La Fine

Yes I am back in America.  No I have not completed this blog; December was a lovely month that I would love to share.
The last few weeks in Italy were wonderful.  With the start of December came an entirely new atmosphere in Florence.  There was a dramatic drop in the number of tourists clogging the streets, so everything was more relaxed.  Vendors finally started letting me speak to them in Italian, and a lot of people even engaged in conversation with me in Italian.  The streets were decorated with Christmas trees and overhanging lights, it was beautiful holiday spirit.

Mercato

I also got into a routine as my departure date approached.  Each trip to the market left me more and more nostalgic.  There was the sweet woman who always told me how to cook my fresh pasta and my pear and pecorino ravioli, the good-looking butcher who was always so happy, especially for a man who spends his days cutting up strange animal parts, the couple who sells the best clementines and pears, the many vendors with my beloved sheep's milk ricotta, and the old man who was the only one who would sell me a small (aka appropriate) amount of black cabbage. 

Duomo in December

If I wasn't at the market in the morning, I loved to go to church.  The Duomo has multiple masses weekday mornings in both the cathedral and the baptistery, so it was very easy to attend services.  I started to memorize some of the prayers in Italian and understood the mass parts, but sometimes the Homily was too hard to understand.  That's why I had a favorite priest.  He was a small very old man who always seemed to preach about love.  Because he spoke slowly and articulately with many hand gestures, I was able to get the gist of things.  Usually, I was one of the few young people at weekday services, so when Blair came with me one day, we stood out.  My favorite priest was giving the mass and he actually gave us a few shout outs.  When he started the mass, he acknowledged that there were two young girls at mass that day and asked if we knew Italian.  Later at the end of the Homily, he said something about the "ragazze (girls)" and gestured to us.  The personalization was nice and we felt more like a part of the religious community in Florence.  After mass, I was sure to visit Scudieri for a croissant or ricotta sfolia.

Montemignaio

On weekends, I stayed close to Florence, never leaving beautiful Tuscany.  I had a very unique opportunity to visit a small town in Arezzo called Montemignaio.  Mirko has a farm in this adorable mountain village, so he showed me around.  Being so high up, there was more snow than I thought was possible for Tuscany.  Different than Florence where you really shouldn't make eye contact with strangers, everyone in Montemignaio makes eye contact, waves from one car to another, and says hello.   It would be the perfect setting for an Under the Tuscan Sun type of movie.  The fields were snow covered so it was hard to get an idea for what the farm looks like, but I did get to see the chickens; unfortunately there was a rooster, so I had to overcome that fear... We were able to drive to the top of a mountain where we were too high to see the town below, we were above the clouds.  Apparently when you live in mountainous areas, it's normal to just drive to the summit on a regular day.

