This is cool. A 23-year-old student from Cornwall plans to travel across the US breaking oddball laws by falling asleep in a cheese factory in South Dakota and going whale hunting in Utah. There's a reality TV show in there somewhere, provided he makes it into the country. What's he going to say to the immigration officer when asked "What is the purpose of your visit?"
I sigh that everytime I look at these photos. First day back at work after my long vacation was extended by some nasty bugs, and though it's nice to once again walk among the living, I'd still rather be in my beautiful Venice.
I'm game for playing some culinary smackdown over pastry, Pam. Now that I'm finally getting around to getting some of pictures from Italy up somewhere.
(What can I say, I'm lazy.)
So, behold, all of you, not just some of those delicious sfogliatelle I described in Florence--in the lower right corner. These are surpassed in beauty and pleasure-inducing flakiness only by the giant ones on the left side.
If this doesn't convince, however, I have more where these came from.
(cue the evil laugh)
mwaaahaahaa....
Feet of snow outside my front door: 4
Feet of snow up in the mountains: 16
People trapped at the Planneralm resort: 300
Level (from 1-5) avalanche alert for the last 48 hours: 5
Cows killed in yesterday's local avalanche: 6
Barns destroyed: 1
Pairs of snowshoes parked by our front door: 2
Total hours out of the last 48 we've spent on snowshoes: 6
Times (while wearing snowshoes) we've been asked "Where's the dog team?": 1
People we've seen on snowshoes besides ourselves: 0
Soldiers used to clear snow from railway lines: 50
Days until winter break tourists start clogging the roads: 0.5
Projected number of travelers: 100,000
Days until helicopters start throwing bombs to start controlled avalanches so they can clear the roads: 1
Days we've had chains on the car: 2
Days since we've been grocery shopping: 5
Feet of snow in the forecast for today: 2
Days until the forecast says the snow will let up: 1
I'm such a snob. A complete and utter snob. At least when it comes to food. Maybe a few other things, as well, but where a meal is concerned (or really even a snack) I am an unrepentant elitist. Which isn't to say that I am only willing to eat fancy food. Far from it. I'm just fairly insistent that what I eat is good. Which is why, as a rule, I refuse to patronize restaurant chains or any of those touristy places on the waterfront in Seattle. Or tourist restaurants in general.
The problem is, however, that sometimes you want to be in a particular location when you dine, and then you have to choose from the available options in that location. For example, on the banks of the grand canal on the one warm day (which also happens to be the last day) of your magical stay in Venice.
I had opted to leave my bags at my hotel after checking out so I could spend one more day in Venice. I wasn't in any real hurry to get back to Rome. I walked through Venice that morning, completely in love, really not wanting to leave, feeling, in fact, much like I did the day I moved out of New Haven after graduation, knowing that I really should stay, and would come back if nothing else. I walked through alleyways and through San Marco and along the banks of the canals, and came to the Rialto and decided I really wanted to sit in the sun on the canal by the bridge and enjoy the warm(ish) sunny day and have a nice glass of white wine and some lunch and say goodbye to Venice that way.
One problem in that little vision, though. There are pretty much only tourist restaurants on the banks of the grand canal by the rialto. And tourist restaurants are the scourge of the culinary earth. I don't understand them in the least, and I am convinced that they are the reason that I can meet people who've been to places like Italy and Spain and France and claim that they didn't really like the food. Because the food in tourist restaurants is generally one step below something like TGI Fridays or Applebees in the States.
But I really, really wanted to sit in the sun and sip my wine and drink in the city with my eyes.
So, I descended from the bridge, steeling my resolve, and decided that I would pick the least offensive-looking of the places along the walk, and just hold my nose and go for it. Besides, I reasoned, I had spent four nights in Venice and eaten in four of the city's top ten restaurants a total of five times
(Oh, I finally made it to Acqua Pazzo on Sunday night, and it was very good. I had a Caprese with fresh, housemade buffalo mozzarella that was so creamy and tangy and lovely, followed by a Neopolitan-style dish of dorado in white vinegar with fried zucchini slices. It sounds maybe a little odd, but you'd be amazed at how nicely the zucchini, slightly salty and crispy set off the spike of vinegar and gave a real vibrancy to what is otherwise not a particularly strong fish).
Back to the gauntlet of tourist trap lunch spots...It's not like I could really claim that I had missed out, right. I could do this. I'm strong, and I've endured much worse travel misshaps, like the one that resulted in my ride in a police car in Pamplona. Compared to that, eating at a tourist restaurant should be a piece of cake. Er, tiramasu or something. So I walked, I regarded the menus, looked at the outdoor seating options, glanced at the food on the tables of the people already dining...
And got to the end of the walk. I hadn't seen one that I could imagine spending my money, and more importantly, my calories, at. Drat. I saw a little alleyway, and started walking down it, figuring there might be some little trattoria with nice looking pizza or maybe some scampi prawn dish down that way.
Stop! (Cue the inner dialog sequence)
Paulette: Yo, dude!
Paulette: What, already?
Paulette: Remember, I wanted to eat on the bank of the canal, smile at the people in the gondolas, dream about living here some day? Are you that ADD that you've already forgotten.
Paulette: No, but those places were awful! You saw them.
Paulette: That's not the point.
Paulette: I know, but I can't eat there.
Paulette: It won't kill you, you know.
Paulette: It might. And if it does, you're to blame.
Paulette: Fine. Let's just pick one.
And so I did. I chose based on what seemed like the most advantageous position to view the bridge and the canal traffic and get some direct sunlight. I ordered pizza and a half-bottle of white wine and a mixed salad.
I suppose the first sign that I would have been right to explore that alleyway for a secret trattoria was the wine that was brought out. Bolla Soave. Uhm, I guess I can be grateful it wasn't Franzia White Zinfandel or something, or Boone's Farm for that matter, but it wasn't much of a step up.
Then salad comes out. The first salad, in fact, I've had in Italy with iceberg lettuce in it. And no bitter greens, thank you very much. I've been so loving all the arugula and radicchio in salads in Italy, and the lack of bland salad leaves. Ah well. The dressing was too oily and not in a good way, since the oil was just kind of greasy, not fruity and spicy or olivey or anything. And then the pizza. I had ordered an anchovy pizza. Nothing to fancy. And I guess it was ok, but...The anchovies were too salty, and they needed something sweet to balance them, like red onions. They didn't need all the cheese on the pizza, which was too much, and they certainly didn't need the capers and kalamata olives, which only added to the saltiness. I couldn't eat more than a few bites of it without feeling like a slug turning inside out. (Sorry if that wasn't such a pretty image).
Ah well. Train to Rome. Good dinner in Rome, at a hip place near the Via del Corso called Gusto. I had meatballs, which were actually three very large veal meatballs with a lot of sage and onion in a white wine sauce, and they were delish. And a prawn and mango salad with arugula and radicchio and very nice fruity oil and sweet, aged balsamic.
And this morning, the flight to Amsterdam.
There are people you encounter in life. People who do stupid things, or just fail to do smart things. People you look at and think, how do they manage to get by. How, just in a Darwinian sense, do they survive, let alone hold down jobs and pay bills and buy houses and cars and raise children and not burn down the garage and that sort of thing.
And every once in a while, it occurs to me that I am one of those people.
It mainly has to do with time. Maybe it's kind of ironic for a project manager to have absolutely no sense of timing or deadlines, but I don't. I feel pretty confident in the veracity of stating that, with the exception of my senior thesis, I never handed in a single paper my last two years of college less than a week late. My friends make jokes about my lateness, despite my attempts to be early all the time. I'm always rushing out the door, something half undone, the coffeepot still on, teeth unbrushed (yes, I brush my teeth in the car) because I'm going to be late for a meeting. And I miss planes. More than most people. I missed my flight to Spain last year. And on a visit home last year or so, missed the connection in Minnesota. I almost missed my flight to LA this summer when, after deciding that since I'd need to leave for the airport by 4am, and would be out until 1am or so the previous night, I should just not go to bed. And then, of course, I feel asleep and woke up with something like 45 minutes before my flight took off and had to run out the door like a madwoman and book it down the highway at nearly 90 mph to make it.
And so, it's probably not surprising that this morning, when I went to check in for my flight this morning, the guy at the ticket counter said, "Amsterdam?" and I said yes, and he said, "The one leaving right now?" and I said yes. He handed me the boarding pass. "Boarding starts at 9.45."
