Viva San Fermin!

Pamplona, Spain
The Festival of San Fermin, 2012

This is it. This is the Festival of San Fermin, or what most people refer to as "the running of the bulls." The more official term for the actual run is the encierro, and the truth is the encierro is only a piece of the largest festival and biggest party in Europe. Each year, for hundreds of years, this festival has celebrated the death of the medieval Saint Fermin. It always starts at noon on the afternoon of July 6. As Chris has said for years, the person who described it best was Hemingway, "At noon the festival exploded. There is no other word for it."

We got here to Pamplona on the afternoon of July 5. We made it to our hotel in Huarte, a town just on the outskirts of Pamplona. This comfortable hotel is about a 20 minute bus ride outside of town. We are definitely not in the city, but it works and it was one of the only places I could find for under 200 Euro a night, even booking 5 months ago and paying in advance.

On July 6, we got up early, got in our festival uniform, and started out to the bus stop. It was around 10 am, but the bus stop was already filled with all the other people dressed in white with red sashes. The overall vibe was already good and fun.

We reached the town and we were already entering a sea of people all wearing the same uniform. White and red everywhere!

We started our walk to the main square. The closer you got, the more crowded the streets became. The biggest square still had lots of room to move, but soon we started down a narrow street in the old section of town and I suddenly realized what we were entering. We were passing more people holding large plastic bottles of sangria. Young twenty-somethings were passing us going the other direction and their white shirts were now more of a pink-sangria color. A rowdy group of guys was gathered on the side of one narrow street spraying passers-by and we had to make a run for it to avoid the spray.  We rounded another corner and there was the square where the heartiest of the heartiest partiers were ready to get things started. They were packed into this small, medieval town square, and it would have been difficult to get in if we wanted to. We were just fine hanging out down the street observing. People were chanting, jumping, tossing large beach balls. People filled the balconies above. There was the constant spray of sangria from bota bags and larger splashes from bottles. It was an impressive experience that assaults all the senses.....the smell of sangria, the sights, and the noise of it all.

the drink of the day

random passers-by

That said, it was all in the name of celebration. Spirits were high, fun was in the air, and it was still about an hour and a half until the noon start. In the spirit of it all, Chris and I ducked into a little store and grabbed a couple liter bottles of Don Simon sangria (Don't worry, I sipped it slow and we nursed them for the rest of the day).

We left the crazy square after filling our senses, and walked around until it got closer to the start time. Just before noon, we got back to the main large square (not the one where sangria was spraying everywhere). They have a large flat screen showing the wild goings-on of the other square. At noon, a rocket goes off, and everyone goes crazy. Everyone held up their red bandanas and chanted, "Viva San Fermin!" There's a certain spirit in the air that only that many people can create in the name of pure festival celebration.

You may have noticed there was a distinct difference between the goings-on in each of these two squares. One of the amazing parts of this gigantic festival is its ability to create a place where everyone can have fun no matter your age. The square where we watched the start of the festival at noon was surrounded by families, older people, groups of picnickers with their delicious spreads of shrimp, meats, bread, wine, etc.,  children in strollers, young children, and people with their dogs (wearing a red bandana, of course).

After some chanting, we walked around to take in some more festival sights. We walked to the bull ring and took some pictures on the statue of Hemingway. We also met a nice American couple there with whom we ended up having lunch. We were lucky to find a place with a small quiet courtyard where we could get a little respite from the revelry.

After lunch, it was back to the hotel for a siesta. Later, we were back to town again and things were in full swing. Now, it seemed there were things going on everywhere. We couldn't walk a few feet without seeing an interesting street performer, a band, someone selling things, some drummers, and of course, lots of great people-watching. We had a great rest of the evening walking around and eventually ended up on the outskirts of the old city, high up on the medieval walls surrounding the city overlooking the river valley below and the Pyrennes mountains in the distance. It was a gorgeous sunset. Then the kids caught sight of the rides part of the festival below, and the rest of our night was suddenly planned out.

sunset from the old walls of the city

On the way down to the rides, we noticed people were stopped just before the bridge crossing the river and there were gates up and a couple police guards. Upon asking, we learned, the bulls for the next day's encierro were about to be herded across the river and up the road to the pens from where they are released the next day.......so cool!! We waited with everyone and when the bulls are about to come, everyone whispers a loud "shhhhhhhh". You are supposed to be quiet as they come by so you can hear the bells around their necks. Isabel got a good viewing seat on a nice, friendly American man's shoulders and Josh on daddy's. It went very fast, but at least we got to see the bulls!

the bulls being herded up to their pens for the next day's encierro

Then, it was onto the rides and that finished off the night. The kids did great walking back to the bus stop even though it was 11:30p! Josh was basically a walking zombie and fell asleep instantly when we picked him up to get on the bus. It was quite a day! It was an awesome day, and we were looking forward to another.

