Full-blown Season Change

No sooner do we get back to Italy, Will's dad put us to work! Farm work. Olive picking. From a tractor.

Living in Manhattan, I don't often get a chance to see a tractor, nevermind ride in one! And in the scoopy part, too! That's right, Will and I climbed into the bucket and up we went to the heights of the trees and picked picked picked our little hearts out.

I never really knew much about the life cycle of an olive-- from the tree to the martini. Olives don't start out as those salty little guys like you might think. After your workers (in this case, me and Will) pick them, there is a 3-day to 3-month process by which you de-bitter them before you can soak them in vermouth.



Using a mix of water and patience, you soak the olives for 3 days with lye or three months without. They turn the strangest and most beautiful shades of green while the lye sucks all the bitter gunk out of them.





Will's dad stores them in water without salt, so when you eat them, the flavor is more reminiscent of olive oil rather than a jar of olives. The field work is definitely worth it!




Everything else around here is turning the orange-y golden shades of fall. The leaves are long gone and there's a hint of frost and a ton of fog first thing in the morning. The kaki (persimmon) tree, however, is holding out just a bit longer. It's like nature's little modern art piece.

Back in Italia

We left Berlin yesterday after an art, history and fun-filled week. It was a fun week and the perfect warm-up for re-entry to New York. I'll put more photos up when I can; for now, you can see a little obsession I found with street art in my photos here.

We are in Milan, where a friend of Will's just moved for work. Will's friend called Berlin 'the new world center of creativity'. I think he's on to something.

Floods in Venice, etc.

Our travels for the past week or so have met with some interesting weather. You might have read something about the acqua alta that hit Venice last week.



Will awoke early that morning to some friendly air-raid sirens. Apparently I can sleep through something like that-- my resting powers are unstoppable. Next thing we knew, the lady who managed the apartment we were renting was at the door taking all the furniture up off of the floor and securing the place for the expected onslaught of water. She was really funny about it, just kept sort of smiling and shrugging, saying "Venice!"

It seemed as if it should have been a freakier thing, but it sort of made sense. Everyone, resident and tourist alike, just rolled wtih it. The city put up these temporary wooden walkways everywhere, residents (like the waiter above) got out their waders and some tourists scrapped all hopes for dryness, took off their shoes, rolled up their pants and trudged barefoot in the knee-high waters. That's what you get in exchange for all those charming little canals!

Besides water-filled weather and a couple of strange encounters with pigeons (we found one dead on the floor near a mosaic peacock in St. Mark's Church, then another, um, relieved itself on my coat sleeve outside of a shop), Venice was an incredibly alluring city. It's really built for tourists, but there's something very dark and mysterious in all of those tiny alleys and canals. It's also home to Peggy Guggenheim's phenomenal modern art collection, housed in her equally phenom palazzo on the other side of the canal. We got there by a 50-cent gondola ride.

After Venice, we spent a nice day in Verona. We stayed in this funny little hotel in the center of town. It was run by a sweet sweet sweet little old lady, who I think was also in charge of the interior design.



After Verona, we hit the Slow Food Festival in Torino, another city we both really liked. I have photos of it, which I'll share just as soon as I remember to buy some batteries for my camera-- poor pictures have been trapped in there for a few days now.

We're currently in Berlin, and have found yet another city to fall in love with. Feels like all the good parts of downtown New York, which is a nice sort of warm-up for heading back home.

We're off to explore... more later!

It's Rainy Here in Venice

We're in Venice. It is really a very odd place, all at once incredibly creepy, suspicious (ok, Will and I read a detective novel set here), dark and absolutely one of the most beautiful places on earth.

It's packed packed PACKED with tourists. Imagine if your front door was ON Broadway and 43rd. Yes, I know it really could only be there if you lived at the Police Station, but if you did and you had to cut through that many tourists every day, that's what I imaagine life to be like here in Venice. Except with more languages.

But there's definitely something about it. As Will says,

We're in venice right now, which I highly recommend. The food isn't as good as Bologna, the weather isn't as nice as Rome, the people not as friendly as Umbria, the family not as plentiful as Abruzzo, but still, it's got something. Should have come here sooner...

(The whole 'plenty o' family in Abruzzo' thing is in reference to the fact that he's related to pretty much exactly every resident of this one town in Abruzzo. It's really nuts. When he goes there, everyone knows him as 'figlio di Maura', which translates, roughly, into 'son of his mother, Maura'. That's village life for ya!)

