More sailing

Sunday -- same boat, same skipper, same place, new, younger crew. This time lasagna instead of fettuccini, more wine consumed. These guys kept talking about girls, the woman kept rolling her eyes (more precisely, shrugging): un marinaio è sempre un marinaio... One of the guys spend a few months in the US and had an American girlfriend, so, unfortunately, he felt he was an expert on all things American. But this time we had pleasant wind and actually did some sailing after lunch.

Umbria trip

School "orientation retreat" in Umbria, September 24-26. Bevagna, Assisi, Lake Trasimeno, Perugia, Spoleto.

Umbria trip, Day 1 - Bevagna

The first stop is Bevagna -- a small town that developed hands-on exhibits of medieval crafts, sort of like Colonial Willimasburg or the Old Sturbridge Village. The trip organizers thought it would be a fun activity for students. I guess it was.



Making candles from bee wax. It is not completely separated from honey, so the smell is really pleasant. Melted wax is repeatedly poured over a hanging wick until the candle reaches the required thickness, about 1/2 inch, then two candles are twisted together to make the finished product. The candle maker explained that melted wax was also used to seal small cuts and wounds.



A medieval pharmacy and spice shop.



Making paper from scraps of old rags -- a fairly complicated process that takes almost a month from start to finish. This is the final stage before drying: scooping some goo from a salty solution with a wire net and transferring it to a piece of fabric to dry.



Also painting and gilding: "This is red, we add some mercury to it; the white paint is based on lead..." Ouch! They used static on a donkey hair brush to pick up and move around very thin golden leaf.

Umbria trip, Day 1 - Assisi

San Francesco (Saint Francis) is considered one of the most important figures in Catholicism. He is the patron saint of Italy and, of course, the founder of the Franciscan order. He was sort of a reformer, calling for more virtue and service and for fewer worldly goods and pleasures, but, obviously, not a dissident: he was careful not to put the popes and the church on the spot. Assisi is his place of birth and the center of his life. San Francesco died in 1226, and the famous basilica was begun immediately after his canonization in 1228. It has the lower church and the upper chucrh; the latter is decorated by the famous Giotto frescoes.



A traditional school picture on the steps of the basilica.



Around the corner, a couple of Franciscan friars can't resist worldly pleasures...

Umbria trip, Day 2 -- Lake Trasimeno

Our hotel is on Lake Trasimeno, one of the largest lakes in Italy. This is the place where Hannibal ambushed and destroyed Roman troops in 217 BC.

After breakfast, the teachers and students got busy with workshops and lessons (Italian, nutrition). I meanwhile borrowed a mountain bike at the hotel and went for a ride on the bike path, which goes all around the lake.



My goal was Passignano, a little town about 12 km away, where I could check my e-mail. Back by lunch. Finally, at 3 pm we headed for Perugia.

Umbria trip, Day 2 -- Perugia

Perugia is a city of about 150,000 -- very lovely! Unfortunately, we only had about three hours to hang out, buy some Baci Perugina, taste Perugian ice cream and get back on the bus. Poor trip planning!

Perugia is a three-dimensional city. A set of escalators brought us up to the old center. Every turn brings you to a terrace with a gorgeous view of the roofs and valleys below and the Umbrian hills beyond.





This is Pozzo Etrusco -- an Etruscan well (II-III c. BC, 36 meters deep), up at the city center. I seem to vaguely remember seeing it in some movie. The glitter comes from tourist coins that missed the pit.



The fountain at the central square would be prettier without a fence, but tourists would probably destroy it quickly, or some local kids would cover it with graffiti, as they do with more or less everything in sight. Worse than pigeons!

Umbria trip: Day 3 -- Spoleto

Spoleto is famous for its Festival dei Due Mondi -- summer arts festival, its Ponte delle Torri , and its Cattedrale di Santa Maria Assunta with Fra' Filippo Lippi's frescoes.

The Ponte -- a gorgeous bridge over the deep, green valley -- was built in the 13-th century on the foundation of an ancient Roman aqueduct.





The views are spectacular; our photos don't do them justice. There are, of course, better pictures on the Internet.

The cathedral is a bit eclectic on the outside and not very impressive inside, with the exception of the frescoes and paintings.

Our crowd is heading back from the cathedral square to the bus. It's pretty chilly; people are wearing jackets, and our Italian teacher of Ancient History even a skiing hat.

