It’s officially hot today in Arabba. We sat in T-shirts out on our back deck at lunch today. Official temperature says 7°C but in the sun it’s a lot warmer. The snow has all melted away on the sunny faces and we are back to white strips on brown ground. A bit depressing if it wasn’t so nice sitting in the sun.
It’s Carnivale celebrations today in the town. Carnivale can be celebrated at any time before the start of Lent so obviously this is the day or week that Arabba has chosen. As we wandered through town doing the last of our food shopping we came upon the children from the village kindergarten who were “trick or treating” around town. So sweet. They were all dressed in cute little costumes and they chose to sing a number of songs along the way. We encountered them outside the green grocer and again while we were having our morning coffee in the sunshine.
We took a day off today and did the last of the food shopping to get us through until Sunday morning when we depart for Milan. We also went to the post office to frighten ourselves about the potential cost of posting a couple of boxes of stuff back to NZ. While shopping at our green grocer – Rinaldo – I mentioned “Questa è l’ultima volta che facciamo la spesa qui” – that is this was the last time we would be here to get our vegies. He can’t speak a word of English, but he seemed sad to see us go. It was a fairly lengthy farewell speech and I think he was suggesting that we come back in summer. I’m not sure he realises it’s a 27 hour flight? But Rinaldo shook our hands solemnly saying “arrivederci” and gave us a lovely box of strawberries for our dinner.
And then when we returned to our apartment, Gabi had a plate of lovely home-made biscotti waiting for us. “È per Carnivale”. How lovely. I gave my landlady a hug and many “Gracie mille!”.
Feeling pretty loved we whiled away the rest of the day getting sorted for our departure. But the weather is changing. Our sunshine is gone this afternoon and they are predicting snow tomorrow. Typical.
And then late afternoon, Graeme decided that he wished to torture me with a bit of ice-skating. Now to be fair, I’ve always loved ice-skating and traditionally we go every June to the skating rink in Queenstown for a whip around the ice. But two years ago, I fell over for the first time since…I don’t know….when I was ten? It really really hurt and I had a couple of huge purple bruises for weeks afterward. It gave me a bit of a shock and I’ve been a bit gun-shy since. I escaped ice-skating last year, but Gra has been pestering me for the last 3 months to go to the outdoor rink that we can see from our apartment.
About 4pm we walked over to the rink, but sadly (well not for me), it had been so warm today that the ice was no longer set. What a shame….no ice-skating today. Dodged a bullet there. Besides which, as I pointed out to Gra…..we don’t want to injure ourselves before our last day skiing potentially in the snow tomorrow. He reluctantly conceded…this time.
Oxleys in Arabba 