We were en route the other night to see some baroque music thing in a church. Crossing over this one little bridge, I spotted a sign for a dance show that looked like it showed a photo of people scaling a building. Around the corner, we saw a giant line. At the post office. I asked someone in line, and sure enough, this was where the dance show was to be.

We went in, and yep. It was a dance show with two dancers hanging from ropes attached to the third and fourth floors of the post office's inner courtyard.

It wasn't the most groundbreaking (no pun intended) performance, but they performed at the post office!

I made a note to myself to find publicly funded performance spaces in New York. Yep. Right after I launch that rocket ship I've been building on my rooftop.

Maybe New York isn't going to start forking over free space any time soon, but the show got me thinking again about trapeze and flying classes.

We're off tomorrow, headed to Torino. Well, Torino on Wednesday. Tomorrow, either Verona or Milan. Better go look at a train schedule!

It's Better to Talk to Strangers

We are now in Padova, after stops in Trieste and the teeny-tiny one horse town of Aquileia.

Trieste was a cool town, on the border of Slovenia with heavy Eastern European and Austrian influences. These influences are blazingly apparent in the architecture as well as the cuisine (I think there was a sliced hotdog on my pizza).

Unfortunately, we arrived on Sunday and left Tuesday morning without realizing that they basically shut down on Sundays and Mondays. We managed to see the Andy Warhol Timeboxes exhibit, which was interesting as much as it was strange-- in addition to being an art installation, it also manages to be a historical piece on Manhattan from the 60s through the 80s. The man who sold us our tickets was very excited to hear that we were from New York.








We also got to see the best street sign ever... (it's basically saying "be careful not to fall into the sea")

















and Will wonders if capes shouldn't have more of a presence in today's fashion.


We were lauded once again for our hometown at dinner. We had stopped for a drink in what seemed like the "downtown" area and asked our waiter where we might have a nice dinner. After a five-minute, multi-lingual conference with another patron, the very kind Letizia sent us to place called Buffet Vittorio and gave us a note to give to Claudio, who works there. We arrived, chatted, handed over the note, and had a delicious dinner. The chef later came over to our table and told us that he also had lived in New York and worked at a restaurant in Midtown for a few years. It's amazing to see over and over again what a small world Manhattan can be!

We left Trieste yesterday for the town of Aquileia, which Lonely Planet had a small listing about. It seemed like they were noted for their Roman ruins, for having the largest mosaic tiled floor in Europe (760 mq.) in their basilica and for a museum of archaeology.



Frankly, we've seen more basilicas, churches, tiles and ruins than I ever thought humanly possible in the past six months and I'm sure there are more to come. But that was not really the big draw for Will or me. What caught our eye in the guide book was a listing for "the best in town" 3-star hotel/restaurant with a "well-stocked wine cellar".

Thinking we'd take sort of a day off from serious travel (with touristy Venice and the Slow Food Festival in Torino coming up), we booked a room for two nights. Who knew we'd see just about everything there is to see during our five-minute walk from the bus stop to the hotel?! We chalked it up to being in the middle of nowhere and looked forward to dinner...

















...especially after seeing this in somebody's yard!


When we arrived downstairs in the restaurant, we were the only guests beside another table of four Italian (probably local) men. The waiter, although nice enough, just seemed bored out of his mind with so little to do. I remember this feeling from my table-waiting days-- I'd rather have waited on nobody than on just two tables-- the boredom is excruciating. But I'll quote my good friend Fany Gerson here and say that "it's not my fault if you don't like your job."

Overall, dinner was a huge disappointment. After our dinner plates were cleared, we waited probably a good fifteen minutes to be offered coffee. When the waiter never arrived, we figured we'd just forgo the caffeine anyway and head up to the room. We exited the dining room through the adjacent bar to find the waiter eating his dinner, not even realizing that we were still there! So much for 3-stars. And the wine cellar? Well, I don't know if it was "well-stocked" because we never saw a wine list. We said we'd like wine, he asked 'red or white', we said red and he just brought us a bottle. It's often the norm in small Italian trattorias, especially the family-run ones, to drink the simple vino della casa. It's also often the norm that it's remarkably inexpensive and good if not delicious. Unfortunately, this place wasn't the norm, and the wine wasn't anything we liked.

