Age is Just a Number

Bread and Florence

This is the final travelogue of our trip to Italy ....

So, now Florence.....our last leg.

John finished his bread school and it was a strenuous week if you can believe it.  Here is an excerpt of what he started to write a couple days ago before someone planted themselves right behind us at the computer with a rather quiet yet loud declaration that they wanted to use it imminently.  Actually, we found that just about every time we sat down, someone would come and "wait" behind us - guess that's how they do that here.  He didn"t have the energy to finish writing...and will write more later:

howdy,

Donna has graciously allowed me to write an update so pardon the momentary change in style.  school is out, i graduated, wow what a week.  we each baked about a dozen loaves of bread.  the party room has piles of bread that were amazing.  sourdoughs, ciabattas\focaccias (pardon the spelling).  my final exam was a Polenta Sultana sour dough and it was perfect.... 

He will write more later as he went to nap upstairs...that's four flights up in this pensione in Florence.  As for my week before we came to Florence, in Mercatale while John was baking, I had the freedom of the Go Ka, and Lorna, my South African roommate was happy to come along.  It rained the whole week which made it more difficult to just roam about the countryside, even with the faint thoughts of taking out the sketchpad.  I was not interested in driving around to every ancient hilltop fortress in order to check them off the list.  However, I managed scheduling a cooking class with an American Italian woman which was immense fun.  I took along a fresh goose egg from Chiara's geese as she told me it makes great pasta.  So pasta we made in our four course meal in the class, the usual, and then if that wasn't enough, drove back "home" to have our other usual four course meal.  It's ludicrous, our eating habits here in Italy.  Changes must be made when we return!  Like, I'll make Crostatta now!

The company we kept in the 1000 year farmhouse in Mercatale was a very interesting blend as I mentioned before.  Being the party house such that it was the meeting place and final prep area for our cook, Christina, we (Lorna and I ) found that we tended to be the primary domestic clean up the morning after each four course meal and gathering (not All the dishes, mind you, but party clean up...).  We also found it very satisfying to start a fire to welcome all in the 1000 year old fireplace as well...after searching for dry firewood!  Her husband, Clive, is very very entertaining and endearing...I"ll miss the ole chap.  It would be nice to someday visit them in "JoBurg" as they fondly call their home.  He is very serious about opening his own bakery, so if you hear of a place called Bentley's Buns when you visit in the near future, I'll bet that's our Clive!

We were getting the piles of bread daily from the school and every few days we'd pack them up and deliver to the estate owner Chiara to feed to her horses.  There was just no way to eat it all ourselves!  Our last day there, we had a sunshine break and I jumped into the car and drove to Assisi - another hilltop fortress in Umbria.  The landscape is different there in my brief assessment; a bit more rugged with pale browns, as contrast to Tuscany, rolling hills of the famous reddish dirt that makes up the hues in the buildings.  Not knowing in advance that I would be going there I had no background information other than I know that a noteworthy saint is from this place and it holds special meaning for pilgrims here.  Yet, however sadly, another "shopping" tour is what it tends to be for the average tourist.  I heard more Americans in this place than in all our adventures so far.  And, we drove home to our last four course meal. 

Saturday, as we wound up our time in that area, John and I were able to go back to Cortona; he didn't have a chance to get out all week as he was either baking or eating or drinking wine.  It was our second day in a row of no hot water and Chiara stopped by to apologize and to show us early pictures of the dog-horse, as well as to deliver our olive oil from last year's crop.  I have some understanding that Chiara, being the noble lady she is, doesn't just mingle with any old visitor, so for some reason Lorna and I got a tour of portions of her estate in her old 4x4 Suzuki, as well as our whole group invited to her home for "happy hour", where I spied (and paged through) a bible from 1599 in Latin on one of her tables (I am thinking NOT KJV!), and I received a warm hug and kisses on the cheek (they bus 3 times there) from her, and her email address!  A fine experience all in all.

We only messed up a bit when returning our rental car; working days in Italy are a bit different there, and trained on to Florence.  I was not entirely looking forward to ending our trip in Florence.  We'd been enjoying the pace of being in the country, knowing our way around and seeing familiar and friendly faces in small villages, and now we hit the city.

So, now in the pensione, which is a typical lodging;  a door off a back street entering into yet another ancient building to find rooms and apartments in and up.  Four stories feels more like about six since the ceilings are so dang high.  No lift.  And we had accumulated a bit more than when we started!  We tried not to, but it just happens!  We are usual tourists staying in usual places and that's just how it works.

