The final months of our first year in Italy were filled with travel, loss and near-loss, visits from friends and the pleasures of Christmas in our own home. [As always, you can click on photos to enlarge them.] August 28 Earlier in the month, we spent a delightful couple of days in Ravenna on the …
The town of Amelia, our town, was called Ameria in ancient days, said to be named for its Umbrian founder, King Ameroe. All this is lost in the sands of time, yet the citizens of Amelia are still termed Amerini. Here are excerpts from letters to family about our first summer in our new home. …
In the previous post, I wrote about so many changes to our Italian house that there wasn’t room to add enough photos to visualize all that was accomplished in the first four months. So here are some pix from those early days. At last, after years of wandering, we were able to bring all our …
Early on, during my days alone at our new house, I bought a bottle of pro secco, stood on the south terrace, sipped a glass and tipped the rest onto the earth below — a libation to whatever gods watched over our farm that we might live long and happy in their land. My petition …
Leaving Almaty was much like leaving every other place in our overseas lives — attending goodbye parties, winding down professional projects, helping our office and home staff find jobs, selling the stuff we wouldn’t take with us. But this time, we had the added challenges of moving into our new home far from both the …
We lost our Stateside home in 1992, when Virginia’s Stafford County announced it was taking all the properties in our valley by right of eminent domain in order to build a reservoir. At that time, we were living in Laos and asked to receive payment as soon as possible because we were overseas and needed …
As always when overseas, we had the opportunity to enjoy tourist excursions while living in Central Asia. Not only the trip along the Silk Road as chronicled in Post #32, but lesser known sights like the Ili River and Charan Canyon. [Click on photos to enlarge.] Ili River June 27 We’ve had a wonderful visit …
Almaty Challenges: Painting the Zal, Plus Climate, Cars and Cats Living overseas always presents challenges and the fulfillment of meeting them. Here are a few we wrote home about while living in Almaty. [Click on photos to enlarge.] 1995: Painting the Zal October 18We’re hoping to repaint the living room (zal in Russian) in …
If you read last month’s “preview,” you know I promised two weddings and a picnic, plus floating down the Ili River. When I got further into reviewing my family letters, I discovered there were three weddings reflecting the cultural changes coming to Central Asia. The old Soviet system was lingering, but religious rebirth was rising. …
During our first year in Kazakhstan, Russell and I had a visit from that intrepid traveler, my Dad, Leonard C. Swing. We not only toured Almaty, its nearby mountains and steppes, we also journeyed to Tashkent, Samarkand and Bokhara on the Silk Road. In those days, modern tourist facilities in Central Asia had not really …