All of Rome in a Day (And a Half)

Rome was yet another whirlwind tour, a two day long trek around the city, but I feel as if we saw just about everything there was to see: we saw St. Peter’s and the Vatican museums, the Sistine Chapel, the Pantheon, the Colosseum and Roman forum, the Trevi Fountain, and the Ossuary of the Capuchin Monks. St. Peter’s was surprisingly easy to get in to, despite the mile-long line and estimated 3-hour wait we encountered when we first arrived. We decided to come back later, in hopes the line would shorten a bit in the evening- in the meantime we walked a loop from the castle, to the Pantheon, the Trevi fountain, and back to the Vatican museum, where the line had already dissipated (presumably to go to dinner). After following a never-ending maze of gallery upon gallery of religious and renaissance art, we finally came to the grand finale- the Sistine Chapel. Perhaps I was inundated by Renaissance art at that point, or perhaps it just took too long to get there, but I was not left in awe or at a loss for words by Michelangelo’s ceiling. It was beautiful, yes, and the colors were incredibly vibrant, probably kept that way with meticulous restorations and climate control, but it simply wasn’t more amazing than many other painted cathedral ceilings I’ve seen- perhaps less so, even, as the scale was much larger than most, and so it took fewer winged angels and muscular partially-robed people to fill the vast space. Overall, as one of my teachers would say, the Time was not equal to the Awesome. (This equation, which transcends both grammatical and mathematical logic, is usually applied to long-winded jokes with poor punchlines.) After standing in awe of the fact that this was the Sistine Chapel, we moved on, only to find that the way out was the same long, winding way we took in. This time we made no attempt to meander or enjoy the museum like good art connoisseurs, but made directly for the exit. Once we had made it back out of the museum, we found our way around to St. Peter’s, and got in with only a five minute wait in line and a quick metal detector/x-ray check of ourselves and our belongings- When I gave the guard my pocketknife, I was chided half-jokingly, half-mockingly for having such a dangerous weapon, and the knife was wrapped in a plastic bag and stowed for me to pick up on the way out. St. Peter’s was most impressive of all the cathedrals I’ve seen, but only in sheer size and richness: the pomp and decoration of the church itself seemed less tasteful and thought-out than many others I had been to.

Our last day in Rome, we rode the metro out to it’s furthest stop, then walked along roads for perhaps a mile or more, simply to see and walk on another particular road: Via Appia, or the Appian Way. This road leads from Rome to Brindisi, a town in the south-east of Italy near Otranto, and is one of the oldest roads still in existence (and use) today. It was built in 312 BC, as a supply route to Rome, mainly for military advantage but also for general accessibility of Rome to the world’s riches and imports. Now, the Rome-end of it is simply a well used suburban road, paved with square-cut black stones and several layers of worn blacktop. As it heads out of the city, it is flanked by a park, a small church, a restaurant, and a few brown signs for historical sights further down the road. Nothing unusual, nothing actually saying “here lies the very beginning of the oldest road in the world”. It doesn’t seem to get any recognition whatsoever. I was disappointed. It’s still just a road, I told myself, used for smooth and easy transport of goods and people: it has been a wholly pragmatic object for over 2,300 years, so why change it now? Besides, this stretch of the road isn’t even original, but has obviously been paved over time and time again.

…Still, it somehow felt special to walk down it.

McToast

After we bid a sleepy goodbye to the rest of our college group at 3a.m., as they piled onto a bus to the airport from Parma, Kayla and I began the next stage of our adventures abroad: venturing out on our own. We would stick together until Rome, where Kayla would meet up with her mom, and I would meet up with my friend Kennan, and then we would part ways. Instead of going directly to Rome, however, we decided to make a stop in Milan: we planned to take a train from Parma to Milan, spend the day and a night there, then fly to Rome on a cheap local flight. Giacomo arranged a taxi for us to the Parma train station, as his parting gift, so we didn’t have to drag all our luggage from hotel to bus to terminal to station on our own (we still had quite the time with the stairs at the train station though). We arrived in Milan around 10a.m, but did not anticipate the walk to our hostel from the station- Google maps told us optimistically that it would only take 25 minutes to walk, but it did not add our 120lb of baggage into the equation. Roughly an hour later, we finally dropped our bags off at our hostel and ventured out into the city once again. Our first stop was much-needed food, and I’m somewhat ashamed to say we went to McDonald’s. However, Italian McDonalds have one redeeming feature on their menu: McToast. This euro-menu item is simply a grilled ham and Swiss sandwich, but in Italy even McDonald’s ham is fairly good quality, and the McToast is comfortingly like something I would make for myself at home. And so Kayla and I set out to see the sights of Milan, scarves wrapped tightly around our necks and warm McToasts in our hands. From there, we walked everywhere. We saw all the usual things every Italian city has to offer (castle, gigantic cathedrals, open city piazzas), but also stumbled upon two exhibitions of Da Vinci’s sketches. We originally sought out The Last Supper, which is tucked away in a small but highly ornate church in the middle of a residential area of the city, but found that tickets were sold out for the rest of the day (15-minute slots must be reserved ahead of time, and only 15 people are allowed in every 15 minutes). Around the back of the little church, however, was another chapel which held (for 6 euro entrance fee) a random assortment of Da Vinci’s original sketches, carefully pressed between glass, in climate-controlled glass cases. Kayla and I wandered from sketch to sketch, at first in awe of the mere fact that we were looking at originals, then amused by the spontaneity within the sketches. Here is a precisely drawn automatic crossbow that can shoot eight arrows at a time, and can be reloaded faster than any other weapon of the time- but what’s this? It looks as if Leonardo has doodled a person swimming around in the upper left-hand corner, with some sort of snorkel device. And here is a to-scale catapult, capable of flinging flaming balls of rock and exploding debris at the enemy- just, er, pay no attention to that horse frolicking in a pasture off to the side. Either the great Renaissance Man reused his sketch paper, or his mind often wandered away from his commissioned projects. I prefer to believe the latter.

As we left the little chapel full of sketches, the ticket lady pointed out that our ticket would also get us into another art museum near by, where there was another exhibit of Da Vinci sketches, as well as many other collections of Renaissance art. Even though it was beginning to get dark and we felt like we’d walked almost every street in the entire city, we decided to go check it out. The little museum had quite an impressive collection, including a signature Da Vinci painting, but the high point of our visit there was the library: the dim, cool room was three stories tall and lined with floor-to-ceiling shelves, every one full of books, and most locked behind glass. It was the classic ancient library, rolling ladder and balconies and marble busts of famous bearded men and all, and to add the finishing touch, the center of the room held the second collection of Da Vinci sketches. I wanted badly to take photos of the room itself, but the museum’s proctors were stern and forbidding, and the “no photos” sign was blatantly apparent on the door (even if it was in Italian).

After the museum, we decided to call it a night, heading straight back to our hostel except for a brief stop at a grocery store for dinner- yesterday’s bakery rolls, some fresh mozzarella, pesto, and a tomato for each of us. We had a picnic of sorts in bed, then set our alarms for 4a.m. (for our flight at 7) and went to sleep.

Academia Barilla

The Academia Barilla, where we had 4 days of classes, is like the expensive vacation resort for culinary students and chefs. In this dreamland, this sparkling building of wonders, there is everything you always wanted in a kitchen and a learning environment. The kitchens are huge and immaculate, the tools you need always present themselves at hand, and dirty dishes magically disappear behind your back. All the ingredients are laid out before you, fresh and highest quality, any tedious steps like measuring and weighing already done. You simply come in and cook, cook for hours, never running out of clean spoons or pans, no matter how many you dirty. When you finish your culinary creations, you turn around to find one of the back counters is now a fully set dinner table, with bottles of cold water at every place. You sit down and enjoy what you’ve cooked, then whenever you like, you can leave- no clean up is required of you.
Exuberant descriptions aside, the Academia Barilla is an incredible facility, and was well used by us for the four days we were there. Our first day we were escorted on a tour through the labs, the main lecture/demonstration hall, and the tasting room- a room full of enclosed personal cubicles, designed specifically for tasting without outside stimuli interfering, each equipped with a comfortable chair, water fountain, and even special lighting (colored lights that offset whatever food is being tasted, to insure color is not effecting your perception). After a brief lecture in the lecture hall about what Academia Barilla is all about, we were lead downstairs for a little free time to explore the culinary library: over 100,000 cookbooks, thousands and thousands of menus, and some of the oldest and rarest culinary writing. I spent our spare half-hour slowly flipping through one of the many binders of old menus, menus from the 18th and 19th centuries, from Italy, France, England, even a few here and there from the U.S. There were menus from everyday family restaurants (plates of pasta for 0.30 lyra), menus from weddings and religious ceremonies, a menu for a duke’s luncheon, gold-edged and rolled up in an elaborate scroll case. I was surprised at how much of the menus I could understand, especially the ones in French, and at how simply they were written- many looked just like what you would read off an Italian-American family restaurant menu today.