We did better in Trieste asking a stranger were to eat than following the travel guide. But then again, it just makes more sense to get food advice in Italy from a full-blooded Italian than from a book written by English, Australian and American tourists/travel writers. You live, you learn, I guess...

Here's one of Will and I, in Trieste on the last day of my 30th year.



(Thanks for all the birthday wishes!)

A Special Treat

This post is brought to you by the magical wi-fi connection at the place next to the hotel we're staying at in Bologna.

We have left Umbria on a little trip through Northern Italy. We are currently in Bologna, home to the very first university. It's a bona fide college town, and yes, it's painfully obvious that we're not 22 anymore.

We're here in Bologna for a few days, then East to Venice then West to Torino, stopping in Milan at some point as well and a trip to Berlin in early November. As I'm writing this, I'm trying to find us a hotel in Berlin (not as fun as it sounds!) and just came across this joint that lets you choose from sleeping in a coffin or a prison cell, among other unique works of art. I'm still searching.

It's definitely different, being sort of "on the road" again (no Kerouac or Willie Nelson references intended). Back in Umbria, the days, although beautiful, were getting kind of long. Sure, we picked grapes and took Italian lessons and I made enough soup to feed most starving nations. But there was also time enough on my hands to make this. And no, it's not in Italian.

Oh, and a crazy little small world thing happened! The night we arrived in Bologna, we stopped for a glass of wine and a little snack at this "Prosciuttoria", which Will totally loved since it's filled with prosciutto, just like him.



We got to chatting with our waiter, who, upon noticing our not-so-Italian accents (we were actually speaking in Italian), asked where we were from. We said New York and he told us that he had lived in the city for six months in 2004. And where did he work? At Supper, the restaurant and wine bar we frequent in the East Village. On East 2nd St. And I live on East 3rd. You do the math, we were like neighbors!

'Tis the Season...

...for making wine!


It started as a gloomy-looking Saturday, but off we trudged into the vineyard to harvest this years' crop.


When we got there, however, the grapes were ripe for pickin'!

We started just before 10am, picked for a while, got caught in a touch of rain and headed in for lunch. That's when the reserve workers arrived-- neighbors and family. Will's mom cooked up a delicious and hearty meal-- prosciutto and fresh figs, fresh pasta with ragu' and roast chicken. We worked on finishing off the wine from 2004, had a little coffee (and grappa for a brave few) and again hit the fields.

The afternoon pick went quite smoothly and the sun actually made a brief cameo before it rained again.



In my opinion, the work went well thanks to keen management, courtesy of neighbor Rocco, seen here working out some quality control issues:



He also drives a mean tractor!



We loaded the back of the tractor with bucket after bucket. We figured it was probably around a ton of grapes in total, which will ultimately be turned into around 700 litres of wine!



Will and his dad started right away de-stemming and crushing the white grapes, under management's watchful eye.



And keeping it a family affair, Rocco's brother Nico also kept watch.


And here's how the magic begins...







The grapes get dumped whole into the destemmer,








which separates the stems, etc. from the fruit,








and leaves you with this pile of stuff,








as well as the juice and skins.


The juice and skins then get pressed into mosto, to which you add yeast. The yeast eat the sugars and magically ferments the juice into wine!

As I mentioned, we're drinking the 2004 vintage now, so we'll have to wait a while to see how this year turns out. I bet it might be pretty good.

Now that the work is done, Will and I are taking off for another round of travel. We leave tomorrow for Bologna. We don't have a strict itinerary, but are thining of traveling through to Torino, Milano, the Veneto, perhaps back to Provence, through Switzerland and up to Berlin. There's also talk of trying to follow whatever warm weather might be left with a trip south through Sicily, the Greek Islands and over to see a friend of Will's in Istanbul.

So many options... so little time!

Hunting Season / You Learn Something New Every Day!

It's not that nothing has been going on, dear reader, it's that we're working on dial-up. Pokey old dial-up. It's reminiscent of those first glorious days of cable TV, when channel changing at our house was done on that fancy, albeit corded, brown box. It was done from the comfort of the couch, and it was fast. But when I went to some less, ahem, technologically advanced friend's house, you still had to get up to turn the dreaded dial.

