Too Much Trains and Siena Underground

Bad blogger syndrome ends here. Why? Because I have 23 days left in this country (ohdeargod) and I'm not gonna start slacking now! Just gonna barrel through... Perhaps I've been a bad blogger because I feel like I'm working through some stuff and I don't even know what to say about it. How do I express how strange it feels to be so close to the end? How do I articulate the weird happy feeling to be going home and the heart breaking sensation of leaving this city? I don't know. I feel like I'm supposed to have big revelations but I don't really... not yet anyway. 

But to the point! 
This past week I had two adventures - one into the Bottini, the ancient aqueducts under Siena, and one to Lucca, another Tuscan walled town about 2 hours away by normal-people transportation (aka, a car) and an eternity by Italian transit (aka, train... also I might be exaggerating just a teeny bit). We also went back to Florence with my Art History class - we saw a lot of the stuff I saw earlier, plus Michelangelo and Machiavelli's tombs. It was really cool, but not much to note there besides a lot of arty stuff. If you're interested, drop me a line, and I'll tell you about it.

First the Bottini. Which are super cool. We entered through the library - there's an entrance into the underground tunnels there. Our guide was a tall, thin man who fit right in with the dark, damp tunnels as though they were his home. I liked him.

We all had flashlights (some functioning better than others... some not functioning at all, really) and carefully followed him through the low tunnels running along side a shallow, narrow channel. When we first stopped to look, we could see the water was actually moving, although very slowly, and there was a strange whitish, fuzzy looking build up along the sides of the channel, which we were told is calcium. I don't know if I mentioned before that Siena has a lot of calcium in their water - and not the good kind that makes strong bones and teeth. I'm wondering if it's related to all the people with leg problems I see wandering around - or maybe it's just a clumsy country, and people are constantly getting accidentally broken. But either way, our guide told us that this water is no longer potable. Why? Because it doesn't move quickly enough and so cholera and tuberculosis (I think it was TB, but I don't really remember, so don't quote me on that... cholera and something terrible, anyway) grow in it. It got so bad they shut them down.

See, kinda fun, right? Pretend you like it.

Like in Pompeii, they managed to find a way to make money off of this. You could purchase a special well to give you your own water, at a certain rate. The more water you got, the more you paid. And there were neat little maps (and also super old - 1800s and shit!) on the wall by the well so you could see where in the city you were, since the Bottini are maze-like and freaky. Other neat things - mini, dripping stalagmites (the ones that go down, because the 'g' goes down), and weird wet hair things? Or maybe very very thin roots? Strange, either way. But I had a lot of fun playing with the aperture setting on my camera, trying to get cool pictures of the flashlight light, since camera flash ruins everything (often).

I accidentally stepped in an aqueduct, which made my shoe very wet. And also pants a bit. Which just made me want to get home faster - see, I thought the underground adventure would only be an hour but it was 1.5 hours, and I'd forgotten to tell my Nonna that morning, so I was pretty late for dinner. In my rush to get home, I (and 3 other girls) got on the wrong bus. It was the 5, which we don't usually take home, and the 5 in the wrong direction. We did get off, eventually, when we found out we were on the wrong one, but then we were something like 7 km out of Siena and had to wait for the next one.

A crazy drunk man came up to us and asked where we were from and if we liked "it". I said, "What? Siena or Italy?" He spat vehemently (shush adverb haters, it's a good one), "Non sono Italiano, sono Toscano!" or "I'm not Italian, I'm Tuscan!" Which was somewhat amusing, since that day we'd gone into centro with our Anthropology class to interview random people about Italian identity, and we talked to the mayor, some Italian boys, a professor and a different (but totally adorable) crazy old man, and they all played down the regionalism of Italy. But, at that point, I decided he was a little too up in my personal space for my liking, so I sneakily called Trevin to give me an excuse to back away.

I did eventually get home and changed and showered and fed, no worse for wear. As my Dad would say, "It was an adventure!" If I had a nickel for every time I've used that phrase here when Italy throws me a random curveball, I'd be significantly more wealthy. --This past weekend though, Trevin, Maya, Simon, Krissy, and I went to Lucca! It's another Tuscan city, and was actually a pretty kick-butt city-state for a long time. It's known for it's awesome walls now, which are still intact and can actually be walked. Bikes are super common there (the Portland of Tuscany! Only not...), and you can rent them and ride them along the top of the walls, which we did!

But first we got up at the crack of dawn to take an early train. Only we got off at the wrong Firenze stop, so we had to wait in Florence for two hours. Which wasn't so bad, but would have been more awesome if Santa Maria Novella was open, because there are some awesome arts in there, including Masaccio's very geometric Holy Trinity, Brunelleschi's famous wooden crucifix, and some Filippo Lippi stuff. But not a big deal.

I expected it to be warm in Lucca, but it wasn't really. I mean it was, but it was also cloudy. But we saw the Duomo, with some of the most "exciting" carvings on the outside - animals and so forth. We also saw a Filippino Lippi painting, the son of the above mentioned Lippi, who was a monk and loved Filippino's mom, who was a nun. They had little Lippi, and then big Lippi used them both as models for the Madonna and baby for a while. Scandalous!

