To Tuscany

I just found out my next and last camp will be in Tuscany!  The camp is in Foiano della Chiana, a small town in the province of Arezzo (the eastern edge of the region).  It's another small camp, just three tutors, and I couldn't be more excited!  Tuscany was the region I really wanted to experience this summer, and the days in Chianti with my Mom were great - I can't wait to go back and explore.  I'll be there for Arezzo's famous monthly antique fair, and I'm hoping to finally see Siena. 

“If that is pizza, then I am a princess”

(Written on the train from Montecchio to Casalmaggiore. Again, super long, trying to cover a week here! There’s so much I’m leaving out.)

No second week in Montecchio. I learned on Wednesday that ACLE intended to transfer me to another camp because the Montecchio camp would only need two tutors for the second week. They chose to move me because there’s a one weaker with 40 kids that needed a male tutor – the other three scheduled to go were female. So here I am, leaving a great camp with great kids, great directors, great co-tutors, and a great family, about to meet new kids, new directors, and a new family. But so goes the ACLE life.

Most of the pictures in this post are from my last-minute trip to Venice after camp on Thursday (it was supposed to be today) with my host mom and brother. It may be my favorite Italian city… not sure.

A recap of 2011 Camp #1:

I worked with the middle school group, 11-14, the oldest group at the camp. The younger classes were 13 combined and my class was 13, but I didn’t mind.

I had my first repeat camper. He was one of my five campers at the camp 10 minutes away two years ago, and it was great to have him again. He’s the brightest kid I’ve ever had, years ahead English-wise, and he soaks up everything I say like a sponge. Sadly, he did not remember all of the words to “Take Me Out To The Ballgame,” which he memorized in a day last time, but he did remember the melody.

On Day 2, I showed them some pictures of family/friends/cities, including one of a deep dish (or stuffed, sorry I’m not sure which, Dad) Chicago pizza. I asked them what they thought it was. “Cake? Cheesecake?” This is all they could come up with for about a minute until someone guessed pizza. My English expert (and firearms expert) James, whose name is Giacomo but prefers James in English class and really looks way more like a James than a Giacomo, said “If that is pizza, then I am a princess.” When I split the class up for a gamer in the week and asked for team names, we had the Chicago Pizza vs. The Hamburgers. I forget who won.

I ate lunch with most of my boy campers every day, the girls sat with the younger kids. On Thursday one of them told me he had relatives in Hollywood. I was impressed, and then he told me they’re actors. “Jane Fonda, Peter Fonda, you know them?” He said they’re distant relatives and his parents haven’t met them, but the kid’s last name is Fonda. I taught (and directed) a Fonda. He was terrific as Mr. Burns in the final show.

The camp was about 75% boys, which is way more than I’ve ever had. And for the first time I felt like “that boy camp counselor,” the one all the boys look up to. I’m still trying to figure out exactly how it happened but some combination of having so many of them in my class, being the only boy tutor at camp, sitting with them and playing with them occasionally during breaks. It was fun.

I like to name my camps, it makes them easier to remember, and this one was “Break Camp.” Morning and afternoon breaks were the longest I’ve had, and at lunch the kids had an hour to eat and at least a half hour more to play afterward. We played games with them during this time, and the helpers sang English songs with them, so it wasn’t time wasted. During the playtime after lunch we tutors would go to a bar (which is more like a café in Italy) across the piazza and get delicious coffee milkshake type things in martini glasses.

Which brings me to my co-tutors! They were both great. Polly and Emma, both British girls, both worked last year, too. We got along really well and I’m hoping that we’ll somehow be placed together for the third week of camp. 

The final show went surprisingly smoothly yesterday. My group (The Dragons) came up with the entire plot, I wrote the script. I’d only used an entire camper plot once before, and that show was terrible. But this was much better. And for the first time, one of the actors explained the show to the audience in Italian first, a brilliant idea from the directors.

It started with Michael Jackson dancing to “Billie Jean,” then he’s walking with his bodyguards when someone shoots his bodyguards and another kid stabs/kills Jacko. At the last minute I nixed the 3 foot long fake sniper in favor of fake smaller guns, but still probably shouldn’t have let them use fake guns. Homer Simpson comes across the body and alerts Mr. Burns, who wants to sell it. But Homer begs him to let his family have a chance to resurrect him. The Simpsons + Crusty come on stage but fail to resurrect him until Bart suggests they play a Michael Jackson song. As “Thriller” begins, the whole cast (except the killer duo) rises from the ground, the last being Jackson. They do a little dance but the killers return and kill him again. The rest of the cast screams “D’oh!” and…… scene.

