Playdate with Watercolor Paint

I had the pleasure of meeting Nancy from Indiana a couple months back. Nancy is a creative and energetic retired schoolteacher, who spends most of the year abroad. Somehow in our conversation that first meeting she told me about her watercolor project: She paints her travelogues on postcard-sized paper! Nancy shows me a sample of her work, and I fall in love with the concept.  I think it a creative way to imprint lasting memories.

Maestro Nancy

Watercolor has always been the paint medium I prefer; my artistic talent is sorely lacking, never graduating from stick figure drawings.  Nancy insists her approach is so simple and easy that even I can do it. I ask Nancy to show me her technique. I challenge her to teach me.

Nancy's work in progress based on Villa La Petraia visit

Today is our playdate. Lucy and her daughter, Elizabeth, and I traipse on over to Nancy's home for our painting lesson. Nancy tells us this is a new art form for her which she incorporated only a few months ago when she returned to Europe. As she explains her techniques, we follow our maestro's guidance. The first thing we do is section our postcard-size paper into at least five sections. That way the blank page is less daunting. Nancy makes a postcard for each side trip she takes. I choose Italian subjects that require minimal skill to sketch. We have scheduled an hour for our playdate, but we stay five. We each go home with our own miniature capolavoro ("masterpiece") after also sharing ideas, laughs, and getting to know one another a bit more.

Elizabeth has talent

Notice the detail in Elizabeth's first masterpiece

Nancy shared with me an entire book filled with her miniature paintings. Each one is priceless.  Because I doubt my artistic ability, her point was to show me the evolution of her skill in poco tempo (little time). I do have hope. Even I could see the evolution of her style and technique as she grew confident in her newfound skill and learned how to handle the brushes and paints. Thank you, Nancy, for sharing with us. 

Elizabeth's

My creation.  Um, can you recognize any objects???

A picture is worth a thousand words; each miniature picture here tells many, many stories.

Lucy's creation

Many stories

Keep an eye on your mailbox. You just might receive an original piece of artwork in the mail from me one day soon.

Humanities 101 (Notes from a Recent Trip to Los Angeles)

More than two months ago, on 2 February, I left Florence in a hurry ... and arrived to Los Angeles with a sad and heavy heart under a cloud of unpleasant circumstances.  This trip home was not planned, but sudden.

The generosity of my friends and family overwhelmed me then, and now, when I look back, still overwhelms me. Each and every one of you played a part in my feeling loved and cared for at a time when that was precisely what I needed. Many of you went out of your way to be available for me in one form or another. Words alone cannot adequately describe my gratitude for your kindnesses. Nonetheless...

In a short month's time, I had the opportunity to see so many old friends, and family, which helped restore my faith in humanity during a crucial personal crisis. During our too brief time together, we enjoyed plenty of laughs, tears, stories, love shared, love lost, bonding, re-bonding, meals, and even a bit of shopping.  (Needed that!)

A big THANK YOU to all of you.

With love from Florence, Italy

Panzano-in-Chianti

Panzano, Italy, is at first glance another typical Chianti town (a region of Tuscany). You know what I mean:  the vineyard-studded rolling hills, the blue skies, the many stores that sell the local vino (wine), the cute piazze (squares) in the center of each town where locals sit and chiacchierata (chat and gossip). Chianti is just so cute and particular.

Panzano has at least one item, though, that sets it apart from the other Chianti towns.  Walk up to a building painted outside with red-and-white horizontal stripes and a couple of cow statues on the street, and that is where "typical" ends.  Enter Antica Macelleria Cecchini to the music of AC/DC blasting full volume on the stereo and be welcomed by a man who balances a teetering stack of 10 or 12 glasses in his left hand and a giant jug of Chianti wine in his right.  His pants share similar red-and-white stripes as are painted outside the store, only on him the stripes are vertical.  He smiles broadly with a bit of an impish look on his face.  It feels like a Fellini movie set.  He doesn't say a word, but as he leans in close, he expects you to remove the top glass for him to fill with the local red wine. You can't help but wonder what this man has been smoking. Do not be alarmed:  This fellow obviously loves his work.  He is completely absorbed.  Say hello to Dario.

Dario pinching some "ciccia" (meat, fat, flesh)

Dario Cecchini is a macellaio (butcher) but far from ordinary. Famous throughout Tuscany and beyond, and even in America, especially California since he married a woman from Berkeley a few years back. When you are in the store and welcomed with a glass of wine, there is also true Italian hospitality with salume (cured pork meats) and toasted bread with fresh olive oil and special spreads... Really, you could get away without ever going upstairs to sit down for lunch.  If you are even the least bit goloso (gluttonous, gourmand, tempted by food), all the aperitivi (appetizers) just whet your appetite.

Degustazione (sampling, tasting)

A butcher Dario is, but upstairs is Dario's restaurant. Italians and tourists flock to the place. I have been a handful of times over the years but only at lunchtime when he offers his MacDario menu, a choice of two meals for 10 and 20 euros. The quality of the food is excellent, healthful, and absolutely delicious.  He has his own catsups and mustards and aromatic sea salts, which he sells in the store and we enjoy with our meal as well.  For those of you who do not eat meat, Dario offers a vegetarian meal as well.  See the photo of my friend's vegetarian option, which she said was very tasty.

