Goodbye Elise

15.2
Spent the day in Milan today before putting Elise on the plane home tomorrow. Found the hotel (FINALLY – the directions were less than ideal) and caught the hotel shuttle to the airport, airport shuttle to the Duomo, then walked around the Duomo neighborhood for a few hours. Got in to see La Scala, where the signs all said “No photos!” but the guards all said “No flash!” So the pictures are mostly kinda on the yellow side, but some are pretty good. Hopeful of getting to see something here before we leave – the tickets range in price from 15E to 250E. Have to have a look at the schedule when we get home.

When we had finished dinner and were on our way back to the bus stop, we saw that the Duomo was still open, so we had to have a look. I want to see it in daylight – it was impressive but spooky in the half-light of early evening.

We retraced our steps toward the shuttle stop through the mall section of the Piazza del Duomo, and stopped at H&M to get some earrings and hairclips at their sale, but discovered shortly thereafter that we were well and truly lost. When I asked a bus driver where the shuttle was, he told us to get on, he was going by there. I said I didn’t have tickets for us yet. He shrugged and said, “eh, it’s only two stops.” Then when we got to the correct stop, two gentlemen who were getting off said, “Come with us, we’ll show you where the ticket window is.” This was useful because while it was less than 2 blocks away, it was in a non-obvious corner of the piazzale where we stopped. Tickets acquired, bus arrived about 15 minutes later, all good.

The girls are quite excited about having their own hotel room (the hotel didn’t have any triples, but the 2 doubles were not, in fact, terribly expensive). They may or may not sleep tonight. I’m not going to worry about it. It’s their last night together for quite some time. Sleep is not that necessary tonight.

16.2
Got Elise to the airport in plenty of time this morning, and sat with her for about 90 minutes before her personal stewardess arrived. The woman assured me that she was assigned to Elise’s flight and so would be the one with her until they got to Charles de Gaulle Airport, at which point another Air France person would pick her up at the gate and take her to the next plane. And away they went.

I had booked a different hotel for the second night for Rose and me – a little flashier, with an indoor pool and in-room massage so we could be a little pampered while we were sad. We’d have done better to stay at the Holiday Inn. The pool was too cold to swim in, the in-room massage was not expensive but was also not very good, and the wifi kept going out. However, I went for a walk to find us some dinner, and found a little Sicilian takeout place where the owner was so excited that an American who spoke ok Italian was in her shop that she gave me bread and dessert for free. We had spent 70E on dinner the night before and it wasn’t that great. This was 12E and was awesome. Live and learn.

17.2
While at breakfast this morning, Aurora pointed out to me that the people at the table in the corner spoke English, and had a little girl who seemed to be roughly Aurora’s age. I said, so go talk to her. It took a while, but Ro finally screwed her courage to the sticking place and did not fail! And in fact, ended up talking to Lauren, who had just turned 9, for over an hour, while I eventually got to chatting with Lauren’s mother, Kylie. The girls got along so well that we exchanged email addresses and will try to keep in touch. I want to go to England next year if we can POSSIBLY manage it, to show the girls London and to visit Steffi and Karen and Farrukh, and yes, Lauren. That would be a really lovely couple weeks. Great, saving now for London and for Dubai. Fortunately, I don’t feel the need to buy a house any time soon!

Easy drive home. House seems quiet without Elise. Trying to remember that this is better for her, even if it’s sadder for us.

In which Aurora’s godfather departs the desert sands for the mountain snows

8.2 Rosie and I drove up to Linate to collect David. His plane was supposed to arrive at 2.05, but I toldhim we’d never make it: it’s just under a 90 minute drive, and she doesn’t get out of school till 1. Even leaving directly from school he’d have a bit of a wait, and she has to have lunch. Fortunately, his plane was delayed just enough, and I was on task just enough, that when we arrived at 2.55 he had just moments before arrived from customs. Yay for timing!