Mountain top

Back in Florence, we saw snow on our last day.  It was beautiful to see everything covered in snow, everything.  I thought it was strange that no one was bothering to plow the streets as it kept snowing and snowing.  How were people supposed to drive their Vespas home?  By the afternoon, it was chaotic.  People were so excited to see snow that a stranger threw snowballs at me and people were building a snowman in front of the Duomo.  By the evening, all trains were canceled and the highways were almost stopped.  No one knew how to handle the snow.  Friends of mine saw an old woman come out of her house and shake table salt onto her front steps.  People spent the night in their cars.  When we got to the airport at 5 a.m. on Saturday, it was closed because no one could get to work.  Even the main streets were barely plowed.  The airport stayed closed all day, our program director urging us to stay in the airport in hopes that the size of our group would encourage the airlines to organize a flight for us.  Since there was one, possibly two, people working for Luftansa that day, this plan failed.  So for twelve hours, I sat on the cold floor of a closed airport.  For a little while, we were contained in one room and not allowed use of the bathrooms as a form of crowd control.  We all had our parents search for flights from America since we had no phones at this point.  Thankfully there was internet, but there were no outlets for our dead computer batteries.  So I waited in line to use one of the two payphones and had Mirko pick me up at 5 p.m.  The airport was still closed.
I would wait until Monday for a flight out of Rome, but not all was lost!  I got to have one of the best meals of my time in Italy.  Sunday afternoon, we went to Mirko's grandmother's house for dinner.  We started with the best lasagna I have ever eaten (I wasn't a fan of other lasagnas I had eaten in Italy).  It had very thin pasta layers and was filled with meat, vegetables, and sauce.  I was full by the start of the next course.  She served me two and a half chicken breasts and artichokes mixed with other vegetables.  Then she took out leftover lamb and offered me some.  I was interested in trying it, so we added lamb and its accompanying vegetables to my plate.  Obviously, this was too much for me to eat, so I was very thankful when Mirko's mother stepped in to tell me I didn't have to finish it all. I am always worried about being rude by not finishing.  Once I made a small clearing on my plate, it was filled with salad.  At the end of the meal, the gelato and pandoro (an Italian Christmas cake) came onto the table with limoncello.  Thankfully, we finished with espresso so I did not fall into a food coma.
Monday morning, I made my goodbyes yet again and I took a train to Rome, a plane to Munich, and a plane to Boston.  It was way too many hours of traveling (about 22) and I pretty much broke down when I got home.  I'm doing surprisingly well readjusting to America.  I'll admit that I am a food and wine snob and I dream about olive oil and breakfast pastries, but I'm appreciating the comfort of home and being surrounded by loved ones.

Florence in the snow

Italy has so many foods, wines, churches, olive oils, museums, etc. that I did not have the chance to experience everything.  I would love to go back again soon, but in the meantime, I am just very grateful for the wonderful things I was able to do.  From harvesting olives to riding on the back of a Vespa, I had a truly incredible experience.  Grazie e Arrivederci.

In fair Verona, where we lay our scene

On a bit of a whim, I went to Verona (which is in Veneto) for the day with my flatmate Blair.  We'd heard it was a nice city and every girl is slightly intrigued by the idea of visiting Romeo and Juliet's city.  But we didn't have many expectations.

Verona Teatro

It turned out to be a much larger city than the small village we expected.  Once we got to the center of town, we saw the huge pink Colosseum!  The Verona Teatro seems perfectly preserved with all it's white and pink marble.  We were able to walk up and down the stairs, sit down, walk across the middle, and basically act like this was not an Ancient Roman ruin.  I liked it more than the one in Rome because I could really imagine what it would be like to watch a performance there.

Gladiators in Verona

Next we went to an incredible traditionally Venetian restaurant, the Osteria d'Ugo.  We had seen wonderful ratings online, so wondered down some adorable alleys to find it.  I had an amazing pasta with duck and truffle shavings.  No idea what the sauce was, but it was delectable.  For desert, we had a sort of blueberry pie with a sort of cinnamon graham cracker crust. Yum.

Christmas market

On our way to Romeo's house, we came across a huge Christmas market.  It had a lot of Austrian and German goods, beautiful handmade ornaments, and more Christmas knickknacks than could fit inside a house.  When we got to Romeo's "house" we were greeted by a nice Shakespearean quote, and nothing else.  Sometimes when you visit fictional characters, it's hard to get invited in for tea.
Hoping Juliet would be a bit more welcoming, we walked under a graffiti covered archway to a cute courtyard full of tourists.  The wall that people usually stick letters to Juliet was cleared, with a barrier explaining they wanted to preserve the wall.  The wall to a house of a made up person.  Ok.  The sign also tried to explain Juliet's family history as if she was a real person.  Someone had too much fun with the translation there.  There was Juliet's famous balcony, more eloquent than I imagined and a statue that everyone was taking pictures with.  It was a cute experience and I'm glad I did it, but I do have to laugh at myself a little bit.
Next we made our way to the beautiful pink Duomo.  The cathedral had the same marble as the Teatro; I guess it is from that area.  The church was beautiful inside; I'm beginning to think that Florence's churches are more conservative than others in Italy.
We went to the Verona Arena next, which was another sort of theater and museum of ruins.  It gave an excellent view of the city.  Verona's northern Italy location must be why I felt like we were in a different country.  It seems to have Austrian or German influences in the architecture.

