Blog Postings

Hello! This finds us in Texas - we are merrily burning up the highways from Dallas to Austin to Houston getting some paperwork lined up so Wayne can work legally in Italy. Of course, all is not happening as fast as we would like, but we trust it will all fall into place if/when it is supposed to.

Just wanted to say that I have altered the settings on the blog so that anyone who wants to post a comment, does not have to create a blog themselves. I did not realize that it was set on "registered users" for postings. Sorry for this... Regardless, anyone is welcome to use our e-mail address: thototom@yahoo.com to communicate. This address is still current. Ciao for now.

A different kind of Turkey Day

No turkey was in the oven at our house today. Instead, we cut up some leftover chicken breast, mixed in some grapes, celery, red onion and mayonnaise and called it chicken salad. Then, we threw in a bag with some crackers, potato chips, carrots and apples and headed for the mountains for a picnic. We decided to check out Lecco (near the foothills of the Alps in the lake region) and see if we could find a hiking trail in the Alps. We weren't successful at finding a hiking trail but we did have one superb picnic on a bench overlooking the lake with the mountains surrounding us on all sides. The drive was worth the trip and we were grateful for the change in pace.

We'll have a traditional Turkey Day next week with Mom, Polly and Paul and Jesse in Houston. We return to the States on Monday for a month as we hope to process some paperwork at the Italian consulate in order for Wayne to be able to practice chiropractic here. Happy Thanksgiving to all, and to all a good feast!

Monday = Mercato

It's a good day in Gorgonzola when Monday rolls around because the market comes to town. All the fresh fruits and veggies you could ever want are for sale all year long. This is the only place that I've been able to find cilantro...the vendor who sells this never fails to try to make me buy 3 or 4 bunches but I don't need THAT much!

Believe it or not, you can even buy household goods, clothes, plants...you name it. Everyone from the town turns out on the streets for this and its a merry, social occasion.

The streets get cleared from the parked cars that normally occupy this area and traffic is prohibited from passing through. Commerce ranks high on the priority list around here. One euro here, one euro there and soon the money runs out and its time to go home and look forward to the next Monday...

A Funny...

There is a story that we heard that has comforted us time and time again when we've struggled with the language here. One of the older ministers that was here in Italy and learning the language found himself one day on one of the super-packed underground metro cars. Without knowing, he stepped on a woman's foot and she spewed out a long monologue of expletives to voice her discomfort. The minister looked at her and said, in his broken Italian: "Excuse ma'am, could you please repeat that more slowly, please?"

Ricardo

We must tell you about our new friend, Ricardo. Ricardo lives in Pescara, about 5 hours southeast of here near the Adriatic coast. He is in his 40s but is quite delayed in his mental development by some standards, but extremely developed in significant areas. For example, Ricardo speaks extremely good English. In fact, he said more than once when we were with him "I speak perfect English!" He made his choice to serve God a few years ago in the best way he knows how...he can't comprehend much of what is going on around him but he is able to read and understand the Bible and he shares something that has made an impression on him during the Sunday morning meeting.

Before we met him, he had heard there were an American couple coming and he could hardly contain himself. He couldn't wait to speak English with us. Once we were together, he expressed his excitement by breaking out in one of our patriotic songs during the evening meal "God Bless America", only it sounded more like "gode blezz amereekaaa" with his Italian accent!

We had to go to Pescara this week to have the little car we are using serviced by a mechanic that promised to fix anything that went wrong with it for no charge. While in the area, we were with David Butterworth and Pasquale di Pentima and met many of the Friends around there, saw the Petticiato (sp?) convention grounds, and were given fresh olive oil that had been harvested the day before. The road to the southeast part of Italy is literally where the mountains meet the sea...so many beautiful, fertile farmland full of vineyards, olive groves and plentiful crops too numerous to name here. We understand now why Italy has another name: 'Bella Italia'.

Home Sweet Home

It's been over 3 weeks since we first occupied our little flat. I'll send a few pictures so you can get an idea of our surroundings. One thing we fell in love with is the canal that is next to our place. It has a trail that runs alongside it which makes for some nice walks/runs/bike rides (that is when we buy some cheap bikes!)