The freeway coming home was pretty empty, so we made it back considerably faster than I thought we would, and were most of the way home by 4:30. (I had told Elise we would definitely be home by 6:30 and possibly 5:30, but to start dinner at 6 if we weren’t in evidence yet.) So we stopped at Vigoleno, our local castle (we wave to it as we pass every time we go to Salso), and had a short look around. After all, this is the Duchy of Parma and Piacenza, with 26 castles within a 40 km radius! Gotta see at least a few! So we had a nice march around and stretch and look at the scenery (everyone who comes to visit says, “WHAT a beautiful place you live in!” And they are right), then motored on home. We actually arrived home just before 5:30 (Vigoleno is only 15 minutes from here).

Aurora was very excited to have David come visit. The last time she saw him she was about 55 days old, so he didn’t make a big impression.  He always sends her money at Christmas, however, so she knows he is Bearer of Gifts. And gifts indeed: when we got home, he distributed all KINDS of largesse! Silver earrings for Elise, rainbow butterfly hair clips and jewelry for Rose, and a Samsung smartphone, stuffed dates, and a tin of fois gras for me, plus Chinese wish lanterns! Christmas in February was a very happy occasion. We’ll launch the lanterns from Vitale’s patio Tuesday night.

He lives in a camp in the desert working on the UAE electrical grid, so “home-cooked” is not a word that enters his vocabulary often. So I decided to do a full-on Italian country dinner.  Some local salume and fresh bread to start. Agnelotti in brodo for primo. Pork cutlets (very rare in the UAE as you might imagine!) and bietole (silver beet greens) for secondo, and chiacchere (Mardi Gras cookies) for dessert. (Thank you my beloved Cavallo Panificio for all the baked goods and pasta. They’re all easy to make, but so time consuming!) None of it complicated or elaborate, in its way an ordinary dinner, but very typical of this part of the country. We had a lovely evening chatting and he was so impressed with the dinner. The food where he works he describes as "strictly middle school cafeteria fare", so a home-cooked meal was already a treat, let alone all these traditional Emilia-Romagnese goodies. He declared it a very satisfactory first day in Italy.

9.2 The Form of the Salami

Today’s excursion was to see the castle at Fontanellato, which I had heard was very lovely and worthwhile, then a tour of the curing facility where Massimo Spigarolo makes what is said to be the finest culatello in the world, capped off by dinner at Il Cavallino Bianco, his restaurant (naturally, in order to TASTE the finest culatello in the world). His culatello is supposed to be a form of prosciutto in the same way that fois gras is a form of chopped chicken liver.

Fontanellato was preparing for its Carnevale parade, so we got a bit of silly string and shaving cream on us as the parade loaded up, then we headed off to the castle. (Aurora ended up getting a prime seat to the parade from one of the castle windows.) The tour was in Italian so I was having to do the simultaneous translation thing, which I hate and I’m bad at, but I managed to convey the most interesting bits to our audience. My two favorite bits were the hall of portraits of the Pallavicino counts who had held the castle since the 1200s, and the Stufetta di Diana e Atteone (probably where the Countess had her bathtub, as stufetta means “little heated room”). The portraits were hilarious, because, though they were DATED starting 1200, they had all been PAINTED in the late 1600s, and the artist, at a loss for how to paint people he’d never seen, just found some examples of earlier-period dress and painted the same guy in 25 different outfits with different amounts of beard. “My, the family resemblance is striking!” Yeah, it would be.

The Stufetta di Diana e Atteone gets its name from the frescoes telling the story of Diana and Acteon. For those of you just joining us, Ovid’s version is that Acteon is hunting in the woods, accidentally stumbles upon Diana bathing in a protected woodland pond, and instead of instantly falling to the ground, covering his eyes and moaning “I am not worthy,” he just stares. Well, she is a goddess, after all. But she’s not having any of it, and turns him into a stag, which is promptly brought down and killed by his own dogs. The castle’s version, however, has kind of a cool twist to it. Countess Paola had just lost her firstborn baby boy when the room was being decorated (it’s not clear if the decoration happened because the baby died, or the baby died and the already-planned decoration was reworked) and was apparently absolutely devastated. So instead of Acteon turning into the stag, a nympth that he is apparently chasing in the first 2 panels is turned into the stag and devoured, symbolizing how Paola was destroyed by her grief for the baby, having gotten a glimpse of his beauty and perfection for only a very little while. A baby wearing a coral necklace appears in the space between two of the later panels; the necklace is iconographic info that the wearer is dead. A mirror in the ceiling with the legend “respice finem” (look to the end) would remind the bathing countess that faith in the reward of heaven is the only way to deal with the tragedy. The fresco is in the style of Correggio, and was painted by Parmagiannino, who was Correggio’s student. The Latin around the bottom is a quote from Ovid, basically saying life is majorly unfair.

