Italia!

Little Italy actionista. Italian living. I can really barely believe it has already been 2 weeks since we have been in Florence. It feels more like a week and yet I am still just hearing the sing song of the language and it sounds more like a song then a conglomerate of sentences. Words gathered here and there but for the most part I just fully regret not travelling around the world when I was about 5 and just learning a language in a way that is more organic since now all of my preconceived notions hold back my ability to retain the understanding in a simple way. We have been completely immersed into the local scene of Florentines though and I am pretty sure when I order a espresso I must look like a local. Between city life and weekend trips to the Mediterranean and Tuscany to the families beach house and to Salvatore Ferragammo's villa amongst the ripe olive trees and galloping horses we are definitely in the right scene to hang with locals. Out of our normal comfort zone of being at home is a like a bouquet of sensory and tangible delights to our eyes and souls in the European towns and countrysides. Not a dull moment in sight. The party during our first weekend at Ferragammo's property was a classic affair of multi -lingual Europeans singing and dancing their way through the evenings over long meals, glasses of white wine and walks on endless hidden roads in the country. We stayed in a the small village attached to their villa and got lost on small cobblestone streets peeking through windows at Tuscan interiors.. It felt so magical, but of course every small town in the country has these villages that to us look like our quaint dreams of medieval dream vacations. The theme of this years party (as they do them every year) was "Western". Therefore, as Chris and I are the only people from the real "West", they seemed to think that out in Colorado were wrangling up the cattle and hitting up the saloon in our cowboy boots. Pretty awesome. Danish women, english men, germans, spanish, italian. Then the Colorado people. As we finally entered real time and weren't feeling the effects of the jet lag and 2 a.m nights we have completely gotten into our city groove back in Firenze. There has been a bit of a shuffle with apartments as we are helping with the redesign and construction on Kathy's main place, so we have found ourselves with 2 apartments in Florence in which we go back and forth to with the kids in tow and carrying prosciotto paninos in our hands. Between working on her place here and there we find ourselves taking long bike rides on city cruiser old school peugoeuts around the city. The bumpy cobblestones and one way narrow roads are easy to ride forever on as you peek into tiny shops searching for Italian characters, which are everywhere. The men in front of the coffee shop all talking at the same time, the painter in the paint shop painting every shudder in his workshop green ( every shutter in Florence is green and underwear still hang from all of them as you would only imagine in a movie), the young good lookers on the steps in the piazzas laughing and smoking cigs over their beers, the baker bringing out new batches of magical small cookies and putting them in their windows, the fashionista in heels strutting to her job at some designer store in the center, and bambinos skipping down the street with the soccer ball under their arm on the way to the park to play footie, the art students planning their nights out. There is so much to see, so much to enjoy, and an incredible amount to listen to as vespas whirl by, bells tolling from clock towers, bikes clickity clacking on cobblestone, and the voices singing everywhere. Then, the food. The food is what the wheel revolves around in Italy. Today we went to Tommy and Vivi's nona's (grandmas) for lunch. Granted it was lunch and it was a Monday. We barely speak 5 words of the same language but she treats us as if we are her children. Five courses, 2 glasses of wine, 1 apertif drink, an espresso, and 3 hours later we walked out of her home. Everyone says she is one of the best cooks in Italy and I would never ever disagree. The lasagne, the fresh porcinis, the tenderloin, the ricotta dessert....it went on and on in a beautiful way. When we go to restaurants Kathy and Tommy seem to always know someone and Tommy is practically in the kitchen chatting it up with Mario or Giovanni or some guy who loves to cook incredible italian food. Sometimes I only order one small course and just savor it through instead of the classic 2 or 3 courses. I always wondered how people were skinny here but I see now that it is more about hanging out at the restaurant and not about the amount of food you consume. It could take you 4 hours to eat and therefore you can really spread it out and have dabs of this or that between getting up walking around and just basically getting lost in time. Some tuscan bread, a vegetable soup, a homemade tagliotelle, a cutlet of lemon chicken. It is all so fresh that the flavors pop out in a way that makes you want to eat less. Food is a lifestyle and espresso standing up at the bar is the lifeblood in between all activities. Even all the pitstops on the auto strada have full espresso bars where you can get prosciotto and mozerella paninis and fresh squeezed orange juice. This is what I call living it up on the road. We had a wonderful day at the beach yesterday where I finally felt the salt water of the mediterranean hit my skin and we played barefoot footie with Italians and germans on the sand until sunset preceded by a naked swim in the sea. We are looking into a week long trip to Spain to get some surf in a couple weeks. We will make a stop in Barcelona and take in some spanish culture before heading out to San Sebastian to get some Atlantic Autumn swells. I glimmer just thinking about this.... Tomorrow is Venice for a few nights and then back here for more wanderings and starting to paint the apartment. The park is long and glorious and provides a respite for us active folk when we need to feel the trees above our heads and a little sweat forming. With all the food and espresso this is needed. When the kids get off school we usually meet with Vivi and go have some random adventure where we do lots of laughing and quite a bit of goofy face making. Between Vivi's ability for comedy and love, Kathy's fun adventurous infectiousness and energy, Tommy's local knowledge and entertaining teenage moments, poser the dog wagging tail and spur of the moment songs, Francesco's always witty one liners with a pipe always puffing in his mouth, giovanni and chiara's classy italian style and desire for outdoor activity we feel like we have walked into the perfect Italian family. We spent some time at the family business and slung some italian fabrics around to savvy international businessmen and actually made some euro in the process. It was quite the educational experience skateboarding around a fabric warehouse while loading rolls of fabric on to a wheely mcjobbies for some english buyer who sells to designers who made clothes for the royal wedding. Bam. Bigtime. Well the night is taking over and I have found myself staying up late late late everynight getting lost in the moments of city lights so off to bed for me. Maybe a little bit of reading would do me well to settle down from all the activities of the day. Ciao, Ciao.