Bought our tickets!!

We have purchased our tickets for next summer's trip to Italy. We are leaving June 12 and will return Sept 11. (maybe that is why they are cheaper???) We are flying to Dublin from NYC and then on to Rome. It is a short layover in Dublin but much cheaper to do it that way. I will be teaching a class the week of the August 18, but make you travel plans soon if you plan to join us.

Happy New Year!!

Sold my first pastel in Italy!

My Italiano galleria sold one of my pastels of the castel in Gagliano Anterno. The gallery is in Gagliano and Jim and I did three pastels each of the town to leave in the gallery. I am pretty excited. I will have some money when I get there next summer! In the meantime, info on the Sept class should be available in Nov.

amore!

5x7 Folded Card

Black Border 5x7 folded card

Unique party invitations and announcements by Shutterfly.

View the entire collection of cards.

I don't want to say good-by for the winter.....

August 18
It was great to wake up in our own beds at 3am. We gave up and got up around 4:30 and set to work. We did way too much stuff, but it all seemed like it had to get done this minute. The anxiety is back. I weeded Annie’s garden and tried to start on our vegetable garden. The vegetable garden was a waste of time except as an exercise or therapy program. This house is too overwhelming after only six weeks. What will it be like if we leave for three months next summer? Stay tuned......

Finally August 17

After ten hours of sleep we awoke. I have never looked so bad in my entire life. I looked like I had been on a 18 hour bender. Susan gave us breakfast and had even bought sandwiches for us to take on the train. She is a thoughtful person. All the actual traveling went very well. Susan is only three stops from Penn Station. We were there early, but not too early. We found the Amtrak waiting room and I went off to be the hunter gatherer. I found two Starbuck’s iced coffees, two cinnamon raisin bagels, and two bottles of water. The train was comfortable and included a plug for my computer. I listened to the Da Vinci Code most of the way. We had been dreading the bus change at Springfield, but the bus was nicer than the train, there was wi-fi and we were one hour early. I can hear the train whistle from my house and it has never, ever been early. Hannah was there in about five minutes, we said good-by and thanks to her and went home to an excellent doggy greeting. This house is so crowded and packed with stuff compared to our Castelvecchio house which is monk-like and so easy to keep clean. This house seems so overwhelmingly stimulating and so big with dirt everywhere. Hannah, Alenna and Jessie all did a great job. The dog is ALIVE!!

Still August 16

Please note: there will be no photos until travel recovery is complete.

After a nine hour flight that left at 1pm, we arrived in NYC at 4:30 pm or 10:30 pm Italian time. The lines at JFK were even worse than in Rome. There were two white men processing US citizens through customs and one additional white man helping people with disabilities or those that could not stand in a one hour line watching a welcome to the USA video over and over. There were several black women trying to help people in line, dealing with all the complaints and shaking their heads a lot. We were there so long our luggage had been taken off the carousel and stacked hodge podge in a corner. Mercifully the line to look at our declaration form was short, but because of our propensity to visit farms and stand in pastures, we spoke to another woman who thanked us for our honestly. The subway was waiting to meet us, we got a seat and were at Susan’s house by 7pm. The wonderful Susan made us chicken soup. we had been traveling 18 hours by then.

Leaving on a jet plane

At Roma airport.

Aug 16
After a sleepless night for Jim, we got up, ate our last fruit and looked across the valley into dense fog that stopped the view at the street. All we could do was laugh. Our house is closed up. White sheets cover the beds to keep them dust free. It has the look of ghostly images of haunted houses in English mystery movies. Jim turned off all gas, water and electric and we didn’t look back. As we climbed into the mountains above the fog, Castelvecchio was still shrouded in mists like an Italian Brigadoon. It is strange to think that life is going on there without us. This is always the case all around the world. Where ever we are is just a small part of everything that is going on, but the mists have closed around Castelvecchio until next summer.

Things went well. The trip to the airport, returning the car, getting through four extremely long lines into the gate area and eventually on to the plane. We had plenty of time, but not too much. There were several tour buses of people checking in and the system was overwhelmed. Now we are airborne and I have time to reflect on the important lessons one learns while living in Italy.