At the end of the show the directors and Polly and Emma gave me a big Thank You card, which was really nice, and then my class stood up. I thought maybe they prepared a song for me or something, and then one of them counted to three and they all ran at me. I woulda fallen over if there hadn’t been a table behind me. But I was stunned and elated to be the middle of a giant hug, it really was a good group.

Last night was my host parents’ anniversary, and they generously invited me to join their family for dinner in Juliet’s castle. As in Romeo and Juliet. The story Shakespeare supposedly based it on was about rival families in the two medieval castles in Montecchio (Romeo Montecchi… Montecchio…). I saw Romeo’s castle on Friday night. They use it as a summer cinema, and Precious was ending as we entered. It may have been the strangest juxtaposition (is that the right word?) I’ve experienced, narrowly topping construction workers blasting Hillary Duff atop the Milan Duomo. But anyway, dinner was incredible.

Afterward my host bro and I met up with Polly and Emma and the helpers in the piazza across from the school, where there was a Beatles night. It was Beatles cover band after Beatles cover band, and there was a double-decker bus with a bar in it. I guess they knew the British were coming. Sorry, couldn’t resist.

The Montecchio Vita

Addendum to the last post: Veronica, my older ex-camper who hates speaking English, at one point recited the opening of a song we did two years ago perfectly: “Have you ever seen a penguin drinking tea?/Take a look at me, a penguin you will see.”  AND, when I asked her if she remembered any of the California Time lessons, she drew the state in the air and went down the coast saying “San Francisco, Santa Barbara, Los Angeles, San Diego.”  I can’t believe she remembered the order!

I would have written about my new camp sooner but I’ve spent the last two nights bumming around Montecchio by bike with my host brother and his 14 and 15 year-old friends.

My family here is great.  The Mom, Alessandra, speaks decent English, and she is the one who really wanted me to stay with them.  It’s very rare for a host family not to have a camper, but that’s the case here.  She mostly wanted to host me so her 15 year-old son, Matteo, could (involuntarily) practice English.  Massimo, her husband, doesn’t speak any English, but I’ve never had a host dad who has.  He’s a biker and the first host dad I’ve had who does the laundry for the family.  I also have a little host sister, 5 or 6 year-old Chiara, who is still too shy to talk to me (but never stops talking to everyone else) and who giggles whenever I come near her but I’ve found a way to play with her.  Apparently she talks about me non-stop when I’m gone and then runs away when I walk in.

Within an hour of my arrival, I’d met Alessandra’s mother, sister, sister-in law, and a cousin.  That’s because her parents and sister (who is around my host brother’s age) live in the house behind this one, and her brother lives nearby.  Oh, and her aunt and uncle live in the other adjacent house.  The door here is always open, and people come and go.  Sometimes friends, sometimes family, but it seems like 3-4 people or groups of people come by a day, an my family never really needs to go anywhere, this is the spot. 

On Sunday they gave me a choice of activities:

1.     Visit Lake Garda, the largest of Italy’s Great Lakes.  I went to a small town on the lake’s northern tip a couple years ago.

2.     Go into the mountains to see the Little Dolomites, the foothills of Italy’s northeastern mountains and try cheese (this is the home of Asiago).

3.     Visit Venice or Verona

The pictures probably gave it away, but let me explain that it is 100° every day here now, and usually around 110° with humidity.  Garda is beautiful, but I didn’t want anything to do with sun, and Venice and Verona are amazing, but I would want to spend the whole time in the shade.  So mountains it was, where the temperature dropped about 25°.  Most of the pictures in this post are from the hike.  The cheese was very fresh but not some new level of cheese I was hoping for.

The heat has had a couple other unfortunate side effects.  First, it’s terrible for visibility and pictures.  There was a haze in the mountains which you might notice in the pictures.  Second, zanzare (mosquitoes), but zanzare sounds way cooler.  I think I have 15 bites alone on my right leg.  The temperature will fall…. on Saturday.

The mountains were beautiful.  Some looked like the Avatar world, and the ones in the distance looked more like the sharp rocks at the Dolomties are known for.  My host grandma came along for the adventure and was often out in front of the rest of us.  The cool air was miraculous, I wish we could have the camp up there.  Oh, and Sunday was my first day here without a gelato.