View from Arena

Before heading home, we warmed up with hot chocolate.  Italian hot chocolate is basically like a cup of melted chocolate, so rich.
Our wonderful day had one downside, the ride home.  We paid extra so that it would only be about a two hour train ride.  Too bad the train sat idly at a station for 147 minutes.  There was a medical emergency, but it took an hour and a half for the stretcher to even arrive.  Since the announcements were in Italian, I misinterpreted one to mean that the train was going back to Verona and we would have a free ride in the morning.  Too bad all the Italians around me interpreted it this way too.  We all slightly panicked.  In reality, there would be another train to take people to Verona if they wanted to go back, we would just get to Florence really late.  Unfortunate situation, but once I got dinner at 11:30 and went straight to bed after, it didn't matter anymore, we had had a great day.

CALCIO!

The US is one of the few countries not obsessed with soccer.  Here in Italy, calcio is huge; I get the impression that fans never miss out on the game.  I've listened to it on the car radio and watched it on tv with Italian friends; if there is a game, they find a way to follow it.  The home team here in Firenze is Fiorentina, sporting team colors of purple and red.

I have been to two home games, neither against rivals, but both with fans acting like the Red Sox and Yankees were competing in the playoffs.  For the first game, I went with a large group, but my roommate and I bought the "wrong" tickets.  They are very strict about people staying in the section of their tickets, probably to prevent riots.  So we went to the Fiesole side of the stadium while everyone else went to the Ferrara side.  Turns out we were on the wild side which was worth being separated from the group.  The fans had huge flags and were singing the entire game.  They had loudspeakers so that one man could lead all the cheers, his voice was raspy by the end.  When Fiorentina scored a goal, you would have thought they won the World Cup.
The second game we went to was on a rainy night during the week so it was not as crowded.  The dedicated fans continued to cheer like crazy.
I had not seen much professional soccer before, preferring American football, but the players here are amazing.  The ball is passed from one person's foot to another person's head to another person's head.  What a sport!

Welcome to Florence

Atop the bell tower

When Dad and Bethany arrived two weeks ago, I was very focused on sharing the food with them.  So the fabulous time I spent with them will be recorded according to our meals.
Day #1

Eating lampredotto

Lunch:  Lampredotto and vino rosso.  One of the most notable buildings in Florence is the Duomo, so on our way to lunch, we had to stop for pictures and ended up climbing the bell tower.  After more than 400 stairs, we were ready for lunch so I led them to a local sandwich truck where they followed my advice and tried a panino al lampredotto.  This is one of my favorite sandwiches, it's very traditionally Florentine and hard to find elsewhere in Italy, so I was glad they took the risk to try it.  Lampredotto is cow stomach.
Desert:  I gave them a walking tour of Florence and we went to Santa Croce, Ponte Vecchio, all the usual spots, and we stopped at the wonderful Gelateria di Neri for gelato, cannoli, and profiteroles.
Aperitivo:

Piazzale Michelangelo

We made a long hike up to Piazzale Michaelangelo to have one of the best views of Florence.  On our way back down the hill, we stopped in a wine bar.  Along with our wine came incredibly thinly sliced toast drizzled with olive oil.  It was still too early for dinner, so we stopped along the way to ride a carousel in Piazza della Repubblica that I have been wanting to ride all semester.

