Respirational

It's about time I finish up with the Spring Break stuff. So much to tell, so much already forgotten.

I went to Ferrara with my host sister and seven of her friends on the Monday after Easter, a holiday. We saw medieval dancing, by which I mean I saw the backs of a lot of people’s heads and some flags flying up over them every now and then. We had an incredible lunch (after the eternal wait necessary to seat nine people) and I had tomino al tartuffo (a potent cheese melted over truffles and other vegetables) and cappeletti di zucco con ragu (pumpkin-stuffed pasta with meat sauce) and sampled the salumella, all of course, with wine. We stepped into the church right as it was closing, wandered the outdoor craft market, and saw a great art exhibit, 'From Braque to Kandinsky to Chagall: Aimé Maeght and His Artists.' There was some grumbling within the group about the fact that they had dared make Kandinsky a headliner while only displaying two of his pieces, but I enjoyed the show. Other featured artists included Calder and Miró, and so on. Lots of bigwigs and a lot about how they all came together and drew upon each other, artistically. I loved a quote by Duchamp about Calder, "Calder's art is the sublimation of a tree in the wind." At the end of the exhibit they featured photos from the opening of Maeght's Foundation, and it was like a who's who of the arts. He was friends with Duke Ellington and Ella Fitzgerald, and Merce Cunningham, who choreographed dances on Miró's sculptures. Talk about artistic collaboration. All in all, it was a fun, very Italian day.

On Thursday Leti asked me if I wanted to join her in walking Jody. Considering that I had been sitting in my room deriding myself for not being outside enjoying the incredible weather, I said yes of course. What I assumed would be a fifteen or twenty minute sidewalk meander ended up being a fantastic three hours in a beautiful park right around the corner from our house, which I didn't eve know existed. I got to meet Jody's dog friends and see her romping in flowery fields, and realized that she doesn’t seem quite so big when she’s not wreaking havoc in a contained area. I also got to meet some of Leti's human friends and later we had a nice long chat, just enjoying the outdoors. It really was lovely.


Pause for musical interlude. May I recommend Cream's Tales of Brave Ulysses in preparation for or accompaniment of the next part of this post. It's time for the story of Cinque Terre.

"...And you see a girl's brown body dancing through the turquoise,
And her footprints make you follow where the sky loves the sea..."

Imagine the most idyllic outdoor vacation day and this was it. You've already seen some of the pictures. As seems to be the inescapable trend, I stayed up late and woke up early and was not well rested for my early morning departure. Ellie and I both made it just in time to catch the 7:48 train to paradise. About two and a half hours later we found ourselves stopped in a tunnel. Time to get off, though it didn’t seem like it. Let the fun begin.

We were in Riomaggiore, and after acquiring a map we started on our way. Not too long after, we arrived in the next town, Monarola, the next ‘terra’ of the five. The ocean was irresistible. We walked down the path just to sit on the rocks. That turned into wanting to dip my toes in. That turned into an hour of floating and treading and swimming in the colder than chilly water. We watched the tide rush over the rocks, getting pulled in along with the water. We swam over to a jetty, where we saw the irony of ironies. In this haven, someone had decided to make sure everyone knew it, taking a thick black marker to the white rock face, labeling it a ‘natural beauty.’ Eventually we made it back to the original rocks and lay out to get dry and catch some rays. By now, several other people had arrived, though few were besotted or thick-skinned enough to breach the waves.

Lunchtime. I opted for pesto, native to this region, on trofi, a traditional pasta shape. Delicious. Next we went for gelato, and were rewarded with an extremely bizarre and awkward conversation that none of the participants fully understood. It went something like this:
Ellie: Can I try the mint please?
Man working at the gelateria: Mint? Mint is mint. I mean, mint is mint! (continuously grumbling as he prepared the sample)
Me, to Ellie: Look, there’s green apple.
Me, to Man: Can I try the green apple, please?
Man: Apple? Apple is apple! (more grumbling)
We ordered. He asked if I wanted a cone and I said yes. He didn’t ask Ellie what she wanted and he served her a cone, but she wanted a cup.
Ellie: Oh, I wanted a cup. Can I have one please?
Man: Yeah, yeah. (But does not actually give her a cup)
Then something strange happened that I can’t quite remember anymore. People came in behind us and said hello. The man responded with something that Ellie misunderstood and thought was directed towards us. Somehow, Ellie responded in a way that made him ask
Man: Oh, do you like me?
Ellie: What? No. Wait, I thought you were talking to us.
Man: You like me?
Ellie: No, I thought –
Man: You think I’m cute?
Ellie: Ok, yes, fine.
Man: Ah! In that case, come by at seven.
Ellie (misunderstanding): Oh no, we just ate.
Man: I’ll help you digest, then.
At this point, I decided it was high time to exit, and I said thank you goodbye and made an about face. On to the next town.