Umbria trip: Day 3 -- back to Viterbo

Around 5 pm loading our doubledecker bus.



Back in Viterbo around 6:15, just in time for my sailing theory class.

Sailing

Meanwhile, those of us who were not required to attend the all-school picnic went on the first sailing outing of the Circolo della Vela della Tuscia, off the coast of Santa Marinella /Riva di Traiano. I signed up for this course hoping to see the coast, do some sailing, and improve my concversatio skills. The course includes four lectures (at the university, in Viterbo) and four Sunday sailing trips to the coast. The people enrolled in the course are pretty much my age, some university people, some younger people. Several did this course before, but learning sailing skills is not exactly the point...

Santa Marinella is a pretty resort on the coast, not far from Rome. The marina is under a restored castle. Our boat, Aramis, was an antique of sorts, made of wood: not high performance, but pretty. These wooden boats are a big deal in Italy. No helm, just a big carved tiller.



The day was lovely and pretty warm; I even went for a short swim. But unfortunately not much wind -- we had to keep motoring most of the time.



There were five of us. Here I am with my crew mates, Bruno and Mauro. Another crew member was Teresa (around 60). Our skipper, Alberto, (around 65) is a math teacher at a high school (liceo scientifico), not far from ours. I suppose they arranged the crews by age.



I picked up a few sailing terms. It turned out bowline is called la gassa or, more precisely, la gassa d'amante -- "lover's knot." The bow is prua or prora; the stern is poppa; a point of sale is, naturally, andatura (from andare -- to go, a pretty word!); to head up is orzare, to bear off -- poggiare; a tack - virata. Trimming a rope, for some reason, cazzare. Is it from the ubiquitous cazzo (dick) or vice verso? I didn't ask, afraid to say some cazzata (stupidity).

It seemed the morning was filled with anticipation... of lunch! (See below...)

Lunch on high seas

The mariners started snacking on little hors d'oeuvres at noon and by 1:30 were ready for lunch. Another boat joined at anchor -- the lunch rendezvous was planned ahead. Their crew passed over some antipastas to us. We reciprocated with home made fettucini (noodles) with tuna sauce, all brought from home. This is our skipper Alberto (right) and Mauro posing with the fettucini.



Pasta followed by meatballs, then coffee with cookies. Passing a hot coffee pot from one boat to another took some care -- I'd say the most dangerous moment at sea that day. You can't say we learned nothing: the table cloth had diagrams of knots on it.



Not long after lunch one of the crew -- Teresa -- started getting a little sea sick, and pretty soon we headed back to the marina.

I got home by 5:30, after 9 hours of listening to the Italian. (Have I mentioned that Italians like to talk?) It was like an audio equivalent of a 10,000-piece jigsaw puzzle; the pieces did fit together once in a while. I dreamed in Italian that night.

Mater Dolorosa

Sunday all-school picnic with students and their host families took M to a picnic area not far from San Martino Al Cimino. No pictures from the picnic because M was too busy organizing the food and cleaning up. In the afternoon she headed home on foot (about 12 km) with a few colleagues. It was a holiday in In San Martino and they ran into the Mater Dolorosa procession. The streets and squares were decorated with ornaments and flowers in colored sand or salt.







And flowers in the fountain.

Saturday performance

Santo, a colleague who teaches Italian Civilization and Ancient History, has written a "romanzetto medievale" "Lo Drago de Cammenòt." This is a whimsical piece, not exactly a parody, not exactly a tale, written in pseudo medieval Italian, which is in fact a mixture of distorted Italian, various dialects, some Spanish, some French, etc. Requires concentration:



A piece from the "romanzetto" was performed on Saturday night in the auxiliary room of Teatro Comunale by a small group of amature actors in costumes. It was preceded by a fairly long lecture, Italian style, by someone who looked like a university professor. Did I mention before that Italians like to explain things? I didn't get much of it and passed the time ruminating on the subject of hearing impaired. It must be hard to use a sign language here: how do you combine required signs with gestures? The performance was kind of fun, though, and well received.

Cerveteri

On Friday, M went on a school trip to Cerveteri, about two hours by bus from Viterbo. Cerveteri has one of the best preserved Etruscan necropoli (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cerveteri). It rained, so it was cosier inside the tombs than outside... After sightseeing, a cioccolato caldo con caffè -- a soupy hot drink -- was good.