Carousel

Dinner:  For dinner, we went to a restaurant that I've been to a few times before, Il Teatro.  We started with a tray of Tuscan appetizers like crostini, bruschetta, prosciutto, etc.  We enjoyed shrimp scampi, gnocchi, beans, meat balls, sausage, followed by some limoncello and bed.
Day #2
Coffee:  After attending Friday morning Mass at the beautiful Duomo, we went to an elegant cafe nearby for espresso, cafe americano, and a delicious sort of turnover filled with ricotta cheese.
Lunch:  Next we explored the Mercato di San Lorenzo, also known as the leather market, where vendors sell jackets, scarfs, purses, souvenirs, etc.  Dad was quickly wooed by a salesman encouraging him to upgrade his 20 year old leather coat.  Before leaving the shop, we each sported new Italian leather jackets.  Tired from out shopping spree, we found a very local spot for panini that Grammy and Grampy showed me when they were there.  Tuna, onion, tomato, mozzarella for me, and prosciutto, mozzarella, and tomato for Dad and Bethany.  Then Dad and I did a tour of the beautiful Medici apartments in Palazzo Pitti.
Wine Tasting:  Later in the afternoon, we went to a wine tasting that I had done with one of my professors.  The man who conducts the tastings, Pino, is the owner of a great deli, a wine connoisseur, and a Mario lookalike.  Before wine was poured, we sampled different balsamic vinagrettes and olive oil with bread and parmigiana, and learned about how they make such goods.  Then we moved on to the wines, learning the history and how they are made today.  We tasted a white and two different Chiantis alongside three different hams.  I was very happy to have Dad and Bethany there because it gave such a great view of Italian cuisine and the love for the products they use.
Dinner:  We power walked from the wine tasting to make our reservation at La Giostra.  This was the best meal I have had in Italy.  First we were served complimentary sparkling wine and typical Tuscan appetizers.  Then came our first courses.  Bethany had the best shrimp scampi I have ever tasted, Dad enjoyed a classic Ribolitta which I have made in my cooking class but his was better, and I had pear and pecorino cheese raviolis.  All the pasta was homemade and we were blown away by the food.  Next came something I had been wanting to try all semester, Bistecca alla Fiorentina.  It's a steak kind of like a porterhouse that is grilled only for 5 minutes on each side and standing up.  I'm not usually one to eat meat that isn't well done, but after realizing that I had eaten raw sausage a few weeks prior, I was ready to try anything.  And this was the best piece of meat I have ever had, ever.  Although Dad's baby back ribs are a close second.

Aboard the gondola

Day #3
Lunch:  After a bit of a train ride, we arrived in Venice on Friday, hungry for seafood.  We rode around on a water taxi for a while until we found a place that looked less touristy.  We sat in the sunshine by the canal and enjoyed seafood soups, pasta and clams, and seafood crepes.  We spent the rest of the day exploring the city, we saw the beautiful St. Mark's, and took a gondola ride.  Venice was such a unique city and was beautiful on such a sunny weekend.
Dinner:  We made a stop in a beautiful ritzy hotel along the canal for a glass of wine and to warm up a bit once the sun fell.  They had a lot of guidebooks, so we looked for the perfect restaurant.  And we found it.  It was deep into the residential area of the city where it was barely lighted.  Just as we started to think the guidebook lied to us, we stumbled upon the restaurant.  Our charismatic waiter urged us to get the chef's special which is three courses prepared according to what was best at the market that day.  So we followed his suggestion and enjoyed wonderful clams, mystery shrimp, tuna with a saffron and persimmons sauce, and a desert of chestnut mousse with a pastry.  It was so fantastic, everything was bursting with natural flavors.  The choices were so out of the ordinary, I never would have thought to order them otherwise.
Day #4
Breakfast: Let's just say we had a feast for breakfast full of prosciutto, salami, yogurts, pastries, and more at the hotel. Full and ready for the day, we went into Venice planning to go to the island of Murano to see the famous glass making.  Unfortunately, the water level was too high and we did not have time to get there.  Instead we relaxed on the water taxis and casually strolled the streets of Venice.
Lunch: Before the train to Venice, we grabbed a quick meal of pasta and clams, raviolis, and soup.
Dinner: We got to Milan when it was dark and rainy, so once we got to the hotel, we decided to make it an early night.  We went for a light aperitivo and then Bethany and I got grilled eggplant with buffalo mozzarella.
Day #5

Milan Cathedral

Breakfast: Another large hotel buffet early in the morning.  Dad and Bethany made their way to the airport and I explored Milan for a while, going to the cathedral and the designer stores.  It was great to see the cathedral because I had written a paper about it last year, but other than that, Milan was so spread out that I found it difficult to entertain myself.  Also, I was sad to see Dad and Bethany leave, we had such a great time.  I loved being able to show them my life here and teaching them everything that I have learned.

