the view from up on the hill - Vela in the foreground and Trento behind(Pictures are taking forever to upload, so it's mostly text for now :(... )
We're still sort of pinching ourselves that this place - the town, the people, the climate, the food, the house, the team, the mountains, our surroundings - is real. It is, right? We still don't have internet at home so I can't give you any history on the place, but Vela, the town we live in (minutes from downtown Trento) is great; you're from one end to the other in 5 minutes a piedi, and almost everyone seems to know almost everyone else. There's a small grocery store, a very small community centre (with pilates and tai chi classes, and a terza eta group - which I was told means "over 40" today when I walked into the one room, located above the grocer), and gardens gardens gardens galore. Things close at lunch time here (12ish-3ish), and sometimes there's just one woman working at the Co-op, manning both the deli counter and the till - and yes, she lives across the street from us. Hmm, what else can I say about Vela... people are friendly and say hi to each other, there are lots of kiddies, and... it's great! Hendrik and I went for a walk this afternoon, and I snapped some pics of our part of town from up on the hill. There's a celebration of Vela's patron saint (or hm, there might be two of them, if possible) - at least that's what I understood - that starts tomorrow and runs through Sunday; while Steve is at practice tomorrow afternoon, we'll head down to the small piazza and check things out. As the Irish woman that I met the other day said, you can meet everyone this weekend... I assume she was referring to all of the people that live in this wonderful place - stay tuned.
our house, as seen from il giardinoAnd as for our house, there are still no inside pics, but here come the outside ones, ooooh lalalala. Our patio looks out onto a garden that is home to several peach, plum and pear trees, a fig tree, an olive tree, an apple tree, a kaki tree, raspberry bushes, blackberry bushes, tomatoes, cherry tomatoes and that might be it. On the other side of the house is a garden with more tomatoes (several varieties), lettuce (also several varieties), eggplant, zucchini, herbs, a chicken coop and more. That garden leads out to an apple orchard that belongs to someone else, but the orchard is bordered by more gardens that belong to Antonella and Luciano - heaven! Steve said it: Italians know how to live! Yup, they sure do.
And Steve is getting back into the swing of things (pah! - wait, I've penned this pun before) with volleyball; the team is strong, the players are all experienced (just a bit) and I guess it shows why this group is one of the best in the world. They're going to have to be pretty good at traveling too, because their schedule is insane; between now and November 5 (less than 6 weeks) they have 14 games - in Italy and in Qatar and in Serbia... ouf! They're playing in the Club World Cup in Doha, and have Champions League games in Spain, Poland and Serbia, sooooo yeah, let's hope he can collect some air miles.
The house (the house!) came fairly well equipped (there is even a DISHWASHER!), but we still have a small list of must-haves: cutting board, cheese grater, veggie steamer, glass lasagna (/multi-purpose) dish, pizza/cookie pan and COFFEE MAKER (it's in bold on paper). We won't have to buy a frying pan or garlic press or cheese slicer (how Dutch of us, it's the only kitchen utensil we brought), and the knives are sharp enough that we won't have to buy any of those either. Steve has Friday morning off, so the plan is to hunt some of these things down (COFFEE MAKER) then, and until then I"ll have to keep cutting things on plates and planning stove-top meals.
And I have a Hendrik update! Well, two. He has his own Italian-made booster seat (for eating) which has made life a loooooot (a lot, not a loot) easier for me; trying to get food into him while he's all squirmy wormy on my lap was next to impossible and super frustrating - for me and likely for him as well. Anyways, he is pointing at things! Eeeee... he's been identifying things he knows (eg. clock, ball, dog, banana) with his eyes for a few weeks, but he is now pointing at them - !! And his repertoire has expanded to include sock, shoe and cat and it's adorable seeing him learn and identify - we love love love it.
Okay and lastly, new with me is that when I peeked my head into the Over 40 group this morning, I met the guy in charge of the one room that is the community centre, and he told me that there are a few girls volleyball teams that train in a gym
just outside of Vela (probably an 8 minute walk from our place) and he said he'd inquire as to whether or not they'd be interested in having another coach around. I hope he does, and I hope they do; it's highly likely that I'll run into him this weekend at the Vela town Festival, so I can follow up then. Small town (near bigger town) life is so far so good!
So it was last Saturday already that I witnessed my first real DIY make your own wine, and I highly doubt that it gets any more local or fresh than this. The grapes came from Luciano's family's up-on-the-hill property (I think), and were separated from the stems by this sturdy red machine in their very own driveway (which is also our very own driveway, for a short and wonderful while). The grapes, seeds, skins and all, were pumped into big plastic vats in the - ahem - cellar (!!) where they will ferment and turn into winey red goodness. Sure, there's more to the process than this, but after a glass of last year's vino I don't really care to remember; sure it's a bit strong and yeah, I don't suppose it will win any awards, but it is prrrretty good! And, like I said, as natural, local and organic as it gets. By the time that Steve got home from practice, Luciano and his gaggle of wine helpers were sitting around talking sports and drinking wine in the cellar, and when he popped his head down there to see what was a'going on, he was persuaded to join them and then too, persuaded to leave with a litre of last year's home brew. So that's the wine we had with supper tonight, and that's the wine that is sending me off to bed. I am sooo so so behind in blogs - a house tour is coming soon, and so are pics of our day trip to Riva del Garda. It was beautiful, and it is beautiful here. Really, amazing. Am I repeating myself (it is gorrrrrgeous here! gorgeous!) or um, er, ahem.... is that the wine?
Luciano and Paulo feeding the beast
stems, and lots of 'em
tube from machine to big plastic vat in basement... 
And the wine, in its process, goes from here...
... to here... 
to here! YUM!
