It's my adorable friend Kristin Rae's launch week for her amazing sweet teen romance WISH YOU WERE ITALIAN!
In the novel, main character Pippa comes up with a list of ten goals for her summer in Italy:
- Don't get arrested
- Don't make a fool out of myself in public
- Get my picture taken at the Colosseum
- Find random souvenir for Morgan
- Get a makeover
- See Pompeii
- Swim in the Mediterranean Sea
- Have a conversation with someone in only Italian
- Eat a whole pizza in one sitting
- Fall in love with an Italian
It's funny, but one of my life goals is to GO to Italy. My maiden name is Pardini and I'm an eighth Italian (I inherited my dad's Italian nose), and I've heard there's still a Pardini flour mill in Lucca.
I also just finished a history unit on the Roman Empire with my home-schooled second grader, which means I now know more than I ever did before about the Pax Romana and ancient Rome. (It was an excellent curriculum, so that's not as pathetic as it sounds.) So, bring on my Italian vacation! I'm ready!
Now that you have a bit of background, here's my own list. (A bit different from Pippa's because I've already found the love of my life AND I'm of legal drinking age.)
- Find the Pardini flour mill
- Drink wine in Tuscany
- Spend an entire day (or two) at a Tuscan hot spring
- Take a cooking class
- Walk around the city of Pompeii
- Attend an opera in Verona at an ancient amphitheater
- Cirque Terre! (Pippa goes there and I'm in love already!)
- Of course gilato; lots of gilato
- Wander through Rome
- Art museum overload in Florence, please
And if you are like me and can't afford the time or money for a real-life Italian vacation at the moment, run out and buy Kristin's book and take a vacation in your head!
Also, there's a wonderful interview with Kristin here. You can read about all the juicy behind-the-scene book details!
I REALLY want to go to Italy. :) My husband is hoping to take some art classes in Florence while we all stay on a farm in the countryside nearby. I could come up with a top 10 things I want to do pretty quickly, but having a conversation in Italian and overdosing on the Uffizi Gallery are definitely toward the top. :) (We're actually all studying Italian for our homeschooling--ancient Rome is next year!--and it's pretty adorable to hear my two-year-old say, "Molto bene, grazie!" when they ask her how she is. Well, she either says that or "2!" because she thinks "How are you?" means "How old are you?" She probably thinks "molto bene" means two. :)
ReplyDeleteOh, and certainly gelato!
Looking forward to reading Kristin's book!
What a fun book! Dagny will take an Italian cooking class this summer!!! Pasta you gotcha!!!
ReplyDeleteI'd love to return to Italy now that I'm Catholic. Had myself a big adventure there trying to reach Rome from Sicily when the trains were on strike. I'd gone to a conference and Michael was going to meet me in Rome. Fun times.
Hey, maybe I'll join Faith in that farmhouse, ride a bicycle through the countryside, pick flowers, and eat fresh mozzarella with tomatoes. Of course, I'll want to pray at all the churches and perhaps sneak in to visit with B16 and Francis.