Swee' Nectar of the Kuntre'

God Bless my Dad. It’s turning out that he has become a pretty good source of material for my blog posts.

This latest post has to do with something my Dad has been known to say going back to the days of my childhood. Whenever we drove through an area of farming where the farm smells permeating our little kids’ noses, my Dad would revert into this old country farmboy and holler out, “AH, the swee’ nectar of the kuntre’!”

See, my Dad is only about one generation removed from “The Dukes of Hazard”. And even though he has spent the last ~43 years in the same house in the Suburbs of America, back in the day he still had his Ford pickup truck, Oak Ridge Boys 8-track, and all.

What’s interesting is that when that farm smell was especially ripe – you know, really RIPE! - he would have this wide toothy smile across his face like you couldn’t find a happier man on this Earth. To this day, I still don’t know whether that was just nostalgia for him, or even pride???

Well these days, the smells from the local Vicentine farming is as ripe as ripe can be! It’s curious too, because the intensity of the smells is like nothing I remember in the States. At home, you may drive through Southern Maryland or up into Pennsylvania, and you’ll smell farming as you drive along the roads. You may even get hit with the blast of manure smell if you walked into a horse barn, or the pig sties at the County Fair, or the cow stalls at the zoo, or something like that, but none of that compares with the intensity of smells they have here on the outskirts of Vicenza.

Now, admittedly, I have been spending more time up close and personal with these farms because lately I’ve been biking to and from work. My biking route takes me di-rectly through the heart of some of these farm fields, usually pretty early in the morning or later in the evening when the coolness and moisture of the air brings out the smells the most. When I’m biking, it’s not like I can hold my breath or roll up the car windows. So there’s that, but still. The pungency is so intense when you come up on it that you instinctively tend to cry, “OH!”, but then quickly shut your mouth and eyes, and turn your head away quickly to avoid such direct frontal assault. You wouldn’t even want to holler “swee’ nectar of the kuntre’” like my Dad because you wouldn’t want to breathe in that much of the kuntre’. It’s as if you opened the door to a real hot open and got blasted with the heat, but instead of heat, you get turbo-blasted with the hot poignancy of fertilizer and manure.

This, by the way, is all coming from a guy who actually enjoys getting waste-deep in a good, rich, steaming pile of compost, working it with a pitchfork and breathing in all that wonderful, musky perfume.

The stuff here is different though. What IS that smell anyway? The stench is so intense that instead of just dismissing it, you start to wonder what on God’s Earth could produce such a pungent odor. That can’t be just manure, can it? Chemicals? Chicken waste? Ground-up seafood waste? Maybe a potpourri of wastes? Because now that this has become a matter of routine, I have started to notice that there are actually different kinds of stench. It’s ALL really, really awful mind you, but there seem to be different flavors of awful.

I want to believe that the more awful the smell of fertilizer, the more nutrients and flavor end up in the local vegetables and wine grapes. I am going to choose to believe that. Because while I don’t know if I can say that it is the absolute worst-smelling smell I’ve ever smelled, I’d have to put it in the conversation. And the fact that I just wrote an entire blogpost about it should be some indication of its role in our current Italian experience. But at the same time, if that is how you go about producing such flavorful food and wine……well, ok then, bring on that swee’ nectar!

All Things Italian

We keep talking about how we need to start writing down all the little things that one notices on a daily basis when one is an American living in Italy. I think it's time to start writing it down. I'm sure there will be many addendums to this entry as these things continue to add up. There are, of course, many things that are good, some are bad, and some just make you go, "hmmm?"
 Here it goes....