We also wandered through the famous square that used to be a Roman amphitheatre and retains that round shape. It gave me the heeby-jeebies though. The buildings around the side are the tallest - in that you can't see any other buildings above them when you're inside - so I felt a lot like I was in a petri dish, or being stared at by a great Eye, lidless, wreathed in flame!

Awkward picture is awkward. Oh well.

Biking was an adventure - they all had bells to ring to get pedestrians out of your way, but mine was broken so I accidentally crashed into some dude, who was not happy or accepting of my sheepish, Mi dispiace! It might be true that you never forget how to ride a bike, but I'm convinced there's a learning curve when you get back on for the first time in a long time...

Simon was getting a little fancy, and the chain fell off his bike. Then it did it again, and despite using all the tools available (an umbrella, a pen, and a wine opener - and they were all tried) including Trevin, Simon, and Maya's combined abilities, it was toast, so we ended our giro early. But the delicious gelato we had made up for that.

I was pretty wet by the time we got on the train to go home - I was the least prepared for the rain, since I was the most convinced it would be beautiful weather in Lucca, but I dried out pretty quick. Another 2 hour transit ride back (only not really 'another' since the first one was closer to 4 hours, what with the 2 hour pausa in Florence) we were home! Ish! Maya, Krissy, and I actually walked home rather than wait the half hour for the next bus, and it only took just over half an hour. I had a super late dinner and passed out because I was the most exhausted.

But now you're mostly up to speed. Although I don't doubt you'll be lost again soon - I'm cooking Friday, going to Rome for an Art History class at the crack of dawn Saturday, and doing wine tasting Sunday. So that'll be awesome! And then the next weekend is the last free weekend, where I will probably be going to Venice and then Padova, and after that is hiking and then the next weekend I'm flying back to Portland. Dear lord, that's no time at all!

How do I feel about that? Weird. I feel weird. It's going to break my heart to leave this place, and I'm dreading the reverse-culture shock (I'm told that's when you expect going back to be normal, because it's home but it feels weird), and a little worried that I have all these experiences I can't share with anyone back home right now. I know Italian will accidentally slip out, that I'll want to use it and not be able to, that I'm going to get on everyone's nerves with my, "This one time, in Italy..." stuff. But I'm excited to go home too. I'm excited to see everyone, I'm excited to have a house (by the way, did I mention I have a house in Portland?) and a job (did I mention I got a research grant for the summer with the professor leading this trip?) and I'm excited to start figuring out what to do with the rest of my life.

However, on the other hand, I'm so extraordinarily happy with my life right now! And not even the external things like the grant and the house and so forth. It's me! I like me! Which you're all probably raising your eyebrows at, and giving me that weird tentative smile. But it's kind of a big deal. So just shush and give me a high five, okay? It's sort of like, Italy has thrown some weird stuff at me. And I totally handled it. So anything North America throws at me will be easy-peasy, since I know North America, and I speak it's language.

The moral of the story: I CAN DO IT! *

Love and misses, see you soon!

<3

*Bonus points for the original quote and the name of the poster lady! 

Southern Italy: A Vacation From Vacation

I've been failing pretty bad at blogging lately. I know you all rely on me for bright shining rays of entertainment and adventure in your dull, dreary lives (this is mostly a joke. Wink wink!), and I'm sorry I let you down. But then, I do this also for me, so I can remember all the awesome things that happened to me. "Hey Rachel, remember that time we scaled a cliff?" "Totally! Remember when we met the love of our life on a train?" "Sort of... let me refresh my memory with my blog!"

Anyway this blog has been in the works for over a week now. So bear with it, and me. Also, I apologize for the length. Seriously, it is the longest blog post ever.  
--
So I'm on vacation! Which is great... mostly See - I'm sick. I was feeling like I was hovering on the brink of a cold on my birthday, last Tuesday. And, unfortunately, it didn't get any better, despite staying home from school one day. It actually got worse. I thought it would be okay, except that it actually (and quite predictably) got worse when we left Siena and started travelling. 

But anyway, it's still great! I'm going to give you a day by day summary of what we did, and I promise it will be (mostly) interesting. Plus this way you can skip anything that bores you... Enjoy!
--
Day One (Friday), Rome: We left Siena around noon on a bus - a big, long 3 hour bus to Rome. And for some reason, bus/train stations always seem to be in the gross part of a city. Rome was nasty nasty nasty. We wandered around lost a bit before catching a cab to our hostel - which was actually pretty cheap. The hostel was a hostel - bland, kinda depressing in its blandness. But not too bad - the bathrooms were gross though. 

Anyway, we headed out into Rome to meet Heather's friend from home who was in Rome for a week and left early Saturday morning. We meandered past St. Peters and the Fountain of the Four Rivers. And Libby and Hayley and I saw the Pantheon! Which is one of my favourite buildings ever! It was nighttime, so I got to see it in a different light, which was great. 

