Christmas Tree Chopping

Christmas tree shopping is one of my favorite parts of the season. It’s something of a kickoff for the holidays and a fun family adventure. The past few years, however, have been less of a walk down Memory Lane in a Winter Wonderland. No simple shopping trip for the Stiths. None of the wandering excitedly through the tree lot, smelling the wonderful Frasier fir smell and judging height and fullness—we’ve done it enough times already. We picked our tree(s) out of the yard and chopped it down then and there. Not that the experience was traditional; even the Stith’s clichés tend towards the unorthodox.
All of us traipsed down across our muddy driveway in the damp drizzle to take a look at the Virginia pines that line the edges of our saturated soccer field. Each twisted, short, blue-green needle had a bead of water that glinted silver under the gray sky—ready to fall off en mass to drench any curious tree hunter armed with murderous intentions and a saw. The growth pattern of Virginia pines in their natural habitat is anything but regular, unfortunately, and we found ourselves faced with the disappointment trees that looked full and beautiful in the pine grove and lopsidedly scrawny out of context.
We compensated by choosing a few young trees with the intention of somehow tying them together. Rather than pulling them home on a sled over lovely fields of snow, the boys picked them up like battering rams and charged towards the house over the mud puddles in our sloppy yard.



Next followed our yearly hunt for the tree stand. This is one tradition that we are perfectly consistent in our observance of—somehow the rickety, many-times-repaired, fourlegged red and green apparatus always disappears into the great unknown of the basement storage and turns up in some dusty, unexpected corner. My mother is the only one who ever seems to be able to find it…she says it’s one of those special gifts that come with being a mom, like having an uncanny ability to know what's going on behind your back and knowing how to make the best hot chocolate around.
Our lovely Moravian star gave a bit of unforeseen trouble. We’d carelessly replaced the light bulb last year, partially melted our tree topper and nearly burned the house down. I’d forgotten all about this incident—fire safety in our house tends to center on controlling flying sparks from the wood stove and keeping Tiffany away from candles and matches. While I repaired the yellowed (and, in some cases, blackened) points of the star and found a bulb with less pyromaniacal tendencies, Daddy and the boys pulled out their drills to try and screw our tree trinity together. Currently, it’s wired to the wall to keep if from falling on anyone, which would be nothing short of a catastrophe…because that triple tree is tall. I’m guessing fourteen feet. The vaulted ceiling in the living room offered little restriction, so we went for dramatic. I had thought we’d made a rather conservative choice, but everything always looks smaller when it’s outside. Every time I walk into the living room, I feel like I ought to throw my ballet slipper at the Mouse King and dance off with the Nutcracker through swirling snowflakes.



Decorating it proved to be another challenge. Many of our Christmas parties over the years have included some element of ornament making. It’s truly amazing what people will come up with, given pipe cleaners, styrofoam balls, felt, and sequins. Actually, some of them are quite lovely, but some of them are more than a little ridiculous. There’s the Peace Tank, Michael Jordan (complete with pinhead eyeballs and festive green hairdo), the NY Yankees (made by a Yankee friend and always relegated to the place of shame in the back of the tree), Mr. Heat Miser and Mr. Snow Miser (if you don’t know, don’t ask), the Roofcrafters Snowman (complete with caulk gun and tool belt), the Christmas Tree Eyeballs (my favorites), and many, many others. None of your tinsel and popcorn strings; I get to put up the helicopter this year! Factor in the rickety ornament hook attachments and the height of our tree, and you got quite an adventure on your hands. We used ladders and broom handles, but even so occasionally had to resort to the most exciting ornament hanging technique of all: toss and cross your fingers. Fortunately styrofoam and felt don’t shatter (usually) when they hit the floor from fifteen feet.



After our labors, we drank hot chocolate with whipped cream and sprinkles and watched It’s A Wonderful Life.

Basketball Culture Shock

It’s now been two days back in NC. Today I ventured out of the house for the first time since getting in from RDU. I was expecting to be bowled over by the differences between Italians and Americans, but nothing doing. Either three months in Italy isn’t enough time to give some perspective on twenty years of America and I just need to pay more attention, or they really aren’t all that different anyway. Right now, I’m inclined to go with the latter. Watch the referees…they talk with their hands. Listen to the crowd…they are just as noisy as the 2 am passagiata crowd on the weekends. People are people, are they not?
One would think that a high school basketball game in Alamance county would be about as un-Italian as it gets. Really, though, lots of homeschool families screaming together in the gym of a Baptist church isn’t exactly something that I encountered much in Tuscany. However, I ended up being more surprised by the similarities of the experiences rather than the differences. Listen to the names…they’re surprisingly similar. Practically everybody in Italy is named after a saint: Francescas, Micheles, Chiaras, Andreas…the list goes on. Homeschool kids have to compensate for a preponderance of biblical names: there were two Micahs, three Jacobs, a Christian, a Daniel, and a smattering of Matthews, Marks, Lukes, and Johns on the court. Sitting next to me on the bleachers—Mary and Elizabeth.
Now, none of this is to say that Italy and North Carolina are the same. Nothing of the kind. For one thing, seeing one, two, or at most three children in one family for months isn’t good preparation for homeschool clans of five, six, seven, or even ten. One of the things I love best about such large, tightly knit families is seeing the sibling interaction. Watching a baby sister imitating the team’s warm-up stretches or a little boy high-fiving his teenaged big brother every time he jogs around the court is sweet, but it’s even more meaningful to see that the big brother doesn’t roll his eyes or brush off the reverential attentions of his little siblings. While the Italians excel at intergenerational interaction, it’s tough to beat these Alamance Eagles kids when it comes to brother-sister relationships.
Of course, here’s where I start over-thinking...but I’ve spent an entire semester desperately trying to pick up on cultural clues, to understand the unwritten rulebook of Italy. As far as watching basketball games goes, I’m out of practice. The controversial calls mystified me, the language of the court and the bleachers fell on unaccustomed ears, the etiquette of good sportsmanship seemed elaborate and puzzling. I suppose you could say I was going through basketball culture shock.
I’d love to be able to give you a funny, insightful laundry list of all the unusual things Americans do. I’m afraid, however, that won’t be happening anytime soon. I can, on the other hand, call things as I see them, but you’ll have to be patient with me. This whole reverse-culture-shock thing is almost as complicated as it was cracked up to be. But hey, I’m glad to be back in a country where they sell index cards.

Coming Home

Tuscany Girl is no longer in Tuscany, and is not sure whether to laugh or cry about it. When we landed in Washington I was perfectly ready to hop on a plane heading back across the Atlantic (as much to avoid customs as to get back to Italy). Once I got off the plane in RDU, however, I discovered the joys that the familiar always hold, even in an airport. I just about waltzed up to the big flat-screen TV to give Greg Fishel a hug, I was so happy to see his quizzical face behind those round glasses. I also have a new appreciation for the good old South. Strangers smiled, people held doors open, and two guys offered to help me with my luggage. And of course, the accents. Just about everybody has one!
Christian nearly had his head squeezed off when he found me with my forlorn pile of luggage. On the way home it was hard to imagine that I’d been away for more than a week or so. We got home to the end of a riotous Christmas party (which was supposed to be over by the time I got there, but thanks to standby I made it to NC at a reasonable hour). I don’t believe I’ve ever hugged so many people in such a short time in my life. Everybody vanished fairly quickly, for which I must admit I was grateful. I hadn’t slept in a bed for forty hours, more or less, and was beyond frazzled. After that I had a little time to digest how much was different. The living room was painted a gorgeous golden color, the library furniture rearranged, the floors refinished. I’m still discerning how my family has changed…all that’s obvious right now is that Curt has grown a few more inches and that Tiffany has become outrageously articulate for a three-year-old. Suddenly I felt as if I’d been gone for three years instead of three months. Nothing has changed, but everything is different.
The next day I began to really appreciate home. We ate a marvelous breakfast of pancakes and sausages and eggs, and I thought I had died and gone to heaven. I love feeling the warmth of the wood stove on my back with my cat on my lap, listening to the rain drumming on the green tin roof, or singing along while other people play music. So much of home I didn’t even realize that I missed!
After living so long out of a single suitcase, the abundance of everything astounds me. I literally fell over laughing when I opened my closet. I couldn’t have been happier had I been given an entire department store. And our library! The shelves are crammed with books in English! All my favorites are still there waiting for when my system adjusts to the time change and I am awake enough to spend my evenings by the fire with Jane Eyre or Jean Valjean or—as the days count down until Christmas—Ebenezer Scrooge and Bob Cratchit.
I’m expecting to have a bit more trouble with reverse culture shock when I actually get out of the house, but for now, the Stith home is a great place for a little cultural decompression—and soul food!

