On with the Christmas posts!

While I finish some delicious french shepherd pie – which, interstingly enough, is called Hachish – sprinkled with enough pepper that I have sneezed about 3 times (perfection) …I figured I might as well recap some Christmas memories.

I really want to do this as quickly as possible, so I can get back to posting in real time, and therefore be able to add a little artistry to my posts.

Bullet points, why not?

- Thursday before vacation, Doris and I go out drankin’ and she manages to teach me some of her excellent Vor al Berg drinking song before I go and pass out. The next day I get my carte de sejour! IT was another lovely encounter with the French DMV and I’m not even kidding – it was quick and easy. Wow.

- Friday I had to get up suuuuper early, and barely made the bus to Torino. Emma, however, was not so lucky and missed the train. Poor girl, missing trains SUCKS. We arrived in torino and I was able to speak Italian to an Italian in italy for the first time to ask if I was at the right station, and I was.

- Arrived safely in Novarra, had some ridiculously good pesto ravioli (homemade, crazy) with mama Fedele, gave’em the cool American candy from the 50’s, 60’s and 70’s to much praise (snaps to Aunt Lolo), then that evening, pizza at a restaurant with Silvia’s buddies, then was the notte bianchi…this means all the stores are open late on Christmas Eve-Eve and we wandered around the crowds. There were also people offering free hugs, so that was cool, albeit a little bit strange --- everyone knows all hugs are free! There was also the typical Italian posing-dudes in some bar we stopped in…he had really cool jeans and I wanted them.

- Christmas eve brought a giant lunch, and some weird liquor. I drank and ate to my heart’s delight, though not necessarily my stomach’s…but no worries.

- We went to Vigevano with Silvia, Federica (silvia’s buddy) and emma – it’s a totally Italian-tastic town, with a big, super pretty and ornate square, Italians doing the evening stroll thing (it was Christmas Eve), a big ol’ castle, and markets selling Christmas things, and a lot of slippers.

- Christmas Lunch – ridiculous food that was delicious (I wasn’t the BIGGEST fan of the lemon-flavored pasta…crespelle, I believe it was called…but whatever, there was plenty else to drink) the fake cat that silvia’s niece, Laura, got for Christmas was awesome (you could even make it hissss), adorable family, we all got matching scarves from Silvia’s sister, and got to just hang with family…it was great!

- After the Christmas lunch, we went to Silvia’s buddy’s house to play Bingo – some strange Italian version that I didn’t know how to win at….I eventually figured it out, through the blurr of my sugar OVERLOAD — having Pandoro (crazy Italian sugar bread/cake, coated in powdered sugar) with mascarpone 2x in a day, I was like, whoa dudes. My American stomach is freaking out. Later on in the day we went to get tea with Silvia’s buddies (xmas tradition, ok) and Emma and I wandered around Novarra…it’s a cool town! I liked it a lot, and the castle was totally bad-ass, though Silvia seemed to shrug it off as “just another castle” as most European folk are prone to do. Compared to Cahokia mounds, that castle was the BOMB.