Bella Roma

Italy has been keeping me occupied and away from my blog, so it's time for some serious catching up!  Let's start at the capital, Roma.
Three weeks ago, I met my beloved Tufties, Miriam and Alex in Rome on a beautifully sunny day.  We were the crazy Americans in tee-shirts and tank tops on the 70 degree day; the Italians kept their leather jackets on.

Alex, me and Miriam at the Colosseum

First we did what ever tourist does, we went to the symbol of Ancient Rome, the Colosseum.  It was very surreal to be inside the incredibly famous and old theater, but having seen it in so many movies, it was almost like I had been there before, like it wasn't new to me.

Fontana di Trevi

Colosseum

As the sun set, the Colosseum and many other monuments closed, so we made our way to the Pantheon and Trevi Fountain.  Having just done an Italian presentation on La Dolce Vita, I was especially excited to see La Fontana di Trevi.  It was actually much more beautiful in person than I expected it to be.  Especially at night, what a romantic spot.  As I am sure many of you know, I would very much like to return to Italy someday, so I threw a coin into the fountain.
Next we crossed the Tiber River to enjoy a more authentic dinner.  Night one was fantastic pizza.  Exhausted, we went back to the Sleeping Beauty guesthouse and fell right to sleep.
Friday morning, we went straight to the Vatican.  The Vatican Museum was overwhelming, beautiful, incredible.  Every square inch was decorated with frescos leading up to the Sistine Chapel.  The whole museum was a bit of a sensory overload, in a good way.

Foro Romano

Next we went to Foro Romano.  This was like a playground of Roman ruins, we just got to stroll around like it was a park.  It could be a great place for hide-and-go-seek.  I think I liked these ruins more than the Colosseum because it was a unique setting and a place I knew nothing about.  That evening we saw Piazza della Republica, explored some churches, and ate a delicious meal on an unknown sidestreet.  I had some sort of shrimp and pasta and it was incredibly flavorful.
The next day, made a leisurely walk to the Spanish Steps, which were pretty but a boring in the grand scheme of things in a city like Rome.  We then explored the other side of the river and found a cute place for refreshing salads.  Then we made our way back to the Vatican to see St. Peter's Basilica.  All the churches in Rome where much more ornate than the ones in Florence, so I had high expectations for this basilica.  The dome was a beautiful silvery blue that seemed to reflect the sky, so the outside was stunning.  Upon our entry, I felt like I had shrunk.  Everything was massive and I was so small in comparison.  If they added clouds and more light, it would make a very good representation of what heaven might be like.  I especially loved the pinkish marble which shined it was so well polished.  That evening we went back to the area on the other side of the river where we were the first night for our last dinner together.

St. Peter's Basilica

The next morning, Alex and Miriam had already left, so I went back to the Vatican on my own.  There was a 9a.m. mass at St. Peter's so I got there fifteen minutes before it started.  Already, they were seating people outside in the piazza, after about five minutes I realized that the mass would be conducted outside.  Everyone was dressed up though which I found strange.  They were wearing all sorts Renaissance monk and nun costumes.  They were definitely not real monks and nuns. 
When it became 9:30 and mass hadn't started, I began to think something was up.  Some people were passing out prayer cards and everyone was getting very excited, almost competitive to get them.  The woman next to me got two of the same, so let me have her extra.  When I asked her who was handing them out, she noticed my accent and seemed very surprised that an American would be at this service.  We got to talking and I learned that she had come from Sardinia for mass today because it was a special mass for the Confraternities of Italy, that's why they were dressed up.  Mass did not start until 10:30.  When it ended at 11:45, the woman from Sardinia helped me find the window where the Pope would give his blessing.  There was so many people in the piazza, it had been filled with visitors and when the mass let out, we were all quite squished.  But I did find a good spot in the crowd and got to see the Pope.  It was quite the experience to see him, he has a very calming and kind speaking voice.  As soon as he finished, I ran back to the metro so that I could check out of the Sleeping Beauty in time.