Meanwhile G went to his first sailing class and learned some important stuff. For example, the stern of a boat is "poppa" in Italian.

Felliniesque Moments

Yesterday afternoon we stepped out of an office in Via Garbini, and there she was: Santa Rosa, holding a cross, on a small pickup truck, followed by 3 eighteenwheelers carrying three big chunks of her "macchina."

(Sorry about this "macchina" business again. Still better then posting more of my Italian homework. The assignment was: "Write a letter to a friend describing your host family and your own." Didn't have any host family, so I wrote a fake letter, presumably from my daughter in France to her friend in Germany, tenderly recycling a few memories and family legends. Is this the genre that my father is pursuing? Got an A-.)

Errands and The Swingle Singers

Tonight at 9 a concert: The Swingle Singers (http://www.singers.com/jazz/swingles.html) performing "Jazz Sebastian Bach" a capella, imitating musical instruments. We invited a colleague (the usual) and his wife for an early simple dinner before the concert (pasta with tuna, mushrooms, and tomatoes that Fabrizio had taught us). This led to a few morning and afternoon errands: refilling the vine supply, rearranging books and papers, washing all windows and floors, a trip to a big supermarket...



M is holding a free sample of Ferrero-Rocher -- they are rolling out new lines: peanuts, coconut, pistachios. And we are the first to know! (I, predictably, prefer the classic haselnut.)

Rossa, Fiorile, and Napoletana (with anchovi)

And a glass of Est! Est!! Est!!! -- this is our dinner on Friday.
M insisted on having this documented for posterity.

Still around

The "macchina" is still around, now parked at the piazza near the sanctuary of Santa Rosa, about 5 mins from our house. A nice landmark. A cloudy Friday afternoon and some rain overnight and Saturday morning, actually quite welcome: it washed away a lot of dust and pigeon shit accumulated over several weeks.



I am not sure what happens to the "macchina" when its parking meter expires (probably this coming weekend).

"Il mio arivo in Italia -- le prime impressione"

Signed up for the "advanced" Italian class with the students. Unfortunately, it is the first class in the morning, at 8:10. Disgusting!

The first homework: write a brief description of your arrival to italy and your first impressions. Here it goes, after the spellchecker and then the teacher went over it:

Il mio arrivo in Italia — I le primi impressioni
prime impressione

Siamo arrivate arrivati a Fiumicino alle due a e mezzo. Era una bella giornata, ma faceva caldo, e si sembrava che la città aveva il sonno. Anche noi avevamo sonno, dopo un viaggio abbastanza lungo da Boston via passando per Zurigo, abbastanza lungo. Anche Perfino il nostro autista di taxitassista aveva sonno. Era il 10 di agosto, il tempo delle vacanze. Due colleghe della scuola ci incontrano accolgono alla porta; portiamo i nostri bagagli sul al terzo piano; apriamo le finestre; e... Che bellezza! I tetti di Viterbo lì sotto, le colline verde verdi più lontanolontane. (Avremo capito dopo che non tutto è tanto bello in Viterbo: per esempio, l’edificio della Posta Centrale con la sua torre dell’ orologio, che possiamo vedere nelle finestre e sentire a ogni ora, è anzi abbastanza brutto. Ma questo — dopo.)

Un arrivo in Italia mi dà sempre dà una grande felicità. Mi ricordo la prima volta, trent’anni fa: questo profumo di caffè, questo senso della di libertà... Adesso, come sempre, mi senso sento che sono ritornato nella a casa mia dopo una assenza molto lunga... Non lo so perché.

A long way to go...

La cena "medioevale"

On Saturday evening, a "medieval" supper with the school colleagues and the most enthusiastic of the host families. A colleague picked us up near our house and we drove to Orte, about 30 km from Viterbo. The supper was in a "cantina" which opened as a restaurant for only two weekends in a year. The place, we were told, was probably not a cantina but was used to hold sheep and other animals. Very apropriate. We were warned that it will be very hot, and the food won't be all that great, but we should go "for the atmosphere..." The atmosphere was mostly CO2, with about 200 people in a cellar-like room with a couple of windows open somewhere. It was also extremely loud, but after an opening by group of "medieval" musicians, we didn't pay any more attention to the noise, and stayed in (and with) good spirits. The main dish was wild boar, of course.





"Tired but content..."