Picture Day! :-D

Wednesday: the middle of the week, and also the last lecture by Nikos.  If I had any say in the matter, I would stuff him in my suitcase and take him back to Moscow to teach at University of Idaho.  However, I would be competing with the rest of my class on that, so we all just settled for him adopting all of us girls as nieces.  So now I have an awesome Greek – born Italian restoration uncle.  Then Max took us out on a tour of Magdalena’s convent and surrounding area, during which I swiped a friend’s camera and took some pictures….

purple flowers. :)

some sort of small rose?

cacti garden!

I am quite amused by snails.  Obviously.  :D

OM NOM NOM NOM

Work on the Porta Burgi is really coming down to the wire.  We only have 2 more days to complete the work on the mortar, as we only have 3 more schooldays left.  :-S  The important part was to fill in the HUGE holes today so that they had time to dry.  I’m talking about 6 inch deep holes where I have to insert parts of bricks in with the mortar.  By the end of the day, I had about ½ to 2/3 of the wall finished.  I felt pretty good about my progress for the day.

After cleaning and chiseling.....

Filling the GIANT hole.

Halfway finished.  I still have to chisel out the rest of the brick and cover it up with mortar.

Schedule for the night:  Hosting the potluck at our apartment, which meant moving stuff around and quietly thanking the weekly maid for cleaning the place in the afternoon. :-D On the way home, my mind was busy thinking of all I had to do still to get it ready, when I saw something irresistible:  a puppy laying by a car on our small street.  I’m telling you, this town is FULL of puppies!  This one was right outside the dry cleaners shop, so I had to stop and umm…. commune…. with this sweet thang.  So fuzzy.  So awesome. 

El Puppy. 

WAY WAY WAY too cute.

Potluck: success.  You wanna know how I know?  I was stuffed with awesome food.  Then what happened?  The longest lunar eclipse of the century.  And what was I doing?  Watching my first lunar eclipse.  In Italy.  Yep.  It was fabulous.  The moon had a slight orange glow for a about an hour as I sat/stood on ancient walls with friends, chatting it up as we enjoyed our glasses of white wine.

Moon on the other side of the eclipse

halfway illuminated again.

I am so blessed to have been given this opportunity to come to this tiny town in the middle of Italy and experience all the history and the culture that one cannot get in the young country of the United States.  To think that God blessed me with this opportunity of a lifetime – really, a life-long dream of mine – blows my mind.  I did nothing to deserve it.  It is/was a pure gift, and has been so amazing. :-D