Spain

We are sitting here relaxing in our modest hotel room overlooking an old narrow street in San Sebastian, Spain. The kids did the classic move of falling asleep in their chairs at dinner tonight so we carried them home and put them to bed. Part of their exhaustion is explained by the constant sightseeing we have been doing since arriving in Spain 5 days ago, part by the great day at the beach where they jumped over waves and soaked up the sun, and part due to the 4 am wake-up call we gave them this morning.

We started the trip with a great stay in Seville. We booked an apartment in a nice, old neighborhood called Triana. The apartment was on a pleasant pedestrian street filled with tapas bars and shops, and two blocks down it ends at the foot of a bridge (Puente de Isabel) that leads directly to the old part of the city.

I loved Seville. It was a very easy to navigate city with beautiful architecture, friendly people, wonderful food and drink, and a relaxing laid-back vibe. Everywhere you look, colorful tiles accent buildings, walkways, and store signs. Balconies overflow with flowers, and on the horizon is the third largest cathedral in Europe (next to St Peter's and St Paul's) looming over the old city on the banks of a wide lazy river.

Our stay in Seville was filled with wandering the streets, visiting the cathedral, drinking sangria and eating tapas, walking the old narrow barrio streets, more sangria, seeing the Plaza de Espana, more sangria and a mojito, riding a bicycle-car through Parque Maria Luisa, gelato, and seeing the Alcazar. The last sight is an old palace used by royalty. It is one of the best examples of the Mudejar style, a blend of Islamic and Christian architecture. It is a beautiful sight and the gardens were of more interest to the kids as there were many fountains spilling into pools filled with Koy fish and there was a labyrinth created from shrubs.

The kids' favorite part was riding the bicycle-car through the park. We first stopped at the large fountain in front of the Plaza de Espana and got sufficiently wet through much splashing. Also, along our path through the park Chris saw an ice cream stand keeper watering down the street in front of his stand and Chris yelled, "Signor, agua, aqui!" while pointing at the kids sitting in front. The shopkeeper abliged and gave us a good spray. The kids loved it.

As we were expecting incredible heat, we were pleasantly surprised to have relatively mild weather. The highs were in the 90s, but it was very dry and there was always a little breeze. Apparently, the heat was nothing compared to what the East Coast of the US has been suffering through.

We took one other sightseeing adventure to the Ahlambra in Granada. It is an amazing structure. It's a very large palace and gardens situated on top of a hill with larger mountains of the Sierra Nevada giving it a back-drop. The palace is the Mudejar style just like the Alcazar, only bigger and it looks down onto a town of white-washed houses and more mountains in the distance. The gardens are beautiful with trickling fountains everywhere and beds of roses and other delicate flowers. The only drawback to this trip was the work in getting there. It was a three hour bus ride to Granada. Without kids, we could have powered through the palace and enjoyed the town of Granada, too, but with little kids, we just about made it through the palace, down to the town to grab something to eat, and back to the bus station. For those with kids, I would say skip it and just see the Alcazar.

By our last couple nights in Seville, we were actually adjusting to the time. We were actually out on our street eating dinner with the kids between 9:30 and 10:30pm. It seems crazy, but you really do start adjusting. This is the time of the day when everyone is out strolling, eating, playing with their kids. The only night this changed a little was the night of the Euro Cup 2012. This is basically the superbowl of Europe and Spain was playing Italy (go figure). Spanish flags were flying everywhere and red and yellow was painted on many faces, including babies. People were gathered in bars and neighborhood bodegas where flat screen tvs were placed outside for all to see. When Spain scored a goal, the streets erupted in cheers and chants. In the end, it was a good night for Spain and a sad one for Italy. Sorry, Italia!

Very early this morning we bid adios to Seville and boarded a plane for Bilbao. We took a bus to San Sebastian, a beautiful city on the coast with a nice sandy beach and clear water. The kids had a blast playing in the waves and they are now passed out cold. We are listening to the on-going chatter of people down on the street. It is still very lively now at almost 10:30p, but it is probably nothing compared to what we will see in two days in Pamplona...Ole!

Life Goes On

Wow, I haven't made a post since the middle of March! That's terrible. I will say we were a bit disconnected for a while. The end of March brought a big move for us as we moved out of our temporary house and into the house where we will stay for the duration of our time here. That also entailed scheduling pick-up of our lovely government furniture, packing all stuff and taking many trips to the new house, and scheduling/accepting delivery of our household goods which we had not seen since mid-November. The best was getting our old bed back! The government supplied mattresses are worse than the worst pull-out bed.

All in all, the moves went smoothly and we have a great house with lots of space and we sit high on a hill with nice views. There are no DSL internet lines up here, so we were without internet for a while as we waited for our internet satellite dish to come in and be installed. Now we are once more connected to the world (though we still can't get American tv shows through the internet...bummer.)