1.  As Chris started to explain in his sheep entry, there are many farm fields everywhere around here. You need only go a few hundred meters  outside the city to find them. It's actually a striking thing when you first come here. I guess they don't have vast interior states in their country like Nebraska and Iowa where all farming is done. They do it everywhere. There is no "urban sprawl". It's actually really nice. Now that it's spring, every morning on the way to school, the kids watch the farmers plowing their fields. The down-side is, as Chris said, when they spread the fertilizer it's like being hit over the head with a board. The ripe odor hits your nose and you turn green and a bit dizzy. Luckily, it seems most of that has passed for now. Anyway, I'm convinced this agricultural zoning is at least partly why the food is so good. Talk about buying local!

2. Bicycles everywhere. The best is the old people on bikes. I tell you there are more seniors on bicycles than I thought possible and I'm willing to bet most of them have their original knees and hips too. When I run on Sunday morning, there are always a few women pulling their bikes into the church bike rack. These older women are always in skirts or dresses of course. Also, I'm not talking bicycling on a nice park path. I'm talking bicycling along roads that are 1 1/2 lanes wide with little Italian cars whizzing by, or heavy rush hour traffic around the city. I was trying to navigate this rush hour traffic at twilight the other day when a woman around the age of 70 in a black dress came right through two lanes of bumper-to-bumper traffic and I had to hit the brakes. WHew. Also, there are plenty of serious cyclists too. Lately, there are many alone or in singles, but on the weekend it's not unusual to pass a large peloton coursing down the road.

3.  Recycling is a practice taken seriously. There are five different pick-ups for our house: carta - all paper and cardboard, plastica - all plastic and cans, vetro - glass, umido - all organic food waste, and secco - basically everything else. They come to get the umido twice a week and the other recyclables about every 3-4 weeks. Though they come for the secco every couple weeks, if you put it out more than about 5 times a YEAR, you will get charged. Yes, people take recycling seriously and I think it's smart. Chris got scolded yesterday at the gelateria because he threw away his half-eaten cone. You may think that the crazy part of the story is that Chris did not finish his whole gelato/cone and normally I would agree, but here, the point is that he threw it in the general secco trash instead of giving it to the lady to place in the umido trash.

4.  Security. All Italian houses have either thick wooden shutters covering their windows or metal shades/shutters that roll down. When you leave your house, you not only lock your doors, you batten down the hatches. Apparently, violent crime around here is at a much lower rate than the states, but theft is much higher. Everyone has gates, fences, or at least a short wall around their house with a locked gate, and then you have the shutters over every window, and many people also have bars over at least the windows on the lower or ground floors.

5.  Women and fashion. Yes, it's true that Italian women (and men) are serious about how they look. Want to spot an American with ease? Look for the woman in boot cut jeans. Italian women wear the tightest jeans and pants possible and usually with heels. I think there are few other places where you see a woman on a scooter with blue, suede 4 inch heeled boots. She was probably on her way to work. It's also very interesting to me how much of a significant export Italian women are. I suppose you can see it on a world view with the likes of Nicholas Sarkozy and George Clooney, but I can tell you the American service men who come through this town have found many an Italian woman to take home with them.When I mentioned this interesting phenomenon to my husband he remarked, "well, they are smokin' hot." That shouldn't bother me, right? I mean, he seemed to state it like it's a well-known fact that would be hard to dispute. Ok, I get it.

The Italian women enjoying the sun while their children and husbands hit the ski and sledding slopes.

Well, I think there are many other things to be added to this theme of "all things Italian." It will be a work in progress. This is a start. Ciao!

Shephards guiding their flock....

One of the things I like about living in Italy is their urban planning, at least certain aspects of it. For instance, most of the residential areas are concentrated in actual towns, where most towns have a central piazza, church, and/or villa which defines the town. The towns often have pedestrian-only zones, with all their little pasticcerias, trattorias, café bars, and gelaterias. In between the towns, instead of sprawling residential neighborhoods and strip malls, there are mostly just farm fields and vineyards. It’s pleasant.

