Leyla and Grace (our friends)

These are pictures of Leyla and her mom Grace...on our day (Fiesta De La Donna) I'll never get tired of saying that......

We are sitting on the terrace enjoying the most spendid day imaginable.....oh I wish I would have taken a picture of the view from there....they have the absolute best view from their terrace of the rolling hills...their house sits on top of the hill close to Frontignano....and looks out over the entire hillside.....beautiful weather today!

"Fiesta De La Donna"

Yes, you read that correctly......in Italy they celebrate this holiday once a year on a Sunday in March....Fiesta De La Donna (Fiesta of the Lady) celebrates and honors all the women in Italy....not sure where it came from but doesn't that tell you something.....I am meant to visit Italy.....let me tell you a story of how I have come full circle....

As some of you may or may not know...my mom named me LaDonna.....never did we know this was an Italian name....but you may not know that my mom stole my name from her sister Mae...Mae was always going to name her daughter LaDonna (not sure why or where she got the name) but when Mae thought she was not going to be able to have kids...and my mom just happened to have me before Mae had a daugher (Apri)l...mom stole her name (not sure with or without permission)...and she named me LaDonna...of course later on Mae did have a daughter...but didn't take her name back...so you can see right from the start I didn't have a chance...I was stolen.....anyway...you know ...well you probably don't...but my mom's family is from Austria/Hungary region...actually Budapest I think but they say Austria...even though Budapest is in Hungary right? and my great grandmother spoke German.....so we have a long history...and Austria is a neighbor to Italy.....my name is Italian...and I come back (for whatever reason.....not sure what drew us here.....) to Italy all these years later....and lo and behold...they have a national holiday honoring me....did you know that mom? ....so I have been walking around all day saying "Fiesta de 'Me' ".....I'm so funny of course....

But Leyla and her family...invited us over today to celebrate Fiesta De La Donna....and boy did we have a fiest....

I'm going to share some pictures of our celebration.....

Oh, I almost forgot to finish telling you about the Fiesta tradition....so on this day every year it is tradition to get the women in your life a mimosa tree or the yellow flower from the tree....Paolo gave all of us the mimosa flower (it is yellow)...and mom, you love yellow flowers...see how it is all making sense now and connecting?

So anyway....it is also a tradition to have a yellow mimosa cake on this day.....so Piddle bought the cake last night at the mercato that you see us holding in the picture....in the picture are Leyla, her mother Grace, and myself......

The other picture is from the little topper of the cake that reads "Vive Le Donne" which I think loosely translates to "celebrate the women"....loosely I think.....

What a great day..we have been celebrating all day.....and don't think that we won't be celebrating this day every year now when we return to the states.....Thanks Italy!!!!

Anchovies Anyone?

Well, here we are having lunch in our favorite pizzeria...called Le Delizie.....( Lay-Day-Lee-Zee-Ay)

And Piddle is having a piece of pizza with anchovies, mushroom and brussel sprouts......yum yum! you defnitely need to click on the photo to enlarge it so that you can see the anchovies...

They actually use anchovies a lot in Italy...not sure why...but when Leyla was teaching me how to make Parmegiano di Melanzani (Eggplant Parmesan)....we put anchovies in our red sauce...it actually dissolves them and gives the sauce a more salty taste....actually very good...my, how we are stepping outside our comfort zone....

This place is our favorite place because they are open from 6:30 in the morning until 8pm at night...and don't even close...no not at all.....most places close up between 1pm and like...4pm or 6pm or 8pm...whatever they feel like...and you never know when they will open back up because no one posts any hours on their door......but we can never find anything open....especially to eat...

'Le Delizie'...has a great buffet for lunch.....the other day...they tried to get Piddle to try Tripe..I'm not sure that is how you spell it but it is the stomach or lining or intestine..again not sure....but he chickened out....not that I blame him....I'll pass on that....so much for stepping out of our comfort zone...well we have stepped out...not jumped out....
Anyway back to our favorite place...they also have a great lady in there name Veronica who is from Australia and speaks excellent English....hooray! (I'll take a picture of her soon and post) She helps us a great deal...telling us where to go for what...warns us where not to go...is a great resource for us...and we love her......she has the best accent...you're going to love talking to her.....
Le Delizie also has the best cappucino I can find........awesome....we were eating supper in there the other night...yes, we go there practically daily...at some point in the day....and the owner gave us a complementary biscotti and a shot of "divine" wine...we were instructed to dip the biscotti in this heavenly wine and eat in this manner.....he was right...it was heavenly.....we'll have to go back and get some of this wine...unbelievable.....again, our favorite place......

