By Will Attig

Bob says the plane ride was awful. (By the way, bob is what I call my stuffed bear) It was all good until we got a call that told us our flight was delayed and that we were going to spend 11 HOURS in Amsterdam!!!!!!! 11 hours! So we got in the plane it was awful to think what would happen after this. I played video games and drew my mom told me she would give me 10 Euros if I would stop looking for my book mark so I stopped then when I opened my book it was in there so I get 10 Euros when we got there I was SUPER tired so we rented a room the size of our bathroom then we took off on another plane it only took three hours from Amsterdam to Italy when we got there we took a car to the Villa I slept the whole time. When we got there we saw that the Villa was so big you could get lost in it! Then we met our friends we got there at midnight there were bugs all over the place we had dinner at one then we went to bed.

Now a note from Courtenay: Yes, I don’t need to add anything to Will’s excellent account of our endless journey here, but to say we had a great night in this cool old villa, which we’ve been told dates back to the 15th century. I was awakened by wild boars in the middle of the night — and was glad for the two thick doors with medieval bolts on our front doors. This morning, a shepherd with his flocks — bells ringing — and dogs woke us up at dawn as they walked through the olive grove outside the villa. We had our first peek out of the wood-shuttered windows at a lovely little valley dotted with a 11th? century restored castles and some other stone farm houses. We met Ben, our friends’ 18-month-old baby, this morning, and had coffee and eggs on a stone terrace and caught up with Rob and Elizabeth. Our other friends are still sleeping. Rick says he wants to bag one of those boars, but I don’t think we will let him. The gardener was very sweet this morning and told us to not be afraid of the hunters!!! We plan to explore Chianti today on what will be an unseasonably hot day here in Tuscany.