It was 10.05am.
It's a wonder I made the flight at all. Some glitch in the catering service delayed the flight by about twenty minutes and I just made it. And for no good reason, really, except that I had decided to walk to the train station from my hotel this morning instead of taking the bus or tram and hadn't chosen the most direct route, and then wound up realizing that the train to the airport was going to get me in to the airport 45 minutes before the flight was supposed to take off, and then of course the train got delayed....
Well, I made it. I checked in to my hotel in Amsterdam. I had a lovely liverwurst sandwich and a Heineken at a place in the Rembrandtplein and then found the sequel to a book that I finished yesterday that I just loved (thanks, Ron, for recommending "The Rotter's Club". That's so far been my favorite book on this trip.) I'm still debating whether I should just go back to Italy tomorrow when I head back to the airport. I wonder if David would fire me if I didn't come back for another week or so...
"It is not in God that the French trust ...but in human rights and in the power and responsibility of ordinary men and women to make a good society without reference to gods or kings."
That choice quote is from this article in the Guardian called "If only we were more like the French." The writer ties a lack of revolutionary history to Britain's failure to embrace "egalite." Worth a read. And begs the questions: What's our excuse?
There is a very small and homey restaurant in Venice called Alle Testiere, which, if you are lucky and make reservations well in advance, you can sit back and spend a few hours while Bruno Gavagnin takes the day's catch from the Venetian waters and turns out some of the most balanced and interesting seafood dishes imaginable.
If you are very lucky and have not made reservations in advance, you might be able to find a free table not long before Alle Testiere closes for the evening and enjoy an entree, and perhaps one of owner Luca de Vita's incredible cheese plates.
If you are extremely lucky, you might also be seated at a table next to Annie and Liz and Graham and Nick.
As it turns out, I was extremely lucky on Friday night.
I knew of Alle Testiere, and the difficulty in getting a table there. The place is small and known around the world, and as I hadn't planned to come to Venice until the day before I got on the train here, I certainly had no hope of getting in. Which I was ok with because Thursday night I had dinner at one of the city's other top restaurants, Da Fiore, a small and pretty trattoria that does Venetian classic dishes superbly.
I started with the vegetable antipasti. There were roasted peppers and eggplant, a golden tomato stuffed with breadcrumbs and cheese, traviso (a radicchio-ish vegetable with long tentacles and a slightly bitter taste), baby zucchini, and carrots. For my entree, I had calve's liver, venetian style, which is served with carmelized onions and wedges of polenta. Every bite was perfectly balanced, too, with the sweetness of the onions off-setting the strong flavor of the liver. It was gorgeous.
Friday night, I thought I might see if I could get into Aqua Pazzo, a well-known pizza place, a little on the upscale side, not to far from where I am staying. But I wound up being online longer than I had planned, and I knew that they would be closed before I could get there. So I just walked out the door, looking for something that might do the trick. Just a few blocks from my hotel, I passed a nice looking place that still had some tables occupied, and noted the name in case I didn't find anything else, but kept walking.
A few minutes later, crossing a bridge over one of the canals, I stopped short, I'm sure confusing the guy who was walking right behind me. "Alle Testiere...Alle Testiere...Damn, that's..." and I turned around and marched straight back over, figuring I would take a chance.
Very good move. There are moments when you could go either way. There was a very good chance that at that hour, they would tell me that they couldnt seat me, and the kitchen was closed. Honestly, I wasn't really dressed up to snuff for a nice place anyway, as I was wearing jeans and the black walking shoes I've very nearly worn holes through the bottom of. It was late, and cold, and the idea of a quiet and casual place where I could sit with my book and quietly enjoy a light dinner was very appealing, especially as I'd had something of a big lunch out on Burano that day. But I figured it was my one chance to try Bruno's food, and I was at least going to give it a shot.
I asked for a table for one, and the waiter told me that they could seat me, but the only thing they could make for me was the tuna or a cheeseplate. I said I would have the tuna, and so they seated me by the door, at a small table right up against a four top of British folk who were just finishing up their main courses.
My dinner came, and one of the men at the table leaned over. "You're having the tuna? You are in for a treat!" and then he continued leaning across the table and watching me expectantly until I took my first bite.
And indeed, it was a treat. The tuna was seared very rare, and coated with herbs. I'm not sure of all of them, but there was certainly fennel sead and rosemary and thyme. The sauce was light, a bit buttery, and with white wine in it. It was just marvelous.
The next table ordered the cheeseplate, and when it came out, Luca, the owner, explained each of the cheeses, all Italian, most of them local and not exported anywhere else, and the order in which they should be eaten. There was also a little pumpkin/ginger torte to be enjoyed with the cheeses, as well as slices of pear. Luca also brought out a special wine for them to try with the cheese, as, it turns out, that Graham and Annie are regular customers and have become good friends with him.
Somehow, during the course of the evening, which started out fairly late, I got involved in conversation with them, and after ordering my own cheeseplate, and a glass of white to go with it (the bottle then being left on the table for me, a very nice chardonnay/reisling mix), Luca closed up shop, pulled out a special bottle of wine, poured six glasses and brought out a plate of fritelli. Fritelli are for carnevale. They're sort of like fried donut puffs, but light, and filled with warm zabaglione. They're kind of irresistable.
The evening went on for some time after the restaurant had closed, and by the time it was over, I had an invitation to join them the following night at the restaurant again.
Saturday evening, dinner started at 8. This time, I was smartly dressed, with my new black boots with killer heels and one of the incredible blouses I got in Florence. The five of us were at a corner table, with two other tables for two nearby. Luca came out swirling a pale amber wine in a decanter, explaining that he had opened it early that morning and had been letting it open up all day for us. It was French, and organic and unfiltered wine, that was rough and a little tart, and really fantastic. He explained that he had the wines picked out for the evening already and that we would next get to see what some of the local wineries were doing with the same style of wine making.
He then recited the appetizers. There is no written menu at Alle Testiere, and they only do seafood. Everything fresh. Everything seafood.
I was advised that the best course of action was that Annie choose the appetizers we would share. In total, we had seven. Raw prawns, still with their heads on, and served with slices of strawberry and cucumber, that were surprisingly sweet. Then a terrine of crab with feta cheese and mint and other somewhat Greek flavors, that were out of this world. There were scallops, served in their shell and cooked with a bitter orange juice and carmelized onions. There were mussels mariniere. There was sauteed octopus with a gazpacho sauce that was slightly spicy and a vibrant complement to the slightly crispy octopus. There were tiny, tiny shrimp with creamy polenta. And there were fried scampi, also with their bodies in tact.
By this time we had moved onto the next wine Luca had chosen for us, a tokai from the Veneto that was not at all sweet, slightly darker in color than the first, and very nice with the fish.
Then the pasta course. Everyone choose their own, and though I did taste the gnocchi with scallops, which was fantastic, I was absolutely smitten with my taglioni with scampi prawns in what was described as a rose petal curry. The sauce itself was divine, with a light, rosy fragrance and very light middle eastern flavors. I could taste thyme and cinnamin in it. It was absolutely delightful.
And another local, unfilter wine, drier than the last, and very good.
With the fish course, a red, this one a local Merlot/Cabernet blend, very smooth and with a chocolate background to it. My fish was a John Dory, served with blueberries and strawberries with fine herbs and an orange sauce, and it was delicious. The blueberry, especially, with the firm white fish made an amazing contrast and gave the dish incredible balance and lightness.
Cheese course. The highlights of the cheese course were two, though there were five cheeses on the plate, all them very good, and all of them served in enormous portions, five of each cheese. The gorgonzola, which is made locally and not exported from the region was perfect. It was strong and pungent without being too much of each. The talleggio, too, was creamy and strong. I usually don't particularly care for talleggio, but this one was not too pungent at all.
When we had made some good headway through the cheese, Luca came out, and explained that he arranged the three tables (ours and the two right near us) that way when he realized that three of his favorite clients and friends were going to be there on the same night, and he wanted everyone to meet. One of the couples was Belgian and the other Canadian. He explained that between the three tables, they'd been there over a hundred times. He poured a marsala that he had been saving, a glass for each person at the three tables, as well as one for himself, and we all drank a toast.
