I LOVE my Italian family!!!

We spent last night in Caltrano, where my family is from in Italy. It was beyond perfect! Rita picked us up at the train station and we went to Linda and Francesco's home where we were greeted with "Ciao Ciao Ciao Ciao!" from the balcony and more food than I knew what to do with! My favorites were Linda's roasted chestnuts that she gathered in the woods and Francesco's homemade wine and cheese. In fact, everyone there made their own wine. We saw (and tasted) so many homemade wines! It was great! Then Fabio and Francesco took us to the nearby town of San Dona! It was very small and way up in the mountains. Some of the homes in the town were over 1000 years old. We saw the home where my great-grandfather was born. It was really amazing. Fabio was friends with everyone!! We would walk down the street and locals would hear us and pop out of their homes to come talk with us. We stopped at a local bar for espresso and met a woman with the last name Sandona. It was so cool! That night there was a party at Rita's and the WHOLE family came! We just kept preparing food. I was buttering bread for about an hour before I realized we were buttering a heck of a lot of bread and began to wonder how big this family is. I love them all so much! They are fun and kind and loud and it really explains a lot about my dad!!! He would never want to leave Caltrano! And I didn't either. I can't wait to go back. I want them all to come visit us in the States.
But now we are in Venice and it is just beautiful. I've heard about how beautiful it is my whole life, but it's one of the few places that is even better than I imagined. It's flooding as I type, so I hope we get to go out tomorrow, but I'm sure whatever happens we'll manage to wade out for some shopping and wine.
Our stomachs hurt from laughing and eating!