27 Jan. 2005
Torino, Italia

When I was young, my mom always used to tell me, “Expand your horizons.” And with the rolling of my eyes and the groan of, “mommm!” I would be as annoyed as any 13-year-old usually is with her parents, thinking the never-ending saying was cheesy and really uncool. But then one day, out of the blue, I listened to her. And I realized that maybe, just maybe, her words were full of good advice. Advice from someone who was a bit older and wiser than my now 14-year-old self; from someone who had probably learned through experience that “expanding” whatever it was that your horizons were, was a good thing.

And so, as her encouragement rang in my ears when I booked my flight to come to Italy, I booked no flight to return home for Thanksgiving or Christmas or New Year’s. I was going to Italy, so why not take full advantage to experience it in its entirety? So maybe this year there would be no Thanksgiving Day Parade, no It’s a Wonderful Life, no Dick Clark or Times Square (which, for this sentimental holiday girl, can be a bit hard). But there would be an Italian turkey celebration complete with Italian cheeses and my homemade sweet potatoes, there would be the elaborate Italian nativity scene that is the prime Christmas focus in each household, there would be a seven-course New Year’s Eve meal with dancing and excited children.

So I say hello and ciao to you, my dear friends and wonderful family, from Italy once more! With holidays experienced Italian style, horizons expanded in the midst of it all, and now as a four-month resident of this fabulous country!

So, maybe I skipped an email and maybe this one is a bit late. I guess when you are only writing about once a month, that becomes quite a long time. So, apologies again and a pleading to have patience with another long, yet full and hopefully interesting email to update you all on this Italian life since early November! I hope this finds you all wonderful, healthy and enjoying life.
First I must start with the holidays…

As I said above, Thanksgiving was celebrated here for the two American nannies, cooked mostly by Jen’s family who lived in the states for two years and became acquainted with our turkey tradition. (If you will remember, no one else except us celebrates this holiday since it has to do with, you know, settling in America.) Though we did celebrate it, we actually didn’t do it until the next day, which was more convenient. How strange it was walking around the streets having a normal day on Thursday, looking at people who had no idea that in America there were turkeys in the oven, televisions tuned to the Thanksgiving Day Parade, and children out of school (having already made their turkey and pilgrim drawings to hang on the refrigerator). Jen and I brought as much as we could of our nation’s holiday to our families, however. I showed Maghi how to draw a turkey by tracing her hand (that is, after I showed her what a turkey was on the internet because she didn’t know – what?), I went to about five different stores and spent half of my week’s salary on ingredients for the sweet potato casserole that I make every year at home, and I almost made everyone go around the table during dinner and say what they were thankful for, but then decided against it since the language was leaning toward Italian most of the time anyway, with Jen and I simply enjoying the comfort meal. It was so nice and, like in the movies, Federico’s dad rolled out the turkey on a little trolley and carved it at the table as everyone sat and watched. Jen and I tried to tell them that this is usually only done in the movies, but why spoil the fun, right? The only thing that was different about the meal (there was homemade pecan pie and everything) was the cheese platter after dinner (there had to be something Italian in there). The evening was fabulous, though strange to be away from home and my beloved family.

And then comes December and the crisp, cold air that makes you shiver even with a scarf and mittens. I have never really spent Christmas someplace that was truly cold. Florida is a joke when trying to get into the Christmas mode weather-wise and California is better, but not by much. So being here, not only someplace that is really cold for Christmas, but also in a city, was something truly spectacular. And I realized that the cold really does make it feel more like Christmas, there’s no getting around it. The lights in the city went up the first week of December, along big streets and even small ones. White lights going back and forth from building to building and draping the entire city in an enchanting glow that makes you want to just go out and walk around.

And then there is spending a holiday such as Christmas with a family not your own. Virtually becoming their family during such a wonderful and intimate time of year. It was such a delight, not only to become even closer to this family, but to learn their traditions, their excitements and their special holiday routines. We decorated the Christmas tree, each ornament having a story or a special place where it went. The girls and Paola introduced me to their nativity scene (as excited as I was as a child when I got to set up my mom’s ceramic Christmas village with fake snow and lights) which is the largest nativity scene I have ever seen -- complete with a mountain, a river made of foil, a bridge, a family of ducks, a whole herd of sheep, shopkeepers, more than the average three shepherds, little houses that went on the mountain, and star wrapping paper which was hung on the wall behind the whole thing for the backdrop. I was then educated that the Baby Jesus is not put in the manger until Christmas Day (naturally, because that is when He was born) and the Three Kings are not put out until January 6th (around the time that they supposedly arrived), but in the meantime they are put somewhere else in the house to show that they are making their way to see Jesus. It’s taken very seriously and as I went to other people’s houses, I began to see that the ‘nativity scene’ is even more important than the Christmas tree. Though every other one that I saw was quite nice and some pretty extravagant as well, none compared to ours (yes, it became mine, too, even just for this year).
There were big dinners, Christmas caroling with our church in the city center, a Christmas market with food and crafts, and Christmas music dancing in our ears (all mostly in English which confused, yet pleased Jen and I).

