Anyway, the anticipation had been building all week for Saturday morning's breakfast: pancakes. The reality is that we could've made pancakes all along using flour, but now the kids were focused on it. Bisquick is not my favorite mix, and anyone that has eaten my pancakes knows I like to doctor them up a bit. Usually, I add a little applesauce, or yogurt, or oatmeal, or berries, etc. But my arsenal was limited. So, I added a little sugar and fresh squeezed lemon juice for lemon pancakes...with powdered sugar on top. That worked.
After breakfast, Josh volunteered to ride to the Poste for me to pick up my mail. He called once he got there to say a) he was first in line, but b) I needed to sign the slip to authorize him to pick up my mail, so c) he would be riding home to get my signature. The agent told him he could just cut the line upon his return to pick up the envelope. So, I guess Saturday morning at the Poste is just a better option than Friday. As I suspected, the envelope contained my Slovak birth certificate (addressed to Anita Rozemberg). It was postmarked on January 25th, so it didn't even take that long to arrive here. Now I am equipped to apply for my EU passport. How great is that?!?
I took Avery as my helper to the grocery store. Five months of shopping there and not a soul at the register strikes up a conversation with me. But show up with the cute 4 year-old and they can't help but speak to you. Come ti chiami? Da quanto tempo siete arrivati in Italia?
Josh took Olivia and Avery to the Zoological Museum just near our house. It's next door to the Zoo but houses all kinds of informative exhibits (about dessert animals and arctic animals, etc.) through taxidermy. Olivia said she thought it was better than the zoo. There was also a dead giraffe available for petting.
I picked Charlotte up from her friend's house and then made ratatouille for lunch. Charlotte went to swim practice in the afternoon and the rest of us...well, we all took naps!
Tonight, instead of the typical "wine and cheese" evening, we were invited to a "suds and snacks" night hosted by an AWAR member. Everyone was asked to bring a craft beer -- and there was quite an incredible selection -- and an accompanying cheese (we were given a list of which cheeses go with which types of beer). Our hostess served sausages, mustards and sweets. We drove with Nicole, her husband Carlo and their friend Fabrizio. Nicole had been to this home before and knew it was difficult to find the entrance so she suggested we all go together. The reason the home has an "entrance" is because it belongs to an Italian prince (Ottavio Lancellotti) and is 350 acres (no typo here) within the city of Rome! It's just 6km west of the Vatican and when you arrive, you feel you are in the middle of the country. Of course, as Princes often do these days, they also rent the property out: www.torrettademssimi.it (If you go to the website, and look at "the barn" you can see where the party was held) In fact, schools often bring classes to study various aspects of nature on the property. This property is only one of several the family owns in Rome. Ottavio's mama lives in a Palazzi in centro.
The party was a lot of fun and one of the guests (visiting from San Francisco) who is an amateur musician played the guitar and sang all kinds of classics from artists like Neil Young, Bob Dylan, Tom Petty and Cat Stevens. In the backround the fire roared. We met some interesting and some bizarre people...then talked about all of them on the ride home.
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