I went for a run, Conor sat on me with his bony butt, and we went to a partita di schacchi.

This post is late due to technical difficulties.

Hi everyone, it’s me!  I’ve done lots of stuff!

Yesterday (Sunday) morning, Tara and I went for a ten-mile run along trails and roads.  There were hills and mud and (cows) and grape arbors and church bells and moltissime cicliste. There was even un cavallo (horse).  Tara picked a fig off a tree and I ATE IT.  Here it is:

It wasn’t that good.  Gene said it was underripe.  The skin was like thick lettuce, the inside was kind of dolce.  Here's Tara:

Gene was nice enough to drive me through where we ran, and I got a video:

We went to a ristorante afterwards and there was a little playground there:

We went to Marostica for a giant human chess game later.  Conor didn’t want to go, so Maddie came with us instead.  Conor sat on my lap in the car on the way to drop him off at his friend’s house, and his bony butt was a gigantic pain whenever we went over a bump.

Marostica was full of Italian, French, German, and American tourists.  The partita di scacchi is a biannual tradition; supposedly molti anni fa two men fell in love with the daughter of the lord who lived in the castello in Marostica.  They wanted to duel, but the lord insisted that they have a partita di schacchi instead, with fanfare before and after it.

From what we saw, it was mostly fanfare.  We had seats that would have been fantastico if it weren’t for the big flagpole and the steel barrier in front of us.  There  were lots of horses, dancing peasant girls, mangiafuochi (fire-eaters), flag-throwers (they caught them too), and this guy:


Too bad the video won't work.

He did molte of altre cose, all of which creeped us out.  Here are some more pictures of the trip:

It was divertente, but some people got bored:

We had to leave before the end of the post-partita fanfare because it was the day before il primo giorno di scuola.