Windows, again

Another beautiful view of windows on an old building in Portogruaro. I love this one.

Maturity exams going on

It's time for examinations in Italy. In these days, "maturity exams" are going on: these are the the final examinations in high school, "graduation" exams. In this heat, schools without air conditioning, 18 year old kids have to go through a written essay (6 hours to write it), then a written exam specific for the type of school they attended (for example, Classical Liceum have either a Latin or Greek translation or Scientific Liceum have mathematical problems), a third written test (multiple choice) and finally an oral exam.

Good luck to all students! (My maturity exams have been ... 18 years ago!)

Medieval window

A beautiful window on a medieval building in Portogruaro. I will post more in the next days, there are some many beautiful spots to show you.

Nice hidden view

One of the very nice things about small and big towns in Italy is that often a building that isn't interesting looking at it from the street front, hides a wonderful and picturesque courtyard and garden. It is fun to walk around and try to get a quick look inside a doorway or a window ...

(This picture is made in Portogruaro)

Here I am

Again a drawing of myself, here. This one is made by my almost 3 year old son, that seems left handed and seems also very interested in drawing: he doesn't do it often, but when he does ... this is the result!

Christmas tree

The small fir tree, actually the Christmas tree, planted last year is still small .. but full of new buds. This is a clear sign that it is ok and ready to grow up high, in some (many) years!

More marketplace

Another shot of the Monday marketplace. This is the kitchenware stand. Always full of ladies ... and sometimes also some men!

Monday marketplace

On Monday morning, the center of Concordia is packed with stands selling plants, clothes, cheese, shoes, kitchenware and so on: it's the Monday market. Actually it is much more than a marketplace: most of the people strolling by the stands uses the marketplace as an excuse to end up chatting with someone or, better, sitting in uno of the many coffee bars sipping cappuccino and talking about what happened in the past week.

Peaches

Summer seems to be here, finally. Today 36°C (96°F) and a beautiful lught blue sky. The town is a desert, everyone is at the seaside (or at home with AC running!). We are enjoying the sun and ... wainting for the peaches to get ripe! (We already ate apricots and cherries from the tree and raspberries from the bushes!)

Drainage basins

The countryside approaching the seaside has many drainage basins. When the rivers and the canals in the inland get too full and the water doesn't flow quick enough into the sea, the damns are opened and the basins get filled with the water in excess, permitting the small towns not to get underwater.

Countryside

Toady a picture of the countryside all around Concordia. I like it very much, it makes me feel relaxed and free. It is a very "open" countryside, very flat and all you see are fields and some old beautiful farm houses. Far away you can see mountains, it is quite peculiar that we don't have hills before these mountains: all of a sudden, from extreme flatness, you go high up. Mountains are about 40 km from Concordia, easy to reach. On the other side of the horizon, the Adriatic seaside, about 30 km from us. Easy to reach too.

Wheat fields

Around Concordia we have mainly three tipes of fileds: wheat, corn and soy. I love wheat. It is so nice to see it get heavier and heavier till its head bends down. The color is wonderful, warm, summer yellow gold. Time to harvest? almost.

Bright colors

Nature shows us wonderful colors. These flowers are my neighbor's, its a big bush full of bright pink flowers. I don't know their name.

Swans

These three swans in some days are in Portogruaro, in other days they swim - always in a perfect straight line - to Concordia. Swans form a family, mother father and babies and they stay together until each baby is grown up enough to form a family.

(In this picture, the three swans where in Portogruaro)

Zucchine (squash)

These zucchini come directly from my parents' garden. It's only the beginning of the production. And the nicest thing is that ... we ate them all! half of them barbecued (divine!) and the other half in frittelle di zucchine. I'll give you the recipe today.

Frittelle di zucchine

500 gr zucchini
white flour
two eggs
olive oil
salt
pepper
oil seed for frying

1. mix a small amount of flour (about 100 gr) with 3 tablespoons of olive oil, making a sort of cream. Add salt and pepper to it.
2. separate egg white from yolks and whisk egg white till it gets firm
3. wash the zucchini and grate them julienne with their skin
4. dry the zucchini with kitchen paper (pressing a bit so water comes out) and mix them with the flour and oil; then add the yolk and finally the egg white
5. put flour to get to the right texture: it must be soft but firm. If you take a spoon of it, it must not drip down.
6. heat enough oil for deep frying. Drop into the hot oil a tablespoon of the mixture you made (you can put about 4 or 5 spoons) and take out of the oil when the frittelle get light brown.

Italian frog

Some time ago I showed you a useful occupier of the swimming pool (the termometer duck), useful when it is sunny. Well, it keeps raining here and the only occupier of the pool right now is this young fellow in the picture!

