I know I can speak for Laura as well when I say that we found it dif­fi­cult to leave Lanciano.

As I write this, we’re speed­ing north in a cozy train com­part­ment toward Piacenza, Italy to see our friend Christine. Laura is napping on the seats across from me, lines of sun­light and shadow moving lazily across her face as the train rounds a bend. The view is a blur of green, with olive groves, winer­ies, and dis­tinctly Italian villas giving way peri­od­ic­ally to sleepy towns of squat, graffiti-clad con­crete build­ings and ancient looking stone houses. Across the aisle I see nothing but blue sky and the slowly lapping waves of the Adriatic Sea. I know I should be excited to be back on the road, but I can’t help but feel like we’re leaving some­thing behind that’s not easily found. Or replaced.

Cris met us this morning at the Mercato, where we enjoyed our last Cappucino in Lanciano. Coffee at the D’Alessandro’s market has been one of our daily rituals here, and the bar­tender Shamim makes them better than anyone in town. Parting with Cris at the train station was bit­ter­sweet, as parting with friends always is. But I think it’s the sense of com­munity, of belong­ing to a place and a time and a group of people that we’ll miss the most.

Shamim at the Mercato Coperto makes the best cap­pu­cino in town.

We’re cur­rently at the end of Month 4 without full-time jobs or a home, and both of us have started feeling tinges of home­sick­ness and a subtle longing for those parts of living that a stable home life, work life, and friends and family provide. Thanks to the D’Alessandros and the cast of char­ac­ters asso­ci­ated with their life in Lanciano, the past four weeks have been a respite for us from these feel­ings. We found friends among the teach­ing staff at CCI, cowork­ers (of sorts) among the Mercato staff as we did our best to help out as needed, and family among the D’Alessandros, people I have been hearing about since meeting Laura almost six years ago, but whom I only really met over this past month.

We printed some photos from the family por­trait session for the D’Alessandros, and had this one framed.

We were really lucky to have visited at a time when the whole family was around, and to have been able to integ­rate so much with all the people here. We’ll miss Eligio’s and Mrika’s ciaos at the market, Franco’s whistle (indic­at­ing he has “a little job” for us), Marissa’s hugs, David’s film tips, Tim and Vittoria’s dance moves, Carla and Cris’s sis­terly bick­er­ing, Davide’s impas­sioned speeches, con­ver­sa­tions with Nonno and Nanna, Said’s buffets, poker nights, and a dozen other things and people that made daily life so rich for us.

We really enjoyed helping out as well, in the limited way we were able to. It was a pleas­ure to shoot school year­book por­traits of the stu­dents and staff at the school (with Laura as my fashion and hair assist­ant), and helping out however we could at the market, from unload­ing produce, wine, pasta, and flowers, to making bou­quets (this was firmly Laura’s territory—I was her assist­ant), running sep­ar­ate and very spaced out cash registers during an influx of hun­dreds of pil­grims (despite my nonexistant Italian), or setting up (and taking down, and setting up again) chairs and tables each weekend. Laura also typed up some 500 names and addresses for the Mercato mailing list. We were happy to under­take these tasks; these little jobs allowed us to fit in.

Marissa asked me if I could shoot the year­book pic­tures this year. I did my best to make them con­sist­ent con­sid­er­ing I had no flashes or tripod, and that they were taken over the course of several days as people became available.

Laura stocks wine in the Mercato. We unloaded several palettes of the stuff.

Our friend Eligio makes like a true badass.

Eligio has been a friend of the D’Alessandro family since him and Davide used to play together as infants. He’s pretty much Franco’s right-hand man at the market and Allegria (hotel/restaurant). This shot is much more indic­at­ive of his warm and cheer­ful personality.

The chef Said is from Egypt, and is respons­ible for most of the staff and student meals. We enjoyed his work on pretty much a daily basis. He’s a genius.

We had two poker nights while in town. At this one, Tim’s chip pile even­tu­ally included most of his girl­friend Vittoria’s as well. All’s fair in love and poker, I guess.

But by the end of the night, Cris was the big winner, raking in some 15 Euro in profit.

As sad as we are to leave, we couldn’t have chosen a better note to end on. Laura and Cris have been con­spir­ing over the last week or so to throw a joint birth­day party for Mrika and I, and we had an abso­lute blast this past Saturday night. After a deli­cious meal and a few glasses of red wine in a local res­taur­ant, we moved to the D’Alessandros’ Allegria, where Cris and Laura sur­prised Mrika and I with a fant­astic pastry tart, com­plete with candles to com­mem­or­ated our com­bined age of 61. After Mrika and I made the rounds sharing the leftovers with every­one in the res­taur­ant, we moved down­stairs to dance the night away amidst our own private Balloon Battle Dance Party.

Mrika and I blowing out the candles of our joint birth­day cake. I don’t want to give away Mrika’s age, but 30 of those candles are mine, so to speak.

Tim and Vittoria at our birth­day dinner. Tim teaches math and physics at the school. Vittoria is a don; she over­sees the girls dorm.

The gang sur­prised us with a wall of noise­makers when we finally made it down­stairs for the birth­day party.

That’s when the wine really kicked in and we had a spon­tan­eous Balloon Battle Dance Party. We acted like chil­dren. It was great.

Carla smokes David with a balloon of death. Carla was par­tic­u­larly ruthless.

Speaking of bal­loons of death, Tim doesn’t just take Vittoria’s poker chips, he also beats her with bal­loons... Actually, these two are ridicu­lously affec­tion­ate and pretty much a perfect couple.

Lanciano is a place that was form­at­ive for my wife while she went to high school, and after meeting some of the people respons­ible for that and getting to be a part of that life, I can finally under­stand why. It truly meant a great deal to us for her to be able to share it with me.

I def­in­itely am excited to be back on the road. We’ve got a week in north­ern Italy ahead, before heading to Morocco, a country I’ve wanted to visit for years, and then Romania, Eastern Turkey and Iran. The next eight to ten weeks may be among the most inter­est­ing and exotic of our trip. But I’m also excited to begin think­ing about once again having a home, whether it’s a tem­por­ary one in Thailand, or a more per­man­ent one back home. We’ve been talking a lot of crazy talk lately about what we plan to do when we do get back to Canada; about the busi­nesses we’ll start, the home we’ll build, educ­tion, chil­dren, and the life we’ll create. We can only hope to find a sense of belong­ing and com­munity as rich as the one we left behind this morning.

Marissa, Franco, Carla and Cris all asked us when we’ll be coming back, and (sep­ar­ately!) encour­aged us to do so when we “run out of money.” While we def­in­itely don’t intend to return under those cir­cum­stances, we will be back some day.

The D’Alessandros gra­ciously put us up in a beau­ti­ful fur­nished apart­ment that happened to be sitting empty at the moment. When we weren’t hanging out or working at the market, we were watch­ing DVDs of the Sopranos and Curb Your Enthusiasm.

Laura gets dolled up at our swanky pad. I noticed this shot while leaning out of the window admir­ing the view and just had to run and grab my camera.