But back to the beginning, the teenage biking nights.  It started when Matteo’s friend came over after dinner and they asked if I wanted to come along to meet their friends.  I had nothing better to do and thought it could be interesting.  There were 6-7 of us (all 14-16 years old I think) including my host aunt, and we biked around town, Matteo pointing out things around town like “Bread” and “Ice Cream.”

Last night I went off with them again.  This time there were 12-15 kids.  They spent 20 minutes deciding which gelateria to go to, but when we got there there were some older kids one of these ones doesn’t like, so we went to the park instead.  I spent most of the hour and a half there surrounded by six or seven boys asking me all sorts of questions about music, movies, the NBA, musicals, and even Jersey Shore.

Well, I’m off to write a script about Michael Jackson and the Simpsons.  Kids came up with the plot, we’ll see how it goes.  This picture is the aftermath of Amnesia, the game where you tape a celeberity's name on a kid's head and they have to ask English questions to figure out who they are.  As always, they wanted to write one for me - I was Gaga.  More about camp the next post… stories are piling up already!

36 Hours In Meledo

Meledo was my fourth camp during my first year, and I did more outside of camp than at any of the eight I’ve worked.  I went to Verona twice (once for an opera in an outdoor Roman arena), Soave (a wine town), Vicenza, Gardaland (Italian Disneyland), Riva del Garda (a lakeside town and one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever been), wine tasting, honey tasting and candle making, and more.  In 2 weeks.  So I knew I’d have a bus 36 hours during my trip back.

My former director Raffaella served as Activity Planner.  She set me up at an agriturismo, which is like an educational B&B on a farm, in a nice room.  I was the only guest in the place, which was kinda cool and kinda scary movie plot.

On Friday morning she took me on a mini sightseeing/running errands trip, and everywhere we went she ran into someone she knew and they’d chat for 15-20 minutes so I’d try to practice my Italian and then get bored and wander off to some interesting-looking shop.  Quite a change from guiding my Mom to being guided and stopping for conversations with locals.

In the afternoon we went into Vicenza, the nearest city, with Raffaella’s young cousin and one of Raffaella’s friends, both Elenas.  It’s not a tourist hotspot but it is rich in architectural history.  Palladio was an important 16^th Century architect who built many of his most famous structures in Vicenza and the surrounding area. 

The main tourist attraction is Palladio’s Teatro Olimpico in Vicenza, which I missed 2 years ago.  It was built in 1580 as the world’s first indoor theater.  The stage is permanently set like a city, with three large doors to streets made with perspective to look much longer than they are.  There was a very short man working security and one of the Elenas told me that she once came with her family and they asked him to tell someone backstage to walk out so they could see the perspective better.  Instead, he walked to the back of the main street, where he looked normal-sized, but by the time he reached the front he looked way too small.  Not what they were hoping for.

The theater is filled with statues, which Raffaella explained were made from paper instead of marble or granite.  I spent most of our time in there wondering how this was possible, especially since they had been there for over 400 years.  It wasn’t until my current host mom was telling me about the theater and mentioned how everything is made from wood that I realized what she meant to say.

Throughout our time in Vicenza I had a really interesting conversation with the elder Elena, who is around my age, and Raffaella, about the American military in Vicenza.  The largest US base in Italy is there, and they are in the process of expanding it to become the largest in Europe, drawing thousands of troops from German bases.  I want to fact-check all of this, but it’s probably true, and I was a little unnerved about how I knew nothing of this, and I’m guessing you probably didn’t know anything either. 

They both opposed the base from the start, partially because of security reasons for the town and partially because of opposition go the American military in general.  They said that a lot of the base’s initial supporters have been disappointed to see that the construction is not benefitting local business.  It’s an issue that I’ve brought up with my new family and intend to ask more people in this area for their opinion.  I’m also hoping to visit the current base if possible, since apparently all I need to enter is a US passport.

Dinner was the grand Meledo reunion.  A few of the campers were related, so I had two campers who were brother and sister, and their half-brother was in the younger class.  Their cousin was also in my class, so it was all of their grandparents’ house.  But the brother-sister were on their way back from Croatia with their father, and since the brother is one of my all-time favorite campers I was bummed about that but maybe I’ll get to see him since I’m only 10 minutes away for the next two weeks.  We had our final dinner there two years ago, which ended with an hour of camp songs and games and they all came to the station the next morning to say goodbye again. 