Florence is a shopping mecca.  For some reason I simply let John handle the map in this place and by the end of the day he knew his way around and I couldn't get my bearings for the life of me, so as a friend coined:  Let go, Let John!  We missed our lovely meals and were back to the expensive brand of some sort of protein on some sort of bread to make our lunches that typically adds up to twenty bucks quickly, unless we sat down somewhere for more of the same that might include pasta that quickly adds up to thirty bucks!  We gave ourselves a grand tour of the town seeing all the good stuff, planning to visit the Ufizzi the next day as well as David.  Strangely though we both felt as if we were suffereing from jet lag; an odd feeling after being in country for 3 weeks.  And, it suddenly warmed up.  We were dragging!  So what do you do when you are dragging?  Sit down to a nice cup of Florentine cappucino! 

We also found the Cinema Teatro Odeon and slipped in to watch Indiana Jones in Italian.  In case you haven't seen it;  he gets a good whoopin', gets back to teaching, is off on another adventure, gets a few more whoopins and administers some while juggling the treasure, all with a great soundtrack and loads of fun. Hope I didn't spoil it for you.  We knew like 5 words.  Monday, off to the museums where we quickly realized our huge mistake:  museums are closed on Monday.  We knew that, from a distance, say in the Stati Uniti, but here and now, after 3 weeks of being in the country?  We completely forgot.  Also, it hit us that day like a lightswitch: going home tomorrow.  We were suddenly and immediately tired of travelling.  We succumbed to our loads and bought, for a whole 12 euro, a very large, no-name brand of suitcase that is simply made to transport goods across the ocean for silly tourists who can't help themselves.  We chuckled all the way back to the hotel at our bargain (not a bargain if it busts open and then we're the laughing stock when we pick it up and it's stained with wine and olive oil though!), happily packed it up and called it good.  We found a nice restaurant and drank ourselves to sillyness (amazing feat considering our bottle a day average) and walked around the beautiful duomo at night, and passed by again, a lovely Ukraine woman classically trained in voice, singing in an alcove with great acoustics with her accordian playing partner.

As we made our way to the plane I found myself looking forward to our 2 hour layover in Frankfurt.  I wanted to eat a hamburger or frankfurter or something, since we left too early for breakfast.  I figured those crazy Germans would have this whole airport thing down to a smooth running German machine.  Nyet.  Our little puddle jumper taxied to a spot just off the runway where we loaded onto a bus that gave us a tour of the backstreets of the airport to deposit us at a door where we climbed many flights of stairs to get me totally disoriented as to where the heck we were.  We eventually dumped out into the main concourse, but we needed a different one.  We walked all the way to this concourse where they claimed we needed to be inside the gate area to board an hour before the flight leaves.  However there are no planes at gates here, they are somewhere else apparently.  We mooed ourway down several flights of stairs again (not sure what happens to the elderly or others who just don't do stairs), around corners, down hallways onto another bus that looked suspiciously in the same neighborhood where we got off an hour ago.  We got another tour of the backstreets to find our plane just two doors down from the original puddle jumper.  You'd think they'd handwalk our luggage over to it.  The smooth running Germain machine?  I guess they like their moving parts!

Thanks for bearing with us on our silly journals, typing on Italian keyboards where not all common symbols are readily available.  We have so many more details of days of touring around and who knows maybe we'll send something every now again as we remember.  We have bucket loads of pictures that will take some time to cull out for the viewing pleasure of others.  And we're home. 

Siena and Bread

This is the third of the four travelogues I sent while away....

We got our first ticket in Italy!  We hopped on our train from Bologna to Florence with a reserved seat, but our ticket from Florence from to Cortona was similar to a regular old bus ticket. Since we found a train leaving in about a minute from when we arrived we ran and jumped on...failing to validate the ticket. The conductor was very happy to actually write us a ticket and point out that we failed to validate it.  5 euro fine.

After negotiating the process of logistics, language and rental car process we made our way to the "highway" or cassia, and first drove to the bread school area just to check it out since we were close.  On the way is a very large lake, just beautiful - Trasimieno.  John was pretending he was in his personal Ferrari rather than the "Go Ka" as we have aptly named our new wheels.  By the way, this car has answers for parking and gas mileage; we can fit just about anywhere.  Other than the fact that if feels as though the wheels may fall off any any moment, we are zipping about the country side just fine.  And, other than the fact that John backed into someone's house and scratched the bumper, we are still fine.  Backing into someone"s house is really more like driving up a narrow street with no turn around, therefore backing back down and brushing a "wall" - is someone's house.

