After our day trip to Termoli yesterday, we spent a quiet Sunday in our little village.  Well, relatively quiet.

Let me back up for a little bit.  Four days before we flew to Italy, we were privileged to experience the daylight savings time change in the U.S.  Then we came to Italy and dealt with the change in time zones.  Then today, we were privileged to once again experience the spring time change, this time in Italy.  Perhaps one of these days my body will know what time it is.

In any case, the church bells went crazy this morning at 6:50 am.  Since this is our first Sunday in the village, I can only guess that these bells are aa regular occurrence on a Sunday morning.  Our bedroom balcony doors face east over the valley, so we are usually awakened early by the morning sun.  But I did hear the bells this morning and then looked at the time on my phone and said, “What the…?”

We had a lazy morning with a breakfast of fresh bread that I bought at the bakery on Friday, spread with fig jam, and served with juice, coffee and hot tea.  I read my Kindle for a while (currently plowing through Jane Austen’s works, she is so funny) while Chad did some chores around the house. 

Throughout the day we took several walks around the village as many people do.  Around 12:30 pm, we went to our local bar to have a beer and “be seen” before lunch, and we met the local Canadian couple at the little bar just down from our house.  They moved to the village four years ago, so they had lots of interesting things to say about getting settled in the village and in Italy – everything from paying your water bill to renovating a house to getting an Italian drivers license.

As an architect, I thought working with an Italian contractor would be the most frustrating thing here when the attitude – not just of builders but of everyone – is that “ah, we will deal with that tomorrow.”  Now I believe that the most stressful thing will be getting an Italian drivers license.  As a foreigner, you have to go to driving school, take a written test of driving theory, and then take a driving test in a car with a manual transmission.  Yay.

After getting so much great information/stories from the wonderful Canadian couple, we went home to make lunch.  One thing that Chad and I have remarked upon is the fact that the food that we buy here is so delicious and of such high quality, that we don’t have to do a lot to it when we make a meal.  Lunch was some chicken sautéed in a pan, grilled radicchio, boiled potatoes, the local version of mozzarella, and some olives.  And for dinner tonight, Chad used the leftover chicken, radicchio and potatoes to make chicken soup, adding some pasta noodles.  So good!

Between lunch and dinner, we drove up into the hills to explore the terrain around our village.  We passed farmhouses, olive tree groves, and fields of wildflowers.  The roads were all single-lane country roads – some paved and some just gravel.  When a car came from the other direction (which was rare), we just scooted way over onto the shoulder and took a pause to let the other car pass.    For me, it was a very peaceful drive exploring the countryside.  For Chad who was driving on narrow, winding mountain roads, it was not so pleasant.

Now we’re firmly ensconced in our little apartment.  We watched some British television after dinner and are now winding down for the evening.  

It’s supposed to rain and thunderstorm all day tomorrow and then Tuesday is supposed to be quite cold – high temps in the 40s – so we removed our new plants from the balconies and brought them indoors for the time being. 

And while we settle in for (hopefully) one last blast of winter, we wish everyone a good week, and we look forward to more adventures in the village.