Halloween

Sophia and Josephine were worried that Halloween wouldn't happen this year in Italy. So, they got busy....

They carved pumpkins from the neighborhood market, and found 2nd hand dress-ups and fake nails for the occasion.

 

 

  

  

The girls hosted a haunted dinner party with their bewitching personalities. Our apartment was transformed with low lights, lit jack-o-lanterns, hanging skeletons, and other scarey decor.

  





Sophia even found a recipe for carmel when we couldn't find carmel in the store.
 

During the day, Sophia and Josephine treated the Gonzaga students to ghoulish popcorn hands with M&M fingernails....







       ..and later, returned to Gonzaga for tricks-and-treats with a special, spooky friend.


                                                         BOO!

Happy Halloween from the Orlandos!

Venice Magic



 

Venice is magical.

 

Built on piers to protect itself from invaders on horseback, old Venice can't be accessed by motor vehicles. Us travellers get to, from, and through Venice by foot or





by boat.

 


We couldn't get enough of the canals and gondola boats in Venice.




 

Nor the city's unique architecture, influenced by the east.



Glass and art fill the city,

as do the masks.



 


The girls loved to look at the masks, try on the masks, and watch how masks were made.

  


Water is rising in Venice,

  
 





but the city rises above it all.

 

As travellers, we can't get enough of Venice,

 



and can't help but bring the Venice magic home.



Boscolos in Italy

Special for us in Italy is having family living closeby. Angela Orlando, Joe's sister, and Marco Boscolo, Angela's husband, live in Rome with their children, Luca and Eva. But Marco grew up in Chioggia, a fishing port in northern Italy, where his family still gathers for holidays.

Over the All Saint's Day weekend, the Boscolo family welcomed us to their family home in Chioggia. 

(Marco and Angela are standing to the left of us in this picture.)

   We shared wonderful home-cooked meals with the Boscolo family.
We roasted chestnuts, 



and explored Chioggia's waterfront.  

  We discovered boats, and boarded some .

 

We discovered seafood, and ate some.

 

 We played tag with pigeons, and with each other,


happy to be Orlandos, with Boscolos,



in Italy.



.