A Day in the Life

When we were back in the States, a lot of people asked me about daily life here so I'm thinking of doing a regular post about just that. Today was a rather regular day, but I'll start with today anyway.

Here's your little taste of daily life in Europe...

My 3 year old has started school (just half days this week) but my 6 year old starts in two weeks.

9:00 We walk my youngest to school. When I say we walk to school, don't think a nice tree-lined sidewalk in a sweet suburban neighborhood. No, we are in the middle of the city and it looks more like this


But I absolutely love it. I'll take an urban city over suburbia any day. The energy is fantastic.

9:10 On the way we cut through the courtyard of a church built in the 1500's.

9:15 We walk from school to our regular bar (bar is Italian for sidewalk cafe), passing through our favorite piazza on the way


9:30 Cappuccino and croissants and good conversation with my six year old.

When we are finished we pay and chat with the owner. When I say, chat, I mean I smile and nod and speak caveman Italian while my six year old speaks fluently

10:30

We walk down the street to the fruit store where they greet us by name and ask where my youngest is. I tell them what fruit we want (you never touch the fruit here) and they ask if we want to eat it "oggi o domani?" (today or tomorrow?) and select it for us accordingly. You see, the only option is today or tomorrow. The fruit and vegetables are only picked and sold at their peak. They are fabulous. Like eating vegetables out of someone's backyard garden.

11:00 We stop by the bakery on our way home.

Are you hungry yet?


12:00 We go to the little market next to school before picking up my youngest. They know us by name here too and think we are strange because we buy so much milk. The Italians don't drink milk like Americans. Here it is only sold in 1 liter bottles. With two young boys, we go through that in a day. The people working at the grocery store check us out and say "sempre latte, sempre latte" (always milk, always milk)

12:30 We pick up my youngest from school and walk home. I make minestrone with the fresh veggies from this morning.

4:30 After naps we play in the garden for a bit

5:00 My husband is home and we open a bottle of wine

5:30 I start cooking dinner. The Italians think we are crazy for eating at 6:30. They don't even think about dinner until 7:30 or 8:00. My neighbor, who is 76, laughs everytime she sees us going in for dinner so "early"

6:00 Our Italian doctor (and friend) stops by for a bit (thank goodness we are not eating yet) and says what I am cooking smells like a real Italian cook. Yea!

8:00 No babysitter tonight so we are home, the kids are sleeping and I am writing this blog

So what do y'all think? Do you want to hear about daily life or should I stick to the pretty things? Perhaps I'll write again about a more interesting day than today :-)