Underwear. Yes, your mother was right. You need nice underwear, but not too “nice” (as in naughty) Your underwear and everyone else’s in town will be on display drying across town. There are underwear on clothes lines at street level. Underwear dancing in the breeze on clothes lines held out from the balcony by poles and underwear on the metal drying racks, like the one we use as our internet antenna. It is always nice to be on the computer and waving to people on the street while your underwear hangs below. At this moment you could wish you had gone shopping. The selection of underwear for Italy is critical to your image and image is important. Underwear that is old, stretched out and holy, underwear that came from Victoria’s Secret or giant white underwear is not the image I want to project. Luckily I bought myself some jauntily colored boy style underwear. Seeing my blue and white striped smalls hanging in the breeze was uplifting and I could wave to the mayor as he walked by knowing my image was intact.

Italiano weight loss claims made by Jim are spurious. He lost 12 pounds and I lost nothing. Ok, I ate gelato every other day according to the gelato spoon count, breakfast cookies for first breakfast and then a chocolate croissant for second breakfast, pizza lunch, afternoon snack and a huge dinner that never started before 8pm. Then there were the neighbor, Enrica’s, cakes. Every single thing was the best thing I ever ate in my life so there.

Not having a car is a tremendous asset to meeting people.


Being a painter gives one instant cache. Italians respect the arts.

Italians love Americans. Many of their relatives live there.

Ok, time to watch a movie on a tiny little screen with horrible headphones. No more epiphanies for now!

Last day

Images from Gagliano Anterno Cemetery

We have indulged in all our favorite Italy foods, well not all, or we would burst. We have had two caffes today, chocolate croissant, gelato and that is just between meals. I will miss the way this house always smells of whatever fruit or herbs we have in the kitchen.
Earlier today we trudged around Gagliano working on our map. At least we have more of a grip now. It was too hard to figure out from the photos we took. Now we know where everything is on paper and we can use the photos for embellishments. There is already one person signed up for my workshop starting Sept 3 next year. I am doing it through the gallery, because she can advertise to 800 Danes. Americans can come, too and stay with me. More details to follow. We finally went to the cemetery in Gagliano. We never found the one in Castelvecchio. At one time there were extremely wealthy people in Gagliano. The mausoleums are huge and ornate. All of the graves, from typical to outrageous, have porcelain portraits of the people on the front. I felt I should give respect to each one, but It would take days. It was hot this morning. We went on up to Secinaro. We had looked at one house there, but in the winter, when we were looking, it did not seem like a good idea. It is higher, colder and it was a long walk to the house.

This afternoon the clouds built up as usual, but unusually produced a down pour. The sky is so big here that it is never raining everywhere. The sun will be shinning while the lightening cracks and thunder roars. Brilliant white clouds on the horizon pose as snow capped mountains while giant icebergs float overhead. As I write the clouds are passing away from this part of the valley and in moments I will be baking in sunshine. Blog devotees may remember that the day we arrived a band was playing for us. Now Italy cries to see us go. We would cry, too, except we are consumed with travel jitters. If you looked at my paintings you have seen some with rays of light coming down in hallelujahs from the sky. It is doing it again with Gagliano in the spotlight. Maybe from there, they see me in the spotlight.

I have many more things to tell you about Italy so this blog will not stop on a dime, but until I get to Vermont this will be my last post. It has been so fun and thanks for reading.

The End is Near

How we look in Italy

House for sale in CVS.....expensive but big enough to share


Places we were today...