Sunday morning at the Vatican

La Raccolta

I left my lonely weekend in Pesaro Monday morning for the best experience of my study abroad. To sum it up in one word, ‘happiness’ almost does it justice, but I am so thankful and passionate about my experience that I would like to share all the details with the following novella about the harvest.
I spent my week picking olives on top of a hill with a view of the ocean with people I truly cared for. My life is very blessed and I am so grateful.
It was a bit of a risk, choosing to spend my fall break on my own. It was also a bit of a risk choosing to spend it farming with people I had never met and that I knew did not speak English. Best risks ever.

I arrived at the train station in Montemarciano, near Ancona in Le Marche, excited but nervous to meet Roberto and Roberta. I found their farm through the World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms (WWOOF) that I used to farm in Ireland. I met Roberto briefly, he was off to work, and quickly hopped in the car with Roberta to get out of the rain. I instantly liked them, trusted them, felt that they were good people, and was able to relax as a stranger drove me to her home. The drive to the house had the typical where are you from, what do you study questions, and there was not much of a language barrier. When we got to the house and started talking about practical things, I was a deer in headlights.
Why did I think I knew enough Italian to live with a family for a week? The only practice I had had was with Americans, teachers, Italian students, and other people who knew what words and speed to use when talking to a foreigner. Each sentence that I heard sounded like one long strange word.
After a cappuccino and some breakfast, it was time for the day to begin, and I got my mind off of this language barrier. Roberta and I used her mother’s recipe for mela cotogna marmellata. These strange apples have a pale yellow skin and typical white flesh. She advised against trying them raw, so I waited until the jam was ready. It had turned red like a strawberry and had a great sweet and tart taste.
When the rest of the family came home for the day, I was once again very confused. There was a lot of very fast Italian flying across the room from each and every direction. Roberta and Roberto have four children, a 17 year old girl Dorella, a 14 year old boy Michele, a 12 year old boy Riccardo, and a 6 year old girl Giorgia.
Because of the rain in the morning, it was not until later that day that we went outside to harvest the olives.
Picking olives is like picking very big blueberries, something I have a bit of experience with. The difference is that you place a net under the tree, so you can be a little messy and not worry about dropping things. You just run your hand down a branch and all the olives pop off and fall to the ground. It is a very relaxing job, especially since this farm overlooks the ocean. After my first full day of harvesting, my hands were frozen from the bitter wind, but from then on I wore gloves and the work was always pleasant, almost therapeutic.

On rainy days, I stayed in the house helping to measure out grains and package them for sale, or helping package the essential oils and soaps that Roberta produced. When I finished with the work, I would take some time to read Harry Potter in Italian or play with Giorgia. I loved playing with Giorgia because I was less anxious about my lack of Italian. I probably should have been a little more worried when we played school. She was a very strict teacher and while I excelled in writing and drawing, my alphabet was atrocious. We got very frustrated with each other one day when I could not hear the difference in my pronunciation of the letter E in Italian and the correct pronunciation. I think I know it now. We often played with the adorable cat that ended up being a good way to calmly improve my Italian.

For the first few days, I was too nervous to say much of anything, let alone to say it correctly. I felt like I must be a nuisance, someone eating their food but not contributing to conversation at meals. But midweek, things started to click. I wasn’t making as many mistakes, I understood more, and I was actually engaging in conversation. Roberto and Roberta seemed to pick up on the fact that I needed to be spoken to a bit more slowly and that one-on-one conversations were not as nerve-wracking for me. They also helped by reiterating what I would say so that if I made agreement mistakes, I could hear it said correctly. I feel like it just clicked all of a sudden, like Ariel in The Little Mermaid, whatever was holding my voice back broke, and I could speak.

I was living the life. Harvesting olives in Italy with a really nice family and really good food. I’ve been a slightly obsessed with Italian food all semester, but this week, I could not stop thinking about it and I don’t remember the last time I was hungry. I am not sure what customs are in Italy, but it seems like people want you to finish your food and take seconds or thirds when offered. No one ever said they were full, so when offered seconds, I gladly took them to be polite and also because it was so delicious.