We had a good dinner at a strange international student restaurant that didn't have Lewis and Clark on it's big long list of American schools. One of the waiters took a fancy to Heather and demanded a picture with her, which might have been why they gave us free 'sexy wine' - bubbly red wine. 

Around 10:30, we went to meet Francesco (my host-brother from 4 years ago) at Trevi Fountain. It was so strange to see him again after so long! It's pretty obvious we've both grown up a lot since 2007... Talking to him really made me realize how far I've come with my Italian. The last time we were together, he spoke English and I spoke no Italian at all. This time, I spoke Italian to him, and no English. It was a sort of eye-opening moment. And it was so great to see him and get to catch up - we pretty much just blabbered on for two hours non-stop.

What the entire time we were together was like!

However, there was an adventure I should relate... We were near the Spanish Steps and one of those flower selling dudes came up to me and tried to sell me a rose. I said, "No, grazie." But he sort of shook his head and insisted, as though he was just giving it to me, then he handed me two more, for Heather and Hayley who were a little way away. He asked Francesco if I was his girlfriend, and Francesco said no, we were just friends. He asked me where I was from, and when I told him Canada, he got really excited and began a long monologue on how the Canadians are really wonderful people. I was super flattered, until he started whispering to Francesco for a bit of money for the flowers. Francesco refused, and said he didn't have any money (clever). When he asked me, I felt bad for being a sucker and just gave him €3. Francesco shook his head and said I was "too nice". 

But I should have known better, and I really do feel bad when I have to ignore the sellers as though they don't exist. Francesco explained that there are just no jobs in Italy, but it's better here then in the countries in Africa where most of the immigrants come from. They arrive, and they're desperate and often face racism and prejudice. It ends up just sort of being this vicious cycle - Italians don't trust them because they're desperate and they're desperate because they're ostracized and there's no work. 

Anyway, we arrived back at the hostel pretty late, and I could definitely feel the achey cold coming on. To make matters worse, around 2 am a bunch of older dudes arrived at the hostel and were very very loud. The next morning they hogged the bathroom and made the whole place smell like damp man. Gross. 

Day 2 (Saturday), Rome/Sorrento: Heather, Libby, and I went to the Colosseum and the Forum/Palatine Hill (take that LCers) which I hadn't seen before. We communed with history. We're going back to Rome on a day trip later in the semester, which will be good for someone to tell us what about the Forum area is important. But the weather was lovely and the view great so it was not at all wasted. Olive trees and birds and flowers and the pyre where they think Caesar was burned. Although I take all that with a grain of salt unless it can be properly cited Chicago Manual of Style format, a la Kate Turabian (it's a nerdy history joke, don't worry about it).

We caught an afternoon bus to Sorrento and napped. But when we got nearer, we were driving along the coast as the sun set, which was the most gorgeous, as the sky turned pink and orange. We accidentally got off at the wrong stop - the man who owned the apartment we rented (for super cheap too!) was supposed to come meet us, but we had to give him directions. He was so kind. A tall thin man who chatted with us and looked down his nose in imitation of the snooty northern Italians. His wife was short and sort of round. She was less friendly - I could tell they're the kind of couple where he's the friendly, out going one, and she probably had to be the 'bad guy' to the kids - but still really kind. 

With her, I first noticed the southern accent. I noticed it on the Italian words spero and Spagna meaning 'I hope' and 'Spain'. In standard Italian, they're pronounced as they look - with an 's' sound. But the southern 'dialect' pronounces them shpero and Shpagna. I was mostly just super proud of myself for being able to pick out the accent at all, since someone had told me it's hard when you don't speak the language to tell accents. 

The apartment was really lovely - two double rooms, usually for two separate couples, with a shared bathroom and a kitchen, fully outfitted. And so windy. We were on the top of a little hill between the Gulf of Napoli and Gulf of Salerno, and the wind was trying it's level best to level the house (see what I did there?). But it was sort of cozy, as long as you weren't sitting somewhere there was a breeze coming in from under a door, or it wasn't raining and making the window in the diningroom leak. We had wireless, but only in the hall near the front door, so we'd spread a blanket out on the floor to keep our butts from getting too cold. Oh, and the other quirk was that we couldn't figure out how to make the hot water for the shower work. Hayley seemed to have really good luck, but Libby and I did not. And the heaters didn't work. I know I'm making this sound awful, but you have to believe me, it was not it was the opposite of awful it was so great. It was really clean, and recently renovated and adorable. Trust me. 

We had a fanflippingtastic dinner that night at a local place that was incredibly affordable and delicious. Heather and Hayley had seafood for under €10 I believe, I had a yummy ravioli and Libby had one of the best pizzas. We shared an appetizer of some kind of pita like dough with arugula, tomatoes, and sharp cheese, and the waiter was so friendly. We rolled ourselves the 3 minutes (literally) home and passed out. 

Day 3 (Sunday), Sorrento: Megan magically and miraculously arrived on Sunday! She managed to make her way on an all night bus from Siena to Napoli and then Napoli to Sorrento, which is impressive, but more impressive, managed to find us way up in the hills! I didn't mention this, but we weren't actually in Sorrento proper. We were a little more out on the peninsula (go look at a map or something so this makes sense) in a tiny community called Colli di Fontanella that is only reachable by 'pull-man' bus, and with a little help from some southerners (who, we were beginning to realize, are extremely friendly and kind) Megan appeared at our door, having figured it all out.