We stayed in a farmhouse that is about 400 years old, and as John proclaimed when we arrived "Isn"t this just the most kicka$$ place you've seen?!!"  It is located about 12 km south of Siena.  And as predicted in Toscana (Tuscany), there are either villas, palaces or castles on nearly every hilltop.  We were able to cook our own meals each night, so that was not only a break, but a very pleasant rest in our travels.  I must say, I made some pretty good stuff with few ingredients.  This farmhouse is part of an old mill built around 1200a.d. It is run by two families (two sisters and their husbands) and I had the fun of playing volleyball with their girls Agatha and Matilda, both around 10ish!

We visited Volterra, a few other hilltop towns/castles over the few days, including St. Antimo, an abby where we arrived in time to listen to Gregorian chants.  We went into Siena on Saturday in time to catch the finish of a "5K" race....that's approximately 5K as you can imagine running around a town like Siena and finishing at a church that's 1000 years old.  We thought this was pretty cool to watch locals doing what we do in the States.  If that wasn't entertaining enough, suddenly we starting seeing old cars coming through the streets and we realized it was the Mila Miglia 1000, an old car race that is now more of a tour, but with cars 50 or so years old...you know, like old Ferraris for example.  Francesco, of our tour in Bologna, told us about this race happening in Italy that weekend and while thinking it was pretty fascinating, thought nothing after that including how or where we might see it, and there it was in our laps, in Siena on a beautiful sunny day.  We watched for nearly 2 hours as they were going through their checkpoint, revving their engines and having a good time....I think John took a lot of photos during this time....

We reluctantly moved on from our farmhouse, and made our way to la Mercatale where John's bread school is located.  Montepulciano and Pienza were a few of the stops along the way - lovely towns.  Have I mentioned that we are still upholding our average of one bottle a wine a day?

Since we'd already checked out where we were going, we arrived easily to our new/old farmhouse - approximately 1000 years old.  Most of the rest of everyone were already there as the dinner was about to arrive.  How this works is a German woman, relocated to Italy, who trains horses, also is a fabulous cook.  Okay, fabulous really is not the word I want and maybe a better one will come to me.   I've had some complaints that I've not given enough food descriptions up to this point.  I am glad I held off as nothing compares to what we"ve been eating for the last three nights.  Christina cooks for the groups coming in for the bread school in the month of May, and she arrives with hot pots, baskets and other paraphanelia to serve us up with a four course meal....each night for 6 nights total (for our group anyway).

The first night?   Tagliatelli, pork with potatoes, etc, salad, and chocolate mousse.

night 2:  quiche, beef with risotto and mushrooms, greens, and a berry tart.

night 3:  a bread salad (Pancinella), greens, lentils with sausages and tirimisu.

Sound rather average?  This is all made from scratch, daily, from her garden or the local market and typically organic...even the tart crust.  We're dying here.  Please make the food stop.  Can someone takes us home now?   NOT!  If it weren't for the hot water coming and going giving us the chance for a cold bath to wake us up, this would really be a horrible situation we're in.

We are grouped with an American couple living in Switzerland and is in some (um, "high") function with the UN and Refugees...yes he's worked with Angelina Jolie (and yes, the caribineiri/polizia questioned his diplomatic insignia on his license plates right next to the wood fired oven where the bread baking is going on).  A chef from Australia; we"re still working on understanding his accent.  Another couple from South Africa; what a hoot!  The couple from England who own their own bakery and he is teaching.  And Carl, the dude who happens to run this thing and by the way, yes, Burt of Burt's Bees is his brother.   It's a party every night for dinner, we figured out how to get the fire going nicely for atmosphere, and because it is raining kittens and pups for 3 days, and the only downside (besides the hot water issue), is that the party is right outside our bedroom door....need a bit more sleep.

Chiara owns the farmhouse and all the land we are on.  She is a classic farm Italian lady and very classy and speaks fabulous English with a beautiful accent.  She and her daughter, Francesca, took Lorna, my new South African friend, and I around yesterday for several hours showing us her property, but mostly her dog-horse.  This beautiful animal was raised with dogs and thinks it is one and would like to put it"s hooves on your shoulders.

John is LOVING this school and I must say I underestimated it - they have notebooks and everything.  They even have a "final" on Friday and they must bake 3 kinds of bread successfully.  Have I mentioned the giant stack of bread in our kitchen?  All of us are NOT eating it fast enough!  Wine helps though.....

So, for now, I must tour Cortona with Lorna, Lisa and her son Noah (wife and son of the instructor) who threw up strawberries behind me as I drove the winding roads to get here....

Bologna and Motorstars

This is the second of the four travelogues ....

We arrived in Bologna last evening and found our charming and nice hotel.  Too bad a terrace is just outside our window and down a floor where at 10:30p. young Italians decided to party and sing.  Bad sleep night!