There were two Christmas class performances of Bea and Maghi and one with the choir during the Christmas program at church that Jen and I definitely took part in. There were gifts and smiles, 15 minutes of snow one day, Christmas gospel singers at some random Christmas village, and letters to Santa that are written to him a few weeks before Christmas and set out on the balcony to be picked up during the night. My taste buds were introduced to two special sweet holiday breads eaten for breakfast or dessert, one called Pandoro and the other Panetone – both delicious. You begin to eat them in late November, therefore “the first taste” of the holiday season, and stop buying them after early January (except if they are on sale until March, which they are).

We spent Christmas Eve at Paola’s parent’s house with her sister’s family there, as well. A huge dinner was eaten and many presents were unwrapped from one another and from Santa who happened to arrive at that house just after dark and right before dinner, while we weren’t watching. By Adriana and Gianni (the grandparents) I was given a great pair of gloves (the kind that prove you live somewhere cold, unlike mine that I bought for 2 euros at the market). Paola and Federico gave me two days of skiing (boots, skis, and ski passes) which I will get to in a moment. Both presents were just what I needed! We left late that night and drove the 45 minutes home, looking out the window for a glimpse of Santa or a reindeer and staring at the snow (in the country) for footprints or paw prints.

Christmas morning reminded me how wonderful it is to have children in the house with their excitement and innocence and willingness to believe in magic. Their faces were priceless as they tapped on my door to tell me it was time to go check if Santa had come. And as I groggily got out of bed (and realized that all of my Echinacea and vitamin C had not prevented me from catching Maghi’s horrible cough and fever and headache and runny nose, ahh to be sick on Christmas) it was so wonderful to watch them open the gifts, one by one just like in my family at home, and see them light up when they would open something they asked for or just really loved (like the Beauty and the Beast Barbie that mom bought for me to give to Maghi or The Babysitters Club book I found in Italian for Bea). And though it was simply pleasant and wonderful to be here for Christmas and be able to really be apart of this family during such an intimate time, it was quite strange to be away from my own family at home. I could picture exactly what they were doing, where they were sitting to open their presents, what they would eat after presents were finished and even what would be said throughout the day and that I missed. I kept these thoughts to myself, as secrets for when I wanted to remember my holidays while in the midst of someone else’s. And yet, my Christmas here was different but the same. We ate breakfast, lounged around in our pajamas, relaxed, put presents together, opened them, or tried them on, decided how to fit them all in the girls’ room and searched for batteries for the talking dog and crying baby whose stomach moves when she breathes.

And then we packed for the next five days in the Italian Alps.

Yes, you read that correctly.

Christmas Day around 4pm, we loaded the car with tons of bags, food, snow boots and ski jackets and made the drive to Champoluc, a small ski village in the Italian Alps, about 2 hours north of Turin. Since Federico was little, he and his family have retreated to Champoluc where they have a cabin up on a mountain that overlooks the village below. Every Christmas his three siblings and their families go back to stay for one or two weeks, skiing, eating and enjoying the incredible beauty that surrounds them. This year I got to accompany them to this winter wonderland. I stepped out of the car that night and realized there was about four or five feet of snow surrounding me. We began carrying all of our stuff to the cabin about 50 feet away from where you can park the cars, down a shoveled pathway that doubles as a sleigh run (that I later would have no success on).

If I didn’t describe the cabin to you, it would be a disservice. Imagine a life-size Lincoln Log house and you have basically got it. It sits on the edge of a mountain complete with a front and back porch. The story is that it used to be a storage house for hay down in the village (we are talking no insulation here, built in the 1700s) until about 30 years ago when Franco and Louisa (Federico’s parents) bought the land it is now on, bought the “cabin” and had it moved. When I think about moving a house, I think about those huge trucks on the highway that say ‘wide load’ and as you drive by you see an entire house on the back of this truck.

Yeah, this wasn’t the case 30 years ago with a storage-house in the Alps.

