lilac

this shopping blog entry is dedicated to all my girl friends out there living vicariously through my patchwork versions of misadventures in europe... :)
And Nat made 'panna cotta' in her thermomix, we're having it for dessert tonight!

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it's a beautiful quiet after at my friend Nat's place (she's sleeping at the moment - afternoon nap, she is exhausted from lack of sleep at nights as i'm sure mothers everywhere can attest to that amount of sleep deprivation from having 2 young kids close in age)

if i had to imagine paradise on earth, this little slice of the world would be it.

Maccagno is a little town that borders Lago Maggiore - one of the 4 famous northern italian lakes (only 2 of the 4 border both Swizterland and Italy) - the scenery is breathtaking here, a complete world apart from San Jose. the lakes are stunningly beautiful, the mountains in the background (with snow on top, just like any typical pictures of 'swiss mountains)!!!!

Nat's kids are beautiful and so adorable - Sebatian, 2 years 4 months, and Lucas, 7 months, are the tamest and most adorable boys i've ever seen. Nat works full time at a school in Lugano, and i'm envious of all the kids that get to go there...

before i left Milano, i serendiptiously walked into a shoe shop around the corner from my friends' place and bought a pair of italian leather short boots for 40 euros (50% off sale).... this morning we went to Cannobio, which is a town across the lake, took a ferry, and the scene is unreal. it's beautiful like in the pictures or movies, except it's real. parts of the twisty windy little roads look like montreal but even older - one can imagine having lived here many many years ago. Yet all along the shore, the markets were robust and bursting with activity - people selling anything: clothes, aprons, postcards, purses, toys, etc.

i broke down and bought a purse... honestly it was love at first sight, we walked off the ferry, the purse caught my eye, but we wandered through all the stalls, then had a nice lunch outdoors, then did a last round of shopping and i finally mustered up the courage to look at it closely and dared to ask the price.
The leather was so soft, i can make this my pillow and dream & drool on it all day long. once i touched it, i had the same feelings that came flooding back to me from many years ago - my friend Ange was the witness that during a starving phase of our french camp summer at Universite de Laval, i hugged a box of frozen chicken wings until we checked out and paid for it - or someone had to pry it out of my cold dead hands.
i was not leaving the market without this purse.

italian damage up to now: leather boots (1 pair), dreamily soft italian purse (1), pashima scarf (1 - but only because i had to match my purse)

the color of the purse is different from any i've ever own - lilac
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orchid_(color)