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I just wanted to let you all know...


I am home.


That more or less concludes this blog, despite the many memories that haven't yet been written down. For that part, stay tuned for the scrapbook version, coming soon. :)


And to everyone who's stuck with my posts, thank you so much.

Carmen

As I walked down Via Zamboni in the student quarter on my way to see Carmen, the opera I have been waiting for since the tenth grade, I saw the usual groups of shabby 20-somethings with beer bottles in hands, spray-painting protest signs, blasting music with something or other to do with fighting social oppression.

Ah, Italy. Always in a fuss about something.

Then at the door to the theatre, several blocks down, I found out that the fuss in question was in fact my opera. The smartly dressed porter at the door apologised to Bianca and to me, explaining rather sheepishly that all the opera workers were striking, and would we like to see a stand-in chamber music group instead?

It didn't matter that we had booked tickets three months in advance. It was just flat-out cancelled, and there was nothing else to be done.

I'm so disappointed. My opera.

It isn't fair to shout at Italy or even the strikers, I suppose. You have to take the good with the bad, and I have had some really amazing goods (including Tuscany tomorrow and the next day, courtesy of the BCSP program).

I just wish I'd picked another night...

Cinque Terre: The Five Lands

Tucked away on the northwestern Italian coast is a little region called Liguria:

It's that little saddle-flap of land sandwiched between Tuscany and the Piedmont, just west of Emilia-Romagna where Bologna is. One of the smallest regions by size, Liguria is the epitome of the picturesque Italy that travel guides sell you on: marble cliffs, terraced vineyards, pastel-painted houses built into hillsides, colourful fishing boats, and towns with names like Gnorecco and Casalpusterlengo.

I was looking forward to it. :)

Bianca and I, just the two of us, travelled there for a four-day weekend from Bologna to Parma (where parmesan cheese/Parmigiano Reggiano is from, as well as prosciutto), and from Parma to Liguria. The Cinque Terre ("Five Lands") are five small towns along the coast south of Genoa, grouped close together and accessible by train (hard), boat (harder), or bus (close to impossible). We opted for the train, and even then it was a three-hour train trip. 

We missed the train to Parma and had a few extra hours to kill in the city. Parma is small and beautiful, but coming off tours of bigger and more impressive cities, it was hard to be wowed. We idled around, snapped a few pictures of the local Duomo, and people-watched in the grassy piazza where the Parmigiani had congregated to enjoy the sunny afternoon. We did see this statue, though. 

Gun-slinging war hero Garibaldi, with a gored-up corpse chillaxing on the ground behind him. Garibaldi has a street and often a piazza named after him in about every single town in Italy, along with his politician friend Cavour.

We arrived at La Spezia, a workday town that's about as blue-collar and un-touristy as you can get. Not one of the sleek, pastel-painted Cinque Terre towns, but it's linked by railroad and doesn't cost a bajillion dollars a night for lodging.

We liked the boats.

Rather than renting a hotel room (what are we, made of money?), we opted for an affittacamera, which is a room for rent in someone's house, with an open-air farmer's market across the road. Win! The place was called "The Turtle Named Doralice," after a pet that the landlady had once owned. She said the turtle's spirit still rested in the house. We just liked it because it was 25 a night and had a real bed and a bathroom.

(And a turtle on the bed...)

We had no time for real touring on Friday, but we walked down to the harbour and saw the boats. On the advice of our landlady, we ate at a local place called All'Inferno ("In Hell"), which was an underground local place (as in, it was actually completely below street-level). The food was classy and cheap--we had spaghetti with crab and a dish of smoked tuna and swordfish. I drowned the sorrows of the hard day in a glass of grappa (think vodka, but stronger and more Italian) to go with my panna cotta, and slept like a baby until morning.

Blackberry/currant panna cotta with Grappa in the background. Only fifty cents more than an espresso, and about nine times more potent.

Bright and early, we hopped over to the Cinque Terre, armed with Rick Steve's Italy 2008 travel guide. He said it was possible to tour the five islands in a day, but the first four towns had so many adventures and misadventures that by the end our momentum crashed, and we saved the fifth town for another day.

The Top 5 (Pictures) of the Top 5 (Lands)!

Town #1. Riomaggiore— Tourists, Rocks, and Padlocks

Picture 1

Riomaggiore, supposedly the least stunning, was simple with great scenery. It helped that we were enjoying the most delicious breakfast ever, chocolate ciabatta bread. If you go to Liguria, eat all the bread you can get your hands on...it owns Bologna's bread big-time. There are no words for this bread. Except maybe chewy. Or perfectly crusty. Perhaps mind-blowingly mouthwatering. I was so pleased I bought a kilo (two pounds) the next day...which came out to be roughly fifteen of these. We ate the whole thing.

