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.