We wandered into Sorrento to have lunch with two other girls from the program who were also  staying in town and then did some grocery shopping. It was kind of rainy, and it became apparent that Sorrento is a fairly touristy city, even if it is fairly deserted this time of year. 

A yummy homemade dinner made by my lovely trip mates who were so kind to poor sick me ended a fairly uneventful day. 

Day 4 (Monday), Pompeii: As you have no doubt already noticed, Monday we went to Pompeii! Which is fairly near by - about half way between Sorrento and Napoli. I was a little apprehensive about just wandering the ruins alone, since it's a) huge and b) just a lot of stuff. You don't really know what you're looking at unless you have something to tell you - a guide or a book or something. And there were guides wandering around, but it was €10 a person for a tour, which is around $13 and a little steep. But a nice old guide named Pasquale (remember, you gotta pronounce all the letters) offered to take five of us for the price of 3, so only €6 each. And I'm so glad we did that, because it made Pompeii so much more enjoyable since he was telling us all the important stuff.

Us in Pompeii! Unrelated to the blog except that it's hilarious.

We saw fountains that still work and are totally potable (although with new valves), the funny street crossing stones, the pipes that delivered water to houses (bigger pipe, more expensive, more water), the public baths, and (of course) the brothel. It's one of the better preserved buildings, but don't worry I didn't post the pictures on the internet. Pompeii as a whole though is very strange. I had a weird feeling wandering the streets of the city and layering in what happened there 2000 years ago when Vesuvius erupted. Like those books from when I was a kid with the pictures of the modern ruins and over top was layered a piece of clear plastic with the ancient city on it, so you could flip back and forth from past to present. It felt a little like that. 

Afterwards we walked along the road to a big super-store like grocery to buy food for lunch instead of eat at a restaurant. It was very strange to be in what felt like a very American style store in italy. But they managed to Italicize it anyway - there was a huge group of Italians standing in one isle, jamming traffic and chatting away leisurely. So Italian.

Day 5 (Tuesday), Capri (and also 6+7): We decided that we had to go to Capri. Yeah, we heard it was touristy, but how bad would it be if we returned to the States and said, "Oh, we were 30 minutes from Capri, but thought we wouldn't go..." Pretty bad, is the answer. 

The weather was absolutely perfect, if a little windy. We took the super short, super grungy ferry (let's just say I have a new found appreciation for BCFerries) over to Capri fairly early in the day. No view to speak of, since the windows were weirdly scratched up. But the water dear lord the water is the bluest of blues. The closest comparison is that water they put in the fountains/rivers of minigolf courses that is so filled with dye. It's like that but real.

I'm about to go down there.

We could sort of tell Capri is a tourist trap, although compared to what I'm sure it's like a few months from now, it was deserted. We decided to meander through the smaller roads of the island on our way to the top - it's a pointy little hill island - so we got to see the adorable little winding streets. We had a windy grocery-store lunch which was delicious and cheap, but the highlight was following Heather down a cliff!

See, we found this old trail which we followed until it started to die, but it didn't quite die it just lead down this extraordinarily steep hill. Which Heather bravely decided to continue along (Libby and I last). It was a little sketchy at some points, but there were ropes and so forth tied to help us down, so we knew people do this with some sort of regularity. At the bottom were these big rocks, no sand, of the tidal pool type variety, but the waves were too strong to actually leave any tidal pools, so it was just a sort of rocky platform. We clambered around, amazed at our luck, jumped up and down in excitement and took a bunch of pictures. The rest of the day was fairly uneventful - we paid an exorbitant amount for coffee near the port where the ferries arrive, and went back to Sorrento pooped. 

Wednesday was a stay-in-and-never-get-out-of-your-pjs-day, and Thursday Heather, Libby, Hayley and I made our way to Ischia, an island an hour away from Napoli by boat. The only story worth telling that day is that the ferry was tiny and there was "lots of sea" to quote the ferry dude. Hayley and I wanted to stay with our stuff, so we sat at the front, where he told us we shouldn't sit. Stupid me was going, "I know boats, I live on an island, how bad can it be!?" Very very bad, is the answer. I'm convinced that hell is being seasick on a boat, and feeling like you're going to puke, but maybe not if the boat just stops right now but it never does. I think the only reason I didn't upchuck is that I was staring at the horizon like a mad man the whole time (thanks for that cookie-saving tip Dad). Hayley and I were both miserable, Libby said she had really felt it to. But Heather, who really knows boats (her dad is a lobsterman in Maine, and she helps him out) was happy as a clam. 