Too quickly, it was time to leave the library and begin classes: our first day was themed around olive oil, and started with an olive oil tasting. Our teacher took us through the entire process of making olive oil, pointing out the countless things that could affect the flavor. Then we began tasting, a tablespoon or so of seven different oils from different regions. We smelled them, swished them around, studied the color and the clarity, then sipped a tiny bit and coated our mouths with it, pulling air through it up into our noses so that every tiny aroma and flavor could be noted. After discussing (rather ridiculously) what aromas we detected, from rotten leaves to pineapple juice to chocolate, we attempted to decode what it all meant. Green tints suggest there is more chlorophyll in the oil, and also more vitamins and minerals- however, thatmake it taste any better. If the oil is foggy, it probably hasn’t been purified or fully filtered, in which case it has more nutrients as well. If there are tannic notes, perhaps the olives were not sorted carefully enough, and there were stems or leaves in the pressing, or maybe they were treated too roughly, and the pits were damaged. Warm fruity flavors indicate a warm fall, with enough rain for plump olives. More acidity means a colder fall, perhaps drier as well, giving the trees less of a chance to store extra sugars and nutrients. What does it mean when you smell pineapple and chocolate in an oil? Well, no one could explain that one….
After our tasting, we proceeded to the lab for four hours of cooking with olive oils: we made a couple salads as starters, infused oil with pepperocini (hot peppers) for sauces, made a pasta with an olive oil base, and a roast rubbed in olive oil and herbs. All of them were delicious, and although we only made tasting plates of each, we all agreed that dinner at the hotel after class seemed unneeded.

Our second day was pasta. Just pasta, nothing but pasta. But what pasta we made: egg pasta for drying, fresh potato and spinach gnocchi, and a multitude of colored pastas. Squid ink pasta, tomato pasta, chocolate pasta, saffron pasta, more spinach pasta, all kneaded into balls of smooth playdough-esque colors. Then we were allowed to play with them, rolling out striped tagliatelle, black and orange farfalle, and crazy autumn-camouflage raviolis. Black-and-brown spaghetti with tomato sauce on top is in no way appetizing to look at, but we made and ate it eagerly nonetheless, attracted by the sheer novelty of it. The pasta day ended somewhat early, and we were allowed a little more sweet time in the library before heading back to the hotel for dinner.

The next day was the longest, and began with a cooking lab in the morning. We were cooking with meat, traditional and contemporary Italian recipes: a veal tartar (raw marinated veal) with Parmigiano mousse, lamb lollypops crusted in hazelnuts, a milk-braised pork roast, and osso bucco with saffron risotto. After finishing each dish, we all got to taste it before moving on– veal tartar is not what you think of when you want a snack at 10a.m, but it was undeniably good. In fact, all the dishes were undeniably good, and by the end of lab, we had each eaten more than a meal’s worth. Then lunch was served. After lunch, and another half-hour break spent in the library, we dove into cheese tasting. Eight cheeses later, it was time for another lab, cooking with (guess what?) cheese! We fried Scamorza, we baked Pecorino, we made deep-fried sandwiches of Sierasss and skewers of mozzarella, salads with fresh sheep’s cheese. I think we would’ve all died of a cheese overdose had the Barilla kitchen not produced a large pot of pumpkin soup out of nowhere to accompany the many cheese dishes. Needless to say, dinner was yet again utterly superfluous.

Our final day was the wine tasting. Class started, as always, at 10a.m. Our teacher looks like a teacher, but from the early 90s– he has thick glasses, unkempt hair, and a pale blue sweater with a collared shirt underneath. Appearances are quickly cast aside as he begins to talk, however, and I realize he is one of those people who has done everything, and now teaches only because it’s what he truly enjoys. He was a top manager for Mars (the candy bar, not the planet) in his prime, then moved to Italy and started his own small artisanal foods business, which he sold after eight years, so he could focus on consulting and teaching. He is a wine expert, which he slowly became along the way through his business, and out of personal interest. He gets very excited as he begins to really dive into our lecture on wine, and spurts information like an encyclopedia. We spend from 10a.m. to 1p.m. and from 2p.m. to 5p.m. in class, and we taste 6 wines in all. At one tasting per hour, there is a lot of lecture, but the time seems to fly: there are 400 different varieties of wine grape in Italy, so if you are going to spend an entire day on wines, this is the country to do it in. (to put that in perspective, the U.S. has a mere 35 varieties. France has 50.) The wines we taste are widely varied, starting with two whites, then moving through three reds and ending with a dessert wine (of the Moscato variety). One of the reds really counts as two tastings, because the teacher had accidentally gotten the same wine in two different vintages– a fortuitous mistake, he explains, since now we can do a comparison tasting to see how this wine ages, and what a difference two years in the bottle can make. After a day full of sniffing, swirling, sipping, and swishing, I’m more than ready for dinner, but less than ready to leave the Academia. I sneak in a few more minutes with the library, say goodbye to the staff, and head back to the hotel for the final dinner of our semester abroad.

Who Lives Inside the Wheel?

Our trip to the Parmigiano-Reggiano factory turned into much more of an all-day event than anyone anticipated, but I think it counts as the most interesting day I’ve had in Parma. Our tour of the factory started at 8a.m., because the fresh milk comes in early and must be used immediately with milk from the night before to get the correct mix of good bacteria. Milk from the night before is left in wide vats to separate overnight, then the cream is skimmed off the top before it is mixed with the fresh, whole milk from the morning: this provides the right amount of fat, but also gains all the good bacteria from the fresh milk, without having to skim it off (developed bacteria stay in the cream of the milk, where they can feed on the sugars). Our tour guide (who happens to be the owner), explains it in a much more expressive way, and even employs a couple of our group to help him act out the movements of proteins, fats, and water within the milk. As he says about bacteria, “these three good guy bacterias live in the wheel from the very start- they run around eating, but they never produce gas, so that they don’t make holes in the cheese- but they make it taste delicious!” The rest of our tour is equally interesting, from the room where the cheese is molded and stamped (I now know how to read the markings on a wheel of Parmigiano), to the brining room –“here we give all the wheels a nice salt-water bath for 19 days! It is very good for their skin…”– to the best room of them all: the storage room. We gazed upon over $3 million worth of cheese, stacked in neat rows on shelves that ran the length of the room and went all the way to the ceiling. This was one of two storerooms- the other had all the more expensive, older wheels in it. Most of the wheels we saw were not yet real Parmigiano-Reggiano, because they had not yet been inspected and stamped. After a year of aging, an inspector will come and check every single wheel, carefully hammering on it with a tool similar to a doctor’s reflex hammer, checking for hollow sounds or variations that could mean air bubbles in the cheese, and would keep that wheel from ever getting the official Parmigiano stamp. Any wheels that passed, however, got the official stamp melted into the side of their rind, and would go on to be sold on the market for around $900.
We ended our tour of the factory with a tasting of the 15 month, 24 month, and 36 month old Parm- Each had a distinct flavor and texture, drying and intensifying with every month. The oldest was my favorite, not because of the flavor, but because of the texture, dry and crumbly with tiny pockets of crunchy tyrosine (an amino acid). The flavor is unmistakable as well, of course, but every wheel will end up with different, sometimes unexpected, tastes and aromas mixed in- one 24-month Parmigiano I had definitely tasted like pineapples. Another was more like grass.
Instead of going home after our tour of the factory, the owner brought us down the road a couple kilometers to the farm to meet his dairy cows. This is the beauty of his company, he explains, patting one of the cows on the head: he can control everything. He knows the cows, he knows the milk, he knows the process, he knows everything about the cheese. “This way” he says, placing a hand dramatically over his heart, “I can be sure I am proud of the cheese.” Then he laughs, and says we should come see the baby cow that was just born this morning, and see the new barn that’s being built, and that we should come back that night, because the restaurant that is attached to the factory is also a bar/disco where he will be DJing tonight, and he would love to have so many young people there. He says he will play American music for us, and will go talk Giacomo (our guardian and program director), into keeping the rented bus for the night to bring us. Most of us agree eagerly. …after all, who wouldn’t jump at the chance to say they’d danced the night away at a Parmigiano factory?

Redi (time-warp backwards)

Our last day in Assisi was the longest and fullest of our short two weeks there. The night before we had had our last lab and final dinner, for which we cooked a medieval smorgasbord of roast pork and meat pies, garlic torte, herbed bread, and savory cookies to dip in spiced wine for dessert. After dinner, we went out to a candle-lit courtyard for a performance from the medieval reenactors of Assisi- reenactors who usually performed for saint’s day festivals, Christmas, and Easter within the city. First, there was the “court”, a king and queen (who had lead our fieldtrip the week before) who danced with their courtiers before being seated to watch the flag wavers. The flag wavers were much more skilled than their titles suggest, running and swinging their flags in elaborate patterns, sometimes juggling them to each other, dropping them onto their feet and the flicking them up again in high arches. Two of the flag wavers were small boys, perhaps 10 and 12 years old, but just as skilled and synchronized as the rest of their grown-up team. All of this was accompanied by a drum line pounding out a deep, heart-shaking beat. After the flag wavers, we were lead back inside to sit cross-legged on the floor around the medieval band and choir, who told the roughly-translated stories behind their songs as they sung them: they were a pagan group who sung about love and wine and the seasons, and usually traveled around performing for festivals and wedding parties. Their songs were lively, at times even rowdy, and accompanied by the lute, rebec (something like a small cello), recorders, harp, and a hammered dulcimer. It was beautiful and jubilant music, and we clapped and sung along like small children from our places on the floor. I felt like dancing and singing for hours afterwards, even when we had returned to our hotel- I had to force myself to go to bed much earlier than I wanted to, so I would be able to get up for our field trip to Tuscany in the morning.

