We’re back from two weeks in Italy, but our trip really began last February – it was cold and the days were short ; we needed an escape to someplace warm…and sunny…and beautiful…so of course, we thought of Italy.
The library is a starting point for all major projects! Within days the surfaces in our house looked like this…
… as my library holds came in, and we read and compared and decided which books to buy for ourselves so that we could make notes, and tear out chapters and maps to take with us.
We began practicing our Italian, mostly learned from listening to operas so we were all set if the subject was love, death, or revenge. For more targeted instruction, I worked my way through Learn in Your Car…Italian, 9 cd’s borrowed (and renewed several times) from the Brewerton Library, but also available in MP3 format through Overdrive.
Over the summer we held a set-in-Italy mini film-fest, with some of our favorites, borrowed from the library:
As the time got closer we zeroed in on areas that we were planning to visit: the hilltowns of Tuscany, Umbria, and the Amalfi Coast.
Now that I’m back at work I keep my vacation mood intact by listening to Italian songs and improving my cooking skills…
and remembering happy times in bella Italia!