Packing List

It’s that time of year…and it’s beginning to look a lot like chaos. The oft repeated refrain “you can buy it over there” is sounding less astute than formerly. This calls for strategic planning, for a swift and decisive course of action that will include whatever Ziplock bags I still have and lots of shoving.
This is my packing list. I don’t think much of this will fit in my suitcase, but I intend to carry it with me anyway.
I’m taking an awful lot of memories. There’s a few less not-so-pleasant ones in the mix, but I’m keeping them for a while. I suspect they, like wine or cheese, will taste better with a little time. I also think they will be much easier to get through customs.
I’m taking a new appreciation for my own country. Really, the US is a wonderful place to live.
I’m taking a laundry list of vocabulary and a good start in a new language.
I’m taking recipes for pasta, techniques for olive harvesting, and a delight in blogging.
I’m taking along a taste for new olive oil and for sweet sparkling white wine (which I’ll have to keep packed up for a while once I’m home).
I’m taking habits that are going to be hard to break, such as having a long, leisurely practice after lunch, kissing both cheeks to say goodbye, waving my hands around, and automatic use of “si,” “va bene,” and “ho capito.”
I’m taking a lot of questions about myself. The older I get, the harder they seem to answer. Study abroad has only made things more difficult.
I’m taking some side-splitting stories. And I can wait to tell them…

I’m leaving my naïve, romantic expectations of Italy behind. They took up far too much space on the way over, and I can’t fit them in with my new appreciation for Italia.
I’m leaving many friends. Several of them are two years old and some of them are in their sixties and seventies and most are somewhere in between, but none of them fit in my suitcase (in spite of the teasing of my host family, my piano teacher has expressed no interest in stowing away in my luggage.)
I’m leaving two high school classrooms full of kids who know more English than before I came and whose faces I know will light up with a smile if I ever see them again.
I’m also leaving about five inches of my hair…don’t be too shocked.
I’m leaving my fear of independent travel. It was too heavy to carry and got lost somewhere in one of the many Trenitalia stations I passed through.
I’m leaving a list of places that I wished I could have gone to. They’ll still be here when I come back.

Alright, everyone. I'll be home soon. Thanks for following along on my Italian adventure, and thanks to the wonderful people of Sansepolcro who welcomed me with open arms! I'm off to say my goodbyes and to see how much more I can fit into my suitcase...

Finding Friends

Some of the most special moments during my time in Italy have not been related at all to the sightseeing that I’ve been doing. I’ve found new friends in unexpected places, and now that I’m looking at how many dinner-before-you-go invitations I’ve gotten for this next week, I’m realizing how hard it’s going to be to leave them behind.

Of course, there is my wonderful host family. Mr. and Mrs. Tanfi are simply amazing. And they have a good right to be: they’ve been hosting Meredith students for about as long as I have been alive. Hannah and I go to their house for dinner every Wednesday, and there is always something to laugh about on the way home. Mrs. Tanfi speaks about as much English as we speak Italian, which is perfect. Hannah and I try to use as much Italian as we can, but sometimes it’s very helpful to be able to switch to English to try and explain something. Mrs. Tanfi keeps an Italian-English dictionary on the table while we eat, which is usually in near-constant use all night. Every time we’ve gone, Mrs. Tanfi has served up a marvelous four course meal (last week she made the homemade jam I brought her into a cake) while Mr. Tanfi keeps us in stitches with his mischievous pranks—he insists on calling wine “Coca-Cola,” for one. The entire family has taken us in. Their son and daughter-in-law live in the upstairs half of the house with their four year old son, Andrea, and always eat dinner with us. We’ve seen baby pictures, wedding albums, and have been promised a home video next week.

Another wonderful experience was one that I had only yesterday. One of my students from the high school invited me to her house for her family’s celebration of Thanksgiving. Both of her parents are American missionaries, and her family is planting an evangelical church in Umbertide. It was such a wonderful experience to be with a big family again; she has a sister and two brothers, and they had invited two other couples with two little ones each. I was amazed at how well they had recreated an American atmosphere…everything from the pictures on the wall to the food on the table (green bean casserole!) to the toys that the kids were playing with. They and their guests welcomed me with open arms…and I needed it after a Thanksgiving away from my family.
Last week was our last time helping teach English in the local schools. Lauren and I were both touched on Friday (I think the only thing that kept both of us from crying was the thought of standing up in front of a classroom of high school students in five minutes) when our teachers produced a Christmas gift bag with gifts for us in it. Our high school is similar to a magnet school for arts and crafts in the US. Our teachers had asked the jewelry making instructor to make us something. The two of us now have gold honeycomb heart charms that were uniquely handmade, and a wonderful remembrance of our “student teaching” experience.

Italian Cookery

Finally! We have been begging for cooking lessons for months, and Friday was finally the day! We learned to make tagliatelle and gnocchi from scratch…delicious is an understatement.
I’ve never had an official cooking lesson before. However, I must say that Patrizio is quite the instructor. He conducted the lesson with the despotic tyranny of a true chef—which he is. Possibly that afternoon was the only time that he got to boss his father-in-law (his assistant), his wife (powerpoint manager), and nine American college students (chefs-in-training) around at the same time. We all enjoyed the bossiness…especially because he wore his entire chef outfit: high collared white shirt, crazy patterned pants, apron, hat and all.

First order of business: dump a small package of flour onto a wooden board, fluff in a pinch of salt (un pizzico di sale) with a fork, make a well, and crack a dozen eggs into it. Patrizio graciously allowed Gigi, his assistant, to crack in the last four. Gigi decided to get flashy and crack them single handedly, which gained oohs and aahs from his impressed audience until one side of the well gave way and the eggs threatened to spill all over the floor. Patrizio took over again with an amused eyeroll and started mixing in the eggs with a fork until he could knead the mixture with his fingers. Then he asked Lauren to take over the kneading for a while. After that, he showed us how to roll a portion of the dough out with lots and lots of flour, fold it up, and then slice it thinly. I got to try my hand at it…I still need to work on my flour-flinging technique, but I picked up on the rolling and the slicing pretty quickly. I think that my recent pie dough making experience helped a lot.

While the rest of us took turned finishing the tagliatelle, Patrizio started the gnocchi. They had already boiled potatoes for us, so we peeled them and ran them through a ricer.

Then simply add more flour and salt, knead, pat until it’s about as thick as biscuit dough, and slice. Roll the slices in more flour and chop them up, and toss them in boiling water until they float. Patrizio took them out and cooked them for a few more minutes in a saucepan with ragu, and then did the same with the cooked tagliatelle.

