"Let's get a pizza at the Communista festival"

Sunday was a great day.  It began with drinks at a bar in the center of town… before lunch.  To explain the size of this town, I live on the outskirts and I am three blocks from the center.

I’ve had aperitivo (pre-meal drinks + appetizers) before, but always before dinner, so I opted for orange juice – it was a little early for me.  Lunch was at my host mom’s parent’s house down the street from where I’m staying.  My host great-grandma was there too, and they were both really sweet. 

As she was making lunch, I realized that my host mom may not have fully understood my dietary restrictions.  The handmade spinach/ricotta ravioli looked amazing, but she poured a meat ragu sauce all over it.  I had the dilemma of do I a) just eat it or b) explain Kashrut with many apologies.  I chose to eat it (scraping off as much meet from the ravioli as possible).  And what I discovered was that not only do I prefer meat/cheese separately for religious reasons, but I think they just taste better separately, too.  Maybe I’m just not used to it, but I think those ravioli would have gone much better with veggies. 

Afterward my host parents took me to Siena (at last!).  It was beautiful.  A lot more crammed than Florence, which I like, and the main piazza was incredible.  It was built for Il Palio, Siena’s twice-a-year horse race, so the ground is slanted down for the best viewing.  My host mom and I climbed to the top of the tower on the piazza for a view of the city and beyond.

On the walk back to the car my host dad and I were talking about music.  He loves 60s-80s American music.  He was talking about the Grateful Dead, so I mentioned that they started playing in Palo Alto, and had a show at my high school.  I told him that Joan Baez went to my school, since I’d seen her name on one of his records.  He was impressed and the next thing that came out of his mouth was: “Ahh west coast music.  Jefferson Airplane… Grace Slick.”  I couldn’t believe the next name came up was another Paly alum.  At that point I felt a little ridiculous but I told him that yes, she too went to my high school.  I’m not sure if he believed me.

On our way back my host mom said “Let’s go get a pizza at the Communista festival.”  I thought this was a little strange but there are a lot of far left events here so I thought maybe they were popular in Foiano.  We got to the festival and it looked like a pretty typical local festival with food, entertainment, etc.  But there were also a bunch of big trucks.  I asked my host dad if it was a Communista festival as in “comune,” which is like a small town, but he said no.  Totally bewildered, I asked him if it was a Communista festival as in Russia.  He started laughing really hard and said: “No, as in camione” and pointed to the trucks.  It turns out that a camionista is a truck driver.  Communista is pronounced co-moo-mee-sta and camionista is pronounced ca-myon-eesta.  Still strange that truck drivers have festivals, but a little more understandable.

Camp this week is Mean Girls Camp.  The kids are mostly good, but in both of the older classes we’ve had problems with girls ganging up on individual boys.  Overall it's another pretty easy week though.  And here's a picture of the town a block from camp.  More in another post.

Oh but a weird thing happened the first day.  I asked a girl in another class where she was from and it went something like this...

Her: "Monteccio Maggiore... city camp"  

Me:  "Wait, what?  I worked there two weeks ago."

Her: "My cousins... Giorgia and Giacomo."

Me:  "Uhhhhhh yeah Giacomo was in my class."

Her: "Yes, the Dragons. Other tutors Polly and Emma."

Montecchio was my first camp this year, three or four hours from here.  I am in a very small town, and yet this girl already knew about me, what I looked like (from pictures), and what my group's name was two weeks ago.  Unbelievable. 

For the show I just wrote a script about a pajama party murder mystery.  When I asked for story suggestions the first one was “Glee,” which I’ve never heard about from a mini Italian.  They decided it would be too difficult and not everyone liked “Glee” but I kept re-suggesting it.  And I’m hoping the show will help with juvenile homophobia here.