But that was two years ago, which is a very long time in a kid’s life.  And unlike the Casteldaccia bunch, these kids were always reluctant to speak English and a little quieter in general.  So for the first hour or two they didn’t want to say anything in English and weren’t too interested in talking to me in Italian either.  But the younger brother, Nico, who was a spacey 7 year-old last time turned into a very aware and eager-to-speak-English young fellow.  And after Raffaella told him to say “Have you seen…?” I was bombarded with “Have you seen Twlight?!”  “Have you seen Tintin?!”  “Have you seen Scooby Doo?!” His eyes got really big for this last one.  And the other kids joined in, suddenly impatient and wanting to get their English questions in. 

They jokingly said I should pick grapes with them tomorrow, at the vineyard right behind our dinner table, and I took them up on the offer, although I woke up at 7:45, not at 5:30 like the rest of them.  9 year-old Nico was my teacher, showing me how and where to cut the vines.  We chatted in English, Spanish, and Italian, and it was a lot of fun.  Their parents and grandparents were also working, and they all seemed to be in good spirits even though the temperature was already climbing into the 90s.  The grandfather (who bellows whenever he speaks and seems more Texan than any other Italian I’ve met) was cutting grapes in a City Camps hat, putting his grandson’s hat to good use.

After that 45 minutes, Raffaella and I left for Apicoltura Pizzato, the apiary where I got a bunch of Acacia honey two years ago.  The same beekeeper was there, and I told her how when I had to bring a special object to my Coro interview in New York and explain it before 150 people, I chose the empty honey jar.  I told her that to me it represented all the people I met in Italy and the adventures I had, and that it still had the same wonderful smell.  She cried and gave me a hug, and it was a pretty incredible moment to share with this woman who I had only known for a few hours two years ago.  Of course I bought more honey, and she gave me a little jar of Tarrassaco, her new dandelion honey. 

Raffaella dropped me off at my next camp with new directors, new co-tutors, and a new family, which I will have a lot to say about (good things) in my next post!

The Color

(written August 18^th on the train leaving Cinque Terre)

The Chianti car adventure ended pretty much how it began – Drama. When my Mom and I first discussed the trip, we were concerned that it would be during the two weeks of Italian holiday around August 15^th.  But up to yesterday, we had had no problems.  There were always enough restaurants and shops open, and everything touristy was open. But that changed when we were on our way to return the car.  After a wrong turn that led us onto a highway with an exit only every 15 minutes, we were close to missing our train to Cinque Terre.  And then the search for a gas station began.  We found one!  It was closed for the holiday.  We found another!  It was closed for the holiday.  Same with the third.  By the time we filled up and returned the car, our train had left.  But we hopped on another and made a tight connection in Pisa so we only lost an hour. 

Cinque Terre, as it was last year and always will be, is an unbelievably beautiful place.  It’s a series of five old fishing towns (Cinque Terre = Five Towns) along the northwest coast of the country.  The area became a national park about 15 years ago and is now an interesting mix of super touristy and very local.  It wasn’t on the original itinerary but my Mom loved my pictures from the towns last year and since we had an extra day I thought it would be great for her to see it for herself.

We went to Monterosso first, the northern most town, which has the only real beach.  We walked around, took some random staircases (my favorite part of Cinque Terre) and shopped a little.  I went back to the spot where I took the picture that I put on canvas in my apartment this past year.  The lighting was totally different, and the place that was empty in my picture was suddenly filled with tables and people – and a photographer taking the same shot I took. 

After misreading the train schedule and having to push our dinner reservation back, we hopped over to Vernazza, the next town down.  It has a beautiful piazza on the water and the colors were incredible in the light of the sunset.  I had my Mom pose in a few different places with the piazza in the background, I’m hoping one will become her new profile picture.

We had dinner in Vernazza at a restaurant atop a medieval tower (or at least it looked like it was a medieval tower).  The weather was, like every other night of the trip, perfect. 

We got to try the pasta of Liguria (the region where Cinque Terre is), trofie al pesto.  Trofie is a type of pasta that I really liked last year and spent a long time googling to figure out what the name was.  But I never see it at home.  They’re little spirals, and just the right amount of chewy.

We had time for two more towns today.  First was Manarola, the second town up.  I explained to my Mom that even though it was really hot and the walk could be steep, you gotta climb to get the best views.  She was reluctant at first but after a few minutes of hiking she was the one pushing to go further.  It seemed like a new lizard scurried away with every step, and we were greeted by a small snake on the path.  The views were spectacular and it was great to get away from what was a very, very crowded day in Cinque Terre.

