Saturday March 5 - Sabato is truly a sabbath!

We spent the day mostly resting up.  Slept later than we have in years.  It felt so good!  So today's blog will be bits and pieces.

Here are a couple of pictures of our nifty ceiling in the main room of our apartment (22' x22' ft, larger than expected).  Who knows how long along these were done; the landlady believes that they were done between the 1500s and 1700s.  The family has owned the building for over 200 years.

overall view with our chandelier

 

 

 

 

 

the ends of the main center panel (three panels total)

detail of one end - each one is slightly different

This is far and away the grandest feature of the apartment, but it does add class!

Although the past week has been quite cold and windy, the weather here overall seems to be a bit milder than in Hampton.  For example, today I saw an early cherry tree in bloom:

and cyclomen are everywhere outdoors.  People don't seem to be bothered by the cold weather - they go out walking as usual and eat out in outdoor restaurant areas (many have enclosed tents with heaters, but they aint warm by any stretch).  All the women wear scarfs and you rarely see grey hair.  A lot of hair dye gets sold in Italy.

 Here is some of the produce Ken bought at the market.  The little zucchini and their flowers make a wonderful omelet.  We had one for lunch. He also got artichokes which seem to be in abundance right now.

Egg yolks are a dark yellow.  Eggs are not refrigerated in the markets.  They seem really fresh, though, and taste great.  I don't know if they are radiated or just incredibly fresh. 



Yesterday I (Theresa) went back to school to see an Italian movie.  I had asked if the film would be subtitled and was told yes.  The movie started and it was subtitled all right........only the subtitles were in Italian.  This made no sense to me at all.  Yet everyone who works at the school thinks that this is perfectly normal.  Maybe I'll catch Verdone's "Borotalco" back in the states where Netflix will provide me with English.  My Italian is still so poor I wouldn't have a clue what was going on.

Tomorrow we hope to go to the Carnivale in Viareggio.  It's supposed to be a real treat.  Viareggio is about an hour's bus ride away from here.  Hopefully Ken will take lots of pictures.

As I am signing off for today I hear the street cleaning vehicle.  It comes around every single night.  Since there are no outdoor trash bins and Italians love their dogs and walk them frequently but don't always clean up after them, street cleaning is a good thing.