After the castle, we drove up to Polesine Parmense to have dinner at Il Cavallino Bianco. I had first heard about this place on a latenight BBC travel show about the Emilia-Romagna, and upon seeing on the map that it wasn’t that far from here, determined to find an occasion to have dinner there. David’s visit seemed to fit the bill. When I made the reservation, I asked if we could see the farm where the culatello is made, so we also got a reservation for a tour.

Polesine Parmense is in the middle of NOWHERE. Had to drive through farmers’ fields on what was certainly PAVED but I’m not convinced was actually PUBLIC road (thank you Anna the GPS, AGAIN). We arrived just at sunset, quite magnificent behind a small palazzo in the middle of a field, barely 100 feet from the Po River. Apparently the Po flooded about 10 years ago and the whole place was under 15 feet of water.  A true tragedy, as I’ll explain.

We arrived for our tour and were promptly escorted to the very cavern I had seen on the BBC show. The man explained a little about the process of curing the hams, how they are rotated through the cavern depending on age, and how the newest ones stay close to the window which the master culatello maker uses to control the temp and humidity in the cavern. There is no climate control down there, no instruments, just this one window and Massimo’s feel for what is the right amount of humidity. The weather outside determines how quickly a ham moves from AT the window to NEAR the window to AWAY FROM the window. The hams gradually mold over, and stay in the cellar for one to five years. The floor was also covered with grape leavings from their wine presses – the ferment gases make a difference too. Then he showed us the REALLY special, REALLY expensive culatelli, complete with their name tags – Armani, Principe Alberto di Monaco, Principe Carlo di Inghilterra, just to name a few. These culatelli are so intense that our princes won’t be able to pick theirs up for another year, as they are the black pig five-year kind. The black pigs are an ancient breed that was almost extinct; too fatty, take too long to mature, picky about what they eat. They make AMAZING culatelli. Massimo found the last few of the breed in Italy and started his own breeding program to be able to use them again. The expensive culatelli that they sold in the shop, which were NOT the black pig 5-year kind, were 90E per kilo. So you can imagine what the GOOD ones cost. They also had cheeses ageing in the cellar. Our guide said they didn’t make their own cheeses, but they needed different ones for different uses so they bought them fresh and aged them here. People who know can taste the difference between mountain cows, meadow cows that live in the really foggy areas, and meadow cows that don’t. So it’s necessary to have samples of all of these handy. (Aurora wanted to see the pigs, but our guide said the pigs are VERY stinky and live about 3 miles away. There were a few sheep out back, and they were stinky enough.) The year the Po flooded, the entire contents of the cave were ruined. We would find out at dinner just how sad this was.

We had nearly 40 minutes before our dinner reservation when the tour ended, so our guide suggested an aperitif while we waited. Presently there appeared a tray of parmesan, foccacia, and salami, and two glasses of fizzy red wine. I forgot to ask what the wine was. Need to do that.  I had a bite of the cheese (though I do not know from which geographical type of cow it came), yum, of the foccacia, yum, and then actually looked at the salami. I had planned to ignore it. I don’t like salami. I’ll eat it if it’s on offer, but it’s never my first choice.

Until now.

This stuff was arresting just to LOOK at – deep ruby red, beautifully marbled, and I could see that it wasn’t the dry, slightly leathery texture I associate with salami. I had a bite. Everyone else reached for a bite. And our collective eyes rolled up in our heads.

It was more the consistency of a perfectly rare steak than salami, and the flavor was rich and buttery and meaty and out of this world. We nearly came to blows over the last piece. The salami totally upstaged the also amazing bread and parmesan cheese. I retreated and had a sip of my red wine (which I also don’t generally care for all that much), and it was perfect with the salami. Must find out what it was.