Our fieldtrip began at 8AM, with a sleepy two-hour bus ride to Multipulciano, a region just over the boarder of Tuscany. The city of Multipulciano is, like most cities in central Italy, built on the very top of a hill, surrounded by sturdy walls with four or five large gates. Large buses are not allowed within the walls, as they could not fit down many of the streets anyway, so we are dropped off at the bottom of the hill to walk. We walked through the main street of the town, past a hundred little shops selling Tuscan wines and leather shoes, dried pasta and olive oil, until we got to Cantina del Redi. The entrance to the wine cellars looked normal enough, blending in as just another door along the street, but just inside the entrance stairs lead down far below the average townhouse basement. This is one of the oldest established wine cellars in Italy: although the main cellar was built in the 16th century, it is connected to an Etruscan tomb. The cellar has been used continuously since it was built, and has always produced respected wines. We tasted three wines, each accompanied by a tidbit of the regional cuisine: a slice of soft, sweet salame, a piece of sheep’s cheese, or a slice of bread toasted with olive oil. The first wine was a 2008, simple rosso- a cheaper table wine, blended from two different grapes. The second was a 2007, more expensive, Vino Nobile that you could buy now and leave in your cellar for 5 or 10 years, and have something worth five times the €12 you paid for it. The last was a 2005, special reserve, made from Briareo grapes hand-picked at their prime. You could definitely tell the difference in age, mostly by the absence of the tannic bite in the older wine, but also by the caramelly, smooth sweetness of the aftertaste. I wanted to buy the oldest, but the €20 price tag dissuaded me. I convinced myself that just a taste was enough, and that someday I would have a wine cellar, buy young wines cheap and coax them into such a delicious state on my own, then pull them out for special dinner parties. By then, maybe I would even be making my own sheep cheese and salame as well…

Duomo di Parma (an assignment for SOC 399)

The Duomo di Parma is a very old building, its 832 year-old façade a patchwork of replaced stones and mended mortar, its clock tower wrapped in scaffolding for refurbishment. The inside is dark and vast, a huge hall of endless pillars and apses, with a ceiling arching up into shadow. It appears much bigger than it is, because every wall is covered in paintings, opening out into whole other rooms and worlds that don’t exist- when I first walked in the door I turned around to find a completely different entrance depicted behind me, a giant archway flanked by stone lions, with crowds of people waiting on the other side. The trompe l’oeil was spectacular: some pillars and statues seemed to have three dimensions until I was close enough to see the cracks in the paint. I had seen good trompe l’oeil before, but I had never walked through an entire world of it.  The main hall is flanked by apses, and each apse has its own style. Some follow the mural-like frescoes of the main walls, with life-sized crowds gathered around a saint; others have smaller, comic-bookish storyboards of the life of a saint or stories of the Bible, painted in medieval style. One is done in Byzantine portraits surrounded by gold leafing and geometric patterns, another in a clean Victorian style with crown moldings, the next covered in more trompe l’oeil, this time of carved marble cherubs and Corinthian scrolls. One apse has no decoration at all, but has been done over completely in mottled gray plaster: an unadorned crucifix stands at the end, and the room is filled with plain wooden pews. Surrounded by all the extravagant embellishment and trompe l’oeil, the barren focus of this alcove pulls your eye in more than gold leafing and bright colors.
In the main cupola, the dome at the center of the cross-shaped hall, there are people painted all the way around the ceiling, dressed in colorful robes, bare-footed and surrounded by clouds, as if half floating and half climbing towards the top of the dome, which is incased in shadows. I cannot see what is at the top until someone from a tour group pays a Euro to turn on the lighting in the dome- then everything is suddenly and brightly illuminated. At the center is Mary, ascending to heaven, sunbeams bursting around her, groups of angels pointing and gesturing encouragingly. The painting is done so well that I can’t find the corners where the octagon walls meet the circular dome, they are covered so smoothly in clouds or flowing robes. I stare up at it until my neck gets sore, trying to make my eyes focus on the flat, solid walls I know are there, and failing. After 5 or 6 minutes, the lights go off again, and the ascension of Mary, with all her sunbeams, is darkened until someone pays another Euro.

Eternal Spin Cycle

My last three days in Assisi were full to the brim: We have toured the Perugina chocolate factory; been treated to a beautiful medieval ceremony with music, flag wavers and dancers; we went west to Montepulciano in Tuscany, where we visited Cantina del Redi and tasted wines from the oldest wine cellar in Italy, then saw an Etruscan Necropolis; and we went to a magnificent organ concert in the huge Basilica Santa Maria degli Angeli. And in the time between I further explored the nooks and crannies of Assisi, and the regional food- I have tasted truffle cheese and honey, limoncello, meringues, sheep and goat cheeses, wild pork, and more regional wines. If my brain ever has an hour or two to settle, I might be able to transcribe my ridiculously random notes from the last week into something meaningful.
And now we’re in Parma, and it’s pouring rain. It’s All Saints Day, a national holiday, so everything is closed. We spent the morning trying to do laundry- the open Laundromat we found was completely unattended, so when the washer experienced an error and locked our clothes inside on a permanent washing cycle, there was nothing we could do, and no help to be found. We eventually used a coin to unscrew the bottom cover of the washer, then found a lever to unlock it from inside, and poured water all over the floor to get our clothes out (I’ve actually always wanted to open a front-loading washer while it was on wash cycle). Feeling somewhat like vandals, we brought our soaked laundry home to hang out on our balcony until dry. The hotel we’re staying at is actually a Best Western, or at least owned by that company, and is very nice although strangely American. The hotel breakfast is amazing, with more freedoms than the average American could handle: there is a boiler to poach your own eggs, an espresso/coffee machine for you to figure out on your own, and numerous other open heating elements for toasting bread or keeping meats warm. The selection of food is daunting. Honey yogurt is delicious, and I wish we had it in the states.

Eurochocolate

After some idle searching online last weekend, trying to figure out what to do with my free day, I stumbled upon a most miraculous discovery: Eurochocolate. The international festival of chocolate was going on in Perugia, no more than twenty minutes and €5 away. I was ridiculously excited- I ran upstairs to K2’s room and announced that we were going, and that was all there was to it. Unfortunately, the rest of our group caught wind of our plan that night at dinner, and I became an unwitting tour guide to ten of us. We left early in the morning, purposely not waiting for the late-sleepers, and caught the bus down to the train station in Santa Maria degli Angeli. There was momentary panic when the ticket office was closed until 1PM, but we soon found the coffee shop in the train station, where you could also buy local tickets. We’d all just gotten our tickets when the train pulled up- after another brief panic during our ride when we realized we were in the region of Perugia, so that every stop was marked “Perugia”, we managed to find the right stop. It was the one everyone got off at. Then we had to walk up the hill to the historic center of town, which turned out to be very long, very uphill, and disconcertingly empty. Right when we were beginning to doubt the very existence of the chocolate festival, we rounded a curve to the “pedestrian ascension” (that was my best translation of the sign) and were met by hundreds and hundreds of people piling off buses and smashing onto a narrow escalator that lead up, directly into the hill. We followed, all our excitement regained, and squeezed onto the escalator. As we found out, Perugia has a large area of ancient buildings that are now completely underground: this is, technically, historic downtown. Once we got to the top, we followed the crowd through underground streets, in and out of the buildings that held exhibits of chocolate from different countries and regions, then to exhibits of wines and olive oils and breads, all boasting many regional specialties only found here, and of course, paired with chocolate. As amazing as the underground city was, I don’t think I could’ve spent more than an hour stuck in the crowds without becoming extremely claustrophobic. We made it to the end of the main street, and began another long escalator ride to the surface. The surface main street, although at least in the open air, was also packed twice as full with people than was the underground city: this was the commercial vendor section, where you could buy chocolate from almost any chocolate company in Europe, and certainly any from Italy. There were booths for Italian hot chocolate (which is what an American would liken to half-set pudding) in any flavor and darkness you desire (I recommend dark chocolate and rum); there were many booths for Perugina, Lindt, and Toblerone; and what seemed like a hundred other small artisan chocolate companies, selling chocolate bars with Highland Whiskey and hot peppers, or black currant and tea. We bumped into a man dressed as a giant chocolate ravioli, who gave us cards and directed us towards the theater for free samples- a chocolate demonstration was going on inside the theater, the chef babbling in fast Italian as he made chocolate truffle molds and tempered dark chocolate. We found the table handing out a chocolate ravioli to anyone with a card from the ravioli man- it was served with dark chocolate and white chocolate sauce, atop a tiny cube of yellow cake, and was filled with Gianduja (a European staple, chocolate made with 30% hazelnut paste). Inside the theater were the really expensive chocolate companies, the ones who made things like chocolate ravioli, and chocolate dessert sushi, and chocolate cordials filled with expensive wines and tartufo (the mushroom kind of truffle). I could’ve spent $100 on just a sampling of that room. After our rendezvous with the ravioli man, we began to explore the possibility of other free samples: we had each purchased a “chococard”, a basic guide and map of the festival that also gave you discounts at most of the booths, and included free samples from certain places, if you could hunt them down. Having the card that got you the free sample was one thing, but actually getting to the booth giving out the free sample was something completely different. Italians don’t do orderly lines, even when there’s no hurry whatsoever. When free chocolate is at stake, and there’s a possibility of them running out, Italians will do whatever it takes to be at the front of the line. Booths began giving out the chococard samples at certain times: if you were lucky enough to be in front when they opened, you had a chance of surviving with your dignity. If not, it was a free-for-all, and you had to elbow your way through the crowd, holding tightly to your bag and trying to keep people from cutting around you, without getting yourself squashed or elbowed in the eye. Once you got to the front and had your sample in hand (a large chocolate bar, or a tiny bottle of coffee liquor), you were so packed in that there was no hope of getting out. People were happy to take your place, but not so happy to try to move over to let you out- this is where strong elbows and an abandonment of all personal space came in handy. At one point, I think I could’ve actually lifted both feet off the ground and still remained in place- that is, if someone had not been standing on my toes. After about four hours of wandering and crowd-fighting, we were all worn out and wanted to be away from people, and were ready to forget about whatever places we had yet to see. We managed to hit every place with chococard samples, and came home with three chocolate bars (one of them a chocolate road map of Perugia), a bottle of coffee liquor, a small bag full of mini dark chocolate bars, a cup of hot chocolate, a cordial cherry, a Lindt truffle, and a small envelope of chocolate-scented bath bubbles. We also all went home with a new appreciation of the quiet, polite uneventfulness of Assisi. The crowds where worth it for the chocolate, but both are things that should be taken only in small doses.