Roberto and Roberta seem to have all organic food in their household and a lot of it they grow themselves, it’s all fantastic. In the mornings I would wake up and make myself an espresso with a little hot foamy milk. Midweek, I discovered the joy of dipping biscotti into espresso. This is one of life’s gems and I am going to need to enjoy this treat on a daily basis in Florence. With my espresso, I might have a bowl of granola and oats with warm milk, or I might opt for bread. It could be a toasted prosciutto and cheese sandwich, maybe bread with some hazelnut spread, maybe with homemade honey, but most likely, it would be bread with the mela cotogna marmellata that I helped to make.
When I told Roberta I usually enjoy a sandwich for lunch, she was shocked. Pranzo seemed to be the most important meal of the day and everyone was home for it. Pasta with eggplant and peppers, pasta and clam sauce, chicken cutlets, fish, ravioli and mushrooms, fresh vegetables, and more made me extremely full and tired after lunch.
Around 8 or 9 in the evening we would sit down to dinner. Dinner seemed to call for less preparation, but still excellent quality. Mashed potato cooked with prosciutto and cheese, salad, potato and tuna, chick pea soup, some sort of rice soup, bread and cheese, and other dishes filled me right back up to where I was after lunch.
If my stomach was capable, I would warm up after dinner with Orzo, a coffee-like drink made with toasted grains and cereals that was thankfully caffeine free. It never hurt to dip in biscotti either.

When it comes to food in Italy, the extra virgin olive oil is one of the most important ingredients. When I was picking olives alongside the family, I felt like I was part of the culture. I was helping to harvest something that people all over Italy have been growing throughout history. As I peacefully ran my fingers through the olive branches, I could have been at any time in history, before the Romans or a hundred years from now. The hilltop seemed like it was unchanging. The olives smelled fresh and green, and I could not wait to press them into oil.
The process of the spremintura, the press, has been of interest to me since I came to Italy. How exactly do they get the oil? Well they send the olives to the factory. So if they send the olives to a factory with machines, how did they make olive oil before machines existed? Thanks to Roberto’s generosity of time and knowledge, I was able to learn the answers to these questions.

Some of the 260 kg of olives

He let me accompany him and the 260 kg of olives to the frattolio, the factory. This place was like the best second-grade math problem, the kind with the in-box and out-box with an imaginary machine in-between to get the answer. The olives were pulled up a conveyer belt, a vacuum sucked out the leaves, they fell down a fume to get washed, they were churned into a sort of tapenade, went into a mystery machine and separated into oil and other stuff. The other stuff plopped out of a tube into a big brown pile of olive stuff outside. The thick oil came out of pipes and splattered onto a filter. What passed through the filter filled up a bucket with pretty greenish yellow oil. This was my favorite part. I watched this gold fill up one side of the bucket and finally it reached the top of the separator and spilled down to the other side of the bucket like a beautiful waterfall. Sometimes it was one shear waterfall, other times it was a bunch of thin olive oil streams. I wanted to swim in this bucket with giant bread paddles on my hands. The olive oil scented vapors in the factory might have influenced this thinking but I think I am just crazy for olive oil. Then the oil poured out a spigot into the big metal canister to take home. I think we had about 43 liters of olive oil. When I left, Roberta and Roberto kindly gave me a bottle of this oil made from olives I helped harvest. They also gave me a bottle from last year’s harvest. The new oil is more opaque and has a different flavor because it has little particles still in it that will eventually settle and be separated in more aged oil. I wondered how they made oil back in the day before factories, so after collecting our oil, Roberto took me to another frattolio that used more traditional methods where a giant wheel presses the olives.
Each and every day I appreciated this experience more and more. The Rinaldi family was so kind and generous to be sharing their life with me. While I did a lot of work, I felt privileged to be doing it and enjoyed it. When the weekend came and we did not do work, I felt almost guilty for not contributing, but the family was very appreciative of the work I had done that week and the conversation that my newly found language skills were providing.