Picture 2

We walked along the rocks of the coast, which were swarming with Americans from Florence's many study-abroad programs, and walked along the very touristy "Via dell'Amore" (Lover's Lane) that connects it to Manarola, the next town. Teens in the old days used to sneak across this mountain path to meet their lovers in the other town, but today, the tourists have defaced nearly everything, eradicating any romance that may have remained.

Picture 3

In Italy, padlocks symbolise true love, and it's fashionable to clip them onto famous tourist sites. The more obnoxious the placement of your padlock, the more you must love your significant other.

Picture 4

Not even the cactuses could escape.

Picture 5

But, nothing could ruin the beautiful views. There were colours that Crayola hasn't even dreamed of yet.

#2. Manarola— Mountains and Cheese

The most beautiful of all the towns. After reaching it from the Via dell'Amore, we happened upon a local market and sampled the different foods. We got trofie and croxie, both types of pasta, and bought a quarter-pound each of gorgonzola and soft cow's cheese for just a euro each. Then we listened to the man who was playing the harpsichord in the piazza. :) 

We sat on the rocks overlooking the sea to eat our lunch, which was the cheese we'd just bought with fresh focaccia and blood oranges that we'd bought at the farmer's market across from our room that morning.

Picture 1

Mountains, vineyards...this is the Italy they sell you in tour guides.

Misadventure: Danielle from the BCSP office had recommended the Manarola vineyard walk, so we mounted the steps up to the vineyard overlooking the city. Then we decided to go a little higher. Then there were more steps, so we kept going. Then we thought we might as well go all the way to the top.

Picture 2

The grapes are grown on the mountainsides with the help of hundreds and hundreds of miles of terracing, which made for some difficult hiking...

(Picture 3) 

But when Manarola had gone from this:

To unnervingly distant-looking... 

Picture 4

...We thought it might be a good idea to turn back.

Picture 5

#3. Corniglia— A Cat, a Hike, and a Gelato-man

Picture 1

We got all sorts of weather during the day, and while Riomaggiore had been overcast and Manarola sunny, Corniglia had a rainstorm.

Picture 2

Distressed Bianca takes shelter with our friend the turtle as we climb the mountain to Corniglia. We ducked into a corner gelato shop to wait it out, where we met the proprietor, Roberto, who chatted with us and good-naturedly gave us a hard time as we ate his homemade frozen yoghurt with lemon juice and honey (this should be the next big thing—very tasty). I got his picture. As Bianca hit the button, he told be to be "very serious."

Picture 3

We found a place with a framed picture of our trusty Rick Steve travel guide.

Picture 4

Corniglia was the only one not on the water, and from its hilltop view we got some great pictures. This cat, one of many, had a good thing going.

Picture 5

Misadventure: We decided to hike between Corniglia and Vernazza, since it was only a 90-minute walk according to the sign. Three mountains and two exhausted pairs of legs later... It was not a beginner's hike, and we were not dressed for hiking (with purses full of pasta, tennis shoes, and tight jeans). After the Manarola climb, it nearly broke me. :P See that teeny town in the middle of the picture? Yeah...that's where we hiked from.

Bonus Photos--The Hike

Notice the slightly less bright smiles. It was hot. It was hilly. We were wearing the wrong shoes and had bags full of heavy pasta bought in Manarola.

Bianca slipped on the bridge. :P

#4. Vernazza— Free Wine, and Catherine Cooks in a Restaurant Kitchen

Picture 1

Wow. Vernazza. It was a huge relief to get off my quavery, tired legs and into a nice seat on the dock.

Picture 2

A lovely (and very Italian) display of laundry.

Picture 3

Bianca and I, while slogging through the wet and rocky hiking trail, had promised each other that we'd reward ourselves with a glass of wine at a restaurant overlooking the ocean. The castle-tower and its restaurant with the wisteria-covered terrace were closed (sad), so we went to another one closer to the water called Belforte and ordered two glasses of the region's special wine, sciacchetrà (sha-keh-TRA). At 12 euro a glass, this is not cheap stuff, and for good reason—it tastes like raisins in alcohol form, and is absolutely delicious. 

Picture 4

The sunset was just as good as we could have hoped. This is postcard material.

The chef came out for a smoke break, and since we were seated right above the kitchen, he asked what we were eating with our wine. Since we said nothing, he said he'd bring us something. We thought he was a waiter and tried to tell him no, but he was already gone, and minutes later he brought us an appetiser of fried strands of spaghetti and delicious little acciughe (sardines) and another round of the wine. We looked at the menu. We were tempted. We were very tempted. And finally, we gave in and ordered trofie pasta with pesto and zuppa di pesce. The pasta (of course from scratch) with pesto was delicious, but the zuppa di pesce was the crowning glory. Our waitress came and set down a huge terracotta pot on the table, filled with fish steaks, mussels, whole crawfish, octopus, and bread all soaked in the most delicious broth I've ever tasted. It took us well over an hour of solid eating before we finished most of the soup. (Unfortunately it was so dark that none of my food photos came out very well).