Ferrari.....? ......Lamborgini....?... Fiat?.......

Okay, so we are in Italy and have finally found a car to buy.....

Is it a Ferrari?..........A Lamborgini.....perhaps?......maybe a Fiat...you see those everywhere.....

Oh no, we are in Italy...and bought a freakin' (drum roll please).........

A FORD FREAKIN' FIESTA............

Okay, well you knew that we wouldn't have bought a Ferrari...but a Ford...come on.....a Fiat...maybe.....But a Ford ....in Italy??????

But it was priced right....only 2 doors though and a hatchback....we traded down from our two previous rentals which were at least 4 doors....but comfort is not the most important attribute here in Italy....what is? You ask.....

Well definitely...Good gas mileage......since gas is about $4.64 per gallon...so yeah...I think we can live with a Ford Fiesta...we think it gets about 40 to 50 miles per gallon.....and the other best attribute that Italians look for is the "smallness"...because they have very very very skinny streets and the parking is almost non-existent...they park anywhere they can find...they don't need designated parking....and the little cars can fit into any small space.......
I read something the other day in some book that says the best way to parallel park in Italy...is to pull in until you hit the car in front of you....then back up until you hit the car behind you....then pull back up until you hit the car in front of you.....now cut your wheel ever so slightly and back up just a bit more.....there...now you have perfectly executed a parallel parking job.....and they weren't kidding.....there are hardly any vehicles that don't have scrapes and dents all over them....we were lucky to find one that didn't have a scratch or dent one....so we jumped on it.....also when there are fender benders...it doesn't even phase the driver...they just keep on going....big trucks and cars are always bumping their way through these small streets...and whatever they can't clear...gets a dent...and never do they stop.....

There aren't really any "laws of the road" here...well, there may actually be some laws somewhere...but no one pays any attention to them...they do whatever they want...go as fast as they want...drive in whatever or whoevers lane they want..park anywhere they want...stop on any street...no matter how many cars are behind them or how many cars they are blocking in...in a parking lot....I don't think there is actually anyone to make them obey any kind of traffic laws....well we haven't seen any yet...and the Italians definitely act like they can do whatever they want....haven't seen not one police car have any one pulled over yet....AMAZING!!!!!!

So WE GOT A CAR.......no stopping us now.....we are mobile!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Out with the Old...In with the New

Okay...so you all have heard about our ongoing saga with our "wheels".......this is our third car since we have arrived......
The white one on the right is the rental car which we have just returned.....

We finally found a car to buy....hooray!!!!!!! The gray one is our new one that we will keep for the remainder of the year!!!!!

Before and After

I wanted to share a "before" picture for a "Before and After" Project.....we discovered a nice little patio beside the pool...that has long since been forgotten...the trees have overgrown the area....there is moss and cracks all throughout the floor.....I mean layers and layers of moss....the posts that you see are made of cement....and once upon a time..you can tell that they had cross beams over the top...the cement posts are notched out on top...I wish I could see a picture of the patio in it's prime...but that is not to be.....

But we thought we could revive this nice little area and put our barbeque grill, bistro set and some nice lounge chairs....so stay tuned and we will post the "after" portion of this little project.....(you know how Piddle loves our "little" projects!) hee hee!!!!!!

We have just now tackled it...still trying to unearth the cement floor.....but we can already tell that it is going to be our favorite place to view the surrounding hillsides...has a great view from there......

We Got "Beep-Beep'd"

I am so excited! I guess this means we have arrived.....

I was in the shower this morning.....and heard "Beep Beep" as someone drove by our house!!!!

I was so excited, I was screaming at Bob, "Bob, Bob, we got Beep-Beeped"...we have Arrived!!!!

That means we officially live here right...? Someone drove by our house and honked at us! I was so excited...that is what prompted me to get back on the blog! I'm so excited.....(of course it had to be Grace or Leyla, they are the only people we know!) But so what....someone knows us!!!!!

