teachers' lounge

we awoke early today - 6:30am - it takes 45 minutes sans traffic to get to school...
but i'm not tired at all since the backdrop is so peaceful we all went to bed early. if it wasn't for my cough that wakes me up every hour at night, i would've had even better sleep... as it is, i felt pretty restful. (i think my body's internal clock is constantly resetting and therefore still very confused which isn't bad since i'm still travelling and re-adjusting all the time)

last night we dined al fresco on Nat's beautiful balcony, the view of the lake in the background, candlelight, wine, fresh apple juice nat's mom made... nat's italian husband made this simple yet delicious tomato-mozarella whole wheat pasta, i inhaled it... we had so much fun laughing until our stomach hurts (nat spoke italian with her husband, spanish with her mom and english with me... we had some moments of cross-lingual hilarious misunderstandings!!!!)

then for dessert we had the panna cotta nat made in her ThermoMix (i soooo want one of these, it literally replaces all the various appliances in the kitchen)
i swear, it's the best homemade dessert i've ever had... soooo smooth and creamy. (Nat disappeared for literally 2 minutes to make fresh chocolate sauce... no need for double boiling in case of burning chocolate on the stove or having it seize like so much of my chocolate experiments in the past) OMG, i only had room for half of it last night (her mom also made really good pecan pie) - and no fear, this morning at 6:30am, i wolfed down the rest of it so it wouldn't go to waste....

that was a fantastic family meal, location, great company, super yummy food, and loads of fun.

this place is magical...

taking the train back to Milano this afternoon, am at the school being online for a few hours until lunch....

if my EuRail pass arrive today, I'm off to Roma tomorrow (otherwise, wednesday is Rome) come back to Milano friday afternoon, and off to Firenze on Sunday...