Santa Maria degli Angeli

Today K2 (the inseparable Kayla & Kelcey) and I took the bus down into the valley to Santa Maria degli Angeli, the town directly below Assisi. This is where the actual industry and residential population of Assisi lives, because it’s virtually impossible to expand immediately outside the city walls. The town includes such practical things as grocery stores, gas stations, schools, and the train station, which simply don’t have room in Assisi proper. Santa Maria does have its own namesake attraction as well, however: the Basilica di Santa Maria. This basilica, in sheer size, puts the one of St. Francis to shame. The centerpiece of the basilica is the small church that St. Francis restored and started his order of monks in- the little stone church sits dwarfed in the center room of the basilica, as if it were carefully plucked from its original foundation and housed in this huge shell for safekeeping. Next to it is the Transito, an even smaller stone infirmary hut, this one looking more like the huge building was built around it as it sat there immovable.  This was where St. Francis himself died, and it is now surrounded by red velvet ropes that are ignored by the tourists pressing in, peering through the door and trying to take undercover photos with their cell phones or pocket cameras (use of both is forbidden in the basilica). I try to be respectful as I walk around the huge rooms and past the small stone buildings, as there are just as many praying nuns and pilgrims here as there were at St. Francis’. Here, however, there are wads of tour group taking up the main walkways, congealing around the most impressive frescoes, talking in loud multilingual whispers. As a group, they don’t seem to watch where they are going, and if you don’t get out of their way, you will be bumped and jostled along with them, and probably forced to take someone’s picture. The nuns simply ignore the tour groups, and the tour groups seem to be afraid of the nuns, so it’s as if they live in separate levels of the same reality- watching a nun walk through a tour group is like watching the red sea part.

The high point of my day was lunch- you’d never guess it, since the three of us had about €10 between us, but we spent it oh so well.  We went to a grocery store and came out with a loaf of yesterday’s ciabatta (€1.07), a container of fresh mozzarella balls (€2.29), a package of salami (€3), and best of all, a small cup of pesto (€2.38). We found a nice bench big enough for the food and all of us to sit on, and laid out a picnic. We finished all the food, feeling pleasantly stuffed by the last bites. Everything went together perfectly. I have been craving more pesto ever since.

Streets and Saints

Assisi is a white stone city perched precariously on a hillside. The only thing keeping it from sliding down is the wall around it, which holds all the buildings and church steeples tightly together, like the rubber bands you get around bunches of asparagus at the grocery store. The city looks simple on a map: it is long and skinny, neatly outlined by the wall, and has strangely few streets. Two-dimensional maps are highly deceiving, though, and the area has far more city in it than it appears. At the same time, the city itself seems to defy basic laws of space, so that without making more than one turn, you can often end up back where you started. You can climb until you are out of breath, and then with barely a downward slope find yourself back on a lower level, or you’ll end up on a bridge over the road you just walked on, when you could’ve sworn you hadn’t taken a single ascending step.  I’m sure there’s at least one Escher’s stairway that you can climb (or descend) forever without actually changing altitude.  In the early mornings, the city appears to float in it’s own cloud, the valley below completely covered in fog that rises slowly through the streets as the sun begins warming everything up. There are some shadowy alleys that stay dark and misty all day, because they tunnel under houses or through the castle walls. 

Our first visit once we arrived was to the Basilica of St. Francis: it is a huge stately church made of white stone, sitting grandly at the end of the city where all the roads meet. The inside is no less grand. Every section of ceiling, every apse, every pillar is painted in bright frescos by one or another famous artist of the time. All this rich decoration for a saint who gave up his wealth and worldly possessions to aid the poor. That is only the main cathedral, though, and below it is a smaller church much more suiting to the saint’s character. In the lower church it is hushed and dark, and lines of pilgrims file solemnly into the basement (two levels under the grand cathedral now) to St. Francis’ tomb. There you can almost feel the weight of the whole Basilica on top of you- the ceilings are low, the lights dim and torch-like, and nuns and tourists alike pray on their knees in front of the stone crypt, eyes closed, lips moving silently. One cannot help but feel the awe and reverence of the place. People have left photos and notes in the niches of the rough stone. There are pictures of children, of old women, and many soldiers. Notes are folded neatly, some with rosaries wrapped around them. A silver necklace with a wooden cross on it hangs from a crack between stones. Even after we leave, it is hard to shake off that feeling of so many silent prayers.

Venezia

It is very easy to get lost in Venice. Not only is the city filled with tiny, person-width streets that follow no particular grid or pattern, but every street is also lined with the same permutation of shops: Venetian mask shop, restaurant, pastry shop, gift shop, glass shop, more Venetian masks. “Didn’t we just pass the shop with the purple half-moon mask in the front window?” “Yes, but I’m sure that one was next to the pastry shop with the giant meringues, so this must be a different one.” “… So how long before we give up and buy a map?” So the conversation went, several times over. When we first arrived to the island by train, we followed our guide on a not-so-direct path to San Marco square, via the Rialto bridge (a bridge with three rows of shops- rather strange, but I guess you make use of whatever space you can here). For a while I foolishly attempted to remember how to get back the way we’d come, so that I could find all the shops I’d wanted to stop at- completely hopeless after about a half-hour of walking, doubling back, looping, and following official and not-so-official signs. Actual signs pointing us towards San Marco Square were often ambiguous and frustratingly few, but the locals seem to have realized this long ago: where real signs failed, there was scrawled graffiti with arrows directing us from walls, doorways, and sometimes the ground.
When we finally reached the square, most of it had already sunk. That is to say, the tide had beat us there, and what would’ve been a large, beautiful square was a large puddle, with a long line of people crammed onto a catwalk stretching past the cathedral, around the square, and back to another narrow street. There were also catwalks through the cathedral, but the line for them was lengthy and stagnant, so we opted for a quick pass through back to the regular roads. Venice seems to love elaborate clocks: we had passed by several impressive ones on our winding walk, and now we passed underneath a beautiful clock tower, with a clock face of blue and gold, and greened copper bells surrounded by statued hammerers (I may have made both of those words up).  We wound down more streets until we stopped for lunch, settling for a simple sandwich shop with cheap (but delicious) calzones. I had a cappuccino afterwards, which was the best coffee I’ve had thus far, and came with a little square chocolate on the saucer (for the same price as a normal cappuccino! I love Venice!). After that, Kayla, Kelcey and I did what most guides suggested as the top thing to do while in Venice: we got lost. We originally headed back the way we came, stopping at what seemed like every other shop to ogle Venetian masks or shelves of confections, but after confusing one or two turns, we simply gave up keeping track of where we were and wandered aimlessly, following the general crowd of tourists unless something particular caught our eye. This is how we spent several hours of the afternoon, in and out of shops, down long alleyways that ended in canals, in and out of silent churches, through markets and over bridges. We eventually ended up at a bookshop, out of the way of the beaten path of tourists, in a small courtyard off a smaller street. All the books in the entire shop were either on high tables, or in old gondolas that we guessed still floated: a hand-written sign saying “Fire exit” pointed out the back door, which was one step up from the water. The whole shop must flood every high tide, but the bookseller had managed to keep all of his goods up out of harm’s way. He had quite the collection, mounds and mounds of books stacked and piled, up to the ceiling in some places. There were lots of books in English, some in German, some in French, but most in Italian; there were antique Italian comic books, including Donald Duck and Mickey Mouse; shelves of language dictionaries, food encyclopedias, and picture dictionaries of horse and dog breeds; piles of old books full of plays and operas. Among the disarray I found a tourist’s map of Venice, and some fabulously unique postcards, which I bought (these were not my only purchases of the day- I did manage to find a signature Venetian mask for myself). Using the map we managed to find our way back to the train station in time to catch a train home not far behind the rest of our group, although I think I could’ve stayed until it got dark, still blissfully lost and wandering through those convoluted streets.

