| The Leonetti Family - Italia |
| We started with 2 bikes but came home with only one... The sun finally returned to Northern Italy and as we had nothing planned on Sunday, we thought let's take advantage of the bike trail which runs from Pavia to Milano. We had to ride about 5K to catch it as our village isn't exactly on the trail. Joe and I took our dodgy sissy, city, old, granny bikes for a 60 kilometer round trip. It was an easy flat ride, except for the massive ass pain due to our seats. The trail follows the Pavese Naviglio (canal) all the way into the city and it is perfect because it lands us in one of our favorite neighborhoods - Porto Ticinese and near the Grand Canal. We decided to head toward the Duomo because I wanted to pick a few things up at MUJI (Av got me hooked), while there we ran into one of Zaven's teachers, random, but we always run into him. And then a crazy, unexpected rain storm moved through. Above right: Gloria Juan waiting under an arch for the rain to pass. Right: After meeting Shanna & Luc for for lunch, and seeing more of Joe's colleagues (big city/small world)....yes we called Shanna and said, "Get out of your pajama's and meet us for lunch," only to get stuck in a crazy downpour. Happily the sun came out shortly after, and then the trouble started... VIDEO LINK: THE BIKE REPAIR |
| We had a holiday last week, I went to Grenoble for work, but Joe went to Cervinia to go skiing. Lucky. We had another holiday / LONG weekend and we wanted to get started on the bathroom remodel. Knowing we would be having sunny weather on Saturday, not conducive to working inside, so we went to Alba to enjoy the market, cheese and wine before the weather turned to crap and shutting ourselves in our bathroom to make a HUGE mess. Right: Some prosecco & our local cheese and meat plate for 2 - more like 20 - after detoxing for 3 weeks we managed to make a pretty good dent in it. I think Alba is the best place in the world for cheese and wine, except when it is cheese fest time,then of course Bra is the best place... |
Rosana's Egg Package ~ Love 'em!
And the bathroom. We are in the process of getting estimates for a new roof, we will take out the
ceilings and vault / have exposed beams and skylights. Maybe not this year, but let's see. In the
meantime we can get started on the bathroom. We wanted to retile the floor and walls and put in a
new shower. We had looked at tiles, something the color of slate but couldn't find anything we loved
enough to purchase, thank goodness because after we started chipping, then boorhamering the ugly
orange and blue flowered tiles, from the 50's, which I had painted, with very toxic smelling and I am
sure brain damaging white tile paint, we hit pay dirt! That morning before we started I had thought,
half asleep, while lying in bed, wouldn't it be great if there were beautiful stone walls...and of course
there were because it is a stone house. Joe and I both worked very hard and Zaven helped schlep the
tons of tile and cement ruins out. Joe though worked the hardest - I was worried he would have an
aneurysm from boorhamer vibrations, but so far so good. I was also worried about massive ancient
800 year old dust inhalation. If I get lung cancer it's either from this or from the years of smoking when
I was younger.
I love the way it looks...it looks like it should - how it is suppose to be. We still a lot of work ahead of
us, but on crappy rainy weekends what else would we be doing?
ceilings and vault / have exposed beams and skylights. Maybe not this year, but let's see. In the
meantime we can get started on the bathroom. We wanted to retile the floor and walls and put in a
new shower. We had looked at tiles, something the color of slate but couldn't find anything we loved
enough to purchase, thank goodness because after we started chipping, then boorhamering the ugly
orange and blue flowered tiles, from the 50's, which I had painted, with very toxic smelling and I am
sure brain damaging white tile paint, we hit pay dirt! That morning before we started I had thought,
half asleep, while lying in bed, wouldn't it be great if there were beautiful stone walls...and of course
there were because it is a stone house. Joe and I both worked very hard and Zaven helped schlep the
tons of tile and cement ruins out. Joe though worked the hardest - I was worried he would have an
aneurysm from boorhamer vibrations, but so far so good. I was also worried about massive ancient
800 year old dust inhalation. If I get lung cancer it's either from this or from the years of smoking when
I was younger.
I love the way it looks...it looks like it should - how it is suppose to be. We still a lot of work ahead of
us, but on crappy rainy weekends what else would we be doing?
