Italy Italy

We are back in our apartment in Siena after an uneventful and somewhat relaxing return trip.

We closed on our house 30 December and spent the next two days getting ready for the movers who came on 2 January to pack everything up. We then moved what few things we had to the nearby Best Western hotel and that night had dinner with our realtor Winnie Denis. The next day, 3 January, the movers returned to start loading everything up and after running a few errands (like shipping three more boxes of stuff to Italy) we signed the paperwork for the move and storage (in Rutland) and headed off for Massachusetts.

The weather was quite nice in Rutland but farther south they were getting hit with a small snowstorm and fortunately since we had to wait for the movers to finish most of their loading we got in behind the storm.

We spent a warm and cozy evening with Dick and Dorothy (Susan’s brother and his wife) and then Wednesday morning drove into Boston to pick up Susan’s visa, which went off without a hitch. We then commenced to get lost in Boston – a first actually – but enjoyed the fact that we were in no hurry to get anywhere and ended up seeing places we had never seen before. We also tried an Audi dealership in Natick, MA to see if they might be interested in buying our A4. Oh they were interested but they were less than willing (or able) to give us anything remotely close to what the car is worth. So we decided to pass and hold it for a few months longer and store it down in Massachusetts. One or both of us will likely return later in the spring to try and sell it then.

So we spent an extra day just relaxing and trying to get a handle on what it was we had just done: selling our house and putting all of our things into storage (aside from what we had shipped back this trip) and the fact that our only “home” was now in Italy; a strange but exhilarating feeling.

Sister-inn-law Dorothy took us to Logan airport early Friday and upon checking in we had the good fortune to get upgraded to what British Airways calls "World Traveler Plus". This essentially gives you a bit wider seat and moves the seat-to-seat room from 33 inches to 38 inches. Very smooth trip and Susan in fact dozed for part of it. We arrived in London on time and took the Heathrow Express train into Paddington station and checked into our hotel, the Quality Crown Paddington, which was just across from the station. Our room was quite small but very new with a nice bathroom and there was a huge flatscreen TV on the wall, which was used to run much of the room's services. Pretty hi-tech.

Saturday morning we took a taxi to Liverpool St. station and got aboard the express train to Stanstead airport where we boarded a Ryanair flight for Pisa. We left gray, cold London with a few snow flakes falling about a half hour late -- spending the time sitting on the tarmac waiting to take off -- and landed in warm, sunny Pisa. A few minutes after reclaiming our bags we got on the train for Pisa Centrale station where we connected for Empoli, then changed trains for Siena where we arrived about 6:30 PM. We took a taxi to our apartment and after unpacking and changing shoes headed to our favorite haunt, Cantina in Piazza for something to eat. I also needed to drop off the prints Aimone had asked me to make before the holidays. I also had a book of prints for him as well as for Alessandra both of which I had arranged to be made via Apple before we left Siena in late December.

It is an odd feeling which both of us are experiencing right now. We are happy to be back here and feel quite at home here although we are getting ourselves emotionally if not physically ready to move to Florence two weeks from this coming Tuesday.

But things caught up with us at last and we slept until well after 10 AM Sunday morning. But what a gorgeous, sunny and warm morning it is!

After showering and putting fresh clothes on we walked down to another of our favorite places, Antonio Betti's Peccati di Gola for our Sunday morning caffe and dolce. Naturally I also had to pick up a small package of Ricciarelli.

So it's a day of relaxing and going to the store to stock our rather depleted larder for the coming week. Much of the city is still in it’s post-holiday phase – Epiphany was just this past week which is a major event here in Italy – so some shops and restaurants are closed for the next week or two.

We hope you are all well and enjoying a great New Year!

Ciao,

Steve