BACON OR RABBIT?

We went shopping today in Perugia..which is kind of a bigger city...just 30 minutes away.....larger stores and such....actually found some bacon...which we have been unable to find since we arrived....I was so excited...it was just a small package....maybe a quarter of a pound....not very big....so I told Bob "Get it, get it" well...he put it in the basket then looked at the price. Thank Goodness.....It was 25.50 Euros....which is about $33 today....guess we won't be having bacon this year....will break the bank....

Then we came back to Todi and went to our Super Mercato...and shopped for a few things...while we were picking out our chicken...we saw something on the counter that was whole...about twice the size of chicken...with legs....wasn't sure what it was....Bob thought he knew what is was...and called "Rabbit".....so I pulled out my handy dandy little dictionary and looked up the word...yep you guessed it...it was rabbit...hell, must have been a jack rabbit....it was huge...I mean huge...I didn't think about looking at the price.....I was too shocked to find rabbit in the meat counter....passed that up and just got the chicken...

They don't seem to eat a lot of meat here....mostly pasta and vegetables.....guess that's more plentiful than meat here....and their meat I think is mostly cured for about 2 to 3 years...hung up and salted and stuff like that for a few years...maybe that's why it's so expensive....

Also found a new coffee shop/Pizzeria/bar...that....get this....is open ALL DAY LONG....from 6:30 in the morning for our cappucino....to a pizza buffet at noon and pizza and coffee liquor and beer available all day long until 8pm....we are so excited...and what was even better...is the lady who owns it is from Australia...and yep...she speaks English...has become our new hang out...we are so excited to find it...she said she lived in an old castle on top of Todi...maybe we can visit it some day....(For those of you who haven't heard us ranting....we can never find anything open in town...all the shops close down at 1 in the afternoon.for Siesta ..and open back up at...well we aren't sure when they open back up...some open back up 3 or 3:30...some 4 or 4:30...most restaurants don't open back up til 6, 7 or 8 at night...there are never any hours posted on the doors...so every time we are trying to go into town to buy something..no matter what it happens to be...the stores, shops and restaurants are always closed...we can't figure out how they make any more...they can't work more than about 20 hours a week...maybe....but we will get used to it.....it just takes several trips to get anything......so we are so excited that at least we can eat any time we want now...that is a huge plus for us....we finally caught the pizza place in San Terrezano open..we have been trying to catch it since we have arrived...Leyla told us they have the best pizza...but no matter what time of day we tried, it was never open...either it was after 1 pm....or before 8pm...or it was Monday...or it was some sort of holiday...or something..but we finally found it open..we had to stay up late to do it...but it was terrific...and one of our favorites now...

Anyway, we will start our "traveling around" portion of this trip...just as soon as we get our own wheels...can't afford to waste any time with our rental....so have to get wheels first...then I think we are going to take a trip to Switzerland, Austria and Hungary....kind of my Birthday Trip....yes, I get to celebrate it all month...heck I get to celebrate it all year.....will post some pictures....probably won't go until mid March....

Got our first gas bill last week....for a 4 week period...that is one month right? ......475 Euros....that is $617 today...ouch...and we only use the gas to heat 3 small rooms (bedroom, kitchen and bathroom) and for hot water and our cook stove...that's it...just think if we had to heat the entire house.....we use our pellet stove for that....I think our utilities came out to about $1000 this month...ouch...can't wait for warm weather....that must be why everyone is always bundled up with layers....they keep their heat down and lights off....the charge for eletric changes depending on the time of the day....haven't figured out if it is more expensive in the day or night...but very expensive as well....They get their natural gas from Russia...someone is making a buck...at least they haven't cut us off anymore....at some point while we have been hear...Russia cut off all gas supply to Italy...not sure what that was about...but didn't affect us for whatever reason..or maybe it did and that is why it is so astronomically HIGH....and it hasn't been down below 30 degrees even.....can't wait for summer...did I mention that?

anyway...just thought I would share some of our new discoveries with you...stay tuned for more!

Oh, The picture is of a new lake we found near Perugia....we have found a great restaurant there that we have eaten at several times...great food! There are at least 2 islands on this lake that I can see and people live on them....that's what I want to do....it is very pretty with mountains or hills all around...it was very very calm on this day....

Ciao!