We all went on a walk yesterday. Well, we tried to go on a walk. A neat walk that follows part of the trail that Hannibal's army took when they totally kicked Rome's army's ass. It was a beautiful day and just as we got underway, we were met with this:



Wild Boar Hunting Season has begun! While it means that Umbrian restaurants will be serving up delicious ragu con cinghalle, it also means that most of the cool walking trails will be filled with hunting clubs. There's something about a group of men in matching outfits that always just gets me...

The other earth-shattering news is best told with this picture:



Will's mom taught him how to mop the floor today. The fun just never ends!!

This week, we will all travel to Florence to hear cousin Jacopo defend his thesis on Bankruptcy Law. He insists it's "fascinating"... we'll see. I'm not expecting to understand much, but it will be a good test of our language skills. Over dinner, maybe we'll play the "Then I think he said" game!

And we'll round out the weekend with the harvesting of the wine grapes. And just in time-- the hunted cinghalle have been having an absolute field day each night, breaking down fences and feasting on wine grapes, figs and walnuts.

Soon, I guess, we'll feast on them. Sad, but true. And delicious!

The Ends of the Earth

I've been a little out of touch-- we extended our August traveling into September. But we're back. And on dial-up! I guess you can't ask for everything.

After 10+ days of Silent Camp (yes, I did it without talking. The whole time.), we headed to Juan-les-Pins, a beach town in the South of France just outside of Cannes.









There, you can drink fruity cocktails from coconut monkey with a hat.






And then this is the view during the day. This is where Will conveniently suggested I start looking for work in films headed for the Cannes Film Festival. I think he might be onto something.


Once back from France, we headed to Sardegna.








We stayed at the Hotel Da Cecco, run by the lovely DeCecco family. The design was maybe a little dated (think Miami Vice and candy canes), but you really couldn't beat the service...










or the view.


After I got over a brief fear of drowning and being eaten by sharks (which don't actually exist in Sardinian waters), I was finally certified as an official scuba diver. Didn't get any photos from that part of the trip, mainly since a wet suit and goggles isn't exactly the most flattering
outfit. Also, my trusty camera might not be so trusty when wet.

Then back to the mainland. Sang and Lisa came for a visit. Will's dad arrived. Sang and Lisa headed to Rome and we headed to Abruzzo to hike up a mountain. A big mountain.







Here we are at the beginning. I had no idea what I was in for.








We literally climbed above the clouds.








Clouds? Check. Mountains? Check.






I have no idea why they put a "No Hunting" sign all the way up here. It seemed that all you could really hunt were rocks. And the occasional butterfly.







Maybe the "No Hunting" warning should have gone in the field with all the sheep. This was near the end. Near the car. I was never happier to see sheep.


Now we're back in Umbria, nursing sore legs (read: walking around like creeky old folk). The upcoming plans involve picking some wine grapes in October and perhaps some travel through Northern Italy.

Although, the temptation to travel south and stick with more warm weather activities is great... wearing a sweater now actually makes me kinda miss the scuba suit...

Planes, Trains and Automobiles

Schedule for 4 September 2006

6am Wake up to go to bathroom. Knowing I have to be up by 8 to pack and check out of hotel, become aggrivatingly unable to fall back to sleep. Play solitaire on computer and try to avoid waking Will.

6:05am Will wakes up and wonders if I have completly lost my mind to a computer card game addiction.

6:06am Quit card game. Get in shower.

6:15am (or maybe I took a longer shower, but we'll call it an approximation) Get out of shower to find Will packing. Watch in horror as he crams clothes into suitcase willy-nilly. Ask Will as nicely as possible "do you not think it might be just a little easier if the clothes were folded?"

6:15-6:30am After much discussion, ecide to agree to disagree and zip suitcase closed. Shudder slightly at the difficulty of closing bulging luggage, but decide to breathe deeply and let it go.

6:30-7:15am Dress and dawdle and wait for Will to finish shower. Resist urge to play one more game of solitaire. Cram the last few things in the front of suitcase, convinced it will explode.

7:30ish Say a final ciao to the nice man who runs the Hotel Castel Mistral.
just after 8am Hop on a surprisingly full bus from Juan-les-Pins and head to the airport in Nice. Sleep most of the way, but get woken up ten minutes before arrival by Will who is excited to show me four roosters and a hen who happen to be in this little grassy knoll in the middle of the highway. Ah, France.

just after 9am Arrive at Nice Airport. Check in. Realize that a lot of women who travel first class have deep tans, tight jeans, large designer luggage sets, tiny yappy lap dogs and confused husbands.