The house is great and after a month here, we still need to do a lot of rearranging, furnishing, and unpacking, but that will all happen in time. We are now preparing what we can in expectation of the parental arrivals. First it will be the in-laws, then my parents. We are excited to show them where we live and what we experience everyday.

Let's see......what has happened since mid-March (besides moving)....

 1. We had our last ski day of the year. There wasn't much snow but it was perfect for our little beginners, and it was a nice day to sit outside. We went to Folgaria which is a short 1 1/2 hour drive from Vicenza.

2.  We took a final ride around Dueville and this time on bike, like the locals do. Well, the kids were on their bikes anyway. I have yet to purchase one. Still looking for just the right one. It was a fun ride to town complete with watching the old men (and a few young too) competing in their Sunday afternoon bocce ball games and a stop at the popular local gelateria. Perfeto!

Riding the path into town.

Bocce ball courts are on the left.

Mmmmm, blue gelato. Who whouda thought?

3.  Other interesting parts of our old town.....the neighbor who let us watch him make homemade polenta on a Saturday morning. He was preparing it for the big family lunch the next day.

Pouring out the cooked mixture onto cloths on the dining room table so it can cool and then be cut.

4. Good-bye Dueville and hello Arcugnano. We moved from the flat agricultural land to high on a hill in the Colli Berici. Now, instead of being engulfed in fog each morning, we can look down from above the fog.

Sunrise view from the back of our house.

 

 

 

Clear day view from near-by church. Not much snow left on the mountains now.

5.  Easter arrived. The Army Post does a great party for the kids with face painting, an egg hunt, and of course, the Easter bunny himself showed up.

In front of our front door.

6.  Chris has mastered the art of bottling wine. He now buys wine from the tap (vini sfusi). It's a great deal and one can try some great wines at a low price. We have 5 liter and 15 liter jugs which are filled at the wine store and brought home for bottling. Through many discussions at many stores around town, Chris managed to purchase all the necessary equipment and he is perfecting the process. We are slowly building the wine supply in our cantina; a small, cool, dark basement area below our garage just big enough for wine storage. We recently found hooks in the cantina that are there for hanging dried salamis. Guess what our next food purchase will be? Salami sandwich anyone?

The bottling operation in the garage.

7.  The weekend after Easter brought us a great trip. We headed South to Siena. This is a great medieval town about an hour South of Florence. The town was great for walking around, with many narrow cobbled streets full of mostly pedestrians and the main piazza is large and perfect for sitting and eating a gelato and watching the people around you and taking in the sights in front of you. There is a reason Crayola named that reddish-brown crayon Burnt Siena. Everything one can see... from the buildings to the color of the soil is that color.

Il Campo

Church of San Domenico in the background.

The Duomo in Siena is awesome. From the facade, to the small chapels, to the library full of brilliant frescoes, to the sculptures done by Bernini and Michelangelo (actually he left mid-way through one of his works within the church because Florence commissioned him to sculpt the perfect man. Siena was stood-up for David.) It's definitely worth a visit.

Inside the duomo.

We also got a bit further South to Montepulciano. This was another medieval town, though much smaller and propped on top of a steep hill like a scoop of ice cream sits on a cone. This town in much revered in the world due to its fantastic Vino Nobile of which we had a few glasses and purchased a few bottles. This is one of those wines that is made by the gods. Good, good stuff.

Another way to get your wine from the tap. That Vino Nobile sure is good!

Montepulciano: Rainy day in a medieval town.

8.  The next event was Josh's fourth birthday. It was a typical American birthday party complete with a Spiderman sheet cake and a pinata. It was good fun for all, especially Josh!

9.  The next highlight of our spring was Chris' big yard project. When Chris puts his mind to something, it usually gets it done. This time it was having a vineyard in our backyard. Yes, there was much research done into what to plant, where to buy them, what equipment would be needed, what other garden accessories would be needed. Happily, the vineyard is underway with small bits of growth showing on most of the vines. They say 3 years until any significant grape production happens. We have some time to get our wine-making equipment!

Josh was a good helper. The small green stump sticking out of the ground is the beginnings of a grape vine.

The vines are in and the poles are planted. Now we water and wait.

10.  Yea, we are caught up to just this past weekend! Last Sunday we joined a family march. There are many organized walks all over this area. Someone told me it's called a volksmarch. There was one last Sunday for families in a town about a half an hour drive from our home called Piazzola sul Brenta. We parked in front of a large villa that dominates the city center. The town was having its third annual festival of sport and the walk was part of the festival. We followed many other families and people with dogs who walked or jogged the 7K course. It was a very nice walk. They even supplied a couple rest stops with water and light snacks. The kids did great and we had to nickname Josh "rocket man" because he powered through the course. The kid ran at least 3-4K or the 7K course. He just runs and doesn't look back. It was the perfect place for it. We will be doing this again, I think.

