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!