Aye Dio!

We had our company holiday party last night. It was a nice 5 course dinner for all of the 40 or so teachers and staff. The 5 courses consisted of croquets (fried balls of mashed potatoes or fried balls of rice, peas and meat), seafood pasta, meat pasta, then veal (side of potatoes optional), then desert...which was a huge surprise, panattone. I took about 3 bites of everything to be polite, and ate my whole 5 lb serving of panattone, to be really polite. Oh, and I had no problems with the champagne. It was a very nice evening that lasted way past bedtime. Funny that an Italian 5 course meal consists of purely starches and meat. We will be eating salads and veggies tonight for dinner.

The rain has been non-stop for days now. We had a storm, complete with thunder and lightning keeping us awake all throughout the night. Any time the thunder crashed it shook the whole apartment and startled me out of sleep each time. Huge news here in Roma is that The Tevere River by our house is at a record high. Isola Tiberina, which is a small island that sits in the center of the river is slowly going under and the patients from the hospital on the island may even need to be evacuated. The bridge is packed with people wanting to see the overflowing river - the water is even close to the top of the bridge! Hopefully it isn’t closed off, or we won’t make it to work on Saturday...hmmm, not sounding so bad. Sean and I have been notoriously leaving our umbrella in random places. It keeps turning up at some point, but we are often stuck in the rain without cover. We are both in need of new rain coats, as Sean has pointed out to me, “you aren’t in OC anymore”. The other day a woman kindly shared her large umbrella with us while we waited at the bus stop, which I thought was one of those random acts of kindness that should be acknowledged.

Our apartment is filled with the sweet smell of Christmas tree, and the twinkling luci sono bellisime (lights are most beautiful!) - probably my favorite thing about Christmas. Sadly, in Italy it is considered a sin to buy a real Christmas tree. As we ignorantly told people we bought a real tree we received such responses like “Oh DIO!” and “AYE Madonna!”. We don’t tell anyone that we have a real tree anymore and are strategically plotting how we will get rid of it once Christmas is over. I know the old saying “when in Rome” blah blah blah...but I have to admit, this is one tradition I would never want to change! I love our little albero di Natale (Christmas tree).