Our 41st Anniversary...

       Our 41st Anniversary...try to wrap your mind around that...we have spent, literally, our whole adulthood together...who would have thought. No big plans today just catching up on life’s mundane errands and what not. Nancy with her mind fully into preserving luggage space, only packed herself 1 long sleeved shirt, and it has turned colder here. Today, believe it or not, we are headed out to a Outlet Mall we spied while driving into Rome...about 40 minutes down the road...easy trip...but not a lot of 60’s hippie chic clothing, everything now days has designer names on every square inch, ridiculous. My wife refuses to advertise someone’s goods while paying for the privilege...and I fully agree. It’s different if you buy a cool t shirt from some place because you want to commemorate your day there,  but the designers now want to splash their name front, back, inside and out...we vow to go naked first! Don’t worry, not really. Out of every store in this big mall Nanc only found 2 unadorned long sleeve shirts that fit her criteria (whatever it is). We did however stop in a Burger King for a small soda and fries...unbelievable, they are charging people 6Euros for a whopper meal...that’s a little over 8 bucks US...(no charge for destroying their health)! While we were at the mall we stopped at the Farmacia, we can’t seem to find vitamins for sale anywhere...are all these people that healthy? The girl we spoke with had a little better grasp of English than we did of Italian so we had this conversation in what you could call Englian...apparently there are only a couple of types of vitamins sold here...you can get vitamin D, everything else has to come in a multi vitamin...she assured us we would not find anywhere near the supply of vitamins carried in the USA. For an outlet mall this place pretty much sucked...we need a Target or something where casual clothing fills the bins. It’s funny because we really have zero style...maybe the problem is us, they want to sell style and we just aren’t buying it. Anyway I hope 2 is enough because I hate shopping (except for t shirts).

       Back at the village, sitting at the square, watching the regular crowd. Today I used my Mac translation app to look up some conversation starters with Anna our neighbor...I prepped myself with about 10 questions that I knew would not lead to long involved reply’s.

Doesn’t do any good to ask questions you can’t understand the answers to...so very basic questions. Worked pretty well on about 1/2, the other half she looked at me like I was speaking some other language instead of italian...I think maybe my pronunciation needs a little work. But I did find out she is 81 years old, has 4 kids, 4 grandkids and has lived here her whole life...same age as my mom and reminds me of her some. One of her kids lives here, one in Giove and the other 2 in Terni. Anyway this may be my way to learn more about these people...god knows they are not going to spend 1 second learning English.

       I did get 4 of the ladies to allow me a picture of them this evening...they sit out like this every night for hours just chatting, laughing and I guess comparing notes about those 2 crazy americans who live down the lane. This little village is like Peyton Place only without the glamour or pretty people...plain folks who can talk all day...I think Nanc and I have given them something new to talk about. The ones that have taken to us I think would help us with anything. We are definitely in the heart of Italy and these are really good people.

       No plans for tomorrow yet but we are going to map out something later. We finalized our trip to Venice this afternoon...leave the morning of the 18th, lunch with Lucia in Bologna about noon and then drive to Venice for 2 nights and days of seeing the sights. Should be fabulous.  

From left clockwise is Anna, Jeanna, Ivono and Marellio (I think)
Every night holding court...sometimes as few as 3 sometimes  as many as 8!
Anna is our neighbor across the lane and she is a bigshot at church.