The only part of the trail between towns we were able to do was “Via dell’ Amore” (I’ll let you figure that one out) to Riomaggiore, where I stayed last summer for a few days.  My friend Samira told me that her friend/our host was now working at the Central Bar in town, and I ran into her throwing out trash from the restaurant, so I got to introduce her to my Mom.  It was funny seeing someone I knew there.  We had our final meal together (trofie al pesto again for me) and headed to the train station after this final adventure.  Of course we stopped for a last gelato.

It’s already strange traveling without my Mom, she was a great travel buddy.  Now is the transition, I’ll have some downtime before I head to my first camp on Saturday afternoon.  I’m not at all in the camp mindset, but I wasn’t last year either until the first morning of camp, so I don’t think I’ll be too nervous. 

Now I’m on the train, in one of those 6-person compartments.  The only other guy in it has been with me the whole ride.  At the beginning he kept asking me questions in Italian and finally asked if I was Italian and was surprised to find out I wasn’t.  I could take this as a compliment, but I think it says more about this guy’s weirdness that he couldn’t figure that much out.  He also ends most of his sentences with “Mamma mia!”  “Troppo caldo (too hot), Mamma mia!”  “Cinque Terre, bellissime (so beautiful), Mamma mia!”  And every once in a while he tries to start up a fast Italian conversation, I’m doing my best to show a polite lack of interest.

I Have A Camp!

My Mom and I had a delayed but great day in Cinque Terre today, hitting the top two towns.  I'll share details and pictures later, but I just got the info on my first camp!

I'll be in Montecchio Maggiore for the next two weeks, a small town near Vicenza, which is a city near Verona and in between Milan and Venice.  I got that placement because it's 5 miles from where I'll be staying the next two nights, in a B&B coordinated by my former camp director in the area.  It will be a small camp, only 20-30 kids (which I like), and two small classes of elementary, one big class of middle.  So 3 tutors. 

ACLE, the organization I'm working through, seems to have a lot of tutors still around for this late part of the summer, so I was worried I wouldn't have a placement.  I am very relieved that it's a two-week camp.  I will probably be staying with a family, although my camp details page doesn't say. 

Tomorrow we'll try to see the other three towns here before my Mom heads to Rome to fly home Friday and I head up to the Vicenza area. 

I hope all is well in the States!

Tuscarny

Warning: This post could be very long.  But there will lots of pictures to keep your attention.  We had our share of adventures during the last three days, most of them enjoyable.

We arrived in Florence on a fast train Sunday morning.  Since we only had 6 hours to explore the city, we did some cramming to get a day's worth in.  Goal #1: Gelato.  My favorite gelateria (Gelateria De Neri) is in Firenze, and there's another one that's great (La Carraia).  We took care of La Carraia first and made it to the superior De Neri at the end of our day, their caffe gelato is unreal.  But onto less important things, we spent half of our brief stay at the Uffizi, the most famous art gallery in Italy.  I'd been a couple years ago but this time we had a tour and it was a totally different experience.  This photo of the bridges over the Arno is from the bend in the U that is the Uffizi.

The most ambitious part of our trip was the decision to rent a car.  We picked up our two-tone Audi in Florence and I got behind the wheel.  It was my first time driving outside North America, and it was pretty scary at first, but the small car fit the small roads.  Fast-forward 45 minutes.  We make it to our small Tuscan base of Greve in Chianti, and our hotel is on the main piazza.  But the main piazza is blocked off.  So we drive around through a narrow, hilly residential area, see the piazza from the back but again it's blocked off.  The only place to park was in the driveway of about 5-10 apartments.  So I can just park and run down to the hotel to ask where to go, right? 

No.  One car parked in front of me decides it's time to pull out.  Another car comes up behind me and wants to get in.  People come out of their apartments.  I try to pull as close as I can to a garage door to let people pass but I can't get the car to start again.  My Mom and I freak out.  After panic subsides somewhat, I realize I put the car in reverse before I turned it on so I put it in park and eventually pull closer.  I run down to the hotel, no one is at the desk.  I run around til I hear voices in the back and I call for someone.  A young guy comes our and I ask him where to park.  He asks, "You drive the Audi?"  Word already reached him.  He tells us to move the barrier and park in the piazza and check in, and then we re-park in a lot a couple minutes away.  Welcome to Greve.  Welcome to driving in Italy.