Today, I was also lucky to have been invited to join Annie, Nick, and Liz for lunch at the very smart and famous Harry's Bar, where the Bellini cocktail was invented. The place is warm and clubby in an old school sort of way. Astronomically expensive, but the food was good. I had a very nice veal ravioli gratin with prosciutto cotto and cheese, though everyone agreed that Nick's canneloni won the day.
And now, after all that, I've said hardly a word about carnevale, which is beautiful, especially today, as the whole city has turned into an elaborate masquerade ball, with people in beautiful costumes, mostly 18th and 19th century looking affairs, and beautiful, hand-painted masques.
This morning, I was walking along the grand canal, enjoying the costumes, and saw one woman dressed as a which. She had on a black dress with purple and black striped stockings, a long black cloak, purple wig, a tall black witch's hat with purple trim, and a white mask. She was walking along in front of me, obviously on her way somewhere, when a little boy, dressed up like a little 19th century gentleman pointed at her and giggled. She continued walking, but then, maybe twenty paces later, she stopped, slowly turned round and crouched down as she walked back over to him until he hid behind his mother's legs and giggled. And then she slowly turned back in her original direction, and continued walking at her normal pace.
A few minutes later, an Italian man walking toward her leaned over and screamed in her face, and then kept walking. She turned quickly, adn with very dramatic and florishy movements, fixed the back of his head in her stare and gestured to him like she was putting a spell on him. What was so cool about it was that he wasn't even looking. She was so into her character, though, that I'm not sure that she even cared whether anyone was watching her. I suppose that's what makes this whole carnevale thing so interesting and more than just the Halloweenish type of costume party we are all used to. People aren't themselves. They go to elaborate lengths to be some character from the past and walk around, dining in restaurants, shopping, taking ferries, in character, not just in costume. And Venice, as odd and magical and slightly surreal as it is, seems like the perfect place to become someone else for a few days.
There's no way I can argue with Risotto with Prawns, it will take the award over Wurst mit Kraut any day. But I can not stand by idly while Paulette claims the supremecy of the Italian pastry.
Today we visited the Eddegger in Graz, one of the K und K Hofbakereis (former bakers to the palace) with which I have a calorie laden obsession. And I contend that while the Italians do a fine job, a superior job with the main course, if you want pastry, you go to Austria.
We shared the Nusskipfel (lower left corner) a festival of buttery flaking pastry interspersed with ground almonds. Of course, there was coffee, too.
It's hard not to get lost in Venice. I would imagine that even those without an incredible talent for getting lost such I possess could easily lose their way in the labrynth of alleyways and squares and bridges and dead ends here. Some of the passageways, some even with shops and bars along them, are barely wider than I am.
Somehow, though, it's also entirely easy to get unlost. You no sooner realize that you've all but completely lost track of where you are, consult the map, realize that you can't find any of the recent street names anywhere on it, give up, and head once again in the direction you thought was right before realizing you were hopelessly lost, and suddenly, you find yourself at your intended destination.
It's quite a nice change from the whole, finally realizing where you thing where that realization is accompanied by the dawning understanding that you've actually walked completely out of the city and now have several miles between you and a state of unlostedness.
This may be one of Venice's charms, it's surreal and yet simple navigability. There are lots of them, many of them almost bordering on not seeming quite real. There are no cars, so it just doesnt sound like a city. There are no main boulevards to speak of, other than those filled with water. You are constantly crossing bridges and making unexpected little turns. And, increasingly tonight as Carnevale is set to begin, you encounter people wearing long black cloaks, white masks, and tritipped hats.
Now, as much as I love this maze of this place, I did want to spend some time today exploring some other attributes of Venice, including their glass-making. I've become completely enchanted with that frilly venetian style of mirror and chandelier that looks like it belongs on the set of Beauty and the Beast. Especially tht stuff with teh pink flowers and gold leaf. And I'm exercising all of my willpower not to blow Yogi's food budget for the year on some elaborate piece of art for the Girlie Room, though it would work perfectly in there.
Glassblowing here happens on the island of Murano. I took the ferrovia over and started exploring. A number of the factories will let you into the furnace rooms to watch them make the glass. An experience you would never encounter in the US with all of their safety regulations and such, but you can walk right in, and usually someone from the factory will happily explain the process, lead you right through all of the men (wearing no more safety equipment that street clothes, btw) building the glass ornaments, look inside the furnaces, get close enough to feel the heat on your face, that sort of thing. The idea is that you'll then want to buy something and feel more connected to the stuff in their shop because you watched their artisans making it.
I'd been into a few of the factories and shops and was trying to avoid spending too much time in the cold that seems to have followed me here from Florence, and so popped into one shop, where I was greeted at the door by a very large dog, who was probably a shepard/mastiff mix of some sort. I gave him my hand to sniff, adn then he shoved his head against the outside of my leg, in a very cuddly and affectionate way, and so I was petting him as I loooked through the showroom. There were two men working there, one who looked to be in his late 30s or early 40s and the other old enough to be his father. The younger called to the dog, I assume to tell it to stop bugging me, and I said that it was ok, and asked in Italian what the dog's name was, and then pet him again and told him (in English) how sweet he was.
The older of the men then said to me, in English, "I assume you were referring to the dog."
I smiled and said yes, and he asked me if I spoke much Italian, what I was doing in Venice, how long was I in Italy for, etc. The usual litany of questions that I get when people start up conversations with me here. The younger man asked me something in Italian which I didnt understand, so he asked in English where I was staying in Venice, and I told him the area.
The older man then said, "Your Italian is terrible. How long have you been in Italy?" I smiled and said I'd been here about a week, to which he replied, "In a week you should be able to learn Italian. You must not be very smart." And he smiled.
We had a great conversation from that point on. I told him that I had liked Florence more than Rome, and he asked me if I liked it better because of the museums or the wine. I told him I wasnt so much of a museum person, but the wine in Florence was very good, as was the food, better than I had had in Rome. He then replied, "Ah, so you like to eat good food, do you?" and I replied by patting my thigh and saying something about how that would seem obvious.
His response was perfect, though. "No, no. I was worried that maybe you don't eat at all."
I smiled. "Italian men always know just what to say."
"No. Only the old ones."
"Then how did you know just what to say?"
"Beautiful women from Seattle also know just what to say, don't they?"
Anyway, we chatted, and when I was ready to leave, he asked me if I had time. I was a little puzzled, but figured, ok. Sure, I have all the time in the world. So he told me I should go to the island of Burano and have lunch there. I asked him where, and he said it didnt matter but I should have risotto with prawns wherever I went. Then he asked me if I knew how to get there, and when I said I didn't he gave me the instructions, and then walked me to the ferry dock, apologizing that he couldn't go with me because he didnt have enough time in the middle of the work day. I thanked him, and he kissed me on the cheek, and told me to have a lovely day.
Let me tell you, Burano is gorgeous. It's small and quiet. They are known for their lace, but I think the main reason to go there is for the town on the island. Every house is a different color, most of them bright, and the little boats lining the canal are all also brightly colored. It's so too pretty.
So I choose a place for lunch, which was quiet, but had risotto with shrimp on the menu outside and went in. I was given a waiter who spoke English, who was very charming, and suggested that I could look at the menu, or, he would recommend starting with the spider crab and then having the shrimp risotto. Which is what I would have chosen anyway, but apparently Burano is also known for spider crab dishes.
They were both lovely. I had a glass of white wine, and then when I turned down dessert, the waiter brought over a warm cookie, like a round biscotti and a flute of sweet wine like a marsala and said that this was a Burano thing, you break off the piece of the cookie and dip it in the the wine before you eat it. The cookie wasn't sweet, and I can't say that it was much without the wine, but with, it was lovely.
I ordered espresso, and was also brought a limoncello. (This seems to be a theme), and eventually finished, and asked for the check, whereupon I was then asked if I had a good singing voice. I said no, why, and my waiter produced a small glass of grappa and said that it would help keep out the cold, but would burn going down. Both of which statements were true.
I walked back to take the very long ferry ride to Venice proper, where, of course, I feel asleep, though I didn't miss my stop. The ferry drivers seem to pull up to the dock with about as much ease as French people parallel park, so the slamming action tends to rouse one from a good nap.
I think I'm about warm now, so I'm going to venture back out into the cold to see what Carnevale related activities are going on. Love to you all.
I finally took a bunch of photos today. Figures, though, it would be in a market. The Mercato Centrale in Florence to be exact, which is not unlike a smaller, less hectic version of the Reading Terminal Market in Philadelphia, an indoor market in a large building with multiple meat, fish, vegetable, and oil/vinegar vendors, some stands to get lunch, a few places selling things like wine or kitchen gadgets or dried pasta and dried mushrooms. Small, but a really nice market. It made me want to cook something.