9:30 Coffee. Finally.

10am A gate is assigned for our flight to Rome. Head downstairs.

10:15 Notice that everyone around us waiting at the gate seems to be checking the departure monitor, sighing and heading back upstairs.

10:16 Check departure monitor. Sigh. Head back upstairs. Gate change.

11:15 After a delayed boarding, take off on time. Ailitalia serves us gelato.

12:20pm Land in Rome. Watch Flight Steward politely chastise an Italian male passenger for getting up to get his bag from the overhead compartment before the plane has stopped moving. Will and I giggle a bit and realize that we can understand enough Italian to get some jokes.

around 1pm After waiting what felt like an eternity for our overstuffed suitcase, it comes first out on the conveyor belt and we head to the train.

around 2pm Arrive back at Rome apartment. Check email, pack our last few things.

around 3pm Call the people from whom we sublet to set a time to meet to hand over our keys. Check schedule for Ferries to Sardinia.

around 4pm Hand in keys, say goodbye and the trusty 'if you're ever in New York' and leave our sweet sublet.

4:10 Print out ferry tickets and finally fax my long overdue taxes to my accountant.

4:15 Get car from garage. Head to Civitavecchia, the port town where from where we'll take the ferry.

5:30 Arrive in Civitavecchia. Park. Go to cafe for snack. Observe local color.

Here, local color refers to a group of dread-locked or shaved-headed teenagers hanging out and looking bored. The girls read. The boys play cards or stare into space. Then one of them arrives after what I can only call "a day's work" with a mesh bag full of fish and crabs. He is looking to sell his catch and offers us an opportunity to purchase all this fresh seafood for only 20 euros. Thankfully, we know enough Italian to decline. One of the card players buys the catch. Local color, indeed!

7pm Sit for dinner at a local pizzeria. Will extols the virtues of Italian cuisine over French. We eat mussels and pizza.

9pm Get the car and head to the ferry. Wait in enormous line of cars.

9:30 Drive onto ferry. Check in. Head to cabin. Reminisce about the cruise with Becky, Matt and Chris in 2002. This one is slightly different-- fewer piano bars, more nuns.

10:30 Hear a key in our door. Panic at the thought of having to share our double bunk-bed room. Will answers the door. They've got the wrong room. Sigh a huge sigh of relief and fall back on my top bunk.

11pm Set sail. Realize that today we have traveled on every major form of transportation. Fall asleep.

11:30 Boat turbulence? I awake thinking that we've arrived and I've had the most insane good night's sleep. Will tells me I've been asleep for like 20 minutes. I fall back to sleep.

5 September 2006

5:30am The captain announces basically to wake up, we're almost there! Will and I head out to the deck to confirm, then back to the cabin to get our things.

5:45 Check out and get coffee from a machine. The coffee is surprisingly good.

6am Sit in parked car on boat garage. Assume we're never getting off.

6:30-noon Drive off boat. Cruise through Sardinia. Watch sunrise. Look for more coffee. See insanely manicured resort town. Decide to look for a town with a little more flavor, less landscaping. Consult Lonely Planet Guide to Italy. Decide on Saint Teresa de Galluria. Find hotel that looks straight out of Miami Beach 1984. Stub toe on shoddy sidewalk. Go to farmacia for bangages. Have lunch. Nap.

post nap Set out to find Scuba school in English. Decide to go with the man who talks to us while taking a shower in a Speedo. Realize that if he can sell us on a course while drying off, the language barrier will be no problem.

6 September 2006

morning Go to internet cafe. Catch up on email and write way-too-detailed blog post.

still to do Get the official 'ok' from the Medical Guard to begin Scuba course. Have passport-style photos taken for Scuba license. Figure out how the hell I'm going to wear flippers with a giant boo-boo on my big toe. Stop writing every little detail on blog.

To Be Continued, Continued

When last we met, it was Bastille Day in France. What else have we been up to, you ask?

We spent a couple of weeks out at Will's folks house in Umbria, where we took a few more Italian lessons and I finished up the translation of an Equestrian catalog (don't ask).


