Italian Liberation Day!

We had the morning to ourselves. We discovered that despite being off the tourist trail, Trieste is beautiful, uncrowded and has a lot to see and do. We walked up the long steep hill behind the hotel to the mediaeval Castello San Giusto and its duomo. The duomo was quite ancient and reminded us very much of the one in Ancona, Barbara's grandmother's town of birth, that we saw in 2005. In fact Trieste, in general had the same flavor as Ancona. The ramparts of the castello gave us great views of the city, and its museum had many Roman artifacts gathered from around the city. It was also a wonderful feeling having the museum to ourselves.

Afterwards, we strolled to the main mall of the city and ate lunch in a nice bar/restaurant along it, sharing a salad with cubed chicken on top—delicious. We walked along the shore and docks and headed back to the hotel to be picked up by Giuseppe at 2PM. He had invited us to his home town of Udine for dinner.

We ended up touring of some smaller Italian cities and towns, Udine, and Cividale, medieval towns with arches, churches and bridges. Cividale was quite mobbed as a flea market was spread out through the town with lots of Italian "stuff" from the present to the distant past. We found a brass sun and a brass moon for our deck, which we actually bargained over.

Afterwards we went to a restaurant that was part of an agriturismo, a working farm complete with authentic barnyard odors and the animals that produced them. We were joined by Laura's mother and her companion Sebastiano, her sister Fabiana and brother-in-law Stefanno, and their 1 year old daughter Asia. By now Barbara was speaking Italian with everyone including the wait staff. We were fed course after course until we could barely move while enjoying the family gathering and stories. It was great to be treated so warmly. The meal included red wine, sparkling water, homemade pasta with three cheeses, penne pasta with pesto sauce, veal. polenta, two egg fritattas, one with potatoes and one with onions, salad, and coffee for the Italians. We definitely had no room for dessert. We did, however, try an after dinner drink called sorbetto, which consists of prosecco, vodka, and lemon gelato. Wow!

Giuseppe said he regretted we weren't staying long enough for him to take us to Austria, Slovenia and Greece.

After dinner, we were driven back to our hotel, an hour drive, arriving about 11:30. We fell asleep without too much trouble.

I loved this day! Giuseppe and Laura are such a great couple, and their son is part of a very loving family. They wanted so much for us to know and spend time with them and they treated us like visiting royalty. I hope that someday we will be able to entertain them as well in the US. I was grateful to our Italian teacher, Edda, for enabling us to communicate so well.

As we were driving from Trieste to Udine, we listened to Pavarotti. Here we are, driving along with an Italian, speaking Italian, listening to Pavarotti... this is a dream come true!!! The next song was Louis Armstrong's It's a Wonderful World... the favorite song of my former teaching assistant, Maxine. We taught it to our class back when we taught three year olds!

My favorite statue dulring the trip was in Cividale. It was Julius Caesar, with his hand extended in front of him, as if he were using it for emphasis while talking, the way Italian-Americans of my dad's generation did.

I showed Giuseppe my Boccia watch. Now I know the definitive pronunciation of the name!

Giuseppe told us that he has promised Laura that he will take her to New York someday. He said he will speak better English when he visits us in our country than he does now. I told Nick that I want to get an Italian language program to improve my Italian before they come. He responded that I already speak better Italian than any program would cover!

Giuseppe and Laura asked us how long we were married, and they marveled at the answer, thirty-three years, probably because we are very happy and affectionate with each other. My dad told me recently that I have a wonderful husband, because I tell him where I want to go, and he takes me there. Obviously, it's more complex than that, but yes, I do have a wonderful husband!