First, some updates. I have now actually seen a purple (faux?) fur coat, as well as an elderly gentleman in bright purple pants and an older woman with hair the same shade of purple as her clothes. I guess you really can’t go wrong with purple.
I have been practicing my Parmesan scarf-wrapping.
My sunny afternoon in the park was lovely and green and buggy and muddy. It looks like it might finally be becoming spring, and little flowers are emerging everywhere like a benevolent army of goodwill. Click on the newest Colorno link to the right, and you will see the culled selection of the excessive amount of pictures I took of general greenery. I wouldn’t say there was any real occurrence of note, but all in all it was a fantastic outing. Furthermore, the sky there is very reminiscent of Texas, and I enjoyed the beginnings of a sunset as I waited for the train home.
2. 27. 10
Dear six,This morning we departed for Ravenna, our first time staying somewhere overnight. I was walking to my bus stop and saw a bus pass by. I approach the stop from a perpendicular street, so when I saw the bus I assumed it was the six and that I had missed it. Nothing to do but catch the next one. Since I had missed it, I had no reason to keep up my fast clip. I turned onto the street with my stop, and saw the six trundle by me. It was just fast enough and I was just far enough from the stop that it was a lost cause. Sigh. I decided to walk a few stops to hasten my arrival at the train station and make my wait for the bus seem a little shorter. Still, as I can never quite figure out when the six is supposed to come and it was getting later, I was apprehensive about whether I would be able to catch the train. Instead of panicking, I employed my new favorite technique and set the timer on my phone. I was not allowed to freak out until 8:10, at which point, if the bus had yet to arrive, it would be almost impossible for me to catch the train. In the meantime, I was not allowed to check my watch. Thankfully, the bus arrived just before eight and I made it to the station in time. Furthermore, by walking those few stops, I realized that the time displayed on the bus schedule at the stop is the time it is supposed to arrive at the nearest major stop, which is not mine, which is why it always seems like the time is totally off.
I still do not love you, but at least now I understand you. Perhaps we can reach a truce one day. Love, A
Anyway, Matt and Ellie and I make it onto the train, which is also a merciful five minutes late, and nab spots on the upper level. Already it was a sunny and beautiful day full of promise. We arrived in Ravenna around eleven, and began our wandering. We had arranged to meet with Ali and Beta, our two hosts and friends-to-be via CouchSurfing, at three, so we had a few hours to explore. Picture time. We traveled through the main squares, one of which had a carousel with horses with tails made of hair and a pumpkin carriage that looked more like a brain. Apparently, Ravenna is allegedly one of the most magical places in Italy (?) because ‘the black and white triangles of magic intersect’ here. I don’t know how much stock to put in that, but it definitely has a very special and invigorating energy. We found a small herbal/botanic garden and had fun looking at fish and bumblebees. We walked on and arrived at the cathedral right as it was closing. It is the lightest church I have been in so far. More often than not, everything is dark stone or wood or painted, but this interior was the creamy yellow-gray of a dust old wedding cake. Even with our quick look, it was easy to see the Byzantine influence. No mosaics here, but the floors were a simpler manifestation of the multicolored geometric patterning we saw in Venice. At this point, hunger was starting to strike. After more noncommittal wandering and window menu reading, we arrived at Pizza Losfizio, whose hours and selection and prices combined quite satisfactorily. Having recently tried fresh gorgonzola for lunch, I dared to order a mushroom and gorgonzola pizza, along with a birra Moretti, product of Milan. I think both items were my thus far favorites of their respective categories. Afterwards we managed to walk to the northwestish edge of the center before it was time to meet Ali. Ali took us to their spectacularly centrally located loft apartment to drop off our stuff before we went out to see more of the town. Right away, she was so chipper and outgoing that it was clear that we would all get along great. I was on top of my game, as far as my Italian conversation goes, and she was quite impressed. I think the fact that I had been speaking solely English for several hours at that point helped me out. She took us to her favorite gelato place, and I got a scoop of zabaione (made of egg and rum and cream, or something like that), paired with a scoop of strawberry. The strawberry was so fresh and pure and flavorful and managed to simultaneously remind me of Blue Bell and Guatemala. So yeah, really really good.