Following a book from the house called Circular Walks and took a few walks around Montone and Umbertide (oom-BER-tee-day, not UM-ber-tied). On one hearty hilly walk, we climbed a hill and came across the land where religion meets technology. Upon closer examination, we found it to be even stranger...














Ok, I swear, I will get to the rest of this story, but right now we're taking off for Sardinia where I am apparently about to learn to Scuba. Who knew?


For now, I leave you with Will and I in the South of France. More when we return to the land of an internet connection.

Looking for Work

Anybody got a part for me in a movie they intend to take to the Cannes Film Festival?

We took a nice long bike ride yesterday around the gorgeous Cap d'Antibes. In the midst of our trek, Will asked if I couldn't get into a movie going to Cannes so we could hang out here more often.

I don't know how on earth I never thought of that myself!

I mean, I love the theater, I love the Brick, I love Hope and Jeff, Caveman Robot and working for free (ok, one of these is a slight exaggeration). But I must admit that I would give away all the glamour of unpaid rolling around on the theater floors of Brooklyn for the chance to hang out South-of-France style again. And again. And again and again and again!

So seriously, if your film just ain't complete without a dark-haired lady like me, be in touch.

An Update (from the South of France)

Despite a number of technical difficulties (namely, the cord that connects my camera to my computer being loose for whatever reason), I have finally managed to retrieve my photos from the bulk of our Trans-Atlantic summer. Here's a little of what we've done, up until now.


It all started with the World Cup at Circo Massimo, where 300,000 people gathered to watch TV.

At the end of June, we flew briefly back to New York for our friends' Mark and Sari's wedding. All I can say is that a 12-piece Funk Band played Havah Nagilah. Wow.

Then it was on to Paris for Bastille Day.


We got to spend a bunch of time with my friends Kate Ward and Jon Evans, as Kate was working on her upcoming Travel Channel Show Not Your Average Travel Guide. I believe the Bastille Day episode will air sometime in October. Barring any cutting-room floor incidents, you may see me on a picnic and a man-on-the-street interview with Will, where he talks about how French food has too much butter. Details forthcoming.


We spent a day at this beautiful market, where I drank a coke and Will took some pictures of fruit and veggies.




And it's great to be with the press! Kate and her trusty TV Camera got us whisked into the Fireman's Ball the night before Bastille Day. It was a big party at the fire house, where all the French firemen played bartender for the night. Really, it's a girl's dream, although I was really just there for the Champagne.










On Bastille Day itself, we spend another afternoon with Kate and her film crew (us, Jon and some French dude with a scooter and an accent) having a picnic at the Champs Mars, right in front of the Eiffel Tower. Will realized that Kate didn't quite prepare properly for the picnic, so he went and got us another bottle of wine. And a quiche. And two more bottles of wine. I wonder if he remembers the fireworks...





I have much more to share, but my battery is about to be kaput, so I'll give you the skinny on July 14th to the present ASAP.

When Folly Turns to Madness

Update on Il Gatto.

As he was napping today, full up on leftover pasta (here even the cats eat pasta twice a day), he managed to conjure up a friend. Will and I nervously peered through the kitchen window, and there, in the yard, was Il Gatto Due (cat #2).

Luckily, Due didn't last long, just long enough for Will and I to discuss the fact that if we started feeding two cats, it wouldn't be long before we were feeding three, then eight, then sixty and I'd be carrying around six purses at a time and eating mayonnaise straight from the jar.

By lunchtime, it was business as usual with our odd little "nuclear family". Will and I sat at the table outside, no longer prisoners of indoor dining since we decided to adopt Il Gatto. Well, maybe not "adopt" so much as "stop chasing away".

To MAY to, To MAH to.

Two bites into lunch, the whole thing just fell apart and we were back to scare tactics to rid ourselves of IG. Just after Il Gatto hopped up on the bench next to me (from where I was about to shoo him anyway, since he is not allowed to actually sit with us at the table), I saw that there was something attached to him behind his neck.

The poor bastard got a tick!

Not wanting to leave an open invitation for Lyme Disease or cooties, we hurried to move our meal indoors and shook the water bottle at him in hopes he would flee. And flee he did. But probably not for long... we've been so emotioinally back and forth with this poor cat, he probably thinks we're just having another fit of the crazy and he should just check in again with us around dinnertime.

Would it be weird to put a flea and tick collar on a stray? Is there a way to get rid of the tick without Will or I actually having to touch it or Il Gatto? Have I finally gone just plain batty?

