Ciao Readers!  Happy New Year and Welcome Back!!!  I missed you!

I hope everyone had happy, warm and safe holidays.  How were our holidays?  Well, thanks for asking…

Over the past couple of weeks Steve and I took time to relax (yay!), tour Italy a bit, and eat (too much, as required this time of year).  We started off on Steve’s first weekend off by finally having our “Thanksgiving” meal (hey, it was only about 3+ weeks late).  Since I already made a pumpkin pie in a test-run, I decided to go for my s’mores pie instead.  I made the crust from Filipino graham crackers I got at Vivi Market (also where I got the [Swiss] marshmallows).  It wasn’t 100% spot-on, but delicious nonetheless:

We did the usual “Thanksgiving” ritual – eating while we watched holiday movies (less traditionally, on a lap-top).  Here’s one of the cats enjoying Pee Wee’s Christmas Special:

In addition to celebrating “Thanksgiving,”  we tried out (or re-tried-out) some local ethnic dives (Rosticceria), which are so yummy they get their own post.  We also went on a “road trip” to Venice (and are planning one to Lucca this week), and those will also get their own posts in the near future.  We took time to revisit and newly visit museums covered by our cool Uffizi card as it expired Dec. 31st.  (And, of course, we did less exciting things (read books, cleaned house)).

Finally…for the first time in about 20 years (O-M-G, I am O-L-D!) we left the house on New Year’s Eve.  As I’ve mentioned before, it feels entirely safe here walking around just about any time of night (well, any time we’re still awake).  At about 9:00 p.m. we ventured out to walk the various piazzas and take in the live music that was scheduled.  Little did we realize that 9:00 p.m. was way too early for the festivities to begin.  As you can see from the empty band stand behind me, not much was happening at that time (not sure what I was thinking, 9:00 p.m. is barely dinner time here!).

So, after strolling a rather quiet city, we returned home.  We did discover that there are fireworks all over town at midnight (though from what I understand, not sanctioned) and from our roof terrace we got to watch the city alight:

All in all, putting aside a few days of my being under the weather and the fact that it was cold and still raining much of the time (seriously, enough with the rain already!), we had a lovely few weeks off.  Here’s to the new year!