Four Hundred and Fifty-Two

All 4 of us loaded up in the car this morning for a trip to the grocery store.  Or the mall.  Or both.  At a glance, this mall appears to be your average Western conglomerate shopping center, but after further review, it was far from the average American mall.

You put a euro into a cart, which is located in a corral in the parking lot, in order to be able to use it throughout the mall and grocery store.  The euro just fits in a slot in this little black box on the handle, and the cart doesn't leave the corral until it has a euro in it.  When you return the cart to the corral, you get your euro back.  So for all of you people who leave your carts strewn about the Target parking lot...you'd be paying $1.22 for that!  :)  

Jogging Photography

This morning I woke up around 7:30 before Christer had left for work and before Christine and Jameson had woken up.  I decided to venture out and go for a run after I got some coffee in me (because if you know me, you know you don't want to be around before I've had my morning coffee).  Christer had shown me 2 roads nearby that would be good for running or biking, as they have little traffic and are close to the house.  I laced up my running shoes and headed out on the road that runs along the side of our house back towards the mountains.  Christer had warned me that there was a "pretty good hill" along this road that will eventually lead to the entrance of where they're mining on the side of the mountain (that big sandy spot you see in the pictures from the back of house).  I brought my camera so I could take pictures along the way; I felt like Jim Carrey on his "jogging photography" adventures in "Yes Man," but I just didn't want to miss anything.  As I've said before, nearly every house around here has farmland, and poppies grow as weeds in every available plot of land.  These bright red heads poke out amongst the crops and are so pretty and Italian looking.

See the cute little scarecrow??  There was one in every plot of land on this particular piece of property.

Poppies might be my new favorite flower.  They just look so poignant poking through the wheat fields, and they're everywhere around here.

To Market To Market To Buy a Fat Pig

Today Christer got a ride to work so we could take the car and go to the market or Ikea or wherever our hearts desired.  They only have one company car right now, so if we have somewhere to go during the day, Christine has to drive Christer to work, or he has to come home on his lunch break (which is from 12-3, just like the rest of Italy) and Christine has to drive him back to work.  We decided to check out the market in Sacile, 2 towns over.  It's pronounced Suh-chie-lay, and is also called 'The Little Venice' because of all the bridges and water running through town.  Every town has a day of the week when the piazza is taken over by street vendors and turns into a market from 9-12 (because, again, at 12, EVERYTHING shuts down for lunch).  Sacile is not a big town, but it's larger than Caneva, where we live, and has one of the best markets in the area.  Christine described the market as an Italian version of the flea market, but let me tell you something, unless I'm just a crazy American, I've never seen a flea market sell some of the stuff that was for sale here.  There were multiple fresh flower booths, refrigerated trucks selling meats and cheeses, knock off clothes from the Milan runways, and even a booth selling grape presses, corks, bottles, and everything else you'd need to make your own wine.  Here's a picture of some of the booths and all the people shopping.  (That's Christine in the blue shirt, and Jameson's little hand sticking out of the stroller--if you click on the picture it will enlarge)

Whew!

By now most everyone knows about this super awesome opportunity I've been fortunate enough to come across.  For those of you that don't, here's a little background:


Last October I received an e-mail from a friend of a friend of a friend (yeah, it's really that many) who's daughter, Christine, lived in Italy with her husband, Christer, and their 2 year old son Jameson.  They were looking for someone to come live with them and to help take care of Jameson, and they wanted to give this opportunity to someone from the United States.  They are originally from the US, and Christer's job had relocated them to Germany, and then a year ago, to Italy.  Long story short, I e-mailed saying I was interested, filled out their own homemade questionnaires (they really took a lot of time picking what they thought would be the right fit for their family), and was really feeling hopeful that I would indeed be the chosen one.  If anyone knows anything about me then you know I have this borderline obsession with Italy, so this opportunity was not taken lightly.  Christine and Christer managed to narrow it down to 2 people: Another girl named Liz, and me.  They ended up picking Liz, only because she had just graduated with a degree in Early Childhood Education, and they felt this could benefit Jameson and his "brain like a sponge."