My main observations, which I'll supplement with the illustrations I took today when I get back:
I had a recommendation for a particular spot in the market to get lunch, so that was the first agenda item for the day. (I had a late start of it because I got caught up in the novel I was reading and stayed up till dawn reading it. If you're interested, it was Paul Watkins' "The Story of my Disappearance". It's the most compelling of his novels I've read so far.) The place is called Nerbone, and they serve hot food, a a la carte, over the counter. You can then sit in the freezing cold at one of the tables in the market and enjoy it. They had a variety of pasta, meat, and vegetable dishes. I opted for the trippa a la fiorentina and sauteed spinach.
First, the spinach, was the best I've had here. I've been ordering spinach with garlic everywhere they have it, because I love me some spinach, dontcha know, and this stuff was just outstanding. They dressed it upon plating with some very fruity extra virgin olive oil, which was seriously just the thing.
The tripe. I know some of you will just never get my love of offal, and that's fine. I'm happy to be thought of as a bit gruesome and strange if that's what it takes to be able to continue enjoying the special pleasures of organ meats. And I do. In fact, about the only offal I've tried that I thought was awful was scrambled pigs' brains. Tripe, however, is something that I just haven't had much exposure to, other than in Pho. So I was looking forward to trying some here, since I know from Mario Battali's tour of Italy show that Italians are particularly fond of the nasty parts of animals. And trippa a la fiorentina just sounds so good--meltingly tender strips of the stuff cooked in a tomatoey sauce, topped with parmagiano-reggiano.
And it was so, so good. What a lunch. Certainly beats a cheesesteak with onions at the Reading Market!
Having finished lunch, and with a belly full of, well, belly, I headed toward the Uffizi.
On my way, though, the pastries started their serenade as I passed bakery after bakery. Finally, I realized that I had no choice in the matter and stopped in one to purchase a baby sfogliatelle. If there is a cult of born-again pastry lovers, I'll be the first to sign up for their services. It was like no sfogliatelle I've had before. Actually, that's not true. It was just like the best sfogliatelle I've had, only better. The outer layer of thin sheets of crispy pastry forming the clamshell crumbled in dust upon biting into it, leaving a little pile of the stuff laced with powdered sugar for me to sneak a final lick at when I was finished. Just like they ought to. But it was the filling that blew me away. Not particularly sweet, and the ricotta was so light and not smooth so it had great texture. Again, the merest hint of some lemon zest in it. Oh it was heaven. If Eve had been tempted with one of these instead of an apple, I can assure you we'd all be burning in hell for her transgression, not just tossed from the garden.
And then the museum. Which is great. Impressive and full of Michaelangelos and Caravaggios and Botecellis and the like. Great masters. Roomsful of them.
I want to like art. I really do. I want to discuss paintings and their symbolism and revolutionary approaches to brushstrokes and the crisis of form and stuff like that. But really, I'm kind of still all "paintings shmaintings". Is that really bad? Maybe it's that I'm hoping to learn something from seeing these, and I'm not, other than picking up some context for cultural references (which I'm uncultured enough to say I can get from watching a lot of Simpsons episodes as well).
One thing I did get, though was what people mean when they say some woman reminds them of a Botticelli. Not that anyone's ever said that me, but, you know, in movies and such. Well, I saw a lot of Botticelli's today, and based on that experience, I'm guessing it means that she's blond, has a disproportionately long nose and either a wistful or pained expression on her face. I think it's a pick-up line that would need to be applied carefully, since I could see a few interpretations in which that wouldn't seem overly flattering. But that's me. What do I know? I'm impressed with the Italian art of fish arranging.
What's a girl to do?
Everywhere I look, there are pastry shops. And not just pastry shops. Italian pastry shops. French pastries I can walk by and admire for their beauty and all, but Italian pastries, oh the pastacciotte and sfogliadelle and babas and sfincis and cannolis. Oh, it's just so unfair that calories consumed on vacation you can bring back to the states on your thighs, but grappa, not so much.
I was surprised, walking around Rome, how few pastry shops and bakeries I saw. I always thought it was odd (and not a little distressing) that there are no real Italian bakeries in Seattle (yes, they have ones that call themselves Italian, but then the only Italianish pastries they have are ever cannoli and tiramisu and I just need more variety in my life), and so you can imagine that by the time I got here, I was more than a little chomping at the bit for some good bakery items. But Rome, or at least the parts of it I walked through, seemed to be pastry-free zones. And this disappointed me.
Florence, on the other hand, is a pastry Mecca. There are tons of little bakeries with good varieties of biscotti and cookies and pastries as well as bread and panini. They tempt me. They call my name. Actually, they sing my name, not unlike the sirens, irresistable and charming and oh-so seductive. And it's not like I can just say, "sorry, it's the middle of the day and I just had lunch, so no thanks." These are Italian pastries we're talking about. The gold-standard of desserts in their native environment. You don't just walk by them callously unless you've no heart, no soul, no appreciation of...
Excuse me. I get a little worked up about this sort of thing.
But you need to take into consideration that when I leave here, it's not like I'm going home to Jersey. Who knows how long it might be before I can have a proper pastry again. They don't ship well and I can't bake. So I might need to stock up. Think of me as the Noah of sweets.
This afternoon, torta della nonna. Crumbly, buttery shortbready base, not too sweet, with a thin layer of ricotta custard sporting just the hint of lemony-ness, a smattering of toasted pignolis, a sprinkle of powdered sugar. Grandma's cake, is what it means. God bless the grandma who invented it, is what I say.
Yesterday, I had some biscotti with pignolis. I love pignolis. And then last night I gave in to the call of some tiramisu. I know the next ones that will claim their place on my midsection are probably going to be these cookies that they call pescatores, which seem to be loaded with raisins and pignolis. And probably, sometime not long after that, I'll break down and go for the good old clam shells--my beloved sfogliadelle, the mother of all pastries.
And it's not like I have been starving myself between desserts, either. Though today, I think I earned my lunch.
I went to the Academia dell'Arte to see the David. Which has really big hands, by the way. Freakishly big hands. And then to Santa Croce, which is much smaller than the Duomo, but still very pretty, and inside quite a bit more lovely. It was cold today. Cold enough, in fact, that it's snowing as we speak. I was planning on crossing the river and finding a nice place for lunch. I crossed the river, and was heading in the direction of where I thought a nice lunch in a warm spot could be had when another of those sirens lured me into her trap--though this time it wasn't the sweets, but stairs. As I've said, I have developed this need to climb practically every set of stairs I come upon, especially when they are outside and I don't know where they lead to. So I did, and at the top of the stairs was this windy road heading up the hill that I couldn't not follow, and by the time I had decided that I'd probably gone far enough and should head back before I froze completely through I looked up and saw a castle way up at the top of the hill and over some. The inner dialogue that then occurred went something like this:
Paulette: Ooh, a castle!
Paulette: Uhm, have you noticed it's freezing?
Paulette: Well, yeah, but it's a castle. I like castles.
Paulette: Right. Castles are cool. But it's like 2 outside. Can we please go find somewhere warm now?
Paulette: No, I wanna see the castle.
Paulette: Ugh! You're impossible. You know that?
Paulette: Hey, it's not like I ever get to spot a castle and just drive to it, let alone walk to it. Be a sport.
And so I went up. And up. And up. And then, I got to the top, and, well, I'm not sure I was still technically in Florence any more. I think my map ended about three miles before this point. I had one of those, "I don't think we're in Kansas anymore, Toto" moments.
And I didn't quite make it to my castle because the gates at the bottom of the entrance were shut tight. So, I started walking back to Florence, and when I got down as far as the Via Gallileo, took a turn so that I wasn't just retracing my steps and could walk along the ridge up there looking down on the city. Which was gorgeous. And offered no protection whatsoever from the wind.
At some point, I came upon an area during this walk, let's say about half an hour after getting onto Via Gallileo, when I spotted some stairs going into a woods near a church. Now, you'd have thought I would have learned my lesson by now, but then you'd be expecting a lot more from me than is entirely reasonable. Of course I climbed them, and then followed the path around the church walls. You could hear the wind in the trees and it was so pretty and serene, and at the back of the church there was a great view of the Tuscan countryside and I fell in love with it.