Corinaldo

Giorgia (left) and her friends

On Saturday, we went to an inauguration of solar panels nearby where Dorella performed with her band. It was a very nice event and a beautifully sunny day. At this point, a new wwoofer was with us from Montana, so I had a new friend to practice Italian with at a slow pace. That evening Roberto, Roberta, Wanda (the wwoofer), Giorgia and I went to Corinaldo for a Festival of Witches the night before Halloween. Some of Giorgia’s friends and their families came too. This beautiful hilltop town, home to Saint Maria Goretti, had people flocking in on buses and parking their trailers outside the city center. There were decorations and music and a haunted house. Italy doesn’t do Halloween, so this was very exciting for me since I did not expect to celebrate it this year. I was told this festival is famous throughout Europe, but I don’t know if that was a joke. It was a lot of fun seeing street performers playing accordions on unicycles and swallowing flames.

Sunday morning, I took a walk to the beach before I left. The beautiful ocean that I stared at all week from the hilltop was just as beautiful up close. Saying goodbye to the family was very difficult, but I am convinced that I will return. I also made sure to say goodbye to the horses and cat of course. I am very thankful for this incredible week and will always cherish it.

On My Own

I thought a relaxing weekend on my own by the ocean would be a good transition from midterms to fall break.  I was slightly mistaken.  Turns out, being alone in a hotel in a beach town during the offseason is not much fun.  I had chosen to stay in Pesaro, a popular beach town in Le Marche that had a museum about the sea. When I got off the train, I felt a little silly walking around with my big backpack, but felt good about this independent experience.  Then I arrived at the hotel recommended by a guidebook.  It was kind of dark.  There was no one at the front desk.  So I wandered around saying buongiorno.  Finally, an old woman came out and I explained to her that I had reserved a room via email.  Instead of getting the warm welcome that I had expected as the only adorable offseason student traveler, I actually had to ask to check into my room.  The hotel itself was a very nice building, I just found it bizarre that no one was available to ask where the beach was, if I can have a map, or even what time breakfast was. 

Shortly after the I found out that the tourist office is closed for the weekend, I decided I did not like traveling alone.  Having no one to talk to, no one to smile at when I return to my hotel is a very strange feeling that I couldn’t easily shake.  The next day, I did find the sea museum.  It was conveniently located across the street from my hotel and inconveniently closed on weekends.

Adriatic Sea

Not all was lost.  I did get to do things that I wouldn’t normally do, like visit an opera writer (Rossini)’s house, visit an art exhibit/store featuring Mother Mary, and visit a diocesan museum where there were Medieval artifacts from old cathedrals.    As the only tourist, I was approached by many people who thought I was Italian and I very much appreciated these conversations.  I also got to sit on the beach (which had incredibly soft sand) and walk it as many times as I wanted to. 

Pesaro Cathedral

A highlight was church on Sunday morning at Pesaro Cathedral.  Not only was it a beautiful church, but it was a beautiful parish.  A whole crew of altar boys set up the church, placing prayer books and song books in every row.  As people started filtering in, I could see that this was a tight knit community.  People were excited to be at church and to wish one another a happy Sunday.  Kisses were flying cheek to cheek all around the church.  The priest was a very good, clear, and inspirational speaker, even I left with a message.  Here in Italy, I really miss singing at church.  At this cathedral, I was happy not to be singing, just listening.  A group of teens with an acoustic guitar and angelic voices provided music for the mass all on their own.  The tweens in the parish did the collection.  I absolutely loved the sense of community and happiness at the mass.

Pesaro's main piazza

Dinner by myself the first night was a very stressful event; I just did not feel comfortable eating alone in a restaurant.  But I did get to enjoy some very good fish and spinach ravioli and a glass of red wine.  The second night things changed.  I jumped in the ocean as the sun was going down, my first time in the Adriatic, and it was exhilarating.  This put me in a very good mood that continued until dinner that night.  I basically had a beautiful pile of seafood tossed in olive oil with a little lettuce on the side, complimented nicely by a fantastic glass of white wine. 

Not the best weekend, but it was a good life experience and I am glad I did it here in Italy, by the sea, and learned to relax by the end of it.