 Pinzimonio (raw veggies with olive oil and sea salt for dipping)

It may not look like anything special, but IT IS AMAZING!

MacDario Sushi

Vegetarian option (changes daily and is not on the menu)

If you visit Florence, getting to Panzano is one of the few places in the Chianti region easily accessible by public transportation.  By SITA bus, the trip takes barely an hour and drops you off 20 meters from the entrance to Dario's butcher shop.  Eating lunch at Dario DOC is a fun experience and a lovely day trip. And if you can get yourself up and out of your chair after the meal, you can even enjoy the quaint hill town of Panzano in Chianti before returning to Florence.

Good times, good friends

in the sun with a full belly at Dario DOC's

Buon appetito.

A Delightful Episode of Sensory Overload: Istanbul

One week in Istanbul was not enough time to visit all that my friend and I wanted to see and do. Relaxation time was not in our schedule, nor our vocabulary.  Despite our racing about, I remember well the genuine and kind-hearted people we met.


I remember also sitting on the rooftop terrace at our guesthouse for one or two hours one afternoon under a grapevine canopy overlooking the Sea of Marmara with the sea breeze on my face while sipping Turkish tea, resting my weary feet ... finally absorbing all that touched my senses.  What a wonderful people, culture, city, and holiday.  I must return.


I hope my photos below capture the wonder I felt and help re-create, for you, the magic that is Istanbul, Turkey...

View of Galata Tower from the Golden Horn of the      Bosphorus Strait

Hagia Sophia (first a church, then a mosque, now a museum)

Making bread and Turkish pancakes

How many different kinds of baklava are there?

Another Turkish yummy.  Looks like birds' nests to me.

Selling melon

Passing the church/mosque mosaic

Mohammed and Omed, two new and young friends

Pistachio baklava

A "shish" lunch.

Spice bazaar

Turkish Pinocchio

A young friend anxious to grow into her shoes

Marble Halvah straight from the source!

Fresh-squeezed pomegranate juice in abundance in Istanbul

Corn on the cob

Smoking the nargile

On the Bosphorus looking at Asia heading towards the      Black Sea

Nuts, I just like the foto

Selling Simit, which is like a sesame bagel that ran into a pretzel

"Yaya yolu" is a funny way to say "pathway"

Sugar cubes, a necessity for Turkish coffee and tea

Skyline of minarets

Bitter melon reappears even more colorful than before    (See my earlier post)

I know it seems I ate my way through Istanbul, but I really did go to many monuments.

Turkish rugs and kilims

Among my many amazing experiences this holiday was shopping for a rug. I went to Turkey with the intention to buy one, and yet, I just might be one of the few tourists to return home without a rug.  

Nostalgia / Homesick

After five days' travel in the nearby regions of Le Marche and Umbria and a week-long absence from Mabel, my dog, who enjoyed her own holiday with an Italian family, we are again reunited.  Mabel stays close to me and tells me when she wants to be petted and just how and where to carezzarla (to pet her).  She is by nature a non-demanding little girl, but today she has no qualms asking for exactly what she wants and needs.  I love her style.

Crossing the central Apennino mountains

Meanwhile, it has been my desire to see every square inch, or centimeter, of Italy since I first fell in love with this amazing place.  However, this trip, I observed something out of character.

Fermignano (Le Marche)

Urbino (Le Marche)

Urbino (Le Marche)

I was homesick.

Abundance of sweet, fresh cherries

Castello della Pieve (Le Marche)

I have no memory of ever being homesick.  I have traveled on my own, without my folks, since I was a fairly small child, and I do not ever remember looking forward to going back home.  I always found it interesting when people say what a great trip they had, "but there is no place like home.  Home Sweet Home."    Only one time a few years ago do I remember being excited to return to Los Angeles, and that was because I was dating someone I was pretty crazy about and could not wait to see him again.

Urbino (Le Marche), Italy

Mercatale sul Metauro (Le Marche)

Sant'Angelo in Vado (Le Marche)

Only five days away from home this time, yet every day I longed for my home.  I missed my people; Mabel; my daily rituals and routines (never thought I would say that); my bed, a matrimoniale (two twin beds zipped together and not long enough for my altezza (height) but I missed it nonetheless); my yoga mat and hoop; certain routes I take; certain people I see daily; a certain someone who gives me a juicy kiss.

Gubbio (Umbria) (above 2 fotos)

I could not help but wonder:  What is wrong with me?  What happened to my sense of adventure and my love for exploration?  Maybe it had to do with the space I was in. This was a first for me.

Amicizia (friendship)

 Lifelong friends and local men of  Mercatale sul Metauro (Le Marche)

Old bridge and house at Mercatale sul Metauro

Without needing to figure it all out, what I observed this past week confirms for me that home is where the heart is, and Florence, Italy, is my home.  

Growing old together

Gubbio (Umbria)

I am home!