We've had enough company to fill up one page of our guestbook so that has been a wonderful way to make it feel like home. One of the pictures here is of our sister workers, Elisa, Concettina and Clarita, a girl from Ecuador that lives here. They had lunch at our place on Sunday. Concettina brought a homemade apple pie for us - yumm. Then, we sang some hymns for our English hymnbook. It helped fill the little hole as our thoughts were very much on the convention we were missing at Mountain Peak, Texas.

Tomorrow, everything is closed for All Saints Day. It's a national holiday that falls on November 1. Perhaps we'll take advantage of this 'free' day and head for the mountains again for some hiking.

Before I sign off, I'll give you our physical address. It goes like this:
Via Martesana 40
20064 Gorgonzola (MI)
Italia

Our phone is yet to be installed. When we get a number, I'll share it with you all at that time.

General Update

Forgive us for not posting anything for awhile. But, we're still here and plugging along with life in Italy. We are in our own little flat now after looking at many, many options. Finally, we found a furnished apartment that is suitable for now. Fortunately, this finds us living outside of the big, noisy, smog-infested Milan. But, we can access Milan and people in Milan can access us using the metropolitana and can arrive within 30 minutes or so. We're learning that the metro is quite comfortable with a good book(and sometimes entertaining if you're into people watching :-)

Our little village is called Gorgonzola - like the cheese. It's a quaint little town and the people are very friendly and welcoming. There is a canal running through the town designed by his majesty, Leonardo da Vinci! Along the canal, there is a running/biking trail that we have enjoyed using already.

Our landlord is quite unusual in that he has and has promised to continue to please us - he speaks English too, which has helped immensely. When we first viewed the place, he had a couch in the living room. When I asked if it could be made into a bed, he said 'no' but if we preferred it, he would exchange it with one that does. He kept his word and now we have a double-bed couch for company! He has invited us to have dinner at he and his wife's favorite restaurant sometime! We look forward to that.

Wayne has been talking with an International Health Center in central Milan that houses various practitioners. They have had a chiropractor there in the past but do not currently have one on board. The man in charge there is a dentist from England. The second time Wayne visited with him, he took Wayne's picture for their lobby and asked what he wanted to be included on his business card. Now, all we need is for him to write a contract so that we can get rolling on the permesso/permission to stay paperwork.

Our hope is to come back to the states with a contract in hand to take to the Italian consulate in Houston. We understand that is a rather involved, complicated process and they want to see everything from your marriage license to your 6th grade report card. They love all things official complete with seals and stamps. Oh what fun it will be to work on this during the Christmas holiday.

Sorry for not posting a pic this time. We don't have Internet at the time in the house and am writing this at an Internet point in town. We think of you all and hope all goes well on your side of the big pond. Love, A&W

Venice for our 5th...

September 29th marked our 5th wedding anniversary. We had made a promise to each other when we were in Jamaica for our wedding and honeymoon that we would return to that same country, same resort 5 years later. Well, circumstances didn't quite allow for that, so we spent the weekend in Venice instead. It's a 2 1/2 hour train ride from Milan. It is as beautiful as they have always boasted in the travel books. But, we felt sorry for some of the local Venetians that are constantly overrun by tourists. Yet, the city would not be what it is without the money pouring in from tourists. We passed on a gondola ride and will be sure to do it next time when some of our friends or family come to split the cost! Are we cheap or what? There are 2 young couples that we met up with that go to meeting and live near Venice. We met up with them for pizza on Saturday night and spent all day Sunday together. One of the couples is from Australia (Adrian and Sonia Barry) and Victor and Mihaela (can't spell their last name) from Romania. We hit it off right away and look forward to the next time we can meet up.

United Nations

The world gets really small when you take a language class! Our Italian language class that met for 4 weeks/5 days per week for 2 hours had a student from Japan, Germany, Austria, Poland, Russia, Syria, Austria and two from the U.S.! One day, our lesson was to discuss a specific subject with our group for a couple of minutes using our new Italian skills. The man from Syria suggested "Politics" be one of the topics but his idea was boo'd by the rest of the students. Whew - that was close!