The best thing about the fresh pasta recipe is that it’s easy to do lots of different things with it. You can slice the dough in different widths, use it for cannelloni, or even ravioli, if you brush the dough with beaten eggs, put little lumps of whatever filling you want to use, and then fold and cut out the squares. Apparently it works for tortellini too, but that is a bit beyond our skill level at this point.
Anyway, I can’t wait to get home and see if I can make it again…I think I won’t miss Italy as much if I can have my own homemade pasta for dinner.

Thoughts on Thanksgiving in Italy

I have finally learned to make pie crust.
Don’t underestimate the importance of that statement. Homemade crust is an art form. While my mom is a fantastic cook and has taught me lots of tricks of the trade, pie crust was one of those things we never had time to do. Spurred by my prolonged absence from the kitchen, I recklessly volunteered to “help with the pies” and found myself in charge of the part that I know the least about.
After referencing multiple internet sources, a few friends, and my mother, I dived in to flour, butter, ice water, salt, and sugar. While I meant that figuratively, I was covered enough of all of the above ingredients that the metaphor is a bit too appropriate. Cutting in butter is always a challenge to be creative with method and utensils…I used a fork, butter knives, cheese grater, and my fingers at different points in the process, much to the amusement of our program director. Since all the recipes called for good old cups and tablespoons and teaspoons, I used a teacup and just guessed at most of the measurements. Since I had to make six, some turned out better than others. By the time I got to the last one, I had my technique down pat. Then I got to line the pans, crimp the edges, and then turn my crusts over to Amanda and Dr. Webb in the filling department and then on to Vi for decoration.

The dinner itself was a tremendous success. Our guests came like the Magi, bearing gifts of wine, chocolate, and flowers. Since sweet potatoes were absolutely nowhere to be found, we compensated with a delicious pumpkin soup; the lack of cornbread stuffing was made up with polenta, which is the closest thing I’ve had to grits in what seems like years. The colossal turkeys were astounding, the cornbread a hit, the pumpkin pie with mascarpone at least a curiosity, if not exactly a universal favorite. I was determined to like it—spending an afternoon with flour up to my elbows has got to have some reward—and I succeeded quite easily. Torta di zucca (dolce, mind you) was just a little odd for the Italians, but most of the Americans were more than happy.
As Meredith is one of those colleges where you do something once and it’s a tradition (“First Annual” is a term we should feel no compunction in using), we felt justified in creating something that I hope will be a lasting ritual for Meredith in Sansepolcro students and friends. As a reminder of what the holiday is really all about, we wanted to both remember what we were thankful for and thank all those who helped get our program off to such a wonderful start.

I’m sure that at some point during their elementary school experience, my American readers have made a hand turkey (tacchino di mano is the newly-coined Italian phrase). I couldn’t help but laugh when I introduced my high school students in the English class that I work with to the technique. They were perfectly mystified as I traced my hand on the board, but broke out into giggles as I added a beak, an eye, and two turkey legs. On Thanksgiving, we asked all fifty-something of our guests to make their own hand turkey, cut it out and decorate it, write something that they were thankful for on the palm, and hang it on a little tree in the center of the room. Some perfectly serious adults have surprising artistic talents that appear when they are handed a sheet of blank paper and a handful of crayons. When we went through the pile of thankful hand turkeys, we found several that were works of art and several with really sweet and thoughtful things written on them. And then again, a few were not quite as touching. Not one, not two, but three of them got right to the point: “Thanks for American girls.”

Cinque Terre

Dear readers…if you’ve been checking up on me regularly, you may recall that a few weeks ago I was prevented by a pleasant surprise from testing my solo travel skills. This was the weekend when it finally happened! My friend, David, is working in Holland this year and we’ve been trying to meet up somewhere while we’re both on this side of the pond. Projected destinations ranged all over Western Europe, but reasonable flights helped narrow the choices considerably.
As it turned out, Friday afternoon found me on a train heading north to Cinque Terre, the famous little group of seaside cliff towns. No journey is entirely free of minor hitches; this time they were alarming but not serious. My first train was late, and while I did make it to the next, I don’t think I’ve ever dashed across the Firenze SMN station so quickly. The second moment of minor terror was when I realized that I couldn’t call David’s phone—the mysteries of international cellular calls are far beyond my comprehension. Fortunately we both arrived without too much damage, which was more of an achievement for him than for me. He brought along harrowing tales about the autostrade just outside Milan at rush hour…in a brand-new, but not particularly powerful Smartcar.
We went to dinner and I discovered that I have not been properly appreciating my after dinner espresso...David turns drinking coffee into an art. We talked about “shoes and ships and sealing wax, and cabbages and kings” until the waitress started to glare at us and yank off tablecloths and close doors, and then returned to the hostel to find our roommate already asleep.
In the morning, we stopped for a very Italian breakfast of cappuccinos and pastries, and I again realize the unexpected advantages of eating out in Italy with someone who has actually taken classes on making and drinking coffee, and hiking around a bunch of ports with a yacht designer. We stopped by the marina and looked at the pretty, colorful little fishing boats, and then headed down to the water. We found a little rocky cove and hunted for beach glass, waded around, skipped rocks, built miniature monolithic structures out of rocks, hunted for interesting rocks, and drew pictures on rocks with other rocks.
After trying (unsuccessfully) to take a midmorning nap (on the rocks) we headed for the trail proper. The first leg from Riomaggiore to Manarola, the Via dell’Amore, was actually a bit disappointing. More of a stroll than a hike, but with a pretty view. The next part of the walk was a bit more challenging; the trail was full of—yes, you guessed it—rocks. We stopped in Corniglia for lunch (tasty gnocchi and pesto!) and then accidentally climbed down three hundred sixty-something steps and discovered that there was nothing to do but climb all the way back up again. Once through Corniglia, the way to Vernazza was the most beautiful yet. We meandered through olive groves, past gorgeous seaside vistas, by old stone walls, and, shockingly enough, over more rocks.

In Vernazza we watched the sunset over the Mediterranean with a cone of gelato in hand.
After taking the train back, we finally met our roommate, who turned out to be a wonderfully friendly young lady from Australia. She’d been working in England and was doing some traveling before going home for Christmas. The three of us talked about everything from travel to world-wide differences in English slang.
The next morning I got my own introduction to the terrors of the Smartcar…I’m not sure if it’s more petrifying on mountain roads, or on the highway, or when trying to find a parking space on the bumpy cobblestones in Milan. We stopped in La Spezia and walked around the harbor, then headed north. We had a few hours in Milan, which was enough to make me realize how un-cosmopolitan and down-to-earth everywhere else I’ve been in Italy is. My my…I haven’t felt that much like a country bumpkin in a really long time. Even though the people, the architecture, and the atmosphere were beautiful and sophisticated, I think I prefer the rugged coast of Cinque Terre.

Matera

Next stop on our trip to the deep-dark-but-sunny south of Italy! We stayed for two days in Matera , which is slightly north of the arch of Italy’s boot. Matera is a city of white stone; some of it is carved out of the very rock. It looks oddly like a Bible picture book. The silhouettes of the buildings pile up on one another as they rise up on the hill, and without the artificial lighting and the occasional cathedral, it doesn’t look like much has changed since Roman times. The very first night, we wandered up and down the steep staircase-streets until we got completely turned around, then went back for dinner. We ate at a quiet pizzeria that our bus driver, Marco, picked out. He said he liked it because the atmosphere wasn’t “freddo.” I thought it was interesting that the chilly formality of the other place we looked at was a serious restaurant flaw in his mind. The first thing on my mind when I’m going restaurant-hunting is always food, but Italians seem to care more about the entire experience. I also love it when figurative phrases or ideas translate literally into other languages…“cold” really is the perfect word.
The place where we were staying doubled as a hotel and a hostel, so all nine of us were in one big room with lots of bunk beds, and a loft with a spiral staircase. I have to say that I have never been happier to stretch out on such a terrible mattress and drop directly off to sleep.
The next morning we were able to see the blinding white of Matera in the sunshine before we headed off to Aliano. On the way we stopped and bought several bags full of oranges and clementines from a roadside stand and began what was to become an entire weekend of glorious citrus gorging.

