What Gulia Nenne and I Both Like and Don't Like:

#1. We like Pokemon, popcorn, hot chocolate, each other, being together, staying together, and so on...
#2. What we don't like: [to be added later]


[Above: Daniela and Gulia Nenne @ Gulia Nenne's grand-parent's house in the country, which we visited this past weekend with Francesca and Emiliano].

[Above: A 2nd shot of them, this time with Emiliano]

Why Miranda (Italian name) is my friend

#1 we like monsters, gelato, screaming, being loud, hiding, Caterina (our teacher), Giusi (our other teacher), POPCORN!!!!!!!!!! , and HOT CHOCOLATE!!!!!!!!!!.


Below: With my friends Miranda and Julia Sophia (Miranda is in the middle) in our classroom:


Below: Me and my teacher Catarina:

Below: Me & my teacher Giusi:

Gelato in February

A couple of days ago me and dad were checking if Giorgiagel (me and dad's favorite gelataria) was open. But it was closed. And then Dad looked to his side and saw the owners of Giorgiagel. And they said they would open in February. It is a great gelateria. It is great because we just like the gelato. My favorite flavors are limone, straccatella [chocolate chip], biscocroc, menta, and Varrigato Nutella, Nutella, and also Vaniligia. They are really nice [at Giorgiagel]: she will give me two cookies, like Mikey Mouse ears, and a pink spoon because she knows its my favorite color (Dad's going crazy with his foot right now). If the man doesn't give me a pink spoon and two mickey mouse ears, the woman gets mad at him.

Here is the picture of Giorgiagel (one of the owners is behind Danielle):


And her eis the picture of the woman who works at Giorgiagel who always sees to it that Danielle gets two mouse ear cookies and a pink spoon:

Ice Skating in Rome

Emiliano's mom invited us to a skating rink and we skated there for two hours!!!! Robert came, too, and it was the first time he ever skated!!!! We had a break and I had hot chocolate and a hot dog!!!! And then we went back on the ice. And then a boy named Danilo came, and Alessandro, one of my best friends.
[Danielle and Alessandro, but Alessandro was sad here.]


[Below: Video of Danielle and her dad skating]

Ostia Antica

We went to a place called Ostia Antica [above]. I am now reading a book called "The Thieves of Ostia" which is a mystery. It takes place in Ostia Antica, which is ancient Ostia. But this time it is not Ostia Antica because the staory in the book takes place a long time ago. It is about a girl who finds her father's seal (ring used for sealing letters) and it was stolen by a magpie because magpies love shiny things. And she even found a gold earring inside the magpie's nest, and other stuff. You should read "The Thieves of Ostia." It is a really good book, the first book of the series. So its like in each chapter the girl meets a new kid. [Below: Flowers photographed by Daniela at Ostia Antica]

Camels in Tunisia

We went to Tunisia for Christmas break. These are pictures of the camels we rode in Tunisia behind our hotel.


In Kairouan there were two wells and when it rained the rain would go inside a little door and when it goes through it goes out another door to the city. [Danielle is speaking of the ancient cisterns of Kairouan, depicted in the image below. Kairouan is the oldest Islamic settlement in North Africa and is considered the holiest city of Tunisia. -KA]

The camel outside [the Kauroan cisterns] was for weddings. [It is a camel that has a carry compartment attached--Berber brides would ride to the wedding in this compartment-KA]

Christmas in Rome

It is Christmas and Grand-ma Denise, Grand-pa Gerry, Hedi and Steve are here. These are some pictures of Christmas.

This is the creche. In Italian it is "presepe,"
This is the Christmas tree, called "arbero di Natale."
[Note from Daniela's mom: Nativity scenes (presepi) are very popular in Italy and more common than Christmas trees. Rome's Piazza Navona hosts a celebrated annual Christmas festival where families buy presepi pieces and other Christmas trinkets. There, one can also find candy coal which La Beffana (the old lady who traditionally brings Italian children presents if they are good and coal if they are bad) places in children's stockings on January 6th. Danielle found both the La Befana tradition and the presepi practice especially compelling. So she selected some nativity pieces at Piazza Navona, adding a plastic palm tree cake decoration and some of her own animal toys to the mix. She is now awaiting the arrival of La Beffana on the 6th... Below are a couple images from Piazza Navona's Xmas market-KMA]

[The Piazza Navona Christmas Fair-KMA]

[Daniela selecting Nativity pieces-KMA]

[Lollypops depicting LaBefana flying over Piazza Navona)]
[Daniela takes a break from the frenzy of the Christmas fair. They have cotton candy in Italy, too.-KMA]

New Year's Eve

We went to spend the night at Emiliano's country house for New Year's Eve. The one on the top is when we are driving by a pack of sheep on the way to Emiliano's house.
The one here is at New Year's Eve when I am holding a sparkler. And here I am holding the fireworks.
And this is the baby.

Barcelona

There are some pictures of Barcelona [we visited Barcelona over Thanksgiving break]. I hope you like it. Barcelona is pretty. [Above: Danielle navigates the Barcelona subway system].

[Above: Danielle by rabbits for sale on Las Ramblas]

This is shrimp from a market.

Silly Teachers in Rome

They make you write very neatly. They make you color very neatly, even if you are a person in preschool. And they don't even have kindergarten in Rome. We have an English class but all we are doing is "the tree," "the mushroom." "the grass," "the leaves." And we have a religion class. They teach you stuff like "God made the Earth." I like school a lot because you have recess and a lot of other fun stuff. Fun stuff like "non tocare per terra" ["Don't touch the ground"--a game the kids like to play at recess].

Pony riding lessons in Rome

There is a ranch in Rome that has ponies and "horses."It is a huge ranch. And there are some cows and dogs that live on the ranch, and some goats, roosters, chickens, pigs, bunnies and ducks.
[Top: Entrance to the Roma River Ranch, a little bit of Americana along the shores of the Tiber. Below: Playing with a horse at the ranch]
[Admiring the farm animals at the Roma River Ranch with Michele]
There are also lessons for bigger kids that get to ride on real horses but they are better than Lulu (Lucia) and me because they are older. We ride ponies. I had my first lesson on Tuesday because the other Tuesdays were rainy [and the lessons were canceled].
[Brushing the ponies down before a ride]

Before that we went on Saturday and they did not have enough ponies so we walked with them along the river.
[Below: Accompanying the ponies and riders alongside the Tiber River]
[Video below: Daniela and Michele talking to the cow.] The following week we saw them milk the cow.

Happy Birthday

[Below: Danielle's Halloween-themed 7th birthday was yesterday in the rectory of our neighborhood church, Santa Maria of Trastevere]

It was my birthday party yesterday. It was very fun. A lot of people were witches. There were also a lot of skeletons.
The party was mostly full of boys and the boys were going crazy. They were going crazy by running around and chasing each other. I ran around. I chased Candy Ghost and I got chased a little bit by a couple kids. [Below: Candy Ghost getting swarmed by the kids snatching the candies taped to his sheet].

I ate a lot of candies--I ate eyeballs, and spider legs and especially candy corns [sent to us by our wonderful Evanston neighbor Gayle]. There was a lot of food to eat. There was a spider game and we didn't get to play it. I got to do the pinata and I got lots of candy (mmmmmmm!)
We got to do face paint [Below: Loyola University Rome student, Claire, was our face painter]
[Below: video of Danielle blowing out the candles on her cake]


The end of the party was really fun. And after it was finished, there was a lot to do. We cleaned up a lot of stuff. [Below: A picture of us trudging home with our party gear after the party.]