But today, ohhhh, for you car lovers, today was a tour with MotorStars, an enterprising Italian man who worked for Ferrari Racing, Pagani and Lamborghini, and created his own company giving tours to the likes of us.  He drove us Everywhere and knew the folks at these companies, got us into the places and tours - but most of all just knew how to get around....all over the place.  We toured Pagani and the workshop where they build 17 cars per year by hand. Top speed 340km/hr, 0-120 in 4.8 seconds, at the bargain price of 1,000,000 Euros.  But good news: the new model will be street legal in the US, bad news they are all sold.  Then on to Maserati where we met up with an Argentinian Journalist and we were able to go "behind the gates" for a quick look..."but don't take a picture of the prototype driving out in plastic wrap" ....I want one.  Then on to a private collection of Maseratis, plus others, on an organic farm with the BEST parmesan cheese on the planet.  The owner's name is Panini, the farm "Hombre" is his hobby and he invented the way to cut and sort baseball cards, patented and all. 

On to Ferrari where we had lunch with wine, of course, and a tour of the show room.  They have wayyyy too many secrets to allow a tour of the factory.  And, not to brag, but we slipped in a ride for John in a Testarossa!  Bellisima.  What a ride.  This car had no questions, only answers.  "Go" ok, hold on.  "Stop"  OH my neck.  The driver is definitely the weak link in this machine.  Next, we moved on to Lamborghini where we did get a tour of the factory, plus a our own personal piece of leather with the logo freshly heated/pressed into it.  We walked through a door between museum and factory and immediately see a line of brand new Lams several hundred yards long.  Gallardos, Reventos (only 20 built ever, all sold 1.4M euro, and we saw 2) and Bats (the real name is in italian but I can't remember "bat" in Italian).  A stroll through the factory floor to see real Italians working on real Lamborghini's at every step of the construction process.  Fabulous colors.  The Museum had every model made and several concept cars that looked more space age. There were more hp than hairs on my head, 832 cylinders, and enough carbon fiber to send to outer space.  Holy cow.  For any (the one) of you who wants a Bugati, I say poo poo to you!  (You'll see a picture of us in front of one).  Francesco, our guide, was fabulous!

We ended our day with a 3 euro pizza - Margharita style: just cheese.  Tomorrow, train to Cortona, pick up a rental car:  Ford KA.  The car with only questions.  I say poo poo to us!  Then 4 days in Siena.

Note:  Italian for Bat is Mercialago;  the name of recent models of Lams.

While the Humans are Away....

... The cats will play.   The piano, that is.   

After a little jaunt to the emergency room this evening, we came home where I had left the keyboard on from practicing to see that it was recording.  We checked it out and listened to what Loki the Hairless played while were gone.  It was a little dark; dissident-like with a lot of pauses in between the notes.  I think he was composing a feline melody hoping for a little Hollywood action.

Oh, the emergency room you ask?   Spouse-man took the pooches out for a walk after dark since I seem to be having a knee problem of late.  While on the path a cat darted out from the bushes and Maya took chase.   Except she was still attached to spouse-man via the nylon leash.  Nylon leashes, so you know for future reference, can and will take off hunks of flesh and even break bones.  After an X-Ray we netted no bone breakage, but it was stitch-worthy ... and tetanus shot worthy.  That's gonna hurt. 

Rome and Venice

This is the first, of four, emails that I sent to a large covey of email addresses while on our travels in May.  So, for those of you who received, enjoy again, and for those of you who didn't, I hope you enjoy the first time!

First stop, Roma.  We blasted through the first day all over the coliseum, forum, etc etc walking about 15 mi.  No sitting!  We sat down the first time for dinner at 9 p.m. and the first wave hit me, then the second, then the second or third glass of wine, then....we were very happy to only have to cross the street to bed!

Day two, San Pietro....bella bella.  We missed the timing for the Sistine, so off to the best Pistachio gelato in the city, chunks and chunks of nuts and sitting for 2-3 hours on the sidewalk people watching.  Men in red pants, what?.  Day 3, Sistine, Vatican museums,   And, we walked the Appian Antica.  The old roman road for those unawares.  Bella bella.  Everything seems so old here.  And the weather, fabulous.

Govanna was our B&B hostess, she was a hoot and a hollar!  She gives many hugs to me and kisses to John. 

Train to Venice.  What can you say about Venice that is not written, painted or expressed any other way?  Lovely experience.  Music on the square, the smell of ocean, the smell ever so slightly of sewer, and the smell of food.  It has been amazingly not overwhelming with tourists.  We found San Marco first at night with very few people and took great pictures.  The first night we were a bit lost, Then we decided to use a map.   

