Lately, I feel like I'm living in a Jane Austennovel. I think that its a combination of the fact that I am "summering in Europe" and also that I don't have a cell phone. In France, we stayed at a beautiful little bed and breakfast with a large garden area in the back. The morning we planned to leave, we had a surprise visit from two of Mum's cousins: Tonino and Gino (brothers). We "received" them in our living room for tea, and then spent the morning with them and their family, looking at old photos. The woman in the flowery dress is Ana, mum's cousin, probably about 40 years ago. The other black&white photo is my grandmother....adorable.
Then, we got to meet the final aunt on this trip: Zia Lella! She is mini, like Nonna, but very quiet. At our first dinner together (with cousin Sabrina, her husband Gianni, and their son Nicolo), my mother was in the middle of telling a story about how in France I had accidentally spilled a plate of lentils, breaking a wine glass and spraying lentils all over the table (true story)...when SHE knocked a wine glass to the floor, breaking it. We were all mortified (but overtired and slightly drunk) and used all our energy to hold in our laughter until we noticed that quiet, reserved Zia Lella had burst into laughter while watching the 3 of us. For the record, we haven't broken anything since then. (the cute little boy is Lucca -- their 4 year old neighbor that managed to sneak over and get a seat at the table for each of our dinners).
We took a day-trip to Venice yesterday together, which was absolutely lovely but really full of tourists... and we said goodbye this morning. We're in Firenze now, trying to see it all (its Stef's first time here) but also trying to chill out a little bit after a very intense week.
Sorry, I hate formatting photos on google-blogger. I can't seem to make them look right and I dont have the time to spend on playing around with it.
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