10 Things I Did Over Easter Break

You may have noticed I have not been blogging for awhile. I admit I have been busy. Here are some of the events that have happened in the last month....

Rachael came home and we celebrated her 21st birthday!!!!!

Here we are waiting for our guests for Easter dinner. 14 hungry people joined us.

The girls and I hiked down to a favorite beach of ours and had a great picnic. Got caught in the rain coming back but that was part of the fun.

The Ewing's have started a painting tradition on Easter. This is the beginning of this years project. Stay tuned for additional pictures.

My sister Nancy and her family joined us for 10 days. We started their visit with the very American sport of skateboarding. Maggie, Fredrick and Olivia turned heads on the streets of Trani!

THEN they turned heads when they went swimming in the Adriatic in April!

We went hiking on the Gargano to Monte Sacro, the ruins of an old monastery were perfect for climbing. Rick calls this Hogwarts on the Hill.

Brother-in-law Bill and nephew Fredrick checked out the fishing at the port.

We ate some great meals.

And did some sightseeing in Rome! Castle Sant' Angelo was a good photo stop.
Bill, Nancy, Maggie, Eileen, Fredrick, Olivia

We also went to Pompeii, introduced them all to Italian espresso and gelato.
I will be elaborating in the coming days but for now this is a snapshot of a really fun time. Hope you all had a nice Easter break and are recharged and ready to storm the castles of your lives.

Onward! Andiamo!

Food

Some of you will remember that last Tuesday I came home from the market with a dry piece of salted cod. It has been soaking in water that was changed daily. We decided to make fish tacos this afternoon. We added some veggies and boy were they delicious. The fish was great and the veggies just added a delicious touch.

For me there is no food that is more comforting than oatmeal with brown sugar and raisins. Yumm. Well, two others agreed with me this morning so I fixed up a batch for all of us. FYI oatmeal is hard to find here. I have to go to the health food store to get it and people look at me funny when I buy two bags at a time....Once a lady asked me, "what do you do with all that oatmeal?". It wasn't the kind of question that could not be answered by saying I eat it. She wouldn't have thought of that... I just let it go. Peanut butter is the same. No one really understands why we like it.

Election Season: Candidate Posters

It is election season here and we have seen the various parties putting up posters for their candidates...just like in the US. However, there is a twist. You have to pay the city to put up your posters in a public space. If you don't then this lovely sign gets attached to your poster and you get fined.

Translated literally it means: Illicit Posting

See, it even has the official seal of the municipal police!

I guess this guy only paid for one advertisement and put up two. One is OK. The other is not. This is a candidate for Mr. Berlusconi's party. Not good PR to not pay your bills.

Port of Trani from Brian & Lisa's Terrace

Port of Trani as seen from the terrazza of Brian and Lisa's apartment. What a stunning view. Brian invited Amory and I up for coffee last week. It was the perfect day. Not to cold, not too hot.

A little to the left and we see the cathedral...

A little to the right and there is the San Paulo, the hotel we stayed in for about two weeks when we first arrived.

A little more to the right and there is the restaurant and bar area of the port.

Here is a shot of Brian and Amory looking back into the city of Trani.

Amory enjoying the sun.

Ahhh, so nice to have a man bring you coffee! Thank you Brian! Not only did he supply us with caffeine, he also loaded us up with seedlings for tomato and pepper plants. If all goes well we will be eating home grown veggies this summer!

To Market, To Market

Yuki called me yesterday and invited me to the weekly Trani outdoor market. I had no idea of what I would want but this is what I came home with for just over 10 euros:

1 kilo of black beans - have to buy them when you see them because they are rare - sun-dried tomatoes, Romano cheese

Purple Italian eggplant...too colorful to pass up... and broccoli rabe.

This piece of white fish was part of my key purchase. It is called Baccala and is a dried salted cod that is sold in long fish sized fillets. You take it home, rinse it, cut it and let it soak for a few days changing the water a few times a day. It is a very traditional Italian food that historically traveled well to areas away from the coast where the population needed to eat fish to comply with church dictates i.e. Friday fish.

I will be cooking with it either tonight or tomorrow so I will let you know what I come up with.

Italian Ski Fashion

I wish I was better organized and quicker on the draw to get my camera out because there were some great fashions on the slopes. This is our favorite. The gentleman with the long woolen coat and leggings. We all wanted to dress like him!

This was an unusual shimmery "onesy" we spotted at the cafe/bar.

Missing are pictures of the black coat with bright pink furry collar, the dark onesy with silver reflective panels and the multi colored ... and I mean bright colored ... body fitting number an Alberto Tomba lookalike was wearing! I am going to have to start wearing my camera on a string for quick access!

Skiing at Roccaraso

Roccaraso is billed as "The Biggest European Ski Area South of the Alps"! It is located about 200km east of Rome and about three hours north of Trani. We gathered a group of willing adventurers and set it as our destination for a ski/snowboard weekend. Here is the intrepid group looking forward with enthusiasm from the breakfast table the first morning...

l-r: Eileen, Jim, Brian, Lisa, Olivia, Amory, Rick

Lisa and Olivia are just finishing a snowboard run but I wanted to capture the chaos on the slopes. There were a lot of other adventurers looking for a last run of the season.

At the end of the first day Eileen reclined in one of the chairs available at the bottom of the lift. It began to snow as we were sitting there waiting for the others.

This is the Amazing Jim! He is really an excellent skier but he hung out with us anyway. He skied down the slope backwards once to film Amory's first decent on the snowboard.

Eileen and Jim at the top of one of the runs. Beautiful view, beautiful skiing.

Jim left us to go down a black run and we took the intermediate one. At the end we were so exhausted that we just had to take a break.