Day 8 (Friday), Ischia: Heather and Libby went to the hot springs, and Hayley and I stuck around town and goofed off. By which I mean, we shopped a bit and I bought local honey with blackberry (I am looking forward to peanut butter and honey on toast when I get back to N. America) and maybe an article of clothing or two. We just sort of wandered the town enjoying the view and the people and some coffee. We decided to pop in to a travel agent, since we all wanted to leave Saturday to get back to Siena early Sunday morning, and we were told they're extraordinarily inexpensive here. At which point, we discovered that the bus we'd been hoping to take was full, and we'd have to find something else. I also had a phone conversation with the rudest person at EuroLine, where he got very frustrated with my limited Italian, told me I couldn't get that bus, and then said "Arrivederci" and hung up. 

So Hayley and I spent the evening researching trains to get us home as easily and cheaply as possible. Which meant, we would discover, taking a night train to Grosseto (which is something like an hour from Siena) and then waiting from 2 am until 5 am for the train to Siena. Fun. 

Day 9+10 (Saturday + Sunday): Heather and Libby managed to get a hike in on Saturday before we left Ischia around 3. The ferry, if you were wondering, was perfectly fine - we probably didn't even need the sea-sickness pills we'd bought. In Napoli, we stored our luggage at the train station for a few hours and went looking for a pizza. Which we found at Da Michele, the pizzeria where they filmed Eat, Pray, Love. We sat by Julia Robert's photo. They only do two kinds of pizza: Margherita and Marinara. It was good, but I don't know that it was the best pizza I've had. I would have liked more basil. But it was cheap, and it brings me closer to Julia Roberts (who for some reason reminds me of my Aunt Karyn... she's probably reading this right now. Hi Aunt Karyn!). 

We finally got on the train at 9ish at night. I joined Hayley in her compartment, because the train was fairly empty and I figured being alone on an all night train was a poor choice. There were two really adorable guys in her compartment who were friendly, and luckily, not at all creepy. They (re)taught me to play a card game called 'scopa' which I'd learned and then forgotten last time I was here. 

All was well until about Rome - we'd turned the lights off and were sleeping/listening to music. A controller had already come by and punched my ticket and not said anything about me being in the wrong compartment, so I thought I was fine. But there was some commotion when we got to Rome and our compartment filled up and one of the guys we'd met left because he was in the wrong place. I pretended to sleep. Hayley says some guy was mad because he was supposed to be in our compartment, but there wasn't room because I was there. But instead of turning on the lights and figuring out who was in the wrong place, there was just a bunch of frustration and wild gesticulating. As I understood it later, the guy didn't have the right ticket. He sat near our compartment in the hall and explained it to another guy in our compartment. 

But here's where I fall in love. At first, there was a lot of noise going on down the hall of the train, shouting and so forth. And all the guys in our compartment get a little concerned and lean forwards/get up. And the remaining cute guy from before gets up, removes his belt, wraps it around his hand, and moves to the door. Like he's going to protect us all from certain death. And there was something so heroic and yet impotent about that action that I was smitten. We barely talked the whole rest of the journey, but in my sleep-deprived state, he was the best person I've ever met. He'll be the one that got away, probably, since I don't know his name and he was going on to Turino (I'm mostly kidding about this dude, but I'm not saying I wouldn't elope with him if the opportunity presented itself).

In Grosseto, there were a bunch of pigeons inside the train station which stopped us from sleeping because they're gross and wanted to eat us. And the toilets were closed, because they have hours, so I may have had to use the bushes. Imeanwhat. 

I finally got home at some deathly hour in the morning - seven or eight or something. I literally started to tear up when I came in - break was fantastic, but it was such a relief to be home especially after so much travel. Siena has never felt more like home.

<3

Pigs, Cheese, Babies, and Adulthood: A (Very Late) Mishmash

[This is for the weekend of March 5th. I'm aware it's late, but I'm on Spring Break and was celebrating my birthday last week, so cut me some slack]

--

You guys are going to be so jealous when you hear what I did this weekend! Or maybe just grossed out. 

Saturday we went ham and cheese tasting! First we went to a pig farm to see the pigs before we ate them. The kind of pigs are unique to this area and are called Cinta Senese. 'Cinta' comes from the word 'sash', and refers to the white band behind their forelegs - the rest of their bodies are black. They have to have this stripe, or else they can't really be called Cinta Senese... They're really super frickin' old - Ambrogio Lorenzetti painted one in his 14th century painting Allegory of Good and Bad Government in the Palazzo Pubblico here in Siena. Other characteristics - they have longer faces than most other pigs, with big long noses for snuffling around in the underbrush for bugs and nuts and so forth. Along with that, their ears actually sort of hang over their eyes to protect them from leaves and sticks while they look for food.  

Here piggy piggy piggy... 

So, some more pertinent information regarding these pigs: they almost went extinct because in their natural forest foraging habitat, they were meant to get really fat really quickly so that they could survive the winter months. But with the advent of industrial farming, they got too fat and the meat was no good. It was only in the last half-century that there was an attempt to make them viable again. They took two male pigs and somewhere in the vicinity of twenty-nine female pigs and (with the help of some other types of pig for genetic diversity) made them a viable breed again. There's a 'club' of Cinta Senese farmers who have really strict rules about how you can or cannot raise the pigs. For example, you have to have at least one acre for every two pigs. You have to feed them a very specific diet, which you can supplement with some special stuff that's good for them, but most of it has to be nuts and bugs and stuff they would have eaten in the wild.

