La Certosa

After going nutso chasing the perverse and often baffling price of air tickets all over the web, I finally committed and bought my tickets for the family gathering in Italy. Not that we're Italian, but we did grow up eating lasagna.

I'll drive to Portsmouth, bus to Logan airport, fly to JFK (meet Lyn and the girls) and thence to Pisa, where we'll bus to the train station, and train to Cortona. At that point, Lea and Phillip should be waiting at the station with encouraging words, foot rubs and local alcohol.

The first time I went in Italy, the final leg of the trip was by water taxi in Venice. Short of taking a hot air balloon, I don't know what other forms of transport I could fit in.

Though Hannibal's elephants do come to mind.

Weekend in New York

Here's Scott, looking very Irish-Sea-Captain-y.

And now we have Lyn, Charlotte and Lilly and Landon. Missing from the grandkids are the twinsicles, Rebecca and Patrick, who were visiting family in Florida during my trip. These are more correctly Lyn's grands, but I reserve to right to share a little.

We spent time searching for flights to Italy, eating, shopping (for food), and getting Lyn's eyesight checked out as she decided to jump on the retinal tear bandwagon. Since both her younger sisters have already had tears, she was a little late to the party, and, probably due to our early adopter status, caught hers before harm was done.

Knitting was slowed down because of the need to reference at least 6 different pages in Cat Bordhi's book in order to make a single sock, and I had only photocopied three.

Travel to Stamford via bus and train: the Regional service out of Boston's South Station. Return trip on the Acela, Amtrak's high speed train, costing twice the other service, with less leg room, and a markedly rougher ride. Maybe I'm just partial to slow.

Home to the warmest Maine day in 6 weeks- up to the 40's! Melting everywhere!

Spent the day cooking anyway: braised beef shanks, hand made pasta, cream puffs. I had my cholesterol checked last week, so I figure there's plenty of time before I have to do it again.