If you look at each log, you can see Roman numerals that showed where each was to be placed after they were moved one by one. Um, yeah. When Federico was a child there wasn’t even a road that went up to the cabin, so the family had to hike up the mountain in the snow with food and clothes for the weeks they were there. Hopefully this gives you a rough picture and the history of which I was about to enter into as I walked the cold pathway to the house. I entered in and immediately felt like I was in a movie. It was warm by the lighting, all the bodies inside that greeted us, and from the Christmas spirit. All of Federico’s family was there (that’s about 13 people without us – not all of them slept there), the champagne opened and the bread and sausage cut to eat. Presents were waiting to be unwrapped, Christmas music was playing, and Federico’s older brother, Mario, was adorned in a Santa hat and red-checked suspenders for the occasion. From then on, I was amazed. I toured the house of three floors with four bedrooms and two bathrooms. The bottom floor serves as the dining room when the kitchen can’t fit so many people, like that night. Everything is small from the low ceilings to the kitchen and beds that we slept in, yet it was an experience and a place that I immediately fell in love with. There was, of course, a huge meal cooked by Louisa (I think about 6 courses) with the American nanny buried at the table in between about 50 conversations and laughter and food, observing and sometimes entering in myself. I awoke the next morning to snow falling softly on the pine trees and hills that my window looked out on and also with the feeling of being very sick. The girls joined me in “feverland” and coughing more than we breathed and we began to call the cabin “the hospital.” But after finally getting some antibiotics (praise the Lord) and one more day spent in bed with just a walk in the snow, we were ready to conquer the skiing and snow-playing that awaited us.

Let’s just say that skiing in North Carolina with your church youth group about 6 years ago doesn’t really cut it in the Alps with people who have been doing it since they could count. Um, yeah. But after the first morning of practicing on the bunny hill and having some instructions from Federico and Paola, I was ready to hit the big time and didn’t do too bad, only having a tiny fall the first day. (I quickly realized that with youth group, it was just normal to fall and that even though I thought I was skiing correctly, I think it was pretty much wrong.) The second day was to die for. The sun was out so the air was warmer and the mountains and sky were incredible and quite indescribable. One of the ski lifts went so high that it took about 15 minutes and once you reached the top, the silence was crisp and the beauty around me couldn’t help but prove that there is a God. I tried to tell Paola and Federico (and their thousands of family friends or cousins or cousin’s cousins who seemed to be everywhere and anywhere we went) that it was so beautiful and amazing. They agreed for sure, but I just don’t think they realize what they have! That day I did have a bit of a “doozy” you might say when it came to falling (actually crashing would be a better word).

Federico kind of lead me off course a bit to another slope and it was awesome, the only thing was that after a while I started going really fast (not a problem, I know how to stop) but then the sun suddenly turned to shade and I couldn’t see (especially with my huge black sunglasses that I was wearing) and then there started to be little bumps here and there on the mountain and that combination pretty much did me in. I went flying by Federico with a bit of a scream, tipped his ski and shot into the side of the slope, thankfully in the fresh snow which cushioned my fall and caused me to laugh out loud as Federico yelled, “Don’t move!” So maybe my skis were in opposite directions and my poles were buried in snow, I was okay and enjoyed the refreshing dip in the cool white stuff. (Federico has since told this story probably about 10 or 15 times, always exaggerating it a bit and causing the audience to laugh at the poor nanny from Florida. At least I have that excuse.) We ice skated (Bea and Maghi tried to teach me some moves), we played cards, we sleighed, we drank Italian hot chocolate (that’s basically like drinking a melted chocolate bar), we ate a lot and slept a lot and enjoyed five days in the Alps.

On New Year’s Eve we made the drive home, and though it was a fabulous week, I was ready to have my room back along with some space. New Year’s has never really been that huge of a holiday to me. Yeah, it’s fun, but it’s not terribly sentimental like Christmas or even Thanksgiving. But this year it was the third holiday in a month that I was away from my home and my family and when the Italian friends and children started arriving for the big dinner we had that night at our house, I couldn’t help but wish I could be transported back home for that night. Just to speak English (the way you speak it with someone else who speaks it as his first language), just to watch the ball drop, just to do fireworks in our cul-de-sac and sit around our bonfire with my family and our neighbors. But after the Italian friends talked to me in English, after we ate fried custard and drank some champagne, after the seven choices of cheese during dinner and then the kid/adult dance party we had until 2am, I felt a little better. I also came to the conclusion that it’s okay to be homesick sometimes, actually it’s probably healthy, just hard for this independent girl to admit.

And now that I’m finished with telling you about the holidays and you are ready to take your fourth snack break, let me continue on a bit more for those trusty friends and family who really actually want to keep reading.