Goriano Sicoli

Reanno

Goriano Valle

What are you guys going to do with yourselves without my blog to read? I could tell you what Jim cooks for dinner everyday. Yesterday we went up to Gagliano to do paintings for our Italian gallery. It is located in Gagliano and the owner thought those pictures would sell best. We left her three each in frames we had purchased from Ikea. (eekayah) From there we drove up to Rocca di Messa, (where the movie La Strada was filmed) the nearby ski area. It was a lot like being in Aspen. It was market day, but a very different type of market than we are used to. There were many antique vendors, materials from the Ukraine, toys from Africa, pottery from Italy, and fur hats, real fur, and coats. We could not figure out where to eat and it was getting perilously close to closing time at 1 p.m. We went to a grocery store and got bread and cheese: a classic. Jim had bought a knife at a hardware store so we were all set for lunch on a boulevard (La Strada) bench. After that we had Gelato. It is our mission to try as many gelato places as possible. So far they have all been good. We have saved all our plastic gelato spoons so we know exactly how many we have eaten. We haven’t counted them yet.

Today we took the grand tour of the Subequo and other valleys. We started in Giorno Valle at the real farmers market. They did not have much and we can’t really buy any food now anyway. Raspberries are in and there was homemade olive oil, many lavender products, cheeses, honey and homemade wine. Only real farmers can participate. Next we went to the market at Reanno. (I am spelling that different every time.) Reanno has a long tree lined street and the market was set up under the trees. It was our last market this year. The smell of the fruits and vegetables was so strong. Peaches are the main item right now and pears. Oh and the amazing watermelon.

We dropped by the neighbors to say good by and give them a key to our house. I wrote them a letter, by myself, no computer to help, to try to tell them what it has meant to us to have such good friends and neighbors. I even read it to them, and yet, they still had that what the heck is she saying look on their faces, but they can re-read it later. We had quite a few laughs about how they speak to me in Italian and then I tell Jim in English. Then I told them about Annie. I had not told them before, because I did not know they would become such close friends. I wanted them to know how much they had helped us in trying to create a new life for ourselves. Of course there was crying all around, well just me really. Enrica got a set of teacups out of her cabinet and wrapped them up for me to take home. They were a gift from her daughter. I hope her daughter sees this as, “my mom loved those so much she gave them to her friend.” I hope Italian daughter’s feel differently about these things than I would. Enrica had just taken a cake out of the oven and tried to give us all of it. We managed to only take 1/2. It was chocolate, almonds and cherry. She is a great baker. I admit, I was hoping there would be cake at their house, because Italians are required to feed you if you come over. What I didn’t expect was that we have so much cake here that we will have to eat it every meal and probably on the plane.

We have made genuine friends here. It is yet another place we can call home. I am on the terrace watching my next to last Castelvecchio sunset. The sun is behind the mountains to the west, but still illuminates the mountains in the east behind Castel d Irie. Overhead, clouds lit pink and maroon with purple shadows, skim across the cerulean blue sky. The newly painted orange house glows florescent in the dusk. 8 p.m. and the sun has set. A farmer is pumping water with a tinny sounding generator. The last few nights have been cool with a hint of autumn, although there is no such hint in the days and no rain for four weeks. The earth has turned around again and soon it will be five years since we lost our Annie. We will be back in her home, Vermont. Jessie is in Boston and says she loves her newly renovated apartment and roommates. She got to be with Karnnadda this summer and we got to be with Flaminia and family. Hopefully we will all be fortified to start another circle with out our precious Annie.

Day at the Adriatic (Mediteranian)

Jim with 1E worth of pizza

View of other beachers and the fishing pier.

Today, after going for coffee, to market and to the bakery we set off for Pratola where our bank is. We wanted to put some more American money in the bank so we would have money when we come back. Parking was a bit of a problem, but soon we were on our way to a beach south of Pescara that Gregor and Jim found last year. It is a rocky beach, but all the rocks are smooth and round. When your ears are under water it sounds like a ceaseless rain stick of the pebbles rolling in and out. I probably picked up 50 pounds in the rock relocation project. Deborah would have been proud. Most of them were for my neighbor, but I have my fair share as well. The beach and water were much cleaner than in Pescara and it was a free beach with not too many people. At either end of the beach area were large fishing piers with nets for catching sardines. The water was great: turquoise and warm. The rocks were more comfortable than sand and we didn’t get sandy. No sandy bites of lunch, no sand in our shoes and lying on hot rocks is therapeutic. So it was a great day. We came home by way of Popoli, to see Mica’s home town. There were lots of people there and we scampered by a car race about to start and a rock band warming up. We will go back sometime it is not so busy, because the center of town looks beautiful. From there we went to Rainne to get water from the spring. It makes you live for ever and that would not be a bad thing if you got to live in Italy.