Aliano was completely different from anything in my experience. The town was a place of “forced residence” during the rise of the Fascist regime: dissenters would be sent down to dead-end towns in southern Italy to live under close surveillance. Oddly enough, it ended up being the best thing that ever happened to the town. Carlo Levi was one of the “exiles” to Aliano, and he immortalized the suffering and hopelessness of the inhabitants of the town in his paintings and his book, Christ Stopped at Eboli, and dedicated himself to improving the conditions as much as he could. It was absolutely amazing to see Levi’s words come alive, to see his vibrant paintings after seeing the faces of the descendents of the people who were his models. When his description of the village and the surrounding areas is surreal, but somehow perfectly accurate as well: “At every turn there were steep slopes of white clay with houses hanging from them as if they were poised in the air, and all around there was still more white clay, with neither trees nor grass growing upon it, eroded into a pattern of holes and hillocks like la landscape on the moon. Almost all the houses appeared to teeter over the abyss, their walls cracked and an air of general fragility about them.”

While it was wonderful to see Levi’s world come alive, I have to say it’s kind of pitiful that a town’s claim to fame is the fact that it served as a place of “exile” for political prisoners. I can understand why the people of Aliano are so grateful to Levi (he’s the only reason that there is a decent road up the mountain), but they market him fairly aggressively. And, unfortunately, the general air of apathy seems to have changed little since he was here. In spite of heavy investment in infrastructure, the people still seem tied down. Perhaps it’s only an outsider’s perspective that describes them as hopeless, but the stares, blank of curiosity or even of hostility, that greeted us everywhere looked anything but happy. I don’t believe it’s just the hardships of an agrarian lifestyle, either. Some farmers in the US may lead difficult lives, but their opposition to the elements seems actively stubborn, something far beyond passive endurance. It seems that while Christ has started moving south again, the people in Aliano are still waiting for a savior.

On the long, long bus ride back to Sansepolcro, I was able to sit up front and practice my Italian while keeping our bus driver, Marco, company. I went through all the subjects in which I have at least a decent amount of vocabulary (family, college, holidays) and eventually got to Christmas and Thanksgiving. I had to give up at that point and speak English because I don’t think there’s any way to talk about throwing football on a golden autumn afternoon after eating turkey and cornbread and pumpkin pie in Italian. For one thing, some of the words have no literal translation, and it’s a bit hard to describe them. Fortunately, Marco speaks a bit of English, so he listened and asked questions until we both got too hungry to keep talking about food. Then I headed back to the middle of the bus and ate more clementines.

Val D'Orcia

I’ve always loved road trips. This one, however, has the makings of one of my all-time favorites. With the bittersweet awareness of our fast-approaching departure always in the back of my mind, I’ve decided to savor the last few weeks. It has a bit difficult, especially as whenever I let my thoughts wander, they inevitably turn towards home. But yesterday’s experience was compelling enough to bring my back from the future and into the past.


We’ve just finished reading War in Val D’Orcia, a diary kept by a remarkable woman, Iris Origo. She chronicles her experiences during WWII, treating catastrophes with simple pragmatism and tragic circumstances with sympathetic strength. Her household and large estate provided a refuge for children, displaced families, and escaped POWs of many nationalities. When her villa was eventually taken over by retreating German troops, she and her husband had to flee with the twenty-three children under their care to the next village, dodging German mines and Allied shelling.
One of the stops along our road trip was La Foce, the Origos’ estate. The landscape was one of the most beautiful I’ve ever seen, but not at all in a postcard, picture-perfect kind of way. These hills are stand aloof, the valley does not enfold you. Iris described the land as “wild and lonely.” In surroundings so subdued, it was difficult to picture the hell of war ravaging the graceful English garden, the quiet olive groves, and the empty fields of plowed earth.


I’ve always found visits to historical sites vaguely disappointing. When the narrative is confined to the pages of a book, the imagination is free to wander at will, to make men into either heroes or villains and actions into feats of valor or dastardly deeds. While some people want to see the actual places or, better yet, meet witnesses or descendants, I’ve always preferred my vague, epic notions to the commonplace but oddly pretentious relics of the past. I like my idealistic simplifications and dislike facing the reality of the past.

However, La Foce was anything but a disappointment. Iris’ simple, unemotional writing made it difficult to turn a collection of farms and a villa into a besieged kingdom, difficult to blow anything out of proportion, and impossible to vilify or idealize. Indeed, it was difficult to see how she could have done anything else under the circumstances. But now I’ve seen what she risked losing and begun to realize the vastness of the responsibility upon her and her husband’s shoulders.
Even so, I still could not imagine the menace of the Spitfires streaking overhead, the garden blown to bits by shelling, the villa ravaged by embittered soldiers. That is, until we were on our way back to the bus after a visit to the little graveyard. Walking along under the shelter of the beautiful oaks that lined the gravel road, we were just discussing how hard it was to visualize the destruction of the war when a plane passed overhead. Normally I wouldn’t have even noticed something like that, but this was the loudest plane that I’ve heard in a long time. It seemed that some airborne menace blazed across the peaceful blue of the sky. Then, and only then, could I see the destruction, feel the impact of the bombs in the earth, imagine Iris clutching her infant daughter and hustling the other children into the ditches alongside the road.

Olive Picking

I spent a wonderful, thoroughly Italian afternoon today doing something that I’ve been looking forward to for a long time. It’s November, and time for the last harvest before the contadini settle down for the winter: time to go olive picking!
Harvesting the olives is not as simple as one might imagine. They can’t be picked unless they are dry, and when it’s been cloudy and mostly rainy for about two weeks, sunny afternoons like this one are precious. We all walked along the road to Montecasale and up to the grove, just across the torrente Afra. The ground was muddy, but not terribly so.
Picking the olives reminded me a lot of blueberry picking. The trees are not much taller than the bushes, and the silver-green leaves have a similar shape. Olives, however, are much easier to pick. A big mesh net is spread out under the tree and propped up with short bamboo sticks. Then you take the long hanging branches in your hands and strip off all of the olives, using a motion similar to milking a cow (although I can say from personal experience that there is a lot less squeezing involved). You have to be sensitive to the feel of the leaves and the olives, because the stems are tough and take a bit of tugging, and if you don’t let the branch go carefully, it can snap back and smack you in the face (again, this is from personal experience). The leaves have little sharp points on the ends, and all I can say is that for once, I was glad I have to wear glasses. Everyone around the tree just drops the olives and whatever leaves that come off as well into the net, which is later gathered up and the olives poured out into big oval buckets. When you crush one of the soft, purple-black fruits between your fingers, the juice is oddly wet and slightly oily.

The olive farmers were friendly, in a gruff sort of way. Working with someone seems to be the best way to overcome the language barrier, in my opinion. We also had some animal companionship in the form of a rather quirky cat. He loved sitting in inconvenient places and climbing the trees. Eventually, he got a bit feisty and started batting at our hands, which was cute until he took a swipe at Mr. Ed’s head. He attached himself to my scarf and refused to let go, and I had to practically pry it out from between his teeth and claws.