But we grew to really like Greve.  I should probably explain where this is, since all you may know is the name of Chianti wine, that's all we knew until a couple months ago.  So Tuscany is a region in Italy, like an American state.  And Il Chianti is a wine region in Tuscany, similar to Napa in California.  There are vineyards everywhere.  It's in between Florence and Siena, the two most famous cities in Tuscany.  And Greve is in the heart of Chianti.  Chianti Classico is the most famous variety of Chianti, it means that the grapes are 80+% sangiovese grapes.  The other varieties have different percentages.

There's a beautiful piazza (pictured, where our hotel is) that's always lively, even on Ferragosto, a national holiday yesterday.  The shops surrounding the piazza are mostly wine shops, crafts, and there's a butcher shop a few centuries old that has hams hanging everywhere.

Yesterday, after a confusing period of rain subsided, we hiked about a half hour west of town, up a hill checkered with olive groves and vineyards, which we were surprised to discover are often one and the same.  I guess they grow well together.  It felt a long way from the chaos of Palermo, the size of Rome, and the intentional beauty of Florence.

We hiked to a very small (300-400 people) medieval village atop the hill called Montefioralle.  After one 5-minute loop around town we'd seen it all, but it was definitely worth it.  It was a cloudy afternoon, which was not ideal for pictures, but the temperatures were about 15° cooler than expected, so no complaints.

For the rest of the afternoon, we struggled to find an open vineyard since it was a holiday, but I found one with an English tour at 3 pm, about 30 minutes away.  We set off in our Audi, this time I was Navigator.  The drive was unbelievably beautiful.  It got to 2:50 pm and we were on track, just went through the last town before the vineyard.  But the next turn didn't come.  At about 3 I tried to call the vineyard (I have an Italian phone) but had no service.  A few minutes later I see a sign saying we're heading toward Castellina.  Castellina is exactly the wrong direction.  Somehow, and neither my Mom or I could figure out how, after passing through the last town we had done a 180° and were going the wrong way.  There are lots of turns, most of them very blind, and I guess we hadn't realized that we missed a turn somewhere and made a lot of turns in one direction and ended up back on the same road, going the other way.  Baffling.

Exhausted and nauseous, we took the road to Castellina, which turned out to be a beautiful medieval town, and one of the main destinations in Chianti.  After our stomachs stabilized we had some amazing gelato and found an incredible view off the west edge of the town.

The way back was, mercifully, only one road.  I finally enjoyed driving and made a few stops along the way when it was just way too pretty to keep driving.  Example...

For dinner we went to the first of two places I made a reservation at for the trip.  Up a hill not too far from Greve, we had a terrace view of the sunset.  The home made gnocchi was fantastic, and some of the other dishes were as well. 

But I'm gonna stall for a sec (to allow more room for pictures from dinner) to talk about Chianti/Tuscan food.  First of all, the bread.  I remember seeing Tuscan Pane (bread) at Trader Joe's, and I think I bought it once, and I think it was good.  If that was the case, TJ's Tuscane Pane is horribly inaccurate.  Tuscan bread is TERRIBLE.  Reason: They don't put salt in it.  I don't know why, but it is terrible.  There is plenty of great olive oil to be had here, but at the end of tasting it you have to endure the taste of the bread.  It's really unfortunate.  I think it's the same way throughout Northern Italy.

Aside from that, the food is really good.  Mushrooms are big here.  I've had something mushroom-y or truffle-y with just about every meal.  And I haven't had a disappointing gelato in this region. 

And today.  Today was a good day.  We drove back up into the hills for a winery tour at Vignamaggio, which claims fame for two reasons aside from their wine.

1. Much Ado About Nothing was filmed there.  Now on my Netflix Queue.
2. Mona Lisa was born there.  She lived in the villa until she left to marry someone who commissioned Da Vinci to paint her for their wedding.  Or at least so the story goes.

It was a beautiful place with almost 360° views and we had a great tour guide.  There was a nice Belgian family touring with us, and they had a little girl who was wearing a pretty dress that she used to store her impressive pebble collection from the villa's garden.  She would wrap up the pouch and drag her dress around the garden.  It was adorable. 

We tasted a few of their wines and olive oils.  The rosemary-infused olive oil was my favorite, and the super spicy olive oil was fun.