Posting

Last night JIm and I were sitting in the piazza loading all the pages on the blog, email, etc. First one older person came over and then about ten more. They asked a lot of questions and would not take “I can’t speak Italian for an answer”. I went to google translator and talked to them a bit. They think we live in Canada, but what can you do? THen I showed them Castelvecchio on google maps. I really do not know what they thought, but it was really fun and funny. I have never seen any of these people before. They must hang out in the big piazza and we hang out in the small one. How can there be so many fun moments? I think it is lack of TV, no air conditioners and a small town.

Driving from Tuscan to Umbria to Abruzzo

It was a five hour drive from Flaminia’s home to our home. We got a little turned around in one town, but it all worked out. The town, Riete, had the largest, best preserved wall around it that I have seen. It would be worth finding out more about this town, because it is probably a destination. We saw a lot of the wall, because we went so many wrong ways before I figured it out. I think the navigator job is more stressful than the driving. Jim says he doesn’t mind driving in Italy and it is pretty much like driving anywhere. The scary thing is being a passenger with an Italian driver. Today a motorcycle passed us on a mountain hair pin turn and missed being smashed by a truck by maybe two seconds. What is impossible to understand is that a couple of minutes later we saw him and his buds taking off their helmets at a coffee place. He came as close to dying as anyone I have ever seen so he could get to a coffee shop in four minutes instead of five minutes.
It is not about the destination or even the journey. It is about being first. We drove a route that took us up over the mountains that we can see from our terrace. At the top were dozens of windmills turning in the cool breeze. It is an amazing vision that I could not capture on film. And then we were home and had all the fun of putting together our fan, figuring out our lights and thinking about which pictures we are going to frame to leave in the art gallery in Gagliano.

I can’t believe it is almost over. A week from today we will be back in Montpelier. It is going to be weird. So much has changed while we were away. Friends have moved, I don’t have my job and have no idea what will be next. Jessie will already be in Boston and will have started her orientation for her job. Sophie is dead and won’t be there to sleep wrapped around my head at night. I will have to hurry and use my health insurance before it ends August 30. It will be an immediate tornadi, Italian for hairpin turns. Meanwhile I will be enjoying these last few days. Tomorrow we are going to a beach further south of Pescara. It is much less commercial. For tonight it is good to be home.

On to Tuscano

The next day we got up to catch the 6:15 bus which goes to Pratola. The driver said he wasn’t going there on that day, although the passengers kept telling him to take us anyway. He said to wait for the next bus and that it would be timed to catch the bus to Rome. That is what we did. The next bus got to Sulmona at 7:45 and the bus to Rome was there promptly at 8. We got to Rome and retraced our steps of our first day in Italy to the train to the plane, picked up our car with ease, went to Ikea to buy some reading lights, now that we have plugs, and of course a few other things. That is how it is with Ikea. We did eat lunch there, but I went with the pasta instead of meat balls. They did not have the roasted potatoes. We arrived at Moose’s house at about 5:30. Everything went as well as one could hope, but it was clear that we would never be able to make it to Rome on time for a flight without a car or taking public transport the day before.

We had a great time with Flaminia and her family. It was as if we had never been apart and now I can say more to them. They have built an incredible bed and breakfast and we got to stay in one of the new apartments. It is all perfect. If you are going to Tuscany, it would be a great place to stay. It is in the heart of Tuscany and day trips to Florence, Sienna, Perugia and Assisi are easy. Sansepolcro is a beautiful town and there are many more towns you have not heard of, each filled with midevil centers of town, churchs filled with art and excellent coffee.