When we headed over to the restaurant finally, we saw that we HAD to order the culatello platter. It didn’t include the black pig stuff, but several slices of one-year-old, two-year-old, and three-year-old culatello, the three-year-old with its pat of butter. Because buttering a piece of ham is the first thing we think of. And is amazing. We also ordered the cheese sampler, with one- and two-year-old mountain and meadow parmesans (they did taste slightly different, but they all looked exactly the same, so I lost track of which was which. Clearly, have to go back and get it right this time!), a goat cheese, and two wildly different gorgonzolas. By this time we really didn’t want entrees, so we girls got appetizers or soup and David got the Giuseppi Verde capon, which was indeed divine, but I couldn’t have eaten it all. We ordered crème brulee and chocolate mousse for dessert. Both yummy, but the crème brulee definitely won. And we got a lovely parting gift! They have handpainted plates with pictures to match what you had for dinner, so we got the Verdi capon plate.

There’s a salumeria attached to the restaurant (I know, a shocker), so we stopped on our way out and got 2 salamis to take home. One is for Elise to take back with her next Saturday; the other is so we can continue to indulge in what we have now dubbed crack salami for a little longer!

10.2  Carnevale in Pellegrino

We had thought about going to Busseto to see their Carnevale parade, but after seeing Fontanellato’s I think we’ve seen what we’re going to see. So we decided to stay local and go to the Pellegrino celebration of Carnevale. Aurora got to be one of the magician's assistants (sadly, I didn't realize this since I was out dancing with a friend and so got no pictures, sorry), and we ate lots of torta fritta and chiacchere (mardi gras cookies).

11.2 Snow and a hike

It was snowing just lightly when we got up this morning, roads still clear, so the girls got ready and we went to school. (The Ajroldi kids were still out of town so it was just us.) David and I then went on to Salso to do the shopping. We were hoping to go to Castell’Arquato in the afternoon, but the snow got worse and worse in Salso as we shopped, so that looked to be off. We headed home after less than an hour in Salso, but by 10 am it was already too late: the snow was so deep on the Strada Besozzola that I couldn’t get up the hill. We decided to go get chocolate at the Bar Sport and see if the snow would stop and the plow come out.

Thus it was that David was introduced to what the Italians think of when they say hot chocolate. The TV was on in the bar. I was watching it sorta while we talked, and there was Benedict XVI over and over on the screen. What’s he up to now, I thought. Then I read the crawl at the bottom. Blinked. Squinted. “Il Papa lascera’ il pontificato 28 feb”. Now, my Italian is pretty good, but this seemingly simple sentence did not make any sense to me. Finally I got up to go ask Fabio, the barkeep. “Um, I’m not sure, but does that TV really say ‘The Pope will abandon the Pontificate on 28 February’?” Why yes, yes it does. The story had broken about 10 minutes before I noticed it. David and I are fundamentally not in favor of this Pope, so we were compelled to get a glass of wine to toast his very happy retirement. First time in 600 years that a Pope has retired rather than die in harness.

By now it was noon. Girls get out of school at 1, but the snow was increasingly bad. I decided to go pick them up early and pray the plow had come. We popped them out of school (school was already announced to be closed for Tuesday) and headed for the hills, so to speak. No luck. Couldn’t get as far up the sharp grade at the bottom as I had 2 hours earlier. Fortunately it’s only a little over half a mile up. We would walk. As we were trying to decide where to leave the car, the plow came by, but he had to do the main roads first and couldn’t do the Strada yet. He was doing the main roads, not little side roads like our Strada. That’s low priority, which I understand. He did, however, plow me my own private parking space so I would be out of the road and away from the wake of the next plow to come through. And so we parked and headed out into the storm.

It was swirling snow with a constant breeze (not WIND so much as just nonstop air movement), so it was hard to see and it gets in your collar. None of us were truly dressed for it – coats were fine, but I had no hat or scarf, Aurora no gloves or scarf, Elise no gloves – and it got miserable in a hurry.Plus we’re carrying the groceries. The girls were miserable to say the least (and Elise doesn’t have boots). After a couple minutes I took all the groceries and David carried Aurora. We were little more than halfway up when Claudio came by (he has chains) and was able to take the girls and the groceries the rest of the way up. Praise the Lord. It was heavy enough going when it was just me. David had already carried Aurora a chunk of the way, but he was grateful to let her ride.