Bologna

Our trip to Bologna would have been fairly unremarkable were it not for the fact that we stumbled into the Bologna foods festival pasta rolling contest. We were merely trying to see the castle: although it looked dwarfed next to the cathedral San Petronio (the 5th largest cathedral in the world), we figured we’d explore inside anyway. It was a castle after all. We were not expecting to be swept into a huge crowd, all filing past tables of pastas, cheeses, and Mortadella (what the rest of the world calls Bologna) to crowd around a couple dozen tables being set up for pasta rolling. After wrestling to the show tables for samples from a Mortadella that was larger than my little brother (yes you, Tom), we too crowded around the tables to watch. Each table got 1kg of flour, 8 eggs, a fork, and a scraper. Each contestant brought their own pasta roller, a long, slender rolling pin without handles- these rolling pins are a traditional wedding gift to brides here as well, as it is the woman of the house who must make the pasta (the rollers are also said to be useful for keeping husbands in line). At the starting bell, everyone starts by shaping a base ring of flour: most are careful not to use the whole kilogram, so that they have some for rolling if the dough gets sticky. Then the eggs are cracked into the center of the flour: all but one person uses all 8. They are mixed into the flour slowly, from the center to the outside, so that the wet eggs are held inside walls of flour until it is thick enough to knead. Kneading takes the longest, as the dough must be strong enough to be rolled incredibly thin, and perfectly smooth. The tables are scraped carefully to prevent any clump of dried egg or flour from making it into the finished ball of smooth, yellow dough. Some people let their dough rest for short periods in between kneading- others knead steadily until sweat breaks out on their forehead. Then the rolling begins: this is where real skill is needed, because as the dough gets thinner and larger, it must be rolled up around the rolling pin, rolled out, then unrolled again and again to keep the entire piece the same thickness. Sadly, we had to leave before the winner was announced. It would be almost an hour before everyone finished rolling out, and then each piece must be judged for overall thickness, smoothness, texture, and finally cooked taste and texture. We only had the afternoon, and had to move on and see other things.

Next we went into the Cathedral San Petronio- the mere height of the building was breathtaking. Although the outside was covered in scaffolding for restoration, you could see that the front wall was only half finished, and though the bottom half was beautifully carved stone, the upper half was plain brick. Apparently, the Pope had cut funding to the cathedral halfway through, as soon as he learned that it was to be bigger than St. Peter’s. The restoration was not to finish the top, only to clean and protect what had been finished originally. Inside, the church had a couple defining features. In one of the large side niches, there is a fresco depicting Dante’s Inferno, from beginning to end. The painting is beautifully detailed, but almost comic book-style in its progression through the story. It also includes the prophet Mohammed, as true to the story, and for this reason the church was almost bombed several years ago. The other defining feature is the world’s longest linear sundial, which stretches across the floor from the center of the front door to the back corner of the church, and reveals the time and approximate date with the sunlight that streams in the highest window. I didn’t find the sundial highly impressive until I overheard an English speaking tour guide explaining its unconventionality: the cathedral was built during a time when the Roman Catholic church was still adamantly against the notion that the Earth was not the center of the universe. To include such a sundial, which could only be functional with correct calculations of the Earth’s position and rotation, showed one of the first daring steps forward in the church’s acceptance of science. Bologna, after all, was considered one of the most modern and scientific-minded communities of the time. And perhaps, we mused, the builders of San Petronio had to garner support from the wealthy local community after the Pope cut off official funding.

Catching Up

The time has come for the inevitable post apologizing for not posting. The last week has been so busy I feel like I've fallen too far behind to properly catch up: we've gone from the vacation speed of southern Italy to the harvest-time rush up north. Hence, there will probably be a post about all of last week, then a post about Venice, then by tomorrow evening I'll need another post about the eel festival. In the mean time, I have my photos automatically upload every couple days, and I've started adding captions to them while I can still remember where each one is from. I'm almost glad that we only have three weeks here in Ferrara, because I feel if this kind of schedule were to continue longer, my brain would get overloaded and I'd simply start forgetting all about what I did yesterday just so I could take in what was happening today. Thank goodness Sundays are still really considered a day of rest here, so that everything is closed and the only thing one can do is go for walks and drink caffés and nap in the sun. And, of course, write blog posts.

The Busy World of Richard Scary

I found the busy world of Richard Scary today. I remember reading Richard Scary books when I was little, and staring at the illustrations: the world of Richard Scary was so small. The city was right next to the country, farmers grew every kind of fruit and vegetable in one place, then drove it to the factory that appeared only a block or two away. Everyone rode bikes. Everyone was happy, and smiled and waved to each other. The few cars that were in the pictures were incredibly small and brightly colored. There was always a cat somewhere, and the sky was always blue, and the sun always shown. That was my day today. We toured a rice farm, then a canning factory. The rice farm was exactly what comes to mind for any grain farm: large barns, grain silos, big square farmhouse across the dusty gravel road. The land was perfectly flat for as far as you could see- we are in the carefully drained Po River flood plains, a full 4 meters below sea level, perfect for rice. We toured inside the barns first, and I was surprised to see that they held all the equipment necessary to dry, process, and package the rice. No middlemen needed here- the same five or six people working on the farm do everything from planting to taping up boxes to be sent to supermarkets and restaurants. After the rice is planted, the rice fields are flooded with carefully routed trenches, and the rice grows happily in its shallow swamp. The tractors they use to harvest have very thin, tall tires in front, to squash as little rice as possible, but large caterpillar treads in the back to keep it from getting stuck in the mud. When it comes time to harvest the fields are drained, and directly after the rice is cut, the fields are burned to remove the bulk of the straw (this is fairly safe, as the base of the grass is still wet, and every field is surrounded by water).
As we drove to the canning factory, not even fifteen minutes away, I watched the fields alternate between rice and soy beans, then corn, then carrots, tomatoes, squash, plum trees, and plants I could only guess were peas or beans. Do they grow everything right here? Then a rutabaga truck drove by. Yes, I guess they do.
Our tour of the factory was everything I’d imagined it would be: we all donned white napkin suits and hats with hairnets, and followed the tour guide around through noisy rooms full of conveyor belts, pipes, and hoses. Green beans were the main product being canned that day: we watched them come in from trucks in the back, and followed them through washing, sorting, washing again, being hand-checked and sorted by old ladies in the same napkin suits, stuffed into cans, sealed, pressure cooked, slapped with labels and barcodes, pressed into pallets, plastic-wrapped, and carried by robot forklifts to the enormous, futuristic store room where over 2,000 pallets are sorted, stored, and retrieved by robotic lifts. Try as I might, I could not follow the line of conveyors, elevators, and slides that took the cans from one place to another, and I was nearly left behind by the tour while I stood and marveled at one little device that did nothing but rotate the boxes 90 degrees before letting them transfer to the next slide. Did they hire Rube Goldberg to design this factory? How could these tracks possibly be the best way to get the can from point A to point B? And yet, it obviously worked incredibly well: in the two hours we were there, the factory produced more canned goods than I could imagine eating in a lifetime. Our tour guides, both at the farm and the factory, were incredibly friendly and excited about what they did. They gave us gift bags (only fruit juice from the cannery- I was kind of hoping for green beans), and all stood and waved us goodbye when it was time for our bus to drive us home.

Alla Strozza

Alla Strozza agroturismo has the best kitchen I have ever been in in my entire life. The beautifully modern and shiny kitchen is tucked into a corner of the brick farmhouse, lit by a wide stained-glass window of roses and vines. The smell when I first walked in was the most wonderful aroma I have ever experienced- it made me instantaneously content. If I could only breathe this scent forever, I don’t think I’d ever be unhappy again. It was indescribable- there were notes of fresh popcorn, roasting meat, rosemary, peppercorns, wine, garlic, and something that reminded me of both Thanksgiving and Christmas... And so many other more subtle things I couldn’t place. Maybe it was a case of the whole being more than the sum, or maybe it was the magic of the ingredients (most were from the back yard of the agroturismo), but I never wanted to leave that kitchen.
Unfortunately, the time came to tour the rest of the farm, and to set the table for the magnificent lunch we were soon to have. The farm part of the agroturismo was much more real than the other agroturismo we visited in Otranto. This was food being raised, not a petting zoo for tourists. We saw the hogs, geese, ducks, and chickens; the slaughtering room; and the cool dark curing room, with racks of salame con aglio (with garlic), salame di sugo, and huge hams, hanging by their tendons to dry. They sit for months or years, molding slightly in the cold, until they are hard and salty and savoury and perfect. We got to try some salame with our Coppia Farrarese, as a first course to lunch- the bread was crusty and warm, and the salame was cold and soft. They complemented each other perfectly. The rest of lunch was as good as we expected from what we saw and smelled in the kitchen: fresh pasta with Bolognese sauce, stuffed rabbit loin with white wine, a tasting plate of their pickled and preserved vegetables, and a flat dry cake you ate dipped in wine or with cherry preserves (or both). Erin, who usually declares every day to be the best yet, leaned back in her chair and said “I think this might be the best day of my entire life.”

