A wonderful thing happened in Northern Italy this week – the
sun came out and the temperatures hit the mid teens. Winter is seems is coming to an end! After the freeze of the last few weeks this
unexpectedly early arrival of spring has been a joyous event. My ugly Michelin man coat is already safely ensconced
in the back of the wardrobe and the horrors of wearing it are beginning to
fade. Thoughts can now turn to a return
to gelati eating and other warm weather treats.
With the sun came another lovely and more personal event – I’ve
had my first family visit! Having a severe
case of travel bug I’m used to and indeed welcome any opportunity to visit
somewhere new but in my family I am the only one with such a condition. In my
years overseas I haven’t had too many visits from the family – understandably a
trip to Australia from Europe is a pretty major endeavour for anyone. Being in Treviso, a place that is just a low
cost airline fright (obviously I intended to type flight but seeing as I’m
talking about Ryanair the first word does seem appropriate) from the UK and
with its own regional airport I’ve been looking forward to playing host for
once. For so many years my relationship
with the family has been maintained by my visits back to the UK that my
siblings have never really seen me in my own environment (or whichever one I’m
trying out.) So this weekend with the
visit of big sister I had the opportunity to show someone a bit of Raji world.
Now what was I going to show her and what would need careful
editing? There’s not much to Treviso –
it’s a pretty small place that to me is more of a place to be rather than
visit. Mostly it was just wondering –
the fish markets, little laneways, looking at the faded frescoes on the
buildings and talking – so much talking.
Of course no visit to Raji world is complete without a giro around
Venice and some of my favourite haunts.
Sister was full of questions about my life and experiences in Treviso
and I wonder if it’s strange to find your little sister established and happily
living in a foreign country? Sister was quite impressed that on our wonderings
I was greeted by so many Trevisans, “so many people say hello to you” to which
I replied “yeah and have you noticed how many of them run bars?” In fact that was a bit of a running theme of
the weekend, stop into a bar for a quick drink and I was welcomed like an old
friend. Suddenly any assurances that I
don’t drink that much fell on deaf ears.
Of course I was looking forward to getting sister to sample all the wonderful
foods of which there is no shortage of in Italy.
T joined us for mozzarella in carrozza (a fried mozzarella sandwich yes
I said fried cheese and fried bread yum) before embarking on one of those impromptu
bar crawls that so often seem to happen with T.
After a few days of walking, talking, eating and drinking we
had both reached our eating and drinking limits and sadly it was time to say
goodbye. While farewells are always
bittersweet it’s been fun having family here, playing host and it’s nice to
know that a member of my family has a concept of my life as it is at the
moment. I hope she understands why I
like it.
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