The man who owned this farm used to be an industrial pig farmer, I believe, but he switched to Cinta Senese because they're way more interesting. They take longer to mature than what he called 'white' pigs, but that seems like a good thing to me - their lives are longer that way! Their meat is actually really good for you. It's got omega fatty acids (the good fat) and anti-oxidants and good cholesterol. But the meat is really expensive (understandably) because of all this - it takes longer to raise the meet, the rules are strict, and they require a certain amount of space. Although, they did live in mud, and I'm sure that mud had all kinds of gross byproducts of pigs in it... But that didn't stop me from putting on their strange plastic boots and wandering around in it to get closer to the pigs. 

However, the meat was flipping fantastic! The fattiest one was poesie - poetry, the farmer told us, and it was pretty awesome. We had five-ish pieces of meat, ranging from super fatty to not so fatty and the last two were actually salami. The last one had fennel in it. Yum! 

Afterwards, we went to a pecorino (sheep) cheese farm - certified organic by the EU! The whole place is run by a woman and her two (three?) brothers and like one other person. They have their own herd of sheep and feed them appropriate, natural foods that they grow themselves, so they can guarantee the quality of the milk they get. And they have their own naturopathic sheep doctor - only in extreme cases do they use antibiotics. Oh, and if you were wondering - really good ricotta, you have to eat within a week. If you can keep it longer, it isn't good ricotta. 

The younger, softer cheeses were my favourite, but it was all super good. We got to have ricotta, soft as cream and without salt, with honey and pine-nuts last of all - it was heavenly! So so good. Speaking of which, if you haven't had sharp cheese with honey, do it now. It's sort of like cheese and jam. So much happy taste-buds on Saturday. 

My favourite, although probably mildy racist...

Sunday we went to Carnivale in a small town that does these big floats. Apparently, Siena claims they're the only ones with contrade, but they're lying - this town has four neighbourhoods, and they compete every year to build these huge floats that have moving parts and make music and blow smoke. They're flippin' huge.

And the way Carnivale works is that lots of people get dressed up in costume and have a huge party in the streets throwing confetti at each other and eating and drinking before Lent starts and they have to behave themselves. Little kids are particularly prevalent and particularly adorable. I took a lot of sneaky pictures of cute kids in costume, and got a number of weird looks from parents because a 20-year-old was photographing their kids. But so goes life. 

We returned home covered in confetti, and most of us were still finding it in our clothes days later. I had a huge amount of fun, and was all prepared for my birthday Tuesday, which I'll mention only briefly.

I sort of celebrated my birthday for two days - starting on March 8th in Italy, and continuing until the end of March 8th in North America. I woke up super early on my birthday for early-morning birthday Skype, so that started the day off on the right foot. March 8th is Festa delle Donne in Italy, a special day for the ladies, and these gross little yellow flowers called mimose are given out, so my host mom gave me some of those. Apparently I can take them home with me, because they will never loose their colour...

Simon also took me out for dinner! Which was lovely - it was nice to spend some time with him, since we don't take Italian together (he's much more talented than I am at it...) and don't ride the bus together. The pizza was the most delicious I've had here, I think. Simon says there is better pizza and I think I would die if I had something tastier!

Then, of course, there were birthday drinks, and a nice early(ish) night since I was fighting a cold (which I've since succumbed to). Wednesday I got cake for breakfast, so it was, all-in-all, a really great day.

I apologize this is so extraordinarily late, but I'm on spring break now, and was preparing for it all last week. I'm posting this so hopefully I can post a first-half-of-spring-break post in then not too distant futre. I know you all miss me terribly and can't stand to be left so long without updates, but peace. There will be beautiful pictures of Capri in the next post, so that should ease your pain.

Love and misses!

<3 

In a Certain Kingdom, In a Certain Land...

This post is two stories, two adventures at which I invite you to laugh, gasp, and cry (don't actually do that, it would be a weird, disproportionate reaction).

Some of the events in these stories I was not present for, thus I can only relay them as they were told to me. I therefore humbly beg forgiveness if I have gotten some details wrong and/or (unintentionally) altered some details filling gaps in my mind. 

--

This story begins a long time ago.

Our first week here, Megan and Maya went to a bar near the bus stop, where they met a dude who apparently took a shining to Megan. He wanted her number. Megan doesn't have a cellphone, but she does have a boyfriend back in the States (who looks an awful lot like Michael Cera). She was not particularly interested, but remember, it's the first week in this country - none of us speak Italian that well, we've be uprooted, and are still trying to find our footing. He insisted that she take his phone number, which she did without any plans to ever use it. She put it out of her mind - she'll never see him again, she thinks. We had yet to realize how small Siena really is.  

Saturday, the day we went to the Opera, she ran into him again. But she was rushing to meet the for the bus ride to Florence. Monday after class, she and Maya ran into him a third, in the same piazza. He pressed them to go for a coffee with him. She said Maya had to catch her bus, but he suggested just the two of them have coffee. When she paused to come up with an excuse, he urged her to meet him in the Campo at 6, and before she knew what had happened, it was all done - he was gone. I'm sure you know how it is when that happens.