Fruit of the Vine: Fresh Grape Jam

Elisa di Pentima, who we’ve been staying with since arriving in Milan, displayed the art of making homemade grape jam. First she washed the grapes and then sat down at the table with 2 bowls. She put the skins in one bowl and the flesh in another. Then she put two pots on the stove and boiled each for a long time. After a while, she pushed the flesh part through a strainer and added it to the skins in order to get rid of the seeds. I asked her when she would add the thickening agent and she said that it wasn’t necessary. She simply dipped the wooden spoon in the pot and let it drip down to test the consistency. Needless to say, we’ve been thoroughly enjoying the result of this project every morning since then. For breakfast, Italians eat something sweet with their first espresso. So, we’ve indulged in this fresh jam on fresh bread on top of a layer of ricotta cheese. It's a good thing we must do a lot of walking!

Our Elder

We have been positively affected already by the elder, Ezio Madureri, at our little Sunday morning in Monza, just north of Milan. He is in his mid-90s but doesn’t let his age get him down. He is deaf, but hasn’t let that be a handicap. In fact, he has written several hymns that are in the Italian hymnbook. He is extremely intelligent with several books and inventions to his name, but that hasn’t made him too proud for his humble meeting.

One Sunday, Wayne sat down and played one of the hymns that he wrote and he smiled and began to stroke the back of Wayne’s head. You see, he can enjoy music by vibration. It is our privilege to know and meet with him in his last days.

The honest street vendor

There are a few honest people left in the world, at least there's one man in Italy. One day this week, I stopped at a newsstand to buy some tickets for the metro. I handed him 10 Euro, or so I thought. Then, I walked down the street towards home but soon I heard someone running behind me yelling "scuzi, signora" and a man started excitedly babbling (and of course gesturing) in Italian. I managed to understand something about the man that sold me the tickets. So, he took my arm and led me back to the newsstand and the vendor was there waiting, waving 10 Euro at me. I had given him 20 Euro as the second bill was wrapped around the first one. Needless to say, it was heartwarming to know that he was honest and made an effort to make things right!

The train to paradise

For just 11 euro per person, you can jump on a train from Milano and in 40 minutes, you arrive in Como or for 14 euro and 2 hours on a train you arrive in Torino (Turin - where the Olympics were held recently). Wayne and I decided it was time to explore and try our hand at navigating the European railways. What fun we had surfing our way to our seats as the train began to roll forward toward the Alps! We were more than ready to arrive to Como and take in the Alps (Alpis in Italiano), Lake Como and breathe some clean air. The weather was perfect - not too hot, but hot enough to beg for a gelato midday.

We returned to Milan for meeting on Sunday and then jumped on a train again on Sunday afternoon to go to Torino. Fred Parsons from Boston, Wayne's dad's compadre from years back was in Torino on business. (He heard about meetings after tripping over Paul Boyd praying in the bunks on the way to the bathroon during the Korean War era.)

We wonder who of our friends or family will be the first to jump on a train with us to one of these neat places?

Ciao from Italia

We arrived into Milan last Thursday, the 31st of August. The first sight we saw when we stepped off the plane (after we blinked away some foregone sleep) was the sun shining off the Alps. They were already covered with snow. It was a beautiful, welcome sight as well as the crisp morning air.

Believe it or not, all our bags arrived and we were greeted at the airport with our friend (one of our ministers here) Pasquale di Pentima. He came with his small Fiesta car that has a gas tank and a propane tank. It was a very tight squeeze to get all the luggage in, but amazing enough it fit! I was covered completely in the back seat. Every few miles driving from the airport, Pasquale would ask if I was okay and I managed to squeak out "i'm fine."

Homeless and Happy...

There's no turning back now! We got an offer on our house when we were enroute to Happy, Texas for our annual church convention. The buyers requested to occupy the house two weeks from the date of the initial contract. Yikes!

Needless to say our heads began to spin. Our next big "project" was to price our stuff, advertise and prepare for a big Estate Sale for the following weekend. Thankfully, Wayne's cousin Bill Smith and Sharon offered to come up from Austin to help us. Also, my two former roommates, Audra (Saathoff) Coker and Elisa (Mille) Herd volunteered as well. It went well and our possessions flew out the door. Surprisingly, we didn't have too many sentimental moments that would cause us to want to chase after our things...

We closed on our house the next Friday, August 4th and vacuumed our way out the door Sunday, the 6th.

Since then, we've been homeless, yet happy to be able to visit relatives in Georgia, Florida, Missouri and Illinois.

We fly from Houston on Monday, Åugust 28th and spend 2 days in Boston before leaving for Milan on the 30th.