Yesterday we returned home safe and sound, yet completely exhausted from our vacation in Paris. Vacations can be meant for relaxation, but with three little ones at this stage in our lives "relaxation" and "vacation" just don't go together. We can however, say that it was "refreshing" for us as a family to get away to a different environment and make some wonderful memories together. Not to mention it did make us grateful upon our return to hear Italian again. When we drove through the tunnel pass across the border back in to Italy, Samuel started cheering in the back seat saying "Yeah, we're back in Italy! I love Italy! Now we can speak English!" Maybe he meant to say "Italian". Not quite sure what that part was supposed to mean.
We had six very full days of touring Paris from early morning til evening. Some days were more interesting for the kids than others but overall they held up great with the countless miles of walking we did, especially Samuel. Luca was very limited in his freedom from the stroller as he loves to escape, but as long as we were moving he was content. Samuel's favorite part of the trip was seeing the mummies at the Louvre. All the kids really liked the military museum with all the knight's armor, swords, guns etc. Luca was the quickest of course to climb the stairs to the first floor of the Eiffel Tower. Jonathan loved the Louvre and would have been content to spend the whole week there exploring. I enjoyed our early morning walks along the Siene and just being together as a family.
I am still trying to sort and choose pictures to post so you'll have to wait a bit longer for those. Here are a few teasers.
Inside the St. Chapelle Church
Standing in front of the top of a pillar found from the palace of Darius I
This past Saturday was Italy's celebration of Ferragosto. Taken from Wikipedia here is a description of the holiday and it's meaning:
Originally, it was related to a celebration of the middle of the summer and the end of the hard labour in the fields. In time, Roman Catholicism adopted this date as a Holy Day of Obligation to commemorate the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary—the real physical elevation of her sinless soul and incorrupt body into Heaven.
Before the Roman Catholic Church came into existence, however, this holiday was celebrated in the Roman Empire to honor the gods—in particular Diana—and the cycle of fertility and ripening. In fact, the present Italian name of the holiday derives from its original Latin name, Feriae Augusti ("Festivals [Holidays] of the Emperor Augustus") [1].
Almost the entire month of August was taken as a holiday and leisure time in Italy in honor of this feast day.
In present days, Ferragosto is mainly a short holiday when Italians take brief vacations. Noting that Italy's shift from a rural to urban dominant population is recent and about one-third of Italians live in rural areas, many families with rural origins within the last one or two generations return to their village during Ferragosto.[citation needed]
Ferragosto is, next to Christmas, Easter and New Years, probably the most important holiday in Italy. You will read that the entire country shuts down on August 15 to celebrate, but in reality the country is already in shut-down mode. Many Italians take the entire month of August off anyway.
In our urban city of Torino that is void of beach access, the mass exodus from the city began a couple of weeks back. It is true, the streets are empty, stores are closed with their little notices pasted to the outside of the serandas giving their vacation dates. It feels like a ghost town in the month of August. This past weekend was the height of travel for the country and the lowest church attended Sunday of the year. When driving past the Catholic church in Leini' on Sunday morning, I ask Jonathan "Did the church cancel services today?" The parking lot was completely empty and no one was seen walking on the streets as is normal for any other given Sunday. Looking closely at the church entrance revealed two or three people, so it was definitely open. It was just as strange when attending our church. We began with 20 people including our family of 5, but midway through gained enough to give us a toal of 35 people. That is probably less than 1/4 of what we normally have on a Sunday.
When we return from vacation the final days of August it will also bring back neighbors and life to our city. Actually, our little fraction of Tedeschi will have started to celebrate their annual 10-day festa when we return. And thus, the final days of the summer will be spent in meriment with festas to be found in abundance as we say good-bye to summer and welcome to fall.
*Future Travel Tip: never visit Italy in August! (Unless you enjoy feeling like a sardine packed on a sandy beach or enjoy visiting Italy in it's life-less state)
This morning our family all headed over to the center in Caselle to start cleaning and prep for painting. There was still quite a bit of Antonietta's stuff that didn't get cleared out prior to her leaving for vacation. However, with some garbage bags and some organization we were able to get things looking fairly clean and at least to a point where we can move around stuff and start to paint on Friday. Jonathan removed mirrors, shelving, wiring etc. from the walls and then began to spackle holes and damaged walls. I was able to wipe down walls, sweep, remove curtains, and start taping around windows and outlets. We spent 3 hours there working and felt good about getting a jump start on things.
The before shot in July, prior to getting Antonietta fully moved out.
The kids were not thrilled to be there so long, but they too helped do some things. I think our reference to "center" is starting to sink in for them. They soon will be very acquainted with the place as it is their future church.
I will have to post another time on "August in Italy," and all that that implies. Sufficed to say, it is a ghost town around here. People are on vacation for 2 weeks, 3 weeks or the whole month. Therefore, trying to get help on the center in August is quite difficult. However, we are thankful that Danilo is around and available to help this Friday. He and Jonathan will begin the painting process and hopefully make some good headway.
Our center is on the end of the middle building with the seranda closed. It is right next door to a hardware store, a bread store to the right of that, and then a bar on the corner of the far left building. It's a great location and already having our windows open today to clean we had people stop by and ask about Antonietta etc.
Here is a very rough and poor video of the center, but we at least wanted to show you a glimpse of what things look like. It is about 45 sq. meters, so not that big and all the more difficult to try to capture it on camera with some perspective. One wall of shelves will be removed from the back room, a partition will be put up to divide the front and back rooms, the tall shelving seen in the front of the store will stay, bathroom is teeny-tiny (but at least we have one!) and that's about it. For what it's worth, here you go:
Last Thursday we took a morning trip out to the city of Fenis to visit a castle. We had originally planned to visit Catherine at her Torino apartment and then take a city tour with her last Wednesday. However, the previous weekend I fell and sprained my ankle on the 1-inch step at the base of our porch steps. It was one of those moments when you wonder how in the world you managed to do such a clumsy thing over something so small. I was going to grit through the pain and swelling and just do the city walking tour, but decided it best to rest the ankle especially in light of our upcoming vacation to Paris. Therefore, the alternate trip was made to Fenis to satisfy our itch to get out and do something.
Fenis is about an hour away from us which made it possible for us to leave, tour the castle and be home by 1:00 for some lunch. It ended up being about all my ankle could handle for the day walking around for about an hour and a half. It was a lovely castle and here are some photos for you to see. No picture taking allowed on the inside, so enjoy the exterior.
And what trip is complete if you don't have some gelato somewhere along the way? Emma was quite excited about her mint and viola selections (viola, as in the purple violet flowers)
Luca loves to sing (just like his big brother). His current songs of choice are from Steve Green's "Hide 'em in Your Heart" CD. The kids also really like the very corny and totally 80's DVD that came with the CD, complete with the horrendous neon colored clothing that brings me back to my Jr. High days. The awesome thing is that all the songs are memory verses and with this family of dreamer children learning through music and motions is their method of preference. I'll try to capture more moments for you of the kids singing, but this week has been a bit more challenging to get them to perform for the camera. Here's Luca with Luke 2:52 - "And Jesus Grew"... (His stopping and restarting the song has to do with him not getting the motions just right.)
Inside the St. Chapelle Church
Standing in front of the top of a pillar found from the palace of Darius I
A picturesque view on our morning walks
