No, this picture is not in the USA but here, in Concordia Sagittaria! These road signs are on the corner of the street where the pizzeria Sacco Vanzetti is.

Art exhibit

The fourth and fofth graders of our elementary school made an art exhibit of their paintings. It was very interesting.

Will it last?

A graffiti on a wall declaring true love...wonder if it still is so!

Shopping carts

This is a normal sight here: in order to get a shopping cart outside of the supermarket, you must insert a coin as a depot. This is thought to prevent shopping cart thefts or shopping carts brought away too far from the entrance.

Is this a common system in you country too?

It used to be a cinema...

...and now it is a bank!

Spring fair

Today "from dawn till dusk" Concordia will be full of plants and flowers and stalls selling all kinds of interesting things: it's the annual Spring Fair that always takes place the first Sunday in April. Pictures of the fair coming up soon!

Sitting in the olive tree

Some years ago a famous song said

I'm turning my head up and down
I'm turning turning turning turning turning around
And all that I can see is just a yellow lemon-tree

...it came back in my mind when I saw Miki - my neighbor's cat - sitting in the olive tree...

Certainly a music lover

Certainly here lives a music lover: the balcony's handrail is made of two pentagrams full of musical notes!

A picture to remember a man

Today in Concordia Sagittaria is a mourning day: last Friday, the parson, also said monsignore, suddenly died, leaving the community, religious and not, astonished. I remember seeing him almost every day, moving in the town by bike, going to visit elder people and accomplishing his duty. Today the funeral.

I want to remember him witha happy picture: 5 years ago, the Baptism of my son Leonardo.

Celebrating the 150th birthday of Italy (I)

Tomorrow schools and offices will be closed for an extraordinary day of vacation to celebrate the 150th birthday of the Italian state. Today in many schools, children sing the national anthem and wear a little flag. I just came back from my daughter's school (a primary elementary school) where I listened to children beautifully singing and playing instruments, with the school's principal and the town's major attending the celebration.

Pencil sharpener

We visited a small exhibit of instruments and equipment used in the old days in Concordia. This a pencil sharpener, looks very modern!

Freshly made salame

Freshly made salame ready for customers to buy and eat. School children went during the weektime to see how salame is made and got a coupon for getting one on Sunday. So we took a walk downtown and fetched our salame! (It was very very good!)

Reaching the sky

We finally had some sunny cold days, it has been a big relief after all the fog. Ok, the sunny days are already over and we're back into the fog...but I take a look at my sunny pictures and feel better!

Handmade sign

Almost a threatening sign: handmade, I found it on a countryside road and it says

Speed is the way to the cemetary. Have a nice trip!

Colors

The Oratorio di Santo Stefano is where kids can reunite to play basketball, talk, have fun together (it's property of the Parish). Last summer one of the activities that teenagers did was to color brightly the dull gray cement walls.

Ready to go home

It's 4 PM and it's time to go home. School bus is waiting outside the "Carducci" elementary school, ready to bring some kids to destination. For the others, moms, dads and granparents are waiting the school bell to ring.

Advertisement

This is an advertsiment for English language lessons and it says "Do you want an English tongue?": in Italian, for "tongue" and "language" we use the same word, lingua.

The fishmonger

Today a cross-over post with my other blog I Cinque Creativi (the five creative artists). This is a drawing my 5 year old son made after visiting the local fishmonger with his kindergarden class.

Red twin cars

Telecom Italia used to be the only Italian telephone company. Its monopoly ended about in 1998 when by law, other telephone companies could be chosen for home telephone lines. For some years however, Telecom still owned the phisycal lines, so you ended up paying your own telephone company PLUS a fixed tax to Telecom Italia. Also this came to and end. Right now, there are many different telephone companies and when you choose them, you can also choose to dismiss totally Telecom Italia and pay only one company.

These are Telecom Italia cars...becoming rarer and rarer. These two, parked together at noon near a pizzeria are a clear sign of..lunch time!

Only clothes, bags and shoes

CARITAS is the main charity organization in Italy. It is sponsored by the Catholic Church and organizes many different activities to sustain those who are in need. Caritas also collects used clothes, bags and shoes in these brilliant yellow containers that you see now and then around in all towns and cities.