February 2012
There really is a winter in Florence. Although it is not as cold or as long as our Montana winters, when you are walking or biking everywhere, it can seem pretty daunting. We got a Siberian cold front for a couple weeks. It left snow in many parts of Italy. Florence was mostly spared of snow but not the cold and wind. Sheila would bundle up in all her warmest clothes to ride her bike to yoga or shopping. While our apartment has a good heating system, the buildings are not well insulated so we spent most of the days with our coats on, even in the house. Thankfully, it has warmed up to a balmy 50 degrees Fahrenheit during the day again.
We had several visitors the last month. Josh Brann and his college friend Javi, are architect students who are studying in Paris for a semester. We know Josh from our neighborhood in Kalispell and from the time our boys went to school together at Kalispell Montessori. They came to Italy with their class and at the end of their tour, stopped at our casa for a couple of days. Their visit was during the period of cold, so it was not the most pleasant time to walk the streets, but they made the best of it.
Mikie Dimuro, a Kalispell artist friend also spent a weekend with us. She had been in Venice with a group from Flathead Community College and took the train down for a visit. We mostly walked around the town and ate lots of good food that Sheila cooked up for us.
It is nice to have friends and family visit. It makes us feel connected still to our Montana infrastructure. We have also slowly been making friends here. We have gotten to know a lovely Italian couple in our building, Francesco and Barbara. We have had several language exchange dinners with them. There are several “older” art students who we often meet after the Friday art history lecture, for a class of wine and maybe go out to dinner. Sheila has also struck up friendships with several expats, Matucha (originally from Peru but has lived all over the world), Sherri and Curly (a semiretired couple from southern California) and Megan (a California tennis player who is a buyer for Williams and Sonoma).
We continue to adjust to our cultural experience. Our Italian language development continues to improve slowly, but surely. We are getting to feel more comfortable in the routines and customs of the locale. We notice we seem to spend less time judging what we “like” and what we “dislike” about the culture. Instead, we just seem to move into the flow of things. We have kept some of our old routines (like our early morning yoga and meditation) but we have mostly transformed our schedules and habits to fit the life style found here. There is an appreciation that there are different ways of living life and we are grateful for this time in this very beautiful (if sometimes annoying) place.
Joe continues to love the art training. Probably the biggest news we have is that Joe has decided to finish the full three years of the professional painter curriculum at the Florence Academy (and Sheila has decided to let him). It is a big commitment and will continue to be a big adjustment of course. We will be in the Flathead for the summer, but will be returning to Italy next fall to start the second year of art school.
We hope you all are staying warm and healthy this winter. Take care and we hope to hear from you soon. We love getting notes from our friends and family.
Joe and Sheila
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| Josh and Javi check their emails (it is cold outside) |
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| Dinner with Barbara and Francesco (speaking only italian this night) |
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| Sheila, Joe and Mikie on the terrace at the Museo Annagoni |
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| Sheila and Mikie walk home in the rain along Via Dell Erta |
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| A "long pose" charcoal of Joe's (the model said he didn't work out) |
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| Joe with his nearly completed Bargue "Mose's arm" |
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| Sheila in her winter gear bringing home the groceries |
