pietraporza Hike Aug 09

There was a river at the very beginning of the trail and Olney went CRAZY over it. The water was really cold, but he liked wading in and eventually went swimming. The current was strong, but he did well swimming from side to side. I want to get him some floating pool/river toys to play with. Maybe we can train him to be a good retrieving dog. Not that we do a lot of duck hunting these days...

From Pietraporza Hike Aug 09

So Olney is going through a stage. Besides being adorable and sweet and a great swimmer, he also has been chewing on our couch and barking a lot. I guess he's going through his rebellious adolescent stage. I just sewed up the couch as best I could and we're going to try to keep it protected from the pup.

From Pietraporza Hike Aug 09

Oh, I got distracted, I was going to say that while Olney was going crazy over the river, I was going crazy over all the moths and butterflies. There were a bunch puddling (getting salt from drying puddles) by the river. As we hiked up, we found 2 fields full of wild flowers and butterflies including the endangered Apollo butterfly. I collected what I could, but I don't hike with my net because it's so cumbersome. I did get a couple cool beetles and a bunch of butterflies and a couple moths. Fabri said he knows a field we can drive all the way up to so that I can bring all my collecting gear. Next time I'll take some photos of the pretty bugs before I catch them so I can post them on here too! Also I collected some wild lavender from the mountain and that's currently hanging up and drying on the balcony. The above photo is Olney in the lavender.

Amphibias International Travel Pup!

I was going to write all about Olney and how he swims in the pool now and we got him a pet passport so we can bring him to Nice, but he just ran around like a crazy pup jumping on the furniture (and me) and I'm annoyed with him. So instead I'm going to get a little ice cream and relax on the couch a little before writing this blog. It's sooo hot here, and ice cream is perfect for breakfast, lunch & dinner.

So like I said before, Olney's a great swimmer! He can go in and out of the pool by himself and does a couple laps around us while we're all in the water. He's really fast too and beats Fabri at swim races! This is me about to grab him so he can rest in the water with us for a sec.

From Olney at the Pool

Here's me holding him so he can take a break from paddling. I think he gets tired because there's no where for him to rest except for on the steps. Maybe we can get a special dog friendly raft for him!

From Olney at the Pool

Look at how cute the little swim pup is!!

From Olney at the Pool

We took Olney to the vet last week for a general check up and a rabies vaccine. We needed the vaccine to get him a puppy passport and you have to have a passport to take him abroad (for example, to Nice where we're going for a weekend in August). We also had them do a heart worm test, which was negative and we gave him the preventative pills. In Saluzzo the climate isn't right for heart worm, but Ruffia (where the pool is) and Monasterolo di Savigliano (where Olney was born) are hot spots. So we decided to have the test and get the pills. While we were waiting to go into the exam room, a horrible pit bull came out and was vicious and bit another dog waiting on the face and would have bit Olney if he had been closer. The other dog that got bit (which was very sweet and had played with Olney before the bit pull) was bleeding on her face, and the vet took care of it of course. Fabri was so mad, and I was upset by the whole thing. And of course the dog's owners were as well. So it goes.

A few days later I went and got the International Travel Pup his passport! It was very easy because the office is in our apartment complex! It was very easy, the hardest part being Olney got bored waiting for the woman to fill all the necessary information in for the passport. Puppies!

Now I can't wait to head over to France! We wanted to go this weekend, but Fabri's parents are there, and we don't want to have that kind of family vacation there right now. Instead we're going to go on another mountain top hike tomorrow and hopefully put together our shelves for the cellar on Sunday.