pane pignano

i'm so glad that i stuck out the rough patch earlier this week; since then, its been much better. i've been baking in the kitchen with Zac (see photos), so I'm up every morning at 4:30 am! in the dark! He spent a couple years apprentice-ing with different bakers around the world, and moved to Pignano a few months ago to handle all of the bread baking. So far we've made challah bread, croissants, bagels, whole wheat sourdough, white sourdough, country rye... he's really good and he's very chill about it all (if you can't tell from the photos).

At night, things have gotten more fun...music playing, singing, fires in the teepee (where i no longer sleep). The landscape is breathtaking, but this is the longest i've stayed in any single place on my trip -- and it feels great to take it for granted and just live in the beauty of it. I'm here until Saturday and then back to Rome and then back to Boston on Monday! I can't believe the trip is almost over, but I have a feeling its going to be a loooong last week (especially if i continue averaging 4 hours of sleep per night). Note to self: get better at daytime napping.