Saluti a tutti! So much for updating the ol' blog-er-oo more frequently. Sometimes I find myself struggling a little as I write these, not because it's hard to come up with content to write about, as experiences abroad provide plenty of little anecdotes and tales to recount, but because I feel like the more Italian I learn, the more my English suffers. I'm not kidding. I'm finally at the point where I can carry on a conversation with an honest-to-goodness Italian, but I cannot for the life of me speak or write good English anymore. (See what I mean?) It's as if my brain has a limit on how many words it can hold at once; thus I lose simple English words at the rate I learn new Italian words. For instance, it took me a good 3 minutes to come up with the word "purpose" yesterday. So forgive me if my prose has become a little fragmented; it's probably because I have to pause and stare blankly into space for 10 minutes to come up with the word "fragmented."
So here's the scoop: Tuesday was volunteering again; luckily Gabri had forgotten about "Cowboys" in favor of "Ring Around the Rosie." Still not the best children's game on the joints, but at least it's better than "Cowboys."
This time an 18-year-old girl from Brazil named Laura was there, and I talked to her for awhile. She was wearing makeup, for she had dressed up as an Indian for the last day of Carnevale. As I was talking to her, it made me kind of sad. She's lived in that house for two years with her mom when they came from Brazil. There's no one her age to talk to, really. She has her friends at school, but I just think it would be hard to live in that house all the time. Same goes for all the other mothers. The little kids don't really know the difference, but some of the moms have been living in Italy for years and still don't speak the language. They can't get jobs because they don't have documents and they get stuck in a rut, afraid to leave the home because they can't speak the language. They get bored and desperately homesick. I just can't imagine living in their situation. I wish I could do more, but what? We talk to them and provide them a little distraction, temporarily, but still. It's one of those situations that I can't really change and just kind of sits uneasily with me when I think about it. That's life, I guess, but it doesn't seem fair. I know life is cyclical and everyone has their ups and downs, but I feel like some people are undeservedly handed a lot of downs. I hate closing paragraphs, essays, stories, etc., without resolutions, and I feel like a lot of these women are stuck in situations that aren't going to be resolved anytime soon. I guess all we can do for them is try to ease their burdens a little, until things start to look up for them.
On another note, Tuesday night we had some classmates over again for some dolce and vino, and then went out to celebrate the last night of Carnevale. Probably not the best decision, as I had a slight headache for the reunion with the S.W.C.T.S. on Wednesday, but I recovered okay. I met them in Assisi and then we drove up to Pianello di Cagli together, the village in the mountains where the rest of my family lives, and the car ride was slightly hellish for me. But once I stepped out of the car (or, should I say, bus, because the vehicle that the S.W.C.T.S. had rented was about the same size as a bus) and breathed in the fresh mountain air I felt worlds better. We stayed at a little bed and breakfast called La Ferraia, where my dad, grandma and I had stayed 4 years ago the first time I went to Italy. This time there was snow on the ground and the air was bitterly cold, but coming back to Pianello truly felt like a homecoming.
The family all came over to La Ferraia for a huge 4-course dinner. This family included Ersilia and Bruno who came all the way from Rome, Ersilia's English-speaking brother Tomasso, (or "the philosopher" as we know him--the man speaks 7 languages and reads vicariously and can recite canzoni from Dante's Divine Comedy from memory), another brother named Claudio, another brother named Lucio and his son Rico, and Grandma E's other cousin Ubaldo (an ex-actor) and his adorable wife, Beppa. Upon seeing me, Beppa burst into tears and wrapped me in a nearly gut-wrenching embrace, crying "amore! amore!" over and over. When I talked with Ubaldo, he would laugh with delight at the fact that I could actually communicate with him this time. By the end of the dinner, all my aunts were chatting with the cugini despite the language barrier--it's amazing how much you can communicate with body language, facial expressions, and a few Italian phrases. All in all, everyone was incredibly warm and loving. Bruno said, "I feel like I have known you all for fifty years!" It's no wonder it felt like home.
The next day we went to Pianello, where we hiked up to the house where my great-grandma used to live. We must have been the talk of the town in Pianello, which has a population of 400. Our arrival was like a scene out of a Western or a science fiction movie when the aliens come in on their spaceship. We come driving up in our ridiculous bus, seven women senza mariti (without husbands). A group of villagers stood in the middle of the main square, hands in their pockets, staring incredulously. Not a word was uttered. I waited for one of them to say something like, "This town ain't big enough for the both of us." But then Tomasso and Ersilia explained that we were the American cugini, and that seemed to clear things up slightly. It still didn't explain the size of the bus, though.