We ate crack salami and huddled around the fire the rest of the afternoon. Amazing how just 20 minutes of hard hiking in snow can chill you through, even though we were all sweating when we first came in.  David also taught us how to make “darned near instant blondies” with either amaretto flavoring or chocolate chips, using the cuisinart (about which I am bitter. I tried and tried to make it work and nothing.  He puts it together and whoosh! It hates me). And there was much rejoicing.

12.2 no school. retrieved the car. castell’arquato

Today started gray and horrible looking, but the clouds parted by about 10 and the sun came out full force. It wasn’t even THAT cold (about 4C). I went out with garbage at about noon and found the road not only clear but mostly dry, and so toddled to the bottom to collect my car, snoozing happily in its custom parking spot with no issues. I brought it back up, but couldn’t get all the way to the house, so had to camp in Francesco’s spot for the day.

Dave and I had hoped to go to Roncole Verdi today, since it’s a long school day for the girls, so we’d have till about 3pm to look around Verdi’s birthplace. We’re interested in opera and Verdi and the girls aren’t, so it seemed like a plan until school was cancelled. Rather than hear them complain about boring old Verdi, and since the roads were clear and the day pretty, we decided to take in one last castle, naturally, our favorite, Arquato. We didn’t take the mountain route over there – no telling what the road would be like, and we wouldn’t be able to see the vertical vineyards anyway in the snow, which is the main reason for going that way. So we went the flat way, and while there was considerable snow on the ground, the road was completely dry from end to end. It was warm enough in Arquato that the trees were all dripping, and periodically huge lumps of snow would just give up and come crashing to the ground.

We walked around the castle grounds, took some pictures of the hills, and then gathered up all the 50c pieces we could accumulate and went into the little church. We were able to keep the lights on in the 15^th C chapel long enough to see the frescoes for real this time, and get some good pictures. I hadn’t realized that one whole wall was nothing but very lovely saints being tortured to death in very lovely settings. Yeesh. A few more pictures and back down the hill to get some pastry at the pasticceria (it’s not worth driving all the way over there for pastry, but it sure is worth stopping if we’re already there!), and home. Elise made us curried chicken, roast potates, and braised spinach/arugula for dinner. I will miss her making dinner periodically. She’s a pretty good cook, and enjoys doing it. I hope she’ll keep it up in Del Mar.

13.2 

How convenient: there was a strike today until 10:30, and Dave’s train left at 9, so the girls would be able to come to the station with us to say goodbye. We headed down the hill into the classic Parma winter fog – there were times when I wasn’t sure we’d be able to go the 25km to Fidenza in under an hour, but we made it in plenty of time and saw him off. After groceries and gas we turned back toward Pellegrino. (Dave gave me 50E for a tank of gas. I filled up, and it came to 50.10E. Way to estimate the gas consumption!) In the valley the fog stayed intense, but as we came higher into the hills it disappeared into bright sun and we made it to school with five minutes to spare.

We've really enjoyed having David here, and he's invited us to come to the UAE sometime. It's an expensive flight, but cheap to stay, so maybe in two years we'll have saved up enough to go. Sounds like a lot of fun (though a VERY long flight, ugh).

We spent much of this afternoon straightening the house and doing laundry to make sure Elise has everything before she goes. Tomorrow is her last day of school. We leave for Milan Friday morning, and her plane is at 10 on Saturday. Trying not to be sad.

6.2 We're getting to the point of counting down to when Elise leaves us to return to the US. I remain hopeful that we will be able to bring her back for the last three weeks we are here, but the consulate in LA is not helping so far. Realistically, we will see her again in July. But hey, that's not that far away! She's started packing the huge new suitcase I bought her today, and is winnowing down a lot of stuff that has become too small or too ratty since we've been here. With the huge suitcase she'll also be able to take some things home for us ahead of time that we thought we'd need and didn't, or did need but don't anymore, thus also cutting down on how much I have to ship in July.

