Sights and Scenes - Butt Cracks and all - Friends and Family

WELL - it has been an amazing few weeks.  I have had a house full of friends for two weeks, girlfriends I have known since I was five years old.  We are a diverse group and we travelled about Italy in two cars, running from place to place like crazy women.  Everywhere we went we were SIX, creating quite a stir.  This is a photo shot outside Sienna - a typical laundry day image.

I wanted to share my love of this country with my friends.  I hope they enjoyed their trip,  I know they went home quite tired.

BUTT CRACKS.  Viareggio is an amazing town on the ocean.  There are umbrellas and beaches as far as the eye can see.  It's quite magical actually.  Unfortunately, not all the sights are beautiful, as evidenced by this man sunning his backside, unaware, or not caring that his butt crack was on full view.  YUCK

One of the trips my girlfriends and I took was to Sienna.  It's a long twisty drive through the middle of Tuscany, and not on the highway.  Beautiful drive but LONG from where the village is where we are staying.  Outside the Duomo there were artists painting beautiful watercolor pictures.  I wanted to sit down and paint with them.  I was, of course, not invited to do so!

AND NOW:  The weather has turned very warm, but the nights remain cool, thankfully.  It makes sleeping easy.  My house is literally in the middle of the two streets in and out of the village, so it can be very noisy at night, especially with the windows open.  These people party till the wee hours - the village is always swarming with people.  If it's not the 100 cyclists outside my house getting ready for a race, it's a wedding, or an entire town of runners congregating outside my windows.  If there is a soccer match on TV, Bar Roma is ALIVE with people until well after midnight.  Then they all come down the street past my house hooting and hollering.

Alyssa and two friends are here now, David arrives in a few days, and others will come and go all throughout July.  today we went to Castiglioncello where Alyssa and I went to school 7 years ago.  It was like stepping back into a dream.  It was that summer at the language school, days spent learning and afternoons spent swimming that started my obsession with wanting to live here.

For now, I am just going to enjoy this experience, and "live in the moment", being grateful for the opportunity to step away from my life for three months, and live this dream.

When time comes, I will also be grateful to return home to things familiar, friends and family.  I have a scheme in mind to turn my home into a B&B, welcoming artists and writers to a quiet retreat in the mountains.  Imagine the PEOPLE I might meet!!  I can't wait to see how that goes.  I think it might just be a new chapter in my life..... CIAO!!