I think this is why I don't have pets.

Quickie Update

The internet point. Convenient, but not exactly leisurely. That's where I'm writing from, in Città di Castello, so this will be brief, but hopefully entertaining and informative.

It's hot as the hottest thing you can imagine. I won't go into it.

We've got a cat. Sort of. Word on the hillside is that the Italians enjoy the feeding of stray cats. This little guy saw "sucker" written all over Will and me. He would roll up to the house (we've been staying at Will's folks' place in Umbria... "the country" if you will) when we were eating and try to get real friendly. We tried and tried to shoo him away -- Will even got really serious with the water hose for a day. Finally, we realized that il gatto has a will to eat daily that overpowers our will to interrupt dinner. That, mixed with a tiny bit of feeling bad for the poor starving little bugger, and we've got a pet.

A note to Maura and Larry, Will's parents, in case you're reading: Il gatto sta fuori. Solo fuori. He's tried to slip in, but we stand firm on that. (for those of you without my stellar language skills, the cat stays outside.)

It looks likely that we're going to silent camp on August 12. That's right, I am going to attempt ten days of silent meditation. Why? Well, why not?

Then it's off to the South of France for a week of beach fun with Matt and Fany.

It's all in extremes here, but life is good.

August. What a Great Month to Take a Vacation. All Month!

Will and I spent the weekend at his folks' house in Umbria where there are sunflowers in bloom everywhere. And the grape vines are starting to sprout actual grapes-- they still feel hard as rocks, but they're on their way.

As we were walking down to check out the vineyard, I took a little spill in my flip-flops (not exactly the best footgear for dirt road walking-- someday I will figure that out). As I was dusting myself off and limping up to the house, all turned right again with the world when I noticed a fig tree in full bloom. Even a skinned knee can't bring you down when you're eating figs fresh from the tree!

Now, back in Rome, it's hot as h-e-double hockey sticks, so we're packing it up and going on vacation. I know we're already on vacation, I guess, but this is like a travelling vacation!

We're not going just because it's hot. It seems that all of Italy and gigantic chucks of Europe all take off for some large part of late-July through August. I'd say they're on to something...

August will take us on a road trip through Tuscany and Umbria, hopefully finding some out-of-the-way vineyards and such to visit. Then a couple of friends of ours are going to be in the South of France at the end of August, so we're going to take a trip there. But I don't think they have fig trees, so how good can it really be?

So this little blog will be out of commission for a short while. But it will return with all kinds of photos of grapes and sunshine and stuff.

See you in September!

New York, Only Ladylike

I would like to personally thank the French for Paris.

It was my first visit to France, and although there were a handful of downsides (a socialist country does not make it easy to hail a cab, to be explained in detail later), I adjusted to Paris like a fish to a Meuniere sauce (pardon the culinary pun, it's the only French I spoke). Our friend Jon Evans, who lived in Paris for a blissful spell a few years ago, was a godsend pseudo-tourguide, meeting us at random metro stops and linguistically maneuvering us through some sticky situations with a prickly (read: snooty) watiress.

I think he summed it up best when he likend Paris to New York as the more feminine version of our fair New York City. I wholeheartedly agree.

The city looks and feels like a girly teenage girl's bedroom (you can see heavy Parisian infuence even in the American suburbs even if you're not BFF with a 14 year old-- just stroll by an Anthropologie store in any old mall and see frills and "Shabby Chic" galore), but it's got a serious city vibe (and Metro) like Manhattan.

Paris is abound with art and restaurants and people speaking French. The girls wear dresses and the men, although not nearly as painstakingly groomed as Roman men, are well put-together in suits or expensive pastel shirts. The main passtimes seem to be picnics, chatting, occasional outbursts of musical theater and choreographed fireworks.

Can it get more girly than that?

Another Hiatus

Friends, family, people who have inadvertently stumbled across this blog and are a millisecond from clicking goodbye:

I won't have any posts for the next few days as Will and I are off to Paris. I know, it's a tough life, blah blah blah.

I wonder what's safer for us at this point: do we even mention that we've been hanging out in Italy (what, with the World Cup wounds not yet healed...) or just roll in as plain old American tourists? Do you think they've forgotten that whole ridiculous "freedom fries" embarassment?

I'm really just going for the picnic, anyway...