I stayed a bit later than the other students, because I didn’t have a bicycle and was catching a ride with the Bankers back to the palazzo. I was having so much fun anyway that I didn’t want to leave, which had its own rewards. Italian contadini hospitality is much like that of the American South…you simply can’t get away without eating or drinking something. Instead of iced tea, however, everyone here finishes off a long job with vin santo. This is Italy… The obvious excuse is that you need some warming up after working until dusk outside on a cold November day. But I think they’d serve vino anyway…freddo or not.

Again, I know I said I wouldn’t…but it’s a gloomy November day and I’m going to indulge in a bit of complaining.
This past week, after I thought I was past all danger of getting homesick again, I’ve had a relapse. While my family and my roommate were here, they reminded me of all the little things that they were soon to go home to...but that I wouldn’t see for another month. At first, I was intensely focused on making a long-term adjustment that I never really paid attention to what I was really missing. But now, my adjusted expectations seem to suit poorly. Of course I miss my family…but that shouldn’t be news to anyone. The unexpected longing for little things is what I want to write about. They're trifles, but I took them for granted.
And on the positive side, I’m sure this little exercise in self-indulgence will be a great help when the time comes to get on that plane and leave Italy behind. I’m giving you plenty of free ammunition for when I start the nostalgic “When I was in Sansepolcro…” reminiscing. Use it wisely.
I miss comfortable and familiar things: I miss eggs and bacon, Ranch dressing, shrimp and grits, and sweet tea with lemon. I miss the clothes I left at home...don’t laugh unless you’ve ever made it through a semester with one pair of jeans and one Meredith t-shirt. I miss the dingy carpet and orange curtains of my favorite practice room.
I miss silly things: I miss having to swipe my Camcard three times to get into Faircloth, running to class in the rain trying to keep my scores dry, and walking back from the library with my nose in a new book and trying not to run into the lampposts while I read. I miss watching guy movies…the flicks that ten Meredith ladies tend to choose aren’t especially good on explosions and sci-fi. I miss hearing other people practice. I miss playing delightfully irreverent pranks on my professors, usually involving cans of Tab or a certain lime green pencil that mysteriously migrates around the music building.
I miss little rites and rituals: saying “Good night, Chels” every night, warming up before Tuesday morning piano lessons, crawling under the keyboards in the theory lab to fix the cables at least once a week. I miss eating breakfast and dinner with the crew I always meet in the dining hall.
I miss cultural things that I took for granted: the confident, carefree walk and hearty good-natured laughs of Americans. I miss seeing strangers smile and watching drivers actually come to a halt at stop signs. I miss the irrepressible optimism and the sense of pride in one’s country and (comparative) trust in one’s leaders.
And, of course, I miss people: I miss family and close friends more and more as time goes on. But I also miss people who I doubt are missing me that much…coworkers, classmates, and especially faculty and staff. I suppose that they are used to the constant turnover, to saying goodbye every December and May…but now I’m wondering how hard it’s going to be for me to leave Meredith and the teachers, mentors, and friends that I have made there.
Thanks for your indulgence…I promise to not to write again until it’s sunny or until I have a particularly large supply of chocolate.

“Independent Travel”

Well, my much anticipated “finally-go-off-and-travel-all-by-myself” didn’t quite go as planned. While I did spend the entire morning in the Vatican Museums and ate lunch alone, I was not to test out my independent travel skills on this trip. After stopping by the hostel to pick up my backpack and Sara’s stroller, I walked back to Termini and headed to one of the ticket kiosks. I got their earlier than I intended, partly because the waiter actually brought me the check before I asked for it (quite rare in Italy, in case I haven’t mentioned that already). However, I’m half tempted to wonder if fate had anything to do with it.
Before I proceed, I must explain just how sprawling a place the Termini station is. When I saw my family off to the airport this morning, we had to walk over 400 meters (no, I’m not exaggerating…the number was on the sign) from where they bought the tickets to where they boarded the train. There are twenty-five train platforms, dozens of kiosks and ticket counters, at least three floors, a metro station, and a bus stop. So what followed had to be truly serendipitous. As I waited for my ticket to print, I heard a familiar voice ask, “John, what time is it?”
I whirled around before I had the chance to even wonder who it was. Right beside me were JR and the dottoressa, who, as far as I knew, had no business being in Rome on Monday, trying to figure out which train to take to Arezzo. To borrow the old expression, you could have knocked me over with a feather. Actually, I nearly fell down without any such assistance before I managed to say “Hi!” in a squeaky voice. They both looked at me as if I had dropped down out of the sky accompanied by lightning bolts and thunder; I suppose no professor expects to glance up during an international vacation trip and find one of her students toting a red stroller at the next ticket kiosk.
Why they weren’t already in Sansepolcro was soon explained: their flight arrived late, so they had spent the night in Rome rather than risk getting stranded without a bus. I had finished lunch early and was too overwhelmed by the Vatican museums to do any other touring, so I wanted to go home a little earlier than I had originally planned. Still, why we were all buying tickets at a few minutes past two within five feet of each other is still a bit mysterious.
As much as I had been looking forward to the challenge, I was actually glad to not be traveling by myself. I’m not good at doing anything alone; while I can manage to figure things out on my own, anybody with four siblings and twentysomething cousins is bound to develop a taste for constant companionship and conversation. And I felt like I had already done all the hard parts by myself…I had compared prices, knew the possible departure times, and had my bus ticket in my purse and the bus schedule in my backpack. Perhaps it was the best of both worlds…the empowerment of solo travel with the companionship of a serendipitous meeting. I was no longer following blindly, as I was the first time I traveled from Rome to Sansepolcro. I actually was able to contribute a bit and help get us home.
Perhaps a trial by fire is coming my way…but regardless of what happens, I think I’ll be ready.

Vatican Museums

We’ve been in the process of brainstorming for Sansepolcro Superlatives for the Immortal Nine, as we are so fond of calling ourselves. While some of them have been obvious (Nutella Queen, you know who you are), others have been less so. I’m the resident Museum Buff…which is neither a superlative nor particularly Sansepocro-y. But it is accurate, so I’ll take it. You can imagine how very much I enjoyed my morning in the Vatican Museums.
I think every kid goes through and Egypt phase, when they read The Egypt Game, obsess about hieroglyphics, secret passages, and grave-robbers, and have occasional nightmares about mummies. I felt a strong resurgence of my personal fascination (which was not as acute as some kids I knew) when I gazed at the shriveled body in the golden sarcophagus and recalled all the gruesome details of the mummification process. I don’t care if I’m dead, I really don’t want anyone pulling my brain out of my nose. However, the slender stillness of the animal-man god images, the yellowed papyrus scrolls, and the mysterious tiny amulets still capture my imagination. But a few moments later I’ve traveled to another civilization, and am contemplating the harsh, arbitrary of Hammurabi as I look as tiny tablets covered with the little triangular marks of cuneiform. I imagine that once the archeologists figured out “death” they felt they had made significant progress in the translation. I’m curious what was on the tablets I saw: deeds, contracts, epitaphs? Oh, the useless intricate rubbish that humanity leaves behind.
My head still spinning from time travel, I turned a corner and suddenly found myself in Greece. Perhaps “rubbish” was a bit harsh. Actually, I’ll go so far as to say that I’m quite glad that humanity is able to leave something of beauty behind for future generations. The lovely, balanced poses of heros and goddesses do much towards overcoming my personal objections to their bloody and often perverse mythological inspirations. Who wouldn’t trade their jeans and t-shirt for a chiton? However, seeing all the interpretations of ideal beauty made a bit dissatisfied with the people wandering around gawking. I know we can’t all be gods and goddesses, but everyone looked so graceless compared to the beautiful marble forms lining the walls. I suppose that I, with my just-out-of-the-backback outfit, didn’t look any better. However, it didn’t make it any easier to forgive my fellow museum goers for their clumsy appearance.
Even the famed Sistine Chapel injured my faith in modern humanity. Irritated guards shushing the noisy crowds, people shoving for a place on the benches along the walls, and who knows how many ardent photographers blatantly taking forbidden pictures. I wanted to stick my fingers in my ears and just look up. Which is more or less what I did. Michelangelo’s vibrant, warm colors tend to help sooth a disillusioned soul. The Botticelli and Perugino on the walls offer a more delicate contrast when the neck and eyes threaten to give out. Even so, I couldn’t help but just lean back and gaze. I’m not even going to attempt to describe it. All I can say is that the master sculptor could paint like the dickens.