There's a great line in A Room with a View, that goes something along the lines of "Miss Honeychurch, Charlotte, Miss Lavish, the Reverend Mr Beebe, Mr Emerson and George drive out to see a view. Italians drive them." Well, Italians did not drive Ms Mckay and her metaphorical terrier to this view, but I'll say it was rather on equal with the one from that great scene where George kisses Lucy in the meadow. Oh Tuscany.
And then back to the road, the ridge, the wind. Another thirty minutes or so and I found myself at a hotel with a nice-looking restaurant perched in such a way that I could look down on the city--the Duomo, the Arno, and everything. More importantly, it occurred to me that a nice hotel with a restaurant would have heat, and as my pancreas was now frozen solid, and the original plan had been to have lunch about two and a half hours earlier, I thought this might not be such a bad idea.
The place was fairly empty. Three tables occupied, but it was almost three in the afternoon. I can't say I was super hungry, but I wanted something warm. Immediately upon being seated I was brought a glass of prosecco, and an urn-like thing with a light, moussy pate and some toast to spread it on. That was a nice touch.
The menu looked nice, if a little fancy. I went for the appetizer of bacala and potato mousse, sort of like the brandade de morue I made for Christmas, served with crispy artichoke slices. And for pasta I had house made pappardelle in a duck ragout. They were both great, but the pasta dish was just absolutely outstanding. And warming. Just the slightest rosemary flavor to it, earthy and not heavy. And I was seated right near the window so I had a perfect view of the whole city.
I finished with an espresso, and then my waiter brought me a glass of limoncello, saying that was from him. I sipped it slowly until I felt thawed enough to brave outside again.
And now it's sort of snowing. My current dream is to find a ten-foot tall space heater and hug it tightly. Failing that, I might just leave this Internet cafe and head straight for the nearest purveyor of babas. Mmm....babas...
I know everyone has told you that Florence is beautiful. If you haven't been there, you've seen the photos and the film footage in A Room with a View and things like that, and you've said to yourself, "yeah, beautiful. I know beautiful. I've been to Paris. I know beautiful." Well, if you've been to Florence, first of all you wouldn't be so blase about it. And if you haven't then, actually, you don't know a thing about beautiful.
I'll pause here to add my own editorial comments on the beauty of this city. HOLY SHIT! I am being purposely vulgar because, well, actually, I don't think I could describe the beauty of this place in any terms that wouldn't be vulgar in comparison. So let's just not pretend and accept the vulgarity of language in this instance. Seriously. I was walking along today (well before I crossed the Arno and got myself hopelessly lost for several hours) and came upon the Duomo. And my first thought was "Jesus Christ!" which is, I guess, appropriate. The second thought was, "Holy Shit that's gorgeous" and that's sort of typified my reaction to this city ever since.
Needless to say, I like Florence more than Rome. Rome was nice, and had some really cool parks and ruins and stuff (and Lord I knows I like stuff), but as a city, wel, it didn't necessarily work for me. Or at least, I couldn't see myself living there. Florence, on the other hand, well, I just keep thinking how unjust it is that people get to live here amongst all this gorgeousness and the rest of us get excited about the Space Needle.
I went to the Palazza Vecchio today, which is beautiful enough to qualify as sort of obscene, and then took this tour of the secret stairways in the private quarters of the palace, which satisfied my growing need to climb every set of stairs I see and explore every nook I come upon. And I learned some interesting tidbits about art, alchemy, and architecture. Uh-huh. Actually, it was way cool, and getting to go up into the rafters above the ceiling in the Sala Cinquecento and see the amazing engineering behind holding up that huge and heavy ceiling was so cool, in a geeky architecture-appreciating way.
And then I walked across the Ponte Vecchio, which is lined with jewelry shops, and chatted with the American woman who was on the tour with me and said she wanted to bring back something nice for her daughter, and she liked the cameos but didn't think they were appropriate for a 30 year old, which is funny, since I love cameos and wear mine quite often. But oh well. On the other side of the Arno (which said old bridge crosses) there is plenty of shopping, and I was for a time concerned that might bank accout might wind up in a duel to the death with my handbag and shoe fetish. Not to worry. So far, I've only spent obscene amounts of money on clothes here, which wasn't even on my radar for Florence, but the tops I got today were just so original and cool. Oh my. The handbags and shoes are still calling my name, though, and I think it goes without saying that I'll be shipping some stuff home.
Oh, and I learned something last night. You can get bad pizza in Rome. Really, truly, godawful pizza. Like Pizza Time bad pizza (for those of you in Seattle). I knew it wouldn't be great. I went into it with very low expectations, but it was cold and pouring last night and there just wasn't much near my pensione that was open on a Sunday night and I didn't feel like being picky. So I go in, and pull the usual drill. Ask for a table for one, sit down and pull out my book, adn order. I went to the Quattre Stagione, which is a good staple--mushrooms, ham, artichokes, and anchovies. But this was just bad. And the small think of house wine I ordered was a bottle of really bad paint thinner wine, as it turns out.
But so, I'm sitting there, reading my book, and the person at the next table and across from me is staring at me like I'm a freak. I want to give a little context here. The tubercular, platinum blond obviously South American transvestite (probably prostitute sitting with her probably pimp) on the phone while eating a steak is looking at me and my book like there's something out of the ordinary about us. Welcome to the world of bad Roman pizza.
And then home. My room at the Hotel Ferrarase was on the 5th floor, but the office is on the second. On my way up the stairs, the innkeeper waves me in to tell me that if I plan to check out before 9 am, I should pay that night. I assure him that is not my plan, and then he offers me something to drink, we sit, we chat, and he tells me that he reads palms. He reads mine, and among other things, tells me that when I was a teenager I lost someone--a grandfather or an uncle--who loved me most. I can only assume (if such things carry any merit) that he is referring to my maternal grandfather, who died when I was 15 and who was, and is, one of the people I admire most in the world. And I was his first grandchild. The one who he flew all the way to Germany to be with as I came into this world, and then flew all the way back to Brooklyn to get a suitcase full of good Italian pastries for my Christening. My grandfather lives in my memory as the epitome of everything I could ever want to be--smart, funny, good-looking, charming, generous, honest, a good dancer, and a hard worker. I loved him with all of my heart, and that he died so long ago is one of the few things that still make me cry years later. So, you know, when Antonio (my inkeeper) said this, and said that this person was watching me carefully and would let me know it soon, it struck a chord.
And so tonight, I'm in Florence. And I decide to try this restaurant that Jay had recommended which is a bit of hike not only from where my pensione here is, but also from where I got lost on the other side of the Arno today, and it's cold. Really cold. And I'm basically a Paulettesical by the time I get there, though it's warm inside and the people who work there are really friendly, and it's a fixed menu with only a coupld of choices to be had (I went for the minestrone to start) and the main course comes out and it's veal hootchie cootchie. Ok, that's not how it was described. It was described as veal with potatoes. Which isn't making me think of the stew that I think of as the singly most warming and comforting meal I've ever had-the veal hootchie cootchie my grandfather made, served after a cold, long day fishing off the peir in Belmar in the middle of winter, served with his great sparkle of a smile at his name for it (no one was ever more pleased with my granddad's sense of humor than he was). And I can't help but take that as my sign. Of all the dishes I could have been served, to get a great bowl of granddad's perfect comfort food...
Tomorrow the Uffizi and stuff like that. Probably some shopping.
Like, really, really cool. There I was standing in the Palatino, after having walked through the Colosseum, and staring at the Roman forum. So like, first off, how cool is it that these things are thousands of years old. But even more than that, they're huge. Really, truly, just freaking huge. And you know what I'm thinking about? Construction cranes. Seriously. Like how they use them for much smaller buildings these days that will be lucky to last a hundred years, and these guys built these things a few thousand years ago without construction cranes.
I have a new appreciation for engineers. Or, at least, for two thousand year old engineers. I mean, holy crap. Seriously impressive stuff.
I went to an opera last night. La Traviata. It was in an old church between the Piazza d'Espagne and the Piazza di Popoli. Very entertaining and it made me feel like less of a Philistine about the whole not appreciating art thing.
The church was also the most austere I've been in since arriving in Rome. Which isn't to say that it's actually austere. Far from it. But in comparison to the others, there were walls that were just brick and not covered in paint and mosaic and such.
