Real Italian Wedding - Nelson & Stefania

One of my good poker buddies, Nelson Nunez, invited Cyn and me to his wedding to his long-time girlfriend Stefania. Nunu is from Puerto Rico, but Stefania is from right here in Italy. In fact her family lives about 5 minutes from us in the the town of Dueville. You gotta be there for your buddies on their big day, and besides, the reception promised to be a blast. So we donned our good duds and headed on over to the church of Dueville.

It was an incredibly beautiful ceremony, but it was entirely in Italian! At least they had a nice program that allowed us to follow along with the ceremony. It went on for a little over an hour (catholics... oh sorry dad!) But they both looked great.

After the ceremony we drove about 30 minutes to a nearby town called Tezze sul Brenta. Well it took us about 40 minutes because the "Nigel Carruthers, GPS" got us a little lost. However what we found at the end of the ride was wonderful. The hotel had catered an extravagant reception that began with drinks and pupus by the pool and went on and on for an endless number of courses... I can't be more exact than that because we never even made it to the end. We had made it through the appetizers, and 2 pasta dishes, and a salad, and 2 meat dishes including, get this, Fireworks Pork! Then the dinner took a break at about midnight for sorbetto and dancing. I've never been to a meal that had a 45 minute break in the middle of it!! As much as I wanted to stay for the next few courses and the cutting of the cake, the redhead had had just about enough. The next day we heard that the hardcore party-goers had made it all the way to 3 in the morning. Che Festa!!



Best Wishes to Nelson & Stefania for a long and happy life together!

Ciao,
M

Tuscany with the Aylwards

On June 9th we met Patti & Tim Aylward, our good friends from Hawaii, and their extended family in Tuscany. Patti, Tim, their son Phillip and Patti’s sister Joyce her husband Tim and their delightful son, 4 year old Gavin were on a cruise around Europe.












I had arranged for a personal tour with tour guide and friend Maria D’Arrigo who runs her company A Touch of Tuscany Tours (www.tuscanyitalytours.com) in the beautiful region of Tuscany. Maria is American, married to an Italian and is passionate about the history and art of Italy. She has a fun sense of humor and truly enjoys her job.









Since the ship at the last moment decided to dock in La Spezia instead of Livorno, we started of the day with a few challenges to find every one but we did and the “Hawaii” connection was made in Pisa. After a quick tour of the old crooked tower and the well maintained Campo we were off to Florence to be bedazzled with all the history and art one could shove into an afternoon. One of the highlights was seeing Michelangelo’s David at the Academia. It was great to see Patti and Tim and spend some time catching up with their busy lives and showing off a little of our adopted country.




Maria got the Alywards back to the port on time to board their ship and with a fond “Ciao” to Maria, Michael and I were on our way driving north through the mountains back up to our home in Vicenza. La dolce vita!