Flaminia helped us with our shopping deprivation problem and we got a beach umbrella and clamp on umbrella for my easel, two cans of fixative and a fan. It will be very comfortable here for the next four days and then Mica and Berry will benefit from all the changes. One cannot be on the beaches here without an umbrella. The sun is too strong. Women of almost any age cannot be on the beach except in a two piece suit. Some were barely there and it was not always a good look. Even worse were the old guys in their Montrealer style suits. You know the ones I mean.

Pescare Beach

Our neighbors, Salvatore and Enrica took us to their beach house in Pescare. It is a large, four bedroom condominium in a gated area. We changed and walked to the beach. There is only a small strip of public beach. The rest is orderly rows of umbrellas that have small round tables and usually four reclining beach chairs by each one. Different concerns own each area. The umbrellas change colors by propriaters. There are fancier, tropical beach type umbrellas near the beach. I am assuming it cost more to be closer to the water. It was the saltiest water I have ever been in. You could just float on the surface of the water as the gentle waves swelled and ebbed underneath you.

After a few hours at the beach, leaving our umbrellas to mark our spot, we went back to the house for lunch. Lunch is the big meal of the day. We started with spagettie with black truffles that Salvatore had found, then chicken scalopini and tomato salad, bread and wine, of course, and a chocolate and fig cake. Then we took a nap.

Later in the afternoon we returned to the beach. It was clear I would never eat again just as it had been clear the day before that I would never eat again. When the afternoon had drifted toward evening we went back to our friends house, got all our stuff together and if memory serves me, had another piece of cake and then went driving around and to the port area where there is a pedestrian mall. We had gelato. (that does not count as eating) and then walked over the giant pedestrian and bicycle bridge that goes over the canal where the boats are docked. It was a great day with great friends that we can hardly speak to.

A beautiful day

Ermelinda's family home

We didn’t know which things were really going to happen today and which things weren’t. Turns out they all are happening. We went with Vitorrio and Ermelinda to her family home up in the mountains. (thanks again, Gregor) It is a two room home that her mother, father and sister lived in. They were shepards and two shepards still live there in one of the many houses and there are sheep and goats. The sheep dogs look just like Angie. It was like a day from a movie. Socially awkward, inept speakers of Italian get invited to lunch at antique family home in the mountains. The Americans spend three hours there and eat the entire time. They eat cheese, bread, ricotta cheese marinated in the famous hot pepper sauce of Abruzzo, blood sausage (yes, I ate two pieces), three grain dishes made with smelt, an ancient grain the Romans ate, tomato salad, and lamb roasted outside over a fire. They drink water from the ancient Roman fountain. Sheep drink from one side and humans from the other. They drink the wine that their host has made himself and a walnut liquor that he also made. They eat fruit, including peaches in their wine. They finish with a bit of bread made with anise seed to give them fresh breath. They do all this in the smoke darkened, antique filled first room of the house. There is a fire inside, but in spite of how hot it is outside, it is not too bad inside. Communication improves constantly throughout the meal. There is really no way to describe how amazing a day it was.

We got home from the mountains, took a shower and it was off to the art show. It was in a town quite a distance away, that I do not remember the name of. It is a more prosperis town than Castelvecchio. The castel there is completely restored. It is open for roaming around. The lighting is dramatic as you wind through narrow, tall corridors. Rooms have been made to house costumes of the town, art exhibits and cultural displays. The best room was filled with miniture castels people had made. They were accurate representations of specific castels and were made with tiny stones, morter and little tiles for the roof. If there was a moot round the castel there was glass with fish underneath and tiny boats “floating’ on the glass. As usual three people, once they each had the mike in their hands, managed to speak for at least 30 minutes each. After they were done at about 10:00 pm the art show opened and singers dressed in regional costumes preformed. I am sad to say we missed all that. One of the artists was a cousin of the people who took us. She had a painting looking up a tree with the moon in a dark sky that I thought was intriguing. THere were also paintings of people at work. I am thinking they were inspired by the earthquake restoration. They were in hot colors and looked like they might have been painted from photoshoped photos. I met one other artist besides the cousin and let me say he reminded me of so many male artists I have met. He was so arogant and self assured. He told me the message of his work. I did like his work and I had already figured out the message. It was obvious. Man versus nature. I am not trying to be snippy, but it is such a type. We were all exhausted and our hosts had to be up for work at 7:00 and we had to go to the beach at 8:30.

