Happy Fall Y’all - Autunno
Fall has arrived in our town and with it the crisp air, the crunchy autumn leaves, the colors, the squash…
Due to Alex’s study schedule and COVID precautions we haven’t been traveling very much lately. But I’d say we had a pretty successful Autumn before the November cold and rain took over.
Early on our Italian-American friend Alyssa wanted to carve jack-o-lanterns and while we couldn’t find any more pumpkins ( she got hers early) we managed to get a Japanese pumpkin (kabocha squash) which works just as well and set to work carving Alex’s first jack-o-lantern!
We were pretty pleased with our efforts. (obvs I wore my jack-o-lantern shirt)
The day was perfect and we were happy to eat by jack-o-lantern light on the balcony that night!
The next day we roasted him with some fresh veggies -delicious! Arguably even better than a regular pumpkin.
It was so good we did it again with little kabocha squash the day before Halloween in order to have proper Halloween night jack-o-lanterns! Paired with my grandma’s spiced cookie recipe shaped into ghosts and jack-o-lanterns? Perfect autumn vibes.
For my birthday on Halloween we wanted to do something simple and something safe so we ended up going for a really long bike ride through Parco Caprette
and to the very very small town of Vezzano sul Crostolo. The path their followed along the river, through beautiful autumn countryside with great colors.
The semi-packed trail is fairly wide and there were a few groups of people but mostly we were able to ride side-by-side and enjoy the scenery and tree-lined path.
Finally arriving at Vezzano we stopped for a wee slice of birthday cake and actually delicious vanilla tea. It’s the first really nice tea I’ve had at a café in Italy. I was pretty impressed.
20k later we were back in time for sushi, classic Halloween movies and autumn blanket cuddles. It’s nice having a park and trail so close that we can still have little adventures without having to look to far.
The November rain has started its unrelenting cycle, bringing with it a chill and a second wave of coronavirus causing further lockdowns I know we won’t be traveling or doing much of anything interesting for a while. But I’m also in a whirlpool of bureaucracy so anything could happen