Villa Contarini at the start of the course.

Isabel getting a ride from daddy (AKA il cavallo). Josh so far ahead you can't see him.

There it is.....spring in a nutshell. Now, this week brings us visits from the electrician and the plumber. These are not exciting things to write about. I will be stuck at home again tomorrow as the plumber dismantles our lovely pink bathroom to find the source of the septic tank odor. He speaks no English and rattles off things to me in Italian of which I understand about 30%. At least he seems to understand the smell is something we wish to be rid of! Good times!

Ciao!

Lunchtime Conversation

Here is a summary of the conversation Suzanne and I had during lunch today:

CLT: Suzanne, it’s so quiet in here, where are the kids?

SHT: I just walked them over to Marina’s house (one of their new friends). Marina has an interesting accent having a mother from Bulgaria, an American father, and speaks fluent Italian.

CLT: Yeah.  It’s fun to see Marina teaching our kids Italian.

SHT: Right.  And Marina’s mom gave me a brochure for that nice family resort in Croatia, the one she was telling us about last night at dinner (we met them for pasta/pizza last night at a local trattoria).

CLT: Ok. Hey, is there any more cinghuale (slices of wild boar salame we brought home from Tuscany last weekend)?

SHT: Yeah.  It’s in with that really good Pecorini cheese that we got last weekend too.

CLT:  Ooh, that’ll make a damn good sandwich for lunch.  This isn’t the Pecorini, is it?

SHT: No, that’s that really good Provolone dolce (sweet).

CLT: Damn, that is really good.  I might have to have some of that on the side.  You need to help me drink this Prosecco I have left over from bottling this morning.

SHT: Ok. I really like that Merlot we’ve had lately.

CLT: I know, but if you’re still in the mood for red, try this CabSav from Le Vegre (really neat old farmhouse/vineyard up the street from us that sells wine on tap).

SHT: Oh yeah, I like that a lot.

CLT: Me too.  It’s such a deep, dark red.  And the aroma is really nice – give it a good swirl and smell it.

SHT: Yeah, that’s nice.  Do you think you’ve stocked up on enough wine yet?

CLT: I don’t know.  With all of the family we have visiting throughout the summer and what we drink on our own, I think we’ve got a decent supply but not too much.

SHT: Hey, my parents may be shifting the schedule for their visit.  They’re still coming before our vacation to Spain (we’re spending 2+ weeks in Seville, Barcelona/Costa Brava, and Pamplona).  Fio (our neighbor) is in Barcelona this weekend as a matter of fact.

CLT: Oh that’s nice.  Good Lord, look what a nice day it is outside today – sunny, 70, and amazing.  They called for rain all week, especially in the afternoons, so I was really hesitant to ride my bike to and from work, especially considering that we live up on some pretty high, steep hills.

SHT: Yeah, blame the weather forecast for not riding your bike up the hills!

CLT: I’m serious…..anyway, wow, I’m lovin’ this cinghuale.

…..after a couple of minutes of quietly eating our lunches, it dawns on me that the last 10 minutes of conversation was rather extraordinary, especially considering that it was all so casual and natural for us.  I have to believe that that is an indication that we are living a pretty charmed life these days.

ct

p.s. I've added a couple of pictures from our trip to Tuscany/Siena last weekend.

 We had such a great time - even, maybe especially Josh, despite the fact that he hasn't been properly trained to smile on demand yet.

 

There was some race (running) and festival going on.  It was rather crazy because the runners had to weave in and out of the meandering tourists, along these narrow, cobblestone streets.

I actually love this shot.  This church/basillica was really amazing.  The dome above the nave was as impressive as I believe the original architects intended it to be.  This was an impromptu thing that Josh and Isabel did so that they could lay next to each other, look up at the dome, and chat away about it.

A gelato break after chasing pigeons around.  I don't know if they were singing a song or hollaring "Mommy's got stinky feet!"

Yeah, that's the good stuff.

This came out a little out of focus (blame me), but this is actually one of my favorites.

Excuse a father, but could this girl possibly be any more beautiful!

 It is written that this is one of the most ornate church facades in Europe.  Funny thing is that I don't even see it.

 I love my hometown church in Annapolis, St. Anne's.  This one is ok too.  The sculpture deal on the left was done by Michaelangelo.  Actually, some of it was done by Mike, and the other parts he delegated to his students to finish up for him.  He had to run off mid-sculpting because he got this really profitable gig up in Florence.  I suspect was a big slap in the fact to Siena given that Siena and Florence were such feuding rivals.  But then Florence out-paced Siena to become this great city whereas Siena was kind of left in the past...much to the delite of 21st century tourists as Rick Steve's notes.

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!

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