Time is Flying!

Well, it's happened. It got cold. Now our morning walks are much colder, and the weather definitely requires a jacket all day. The year is coming to a close rapidly, and we are gearing up for our Emilia-Romagna excursion as the start to what will probably be a year filled with trips and adventures. In the works so far is a weekend stay in Milan in January (we are going to see a rock concert while we are there) and of course Carnivale in Venice in February.

Let's see...highlights this week so far:

Allie made peanut butter cookies and they are swiftly becoming the drug of choice for us. They trigger so many memories of home, and they are extremely addictive. True American comfort food.

Allie watched a man get squished in the door of the metro at least 5 times because he was so determined to be on that particular train (the next train came in less than a minute).

Charles saw a man juggling bowling pins for money in the middle of a very busy intersection (he definitely gets points for bravery...or maybe stupidity).

Allie saw a heated argument on an overstuffed train ride between a man and woman. The woman wanted to get on the train and the man was convinced there was not room for anyone more. Most of the argument was beyond Allie's grasp of the language, but she was able to understand the man saying to the woman, "We live in Italy, not Russia"...This begs the question: are they forced to ride trains packed like cattle in Russia?

Charles' foot is feeling much better, although it is still slightly bruised and hurts occasionally.

We also now have the last season of Desperate Housewives on TV on Wednesday nights to keep us entertained. We are usually up for about the first 30 minutes of the program and then we crash out, but it's much more entertaining than the reality programs that were previously occupying the airwaves.

Hopefully this weekend we will get our Christmas tree set up. We will probably make some macaroni or popcorn garlands for decoration since we don't have any of our ornaments here. Dante and Mariella have invited us to join them for lunch on Christmas, which was a lovely gesture since we will likely be just hanging around the house. Don't expect too many Christmas pictures because we have decided to wait for the after-Christmas "saldi" to buy our loot!