Thursday afternoon we drove back to Florence; kudos to Auntie Sharon for navigating those mountain roads. The S.W.C.T.S. are staying in the town of Sesto Fiorentino, which is a 15-minute train ride out of Florence. They're staying in an adorable villa that's located in the middle of the city, a vineyard surrounded by a huge stone walls.
Friday the S.W.C.T.S. was occupied with a trip to Lucca, so I had a free afternoon to go for a run, and then I met up with one of my friends from home who's studying in Barcelona for the semester. She came to Florence for the weekend to meet up with another one of her friends who's studying here, so it was good to spend some time with her. I went to bed early Friday because the next day we had an early train to the floating city of Venezia!
I think this was my favorite excursion we've gone on so far. There's literally nothing like Venice. The town is completely on water; where you'd normally park your car in your driveway, the Venetians park their boats in the area of water in front of their houses. There are 150 canals in Venice, and yes, we rode a gondola and he paddled through them. It was such a cool way to look at a city. The only thing that would make Venice cooler than it was would be if you could swim in the canal--how cool would it be if you could just open up your windows and dive out for a quick morning dip? But although the water is a turquoise-blue color, you look down and you literally cannot see anything even directly below the surface. Probably not most sanitary conditions for swimming.
One of my favorite things we did in Venice was the trip to the islands, the names of which have escaped me. The first was--wait, it's coming back to me-- Morano (that's it!) where they did a glass-making demonstration. That was awesome; the glassmaker fashioned a glass horse right in front of us, his movements quick and precise. After the demonstration I told him how impressed I was with his work and he goes, "Well I'd hope so, I've been doing it for 38 years." Then we got to look at the goods in the glassmaking factory which included all kinds of cups, bowls, trinkets, and even multi-colored glass chandeliers upwards of 50,000 euro. I tried to take a picture, but the man in the factory shook his finger at me, saying "No foto. No foto." Whoops.
Next we went another island with a small church on it, and I still for the life of me have no idea why they took us there. There was nothing but dead, grassy fields, a dirty canal running through the middle, and a church and a snackbar stand that sold watery hot chocolate. Oh, and cats. Literally everywhere you'd look you'd see a freakin' cat. I have no idea where they came from, but every time you turned your head there'd be another cat darting out from behind a bush or something. Apparently the island had some significance at one point; thousands of barbarians lived there in ancient times and now there's only 15 inhabitants left. It's no wonder; I don't think I'd want to reproduce if I knew I'd be bringing my offspring into a place like that. I don't think I'd want to live on an island that had a higher cat population than a human population.
After visiting the Island of the Cats, we went to an adorable little island with a little lace factory and brightly colored houses. The rule on the island is, every family has to paint their house a different, bright color. The houses are lime green, turquoise, red, bright pink, yellow, orange, etc. The houses that are duplexes are half one color, half another with a precise line down the center. If it had been up to me, I could have skipped Cat Island in favor of spending more time at the colorful one. The lace factory was also really nice; there were beautiful lace handkerchiefs, christening dresses, etc. There was even a huge picture of Elton John with the employees who worked there when he had come to visit on a private tour.
All in all, Venice was awesome. We got home Sunday night and I met up with Auntie Sharon and the Mamma for dinner at my favorite neighborhood trattoria. Monday I took the train into Sesto Fiorentino to meet the S.W.C.T.S. for a cooking lesson in the villa. I'll pause for brief second to wait for all of you to laugh at the thought of me at a cooking lesson. Casstanza, the woman who works at the villa and gave us the cooking lesson, was very patient with me, despite the fact that I'm 20 years old and still don't really know how to peel a potato. I could sense everyone wincing subtly as I tossed my mangled (but peeled) vegetables into the bowl. Despite me holding back the process slightly, we (or they) did manage to make a great dinner: spinach salad with cheese, walnuts, and golden raisins, toasted crostini with sausage and cheese, potato frittata, fried artichoke hearts, multigrain bread, papardelle with vegetable and meat sauce, pork with some kind of delicious sauce, and an apple cake. Is it any wonder I wasn't hungry again until past 12 this afternoon?
Allora tutti, I'd better dash--I've got to go to volunteering before meeting up with the S.W.C.T.S. for dinner tonight. They've been in Chianti for the day, so let's hope they won't be too hammered when I see them...
Vi voglio bene!
Caity
