While I feel slightly guilty for considering a trip to Turkey old hat, I console myself in the adventure and curiosity I saw in Federica as she met it for the first time. Once she left and I got over the swine flu 😉 I had an opportunity to reconnect with my family there in a way I have been missing. Bickering over the morning olives, baking soda and vinegar rockets in the driveway, tea and cigarettes with Lütfiye, and even a rare bachelor night with Melih.
So as I left my now-familiar family, biological and non, behind in the Republic I was ready for a new adventure. And it came, in the form of beautiful European countryside and a beautiful tour guide to match. I’ll post more about it as I’m inspired, but here she is in meadow of alpine flowers near the Faggioli family’s little house in the Parco Nazionale Foreste Casentinesi….. yeah. 
It even has a name (the house), Ca Mandrioli. Everything has a name; whether it appears to be much different than the cheese before it is insignificant. Chances are good the name’s been around long before the US of A was a suppressed twinkle in a Puritan eye. Hot.
Evan Welkin 