Thoughts on Traveling with a Thoroughly American Family in Italy

The Stiths descended on Sansepolcro last week, amusing themselves, local residents, and my fellow Meredethenians (as Christian is fond of calling them) and venturing all over Tuscany. I don’t intend to include an exhaustive chronicle of our adventures, because they have told me that they plan on writing a guest entry for my blog. So I will try to confine myself to my impressions, and not theirs. Unfortunately, most of them were the same. But I’ll do my best.
First of all, American guys are big. Really big. My dad’s six-feet-one-inch towered, Cole’s size 11 shoeprints dwarfed, and Christian’s shoulders took up a lot more room on the bus. While I realize that my brothers are still growing, I wasn’t prepared for them to seemingly double in size since August.
Secondly, my family is big. While there is a touching intergenerational connection in Italy between grandparents and young grandchildren, I never see teenaged kids hanging out with siblings or parents. I think this is true to some extent in the US as well, but homeschoolers don’t have the option of only socializing within their grade. I never noticed it as much at home, partly because we know a lot of homeschoolers and partly because we rarely use public transportation. I think the sight of a family of seven, four of whom are teenagers (more or less…I’m 20 and Curt’s 12) getting on a bus together would be unusual anywhere, but in Italy where you rarely see families with more than three children, it’s extraordinary.
Thirdly, my family should get credit for Core 200. I was not mentally prepared for culture-shock-times-six. But with Tiffany asking “Are we in Italy, Chelsea?” Curt asking “Why aren’t the restaurants open at dinner time?” Cole asking, “Why can’t I find any wireless networks anywhere?” Christian asking, “Why doesn’t the light turn off when I click the switch?” Mommy wanting to know, “What kind of tree is that?” and Daddy wondering “Do they go the gym and play basketball?” I found acting as a culture buffer to be a bit overwhelming, to say the least. After about three days of it, I finally put my foot down and refused to answer any more questions. I had more than enough to do trying to play translator and travel agent. However, they became experts at finding good cafés, asking questions when necessary, getting on an off of busses and trains, finding a park or a piazza right when we needed to give Tiffany some playtime, and charming the socks off of everybody. I have to admit I was a bit jealous…everybody liked them all so much that I’m afraid I seem a bit boring by comparison!
One other funny aspect of culture shock was the realization that we have our own bit of culture in the Palazzo. Living with a bunch of women college students (who are, for the most part, from the South) who are all taking the same classes and going on similar trips is a recipe for inside jokes and funny rituals. We’re getting good at recognizing who is walking into the room by their step. We know who likes to study where and when, we know who will have their paper done early and who will put it off until the last minute. We know who to borrow clothes from, who to ask for advice, and who to plan travel breaks with. You can imagine how my parents, brothers, and baby sister would seem more out of place in the palazzo than at the bus stop.
Chelsea, on the other hand, fit into the Meredith-in-Sansepolcro campus like a hand in a glove. After my Meredith-in-Raleigh-roommate had gotten settled in Sansepolcro, it was difficult to remember that she hadn’t been there all along. We had so much fun catching up, cooking, and taking pictures together.
My family and I also had a wonderful time…I was actually very proud of the itinerary I worked out. They visited Anghiari on their own, and then we took day trips together to Montecasale, Citta di Castello, Firenze, and Arezzo. A “delegation” even visited Siena. Then we headed to Roma for the last few days before they flew out. We had the most unbelievable luck: we went to mass on All Saint’s Day at St. Peter’s, heard the Pope speak in several different languages (including English!), climbed the Cupola, toured the Colosseum inside and out, saw the Pantheon and the Circus Maximus, and ate a delightful dinner at a quiet restaurant in one day!
As a final note, I’ve decided to give in and include one of Christian’s observations; it’s just too interesting to leave out. He was trying to figure out why he was so disturbed at the thought of a man carrying a purse. Saying “It’s just a cultural difference” was a cop-out; he wanted to understand exactly what it was about his personal worldview that made the thought of a “man-bag” or “murse” so disturbing. He came to the conclusion that a guy should be able to get along for the day with what he can fit in his pockets. Purses, in his opinion, are for nonessentials like chapstick and hand sanitizer. He wasn’t bothered by a backpack, because he said that at that point the bag is for essentials. I’m afraid that it never would have occurred to me to try and figure out why Americans think that purses are girly. My family’s reactions to Italian culture were an excellent reminder to look more critically at difference, instead of just recognizing and appreciating it.

My-face and Space-book...what is the world coming to?

Kids these days…we’re infamous for our narcissism and famous for our multitasking abilities. While I would hardly describe myself as a typical Millennial (I can’t text to save my life and I haven’t read Twilight) this week has convinced me that I am not entirely deficient in some of the characteristics of my generation.
The superfluity of modern communication amazes me. Email, cell phones, Skype, Facebook…they may be useful, but the intricate network of contacts is such a trap for those of us who are organizationally challenged. However, having six or seven different ways to get in touch with someone can turn out to be an advantage. Or not, as the case may be.
Where to start? This study in twenty-first century communication can only be so exhaustive…this is, after all, only a blog entry. I suppose I’ll start with when I first heard the news. Bekah walks into the lounge and tells me that Dr. Webb just called her to tell her that there’s a train strike tomorrow. My roommate and dear friend (who is named Chelsea as well) is flying out to visit me for a long weekend, and her plane is due to arrive at 10:45 tomorrow morning. Apparently she’s going to be stranded at the airport.
Well, what does every college student do in a crisis? Facebook, duh. I log on and recollect that I am friends with Chelsea’s mother. I type a slightly panicked wall post asking her to tell her daughter about the strike if she found a way to call her when she landed. Almost immediately after I finish, one of those little notification pops up: Chelsea had tagged me in her status five minutes ago. WONDERFUL! I can tell her myself…But NO! She’s no longer online. After about twelve frustrated wall posts, I finally accept the fact that I’m not going to be able to get her attention and turn to other means…I email her and check Skype. But no, Chelsea had apparently left her computer mere minutes before my barrage of wall posts, emails, and calls. I then try to Skype my family to see if they can call Chelsea’s cell phone, but to no avail…why is nobody online when you need them to be??? Everybody wants to chat when I’m working on a paper, but of course no one’s online now…
With that in mind, I open Microsoft Word and start working on my English paper. Sure enough, about twenty minutes later, my youngest brother starts chatting with me via Skype. “Hey, Chels, sorry we missed you.” I start speed-typing, misspelling every other word as the keys clatter under my fingers. My brother calls my roommate, who at the time was on the phone with her brother. After getting several busy signals, Curt finally gets through to Chelsea. We start a verbal relay: I talk to my computer, Curt listens from our desktop at home and repeats on our landline, and Chelsea listens from her cell phone…then Chelsea asks a question and Curt relays it back to me while I Google around to see if I can answer it. This sounds moderately complicated…but let me remind you that my roommate and I have the same first name. So, in other words, Chelsea (me) tells Curt who tells Chelsea (my roommate) who answers Curt who relays back to Chelsea (me). In spite of the insanity, I manage to find a bus line and an approximate time of departure. I’m normally a terrible multitasker, so I am quite proud of myself.
But wait…it gets even more complicated. I remember my frantic message to my roommate’s mother…and realize that I ought to let her know that I have gotten in touch with Chelsea and that everything was going to be fine. While I’m typing out a message to send about 4,500 miles away to Raleigh, my piano teacher, who lives down the street, starts Facebook chatting with me about whether I want to learn a Beethoven sonata or a Chopin ballade. Fortunately most of our conversation is in English…I don’t think I could have handled multilingual communication while simultaniously holding a conversation, writing a message, and searching for and listening to classical music on Youtube.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the Atlantic, my roommate has called my brother to tell him to tell me to tell her mother that I told Curt who told her about the train strike. Why she didn’t just call her mother herself, I have no idea. But it makes for a better story. Anyway, Curt hacks onto my Facebook account (my entire family knows my password…I like to think of it as a way to keep me accountable!) and then closes my chat window, realizing that this may be a bit of a privacy invasion…even for us. Back in Sansepolcro, I’m mystified by my profile’s antics…it’s acting like it has a mind of its own, freezing up and then hiding my chat window.
Curt logs off of Chelsea Stith’s profile and calls me on Skype. I ask him if we can just chat via Skype, as I’m holding several conversations at once and listening to music. He says “I know,” but I’m too busy finishing my message to my roommate’s mother and keeping up with my teacher’s comments to realize the implications of what he just said. I send the message to my roommate’s mom, and then switch over to Skype to read that Curt says that Chelsea would like me to tell her mother that she’s fine. Two seconds late, pal…I already did!
While I come away with a glow of accomplishment, I feel a bit deflated when my roommate arrives the next day safely via the train. Apparently the strike didn’t start until 4 PM, about a half an hour after she stepped off onto the platform. So the massive feat of communication spanning two continents, a cell phone, a landline, two computers, not a few satellites, and four people in a verbal relay wasn’t necessary at all.
I’ve decided I want to retreat into a world where the most advanced method of trans-Atlantic communication is a message in a bottle.