The downside of this arrangement, perhaps, is that there is lots of farming done just on the outskirts of town. As you drive from town to town, you generally drive on roads that are in fact two-way traffic, but that most Americans would consider being only 1.5 lanes wide. There are no shoulders and immediately adjacent to the road on both sides are usually drainage and irrigation ditches. But whether you are on the outskirts of town or driving between them, you will get all of the sights, sounds, and smells of farms. And during this time of year especially, that means lots of tractors driving down these narrow roads and lots of very strong smelling fertilizers.

As I told Suzanne when we got here, we needed to pay attention to where we were looking to live, because even though things seemed quiet and normal in the dead of winter, come Spring and Summer when you want to open up your windows and start spending more time outside in your yard or whatever, the smells can be downright RIPE!

Here’s a new one on me though. I was driving along one fine day, making my way over to where I intended to by vino sfuso (tap wine directly out of the casket). I was zipping along the roundabouts near the autostrada and exited down onto one of the local roads. As soon as I came off the ramp I had to brake rather quickly because right there in front of me was a flock of sheep being herded across the road. ….what I mean by that is that a FLOCK OF SHEEP was being herded by SHEPHARDS across the road! I’m talking about HUNDREDS of sheep, along with a whole mess of donkeys mixed in, replete with all the herding Border Collies running around, and SHEPHARDS with their shepherd staffs yelling and whistling to try and hurry their flock of sheep along. This flock of animals tracked a swath of mud and leaves across the road, kicking up clouds of dust, baa’ing their baa’s, like 100 meters from the exit to the autostrada. I sat there and waited in my car, laughing my ass off out-loud to myself, looking around to see if anyone else behind me found this to be as unusual and interesting as I. If they were as impressed as I was, they didn’t show it. I guess this is just what we do here. So what do you do – snap a cell phone picture or two, wait for the last sheep and shepherd to cross the road, shrug your shoulders, and continue driving on. After all, there is wine to buy!

ct

Alpen Adventures

One definite advantage of this government work are these government holidays. As you may have read, we celebrated MLK holiday with a trip to Cinque Terre and this past Presidents’ Day weekend we spent with a trip to Austria. In previous years, we have had fantastic weekends with the Garrett family out at Deep Creek Lake, Maryland, and we certainly missed them this year. Since last year was the first time we put the kids on skis, we decided to try it again. Being where we are, it was time to have the kids ski the alps.

It was a full week leading up to the weekend and it was topped off with finally getting our car back from the shop (see Chris’ entry "just a little craziness") with a hefty bill and other complications that left Chris in a not-so-happy state and brought him home late on a night requiring a long drive. Luckily, the trip was smooth and we arrived in Innsbruck, Autria in about 3 1/2 hours. The next day, we headed out for a small, local ski mountain that is geared to beginners and families. The crowds were crazy as apparently this is also winter break for most school kids in Austria and Germany. The ski schools were full, so Chris and I decided to be ski instructors for the kids for the day.

Looking back at Innsbruck from the gondola at Mutteralm.

It was really a great day. The weather was perfect with warm sun and no wind. We found the bunny slope and the poma lift that takes you up and that is where we stayed all day. The kids did great and by the end Isabel could ride the poma lift up by herself. They didn't do a whole lot of skiing by themselves. We stuck together and skied down with them and tried teaching them the basics.

The day was so nice, we were able to eat lunch outside on the deck with the beautiful alps all around.



Weissbier and wurst for lunch.



By the end of the day, the kids fell asleep before the car got out of the parking lot. That night we had dinner in Innsbruck, and after that, we were definitely ready to leave German food behind. Chris has less tolerance than I do with the German food, and when his grilled sausage dinner arrived and was basically two hotdogs on a bed of french fries, I thought we were going to have to leave for Italy the next morning. He stuck it out and I shared my entre which was much better.

The next day, we decided to stick around town. We took a modern funicular from the city of Innsbruck up the mountain to the Alpen Zoo. It was a great outing for the kids. The zoo is small and simple, but had many interesting alpen animals, plus an area with farm animals the kids could feed. After the zoo, we took the funicular up one more spot and had lunch at the base of a small ski mountain and took in some great views of Innsbruck and the Inn River. When we were leaving the mountain, it started snowing and it really added to the alpen-scene.