Ferrara

And so we’ve reached Ferrara. Everything is different here. The weather is colder, as are the people, but there is a lot more English spoken. We are in the city, walking distance from the centre, in a brand new apartment building specifically for students. I live on the 4th floor of tower 1, looking out over the main enterance to the building. On the ground floor there is a mall, much like the ones you’d find in the US, with a large grocery store, several clothing and shoe stores, and many little cafes and places to eat. My favorite place is the tea bar, where any tea you order comes in a full tea set: a clear glass pot with loose-leaf tea, clear glass cup and saucer, tiny silver spoon, red clay plate with flaky little tea pastries. If you get the floral tea, there are jasmine and lavender flowers floating around in your teapot. Our schedule here is completely different as well: we have Italian only on Mondays, for 3 hours straight. Our cooking labs are at an actual culinary and bartending school in the city, but they are also only three nights a week. The majority of our schedule is filled with my favorite thing- fieldtrips. On Tuesday we split into two groups to go to an agroturismo and a restaurant called Pirate (I went to the agroturismo- more on that later). Wednesday a reception and press conference was held for us at the school that is hosting us, and we got to meet the headmaster of the school, the commissioner of Ferrara, and several of the top teachers in the program, who we’ll get to take a class or two with later. Then followed a reception with a buffet of all the specialties Ferrara is most proud of: Coppia Ferrarese (funky chromosome-shaped bread), Salame di Sugo (ridiculously salty), cappellacci (pumpkin ravioli- amazing), pasticcio alla Ferrarese (noodle pie- better than it sounds), and more wines than I could (or should) taste. After that, we rode the bus back to our apartment to change, and took a walking tour of the city: we walked through the castle (every city has it’s own castle- this one has a real moat with big fishes), tip-toed through the cathedral, bought gelato, and almost got locked into a cemetery for the night. Our guide and general mother here, Agnese (pr. Awn-yay-say), is young and new at her job, but speaks very good English, and is lots of fun to talk to and walk around with- the large majority of our group decided to split off to explore or shop on their own once we got into town, so those of us that were left had a personalized tour and got to see everything we wanted (including the best gelato place in the city).
Today we’re off to tour a rice farm, and then a canning factory- I’ve always wanted to tour a canning factory! No, really, I’m being serious. Factories are cool. And so is rice.

Cantine Due Palme (transcribed from my lost and newly found road journal)

Yesterday, I acquired five bottles of wine and a 3-liter metal canister of olive oil. It was our last day in Otranto, and so Pino took us on one final grand field trip. We drove to Brindisi, and a bit outside the city we entered a town call Citta Di Vino- City of Wine. We toured the winery Cantine Due Palme, a large facility with a grand conference room and walls full of awards. They work with hundreds of small and large grape growers in the Salento region, who bring their grapes in by the truckload to be weighed and poured into huge crushing vats. The fermenting tanks are the size of small grain silos. The juice and mash are churned in cement-mixer tanks (not really, but you get the idea), then separated: skins and seeds are sent to be made into grappa, an intensely grape distilled liquor. Red wines have the skins left in them for a day at most- rose wines for 4 hours max, whites not at all. As the wine ferments, the sugar and alcohol content is monitored carefully every day or two, chalked up on a slate attached to each tank. The sugar content of the grapes themselves was measured when they first came in, to determine what types of wine may be made from them.
Cantine Due Palme produces over a million bottles of wine a year- 90% for foreign markets. Most of the wine they sell will be last year’s vintage: only a couple types are aged for more than a year. The oldest is stored in French oak barrels for 3 years, but that is a very select wine not even sold in their store. The winery’s store has wine pumps, like an old-fashioned gas station, where you pay by the liter for primitivo (a regional variety), rosso (red), rosato (rose), bianco (white), or moscato- you may bring your own jug or buy a reusable plastic one. While we were there, a man brought in a big green glass jug wrapped in straw netting, filled it with rosso, and then left, walking out to his bike and putting the bottle in the front basket. The store also has a wall of bottled wines, from which I made my selection after the rest of my group was done mobbing it: I got a bottle of rose spumante, one of chardonnay, one of the spicy red negromaro we tasted on the tour (found only in Salento), one of a dark primitivo that won top standing in an international competition, and a slender, beautiful bottle of sweet dessert moscato. I think everything but the spumante will be taken home with me, although it depends on what other wines I manage to accumulate along the way. The grand total for my five bottles? Roughly $36.

We then visited Pino’s olive oil factory, a small nondescript building in an industrial park. Olives don’t ripen until November, so the building was clean and empty. The equipment for washing and pressing the olives took up only a small corner of the room- one person could run everything if need be, although all the bottling must be done by hand. After the oil is filtered, it goes into a tank about as tall as me, next to the bottling table, where bottles of all sizes can be filled with a big yellow funnel. There was no stock of any kind kept during the off season, at least in the factory. We were all rather disappointed, as we were hoping to buy some oil from our host’s own company before we left. One of the girls asked Pino where all the oil was, adding a pout like a grandchild who was expecting presents. Pino just laughed and led us back to the main entrance, where we had all overlooked a stack of 27 three-liter canisters of extra virgin olive oil. “Oneh for each”, as Pino said. We swarmed the stack, each cradling one of the huge containers in our arms like a baby, in awe of the unexpected gift and the virtually infinite supply of oil we now had. What could we possibly do with it all? How much weight would this add to our luggage? Pino had told us that to make 1kg of oil, you needed about 12kg of olives: I roughly calculated that I held the product of 44lb of olives in my hands. Between our entire group, Pino had given away over 1,000lb of olives. I wish I could adopt him as my Italian grandfather.

Nord

Saturday we traveled north, through Lecce, Brindisi, and Bari, to il Grotte di Castellana, a magnificent cavern and large tourist attraction. While we waited for our tour to start, we meandered through the many touristy shops that surrounded the actual entrance. We met with many friendly shopkeepers (“you look at this wine? Sei buono! You try! Taste! Taste! Goes well with this kind of biscotti, you try that too!”), and found such exotic gifts as pyrite samples from Illinois, and small cubes of polished coal. I guess gift shops are universal in the relevance to their actual location.

Our tour began- we all got excited when we gathered at the meeting point for the English tour, but no such luck. We were led down into the cavern by a small Italian woman who babbled in high-speed Italian while walking, so I only caught words here and there (was that something about 500 steps?). Even our translator could barely keep up, and since there were several other Italian tourists thrown into the tour with us, we couldn’t slow down for bilingual versions of everything. I made do with the humorously translated pamphlet on the cave itself (they’re very enthusiastic about karstic concretions), and assuaged my frustrated comrades by “translating” the tour as best I could, rambling off everything I knew about caves, stalactites, and stalagmites, as well as naming formations (We like to call this room the broccoli forest, and over here are the wizards fighting with candlesticks…), and reminding them to watch their step and head every time we moved. All in my best foreign accent. We may not have learned much from the tour guide, but we certainly had a fun hour- and the cavern was quite impressive in itself. The first cave on the tour was definitely the tallest cave I have ever been in, and it had a natural hole at the top with sunbeams streaming in, only adding to the effect of the height. I don’t know whether it was all the stairs down or the staring upwards once we came out into the main room, but we all found ourselves with shaky knees when our tour guide came to the first stop. I didn’t realize until afterwards, but that first stop was at the grave of the founder (finder? discoverer?) of the cavern- he didn’t simply fall into the hole first, but actually explored the whole cave long before his death, and requested to be buried there, in the knee-shakingly tall cavern. It does seem to be a fittingly solemn and ancient place to rest, with stalagmites growing up from your grave.

When we were once again back on the surface, readjusting to the shimmering heat and sun, it was announced that we would now go on a “zoosafari”. Zoosafari? Well, okay… Italian zoosafaris (read:zoos) have some interesting differences to American ones. While the basic idea is the same, they have both a “safari” portion (in which you drive through larger enclosures, with large groups of, well, large animals) and a pedestrian part, which includes some buildings (reptile house, aviary, etc), but also some ride-through exhibits- to see monkeys, polar bears, kangaroos, or penguins, you had to board a small cage on wheels, and ride through mysterious doorways and curtains to the animal exhibits. In addition to this, almost everything had a separate cost- our tickets got us into the reptile and bird house, the “large mammal” ride, and anything that you could walk to. Any other exhibit or ride cost €2 or €3 more. After driving through the safari and seeing bears, giraffe, lions, tigers, panthers, and all manner of deer-like species, we were given an hour and a half to explore the rest of the park. I found the group of students who weren’t planning on spending any extra money, and walked around with them until we had seen everything we could, then sat in the shade and enjoyed €1 granite lemone until everyone else filtered out to the bus in their chronically late way.

Our last stop of the day was Alberobello, a little town that called itself the “Capitale di trulli.” I have seen trullo here and there since we first drove down to Otranto from Rome: they are funny little cone-shaped buildings, white-washed bases with the cone built on top from flat bricks of limestone, carefully stacked inward without mortar, then held in place by a plastered keystone at the very top. They are old, with mystical symbols painted on the roofs, and messages hidden in the shapes of the keystones. The ones I had seen before always stood alone, in olive groves or along the coast- Alberobello had a city of them. Disappointingly, most of our group didn’t want to explore them: they stayed in the bus and pouted like children at being torn away from the zoo so soon, while those of us with some appreciation of culture and history (i.e. the cool people) ventured out with the translator and Francesco, who’d skipped the zoo but somehow caught up with us in his sleek BMW. We climbed steep winding streets lined with the little houses, many of which were converted into tiny shops, to the top of the hill where the church sat with the same stacked stone roof, but tripled in size (I think they might’ve used mortar on that one). I felt like I was walking through a hobbit village of sorts, because all the houses had doors I had to duck through, and the streets were too narrow for any American car to get through. Cats and dogs sat on almost every stoop, enjoying the afternoon sun and the appreciation of gullible passing tourists. Trumpet vines, wisteria, and other flowers draped many of the roofs and doors, although I could never see where they found the earth to start from. I think out of the entire day, I enjoyed walking through the trulli village the most, and I couldn’t help but feel sorry for (if not disgusted with) those who had chosen to stay behind.

I can see Africa from here!

