la dolce vita

So I'm getting really psyched for this upcoming trip. Been reading up about the area and wished we had more time to see more but I think we'll plan on going back with the kids one day to show them that part of the world.

Funny too that we are staying at the Venetian which is like a little part of Italy, Venice more specifically. I've always wanted to go to Italy. One can say its partly in my blood. Both my parents speak italian. My dad because where he grew up in Europe, Italian was the second language they learned and my mom worked there many moons ago. When we immigrated to Canada, we lived near the Jean Talon market in Montreal, smack in the middle of Little Italy. All my classmates, the local shopkeepers, my neighbourhood friends and my parents friends and co-workers were Italian. I have fond memories of hours spent in their homes listening to Italian music, oh how they love their operatic arias!, and eating their delicacies. And attending their fun festivities: baptisms and first communions and weddings. Apparently when I was 6 years old I could converse even in their dialects like sicilian and calabrese. The church we went to had mass conducted in Italian. The daycare I went to was run by nuns who only spoke Italian. My high school was 95% Italian and so were my first boyfriends ;) Took a few years of formal italian lessons in high school and always loved the way this language sounds. Listening to Andrea Bocelli or any of the other tenors sing in Italian gives me goosebumps. Years ago, I spent a lot of time in Boston for some continuting education courses and I was always drawn to their Italian neighbourhood. It was all so homey and familiar to me. And the restaurants,yum!!! So lately, when I go for my morning walks I've started listening to a local italian station. A little strange but its really just to keep my ear perked up to this romance language, so I don't forget it as I have a lot less occasions to hear it or even speak it anymore.

Arrivederci mi amici!!!