the castello!

We had the enormous joy and privilege of visiting our host family's country home last weekend. It's this adorable little house on a hillside, surrounded by trees of all kinds. They grow their own grapes, figs, olives, apples, pears, blackberries, peaches, and a bunch of different herbs. Rising up out of the hot, still city into this place full of fresh air and greenery was an indescribable relief. 

Our host dad, Fabio, was nice enough to set up all his paintings for us to see. His work is so colorful, I love it!

We got a little tour of their property, traipsing all over the verdant hillside and admiring both the family's crops and the view from the little village.

We also ate about a billion fresh figs right off the trees and picked more to take back to the house. I'd never had a fresh fig before coming to Italy, and let me tell you, they are delicious.

Adorable roommate #1 (Savannah):

Adorable roommate #2 (Peyton):

We helped our host mom bring in several bunches of grapes while we were at it.

And also these weird little nut things, the name of which I can't remember. Thanks for the handy dandy utility pouch, Mom!

One of my roommates took the rest of these pictures, since I tend to point the camera away from myself and therefore never have any pictures of me.

Mostly she just got a lot of pictures of me goofing off with my host brother Andrea (he was using an Italian Magic: the Gathering card as a bookmark and I was struggling to read the flavor text), but I will say that we didn't laze around for long. After this picture was taken, we all got busy gathering wild thyme and rosemary, chopping vegetables, and slicing cheese for the pizzas.

And what magnificent pizzas we had. All fresh ingredients, about eight inches wide, probably twenty or twenty-five little pizzas all told. We all ate until we couldn't move. Oh, and the rest of the family arrived while we were neck-deep in our preparations, so we had both parents, all three of their kids (Simone, Serena, and Andrea), Serena's husband Sandro, and Fabio's mother, a beautiful elderly woman who spoke no English but smiled conspiratorially at us across the table and laughed at our fumbling attempts to speak Italian with her. Serena and Sandro also brought their cat, Michi, short for Michelangelo, who sort of lurked under everyone's feet at lunch.

After we'd all stuffed ourselves, we mostly sprawled around to sleep it off. The weather was excellent, cloudy and cool and perfect for being outdoors.

After we'd digested enough to function again, Savannah and I went up the hill with Andrea and did a bit of hiking around an abandoned restaurant and a little lake. Contrary to what it may look like in this picture, he is not holding that log steady for me, he's rattling it to try and make me fall off. I didn't fall, for the record.

We had to get back to the city apartment by 6pm so Fabio could watch his soccer game, but they've extended a basically open invitation for us to go back with them whenever we want. Hooray!

On an unrelated note, I had my second harpsichord lesson this week, and I got to play on the second manual! It was very exciting. We soldered through the entire Bach Sinfonia and she showed me the correct way to articulate on the harpsichord. The phrasing and breaks and lifts and everything are different, but not too different to learn. And it's so nice to have a piece I'm super comfortable playing so I can focus on my technique rather than playing the right notes.

This weekend I'm taking a short jaunt to the beautiful islands of Cinque Terre, so there will certainly be pictures to share when I get back.

C'e vediamo doppo!

- Kasha