
We arrived at Blandina's and we all went into the same room where we had lunch on Friday afternoon. Lunch is their big meal of the day, and since we had already had a big lunch at the trattoria, dinner was to be a much lighter meal. (Note: This is the FIRST m





Then Gary had all the rest of the gifts in three different bags - they were mostly products made in America such as maple syrup and P.B. & Jelly - and Gary went around the room one-by-one asking everyone to pick a number bag and he'd pull something out of that bag for them. It worked great for a while, and everyone was enjoying it, but then towards the end he started cheating a little... Francesco had already picked the Welch's Grape Jelly so Gary wanted him to get the Peanut butter to go with it... so when Francesco picked bag #2, Gary would say - Oh, you wanted something from bag #3, and he'd pull out the peanut butter. It was funny, but this way everyone was able to get a few things from America and it really worked out good! I was just relieved to see everything being given away because I could finally get rid of one of my suitcases!!!
Shortly after all of that, I was sitting near Blandina, and suddenly she reached down and grabbed my arm. I was really surprised because she really wasn't very mobile, and mostly sat very still in her chair just observing everything. Francesco was standing next to her and she started talking very rapidly in Italian. I couldn't understand her, but I had a good idea what she was saying - a few months before we left for Italy I had bought myself a bracelet. It was a gold bracelet with real Italian lira attached to it like a charm bracelet. I knew that many Italians, mostly the older ones, really missed the lira and did not like the Euors, and the lira coins were very beautiful. Francesco started translating and said that Blandina noticed my bracelet and says that she misses the lira and dreams of it every night when she goes to bed and she is very happy to see them again. She was still holding my hand trying to look at each of the coins, and I tried to take the bracelet off but couldn't get it off - Joyce
was next to me and I asked her to take it off of me, so she did. I then took it and put it on Blandina's wrist. She started talking rapidly in Italian again, and Francesco said that she was saying, no - she can't take it, it is too much! I told him to tell her that I would be very happy if she took it, and I wanted her to have it. She thanked me over and over again in Italian, and Luigi took our photo. After that, everyone started making speeches. Rossella got up and said how happy they all were to finally meet their family from America and her English had gotten even better than when we first got there - she did really well! Then Danny got up and thanked everyone and invited them all to America, and they all said, "We'll come, we'll come!" Then Luigi got up and said that he wanted to thank me for starting the communication and he felt that he and I had a special bond because we had been emailing for so long - and he thanked Annette for all her work with the geneology. It was all very, very nice and everyone was happy and laughing.
It was starting to get late and we could tell Blandina was getting tired, and we had to leave early the next morning, so we got ready to leave. It was hard saying g
oodbye but we all had
plans for them to meet us at Gabriella's villa in Velletri, South of Rome, on Friday - our last day in Italy. We would be traveling by train from Florence, and they would be driving from Teramo. They walked us back to the hotel, and we all said good-bye. It was sad to leave, but we were excited and happy to have finally met our Italian family and we not only had new family, we also made new friends!!!
That was the end of our adventures in Teramo - well, not exactly... there was still the next morning when we were getting ready to leave the hotel to drive to Orvieto, an ancient walled city in Umbria, when we found out that we got a ticket when we parked the two rental cars in front of the hotel to load our luggage - but that was promptly taken care of by Gary's new friend from the hotel who liked us ever since Gary told him we were part of the "De Federicis" family! He found the policeman for us and we didn't have to pay the ticket. But then, he informed us that the section of the A-24 that we needed to take to get out of town and head towards Florence was closed down, and we would have to detour. No problem... he was going to show us the way. He hopped into his little Italian car and he was off and running before we even backed out of our parking spots! The chase that followed was like something out of the movies and I'm still not sure how we came out of it alive as we followed him at unknown speeds up the mountains, around curves, passing cars on one-lane roads as we were going around hairpin bends - and all on the wrong side of the road!!! It was crazy!!! But we lived to tell about it!
It was sad to leave Teramo, but I have proof that we'll be back. There's an old Italian custom - if you throw a coin into the Trevi fountain, it is said that you will come back to Italy. I have posted a photo on this blog called "7 Coins in the Fountain" - and all I can say is "Arrevederci, we'll be back!"
COMING SOON: A Visit to Gabriella's Villa in Velletri
2 comments:
Where was I, I don,t remember any of this. Gary
Gale, I don't have my camera. Where's my camera?? Do you have my camera?? Oh wait...here it is, in my pocket. Do you have room in your suitcase for my flip-flops?
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