After lunch back in Greve we headed to the largest enoteca (wine shop) in Chianti for some more tasting.  The Chianti Classico, the most famous type of Chianti wine, that we'd had at dinner and at the winery were decent, but we didn't love either variety.  This place, like many in town, had wine cards, where you get a card worth say, 10 euro, and there are bottles hooked up to machines everywhere and you can but a taste worth between .60 and 6.00 depending on the value of the whole bottle.  It's a cool way to try a bunch of wines.

We tried to like Chianti wine.  We tried to like any Tuscan wine.  We found a couple that didn't taste bad.  But most of them tasted bad.  Finally we ended up at the olive oil tasting station where we found options that didn't cause us to make a face, laugh out of bewilderment, and spit it out.

Finally, dinner tonight.  Inspired by a family when me on our Rome tour who made pasta, we signed up for a cooking lesson at a nearby villa.  The chef was Giudita (Judith), a Hungarian-Italian woman who was the perfect mix of humility, control, and humor.  We were joined by four Aussie girls traveling the world.  We made tiramisu, pici (typical Sienese pasta, thicker than spaghetti, you can see us rolling them) with pesto and with tomato sauce, crostini with chicken liver, lightly breaded tomatoes, and chicken with peppers.  And by "we made," I mean we did a lot of the prep and she did a lot of the actual cooking.  But we watched and she explained (and my Mom took notes).

It was a cool experience, and I definitely learned a few things.  We aproned up, and the first thing she asked us to do was crack an egg for the tiramisu, and put the white in one bowl and the yolk in another.  She did this very easily.  She asked me to do it next.  I cracked the egg, some of it fell on the floor.  I poured the white into one and did my best to filter out the yolk, but it slipped in.  So I scooped most of it out and into the other bowl.  I asked if it was ok and she looked very concerned.  It turns out that if you get any yolk into the whites, it doesn't turn into cream when you blend it, and the tiramisu doesn't have the right consistency.  Oops.  But she still liked me because I was the only one who spoke any Italian, and because I was the only guy so my name was easiest to remember.

But dinner turned out well, and we enjoyed our meal outside, overlooking the hills of Chianti.  The Aussies were a fun, witty bunch, and had some great travel stories from their last few weeks in Europe.  The crostini with chicken liver and pici with pesto were the best. 

And to Chianti Classico's credit, the one we had was actually pretty good wine.  Giudita said it had to breathe for an hour or two before drinking, so she uncorked it as we started to cook, and by dinner time it tasted much, much better than at the tasting earlier.

Ok, this was a very long post.  I had a feeling it would be when I picked out only essential pictures from the last three days and there were 15.  Tomorrow we had to Cinque Terre, so the pictures should stay pretty for at least a little while longer. 

To those of you who asked for these to go directly to you, thanks!  It makes it more fun to write when I know people want to read.  I hope the "subscription" service worked!

The Reunion

About two weeks ago I sent my campers from Casteldaccia in Sicily a facebook message letting them know I’d be back and asking if they wanted to meet up for a gelato.  This is the only group I’ve ever added on Facebook, because they were awesome and my oldest group (12-15).  One of them took charge and invited the other older class that another tutor and I team-taught.  They decided where we’d go and offered to meet me at the train station and drive my Mom and I there. 

We emerged from the path beneath the tracks and four of them were there to greet us.  Two more came a few minutes later.  It was amazing to see them again, and we were all really excited to see each other.  Two of them were from my class of five, and the other four were from the other class.  I introduced them all to my Mom and a couple parents were there too, who remembered me but I didn’t remember them. 

At the gelateria we caught up, and I was really impressed with their English and especially with their questions.  It’s rare that you find a group of Italian kids who want to speak English, and these ones all love to practice (they have an incredible English teacher who also serves as Camp Director).  They asked about my job, which is really hard to explain in basic English or basic Italian, but I told them I helped people with no home find a home and I helped in other ways, too, which is pretty close, but I much prefer to talk about working with them than helping them.  And sometimes I say it’s an “anno di serizio” which I think makes sense but I hate referring to it as a “year of service.”  They asked my Mom a lot of questions, too, and they asked if my brother still worked in politics.  One remembered he was 27, which I only told them once on the first morning of camp.

A couple times conversation lagged, and at one point to keep it going I asked what the tall towers were way down the shore.  They struggled to explain in English, until one girl said, “Homer Simpson works in it.  But it’s not nuclear.”  Pretty creative explanation for a power plant.