Which brings me to another appreciation. That of the bathrooms of all the Italian-Americans I grew up around. If you're from my neck of the woods, you know exactly what I'm talking about. The shiny, colorful, busy wallpaper. The ornate, marble-topped little table for holding all manner of fancy soaps and silk flower arrangements and decorate handtowels. The gold-framed mirrors. The wall-hangings. Just the sheer amount of stuff to look at in a powder room that always amazed me. Well, it's apparently not some affected middle-class arriviste neurosis being played out. It's just in their blood. I mean, you go into churches and villas and the like here and anything with surface is decorated, usually in multiple ways. Plain walls with no frescoes? Let's paint false marbling on them? Marble walls? Let's use six or seven different clashing colors of marble in five or six different patterns. Two foot panel of wall between marble columns? Oh, I know. Let's paint vines and monkeys and urns on them. Ceiling? Well, obviously some creation myth needs to go there. Duh. It's like there is a genetically inbred impulse to cover every surface with as much decoration as possible. Italians, apparently, don't believe in understatement as an interior design motif.
Nor do they seem to believe in understatement as a fashion motif. I have never seen so many people wearing so much fur, gold, white leather, huge sunglasses, spike heels and pointed toes shoes. And in some cases, it works, but in most, I'm kind of left with the impression that I'm missing something in not wanting to emulate the whole Donatella Versace look. Oh well. Which isn't to say I haven't made a few fine purchases, including some mauve suede spike heels that I'm crazy about and will go really well with the mauve and brown wool miniskirt I found yesterday. Lucky for me, Italians are also under the impression that pink is the new black.
One more thing. I haven't taken that many photos since getting here, though I was thinking that would sort of be the theme for this trip. It's just that most things I could take pictures of have been photographed up the ying-yang, and I don't think there is much I could add to what better photographers have already done. And the rest of it, well, honestly, I just couldn't capture in a photograph, for various reasons, like the impact of my walk through the Villa Borghese the other day, or the sound of a dozen or so crows spashing in the little stream through it. There are images that have had an impact on me, like an old woman, lying on a piece of cardboard, barely propping herself up on one arm and crying as she held her hand out for money. I couldn't photograph that, and I wouldn't want to, but I'm not going to forget that image. Nor could I capture in any real sense the massiveness of the ruins and the realization that all those buildings that remain, at least in part, so many centuries later were planned with no CAD programming, with no construction cranes. It's kind of awe-inspiring.
I sound like a dork. But really, I'm not getting all new-agy goofy and reflective. It's just that I've spent so much time walking around and looking at things and not thinking about things that aren't right in front of me. I needed this trip.
Tomorrow I leave for Florence. I haven't a clue where my pensione is, though. This could be interesting...
Love to you all!
Which is to say, I'm in Rome. Today was my first day here, since yesterday was spent mostly being lost in Amsterdam. I am choosing to blame my inability to orient myself on the bad feng shui in my building at work. No matter how many times I looked at my map yesterday, I couldn't manage to not wind up somewhere other than where I was expecting to be. (On a related note, I can't seem to get my head around my hotel being to the west of Termini Station here in Rome; it just feels like it's to the south, which keeps throwing me off.)
Case in point. I had decided to go the Rijksmuseum, since it was one of the sites I had missed the last time I was in Amsterdam. There were signs pointing the way to the Museumplein every so often, and there were maps, albeit confusing and overlapping ones, in my giudebook. So it should not have been a particularly difficult task to accomplish. But the bad orientation karma I've inherited from Building 18 seems to have followed me across the ocean. I walked along the specified route, passed through the Rembrandtplein, and continued, following the signs toward the Museumplein, which, curiously, also pointed in the same direction for the Centraal Station, where I had disembarked from the train and started out in the first place.
Not to worry. Maybe space just bends differently in the Netherlands. I continue following the signs, and it's quite a bit further than I had expected. Then the signs start point in the same direction for the Museumplein and the Rembrandtplein, which, really, they shouldn't have, because I'd already been to the latter. But they did, and sure enough, I passed through the Rembrandtplein again, from a different direction than the one I'd arrived through before. I follow the signs again, and, lo and behold, wind up there a third time, at which point I decided to go to the Anne Frank Huis, using the map in my guide book which had been oh so helpful in finding the museum. This time, though, twenty minutes later, I was standing in from the Rijksmuseum. Go figure.
But you know, museums like that just don't do it for. I can admire the skill of the old masters--how they can capture the light and depth of a scene and all--but they just leave me cold. I guess I'm just a philistine, but I just don't really get paintings. Or at least old ones. I seem like modern art museums, but then again, the ones that I really love are as much about loving the architecture (Renzo Piano's fantastic Beauborg or Fran Gehry's Guggenheim Bilbao, for example) as about the art.
Really, I'd much rather look at buildings. Or, as it would turn out, parks.
I saw a bunch today in Rome, the Spanish Steps, the Panteon, the Piazza Navona, Trevi Fountain, the Piazza di Popoli, the Etruscan museum, but the real highlight of the day, and my favorite thing in Rome so far is the Villa Borghese park. It's huge, and houses the Borghese Museum which is impressive, to say the least, nearly every inch of it covered in elaborate marble designs, frescoes, intarsia, and mosaics. But the park itself in truly incredible, and for the first time made me appreciate the artistry in landscape design.
That sounds silly, I think. Or not quite stating the point sufficiently, but really, this park is fantastic.
You walk up a hill from the Piazza di Popoli and there's an incredible view of the city spread out before you. You turn and walk into the park and, alternately pass through green areas studded with varieties of trees in patterns that are comforting and rhythmic as you pass by, without feeling rigidly laid out. You walk along wide collonades toward fountains or sculptures. Then happen upon a big open area with plane trees stretching out toward the blue sky against a terra cotta colored villa. And you realize that the park is like a piece of music with tempo changes, or sets for a play. The scenery guides you through different movements. You're looking out at everything laid out below you for a while, and then the focus shifts to following a path toward a clear destination, and then, suddenly, everything is open and reaching upward. The effect is really powerful, and relaxing. Maybe it's like being guided through different levels of meditation.
Now I'm sounding hokey, but I'm finally appreciating why Frederick Law Olmstead was such a stickler (which, I realize, is something of an understatement) for having his parks match exactly his vision--every tree the right species and in the righ place, every flower the right color, every walkway laid out exactly as specified. And I'm so glad that he was that way, and that there were other landscape architects with that kind of vision. Especially since it sort of makes up for my being too much of a lout to appreciate a Caravaggio.
More later, my dears. I hope you're all doing well.
Ciao!
Hey, this looks kind of familiar. It's not exactly the same as the inauguration story, but the sentiments are all deja vu.
Alfred Gusenbauer, leader of the opposition Social Democrats, vehemently disagrees. Gusenbauer says it's inconceivable that the wealthy and powerful should waltz in all their finery while others mourn their dead.
Is there a theme emerging?
We got back from Italy last night. It took us about an hour to unload the car and find places to stow to the olives and biscotti and other treats we’d bought at a supermarket near the Austrian border.
Even the drive home was amazing. We drove through Sudtirol, crossing the Dolomites. This part of Europe is filthy with castles, as though someone has scattered a box of them across the lower granite peaks and plateaus and neglected to sweep up. There’s a medieval fortress around every third bend. There’s a village that looks like it’s been ripped from a Breugel painting at every river crossing. Okay, there’s a lot of odd industry interjected along the river banks, but it’s easy to ignore that yellow factory by looking past the stacks to the vineyard clinging to a tiny patch of land up high on the mountainside.
We spent last week in Tuscany where we walked on the beach and in the villages, drank café lattes, and ate too much pasta. Then we drove up to the Valle di Non in Trentino where we attended La Ciaspolada – the snowshoe races.
We ended up there because I write for a snowshoeing website. I write little bits and pieces that fall outside the realm of gear heads and competitors – book reviews, profiles of interesting folks who do stuff related to snowshoeing, lifestyle stuff. Since I’m here in Europe, my editor wanted me to go to the Ciaspolada. I should say that I am not in to competitive sports and I don’t like crowds. Yet here we were at a huge – 6000 participants! – race in a tiny village on the edge of the mountains. But I’m game for just about anything. What the hell.
We stayed at the same little hotel as the American team. Because the hotel thought, at first, that we were all together, they put us all at the same table so we got to share our meals with four snowshoe runners (Nathaniel, Charlie, Jessie, Tim) and their organizer (Mark). Nice guys, all of them, friendly and funny and interesting and entertaining company. By the time the races started, I really wanted them to win. It was personal.