We are averaging one bottle of wine a day.  Is that bad?  Yes, I bought Italian sandals today, is that bad?  But...on sale!!  The nice old lady came by to tell us that we could not sit in San Marco square anywhere!  And right in the middle of my drawing too.

So, Train to Bologna this afternoon, for our tour of the Maserati, Ferrari and Lamborghini factories and show rooms tomorrow.  John is wearing out the camera...dare I say we've taken nearly 900 pictures so far?????  Okay, so that includes video too...

That is about as much as I can think of in my 30 min. time limit on this computer surrounded by American teens with bad language and trying to recall our first week of travelling.  We each packed all we needed in our own backpacks and I already have too many clothes with me.  You don't need much.  And the cool thing about doing laundry?  You get to repack your bags with clean clothes instead of dragging around dirty stuff for 3 weeks.

Can't find the spelling for "later", so Caio!

Father's Day

Bland name for a post, but I am still stuck on last Sunday.  First, being the recusant sort that I am, really, Hallmark made up the need for all of us to scurry out and buy a card and celebrate some number of days preprinted on our calendars.  That said, however, it has become customary and downright obligatory to celebrate said days, including Father's and Mother's Days. 

Personally I get a little irritated when Mother's Day rolls around because 1.  I am not a mother and won't be, 2. There is some amount of pain for me to watch kids gather around their own mothers and honor them in numerous ways,  3.  It clearly defines the honorary roll of mothers, obviously or why else have it, and 4.  It more clearly omits  those of us who play house as a mother without all the bennies.  When's the last time a second grade teacher had her student draw, cut and paste together a cone shaped vase with paper flowers  for a stepmom?  Maybe by default, or by some 30th wonder of the world where the kid actually makes a personal choice to do two - one for mommy and one for stepmommy - and even then they probably have to come up with the 50 cents or some other bribe for the extra supplies used because, hey, the other kids didn't get to make two!  Let's not even talk about California where how the heck do you know which parent to give the Mother's Day paper cone shaped vase to anyway?   Gasp.  Alright, on to the namesake of this blog.

Fathers.  You know the ones; they faithfully send the child support check, do all the picking up and dropping off, make all the dental appointments and do the picking up and dropping off, while still working a real job to support said kids in another world.   At least in my world that's how it is.   Too graphic?  Oh alright, I'll stop with the wisecracks.

Spouse-man's daughters pretended Dad didn't exist last Sunday.  It was a heavy weekend.  It started with a text message 4 days prior from the youngest - youngest being 15 now who is familiar with snogging in the hallways with a boyfriend at school (read:  knows how to make a choice to have a relationship) - that said "What do you want for Father's Day?".  I was immensely proud of Spouse-man who typed back "Time, as always".   Then, Nothing.  The silence was deafening all weekend.  It broke my heart to watch him glance at the phone when coming in from working outside to check caller ID and say, "No call yet".  I got madder as the weekend went on and we had many circular discussions around this pink elephant sitting in the living room.   At some point I realized I didn't want them to show up because it wouldn't be pretty what might come from me;  I had so much emotion wrapped up in it.  We blamed them, we blamed The Mother and various other circumstances and entities that crossed our radar.  We were cross.  And hurt.  It just made the division bigger.

The eldest called a couple nights ago pretending nothing was amiss declaring her fortune at a new job and her excitement over a trip coming up.  That was it.  I opened my mouth.  Nothing good ever comes out of my mouth when I have emotion behind it.  It wasn't pretty.  I am not good at saying exactly what I've practiced saying.  My best intentions turn into ugly red spears in reality. 

My intention:  It would be great if you had called your dad and let him know how much you appreciate him.  He sure loves you.

Reality:  You sit around and diss your dad, and your mother, while he faithfully sends a chunk of change to your mother so you can enjoy the lifestyle you have at her house.  Oh, yes, there was more.

OUCH.  Ugly doesn't begin to describe what I am capable of saying.

The division gets bigger.  This isn't finished yet, however I have been advised by wiser ones than me that my job at this time is done; drop back and let happen happen.  That's the exterior.  My interior has a different topography.   I glance at the cool bags of gifts and momentos we brought them from Italy taking up a chair in the living room, and think about the echoing invite to come over and receive them ... and no one has showed up ... and I get mad all over.   It becomes a marathon;  how long will those gifts sit there?  How long before we move them to the secondary spot, then another resting spot and eventually pack them away somewhere?

That's the month of June for us so far.  Tomorrow, my first of four email postings of our travels while in Italy.