HANNAH SHARES

Now that we are really settled into our new home, we’ve spent these past few weeks exploring our new city. Our region is still in the “orange zone”, so things are pretty restricted, but luckily the weather has been perfect almost every day, making it ideal for getting lost in the streets downtown. We spent this weekend discovering wine shops, local delis to pick up cheese and takeaway dishes, and of course spots to stop for brioche and caffè. On Monday night we went out for a walk and to pick up dinner we had ordered, and I laughed as we walked home with our dinner… plus three bottles of wine and our favorite cheese (morlacco del grappa – it’s incredible). I told Michael if this is how our “walks” are going to go we should probably start budgeting for them. It’s hard to walk past the quaint wine shops and not pop your head in to check out their selection. It’s even harder not to buy from them when the owners are so kind and knowledgeable about the area’s wines, especially when you know how much their businesses have struggled over the past year. Our wine collection is growing quickly, and I am anxious to crack them open in a couple of months!

This weekend we also got our first glimpse at a social life since we arrived over three months ago. We have met and socialized with lots of people in Michael’s unit while on-post, but with the restrictions in place we haven’t had the opportunity to do much socializing outside of his work. I was so excited this weekend when another spouse invited me over to her house for a cooking class with a local Italian woman. I am sad to say I don’t have any photos to share as the process was very hands-on. However, Francesca (the local woman) taught us her own recipes to make both a classic tiramisù and a ricotta gnocchi. The dishes were amazing and surprisingly easy. I had tried my hand at tiramisù a few weeks ago at home, but I will definitely be using her recipe next time I do! I am excited to have the classic Italian recipes for something fun to make with visitors. I also can’t wait to have Francesca over to our apartment when we have friends and family in town to learn more of her classic recipes!

Saturday night we went to dinner at a friends’ place, which is just a casual Italian villa built in the 1400s. Again, I am sorry, but I was too busy taking the property in to take pictures. Their villa is just outside of Vicenza on a beautiful private property owned by a Countess. It’s complete with a functioning watermill, private Chapel built for the family who previously occupied the property, and stunning views of the Dolomites with lots of room for their kids to run around. We had a wonderful dinner with their family and got home just in time for our 10pm curfew (ha! part of the current restrictions).

Vicenza has a local market every Tuesday and Thursday in Piazza dei Signori (the city center). Luckily, many vendors are still able to operate in the current environment since clothing, food, and plants are considered essential services. The one on Thursdays is typically much larger, and takes over the entire historic district, but I walked through the market this morning and snapped a few photos. I am always drawn toward the flower booths!

Michael has spent a lot of his time outside of work riding his bike. As many of you know, when he finds a new hobby he really dives in head first. Aside from his bike being his main mode of transportation to and from work now, he has started doing long rides for PT some mornings and he usually spends a couple of hours on Saturday mornings riding with another officer in his unit. I am actually really jealous of the places they have been stopping at on the weekends on their rides! I am thinking about having him write a “guest post” here about the places he has biked to so far – leave a comment for him below if you are interested! We’ll see what he says once he reads this. 😊

Tomorrow morning I have my 32-week appointment with the doctor to check on Baby Shares! I am pretty surprised at how few appointments I have had during this whole experience. This will only be my third visit to the doctor here (and fourth appointment total). I imagine I will be going in more frequently from now on, though. I will update after tomorrow, and probably include a highly-requested “bump photo”! Michael has a pretty great photographer following him around everywhere getting great photos of his Italian experience, but me… not so much. *Hint hint, Michael.*

There are lots of rumors going around about what life looks like in Italy starting in May. Our region is supposedly going back to “yellow” next week. We should be able to start eating outside for lunch and dinner and traveling freely within our region. I already made a hopeful dinner reservation for next Monday night (will be our first time going out to dinner since we arrived!) and scheduled an olive oil tour and tasting for the beginning of May. We are really itching for some travel. First on our list when we are able to leave the region is Tuscany in July with baby! While there are only rumors now, it sounds like the country is hoping to open for tourists in June. They will likely be part of an EU vaccine passport program to allow vaccinated tourists. While the American service members and their families have luckily had access to the vaccine on base, Italy has been very slow with their vaccine distribution and are quite behind their planned schedule. I believe they just started those 65 and older this week. We are hoping for some positive news in the coming weeks as we are anxious for our families to visit very soon!

That’s all for now – Ciao!

xx Hannah