Megan appeared in the school lounge, extraordinarily flustered and dazed. She doesn't really seem to know how she ended up with this agreement. She had no real desire to meet this guy, but had a (very natural) negative reaction to just standing the guy up - he seemed like a nice enough guy, and clearly there was just some communication issue. Maybe it could just be cleared up, and everything would be great. You sort of get used to that here - it's easy to say, "Well, just lay down the law then!" when we're in the States and familiar with the customs, expectations, and are capable of articulating ourselves clearly. It's not so easy here. There's an acknowledgement that European dudes are more forward, more pushy - but if you judge them for that, you're not being particularly culturally sensitive. Plus, I for one feel like there's a pressure to make friends with Italians - in that, if you have Italian friends, that's a sort of badge of honour. I generally just ignore that, since it's not really my style, but I'm occasionally aware of it.

Anyway, Libby and I decided to go with Megan - she didn't want to go alone, and we were apprehensive about watching her wander off with a dude we didn't know, and who barely spoke English, by herself. Plus, we knew it would be easier to bow out early, harder to fall into that nice trap, if there were three of us. We waited at the fountain in the Campo, and it was a good thing Libby and I did go - the dude came with two other friends. Maybe he would have left them behind if it was just Megan, but still. They said they were all in the vicinity of 24, but I would have believed closer to 30. The guy who talked mostly to me (hereafter referred to as 'my dude' for clarity's sake) asked if we spoke German. He explained that he and his buddy were Croatians who lived in Germany (I want to say he said studying at first, but that doesn't mesh with what he told me they do later in the evening), and were visiting his cousin (the dude Megan met first), who was half-Croatian and half-Italian. This cousin introduced himself as Danny from somewhere outside Siena (we'll get back to that later...).

So whatever, it's all fine. We go to a nearby coffee shop, and they very kindly buy us coffee. The way it shakes down is that my dude speaks English the best, and a bit of Italian. Danny only really speaks Italian, and the dude who took a fancy to Libby only speaks Croatian - well, and a bit of Italian, but Libby speaks the least Italian since she only started taking it here. The three of them all speak Croatian, and the new guys speak German. That is a lot of language for a group of 6 people. But it's mostly okay, we're warily enjoying ourselves - in that, it's not horrible.

But I have a couple issues. First, my dude had cut his finger - catching a glass or something, he said. He'd accidentally gotten blood on his shirt, and began saying how it made him sad, he liked the shirt, etc. And I happen to know how to get blood out of fabric. So I get really excited and go, "Oh, it's just cold water and soap and don't wash it in warm water because that will set it and you can totally do the soap and water again if it doesn't work the first time as long as you remember not to wash it in warm water!" as I do. To which he responds, with much more enthusiasm than necessary or warranted, "Oh my goodness! You are so clever!" To which my response was, "What?" I sort of let it fly, but I would just like to point out that knowing how to get blood out of fabric does not make me clever. It's a skill that anyone can learn, regardless of mental capacity (some of you have heard a similar rant regarding knitting - yes, I can knit. It's not a talent, it's a skill).

Second, they told us about this island in Spain that's "a 24 hour party" - which is nice, except that they were telling exactly the wrong girls. If we do enjoy the occasional soiree every now and then it's definitely not for 24 hours. More specifically though, it was just the totally wrong way to impress us. I, for one, would be much more impressed by some nerdy, intellectual comment or quoting a favourite author of mine.

But my dude mentions that he's been to a bunch of places in Spain, and I can't help it because I have to know - "Have you been to Grenada? Have you seen the Alhambra?" I ask, excited as all get out. Not surprisingly, no. So I begin to explain - see, there was a (sort of rogue) Muslim caliphate that ruled in southern Spain from 711 until 1492 (when Columbus sailed the ocean blue, and Ferdinand and Isabelle, new rulers of Spain, kicked out the Jews). Grenada was a big, important city and the Alhambra is a palace complex built at the peak of the caliphate's power. It's extraordinarily beautiful and mathematically complex - because, if you didn't know, it's because of the Muslims that we have awesome things like our number system (instead of Roman numerals), the writings of greek philosophers, and some mathematical things. This is all a sort of random bit of knowledge that most people don't know.  So that's not my problem. My problem is that, once again, he began to praise my intelligence -  I am so smart, so clever, I must have fantastic grades, etc. And whether or not any of it is true, knowing these factoids about Spain does not make me any of these things. It's just a thing I know - he knows it too now. By his standards, we are now equally intelligent. 

[For more info on Muslim Spain: Al-Andalus]

There is one final anecdote I'd like to share to cement my point. See, these dudes are going to Dubai in two weeks, apparently. And of course, the man-made islands came up. To which I responded, as I do with my obnoxious need to make a point/be right, "But those islands are so bad! They're bad for the animals!" (I said this in Italian). And these guys got very very excited and started laughing. "No you don't get it, it's bad for the environment!" But they just go, "Yeah, yeah, bad! Male, si si!" And I felt like there was something they were missing in the vital information I was trying to impart (don't get me start on my rant about why the building of islands that damage the ocean's ecosystems is not only deeply immoral but hugely arrogant). And I think that was the final nail in the coffin of any relationship with these dudes.