We decided to head back home and swing by the supermarket on the way. Originally, the three of us were planning to offer to make dinner, but it turned out Ali already had all of that figured out, so we opted to get ingredients for dessert. We decided on fruit salad, which here is called Macedonia for some reason. On the way, we ran into ß, who had gotten off her shift at the Irish pub. They wanted to get us a favorite wine of theirs, but it was nowhere to be found, so we got a wine from Piemonte, Ali’s home region. As I started squeezing kiwis, I sensed a suddenly very uncomfortable ßeta making the sounds someone makes when they can’t decide how or whether to say something. It turns out people in Italy do NOT touch produce with their bare hands. They use disposable plastic gloves in the interest of preserving hygiene. Don’t you wash your fruit at home anyway? Yeah, but still. Ok, new cultural lesson for me. We get home and Ali gets to making foccaccia, for which she had made the dough ahead of time. Roll it out and pour on some oil, oregano, salt, and onion and it is delicious. Beta shows me her book on Polish, and I read about the different pronunciation of letters depending on their phonological environments.
We talk for several hours, and for some reason everyone is very impressed when I am able to translate pharaoh into Italian (faraone) and later when I know the word for betray (tradire). It was really remarkable to me how well we managed to hit it off. It seemed like we were at an old friend’s house, not with someone we had met a couple of hours before. Eventually, the cooking started. Earlier, I had been a little apprehensive about filling up on foccaccia, but we ended up having several hours between that and dinner. We had a delicious couscous with ground beef and vegetables, and the three of us set to making our Macedonia, and partway through realized we would need a bigger bowl. This fruit salad, which included a 'yellow melon' we got because I was curious about, up being quite good. After a couple more hours of eating and talking, we went off to Beta’s pub.
The place was hopping, because there was a big rugby game on, and we ended up sharing a big table with some other group. Beta recommended an amber ale, Dominus, to me, because they no longer served her favorite. We had a fun time and ended up doing things like playing coaster table hockey and peanut tosses and Ellie demonstrated some camp songs and dances.
2. 28. 10
The alarm goes off at 10, at which point I have been opening and closing my eyes for the last half hour or so. We start waking up and getting ready to go, as I intend to go to mass. I was so tired last night I heard neither the snoring nor Beta’s clamorous homecoming and shower at three.
We all walked over to the church where I would be hearing mass, and it turned out to be the church we had briefly visited yesterday. The rest headed off to still unknown shenanigans while I sat. Afterward, we met up again and went to the baptistery, the museum, and several churches, all intricately and beautifully mosaiced. We wanted to see as much as possible, and we managed to see everything our ticket included, but by the end I kind of lost the ability to relish things in the midst of all of the hustling. I can't go into much detail because I have a) forgotten the names of the places and b) it would mostly be me reiterating how spectacular each place was. Still, it was breathtaking. (The two pictures above give just a hint of the grandeur and labor of what all we saw.) At 330 we re-met Ali and Beta for a long-delayed lunch. Remember those things I’ve eaten at home in tortilla-like things? We ate them at a restaurant today. Piadini. Mine with prosciutto and squaquerone (a cheese, have fun saying the name out loud, skwakwerone) and rucola. These piadini were more like pita wraps than tortillas, with thicker bread. After, we also shared a nutella piadina. I had a fun time explaining the electoral college in Italian, which led to a comparative discussion on governmental structure and processes.
After filling our bellies it was time to start heading home, and we made one last round through the city on our way to the train station and beyond. We didn’t want to return to ‘real life’ (even if it is less real than real real life), nor did we want to say goodbye to our new best buds, Ali and Beta.
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