300,000 of Our Closest Friends

Will managed to get some great photos of the masses at Circo Massimo the other night.

It's over 48 hours after the victory. I think the cheering has finally come to a calm. Although I did hear someone still humming that bassline at the beach today. Word on the street is that tear gas was employed to get people to go home. Italians know from how to celebrate.

Forza Italia!!!

In case you, like an unfortunate many Americans, haven't been following the World Cup for the past few weeks, you can at least keep up with a little water cooler conversation knowing that as of last night, Italy is the 2006 World Champion.

Will and I, along with our friend Ashley who is visiting from New York, watched the game at Circo Massimo with about 300,000 of our closest Roman pals. It was insane. I've been to places with large groups of people: a few Lollapaloozas (a music festival with probably around 15-20000 people), one Buring Man with 30,000 and the Anti-War March in London in 2002 with 2 Million people in the streets, but never before have I seen this many people gather. To watch television.

There were three projection screens set up: 2x25' and 1x50' and people came to Rome from all over the country. We came from the other side of town on the most crowded metro car ever. It was filled with fans, young and old, in various red-white-and-green get-ups including face paint and wigs. Also, you couldn't swing a dead cat without whacking someone in an Azzuri (the Italian team's blue) shirt. On the metro platform at Termini, the crowd started chanting a tune that we assumed was the lead-in to a national anthem or war ditty. Only later did we realize that their battlecry was the insidious baseline to the White Stripes Seven Nation Army.

Just before the end of the game, we climbed the hill to face the crowd-- we were itching to see what that many people looked like all smooshed together (amazing). Not realizing that there were like three penalty kicks for Italy to take before the end of the match, we thought Italy had won when the crowd erupted the first time. Literally thousands of Italian flags waved, big and small, in every direction.

But when the last point was finally scored and the win was official, the crowd exploded into absolute madness. Flags, fireworks (directly above the crowd, no less) and cameras went off, people cheered, they cried, I even saw one tough guy sprint uphill, high-five his friend and then give him a kiss on each cheek before he took to the streets on his moto to wave his flag and beep his horn with everyone else. Literally everyone.

We walked home among the throngs of exuberant Italians, cheering and screaming and tooting and flag-waving as if they themselves had scored the winning goal. I felt a little reserved, actually, which is not a familiar feeling in my world. But even without a flag, it was incredibly exciting to be in the company of champions.

As one shirtless painted man exclaimed to me with a boatfull of giddy in his eyes, "campioni del mundo!!"

We drank a bottle of Spumante in celebration and I finally went to bed around 130am with horns still beeping and people still cheering. A few people in the building next to us were so ingenious as to take the lids to their pots and pans and take to the streets like a marching band! Middle-aged adults! For hours!

Now as I write this over 24 hours later, horns are still beeping and flags are still waving and that damned bassline just won't let go of it's place in my head. Surprisingly, it hasn't gotten old. Yet.

I wonder what they're doing in Paris...

We're Back!

Sorry I've been MIA, but we were stricken with a little case of a travel bug/scheduling commitments, and magically our travels kept leading us to places senza internet.

The week before last, spent a little over a week in Umbria with Will's mom. It was hot as the bejezus, but beautiful. We visited the little Medieval Fortress town of Perugia which sits practically vertically on top of a hill. We also rode out to Pitigliano, also a fortress-looking town (the Italians liked to build their towns on a hill-- there's a detailed explanation, I'm sure, but I'll just call it paranoia for now) for a walk through the Etruscan tombs. Really cool.

Then we travelled back to New York for my friend Mark's wedding, where we danced all night to the song stylings of a 12-piece Funk Band. There were also surprise fireworks and surprise wedding crashers and a big bottle of Dom Perignon to round out the night. But seriously, if you've never seen a 12-piece Funk Band do Havah Nagilah, you just haven't lived.


Our time in New York was quick and sleepless-- after daily naps in Rome, Will and I were out of practice for the likes of Manhattan... but we made it, and managed to see more people than we expected, including a bunch of people at the Brick when we went to see the latest Bizarre Science Fantasy. We then spent the 4th of July at the lake trying desperately to catch up on sleep.

We're now back in Rome, exhausted, but just in time for World Cup finals. With Italy having just beat Germany in double overtime, we're definitely back right on time for all the action! Sunday should be insane!