Casteluzzo

Philippines, Part 1: Have Baby, Will Travel

October 8, 2010January 14, 2017Sarah Bringhurst Familia

Lest you think I’m a wimp for complaining so much about my travel troubles in Western Europe, let me tell you about the time we spent four months roughing it through a third-world country. In fact, I may just make this a Friday series. For other episodes, see here:

Celebrating the Light

October 7, 2010Sarah Bringhurst Familia

I am all for saving the earth. Hang-drying my clothes, recycling, organic food, public transportation, even cloth diapers, I am willing to do a lot. But I have one energy-gluttonous indulgence that I just can’t give up. Incandescent light bulbs.

I think I can trace these feelings back to the year we lived in Vancouver (not B.C.), Washington (not D.C.). Situated just across the Columbia River from Portland, Oregon, Vancouver is lushly green almost to an excess. Spring is a seemingly endless cavalcade of beautiful flowers, and visits to nearby woods resemble an excursion into the Lost World. But these botanical marvels are dearly paid for – by a long, dark, rainy, miserable winter.

a tratti più romantico

October 6, 2010Sarah Bringhurst Familia

Well, I knew this was going to come out eventually, but I’ve held off revealing it as long as I could. I wouldn’t want you to think I’ve ever been accused of being a romantic. I mean, if I weren’t the very soul of practicality I would never subtitle my blog “in search of a dream to call home,” would I? No.

It’s all Tony’s fault, actually. A couple of weeks ago he sent me a Youtube video of a certain Italian singer. And since then I have listened to that certain Italian singer for at least seven straight hours every day (not counting all the hours at night when his songs are still playing in my head).

Are You an Expat or an Immigrant?

October 5, 2010Sarah Bringhurst Familia

What is the difference anyway? Expats and immigrants are both people who’ve left their own country to live in another. The words are synonyms of a sort. Only I suspect that if you conducted a poll of everyone you know from a different country, most would be able to easily self-identify as one or the other. In fact, you could probably tell without even asking.

The differences seem to lie mostly in the motivation for leaving your country to move to another. Immigrants usually move for economic reasons. Work is scarce in their native land, and they move to somewhere they see as a land of opportunity.

Frodo Lives! Or at least Grishnakh and Ugluk do. In fact, they live at my house.

October 4, 2010Sarah Bringhurst Familia

They call it “Orkin.” I hear them speaking it when they think I’m not listening (or is it when they think I am listening and they have secrets from me? That’s what my parents did with Spanish when I was a child). I never quite believed those parents who claimed their children had a special private language. I guess I have to believe them now. I happened to be reading the Lord of the Rings to Axa and Dominique at naptime when we got to Florence. And we were just at the part in The Two Towers where Merry and Pippin are captured by orcs, so there was a lot of the language of Mordor floating around.… Read more

Impressions of Turin

October 3, 2010Sarah Bringhurst Familia

My city mouse beat my country mouse into submission yesterday and we spent the day in Turin. Actually, we went ostensibly to see General Conference, which in Italy begins at six at night. But we drove up several hours early. We happened to park around the corner from the Mole Antonelliana. Supposedly, it is the center of the occult and paranormal in Turin, and like the Withywindle Valley, “the center from which all the queerness comes, as it were.” (Using the word in Tolkien’s original sense, of course, no offense to those who have appropriated it otherwise. We’re talking Turin here, not London.)… Read more

In which Phineas Fogg and I Compare Notes

October 1, 2010Sarah Bringhurst Familia

While we were in the midst of packing for our move from Ireland to Italy last month and I was sicker than a dog so Tony was doing all the packing, I was reading Around the World in 80 Days. Now I am not a huge Jules Verne fan. Let’s face it: the only thing that bores me more in a novel than techie explanations is outdated techie explanations. But I didn’t have too much of a choice when it came to books I could get for cheap at the thrift store down the street. And at least it did not involve insane inventor submarine captains or cannons to the moon.… Read more

Sarah Cynthia Sylvia Stout

September 30, 2010Sarah Bringhurst Familia

Don’t worry, this post discusses garbage only in general terms and contains no explicitly disgusting content.

There is a new mayor in our little town. I admit that we were predisposed against him just because he beat the incumbent, who is both the reason Tony has Italian citizenship and the reason he has a job. But now we have another reason not to vote for him when he’s up for reelection. He won’t take the garbage out. No, really.

Normally in Italian cities (at least all the ones where I’ve thrown out trash) every block or two there is a set of dumpsters for the various types of refuse (glass, metal, paper, plastic and unrecyclables).

Fragole, Ciliege e Miele

September 29, 2010Sarah Bringhurst Familia

Have I told you that Italian is the most beautiful language in the world?

Really, I don’t know how I ever lived without it. The sound of it is intoxicating, like feeling smooth, dark chocolate melting slowly on your tongue. I’ve experienced this before. Something about the sound of what in Arabic they call the “dark consonants” makes little pleasurable shivers run up and down my spine. Especially that deep breathy “H” that comes from way down your throat, as if the very soul were speaking. All the sounds that are most difficult for me to pronounce, of course, are the ones that enchant me most.… Read more

Credi solo a quello che ti dice il cuore

September 28, 2010March 10, 2011Sarah Bringhurst Familia

Axa no longer goes to asilo (preschool), as of today. Too bad the only person to whom I can say, “I told you so,” is myself. I knew it was a long shot, considering what I know about school and her personality. As long as it wasn’t doing any harm, I was O.K. with her going, as long as it actually did help her to learn Italian. There’s nothing else I could see that she could learn better at asilo than at home. And now we’ve seen that it’s not even a good place for her to learn Italian. Surprise! Things were just not working out.… Read more

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