Picture 5

The real fun started when we ordered dessert, though. Moti, the chef, had been popping in and out during the whole dinner, checking on our food and chatting. He was Indian-Italian and was all sorts of fun. The restaurant was an expensive one and he was an amazing chef, and he certainly took advantage of his power; giving us the free wine, making sound-effects at people, chain-smoking, shouting at the top of his lungs, and when we ordered desset, he came out and called up to us, "Hey, come down into the kitchen!"

After all that delicious food, we were feeling quite jolly and were pleased to oblige (plus, how could I resist the allure of a gourmet restaurant kitchen?). And it was amazing. Moti handed me the wooden spoon and had me stir the strawberries around as I smiled for a photo. After the exhaustion of trekking, the excitement, and the house wine and two glasses of sciacchetrà, I was a little overwhelmed and could really only grin like an idiot at my good luck, but he had done all the work already anyway. If you look at the photo, I'm holding both pan and spoon as though I don't have the faintest idea what to do with them. :P

The Italian man at the table next to us was calling Moti "Ghandi," which made our politically-correct ears cringe (I suppose it was semi-justified due to Moti's animal noises at his wife...), but it made Moti laugh and say that his other nickname was Barack-Obama-Moti because of his dark skin, and that led to a moving speech on the husband's part.

"Obama," he said wistfully, looking vaguely out across the ocean. "Now he is a great man. Strong. Intelligent. He leads his nation. Yes, a great man. He's not at all like Berlusconi over here in Italy."

"Well," Bianca said, "he is very good at creating an image."

"No, no, not just an image!" the husband protested. "He's more." (Extensive hand gestures may have accompanied this statement.) "That's who he is. By the way, you both speak very good Italian."

By the time we our strawberries were ready to eat, the rest of the restaurant had packed up, and our waitress, Moti, all the other cooks, and an Italian couple who'd finished their dinner all came down to hang out around the kitchen and talk. Moti gave everyone a round of limoncello, and the Italian couple launched into a discussion of regional cuisines, which ended with the husband lifting up his wife's skirt to show us how nice her butt was.

Then he spanked it.

All in all, a ridiculously wild end to a surreal day. And since most of the restaurant workers lived in La Spezia, the whole big group of us caught the train home together. I don't think I've ever slept so deeply in my life.

Stay tuned for day 2, Portovenere and Portofino--two towns with confusingly similar names but very different adventures. :D

Spain Vol. 3: Our Ku Klux Klan-tacular Palm Sunday

Let's go Seville! we said. It'll be lovely! we said.

Oh dear. We had no clue what we were in for. 

I'm sure someone will discover this photo years down the road and wonder what on earth I was doing that night in April. It looks like it could have been taken on a tense night in South Carolina during the 1960s.

The day was full of adventures and misadventures. Let me tell you all about it, starting with the shady figures in the above photo. 

Adventure 1: "That White Hood Looks Strangely Familiar"

The Most Reliable Source on the Internet says that Palm Sunday in Seville is a 700 year-old internationally famous religious party--as in one of the biggest Catholic shindigs in Europe next to the Vatican on Easter. We had no clue, of course; we thought everything would be shut and no one would be around. WRONG. 

We quickly discovered that a bajillion people had beaten us to Seville to celebrate the holiday in rather racially dubious wardrobe choices, as it seemed to our American eyes. Apparently the Spaniards had the whole white-hooded-cloak trademark first, and they are the traditional garments of the nazarenos brotherhoods. They wear them in the processions, mostly in white but also in all sorts of other colours, sometimes with pointed hoods and sometimes drooping hoods, sometimes carrying crosses and sometimes candles (fire + crosses... of course it only worsened the joke).

Catholic Europe as a whole is big on religious processions, and Seville took this art to the end of the spectrum. The processions started in the morning, with the main road suddenly filling with hooded men and wooden floats representing Jesus' Final Passion and Mary's grief. How nice, we thought, and snapped a few pictures before continuing our tour of the sights.

A handful of nazarenos grew to several hundred in the main street--with a brass band and horses! :D

Then, as if on cue, the thousands of foreign tourists vanished, replaced by even more people than before, all Spaniards dressed in their Sunday best for evening Mass, and thousands of hooded nazarenos. Then, the crowds. It was worse than Carnival in Venice, which at least had a clear direction of movement. Instead, everyone crowded into impenetrable clumps to watch the processions, and unfortunately for us, there was a different procession on seemingly every street corner (Wiki estimates 60 unique ones during Holy Week). We passed the same store four times, trying to get out and realising every time that we were hemmed in by Catholicism's New Year's Eve on every side, and could only move in wide, helpless circles.