Teaching English

This past week saw the introduction of yet another new and interesting experience…I’m sure everyone else in the program will be blogging about it, but for once I have a really unusual perspective. First I have to ask a question that’s been bothering me and a few of my friends from home for a while: Would you ever expect someone who’s never been to high school to teach it?
Granted, that’s overstating the incongruity of my service learning assignment. But there is a reason that did not request to help teach English in the secondary schools. I’m sure that many (or most) of you know that I grew up homeschooled. And when I say homeschooled, I mean all the way until I got my GED just before my senior year of high school. You have no idea how much this bewilders Italians. While homeschooling is legal here, apparently very few people actually do it, and if they do it’s only through elementary school. The incredulity and skepticism that meets my description of my pre-college education is quite amusing, so say the least.
I was SUPPOSED to get the cute little kindergarteners. Classrooms full of Italian-speaking teenaged public schoolers terrify me. And really, I don’t think that’s all that unreasonable. How many of you would relish the prospect of showing up in an unfamiliar classroom to “teach English” with a teacher you’ve never met?
Okay, so I’m sure some of you would enjoy the challenge. I, however, was petrified.
Actually, once I found the instructor and started talking to the classes, it was a riot. The kids were rowdy and reticent, inquisitive and bashful by turns; in other words, much like kids everywhere. Since this was my first time in the classroom, I started by briefly introducing myself in what I hoped were slow and articulate phrases. I’ve gotten a reputation for speed talking even in the US, so you can imagine how often I hear piu lentamente or piano, per favore. Anyway, after an awkward opening, the teacher told the students to ask me the simple questions that they had been learning. Aside from the expected, basic questions such as “How long have you been in Italy,” “Where are you from,” and “How old are you,” I encountered more than a few curveballs. I was asked if I had ever been to Hollywood to see the movie stars, if I could bring them any American recipes, and if I ever played soccer. The funniest was when one of the boys asked me if I had a girlfriend, and realized what his mistake a split second too late. The entire class burst into laughter.
After that, I asked them about themselves. I explained that I had a big family, and asked them about their siblings. I asked them about hobbies, sports, favorite foods, pets, ages, hometowns… While the experience was so much more fun than I had hoped, I did have one moment of terror when the teacher left the class for a few moments. I discovered, however, that I am capable of glaring just as ferociously as if I were not only three or so years older than these kids, and that they actually shut up when I glower and say “Hey, hey, ya’ll” in a threatening tone of voice. I suppose that phrase sounds much more intimidating if you don’t know what it means.
At the end of the second class, the kids wanted to know when I was coming back, which I assume is a good thing. They may not like me so much next week, since I have to start prepping them for some English test that I’ve never heard of. I’ll let you know how that goes…

Lost in translation…

In the midst of all the Kickoff insanity, I neglected to mention that a reporter from a local paper came and interviewed about half of the students, including me. In Italian, naturally. While it was a challenging experience, I was very proud afterwards of my communication abilities. Turns out, my self-satisfaction was premature.
Before I proceed to rant about the subsequent article, I need to explain something. Accuracy has always been a pet peeve of mine; I’m sure part of it comes from studying music, but I know that my passion for particulars is a family trait. My grandfather was a “newspaper man,” and I grew up listening to his stories about investigative reporting. When he was just starting out, he named the wrong referee when discussing a controversial call. He swore he would never make another factual error; he developed a technique of putting a pencil mark over every single word after he double-checked that it was correct. His meticulous attention to detail eventually paid off...one of the articles that he worked on later won a Pulitzer.
Now, while I don’t claim to be a chip off the old block, I have picked up at least a few of Poppa’s habits. You may be able to imagine my reaction to the “quotations” that appeared in the Saturday edition of Il Nuovo Corriere Arentino. The drastic paraphrasing makes me want to laugh and cry. Apparently, I’m “una pianista famosa” and I think that Meredith is a “palestra” (gymnasium). I can almost forgive that…when my roommate asked me last semester to describe our college in one sentence, I responded “Meredith is a cross between intellectual boot camp and a big girly sleepover.” Never again will I think myself clever enough to be worth repeating. Or translating, for that matter.
And another priceless quote: “…lo facciamo volentieri perché sappiamo quanto sia importante per il nostro futuro.” Translated loosely with some help from Google, it means “...we work gladly because we know how important this experience is for our future.” Come on. I don’t speak remotely enough Italian to be THAT sappy…
And furthermore, I said nothing about speaking perfect Italian by December!!! Seriously? Chelsea Stith (yes, my name is in bold) is quoted as saying, “...a dicembre voglio tornare in America e parlarlo perfettamente.” SERIOUSLY??? I can’t imagine any halfway respectable newspaper printing such nonsense in the US. My words were not just taken out of context…they were loosely translated, jumbled, strung together, and then put in an entirely new and different context. Apparently journalists in Italy can get away with murder. I’ll read those articles about Berlusconi with a more sympathetic eye from now on.
Now, I know I must make allowances. It’s partly my fault because of my limited experience with the language. But where I come from, quotations are quotations, and for me those vital little punctuation marks mark the difference between fact and interpretation. Perhaps we ought to invent new punctuation to differentiate between interpretation and translation.

Day at the Farm

Do you smell that? That’s the smell of the countryside…the sunshiny smell of hay, the friendly smell of cows, the heady smell of fermenting grapes, the maternal smell of plowed earth, still damp from yesterday’s rain.