We all agreed we had no particular desire to do that again. We almost missed our bus, but being late got us out of the awkward refusal to give them our phone numbers. Danny clearly had a thing for Megan, which she had zero interest in. She told him she had a boyfriend - when he appeared to be completely unfazed by this, that was one warning sign. Then (I saved the best for last) Megan revealed that she was confused because Danny had introduced himself as Francesco from Siena and had written Francesco on the note with his phone number on it, but he only clarified that his name was Danny and he was not from Siena once we were all crowded into a tiny coffee shop. So that was warning sign number two. And then there's the fact that they said they were car and apartment salesmen... (that was a joke). But seriously - it wasn't bad per se, just not an experience I want to repeat hugely.

Disclaimer: yes, dangerous men or whatever. Don't worry about me. Really. I have a line, I won't let it be crossed - whether or not my line matches anyone else's line. This is just a fun anecdote/adventure story. We're all good, we're all strong, powerful women. No need for anyone to worry or fret. Promise. <3 
--

So that's one story. The second (and then sort of third) occurred today. We had a lovely old man come and talk to our anthropology class today - he's written books, and lived through the war. It was extraordinarily fascinating and awesome. You know how I love 1. history and 2. war stories.

But the part that I want to mention happened near the end, when he started to talk about his wife. See, we've been reading about the veglia, which is/was a gathering of the family around the kitchen fire for story telling and sort of hanging out after dinner. It doesn't really happen anymore because people don't hang out around the fireplace anymore - now they hang out around the tv. Related to the veglia is the importance of food and the fire, and the fire in particular, because it's used to cook all the food and keep people warm. It sort of had to be tended eternally because you never really wanted it to go out.

Anyway, Bruno (that's his name) talks about his wife, and whether or not they're happy. And he says that they got married in 1954 (which makes this year their 66th Anniversary). When they go to bed, he says, they hold hands. They wake up at 7 am, and he reads to her for 45 minutes, because her eyesight is bad. Then, he gets up and makes her coffee, emphasizing that it is his pleasure to make her coffee in the morning. He reads to her for a little longer because, as he points out, the day is long. He likened their love to tending a fire - you have to keep working on it, not let it go out, maintain it. Which was the most adorable. But also, really interesting. Because love is often related to fire - "love is a burning flame, and it makes a fiery ring" to name the one that came to mind. But the second important part of love (and also fires) is often ignored - the hard work, maintaining it part. In our time of matches and lighters and online dating, where we can instantly create what we need... we forget how that works. So there is my bunch of wisdom for the day.

The next story is less... deep, but it has a much funnier punchline. So after my illuminating revelation, we met our language partners. Which I forgot to tell my host nonna about, so I had to call her and tell her I'd be home late. "What time will you return?" she asks, probably less plaintively than it seemed to me. But then my language partner was late, so I was concerned about catching my bus at the appropriate time. Turns out he was lovely (and he'd been to the Alhambra) - short, a bit of a hipster (I'd have preferred he didn't have the weird moustache, but he also had a bit of a beard, so I can forgive - he could grow such a lovely one, maybe I can convince him), but nice and vetted and intelligent.

But anyway, I had to run to catch my bus. Which isn't coming to the normal place, because of roadwork, but the temporary stop doesn't have the nice list of all the busses that will come and at what time, because so many of them are temporary. I missed the normal bus, so I asked a lady about the bus schedule (victory, I had a successful conversation with a random Italian all by myself) and she told me that I could hop on the 77 (which was right there) which would go near my stop. But it turned out the 77 goes the long way - I'm on the bus (after asking the driver to tell me when to get off), worried because I don't recognise where I am and I'm all alone and also because I'm not as worried as I feel like I should be. I know I'm going to be okay, because I've asked the driver to let me know, and I have a phone, and I'm perfectly capable of figuring things out even though I don't speak the language. That was an awesome feeling.

As I expected, everything turned out fine. I got off at a stop I didn't know, but followed a sign I recognised as being near my house (pointing out the 'tangenziale'), and it led toward my house, just from a back direction. So that was cool, and I was feeling fantastic. I though, "Oh, I'll just cut through this park and go in the back way, and that will save me a bit of time, and I won't feel so bad about being so late for dinner". But there was a fence - a weird, short, thin, pokey fence. And I thought about not climbing it. And then I was like, "What the heck, it's super short, and totally climbable". Which it was, not hard at all. Except that my back pocket got stuck on one of the pokey bits and tore a big hole in the butt of my jeans. My favourite pair. So that is sad, especially since I only brought 2 pairs. But gives me an excuse to go shopping! Please laugh at me, I totally did.

So there, that's your update for the week. Next week I will enter my twenty second year OHMYGOSH. So maybe some more navel-gazing about being a palindrome again. I'm sure there will be amusing escapades related to that day to pass on. Until then, lots of love. And remember to tend your love-fires.

<3