Josh feeding the goats and sheep at the AlpenZoo.

Another alpen creature at the zoo.



Looking down on Innsbruck and the Inn River.





On planning the trip, I really wanted to try skiing the Stubai Glacier which I heard was a great spot. It's about an hour south of Innsbruck, but the traffic over the weekend would have made it much more. Since we were still there Monday, we decided to give it a try. It was a worthwhile adventure. We drove the 45 minutes down the Stubai Valley which was full of deep snow blanketing tall pine trees and small alpen villages (yes, alpen was my word for the weekend).

Riding the gondola up the Stubai Glacier.

At the end of the valley, there are parking lots and the two main gondolas that take you to the actual base of the Stubai Glacier. We joined the masses and up in the gondola we went. We found out the ski schools were already full, but the "Kindergarten" was open to all. It was the easiest child drop off I have ever encountered. You show up at the kindergarten window, say you have children to drop off, they give you a slip of paper where you write your name and the name of the kids and a contact number (not really sure if my cell phone was even going to work up there), and then you kiss them goodbye.

Chris and I had the chance to ski a fantastic place for the rest of the day. The weather started out cloudy and snowy, but cleared by mid-day. The whole mountain is above tree line, so it is full of wide open slopes that had the best snow one could want for skiing. The only thing that would have made it better is if I had my snowboard (we decided on renting skis for the weekend as that makes it easier for teaching the kids). There were groomed runs with soft snow and there were runs with untouched powder. There were powder runs with some tracks and a firm base and ones where you just sink into the snow. Many of the groomed runs were left so that one side had powder and you could ski in and out of it as you like.

By the end of the day, our legs were done. I think we only skied for 4-5 hours but I couldn't have done anymore. It was a great day and a great way to finish our Austrian Alpen Weekend.

I ain’t no Eric Heiden, but…

My week long trip to Kaiserslautern, Germany has not been without its challenges, not the least of which is that my rental car’s window washer fluid mechanism doesn’t work. That is actually a pretty big challenge when you are driving over the Alps in the snow, or at night on foreign roads in the snow, or pretty much anywhere in this kind of weather.

But...but….one entire wall of my hotel room is a big window and glass door that looks out over a beautiful lake adjacent to the hotel. And when I arrived here, I could see people go out on that lake to walk around on the frozen ice, or ice skate, or attempt to ride their bikes. Also, there so happens to be a full moon this week, which is big and bright and beautiful, at least when it’s not snowing. So I ask you: was I going to stay in this hotel all week long watching these other people enjoy this beautiful frozen lake and not be out there myself?

Oh please, that dog just ain’t gonna hunt!

Of course I was going to go ice skating!...even if it meant driving all over God’s creation trying to find a pair of ice skates, even if it meant buying a new pair of ice skates when I have a perfectly good pair back home (or at least in some storage container somewhere), even if it meant embarrassing myself because it’s been so long since I’ve gone ice skating, and even if it meant going ice skating when it’s like 1F outside with a blowing, driving snow. I have been out ice skating every night since, taking big long loops around the perimeter of this lake, skating a little harder and faster with gaining confidence. And if anyone is wondering, yes, my legs and back have been so sore the following mornings I could barely walk. But it’s all good.

I mean, come on, anyone who knows me saw that coming a mile away, right? It’s like when we took our dog, Enzo, to the park and he would see a puddle of water off in the distance – you can predict the next half dozen series of events as sure the sun will come up tomorrow.