Our travels since December have been wonderful, but our weekends have also been relaxing, too, since we were home a lot during December for Christmas activities. Jen and I have taken four day-trips, which we have really grown a liking to. They are cheap, easy, and usually relaxing and beautiful. Brainçon is a small village in France, just over the borders in another part of the Alps. We went here on a day trip organized by our church and it was an awesome time to get to know more people and become better friends with those we had already met. The town itself was beautiful with breathtaking views, good food, and even a castle (which makes any town for me). We went in mid November so the weather was cold but the sun was shining and made for a lovely day. Saluzzo was next. About an hour from Turin, it’s not your average tourist town, shall we say. “Why are you going there?” was the question from Jen and I’s parents, but we enjoyed it and climbed the bell tower, looked through it’s market and asked about 10 people where the tourist office was before a man finally just took us there and let us see that it was, in fact, closed. Just two weekends ago we ventured to Sacre Di San Michele (Monastery of Saint Michael), about a half hour train ride away and an hour and a half hike up a mountain, located right on the top. Jen and I (ok, so it was mostly me) had an inkling to go hiking and we really wanted to see this monastery that had so much history to it. So we headed out early one morning. When we stepped off the train and saw how high the monastery was in relation to us, we were a little worried, but once we were off on the trail we enjoyed the hike and entire trip. (So, maybe we are a little out of shape, but the monastery was worth it.)

And just last weekend we booked it to Courmayeur, another small ski village on the border with France. We didn’t ski, but just walked around, enjoyed the bus and train rides there, and went even to a higher part of the town where the snow was untouched, like a blanket over everything. It snowed almost the entire day and we so enjoyed the town center and the cold snow beneath our feet. Our big trip since November was Florence. Such a feminine and romantic city, we fell in love with everything it has to offer. We spent half of the day in the HUGE market that Florence is known for (bought our Christmas presents and a few things that we couldn’t resist), we saw the duomo (huge church), walked the streets, enjoyed the Christmas decorations, sat amazed at the David, and walked the famous bridge called the Ponte Vecchio with stores and shops on either side of it. We toured the Uffizi (huge art museum) and I gained a love and appreciation for the artist Botticelli and was surprised, once again, at how excited I was to see such famous art. We stayed in a house-turned-hotel where the little old lady who owned it greeted us in the stairway and kissed us hello before she even showed us our room. It was a lovely weekend in a lovely city, to say the least.

The other thing that Jen and I have thoroughly been enjoying is our random, hilarious, strange, and wonderful friendship with two guys from our Italian class, Noam (here studying car design, Jewish from Israel, 26) and Michael (here as a fellow nanny for a family with three boys, Austrian, 18). After one day of talking after class, Jen and I laughed about us four becoming some sort of click and hanging out all the time. And, of course, it definitely happened. Though we are all really different and a totally random group, we have in common the fact that none of us are actually from Italy, none of us speak Italian very well, none of us have many friends and are desperate for people to communicate with our own age, and all of us are pretty open to new things (I mean, we’re here, aren’t we?) So, when Jen and I invited Noam and Michael to come to our Christmas service at church, they came and have continued to come almost every Sunday since, despite Noam’s jokes of “I’m the only Jewish guy there.”

When Noam’s parents came to visit him in December and brought him a ton of Israeli food, he had us all over to his apartment to experience real Israeli cooking. Let me tell you that sitting at a table of two Americans, an Austrian, and two Israelis (one was a roommate of Noam’s) we had some pretty interesting discussions and viewpoints, to say the least. Not to mention the fact that four different languages were being spoken sporadically -- English, Hebrew, Italian and German. Bush, the war, Americans in general, languages, Italy’s government, Israel’s status, Europe’s feelings, Jewish customs, friendship, New York dancers, food, and movies were all included in the topics. And we realized, though we may differ on some, we can still be friends and at least learn from one another. It was an interesting night and Jen and I had so much to talk about after we left.

And with that last update, I think I will depart for now. Things have gotten back on schedule after the girls went back to school on the 10th of January and I went back to my Italian class, not necessarily any better in Italian, but nevertheless, I went back. Besides going to the theatre to see Singin’ In The Rain in Italian, buying a pair of boots, preparing for my family to come in March (!), dancing in the living room with Maghi, singing girls to sleep at night, trying to learn how to cook, watching The Sound of Music in Italian (twice), teaching the girls the Fifty Nifty United States song along with Lean on Me, eating snow, watching ice skating, and praying about the next step in life…everything is pretty normal around here, in this section of Italy with this sweet family. The fact that you have read this far and are interested in such details of this girl’s life here in Italy is truly flattering and encouraging. Thanks for the letters and emails. Enjoy this week, enjoy our Lord and the amazing love and grace that He gives, and enjoy America.