The party has arrived!!!!!

The party has arrived!!!!
Finally our travelers from the west arrive and so does the party. You can’t believe the stamina of these two. After 24 hours of pure travel, very little sleep and pie-eyed looks from both of them. After a quick shower they are fresh as a daisy and ready to take on Italy. I prepared some meats, cheese, olives and bread for the hungry travelers, to try to wash away all the ugly airline food they had to endure while on their travels. We dine via our veranda off the upstairs kitchen. That helped, but of course the wine was the first to come out and as I thought 4 bottles, 2 red and 2 white was not enough for this party crew. So off we go down our 79 steps to the “alimentari” which means small grocery store. More wine and something sweet for Don. Back up the 79 stairs and now it is time to prepare a bit of dinner for the weary travelers. Pasta, a simple salad and bread and of course the wine was the meal of the evening. Rachel made a wonderfully simple dressing with only Italian olive oil, vinegar, and a peach I had bought at market. Just a dash of salt and dinner is served. Wonderful! We talked, and laughed about all our travel adventures we had to traverse in order to get to this spot and got down to the business of living Italian for a while. Which by the way, that is something Don and I come to the very same notion, that as soon as we stepped a toe back into Italy, we didn’t feel any longer that it had been 2 years since we had last been in Italy. It felt like maybe a month or two. But certainly not 2 years. It felt familiar. That was the word we both used. And that is a very good feeling.
Today I want to rent bicycles and ride the wall of Lucca. Only 3 euros and we can see all of the historic wall of Lucca. Don seems to be in a bit of trouble though. Seems he thought that he could concoct some story that the bicycles rented for 50 euros, so that would dissuade me from wanting to bicycle the wall. But Anna came to the rescue, finding out from the shop owner that indeed it was only 3 euros. So after my tail of woe to the girls about my lying husband and the bicycle. They are on my side and we plan to pedal Lucca today.

Also, Rachel’s friend from last trip, Raylucca, is planning a day trip to Lucca. It will be great to meet her finally. Our hope is to get everyone together for dinner somewhere. But the day has yet to tell us what it will be. For all the planning in the world all you can do is enjoy all you can and deal with the rest. I plan to do just that. Ciao per ora. (bye for now)