Whirlwind

It has been a whirl wind of social activity. Three nights with Danes this week. I am pretty sure that we are going with our friend from city hall, Vittorio, and his wife, Ermelinda, who works for the national park, for a drive up in the mountains on Sunday. We don’t know what time or where to meet, but I think the attitude is that it will all work out. Last Sunday, one of our nearby neighbors, Annarita said that she would drive us to an art show about one hour away that starts at 9 pm. This is way past my bedtime. They haven’t mentioned it again so I don’t know, but I kind of hope they have forgotten. Jim thinks I need to keep pushing the artist stuff, but the poster of these peoples’ work looked like they had more money than skill. (so mean) I do want to show you Kristin Murhart’s website, because her work is very interesting and I think I will work with her to do a week long work shop next summer. She is willing to advertise it to her Danish contact list. I would be happy to have Americans, but I am afraid it is too expensive for anyone. The U.S. economy is not looking too good from here. She has a gallery open in her studio in August and Jim and I are going to leave some work with her. I am saving my last two small pieces of paper to do in Gagliano when we have a car. (her gallery and studio are in Gagliano)

www.Murhart.dk

Interestingly most people who immigrated from this valley to the Americas went to Hamilton, Ontario. I found a glass swan in our house that said it was from Hamilton. I know one of the children of this family still lives there.

Monday we are going to the beach with our immediate neighbors. That is confirmed via Google translator and we are leaving at 8:30 am. I am having some trouble with the 24 hour clock, but Jim just told me to subtract 12 from any number over 13 to see what time it is. Why couldn’t I think of that. I am always counting on my fingers.

Tuesday is the big adventure of getting to Rome via two buses and a subway. We will pick up our car, go to IKEA to get some frames and lights to use in our new plugs and then drive to Moose’s house in Sansepolcro, where we have visited before. We will stay two nights and then drive back here by way of the art supply store in Sienne. I love Sienne so I will be happy to go there. It is a beautiful city, but probably teaming with tourists. Then it is less than a week before we return to Vermont. I am looking forward to seeing Jessie and my friends, seeing my dog, swimming in streams, creamies, my garden and helping Nancy with her garden, and doing lots of pastels of the fall: something I haven’t done since I started at U32 twelve years ago.

People are coming to their home towns for August. Gagliano Anterno goes from 400 people to about 2000. I don’t know the numbers for Castelvecchio, but many houses are now open that have been closed. I can hear Italian TV from the building next to us that is usually deserted. There is a play tonight in Castelvecchise. The people from

Wild dogs, faulty wiring and tractors, of Castelvecchio

Dogs that inspire so much barking at night. Could it be Angie?

Wiring electrician replaced. We have plenty more like this.

Tractors I see here and there in town.

BEACH HOUSE!!!

Our neighbors just invited us to their beach house on Monday!! Pretty exciting. We went to tour the catacombs today, but the park service had lost the key. Luckily we only waited 20 minutes in a shady spot with a breeze before we gave up and left. We are off to the Danes for dinner in a bit. Jim thinks we need to charge people to spend time with us. haha, but it is so nice to have people like us here. It feels really good.

We ran into the guy who invited us to dinner and I was able to apologize for not inviting him in when he came over. That is a major rudeness. All good now. I was hoping to have catacomb pics for you, but possimo estate. (Next summer)

All Jim's drawings are now added.

https://sites.google.com/site/jeneanelunn/italy/jim-s-italy-pastel-pencil-drawing

All of Jim's drawings are now up on my website.

We had dinner with the four Danes last night. One is a serious artist and I will include a link to her website later. Dinner was so much fun. They were at our house till midnight, of course dinner does start at 8pm. There is not a fan or light to be bought in Castelvecchio, so we will have to wait till a trip to IKEA to utilize our new light plugs.