On my way home from Fidenza I stopped in a little restaurant called Trattoria Nausicaa, a name out of Greek mythology. Turns out the owner, Cristina, used to be a classics professor at the University of Bologna! It wasn't busy at lunch so she sat down with me while I ate and we talked about all kinds of things, and she told me I need to come again soon so we can chat some more, and maybe she can lend me some of her books! She gave me chocolate salami for dessert -- sounds nasty, but it's basically brownie batter with a lot of crumbled vanilla wafers in it, so when you cut it it has the light and dark patches like a real salami. Quite yummy.

Elise's grades came out today (Aurora's tomorrow). Not surprisingly, she had an A+ in English and A- in math. The rest were Bs and Cs, but not surprising given that it's only recently she's really been able to understand what was going on around her. The geography teacher told me, "She is obviously a very, very intelligent girl. These grades are not at all indicative of what she can do." I know. I need to do a translation of the whole thing to send to the school in San Diego. Aurora's godfather David LeMoine is arriving Friday to spend Carnevale with us. We will go to at least one and probably two or three different celebrations in the area, as they start Friday night and run more or less straight through in various places till midnight Tuesday. Cristina told me that the parade Sunday afternoon in Busseto, about 20 miles from here, is usually particularly good, so we will try to catch that as well as the party in Pellegrino Saturday night. He'll leave for Rome early Wednesday morning, then we leave early Friday to have a look at Milan before Elise has to be at the airport at 7 am. We'll be in a hotel right down the block so at least travel time won't be an issue! Not to worry about her, though, as Air France will have someone (English speaking!) waiting for her in Paris to take her to her next gate and be sure she gets on her plane. Once on the plane in Paris it's just waiting to arrive in Boston, so it should be a very easy trip.

We've had no snow and warmish (upper 40s) temps for the past few days, so the current snow on the ground is completely gone in the valley and almost gone here. Groundhog didn't see his shadow so we're hopeful that we're coming to the end of the bad weather. I'm definitely ready for some longer doses of Italian sunshine!

In which January gets even shorter shrift than November, but at least the Venice week post was long. Mostly because we spent so much of January just kinda living in Italy and getting groceries and occasionally being snowed in.

8.1
Today I did laundry and hung it out in the morning. Bright sun, blue sky, and 62 degree low humidity weather is ideal for hanging out laundry, I think. Elise and I went for a walk at lunch and saw rabbits, lizards and butterflies. Not what one expects in January 5 days after a big snowstorm, but we are NOT complaining.

Weather is supposed to cool off through the week, but no snow in the forecast before the weekend. We're hoping it stays nice so we can take in another castle or two before Elise heads back west in February. Other than that, we're pretty much back to the usual schedule. This weeks’ project is sorting through all the Venice pictures: we took over 500!

16.1
Well, the "light rain" that was forecast for last night and this morning turned into heavy snow. They had school this morning but closed at 1 and no school tomorrow.

I went out and took some pictures and was on more than one occasion assaulted by snow falling in great clumps off the trees. When Maurizio left with the girls I got out the shovel and shoveled for about an hour. I went out for my walk and pictures at 11:30 and it was not clear that I had shoveled at all. So yeah, we'll not be doing much the next couple days. However, it's not terribly cold, so I am hopeful that by the weekend it will be melting. We're actually in good shape here -- we have about a foot, but Maurizio said that at the Allelujah, only 1.5 kilometers away, they have about 17 inches. I did discover in my travels that we have another neighbor who's here, whom I had not met before: Cheo and his wife live in Milan most of the time but are preparing to retire here and so are spending more and more time here. Might shoulda stood in Milan this week :)

Otherwise quiet. House is warm, I got groceries yesterday so we are well-fed, Elise got an A+ on her English test. Life is good. I've discovered that part of the migraine problem is a physical manifestation of her fear of doing badly in school. She's been getting further and further behind and not telling me she had issues. We are working on getting her caught up now, and just have completed stuff to hand in is already giving her a better outlook.