Oratorio

This is the place youngsters in Concordia can meet. It is the Oratorio di Santo Stefano, a place property of the parish where meetings both religious and not are held. Outside there is a big soccer field and a basketball playground. Right now, at the oratorio there is the GREST going on: it is the Gruppo Estivo (roughly Summer Group) that organizes activities for children aged 6 to 15. They are divided in teams and every days they challenge in some kinds of sport activities, dances, singing and so on. This will last till the middle of July.

Covered walks

This is a view of one of the covered walks in Portogruaro (3 km from Concordia). The two main streets of medieval center of the town are all made of arcades, beautiful to see and comfortable when it rains, as today.

River Lèmene

I haven't posted pictures of our river since a long time. Shame on me: I love the river, flowing so lazily!

Clouds

Pictures of clouds can be quite trivial ... but I like them anyway. I would stay hours laying on the grass and looking at clouds. I still do that common children's game "what does this cloud look like?" ...

Bimbinfesta (II)

Again a shot of last Sundays' Children's Festival. This is the small train the children could ride ringing the bell in front and waving at their parents on the sidewalk!

Bimbinfesta

Yesterday in Concordia was the day of Bimbinfesta (roughly celebrating children). All school made an exhibit of their works done all the year round (Saturday was the last day of school for Elementary Schools up to higher classes, while kindergarten ends at the end of June) and the town's major gave prizes to the best works. By the way, my daughter's Kindergarten won the first prize (extra funds for the school) with this motivation: "for the effort and the original ideas and very expert realization of a big project about saving Nature and civil living together".

The very center of Concordia, all around the Cathedral was full of children happily involved in toys market, drawing and painting in the street, clowns theatre, a couple of merry-go-rounds. All offered by the town's council, free of charge for children and parents.

A very nice day. I'll post more about it next days.

Parco Zoo Punta Verde

Usually I don't like zoos very much (I don't like the idea of animals in cages). This one is special. It is the zoo of Lignano, a town on the Adriatic coast about 25 km from Concordia.

The Parco Zoo Punta Verde is first of all a research site and its mission is education and instruction. Animals are not in cages but free, in fenced places. For example, monkyes "own" a whole island, free to jump from tree to tree. Crocodiles have many canals and some small ilsands to rest and so on.

Yasmine

In our backyard we have many big bushes of yasmine. Right now all the flowers are pointing downwards because it has been raining hard for the past 5 days. The air is sweetly scented with their parfume, it is very pleasant.

Do you want a coffee?

Directly from my cupboard in the kitchen: being Italian, I could not be without a set of coffee pots!!! Each caffettiera has its own history ... Starting out from the left side:

* the one my husband and I bought when we moved in together
* the small one (one cup) my husband used to make me coffe when we just met (and romance was beginning)
* the Bialetti Mukka that my parents gave us as a present a couple of anniversaries ago (this is quite a special one, it makes cappuccino because you put both coffe and milk inside)
* the one my husband bought when he went to live my himself before knowing me
* finally a set of three (one cup, three cups, six cups) that we got as a present when we married

You could almost say that you can tell an Italian family's story by looking at the caffettiere!!!

By the way: right now for our breakfast coffe we use a normal drip coffemaker (American way), isn't that funny!

Spaghetti alla marinara

A typical seaside pastasciutta dish: spaghetti alla marinara. Spaghetti al dente, tomato sauce, parsley, garlic, mussels, clams, prawns and sometimes a bit of peperoncino (red hot pepper) to spicy it up. In such a raniy day, I just can think about cooking and enjoying our wonderfully rich cuisine!

(picture courtesy of my brother Stefano)

Summer!

Finally summer has come here too! All of a sudden, we are sweating in humid 28°C ( 82°F). We started going to swim every day! This duck termometer (that comes from USA by the way!) tells us that the water temperature is around 24°C (75°F).

Portogruaro ring road

After discussing the project for at least 15 years, in a typical Italian style, the Portogruaro ring in being built. This road will run all around the center of Portogruaro and will give relief from all the traffic going to the seaside. Last but not least, it will make me get to work in about 10 minutes less time (20 minutes instead of 30!!!)

The flyover is almost all set, the work is proceeding very fast ... now!

No picture

Today no picture. I can't get blogger to upload my picture, I always get a server timeout. So .. have a nice Sunday, see you tomorrow!

Bridal Cinquecento

Going back in time, 9 years from now. This is the car we used when I got married. We were four of us in this odl Cinquecento: two in front (a couple of friends) and me and my newly-wed husband (almost 2 meters tall!).