At 8:30, we headed to the startline to scope out a good place to take pictures. An hour and a half before the gun, the area was dense with people, and when the front pack took off, the crunch of hundreds of snowshoes filled the air. The front runners passed us in a blur, snow flying, the runner from Ghana way out in front, and then, as the pack thinned, the non competitors headed down the hill, thousands of them, in funny hats and headbands and gaiters and costumes and shorts and tank tops, pulling sleds, walking dogs, carrying kids in backpacks, talking and singing and joking and laughing and mugging it up for us as we pointed the camera at them from our spot on the sidelines.
Our guys came in before we did - and we arrived by shuttle bus. They’d crossed the line, right up front in the top 100. We watched runners struggle up the hill on the snow that had been trucked in for the race, we watched the top 3 women spray the news crew with champagne, we watched number 188 – hey, didn’t we see him taking a shortcut through town?! – come up the hill with a surprisingly revitalized stride.
I loved it. I want to go back. I want to do the race. I haven’t a chance in hell of placing, or even having the numbers to qualify to compete. I’m no runner. But it was so fun to watch and it was such a festival atmosphere, all those people of all ages and sizes and shapes out for a walk through this beautiful valley, why would you not want to be a part of it?! Back at the hotel that afternoon, my team – they’re my team now – offered me nothing but encouragement. “You can totally do it, you SHOULD totally do it!” It’s going to be great fun to see them again next year.
Anyone want to sponsor an amateur?
Sunday morning we went up the hill to have a little lunch and to hang out with some folks who own a restaurant up there. The husband has been friends with these folks, well, forever, the way you are friends with people in a small town where you all go to tiny high schools together. It’s a very traditional postcard kind of village. The staff dress the part in their lederhosen and dirndls. Oh, and the food is quite good, plus, the chef is really a nice guy, I like him.
We arrived shortly after church got out. The neighbors were hanging out, eating cookies and drinking beer and wine – all this before 11 am! – and chatting about pretty much nothing, like you do with your friends when you run in to them at your local coffee house. We were sitting at the ‘stammtisch’ – the table that’s set aside for regulars, having tea, and three guys from the other room sat down to join us.
I know one of the guys from way back when I first started coming to Austria. He asked me if I was still “working for Bill” – a position that has a cache here that it just doesn’t hold in Seattle. The talk turned to health insurance (Austria is beginning to privatize) and language, and as it does when you have an auslander in your midst, to travel.
The older guy across the table from me told me about how, during the early 60s, he’d lived in Australia. He had to return to Austria when he got news that his mother was quite ill, and shortly after he got back to Austria, she died. He never went back to Melbourne, where he’d lived as a young man. Finally, just a few years ago he made the trip.
He was shocked at what he saw. The place was overrun with Chinese. “The Australians, they haven’t got a chance. The Chinese are everywhere. I have to say, having gone back and seen what happened there, I am glad it turned out that I stayed here in Austria.”
I was struck speechless. I am seldom at a loss for words, but as I looked at this seemingly cultured ‘gentleman’ nursing a glass of red wine, a speaker of excellent English, and a world traveler, spewing racism, I didn’t know what to say. I stared at him, round eyed, before finding my voice.
There’s some statistic somewhere that states that one in four humans on the planet are Chinese. I don’t know if that’s true anymore, but I do know that since my brother married my sister-in-law in Beijing more than 15 years ago, one in four people in my family are Chinese. When you go after the Chinese, you go after my family. My nephew, a kid in big pants who works at an artisan bakery. My sister-in-law, who knitted the scarf tucked in the sleeve of my coat hanging just over there, on the coat rack.
When people ask me why I don’t move to Austria, these kinds of experiences are what I think about. Maybe I could rationalize that some old guy in an old village shouldn’t color my perception of what Austrians are like. When I get all worked up over stuff like this, the husband says I’m as likely to hear the same kind of crap out of a guy at the counter at a diner in Montana. Yeah, okay. But. I resent the fact that I’m the one that’s shocked while most folks preceive this kind of racism as harmless.
I have been watching, with great interest, the news about Turkey and the EU. I can’t believe the noncommittal “We agree to talk to you about it a lot later with no promises to let you join” stance that the EU has taken. A lot of the objections by EU member nations look like racism to me. Marauding hoards of Islamic peasants, stealing their jobs, sponging off welfare, locking up their women…I’m not saying that the Turks don’t have serious human rights issues, and good lord, if the EU takes on the problem of the Kurds, that’s one big can of worms. But the racist overtones are too loud to ignore – at least to my sensitive ears they are.
Maybe I need to get a thicker skin at times like this. But what I’d really like are better reflexes. It’s the shock that slows me down. I need to carry a whistle. That’s the thing about racism in Austria, and in Europe in general, in my experience. It’s not like it’s everywhere, it’s not like it's a stop on your itinerary. Thankfully, it's rare in my experience, and honestly, most Austrians are perfectly fine humans with open minds and hearts. But you know how when you go hiking in bear country, you’re supposed to be prepared? I never leave my house prepared to confront racists in Seattle. Here it’s a different story.
Most Saturday mornings, Julius gets up early and runs in to Aigen to the bakery. He goes to buy kipferl, the crescent shape rolls that Austrians insist are the predecessor to the croissant. (This should not be confused with a vanillekipferl, which is a ground-nut-and-butter shortbread crescent shaped cookie.) Kipferl come with and without raisins. I’m not a fan of the kipferl, I find them to be a bit too plain, and Julius knows that, so for me he brings the brownest, grainiest rolls they’ve got on the shelf that morning. Yesterday he brought a couple of ‘fladen’ – oatmeal and multigrain flat bread about the size and shape of a Pop-Tart, and a couple of spelt ‘weckerl’ – square brown rolls that are dense and chewy.
Taken in the Fransiscan Church in Salzburg. I have more pics of Salzburg here.
Honestly, no matter how much time I spend in Austria, there are some things I just will never understand.
I have a odd - yet I think understandable - obsession with "News of the Jews" when I'm here in Austria. It might be because it's Hannukah, or maybe it's just the melodramatic "Last of the Mohicans" mindset I get in to when I'm here in the village. I'm trying to find my people, don't you know.
At any rate, I ferret out the little bits and pieces of news related to the tribe. Sometimes it's an Austrian Jewish ex-pat artist, returned to Europe to have a retrospective. More often there's a story about another old Nazi that's been found or an discussion of anti-semitism. In rare cases, there's a recognition and celebration about a Jewish cultural icon.
‘‘Happy Birthday Salomon Sulzer,’’ it proclaims, in public celebration of the 200th birthday of one of the town’s most famous sons — a flamboyant 19th-century Jewish cantor. Born in 1804, Salomon Sulzer served for more than 60 years as the cantor of the main synagogue in Vienna. He revolutionized cantorial style and singing and left an impact on synagogue music that is still felt today.
Cantorial style? Even to me, this seems mighty obscure. Still, I'm always heartened but whatever oddball thing the Austrians choose to recognize about this formerly significant sector of their population. From the country that said "we don't have an anti-Semite problem because we have no Jews" (I will have to hunt for attribution on that) , this is an unusual and welcome tribute.
A schabe is a cockroach. A strohschabe is a cockroach made of straw. Or perhaps one that lives in straw, I’m not sure. The arrival of the these creatures signifies that the Christmas season has begun, naturally. After all, when you think Christmas, you think cockroaches, right? Um, yeah.
We got to Krungl early enough to watch the Strohschabe get ready to go. But before they got dressed, there was exhibition whipping. Again, you think whipping, you think Christmas, right? Actually, it was pretty cool. The guys stand in a circle and do this percussive thing with the whips, the sound is loud and sharp and rhythmic. From what I could gather – and information is rather thin on the ground when your source is a lot of punsch and gluhwein slurping Austrians - their job is to clear the town of leftover bad spirits. I’m not sure if it’s the giant cockroach thing or the noise, but if a big old haystack swinging a whip comes after you, you hightail it out of the way, that’s for sure.
Anyway, once the whole whipping circle thing has concluded, the boys get suited up in their Strohschabe outfits. The whole bundle weighs about 25 kilos, it’s a packet to carry around, that’s for sure. There are two grass skirts and they’re topped by the headpiece with the massive antennae sticking out of them. Getting in to it is a project, it takes a handful of strapping farmers to enclose a willing victim in to the whole package.