Before we left the gelateria to walk along the beach one of them (the sassy one) told me I couldn’t leave because there was a surprise coming.  I was kept in suspense for about 10 minutes before she left for a couple minutes and returned with a pillow.  It had a picture of the oldest classes, us tutors, and the director, and said “You remember us forever.”  I was pretty overwhelmed.  My Mom brought them key chains from San Francisco, which they liked a lot, but they didn’t compare.  When picture time came around they told me to sit down in the chair and we did a little photo shoot where they kept changing poses behind me.  It took me a little too long to catch on.

My host mom, Rosanna, and brother, Lorenzo, came to the beach to pick my real mom and me up.  It was an equally memorable reunion.  They brought us back to their house and she and her husband, Salvo, gave us a tour of their garden, which I don’t think I got last year.  My Mom really enjoyed trying to figure out what each vegetable and spice was in English.  Later on Salvo was trying to explain “pepperoncino.”  He brought out a bowl of them and my Mom said: “Oh, chili peppers!”  He smiled with recognition and asked, “Band?”  

They remembered that I like pesce spada (swordfish).  So Rosanna and Salvo made 11 dishes, 4 of which were variations of swordfish.  First was Salvo’s pasta, casecce (pasta shaped like scrolls) with swordfish and lemon.  He grated the lemon peel into invisibility and it was perfect.  We had grilled swordfish, swordfish skewers, and caponata with swordfish (my new favorite).   

Their English is not as good as my campers’, so we spoke in Italian and I translated what my Mom couldn’t understand or her English that they couldn’t understand.  To finish off the meal we had some of the limoncello Salvo’s dad made, which was 50% alcohol.

Layers

(got a USB drive! So all pics from now on will be mine) Yesterday was my 4^th trip to Rome in the last 27 months.  My Mom and I spent three days in Palermo, where I spent four days last year.  Each trip is different, but of course there is a lot of overlap.  Our tour guide in Rome last night talked about how historians refer to Rome as Lasagna because of its historical layers, and I’m beginning to feel similarly about part of Italy.  Walking around the city I saw places I had dinner my first trip there, tourist destinations from my second trip, and meeting spots from my third trip.  I imagine I will similarly about my third visit to Florence today.  I don’t think it’s good or bad to observe these layers, but it’s something I’ve been thinking about quite a bit.  It’s exciting to fill in the gaps from my last trip or last three trips.  Going to the Capella Palatina in Palermo, Galleria Borghese in Rome, experiencing Chianti.  But like last year, the more I see the more I feel there is to be seen.

On Day 2 of Palermo we went up the hill to Monreale, one of my favorite spots from last year.  It’s a big church with golden mosaics decorating the interior walls.  Outside there is a courtyard (il chiostro) which may be the most picturesque place I’ve ever been.  The center of the courtyard is not kept up, there’s more dirt than grass, but the mosaic poles surrounding it are beautiful, and the Church exterior isn’t too bad either.  I had one picture from there on my wall this past year, and I tried to find another angle that was Wall-worthy, and I think this (outside shot) might be it.

  

Our last day in Sicily we did a Hop On, Hop Off exposed 2^nd level bus tour, which I have never been a fan of.  But it’s a good way to see areas of the city that are too far to walk to.  The audio guide never seemed to discuss what I wanted to know, only talked for less than half the time, when there was a lot more it could have said.  We did another in Rome yesterday that, again, was a good way to see lots of things, but was equally frustrating.  

 

One last note on Sicily... the food.  Arancini are these fried rice balls with cheese and/or veggies and/or meat inside.  In the US they are maybe 1.5 inches in diameter.  In Sicily they can be up to 5.  And they are delicious.

Afterward we visited the Galleria Borghese, an art museum in the main park in Rome where the building is a work of art itself.  The museum has a few really impressive Bernini sculptures, one of David that I studied in art history and another of Dafne and Apollo (I think?) where she’s turning into a tree.  I think it’s my new favorite sculpture.  The ceilings of every room were incredible, it was just a beautiful place.

We had a super stressful time finding our evening tour but once we did it was great.  The tour was just us and a Canadian family, and the guide was pretty good.  I’d been to the Trevi Fountain, Pantheon, Piazza Venezia etc. three or four times before, but never on a tour, so this was a welcome new layer.  And for dinner we FINALLY had pizza, followed by a couple gelato stops, I think San Crispino may be the best in Rome.