The funny thing about my time ice skating though is that I cannot seem to go ice skating without being constantly reminded of the days going ice skating as kids - specifically, going ice skating as a family, and more specifically witnessing the EPIC falls my Dad used to take on the ice. I might have to admit that part of the excitement of ice skating as a kid was the knowledge and expectation that as surely as the sun will come up tomorrow, my Dad was going to take a fall that would put the old “Agony of Defeat” video to shame. Rarely in any other time of my life have I seen bruising on the scale of size and color as the bruises my Dad would get from ice skating. And so if life has a tendency to repeat itself, I feel like I have gotten away with something if I can make it off the ice without repeating the carnage and subsequent cursing that my Dad used to wage on the frozen rivers and creeks of my youth.

ct

My Serbian Brother

Kaiserslautern, Germany. It's been a pretty long weekend. But I'm here and I even had a chance to Skype Suzanne and the kids earlier. It's weird, just one or two days away and I am already missing them all a ton, especially when I see them on the video. Suzanne looked great and I swear the kids have aged 6 months since I left a day ago.

My hotel room has a ginormous picture window making up most of the wall, where I can look out over the adjacent lake. The lake is frozen solid and there are a few people out there skating around. It's cool because you can see whole regions of the lake that are crystalline ice except for the scratches of one lone ice skater who apparently enjoyed skating on pristine ice. I brought my running shoes with me, and had designs on doing some biking before I had to leave my bike behind when my car broke down, but now I'm thinking that my morning exercise could be some skating around the lake. I did not bring my skates with me, but I'm wondering if I could rent a pair for the week and maybe try to get out a few times for some exercise. It's REALLY cold right now though. I'm not sure I packed for ice skating in this kind of cold.

I had dinner tonight at a Balkan restaraunt in Ktown (Kaiserslautern). Yup, an American eating at a Balkan restaraunt in Germany, with an Italian couple eating in the booth next to me. The gentlemen who served me did not know a word of English, except for when he referred to me as "chef". I ordered an entire meal, including a soup, an entree, and a wine, based on his suggestions. He pointed to a couple of things on the menu and I said Ja, Sehr Gut. It was all really good. I am pretty sure he comp'ed me the first glass of wine because I smiled a lot and was as friendly as I good be with him. I'm pretty sure I ordered a kleine (small) dessert, but it was pretty substantial nonetheless, and then the dude brought me some kind of shooter that must have taken a layer of enamel off my teeth. If I'm not mistaken, there were actual fumes emanating from this shooter, and I quickly moved it away from the candle on the table. You may notice that I preceed everything with "I'm pretty sure", which is to say that I am really not completely sure of anything, and I'm just taking my best guess as to where I am going, what I am doing, and what is happening around me.

After dinner, I go to the bar to pay and start chatting with a younger fellow who had recently arrived and who the other employees seemed to defer to. "I'm pretty sure" that he was the son of the guy who was serving me dinner, and I'm pretty sure he owned the place. His dad, my waiter, had already told me he was from Serbia, which is kind of weird in and of itself considering my experiences going into Bosnia in the 90s, keeping ever vigilant for Serbian minefields and IEDs, seeing the devastation of the Bosnian-Serbian war and all. But tonight, my biggest concern was the loss of tooth enamel from the shooter I just slurped down. The son, the apparent owner, had just gotten back from a soccer match between Kaiserslautern and Cologne. Kaiserslauthern lost in an upset. What I couldn't figure out was whether this dude was "just" an extremely avid fan, or whether he actually played for the team. He was pale-pastey-grey like he was either frozen cold (it's brutally cold up here these days) or if he was stone-drunk. I didn't mean to get into a whole friendly chat with the guy, and his dad, and the other guys, but it just turned out that way. Before you knows it, he is insisting that we all drink shots of some clear'ish looking liquor that I swear should have had a skull and crossbones on its label. It couldn't have been that costly either, because he was spilling this crap all over the joint as he poured us all another round of shots. In his words, it would make us all warm, and it was a drink that men should drink, not like that sweet pretty stuff that women drink! ....Sweet James, I had no business drinking that stuff. But what is worse, offending an entire family of Serbians who have just fed you dinner and comp'ed you wine, or brave the wrath of one little shot of clear liquor? (well,maybe it wasn't so little...) So in the spirit of US Diplomacy, I drank it. And then I paid my tab and got out of there before anything else could be shoved my way. You know when you've had something so strong that you feel an urge to rub your tongue across your teeth? Yeah..... I'm pretty sure if I had stayed any longer, we all would have been locked arm and arm, dancing in a circle, signing some Serbian folk song, lamenting the loss of our favorite soccer team, spilling grain alcohol (or whatever we were drinking) everywhere, while the temperature outside continued to plummet to artic levels.

