Last time I wrote it was 08/11/10 in Savignone….we didn’t do much the rest of that night except visit the local church which was also having a festival. Gramma and I won three things at the lottery the church was holding after mass (one of them was a toddler’s pink scunchie so I don’t know if we should count that…but hey, it’s better than nothing, right?). It looked like everyone in the town came out for the event and to gossip after mass, which I found refreshing after my lonesome city-life where you were lucky if you knew your neighbor.
(as a side note…The only reason I knew my neighbors were because of the earthquake that shut our power off for three days when I was 6.)
Anyway, Savignone is a bit bigger than the other places we’ve been to so far. One family, our host derisively told us, even designed their house to look like a medieval castle but she wanted to make it very clear it wasn’t actually a medieval castle.
After the lottery, we got home, ate, slept and got up at 4:30 AM so we could catch the 5:55 bus from Genoa to Tione. Of course the bus was late so I had an extra 15 minutes to be Mama Alex and worry but it all worked out in the end. If you call a 6-hour bus ride when it should have been 4 ‘working-out’. The family who picked us up lived just a block away and saved lunch for us so it wasn’t that bad. The food, as always, was delicious and they had tiramasu gelato to follow so I’m basically in heaven here.
After assuring each other that everyone in out respective families was well and happy and then staring off into the distance (look at the view of their backyard and you’ll see why that wasn’t as awkward as it needed to be)
we started talking a little about politics and all the terrible stories in the world which led to a 5 hour long discussion of all the bad things that have happened to our ‘tanti bene familias’ and a deliciously good gossip fest ensued. I understood enough to get the gist of everything but not enough to join in a lot.
Afterwards we had dinner, which was minestrone (the Italian word for all soups) followed by potatoes, proscetta, cheese, and desert.
Also, I ATE ALL THE MINESTRONE EVERYONE! This was a big deal for me as it had onions, celery, carrots, parsley, zucchini, and probably some other vegetables I didn’t dare ask about. I liked it. I mean I actually could have bragged about my improved eating habits a few meals earlier when I ate another version of minestrone but since all I did today was sit on a bus and eat I felt I’d save it for now.
2 espressos later we went to our hotel in Roncone, which is about two small towns away from Tione. It’s very pretty and attracts the dedicated tourists but it’s also generally quiet and the tourists aren’t the annoying, Hawaii shirt, fanny-pack kind so I expect we’ll have fun.
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