One of the huge wooden floats of Jesus, carried by hand down the streets.

After a while, we stopped fighting and just enjoyed it, making jokes and taking photos while we complained about the crowds. It took us well over three hours to get out of the city centre (not including the dinner that we sat down for), as opposed to the ten minute walk into the centre that morning.

Best misadventure ever. And now we have scary pictures to show for it!

Adventure 2: "Pickpocket Attempt #2"

While I was happily gawking at all of Seville's pretties, a rather snappily dressed local in an all-white suit tried to reach into my purse, which I had thankfully thought to twist shut after my last pickpocketer. When he saw he wasn't going to get my wallet, he scooted ahead of us and put his arm around his girlfriend and walked off. >_>

Adventure 3: "Tinta ≠ Tinta," or, "Wine ≠ Squid Ink"

Obediently following Bianca's list of recommended foods, for lunch we ordered Papas Bravas (Potatoes in Paprika Sauce), homemade Tortillas, and Calamares en su Tinta. The language barrier and a hostile waitress led to some confusion. We (or at least, I) had thought that Tinta meant wine, since there is a drink with the same name that is wine mixed with fruit juice. Instead, this monstrosity poked its head out of the kitchen:

At first, we thought it was some horrible joke they play on tourists, but as it turns out, the tinta in question is squid ink, and this dish is actually a delicate preparation of seafod, and not a puddle of tar and sludgy cow poo, as it appears to be. Surprise! :D Although this one wins no points for plating, it's quite delicious if you can overcome your visual qualms about eating something thick, black, and sloppy. Erik wasn't so sure. I really can't blame him.

Adventure 4: "I Was Not Done With That Fork Yet"

We sat down at a restaurant to rest our feet and wait out the crowd, and were served the fastest meal we ate in Spain (including breakfasts). We ordered fried fish, seafood, cheese, wine, and all sorts of things, and everything came almost immediately because of how fast the waiters were trying to shove people through the system. If you put your fork down for a moment, they would try to start clearing the table. The food was nice, though!

Erik being fancy-schmancy with his cheese and wine.

Adventure 5: "Catherine Finally Tastes an Orange"

I did it. After seeing hundreds of orange trees all over everywhere in Spain, I could resist no longer and picked a ripe, fat, heavy orange off a healthy green tree, peeled it leisurely as I had visions of the most perfect, fresh orange I had ever eaten, and took a bite while Marc and Erik egged me on.

Nastiest orange I've ever tasted. It was so sour I thought it was rotten, and so acidic that the juice burned my lips. I tried several others from different trees to the same effect. I suppose they are just for show, after all. :(

However, the entire city smelled like orange-blossoms! Every time you took a deep breath, you got a heady sniff of the smell, which is exactly like orange-flower water (I suppose that is predictable). It's a beautiful smell: citrusy without any hint of acidity, strong but not overwhelming, kind of an exotic smell, I thought. I couldn't help taking a deep whiffs every time we turned a street corner.

Adventure 6: "Spain Is Really Good at this Architecture Thing"

No words are really necessary for this, other than the names of the places: the government building, a castle-residence with extensive gardens, and the biggest Gothic building/cathedral in the world, which was unfortunately closed for Palm Sunday. We would have made it to the bull-fighting ring if it weren't for the crowds.

These arcades went aaaaaall the way around an enormous piazza. This shot shows about a tenth of the length of it.

They had one of these mosaics for every single major city in Spain (kind of a lot), all stretching in alphabetical order around the building.

Wisteria and orange trees: my new favourite combination.

Inside the castle museum. The caption was: "Italian fan with painted peasant scene, mother-of-pearl, gold ring, and receptacle for poison."

Adventure 7: "Tea-hunting"

Marc and Erik indulged me in my quest for some tea, and we went on a hunt for it on our way out of Granada. After meandering down an alley that looked like this,

full of Middle-Eastern wares ranging from very upscale to really horrible, we stopped at a little outside stand, lined with rows of spices, teas, and pepper. I bought "Andalusian Caprice" and "A Thousand and One Granada Nights," which I have been rationing ever since, and which are thoroughly delicious.

(The obligatory spices shot...)

g

This is good tea.

Adventure 8: "Spanish and Italian Are Secretly The Same Language"

Not on the Seville day, but worth recounting nonetheless. When we arrived in Spain, we had no map and were looking for our hostel street. In the hotel where we asked for directions and a map, the woman at the desk spoke Spanish to us as she drew the directions on the map. 

Upon exit, the following exchange:

Marc:         Wasn't it funny that of all people, she knew how to speak Italian?

Erik and I:  Marc...that was Spanish.

Marc:         ... (pause) But I understood it!

*

All in all, a trip that covered a lot of different things from beach to big city, didn't feel rushed, and was full of great stories.

Perhaps we'll see each other again, little guy. :D