The End of an Era (aka Ski Season) (03/30 - 04/01/2013)

 As April brought to a close the ski season for us, we decided to take the long Easter weekend to do one last ski trip.  Since we had done all our skiing thus far on the north west side of Italy (and into Switzerland) we decided to head east to an area of the alps called the Dolomites (Le Dolomiti).  The Dolomites are in northern Italy just south of the Austrian border.  We felt like we had driven into Germany at certain points as the signs changed to German and the style of the buildings as well.

Le Dolomiti!

Our cute little hotel

In Italy the Easter holiday is on Monday (rather than Good Friday), so we drove up Friday night and Saturday was our first day of skiing.  The nice owners at our hotel explained that rather than just skiing one area its possible to do a giant loop of the major passes of the Dolomites in 5-6 hours.  We decided taking the tour would be a good way to kick off our weekend.

The orange and green lines mark the path for the loop through the passes.

 Unfortunately Saturday was a bit overcast and became more and more foggy throughout the day.  This resulted in me skiing a bit like an old woman, just because I couldn't see the trail a few yards in front of me.

The fog is rolling in...

We might have taken it slowly but we were able to complete the full loop and make it back to our car before the lifts closed on us.  Even with the less than perfect weather it was still very cool to be able to take a tour of all the various ski areas.  Luckily, Saturday the sun came out and gave us a very warm and clear day.

The previous day's fog had turned to snowing at night, and it left us with a surprise the next day.... lots and lots of snow!

Derrick of course took to it right away.  I was a little slower, but once I got the hang of skiing in that much snow we had a lot of fun (though it was tiring!).  It also made for excellent people watching on the ski lifts, because everywhere you looked there was someone laying in the snow after being surprised by a big snow pile.

Like a fish to water.

In the end we had una molto buona Pasqua (a very good Easter) in the mountains.  And with the help of our hotel's hot tub, we were able to returned from our trip relaxed and happy.

Buona Pasqua tutti!

St. Patrick's in Dublin (or You Only Live in Europe Once)

With the goal of trying to enjoy as much of the European experience as possible while we're over here, we decided to head to the land of shamrocks for St. Patrick's Day!

(I apologize in advance for the poor quality of these photos.  Of course I forgot the camera so these were all taken with an iphone with less than perfect results.)

We arrived Saturday afternoon and after checking into the hotel we headed downstairs to the pub under our hotel to kick off the festivities.

First drink in Dublin!

Our local pub for the weekend

After the kick off festivities we headed over to the craft beer festival where we met some locals.  They thought we were lacking in Irish accessories so they dressed us up a little bit!

Homemade Irish shamrock cookies.

Check out the bow tie.  This was actually one of the Irish  girls hair bows.

My favorite leprechaun!

Sunday morning to begin the St. Patrick's day celebration, we headed over to the Guinness Brewery.

At the brewery we learned important skills like how to pour a perfect pint of Guinness

 The brewery also had an Irish sing-a-long and traditional Irish dancers.

We figured we couldn't go all the way to Dublin without visiting a few of the major sites, so we headed over to St. Patrick's Cathedral, Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin Castle and Trinity College.

St. Patrick's Cathedral

Christ Church Cathedral

It looks a lot like Dumbledore's podium!

Underneath the church itself was a large crypt that was still undergoing excavations.

Mummified cat and rat found in an organ pipe.

Dublin Castle

Trinity College

After seeing the sites we hit the pubs to taste the local brew and enjoy the evening Irish style!

Natale in Italia (Christmas in Italy)!

To get everyone excited for Christmas, here's some photos from the holiday season in Lecco!

Okay these first pictures are actually from Milan at our friends Sarah and Alessandro's apartment, but they are still holiday related so I figured you would let it slide.  We went over to Sarah and Alessandro's to celebrate Thanksgiving (Sarah's American, Alessandro's Italian) and to make the closest approximation to the traditional American dishes as we could!

Ale working hard on the dressing.
I learned that its called stuffing when its cooked in the turkey, and dressing when its cooked outside the turkey.

Our lovely hosts!

Our turkey (breasts) cooking in the oven.

The thrown together stuffing, which turned out surprising well.

The boys are ready to eat!  (L-R) Alessandro, Cody, and Derrick.  Cody's another American working for Cameron at Derrick's plant and he arrived here about a month ago.

 I should have taken more Thanksgiving pictures.  We ended up with turkey, dressing, mashed potatoes, green bean casserole, cranberry sauce (we had brought a can back with us from when we were in Texas to get our  visas), and pumpkin pie.  Sarah actually made the pumpkin pie out of real pumpkin (no canned pumpkin in Italy!) which I found to be mind boggling.

Okay, onward to pictures of Lecco!  They've put up these pretty lights all over town, which have been doing a good job of motivating me to get out and do some Christmas shopping =-)

Piazza XX Settembre

Really cute restaurant decorated for the season!

Why would Santa need reindeer when he's got his own dog sledding team?

Viale Turati.  By our house! 

Derrick and Cody getting into the holiday season the only way they know how:
green Santa hats and Irish beer. 

Our Christmas Tree (albero di Natale)!

And last but not least, the city of Lecco has brought us snow, snow and more snow.  We have high hopes that we'll be able to do our first skiing of the season this weekend.

 

Next on my list of to do's: buy water proof shoes =-) .  Merry Christmas everyone!