Enjoy the Super Bowl everybody! Tschuss!

ct

Just a little Craziness

I write now from Fussen, Germany. The snow has stopped for now. It is -1 degrees F outside. I have stopped here enroute to Kaiserslautern, Germany for a week-long training class. It's a 500+ mile drive from Vicenza to Kaiserslautern and I would have gotten much further were it not for the fact that the "Millenium Falcon" (our newly purchased 1997 BMW "autostrada car") took a big dump on me. What I mean by that is that when I stopped to cap-off with fuel in Bolzano, before crossing into Austria and Germany, I noticed at that gas station that there was smoke coming from under the car. Upon further inspection, one could see all of the oil dripping freely from the entire undercarriage of the car. Not good. It's been an interesting last few hours.

The Italian gas station attendant called the tow truck. The tow druck arrived 45 minutes later and hauled me and the MF away. Of course, we had to drive 10km further North on the Autostrada in order to exit, do a U-turn, and drive 30 km back South to an mechanic's shop in Bolzano. But, of course, it's Saturday, and no Italian mechanics work on Saturday afternoon, much less Sunday. So Plan B was to hitch a ride with the tow truck driver, Domenica, to a rental car agency that so thankfully was open. Domenica, the tow truck driver, should be a stockcar racer. That guy has been playing way too many video games and clearly is not separating fiction from reality. That was the most nerve-racking car ride I can ever recall being on, including the relatively placid test drive we took when we were buying the Millenium Falcon. I don't know how many G's Domenica was pulling going around those rotunda, and I don't know how often he checks or replaces his brakes, but I do know that I heard some Italian words that are NOT taught in most classrooms and I do know that I wish I had taken some Dramamine before that car ride.

In all the haste and confusion, I left the GPS, road maps, and all of my CDs in the BMW. I was now driving an Italian rental car, across the Austrian/German Alps, in the dark, with snow falling, with what I assume were sheer cliffs on all sides even though I couldn't really see too well and kind of just pretended the dropoffs weren't there, with no maps or GPS, driving along the switchbacks and very steep up/down slopes, passing more than one car accidents that had happened within the hour, can't even remember the last time I have driven a manual transmission car, with nonfunctional window washers, not really even knowing where I was or where I was going....I was driving on Faith I tell you. "Use the Force, Luke!" Turn off the infared visor, close the eyes, and use the force I did.

Fussen appears to be a wonderful town - classic oldtown Bavarian type deal. It kind of reminds me of Kitzbuhl, or even Villach (where we went on our way to Salzburg this Christmas). I think it would be even nicer if there were more people around, walking the streets and such. But being that it is colder than a witch's {milkshake} right now, there aren't many people out and about. I may try to see a little during the daylight tomorrow, because it is supposed to warm up to a high of 15 F here tomorrow.

It may be a bit sacrilege, but I ate at an Asian restaraunt tonight. And oh my Good Golly was it good. After a challenging day, and I've really only written about half of it, I am very thankful to have found a good hotel room and to have had such a good dinner. Hot, hot, hot lemon grass and shrimp soup, and a crispy duck deal served with rice and fantastic vegetables, with this coconut cream sauce deal. Bam! Couple of glasses of good red wine, a little baked bananas with honey and ice cream for dessert - I'm feeling better, fo so'!