The last few days

These last few days are among our last days at the castle, since we're now in our last week.  Since we fly away Thursday morning, we're starting to repeat some of our favorite Italian/South Tyrolean activities.  On Friday, we visited Meran and its market, including a special market for the foods of Italy (got some good olives!), as well as the river, the church, and a nice gelato place.

We've also taken to strolling down below the castle in the evenings to feed our old bread to the big pigs.  It's also a nice place to see the castle from interesting angles, to catch a glimpse of the herd of heritage sheep, and to visit our friends the mini-goats.

Yesterday, our friend and her two kids drove us way out in the mountains to a restaurant/beer garden with a large playground.  We met another friend there and watched our collective six kids run around, followed by drinks and popsicles.

Our friend kindly invited us to her house today for a sausage and beer garden party (a tradition, though unrelated, she says, to the actual national holiday of Pentecost, which is also today).  J was delighted to play once again in their garden, and we got to see rabbits, guinea pigs, and a tiny kitten.  We've been very grateful to this family for inviting us over every couple of weeks so that J could have some kids (and their toys!) to play with, and we could have conversation about culture, raising kids here, local news, and other interesting topics that don't necessarily come up when we're ensconced in the castle with the students.  Also, I exchanged some English for German vocabulary from a five-year-old who seemed to understand my German better than anyone else.  Our kiddo was sad to leave and said "we'll come back again another day" when we finally had to hike back to the castle.

This afternoon, we attended our last formal tea with Mary, which was nice.  I think J will miss her more than anyone or anything else here!  He comes running when he hears her on the stairs or the terrace.  This evening, we went (probably for the last time) to our favorite pizzeria in the village.  Our waitperson came out after us to shake our hands when she learned we were leaving this week.

The other evening, we went for the first time to a local restaurant that specializes in home cooked knudel (dumplings) and we liked it so much we went back a couple of days later.  We can't wait to go back there next time we come to the castle!

So, we're excited to get back to Vermont, and to get on with a summer full of friends and family, though I think it's going to be an emotional few days of more "lasts"!