Feeling less like strangers

Wednesday, April 13

Lucy bought more fresh fruit this morning from the Wednesday morning market in San Salvatore. Now she is cutting the oranges in half to make fresh squeezed juice. She laughs when she looks inside, remembering the first time she cut into an orange in Italy, ten years ago. Some of the oranges are light orange, like the oranges we get in Washington, but many are bright red, and Lucy comments that the first time she saw the inside of these blood oranges, she threw them away because she thought they had spoiled. It was all part of the learning process for us stranieri that continues each day.

We try to balance our shopping between the big discount stores and the little specialty stores. We have learned how to pre-order pane delle dolomite, the rye bread that we like the best, and Lucy often buys meat from Luigi, our local maccellaio, who cuts slices of turkey or chicken to our order or grinds beef in front of us for hamburger. We are happy to see that even though Italy is becoming more like America, each little village has its own macellaio, bar and little grocery store, even though the villages are only a mile or two away from each other.

The oranges are rich with juice, because like most fruit here, they are ripe and flavorful. We sometimes wonder what the fruit vendors do with all their left-over produce, because the fresh fruit must be eaten within a couple of days, as it spoils quickly.

Today we also visit the library for the first time, and I check out a short book “Viaggio nel Tempo,” which seems to be written for pre-teens. Hopefully it won't be too advanced for me. Lucy makes an appointment to have her hair trimmed with the local parruchierre, Gabriella. We are starting to feel more comfortable each week. It is a pity we only have a couple of weeks more before we have to return, but we know that this is more like the beginning than the end. We have already informed Luca to keep a room for us next year, as we will be coming back for another three months, and after that, probably again the following year.