I must say, our fieldtrips this weekend were much more extensive and interesting than our short trip to the agrotourismo last Saturday. We spent two entire days traveling, leaving in the morning and returning late for dinner, and saw so many things that I don’t think I can cover them all in one go. On Friday we went south, along beautiful coastline, to Leuca, the southern-most tip of the heel of Italy. On the way down the coast, we stopped in Santa Cesarea Terme, a little village perched on the cliffs next to the sea, with old stone stairways and parts of rooms leading out into thin air, the rest of their building in chunks further down, under water. We wandered around taking pictures for a while, then it was back into the bus. I could’ve ridden the bus down the coast forever. Everyone else slept or dozed (oh the horror of getting up at 8 a.m. on a Friday), but I stared out the window the entire time. The road never strayed out of sight of the sea, following every curve of the coast, climbing up the high cliffs and winding back down right to the sand of the shore, squeezing through little towns and edging around rocky fields and olive groves. We stopped again at a little gorge, Ciolo, and walked down to the water underneath the bridge. There were people snorkeling into a cave in the cliff- I wanted to join them so much. But we were back on the bus and onward down the coast. We went through many more towns perched on the cliffs, with little white houses lined up like lemmings, ready to plunge off the edge… I wonder how often a piece of cliff really does just give in and crumble away. Most of it is sandstone or limestone, not the most timeless of rocks.
When we finally reached Leuca, we were given two hours to roam or swim or sightsee on our own. While many of our group headed straight for the public beach, Kayla, Kelcey, Matt, and I decided we had to go to the exact southern-most tip of the heel. Just the town wasn’t good enough. We ventured off the road and down the coast, heading for what looked like the furthest out point, a rocky cliff jutting out towards Africa (or so we imagined). After scampering around many rocks, carefully avoiding cliff edges, and giving less than wide berths to the clearly fenced off private areas, we made it to the very tip-top. The view of the sea, and the coastline stretching out and back from us in both directions, was incredible. We had taken a full 15 or 20 seconds to enjoy the panorama when, upon turning inland, we realized there was a very large hole in the slope behind us. With child-like attention span, we abandoned the spectacular view to go investigate: the hole was even larger than it had looked, and appeared very easy to climb down into. It was also fenced off, but only with very rudimentary log fencing, really more just to keep people from falling into the hole accidentally, we decided. Therefore, we very purposefully climbed over the fence and down into the cave, which turned out to be a beautiful little grotto of sorts- there was another hole leading out the other side that let light in, and further down the cave opened up directly into the sea. The echoes of waves lapping into the cave were dampened by our excited squeals at having found such a place. We clambered down to the water and waded out a little, climbing on the rocks that had fallen from the ceiling of cliff still above us. The outlet to the sea was deemed to rocky and dangerous for any real swimming, so after exploring every corner we made our way back out of our cave, Kelcey and I climbing up to the higher window hole and out around the side of the cliff, Matt and Kayla going back the way we’d come in (toting our shoes and cameras for us). We all concluded that discovering and exploring a cave was far better than anything anyone else in our group could’ve done. On our way back up the coast, we found a not-quite-as-rocky cove to swim in, but didn’t stay long, as everyone but the Hawaiian among us (Kayla) was unnerved by how quickly the rocks ended and the water got deep. Just a dead leaf brushing your leg was enough to bring up thoughts of sharks or poisonous jellyfish, or the spear fishermen we’d seen suiting up earlier. After drying off, we found a short-cut to the road and made it back to the meeting point early enough to get gelato and lemon granita, and to put on our best “you’ll never guess where we’ve been” faces before the rest of our group returned for the ride back.

Gattino

I found a kitten and brought him home. We were walking to the beach, past an old church and convent that looked pretty abandoned, when I heard him meowing at me, sitting on top of the wall on the other side of a fence. At first I thought he was stuck in the fence, he was meowling so urgently, but as soon as I came over he squeezed through the fence and rubbed against my hands, friendly as could be. I was a goner. We had to continue to the beach, so I left him there, even though he tried to follow us. I didn’t see him on the way back, but I called for him, and he instantly popped out of the long grass, jumped up onto the wall and practically into my arms, meowing non-stop the entire time. He was perfectly content to be carried all the way back to our resort, and he’s been hanging out around our house ever since. I’ve named him Gattino (yes, just kitten). I feed him whatever I can bring back from lab- today he got an entire roasted fish that was almost as big as him. I feel like I rescued him, and I think he’ll be well cared for here even after we leave. The resort is full of semi-stray cats, none as friendly as my Gattino, but all of whom seem well fed and quite happy. I let him in our room occasionally, and he likes to take naps with me during siesta. I feel like my life is complete now <3

Sabato

Saturday was the longest day I’ve had in Italy, both literally and mentally. We started out with a group field trip (postponed from Friday because it was raining again) to an agrotourismo- a small resort with a farm that produces all the food provided to guests in their restaurant. The idea goes something like this: rich folk from large cities or towns usually take an extended vacation in the summer, and like to get out to the country to relax. Vacations, for them, mean doing as little as possible. Amusement parks or exhausting sightseeing tours make no sense to them. Instead, they go to an agrotourismo, a lovely little place where they can rent a nice cabin and spend their days going to the beach, lounging in the shade of olive trees, or playing tennis or miniature golf. And, of course, enjoying the food: spending two hours eating lunch and two and a half for dinner is not unheard of, and what a better way to get the best food than to stay on the farm where it is made? Hence, the agrotourismo. On our short tour of the farm, we saw dairy cows, chickens, turkey, pheasant, peacock, Tibetan goats (pigmies), lamas, pigs, ostrich, and a miniature pony and donkey, kept more for petting and crooning purposes than anything else. We also saw a little bit of the gardens, and the olive groves. We learned when ostrich lay eggs (once every 3-4 days, only in late winter and early spring), the difference between olives for curing and olives for oil (the oil ones have a much bigger pit, but are smaller overall), and how to make the fresh cow’s milk cheese that they serve every day. The cheese is called Primo Sale- literally “first salt”, but technically the first cheese you make from the milk, after adding the necessary enzymes to curdle it (they use all-natural fig sap rather than rennet) but before adding salt. Any aged, kneaded, or otherwise flavored cheese must pass through this point as a first basic step. It tastes much as you’d expect- like solid milk, saltless and ricotta textured, and in our case unpleasantly warm. I can imagine it would be good in small amounts, perhaps on a plate of antipasti as I’ve seen served at Basiliani, accompanied by some salame picante and balsamic reduction.
Later that afternoon, we arranged a soccer match between us (the five boys in our group, Kayla, Kelcey, and I), and the Italiano employees of the resort. They play against each other on the little Astroturf field almost every evening, and I’ve always been tempted to join in. The game was great fun, and our opponents thankfully went a little easy on us. We played for nearly two and a half hours, ending the game at something like 12 to 15, Italiani winning, but Americani keeping their self esteem. I played as keeper most of the game, but Astroturf is brutal on the knees. I learned the Italian word for Band-Aids: Cerotti.
After patching myself up and hobbling to dinner, Francesco announced that he was going to an Italian dance club that night, and that we could all go as a group trip if we wanted- few of us could pass up the offer, and even though I’m not much of a dancer (and had never been to a club of any sort before), I decided to make a go of it. We were supposed to be immersing ourselves in Italian culture, right? And my knees didn’t hurt that bad, now that I thought about it… While everyone else went off to don their best clubbing outfits and gussy themselves up after dinner, my equally uncool friends and I wisely decided to take a nap: we weren’t leaving for the club until midnight, and Francesco said we probably wouldn’t return until 3 a.m. No matter how long I had to sleep in the next morning, I was not staying up that late without a nap to support me. We all set out alarm clocks for 11:30 p.m. and planned to meet for espresso before heading out.
The club was everything you’d imagine an Italian dance club to be- the kind the Italian mafia owns in movies, where all sorts of rich, powerful people go for under-the-table dealings. We waited in line to get in, an Italian line, which is incredibly pushy and unorganized. Everyone was better dressed than us. Everyone was more Italian than we were. We must’ve stood out like white on black, but somehow Francesco got us all in. I noticed that most of the male employees of our resort showed up as well, blending in perfectly, probably there to keep an eye on us. The doors were guarded by three bouncers, the tallest Italian men I’ve seen yet. They all wore earpieces like secret service men, and one had a long black ponytail and multiple earrings. Inside the club, the Italian line became an Italian crowd- there were people packed in like sardines, to the point that some of us held hands to keep from getting separated. We managed to elbow our way around the bar, where the main traffic jam was, and out onto the slightly less crowded dance floor. Still, you couldn’t move more than a few steps, and other dancers backed into you or pushed by your shoulders constantly. The room itself was quite nice, from what I could see of it. There were crystal and black chandeliers on the ceiling, white walls sprinkled with Andy Warhol style portrait art, and shiny black floors. In less crowded corners of the room there were groups of white couches, square and clean and modern. It was mostly dark except for the strobes and colored lights from the dance floor, but occasionally they’d turn all the lights on for a moment or two, and suddenly the room became much larger, and you could see all the people you were surrounded by. There were some who had clearly come to dance, but most people seemed to be there just to stand, drink, and socialize. How they could do the latter I have no idea, as the music was so loud I was afraid I’d loose my hearing. The night (well, morning) went uneventfully after we got over the shock of the place. I stayed on the dance floor, where I felt the least conspicuous. The music was mostly good- the Italians have their own popular music, songs I’ve heard many times by now, but they also mix in a lot of old American music. YMCA, Video Killed the Radio Star, and I Will Survive were all blended with Italian techno. By the time we left, my ears were ringing and my nose was congested with a hundred different Italian colognes, perfumes, and cigarettes’ smoke. We could now say we’d danced the night away at an exclusive Italian club, but we all agreed that if given the opportunity a second time, we’d go to bed early instead.