Tonight trip to catacombs and then dinner with the same Danes at the Dane's house.

Electricity!

We had a bunch of electrical done today. 400E. I try not to panic. We need lots more done, but it is peanuts compared to how cheap the house was. He said that there are things we should do next summer. He did very nice work and now we each have a plug by our bed and a light switch to the overhead light. We have one plug in the guest room, a plug and a switch in the studio room. This is good. He was pretty dubious about the whole set up, but we don't run a lot of electrical stuff. The fridge is the only thing. I noticed today it is getting dark earlier.
Yikes, no job, no sun, try not to worry.

Today an Italian guy stopped by today to invite us to dinner, but four Danes are coming to our house so we can't. Evidentlyit is common to ask people on the day you want them to come. This place is amazing. The guy Jim gave the painting to at City hall, returned the favor with potatoes, then we asked him to take our cash and pay our taxes next year, which he did, so we gave him a bottle of 4.5E wine, so today he gave us a dvd, a cd and three books about Castelvecchio and the Subequo valley. You can not get ahead in the gift giving for a second. We saw him at 8:30 this morning and we had to come to his office right then!!! Never mind that the electrician was coming, on time I might add.

At the foot of the castle of yeserday

We left home for Castel d Irie at 8:30 this morning to do some seriously small pastels. Once we got there, we stopped to buy a bottle of water and some elderly women directed us as to where we should go to paint. They were spot on. They told us to keep going up and to the left and we arrived at a small piazza that was in the shade and had a bench. It was in the shadow of the Castel at Castel d Irie that we have painted so many times from a far. We were looking directly down on the stacks of rooftops. Some of the buildings seem impossible, but I double checked the drawing many times and although the perspective is impossible, it is what it is. These two pastels are 5 X 7. They looked small, but when the pastels were done they looked so large. How does that happen?

We had lunch, a serious lunch, at D’Lisa’s Restaurant, after we finished our work and walked back to Castelvecchio at about 1:30. It was hot by then and it has grown hotter all day. The sky is burned out from its usual deep blue. This is Gale’s last day here and she came by to get us to go to her house and pick up food that she isn’t going to use and her potted flowers. I am glad we met Gale and that we will be seeing each other again. I am only sorry that I can’t convince her not to smear her pastels. She is a kind and generous person and that is probably more important than pastel technique. Perhaps we can all gang up on her in Montpelier.

Breakfast at al"Kaffe

Partee time

We have had bad internet connection for a few days. Being out of books and paper and not having the internet work are taking a toll. I had a big plan to get some books from the New Zealanders, but it turned out they left for Rome and then Greece. Wait, they just got here! It has been a busy social life and we are starting to need to write things down. I went to Mass on Sunday night just for the hell of it. The church is so beautiful and a friend sat by me and showed me where we were in the liturgy. Everyone else knew it by heart. JIm and I had been confused about an event that was happening down town. He waited in the piazza. As we were leaving a bunch of Italians, some of whom we know a little bit invited us to sit down and join them for coffee. Then they started calling over people they knew who spoke both English and Italian so they could quiz us. It is exhausting trying to understand or be understood.

Monday night we went to a party at the Danish artist’s studio. Her studio is so beautiful. She works from her imagination, so it doesn’t matter about the light. It is semi-underground and I bet it is always cool. It has vaulted ceilings with exposed brick. This is the same place where Anja and Casper have their office. It used to be the city hall. There are arches and areas where the old stone is exposed. They had candles lit all around and it looked mysterious. There are stairways going this way and that and large wooden doors and the bracing for the earthquake damage. I met a man and his wife who had an apartment upstairs that is now considered unsafe. He took me up to see his terrace and the view was incredible. We have a 180 degree view, but he has 360. In the distance we could see all the towns in the valley and when looking down the view was of dozens of tile roofs with the tiles going in all directions. I feel so badly for these people when I see their houses with most of their stuff just abandoned there while they live with friends or temporary housing. I am glad I was not here for this earthquake.

