The Week of Dinner Parties

We had the "week of dinner parties" last week! It was so much fun to really experience the culture of life in Italy! It started with our bosses cooking us a traditional Lebanese meal, which was so fresh and incredible. It was also exciting for us to try something new and different. We know this sounds terrible, but we are in serious need of something other than Italian food (a bean and cheese burrito from Titos sounds unbelievable right about now!). We then returned the favor to our bosses by cooking a gourmet "American" meal for them. Jess made Cheryl's famous meatloaf, and then we put together mashed potatoes and a salad. They were so impressed by this! Towards the end of the week, it was back to pizza, pasta, and bread when a few of our local friends made us an amazing home-cooked Italian meal. It was mouthwatering! We never thought penne with bolognese sauce could taste so good. After dinner, we went straight into an impromptu dance session. So much fun! Our week ended with a seafood feast at a restaurant in Santo Spirito with our friend Carlos. We sat outside under the stars with a violinist playing in the background. It was beautiful!

Chris, Florann and Tim are in town. Allie has spent the last several days with them cruising through Verona, Venice, Rome, Siena, and Florence, of course. It has been quite the adventure, to say the least! They have gotten a nice taste of the Italian train system, and they have made a point of enjoying gelato at every opportunity they get. We have done our best to really show them what Italy is all about! Jess has been such a great sport about working by herself! She has done an incredible job of holding down the fort at the leather store while Allie played tour guide to her family.

Everyone has told us to prepare for extremely warm weather in August, and It seems to be getting hotter by the day! Also, a lot of Italian businesses close for the month of August, and people use this time for vacation and rest. We are expecting a quiet and relaxing month. Luckily, some of our friends will still be around, and we will do our best to keep this town alive. We are also going to use this month to figure out our traveling plans for October. At this point, we have a very extensive list of places in Europe to check out, but we are open to more suggestions. :) Ciao!