26 Feb
Well, Fat Tuesday is past with the festival of the Vellurde in Offida. People start hitting the barrel early and by dusk are ready to dance and sing and light their 15 foot long bundles of dried cane and parade twice around the town. If they survive all that and the buildings haven't burned down, they place all the unburned cane in a big bonfire in the city's main piazza. Most of the locals dress up in the guazaro' outfit or in costume. I met a couple of young italian guys who love Texas and country music as well as many others who wanted to meet and pet Bacco.
I still remember when Buzz Aldrin and Armstrong walked on the moon for the 1st time. We watched it in school in what I think was 5th grade. It finally became old hat and we got tired of exploring places with people, so after the 1st moonwalk, I think the TV ratings went way down.
For those of you on facebook, you know I have given up cynicism for Lent or Quaresmo as they call it here in Italy. I was put to the test recently at the dept. of motorizzazione or the license bureau. I spent 3 hours waiting for the only official who can OK cars from out of the country for licenses in Italy with 1/2 of that time on the marble floor before another worker offered me a chair. I finished the book "museums of Rome" before he suggested I talk with the director of the office. He explained that "today is 'particulare'" and I should come back tomorrow. That I did, and met a really nice man who even gave me a bottle of wine as we talked about family, our country, my courage to quit my previous job and life to start anew and how I needed to translate all the documents I brought into italian before he could proceed. I headed back to the z4, which he had inspected and found in compliance with nearly all european regulations, to find the battery dead. Raffaele came to give me a jump and I headed to the Ipercoop for a battery charger.
Today, I go to the justice of the peace to get my translations certified and I can try again.
Above find some pix of flowers showing up around Nascondiglio di Bacco. The tree is an almond and the leaves are budding from our roses. Others will remain unnamed (there is a primrose) as I don't know them.
A dopo.
d
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