We STILL believe (and here's why)...

Perhaps this is something that's been widely publicized in most areas, but a few years ago we discovered this website which has become a yearly tradition--tracking Santa. If you want to know where Santa is (or has already been) check out this website, complete with live webcam on Santa's sleigh (you'll see the Coloseum in Rome--though we'll be in bed by then here in Italy--the Great Wall of China, etc.). Have fun with the younger ones in your family!

Naples revisited!

You may have heard...it' s raining in Italy!  It seems like it's been raining forever, with only brief sunny repites.  In fact, last Thursday it rained more in Rome in one day than it usually does in the whole month of December.  The Tiber River which flows through Rome threatened to rise over it banks and the local river beds which have ALWAYS been dry are suddenly swollen with boiling, churling foamy brown rapids and waterfalls!  Our cisterns were already filled in November, so all this water won't directly help us water our gardens come July.  We may just have to put in a well, but that's an expensive project as the water table is very deep (at least $15,000 worth of deep).

We DID manage to spend a mostly dry day in Naples yesterday.  Twice in three weeks...I guess we really like it!  My son is enthralled by the street with all the nativity pieces for sale...especially moving pieces which show a woman feeding the chickens, a man shearing the sheep, etc.  He wants to build a nativity "Presepe" this year out of painted boxes and pieces we picked up in Naples.  

We also were given a private tour of a church/monastary and a  nun took out a special vial which still contained some of Saint Patricia's blood, then solomnly held it out for each of us to kiss.  This previously Lutheran American woman did find that kind of strange, I must say.