After days of trying to speak Italian it was bizarre to be with a large group of people speaking Danish. The only native English speaker there was a man from Ireland who is married to an Italian. All Danes really do speak English, because no one else in the world speaks Danish, but I just listened. People got quite drunk and were telling me many things that, if they remembered, they might be embarrassed. Jim had a great time. The food was marvelous. A combination of Scandanavian dishes and Italian. There were lots of tables set up and everyone brought all their own cutlery, dishes and glasses. Everyone set up their tables and then grilled the meat they had brought. Our neighbor Dane told us that we did not need to take a dish to share, because there would be too much. She was right. We took lamb kabobs, but I mostly ate other people’s salads and let the Danes have the kabobs. There were Danish pancakes with lingonberry sauce and tiramisu for desert. I will admit that I had a lot of that.

Today Gale is coming over at 1 pm for lunch. She is leaving this week and is bringing us all her flowers to be enjoyed a little longer. In turn, I will give them all to the neighbor when we leave. Tonight is the “Wayne in Abruzzo” event. Wayne University in Detroit does a summer institute in Gagliano. We have no idea what the program is about, but we are going. Wednesday is a free day. Thursday lots of Danes are coming for dinner, including the artist Dane. Friday there is a tour of the catacombs and then we are going to dinner with the same lots of Danes.

We had an electrician come yesterday to look over the wiring and to see if we could add some plugs upstairs, the only ones up there are two in the bathroom. I think the guy was horrified. He came back today when he had a friend that we could talk to on the phone and explain what he said. It was a complex conversation. In the end we are going to do it, but it costs 400E and will not bring the house up to code. Now we will have plugs in each bedroom so one can have a light without turning on the overhead light.

Link to Jeneane' Italy Pastels

https://sites.google.com/site/jeneanelunn/paintings/italy-pastel

Last piece of Wallis paper

My easel and our bag of supplies are just to the right of the vegetation. After we finished drawing, we went up as high as we could get and looked into earthquake damaged houses. We were a long way up into the village. It was very sad, but also interesting, because they could be such beautiful places to live.

Pastel finished today. The dark square shapes are bolts put into the buildings after the 1915 earthquake.

Jim's drawing of the same spot.

Earthquake aftermath

These are some amazing pictures of how the buildings are being held together while waiting for repair after the earth quake three years ago.

See the cable holding the house together?

The work that has already gone in to preserving the buildings is monumental.

We got Mail!!

Our first mail from the Stati Uniti

Garden picture done on black sand paper.

Two more pastels done on black sandpaper.

My next to last piece of Wallis paper.

Rock out

The Band.

The setting.

The happening scene at Al'Kaffe.

Salvatore at work

Salvatore framing in his new door with tile and mortar. No wood here.

Today is so foggy we can’t see beyond across the street. No painting for me. The gardener liked the garden painting and now has told me where she wants me to do the next one. The good news is that they gave us a big bag of, wait for it, zucchini!! Also their only red tomatoes, lettuce and a cuke. See I can support myself here. She said that they would invite us over for a cook out in their garden soon. This area was a total wasteland and in five months they have transformed it into a garden. I can’t even imagine the money and work that has gone into this and they are so happy with it.

Our neighbors got their new windows and doors installed yesterday. When you have so few windows in a house you can go all out. We have two windows and three doors. They have screens. Some day we might have a door with a screen. The old doors are beautiful, but they are like old windows, nice to look at, hard to use.

Last night was amazing. We went to a concert in the Piazza of San Francesco d Assisi. So here is this rock and roll, jazz band playing their hearts out in the shadow of the church. The audience is mostly sitting there with their arms folded across their chests. What, they thought they were in church? People of all ages were there and it was loud. We left at 11 and there was no end in sight. As we walked through the piazza, where we have caffe, it was packed with people and it was a better place to hear the band. All of the usual guys were lined up at al’Kaffe and the hipsters were under the Komodo tent.
As we walked home the music stayed with us, until we turned a corner and the howling of the dogs took over.