A Giorno Chiaro!

Sherman likes the view too!

A Clear Day!

Vineyards and citrus - smells so good!



I’ll bet the blue sky in the picture above the ship – the Royal Caribbean – in my last post gives you the impression that it was a pretty day, right? Well not so! Compared to today, it was just a so-so weather day. At least it wasn’t raining that day, but yesterday was a rainy and very windy one, which means there’s always a good chance that the following day would turn out to be as pretty as a picture. And sure enough . . . look what we got! I woke up this morning to such a perfect day. The drive to my Italian class this morning was breathtaking. Now why couldn’t the weather have been like this for Jim’s visit on Monday?

Today we learned how to say things in the “past tense” . . . which is very helpful. Little by little (poco poco) this beginning attempt at Italian is actually making some sense. Yesterday, I was even able to tell our landlord (not needing the past tense form) that we couldn’t come for Sunday dinner this weekend because we are in the middle of Lent, and we would have to wait until after Easter. Believe me, it wasn’t a very elegant sentence, but we got the message across to Luigi and that in itself is a huge victory! Yeah-who!

I forgot to mention in my post on Monday that our nice neighbor just behind and below us, with the beautiful vineyard and lemon trees, threw up some lemons for us to “catch” in overhand pitch style, like a baseball while Jim was visiting.l! (unlike last week when he passed them up to us in a bag using a long tree branch)  The lemons are as big as softballs! Unfortunately, Jim couldn’t take them with him on the ship. Our neighbor asked us if we’re enjoying the lemons, and of course they are so delicious and thanks to my "baby" Italian, we at least were able to tell him that in Italian - i limoni molto deliziosi! Grazie mille (Your lemons are very delicious - thank you so much!)



A picture of the long tree branches used to pass the lemons in a bag



Italians use lemon juice on everything! Steak, fish, veggies, salad . . . you name it! The lemons here are not as bitter as American lemons. A very nice dressing for a salad, for example, is to add some of these fabulous lemon slices (some of the juice mixed in) tossed with a little olive oil some salt and pepper added, for a yummy local fare. We eat this (without the lemon slices) each time we have dinner at our landlord’s house; so light and refreshing.



Our neighbor's beautiful yard! Our view from our middle terrace last week.





Here we are in front of our house


It so great to have friends visit! We hope to have so many more visitors come to our home.
What fun to have Jim see where we live and picture our lives.