Small Town Life.

Okay.  I'm from a "small town"  or... that's what I thought.  Friendswood (population roughly 36,500) is a picturesque, sweet, little, white-picket-fence-of-a-fourth-of-July-down-main-street-parade-having, slice of heaven.  My strong sense of tradition and my love of high school football games may be attributed to the place in which I was raised, as can several other of my admirable characteristics...such as my love of all things summer especially swimming pools and tequila and fireworks, my affinity towards big hair and turquoise jewelry.  And please...lest we forget...my adoration for any version of a Ford Mustang Convertible created between the years of 1990 and 2000...

The city I call home, currently, (when I'm not galavanting across the globe) Houston Texas (population approximately 2.1 million),  is much bigger.  It feels bigger, it sounds bigger, it smells bigger.  I love Houston.  I love living in the city.  At this point in my life, it's the perfect place for me.  I'm proud to be a Houstonian, my church is there, my best friends are there (not all of them, some of them live in the burbs, Hi Marla, Shannon and Scarlett I miss you!!), my bars are there, and my life is there.

San Vendemiano is home to approximately 10,000...10 Thousand...I said TEN THOUSAND!!!  Well, Ten Thousand and one...if you count me for the next month.  People...that is small.

Let's just think, for a moment, about the size of my extended family, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins included we come out to a little over 50 people.  FIFTY!!  Chew on that for a second.

I promise I'm going somewhere with all of these numbers and figures.  The point is, I'm not used to it.  I'm not used to small town life, and I'm certainly not used to non-American small town life.  There have been some major adjustments over the past three weeks.

For starters, not many people speak english in this town.  I mean, duh, right?  Of course not!  It's not a touristy town that vacationing Americans are just flocking to in droves.  It's a beautiful, quaint, quiet little town in the middle of north eastern Italy.  No one needs to know english here.  This poses a bit of a difficulty, at times, because I don't know Italian and I hate depending on Silvia and Gian so much, but we've made it work.

Then, there's the issue of food preparation.  I'm a vegetarian, how hard could it be?  Give me a piece of lettuce, a ripe tomato and an avocado and my day is made!!  But wait.  Here, everyone grows their own lettuce and tomatoes and don't even get me started about the scarcity of avocado in this region!   Everything has to be washed, thoroughly, really, really thoroughly.  In the city, I just head over to Kroger off of Studemont and grab some pre-washed, packaged lettuce that's been sitting there since God knows when and make a salad, sometimes in the car...on the way home... Mind you, I'm not complaining.  The salads here taste way better, partially because the ingredients were literally just ripped from the earth and partially because you've got to put a little elbow grease into the making of it.

The biggest difference for me, though, has been the time and the love that goes into preparing things in this town, but more precisely, in this home.  For three weeks I've studied Silvia.  I've been right by her side, except for to sleep for almost a month now.  She takes me everywhere with her.  The grocery store, the dentist, the bookstore, the market, on a walk, to hang clothes out to dry, on a run, to the pool, to the park, to the beach, to the mountain.  Everyday she works from the time she wakes up until the time she goes to bed.  It's a different life.  We don't watch TV, we don't have time.  Right after breakfast she's preparing for lunch, right after lunch she's preparing for dinner.  Everything has a time and a place.  I enjoy her determination.  She refreshes me and gives me insight.  She teaches without knowing she's teaching, and that's always the best teacher to learn from.

Small town living may not be ideal for me at this point in my life, but the things it's teaching me will be.

Peace, Love and Travel,
Reba

This is a part of Silvia's parents house.  Breathtaking.

These are some little rabbits in cages...these are not pets.  They will be food shortly.

Oh, hey dogs!  If Wilson were standing that close to an open window two stories up I'd loose my mind.

Quidditch tourney, anyone...?

The farm where we get our eggs also deals in milk production.

The eggs we used in our frittata last night were laid that morning.

No big deal.  Just rolling our own homemade pizza dough.

Having fun in a small town, Take 1.

Take 2.

Take 3.