Posso videre la villa?

We've had some trouble with cars, and haven't gotten out to visit some of the towns we're planning on seeing, so Heidi, baby Maddy, and I took a little tour of the neighborhood last night. About a quarter mile up the road is Villa Tacchi, the 500-year-old center of Vilalta. Now it's used as a reception center/hotel, so we went inside and I said, "posso videre la villa?" (possible to see the villa?) The guy blinked a couple of times and looked a little confused, and then said "si, si." So maybe I used a weird grammatical construction, or maybe I had something in my teeth, but he got the gist of what we wanted and let us wander around. Here are a few pictures of the grounds:



Here's a little of Maddy, who's a city baby, enjoying the wide-open spaces and the smells and sounds of the Italian countryside.


And here are a few more pictures of the immediate neighborhood. The building to the right of the church in the last picture is the Vetter's house.

jogging in Italy - part 1

Well, I didn’t go for a run yesterday. I woke up around 9:30 after a refreshing 11 hours of sleep, and started to try to figure out how to leave the house without locking myself out. After a while I realized that the door from the bathroom (Aunt Aleta calls it the escape hatch) didn’t have lock, and that I could put the handle in a position where it wasn’t even latched.


So I got excited and got dressed and put my running shoes on. Then I opened the door and ducked under the blind and found myself standing on a three by four foot alcove in the middle of the roof! So then I just gave up and showered.

Aunt Aleta has since instructed me on how to get into the house with the spare key which sticks in the lock. On related note, I have repeatedly locked myself in the bathroom on accident, and we all know now that the "escape hatch" is no more than a red herring. And finally, I should report that I did not run this morning either. The reasons for that are the church bells and jet lag.

Italian Villa

I’m in my temporary place for the next two weeks. I just listened to the Church bells chime the hour. First they rang nine times, and then another set of bells chimed about 30 times. Five minutes later, I heard the bells chime nine times again. I love it. There is a Church right across the street from my open window. I don’t know who else is chiming. There’s a little chapel at the villa around the corner, so maybe that’s one of the culprits. Aunt Aleta and Uncle Bern live in a little town called Vilalta, which is near Vicenza, about an hour from Venice. This area especially is kind of an agricultural community. It’s beautiful. Here’re a couple of pictures I took on the way to the Vetter home:

So this is the neighborhood. I think I’m falling in love. I can’t imagine a more perfect place to stay in Italy. I want to go for a run in the morning. For now, it feels good to finally be clean, and I’m going to have a great sleep tonight, I’m sure. Jet lag - who, me?

Welcome to my blog!

As my life will very likely get boring in another couple of months, I thought I'd start this little blog (thanks also to Heidi's powers of persuasion) while something interesting is going on. Watch for posts coming soon about my current Italian adventure...