Roll Out the Grolla!

 Monday, September 14

Today was a leisure day decompressing from our little mini-trip. This is the first day of school for Italian students in the area. Great nephews Noah and Nathan headed off to their schools. Even though one is in 8th grade and the other high school, the school setup is the same. They are with  the same group of students every year and it is the teachers that rotate from classroom to classroom and most of the teachers are the same every year for the various subjects. 

Don, Antonio, and I accompanied Barb to the grocery store so we could snoop around a bit. Grocery stores are pretty much the same although to use a grocery cart, you put one euro in the coin box to release the basket and after you bring the cart back, you get your euro back. This cuts out the need for the parking lot basket retrievers.  Another difference is that plastic gloves are provided for you to wear when touching the produce. This was a thing even before Covid. 

The high school ends at 1pm with the expectation that students will continue studying at home during the afternoon. We decided to pick Noah up so he wouldn’t have to ride the bus and there was a crowd waiting for students. Teens are not allowed to get a drivers license until age 18 although they can get a Vespa or motorcycle license at age 16. Most of the kids are picked up by family or ride public transportation as many are from a different town. Noah’s school is a technology/science centered high school. 

The entire family came together again for a big dinner which was nice because I forgot to take a photo last time. We enjoyed wine from their grapes grown in their little orchard. Their friend harvests them every year and then makes the wine. I enjoyed it. After dinner they showed us how to use the Grolla which is a tradition to share with friends. The Grolla is a wooden bowl with a lid with spouts around the edge for drinking. There is a process involved in making the beverage that includes coffee, orange/lemon peels, sugar and grappa. After it is mixed in the Grolla it is set on fire to carmelize the mixture. When the fire is out you pass it around and take sips until it is gone. It is bad luck to set the Grolla down between sips. I think the bad luck is because if you set it down you forget which spout you were drinking from! Francesco and Daniela gave us a Grolla a few years ago and now we know how to use it!