I'm in Italy!!!!

Buongiorno! My spelling may be off, but I've been greeting, saying please and thank you, and pleased to meet you, etc in Italian. Why? Because I'm in Italy! Visiting the family, and it's beautiful. They rent the bottom half of an absolutely lovely home. Arched entranceways between rooms, gorgeous wooden and glass doors, fantastic tile everywhere. It's amazing. We're in (or just outside of) Assisi, where you can go to a different church for morning mass every day.

I've discovered a new phenomanal candy: happy hippos. They're delish, so I hope I can find them on the web after I get back. And the food here. Ohhhh, the food. Fresh, delicious food every day. The olives, the olive oil, the cheese (mmmmm, cheese), and the fresh pasta! And pastries! Man, it's all good.

There are some tough things, too. No dishwasher, no dryer, and the heat turns off at night, but overall this place is a dream. One other problemo: the airline lost my luggage. The bag with all of the Christmas presents in it. And all my toiletries. And underwear, socks, and bras. And movies. It's a shame. Supposedly they found it in Amsterdam and it's on its way here, but our phone service isn't what you'd call reliable. Dad feels responsible for fixing this, so he's been kind of hard on himself about it, but overall he's crazy happy here.

The kids are having a hard time. They don't know people their age and nobody in the family is fluent, but they get by. The people who own the house live upstairs. Francesco and Vincenza. So cute! And short. And sweet. Our first day Vincenza invited us upstairs for juice. I tried to ask for peach juice, but instead asked for fish juice. Ewwwww. (Pesca = peach. Pescha = fish.)

More soon. Nic''s itching to get back on the computer to play his video game. There's a flaming sword flashing at me right now. Ciao!