A ton of photos

http://picasaweb.google.com/102266452255714969166/Italia?authkey=Gv1sRgCMyz7JesqcfaGQ&feat=directlink

Matt and I in Otranto

Kayla and I in Otranto

Hi, I'm your lunch. Nice to meet you.

St Irenes

Mia compleanno

My birthday went quite normally, up to a certain point. I went to classes and work all day, at restaurant Umberto and Basiliani resort. My lovely classmates announced my birthday to the chefs at Basiliani, and so I got the customary kiss-on-both-cheeks from them. After class, four of us walked into town to get groceries for a nice dinner later this weekend. I wanted to walk further and get gelato as well, but everyone else was strangely against it- they all agreed we should go back with our groceries and get dessert at the restaurant in the resort.  So we walked back, headed to the restaurant, but stopped outside the door. At this point I was a bit suspicious. Again, the rest of my group unanimously decided that it’d be better to go to the little bar by the outdoor dance floor for dessert, instead of the restaurant. So we went there, and walk in to find everyone else in the Paul Smith’s group, half of the students from Monroe College (who we’re traveling with), and Francesco, Pino’s son and the boss of the whole resort while Pino’s away. He comes up, wishes me a happy birthday and says, “Cake in about an hour, but you all stay here! We have dance and drinks!” And then I am swarmed by people wishing me happy birthday and offering to buy me drinks… Someone (who shall remain nameless) had told Pino about my birthday last week, and he had an entire party planned out. Everyone got invited, and told not to let on about it. Matt, Kayla, and Kelcey had been assigned to get me to the bar at the right time. Francesco set up lights and a sound system in the bar, since it was raining, and hooked up his laptop and digital turntable (I think Francesco only runs the resort because of his father- what he really enjoys is DJ-ing). It was an awesome party. When the cake finally arrived (about an hour late, true southern Italy style), it was announced with loud and incredibly glittery party poppers, and brought out with bottles of prosecco. Everyone sang happy birthday, although some were singing in English, some in Italian, and the ones who’d had a few drinks in English AND Italian. One cake was dense chocolate brownie with hazelnuts, covered in powdered sugar and cocoa: the other was a cheesecake topped with red and black currants. I was overwhelmed. 
On a side note, I did have one drink: I refused everyone’s offers and pressures to do 21 shots or some other such American nonsense, but Cortez made an offer I couldn’t say no to. “I will buy you an alcoholic beverage for your birthday, but I’ll light it on fire for you too!” How could I resist? I’ve always wanted to see a mixed drink that you can light on fire…. I watched the bartender pour a tiny bit of about five different bottles into a little glass- the first two were clear, the third made it turn cloudy, the fourth made it turn antifreeze blue. Then he lit the top, and I watched blue flames lick the surface and slosh over the sides weirdly.  To put it out, he slapped his hand over the top of the glass, sealing it. After the fire went out, he shook up the drink without holding it, because it had suctioned onto the palm of his hand. At this point everyone was watching, and the bartender looked at me very seriously and said “are you ready?” before taking his hand off the glass and letting me drink it. It was only two swallows, but it was warm, and tasted like licorice and blue raspberry, which was nasty. I felt light headed for the next half hour, and had to drink a liter of water before the taste left my mouth. I told Cortez never to tempt my pyromaniacal tendencies again.  Maybe on my 42nd birthday I’ll try another flaming beverage, but not until then….

Lecce (transcribed directly from my road notebook, hence the incomplete sentences and uncharacteristic poetic license)

We enter through Porta San Biagio, a columned gate with many baroque decorations. It was built specifically for a visit from the king. We walk down to the church of Saint Matthew, tall and elaborate, set so the sun hits it. Past the church of Saint Claire, onto wider trafficked streets, to the Chair, the throne of an ancient king who was once bunkered inside the city. There is an amphitheatre, with fallen arches and rusted gates. Only half of it has been excavated, because the Pope refuses to let the main road to the church be rerouted. The stone is soft. So soft, I can cut it with my fingernail. This is why they redid the city in stone, covering every wall with cherubs and saints, flowers and animals and scrolls. Superfluous decoration.
The first patron saint of Lecce was the virgin martyr Irene. Her church is tall and white and full of evening sun. People have lit many candles inside, and there is a mother with a child begging for change in the shadow of one of the monolithic doors.
Here in the piazza Duomo, where the highest priests live and children set for a life of religious service go to school, there is a wedding just beginning. The bride and groom are beautiful, and very picturesque, kneeling before the alter. Tourists still wander in and out of the back of the church, flashing pictures with their cell phones.
We found a little piazza with glass windows in the ground, showing steps and walls leading down. There is a whole city under the one we’ve seen. People used to walk through the streets there, looking up to the sky where there are now new basements and roads. We’ve built our houses on the roofs of our ancestors.

Otranto shore

This was the first day we visited Otranto, when it was still beautiful weather

Siesta

It’s raining. This is apparently the first rain they’ve had in almost six months, but it has cancelled our fieldtrip to the vigna (vineyard), so I’m not as appreciative of it as I should be. It’s been pouring, non-stop, for the last day and a half. Yesterday we decided to get soaked and walk into town, to the supermercato and tabacchi (both basically what they sound like) to buy food, laundry detergent, and stamps. It’s about a half-hour walk to downtown Otranto, which is full of little shops and gelaterias. A large part of the tourist downtown is in the castle, which is now just a walled in section with tiny crooked streets lined with tiny oblong shops. Most shops spill out into the street and have awnings that almost meet each other in the center, making a largely rain-free tunnel. Pedestrians must share the streets with the city’s drainage system (or lack thereof), however, and some streets are essentially rivers. I was rather glad I wore my open sandals, because keeping your shoes dry became a moot point. We (Kayla, Kelcey, Matt, and I) mostly window shopped, wandering in and out, looking at fancy colored pastas and ceramic espresso cups and beautiful leather sandals (I think I’m going to have to get a pair before we leave). I ended up buying a nice black shirt (just so I can say I have some Italian clothes), and a pair of earrings for Julie (yes, I just gave away the surprise, Ju-ju). We then meandered through the supermercato, deciding on some maccheroni (the real form of macceroni), cachiotta di Lecce (a fairly local, semi-hard aged cheese), blood orange juice, salame Napoli (salami of Naples), and fresh rolls that turned out to be full of zucchini chunks. We also got a very cheap bottle of local vino rosa (pink wine) before trekking back to our rooms through the rain. After all drying off, we spent a very pleasant afternoon enjoying our food and wine together- we’re all getting quite used to meals taking at least an hour and a half, and being very social, conversational events. I do quite like the Italian way of eating.
Today, since it was still pouring, we all had a long breakfast and then went about whatever indoor activities we could find, which are rather scarce here… being a summer resort, they aren’t used to having to keep guests occupied in the rain. I cleaned my room and then did essential laundry in the bathroom sink, because the Italian washers are very small and cost 3.50 euro a load, and there are no dryers anyway. We’re going to pool our money and do one washer load with all of our uniforms, but the rest of my clothing is easily washed by hand. Every edge, hook, and door in our room is now hung with drying laundry. Pino, our host and owner of the resort we’re staying at, said we can take a trip to Lecce this afternoon, as it’s supposedly not raining there, and the city is larger than Otranto. There are ancient Roman ruins and a huge cathedral, and much classic baroque architecture to see, or so I’ve read. Right now, anywhere that’s not in my room with the rain beating down on the roof sounds wonderful to me. 

Settembre

É molto bella qui. Every day there is something more amazing than the last, and we all declare that it simply could not get any better, and then it does. I feel so spoiled by the food here, and the kitchens, and the people, I’m afraid it will be painful to have to work back at home now. The kitchens here are immaculately clean and spacious: they have windows and open screened doors to let in sunlight and fresh air,  more than enough space in refrigerators and freezers and ovens, and all the right equipment. Everything is fresh. Even mushrooms and tomatoes out of a can are still from within the region. Today while we were waiting outside Restaurant Umberto, where we have culinary classes, a couple of men drove up in a little car with a delivery of fresh riccio (sea urchins) and ostrica (oysters) from the western coast of the heel of Italy, a couple hours away. They had collected them that morning- all of them were still alive in a plastic bin. (On a side note, as I saw, live urchins will do their best to creep away if you leave them on a flat surface) With the help of our translator, we learned that only the female urchins are eaten, because male urchins taste horribly bitter, and urchin eggs are very dulce (sweet). The particular kind of oyster they brought can only be found on the western side of the heel of Italy, and smell slightly spicy. The barers of the seafood were more than happy to teach us about them, and patiently repeated their names until we pronounced them correctly (RIck-chi-o and os-TRICK-ah).

I’m getting to the point now where I can communicate a little in Italian, which is quite exciting. In the evenings, when we work at restaurants in the area, we do not have a translator with us, and so must learn to improvise on our own. Most kitchens have at least one English speaker, although on our first night at Brasiliani (our restaurant for the next two weeks) the only English-speaking chef was on his day off, so we mostly worked in sign language and copying. High-end restaurants here usually have fixed menus (meaning there are only options for one or two of the courses at most), and the pace of service is much more relaxed than in the U.S, so the chefs had some time to show us how to do things. I at least know how to ask questions in Italian, so I’m working on learning the names of all the ingredients they use- most are things I recognize and know the English name of, but many are regional specialties that you can only find locally, and some the translator admitted had no English name that he knew of.