Beautiful cliffside paths. The water is so clear it takes on the blue of thick glass, through which you can see down to the rocks. The botanical array was fascinating, featuring everything from cacti, succulents, and aloes, to pine trees. By this point, the number of tourists had thinned out quite a bit. 382 stairs and as many pictures later, we made it to the top of the meticulously and compulsively numbered switch-backing stairway and arrive in Corniglia, ‘the heart of Cinque Terre.’ Because of the direction we chose, each leg of the trip got longer and steeper and more difficult, though that isn’t necessarily saying a whole lot. Regardless, the trek to Vernazza took about an hour and a half. Right before we started this next chapter, I spied a French car with a TX sticker on the bumper. Can you say good omen?

The mountainsides were dotted with houses and terraced for vineyards and olive cultivation, two of the region’s main products. While we were making the climb up to Corniglia, we kept passing and being passed by another couple. It happened so much that we started to chat and joke with each other each time. When one pair was taking a rest, we would joke that we were waiting for the bus to take us the rest of the way. Now, headed to Vernazza, we had a real chat, and found out that he was Milanese and she was Greek. Both spoke incredible English, though apparently she spoke no Italian. At one point, Ellie and I stopped to rest in the shade and a little ways behind us they encountered a pair of Frenchmen, and I had a good time eavesdropping and practicing my French comprehension. (Granted, the conversation was mostly questions like ‘what time is it’ and ‘how much farther.’) Anyway, eventually, we made it to the beautiful Vernazza. We had been told that it and Monterosso were the most beautiful, but that the hike was easier coming from the other direction. I don’t think anyone expected us to walk the whole way; most people just do the first one and then take the train the rest of the way. Vernazza was indeed beautiful, but also very touristy. It feels strange to call it touristy when the whole of Cinque Terre seems to be about tourism, but there is a difference between a town with English/Italian menus and a town full of postcard and t-shirt shops.

I had a couple of ego boosts here. When buying postcards, the shop owner kept speaking to me in English despite the fact that I kept responding in Italian. Finally, when she asked if I wanted a bag and I replied ‘si perfavore,’ she exclaimed ‘Oh! I’m sorry. I thought you were American!’ Later, at a jewelry store, I started talking to the shop owner. The woman marveled at my Italian, showering me with praise, and told me that with all the languages I speak, I should come back and get a job at Cinque Terre after I finish school. Sounds like a plan to me.

You know what’s been missing on my blog for a while? Some kind of public transportation misadventure. Don’t worry, I’m about to tell you a great one that’ll make up for lost time. Because we definitely wanted to make it to the last town but didn’t have the two hours necessary to make the hike (alas! I would have loved to be able to say I walked the whole of the Via Dell'Amore) we opted for the train. So not wanting to miss this train, we cut my ego-inflating session short and rush to the station, arriving maybe seven minutes early, and stand at the platform in wait. The train arrives and we rush on with the masses. Guess who sits next to us? The couple we had met on the trail. I guess we all finally did manage to catch the train. Guess which way the train starts moving, though? In the opposite direction from where we want to go. Umm, what? Luckily, we can ask our new friends where they are going, and confirm that indeed, we jumped on a train back to Corniglia. Apparently, when you have so few platforms, trains arrive at the same one just a few minutes apart. Less than five minutes later we are back to where we started, farther from our destination and with more time to wait for the next train that will actually take us in the right direction. No biggie, really, except that when we get to Monterosso we have less than an hour before the train departs to Parma, which means that we don’t have time for a big delicious seafood-y meal. Still, we watch the sunset and see the towns light up across the water.

Did you think the train folly was finished? Guess again. We realize that instead of taking a train that would require us to change trains twice at unknown stops and times, we could take a direct train to Parma. Perfect. We get on (after serving as travel information for several other people trying to figure out their train situation and watching the bags of a woman wearing blue suede shoes) and go for about half an hour. And then we stop. And sit. For over an hour. I pass out completely thanks to having gotten less than five hours of sleep the night before and spending the day swimming and hiking in the sun, so I don’t even notice. I might even appreciate it. However, it turns out that a new conductor was supposed to take over at this stop, but he never showed up. So we just sat in the station at La Spezia, waiting. Ultimately, we made it home, and the prontobus, which has recently decided to embrace logic, takes me home first instead of passing my intersection and going way south of town before coming back and dropping me off last.


More than anything, I felt like (other than finally really experiencing warmth and sunshine) I finally really had a chance to breathe. To just sit and be. To marvel at nature, and be a part of it. Lastly, in closing, a poem for the linguistically endowed.
[no sé si el mar es, hoy]

No sé si el mar es, hoy
--adornado su azul de innumerables espumas--,
mi corazón; si mi corazón, hoy
--adrnada su grana de incontables espumas--,
es el mar.
    Entran, salen
uno de otro, plenos e infinitos,
como dos todos únicos.
A veces, me ahoga el mar el corazón,
hasta los cielos mismos.
Mi corazón ahoga el mar, a veces,
hasta los mismos cielos.

19 de junio
Juan Ramón Jiménez