Ciao Italia !

Grandapa DeMarinis

There are obviously many upsides of living in Europe.  One huge one is being able to travel to some really cool places that are right around the corner. A family reunion back in July got me thinking about how close I am to relatives that we still have in the south of Italy. My mom's parents both moved to the States from Italy as young children in the 1920's - my maternal grandmother coming from a town near Rome and my grandfather from the south of Italy near the city of Bari. After talking to some relatives at the family reunion, I learned that many of them were still in contact with my grandfather's family in Bari, with at least a handful of them who had ventured over on several occasions.

Grandpa and Grandma DeMarinis's wedding picture

Well, it turns out that there's a direct flight to Bari from a German city right across the border from us with roundtrip tickets costing less than 60 euros a person! Knowing that baby number three was on its way, I thought this would be the perfect  "girls trip" for Audrey and me. So tickets were purchased and and took a crash course in basic Italian.

We arrived late one evening so we spent the night at a place in Bari before heading out the the town of Capurso (about 20 minutes from Bari) to meet with our family the next morning. And then the eating began! We were greeted with fantastic coffee and baked goods in quantities big enough to feed us for days! We toured around the neighborhood for a while taking in the still vibrant fishing culture and relishing the warm early November weather.

We finally end up at the doorstep of our family in Capurso.  Let the Italian challenge commence! There were some challenging moments but using a mix of Spanish, newly learned Italian and lots of hand gestures, we finally started to get to know each other.  Any having a blond, blue eyed 5 year old with a fantastic smile also helped to break the ice.  For the next 3 days, we traveled around the area taking in the beautiful scenery of the Puglia region.  

Audrey found an incredible appreciation for churches, asking to visit each one we passed (which was a lot, trust me!). Oh, and the gelato helped her transition a bit as well. Each night we'd return to our family's house and be treated like kings at the table...although despite our best efforts we just couldn't eat enough apparently.  That cliche about the Italian grandmothers insisting that you aren't eating enough - not so cliche.

But perhaps my favorite day was our last one.  It was a Sunday and we decided to just take a walk around the town of Capurso where my grandfather spent the first 10 years of his life. We attended a morning mass and listened to the church bells ring are regular intervals. We passed by the large town squares and saw the kids playing soccer and families enjoying the sunshine.  Audrey and I meandered down streets and I had to wonder if the ones we took were the same ones that my grandfather walked down a century ago.  It was a trip worth repeating and given its proximity I'd say we'll be back very soon.

Here a stork, there a stork...

The stork is an iconic emblem of the Alsatian region.  Walk into any tourist shop in the area and you can't avoid seeing those cute little devils in a myriad of forms. Even better, its easy to spot them in the wild as well.  There are a couple nesting couples in the village where we live and several more in a well known park in downtown Strasbourg. There are also some picturesque villages just to our south that are home to many stork couples who have incorporated their nests into the charm of the towns where they reside. Storks have been said to bring good luck, fidelity and fertility!



Interestingly enough, they were on the brink of extinction in Alsace some 30 years ago.  In the late 70's it was estimated that there were just 5 nesting couples (down from 150 couples some 15 years prior). The reason?  The storks in Alsace migrate to Africa in the winter and many were not surviving the journey back.  So some organizations stepped into action to try to repopulate the stork population in Alsace.  By raising storks in captivity for at least 3 years, their natural migratory instincts were curtailed and the birds repopulated.  Today, it is estimated that close to 300 nesting couples make Alsace their home.

So why the random post on storks?  It seems that one will be making a delivery at our place just in time for the holidays ; ) So in addition to the massive feat of remodeling a 300 year old house, a new baby is providing us another exciting adventure in Alsace!

Building (quite literally) our life in France

The beginning of September in France is known as the "rentree" - literally the re-entry.  Given that the French take full advantage of long summer vacations, right around this time there is a return to normalcy - everyone makes there way back after an extended break, school starts back up life sort of gets back to normal. This rentree is a big one for us.  Both Audrey and Thomas will be in school and we've got a big project planned. We recently purchased the old family house (located in the same village where we have been living) which has been in Jean's family for centuries (yes, I said centuries!) So  when I say old, I mean OLD - the house was built back in 1720 so its just shy of 300 years (though is doesn't look a day over 200). The picture to the right shows the date of construction engraved on one of the beams.







It is a half timbered house which is common in the Alsace region where we reside.  Perhaps one of the coolest things I have learned about these houses is that they were able to be disassemble and rebuilt in a different location. The beams were labeled (see photo below from our new place) to then be able to be reassembled in that same order.

This is NOT an actual picture of our place but just an example
of the framing of a traditional Alsatian house

We took possession of the house at the end of August and since there were renters occupying it previously, the kids and I never really got to see the house up close.  So, with the renters out and the house officially ours, we planned a picnic in the backyard to give the kids a first glimpse of the house we hope to live in for a very long time.  It didn't take them long to appreciate the large garden and space to run around.

There's a good 6-8 months of major renovation ahead of us but its a huge step to truly making Alsace our home. While its a bit overwhelming at times, I am excited to have to step out of my comfort zone and work on planning and designing the house (in French of course!).  Since Jean is working all day, that leaves me as the one to make the round of the stores and pick out the new kitchen, bathrooms, etc. Needless to say, my construction/decorating vocabulary has increased exponentially in the last couple weeks.

Oh, and here's a bonus photo of the house.  Taken in 1911, its a family member (I'd have to confer with my mother-in-law to get an exact identity) who decided to build a plane in the front yard.  Not sure of the whole story but its a pretty cool to have some old pictures of our future abode!

 

Lots more updates to come on the progress of the house to come!

A taste of the islands

Yes, I know - it's been a while.  I guess in a way that's good in that life here is becoming busy.  It's seeming less like living abroad and more like, well - living. I've slowly started picking up work and the kids are getting big.  Audrey has now officially spent more time in the living in France as she has in the states.  Both of them have demonstrated excellent language skills with them both being fully bilingual although Thomas has a tendency to make more grammatical mistakes (Mama, look at the truck blue!) Cute, nonetheless. He also likes to rummage through my desk in search of scotch. Before you call the French authorities on me, he's just looking for tape (called scotch in french - though this requires a bit of explaining when anglophones are visiting...)

It seems like a lifetime ago but we had the awesome opportunity to spend Christmas and New Years on Reunion Island.  Yes, that is a real place.  It's a small French owned island off the coast of Madagascar.  Jean's two sisters both live there and the younger of the two got married at the end of December offering us the perfect opportunity to escape the dismal Strasbourg winter and trade it in for some year-round island sunshine. It was a loooong trip (an 11.5 hours flight from Paris) but the kids were total troopers.  It was quite perhaps the most fantastic vacation we have ever taken.  The perfect mix of family and tourism, beach and mountains and just the right amount of relaxation. As the trip was ending, I remember looking back and thinking that this was really a once in a lifetime vacation and that these moments will not be relived - Christmas in 80 degree weather, fireworks beachside at midnight on new years eve and both kiddos getting to spend their January birthdays at the pool with their cousins. Although I guess that's what makes these moments so special - knowing that they are not likely to come around again.  As Thomas would say, "Mama, it was a vacation fantastic!"