Xmas Eve

Xmas Eve: Another pointless day where I accomplished nothing.

San Francesco 24 Dec 2007

Jet lag is a bitch. As I pen this, I am suffering from the other side of the equation (Yay, mixed metaphors!). Xmas eve saw us sleeping in until 11am and feeling like we were being awakened at 5am. Half of the day (or more apt, half of the daylight) was gone. After a much needed shower (see below), I stepped outside to take my first gander at the countryside.

The above view greeted me from our porch. Porch is the wrong word. Veranda, perhaps? At any rate, this is what I saw. I call it breathtaking. I would make it my mission to reach the bottom of that valley in order that I can photograph our house from that angle. More to come.

This is the exterior of "San Francesco," the farm "house" in which we stayed. The building had previously been a lookout tower on top of a hillock. It had fallen into ruin, the top floors had caved in. In the last decade, it was transformed from ruin into a truly lovely rentable vacation home, surrounded by a working farm.

This was Katie and my bedroom. It was a king sized bed. Hail to the King, baby. Sadly, our bedroom view was far less exciting. It overlooked the pig pen.

This was our bathroom. The place has 7 bedrooms and 7 1/2 baths. We had our own shitter (complete with bidet). The water pressure wasn't great, and the hot water could not withstand the magnitude of showers to which it was exposed, but the privacy was quite nice.

This was the living room. Yes, that is crepe paper. What could have warranted such decoration?

This is the staircase up to the second floor. (Wait, this building is in Europe. I should use the European floor number scheme. This staircase goes from the ground floor up to the first floor.) This staircase is the only remaining original interior architectural element that survived to be renovated. Be certain to note the apparent bowing of the stone, from centuries of footfalls. This staircase was somewhat difficult to navigate. San Francesco has a total of four stories, the ground floor, two sleeping floors of three bedrooms each, and an attic consisting of a large (low ceilinged) sleeping space and two halves of a whole bathroom.

The kitchen window was once an arrow slit. Can you beat that?

This is Guillermina. She lives on the farm. She is a very cute kitten. She loves milk. She loves to be pet on her head and lower back. I miss her.

The property contains some Etruscan ruins. I find it humbling to think that the land was (more or less) continually farmed for 3,000 years. That the evidence exists and is easily accessible, makes this a perfect experience for a Historian. I had a ball.

Oh, yeah. The crepe paper. Katie's cousin Mackenzie (right) got engaged on the trip to Chris (left). Isn't that sweet? Due of the impending proposal, Katie's mom - who had been privy to the knowledge - would not let us leave the property all day. We were going stir crazy. There was only one car available, and we were not allowed to take it. Katie and I and Maggie and Bouba were bored out of our skulls. We wanted to see Italy, but we were forced to stay at the house. It would not have been so bad (lots of cool stuff to see, animals to play with, showers to take, bidets to employ, what have you), except we were kept in a constant state of "it's almost time to go, we just have to wait for so-and-so to get back." If we had been told of the plan (almost everyone else already knew), we could have gone on another hike, or played a game, or something. But, NOOOO!!! Anywho, it was very sweet, and we all went out for Xmas Eve dinner to a Ukrainian/Italian place. Also, it allows my to accurately paraphrase Bender: Ah, Xmas Eve: Another pointless day where I accomplished nothing... except take great photographs, visit Etruscan ruins, play with a kitty, and wish someone congratulations for getting engaged.

Bo.