Do you see that? The translucent golden glow of grapes in the sun, the dusty jars of tomatoes, the pleading brown eyes of the hunting dogs? Do you see the curves of the hills cupping you in their protective palm?

Do you taste the bite of homemade cheese, the hearty taste of chestnuts? The taste of the sweet Tuscan bread and the salt of the prosciutto?

Do you feel the clinging clay of the fields? Do you feel the fur and claws of the rambunctious black kitten? The liquid, warm weight of a fresh egg, the firm skin of late tomatoes, the tickle of straw in your hair?

Do you hear the cackling of the chickens, the lowing of the milk cows? The splash of new wine and the creak of the press? The gruff yet kindly voices offering abundant hospitality?

Oh, I am such a country girl, and the city life I currently lead is beginning to wear on me. I haven’t been going on morning walks lately, partly because I’m busy and partly because it’s cold and dark in the mornings before class or early piano lessons. But a brief afternoon at the farm of a friend-of-a-friend was enough to inspire such a poetic flight of fancy. Bear with me and my rapturous praise of the idyllic. I’ve mucked enough stalls, pulled enough weeds, and picked enough laundry baskets full of green beans to have earned the privilege of nostalgia for farm life.
The farm was startlingly similar to every other one that I’ve been to, in the US or in Italia. Living close to the land tends to draw out the things that we share in common, in spite of differences in landscape, technique, and crops. A rock is a rock is a rock, whether it’s an Italian rock or an American rock, and not much grows well in rocky soil. And there are only so many different ways of separating rocks and dirt.

And the food! Something about the simplicity of farm fare makes it more sumptuous than any gourmet dish. Dr. Swab and I have decided to become Salami Snobs. I never liked the super-processed fatty stuff at home, but here, it’s completely different. It tastes like a cross between country ham and beef jerky, with a delicate flavor far better than either. On top of the traditional saltless Tuscan bread, it’s delightful. Eaten alongside homemade cheese and biscotti dipped in honey-sweet vino santo, it’s heavenly.
The farmer, his wife, her mother, and few of his brothers were all there to welcome us. Their hospitality was boundless: they told us all about how to make wine, showed us all around the farm, gave us tomatoes and eggs, fed us the most marvelous dinner, and shared stories. My favorite was one that the Nonna told about her memories of World War II. She was living farther north at the time, and she remembers when the Germans came through and plundered her family’s farm. She said that the only thing they did not take was a particularly protective rooster and his hen; apparently a few sharp pecks were too much for the soldier to handle. A few weeks later, the last remaining hen produced a flock of seventeen little chicks. The wise old cock was still keeping a careful eye on his young family, however. When the children playing in the barnyard said a few words of German, the rooster hustled his biddy and her brood into hiding. He was a heck of a lot smarter than most of the chickens I know…really, multi-lingual poultry? Perhaps American chickens aren’t as well educated.

Brace yourselves…this was the weekend when I and my redoubtable travel partner, Lauren, trekked deep into the notorious south of Italy.
Before I go any further, I must explain something. Those of you in the US may have never heard anything about the south of Italy. If you only take a quick glance in an Italy guidebook, however, you will soon understand what I’m talking about. There are a whole lot more “be careful”s and “can be dangerous”s about Napoli (Naples) than there are about Firenze (Florence). Nor is this stereotype limited to the international tourist industry. I mentioned my travel plans to a several Italians here, and the responses were “watch your bag” and “be careful down there.” Added on to all this frightening hype was the unpleasant news that there was to be a train strike on Sunday. Rather than cancel our trip, we threw caution to the winds and decided to risk getting robbed blind and, what was worse, missing class on Monday!
Even so, it was with a bit of trepidation that Lauren and I began our trip south. The actual train ride on the way down was something I’d never want to go through again…all I can say is that I’ll be buying my ticket at the desk instead of the self-service machines. I’d like to have seats for a four hour ride and avoid the “incorrect price” fine next time. However, that was the worst thing that happened the entire weekend.
Granted, the area around the Bay of Naples is certainly rough around the edges, noisy, and dirty. Catcalls abound (especially when you’re walking around with Long-Legged-Lauren), and you have a feeling that you have to be a “rough, tough, fighting dog,” like Otis describes himself to Milo. It’s said that the best and the worst people live in Naples. Perhaps we just got lucky, but I think we found the best. The owner of our B and B came out and found us when we were wandering around Piano di Sorrento trying to find the place at 10:00 at night, a courteous police officer on the metro/train found us seats without us asking, and the ladies at the tourist office reassured us that they could get us home by Sunday night.
What with good planning, friendly people, and buon fortuna, we had a marvelous trip. We went to the ruins at Pompei (If I understand this right, it’s spelled with two i’s only outside of Italy) early on Saturday morning. The excavations were so much bigger than I expected. I was thinking of a little Roman village…and boy was I wrong. The temples and villas and the giant amphitheater really gave an idea of just how grand the Roman architecture and infrastructure was at the time. The amphitheater was my favorite. Walking down the tunnel, it was so easy to imagine myself as a gladiator, steeled for the mortal combat that awaited me in the arena. Aren’t ruins wonderful?
After our tour of Pompei, we caught a bus that took us most of the way up Vesuvius. We were told at the top that the later busses had been canceled and that the last one left in an hour. Normally, this wouldn’t be much of a problem, but the hike to the crater was supposed to last 20-30 minutes. Lauren and I marched up the mountain at the double, making it in a brief seventeen minutes!!! We spent as much time as we could admiring the otherworldly scene. One could smell the sulfur on the air, see the steam drifting above the vents, and feel the harsh volcanic gravel underfoot.

I love the latent power of volcanoes. Visiting one is a great way to counteract the humdrum boredom of everyday life, although I have to admit that I don’t understand living near one. Pompei and Herculaneum are anything but Roman ghost towns; it’s ironic that the ancient disaster has fueled the current touristic success. Vesuvius is still active, however, and the ash and lava that brought dead and destruction once are projected to do so again. Really, who insures these people anyway??? I suppose it ought to say something inspiring about the undefeatable nature of the human spirit, but all it seems to signify is how stupid and stubborn we can be. WE can’t let a mere VOLCANO keep us from building where we want to build, now CAN we??? (Normally, I’d insert: “We’re CAN-DO AMERICANS!” but apparently this is an international trait. And CAN-DO ITALIANS really doesn’t have the same ring to it.) Heck, they’ll have to excavate ancient Pompei all over again. I hardly think it will improve the state of the ruins.


Speaking of the condition of the excavation, Pompei can’t compare to Ercolano (Herculaneum). Ercolano is another town that suffered a similar fate to Pompei, but isn’t as big, as famous, or as touristy. It was covered in tuff, with is apparently boiling mud, rather than the rain of ashes that fell on Pompei, which left the buildings in much better condition. Many of them have the several rooms of the second story still intact, and the frescoes and artwork are in wonderful condition. I have a weak spot for mosaics, and I really enjoyed seeing all the lovely geometric and artistic patterns that were made out of those tiny little tiles.
There were colorful marble floors as well that I thought were especially beautiful. The odd thing about Ercolano is that the site is surrounded by modern buildings. If you look up the sides of the giant excavation, you can see buildings that look like they are in worse condition than the ruins. They are the same dusty brown-gray color, and what the Roman buildings lack in intactness they make up in aesthetics. It’s one of those sights that forces one to come to terms with the widespread poverty in the Italian South.
After Ercolano, Lauren and I scored an amazing train ticket that got us from Pompei to Arezzo without changing trains. Not only did we have reserved seats, but we practically had a private compartment all the way. Yes, it was beyond amazing.