In the Mitterndorf area and surrounds, the Strohschabe are part of the Krampusspiele. Folks have gone “Krampus” crazy in this part of the world. The Krampus (pronounced grampus) is a wooly monster with a somewhat satanic visage and great big horns. The Krampus run though town wielding broom sticks with which to whack the legs of passers-by. You can tell they’re coming because they’re wearing giant bells, but you can’t get away fast enough, and frankly, you’re transfixed by these creatures from Where the Wild Things Are. In our town of Aigen, the Krampusspiele is small, there are six or eight of these creatures accompanying St. Niklaus on his rounds, but up the road in Krungl, they were having a full on Krampusfest, with 30 or 40 of them running the streets, terrorizing little kids, mauling the adults, and generally creating a ruckus.
In addition to the Krampus and the Strohschab, there were a whole lot of supporting cast members including a bishop, a night watchman, a blacksmith, a handful of angels, Death, the Kaiser, the “half-goat” something that looked like a cross between a bear and a giraffe, and the aforementioned Strohschabe.
Here’s how the whole thing goes down. The nightwatchman blows his horn. Then there’s a procession through town of all the likely and unlikely characters accompanying St. Niklaus on his rounds. They’re followed by the total chaos of the Krampus rampage. Finally, after enough little kids have been traumatized with nightmares that will last the next ten years, the Strohschabe come through and clear the streets, swinging their whips as they go. Meanwhile, back at the inn, there’s a whole routine going on where St. Niklaus interrogates any kids left standing. He asks them if they’ve been good, they recite a little poem, and they get some small treat for their participation, oranges, peanuts, maybe some chocolates. We watched a bit of it through the gasthaus windows and headed home.
I still have a lot of unanswered questions about the whole thing. I know that a lot of it is leftover pagan tradition from a pre-Catholic Austria, but I still don’t understand what, exactly, a Strohschab is. Stand by, I’m looking in to it.
There's a photo album from the event here.
Day one on the continent finds me mulling over the definition of the term "theo-con." We all know what it means, but it's interesting to see how it's manifesting itself here as the EU hashes out their new constitution. Read all about here in the Guardian.
I'll have a lot more to say about this when I'm not so numbed by jetlag.
If you've got wi-fi, you might find this useful to read while you're out there on the curb getting rid of your belongings. (And hey, wear a hat. It's nasty out there and no one likes to sit next to the person with the cold on the airplane.)
"So the wrong candidate has won, and you want to leave the country. Let us consider your options. "
You’d think that with all the traveling I do, I’d have come to terms with flying. Well, I haven’t. I hate it. I don’t like being batted around in the air like a kite. I don’t like the tiny spaces the airline allots each passenger. I don’t like hurling through the air at hundreds of mph in a metal tube. I can’t stand it. The skin on the back of my neck gets damp, my stomach curdles, I spend the time vaguely nauseated and uncomfortable. I’m not really afraid, I tell myself, and indeed, I’m not sitting there thinking, “I’m going to die” but I’m not exactly enjoying myself either. I’m happy for distractions when I fly, be they quality reading material, slightly out of date Steve Martin movies, drugs, or the person in the next seat.
The weather was very windy in Tucson and the plane was very small. The man who folded himself in to window seat was tall, well over six feet, and dressed in flipflops, linen pants, a dark blue blazer with gold buttons, and a Rasta colored knit cap. He was reading USA Today and looking out the window. As the plane took off, I folded my hands into Namaste, closed my eyes, and tried to keep breathing.
About ten minutes into our ascent, my neighbor jostled me with his elbow. I opened my eyes and looked at him, probably wearing my usual white-as-a-sheet take off face. He pointed out the window. I leaned forward to look. There was a rainbow to the right. I’ve never seen a rainbow from the air before – it was bright and clear. “Thank you!” I said, and I meant it. I went back to my in-air meditative cocoon. You know I didn’t get to stay there, right?
“Do you have any questions?” he asked.
“Um, no. Do I have a questioning look on my face? Do YOU have any questions?”
“It’s just that I have this book I keep with me and if you have questions, you can read the answers in it," he said.
“Is there anything in there on travel?” I asked as he handed me his copy of Kahlil Gibran’s The Prophet.
My neighbor, let’s call him Bill (because it’s too easy to give him some good hippie name like Sanskrit or Wheat Grass), travels with three books everywhere he goes. The Prophet, the Bible, and a third book which he showed me when I asked. It was a cheap paper bound number with an Egyptian eye and an Ankh on the cover. I opened it up to see a picture of a handsome, graying, African man in shiny purple robes with red, green, and yellow trim. “Wow, what a great looking guy,” I said, because he was.
The ice was broken. We started talking. Bill is a gardener/organic farmer. He’s been living at a place called The Tree of Life in Patagonia, Arizona. When he first mentioned Patagonia, I thought he meant South America, which led to an amusing misunderstanding. Once we cleared that up, I learned that The Tree of Life is founded by a guy name Gabriel Cousens who apparently is in Israel right now where he thinks he can fix the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. . “Gabriel says there’s a teaching that says it only takes 8000 people to create world peace and he thinks he’s one of them. Either that, or he’s there to get more money,” said Bill.
Gabriel espouses some combination of Essene, Jewish, and Aryuvedic teachings along with the observation of a raw food diet. “We got in trouble for growing watermelon; it’s too high in sugar. It’s a really hard diet to follow,” Bill told me. “Sometimes, when we know Gabriel is going to be gone for a while, we go in to town for pizza and beer.”
We talked about Hawaii, where Bill was thinking about starting a new farm, and northern California, where Bill’s wife is, and Seattle, where I live. We talked about how we both hate to fly and how Bill, who was on his way to Cabo San Lucas on a redeye, was planning to get thoroughly doped up on pot brownies before getting on that flight. We talked about surviving the coming chaos, which I just assumed was the November election, and about how much we both hated to fly. Pretty soon we were descending in to LA over massive sprawling suburbs, freeways, and shopping malls. Bill told me how he had to leave Arizona because his astrologer said it was too hot for him there.
When we landed I pulled my Rasta colored bag out of the overhead and set it on the seat next to Bill. “Nice bag,” he said. I laughed.
“I’ll bet there are 8000 people in LAX right now,” I said. “Maybe you could get some recruits.”
I was in LAX for about an hour. I looked for Bill in the line at the McDonald’s but I didn’t see him.
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Here's the site for the Tree of Life, in case you think I made it up. Also, I've posted some pictures of Tucson on my site.
I'm predictably buried at work after almost three weeks away, but I know people want to hear how it went. For better or worse, my computer has me locked out of email while it backs things up and generally goes about the business of getting back to work, so here goes... hopefully David can add more later, and we can upload our (admittedly paltry) pictures from along the way.
The rest of our time in Florence was lovely. We ate twice at an astounding little place called Trattoria il Contadino, with a fixed-price 9 Euro lunch that just totally blew us away. Totally a local place, with workers and students grabbing a quick lunch. We had a much more expensive, and not quite as good lunch at another place the Rough Guide recommended, which precipitated a completely lost evening as our 3:00 nap turned into complete collapse back at the B&B. At about 9 David decided he wouldn't be able to sleep without some dinner, so he set out and brought back this amazing Florentine hamburger (on foccaccia, of course) from a street vendor. All the proof we needed that you really can't get a bad meal in Tuscany. Before leaving, we also did the bus tour of Florence, which was great, including a trip out to the old Etruscan town of Fiesole. So many places to go back and visit in the future... you could spend several weeks just in Florence and environs, and someday I hope we can.
Oh, just so everyone knows, we missed the newly-cleaned David (Michaelangelo's David, that is!) by a day... it was still scaffolded when we were there. Florence is replete with replicas, and we have several postcards of everyone's favorite marble stud, if anyone wants one. Next trip, right?
Our next stop, Montecatini Terme, is the oldest of the Italian spa towns. It's small, pretty, and overrun with old people. Also, it apparently believes that if the process of getting your relaxation arranged is stressful and confusing, the relaxation will be all the better. In short, I should have booked my desired mud-and-massage appointment weeks in advance, because when we got there we were SOL for anything other than a not-very-appealing soak in a mineral pool with All Germany's Grandmas. But we ended up having a lovely evening, taking the funicular up to Montecati