19.1
Still no phone -- we've had only a bit of melt and now they're saying more on the way tomorrow. Ornella was of the opinion that there would be no school again on Monday if the forecasts are to be believed. However, I was able to get out yesterday and get LOTS of groceries in (poor little fridge is just bursting at the seams). It's interesting -- there was definitely snow on the ground in Salso, but that was all. Just enough to cover the grass. None on the trees and the roads clear and dry. The closer I got to home the more intense it got. Angela lives up at Pietra Nera, and she said they had almost twice as much up there as here. They might be as much as 100 meters higher up than we are, but I don't think it's that much, and yet what a difference. I'm told we got 50 cms here, or almost exactly 18 inches; Maurizio said they had over 65 at the Allelujah on Thursday evening, and it snowed well into the night, so I'm sure it's considerable up there.

Elise has really been working on her archery exercises. She still can't quite pull the bow as far as she needs to, but can now pull it over twice as far as she could when he first brought it. Real progress. And she's been in much better spirits just generally this week. I guess it's the anticipation of going home in a month. Matt tells me the insurance will take effect just a day or two before she gets home, so that's good.

Aurora's godfather David LeMoine will be arriving for 5 days on 8 Feb. She has never met him, but he always sends her $50 at Christmas, so she is very excited to meet her personal Santa Claus. I hope the weather is good so we can take him to see some castles and things!

Lunch with Ornella and co tomorrow -- she is making brodo con agnelotti, our favorite kind of soup, the rich broth with the little ravioli, and said we should come. I'll make brownies in the morning to take over there.

Roisin tried to call around the village and Pellegrino and said no one has any landline service, but I just topped up my cell so it has loads of money on it now, so we’re not cut off from civilization really. SO glad Roisin changed Wi-fi services – we’d be really lost with no web access

22.1

Snow is significantly melted and we are not at all housebound -- it's been nearly 50 with lots of sun the past few days, and hasn't frozen overnight. Streets are clear all the way up the mountain - I drove yesterday afternoon and this morning with no issues at all. However, it's supposed to snow again tonight. I can't get a forecast for closer than Salso, and Salso is not helpful, as they're nearly 500 ft lower in elevation and so they get only a tiny fraction of what we get. Salso says 1-3 inches. For us, that generally means anywhere from 3 to "lots and lots." As it stands now, I will drive in the morning unless Alessandra calls.

The weight of the melting snow on the lines apparently is still interfering with my landline. I'm going to call Telecom Italia from my cell tomorrow if it's still out.

Ornella taught me to make Carnevale cookies today -- basically sweet torta fritta, but they only use the yolks (in Italian, the reds :) of the eggs, so I have 6 whites lying around.   I hate to throw away all these whites, but I really don't have anything to do with them and I don't feel like making mouse or more marshmallows.

Elise and I went for a walk yesterday and got most of the way to Pellegrino before we turned around. It was nice. I hope the weather stays good enough that we can go for a few more before she leaves. Her ticket, by the way, was $900, but to change it would have been more because I paid $800 but the current cost of that same ticket is 1600, plus the $200 change fee. And this way, if she wants to come back and no passport types object, she can.

Worked on the book for an hour today and nearly 3 hours yesterday, finished one entire chapter with exercises and supplementary materials! Most progress I've made yet.

28.1

Elise had complained of water dripping on her bed back when it was raining, but I could never figure out where it was coming from, and it was never much. Tonight, with a new snow pack and 7C temps, Aurora said it was dripping again, and this time I found it. It's NOT the skylight. The water is actually dripping down between two of the wooden planks of the ceiling. Ugh. Not much we can do until spring, other than simply move them downstairs full time. Alessandra asked me to look at her translation of her marketing materials into English, and it was DREADFUL (in her defense, it was obviously mostly Google-translated, and while dandy for one- or two-word translations, Google can’t really make sense of anything more intense). So I've spent the last three days completely reworking her stuff so it's usable for an English-speaking market, and in return she's going to give me a day of fabulous relaxation in her spa when she reopens it in April. I'm totally demanding a herb bath and a massage after my sauna and steam room. It's 11 pages of text and so far I've spent about 8 hours on 6 pages. At commercial rates (remember, I used to be an Into-English editor) that's about 400E, and there are 3 pages still to go. I'm getting a NICE spa day. :)

It snowed again today. Aurora has croup and will not go to school most of this week, but Elise is doing okay. I was supposed to go to Parma this morning at the crack of dawn, but obviously between 4 more inches of snow and sick baby that didn't happen. Hoping for Thursday at this point.

31.1
So I went to the Questura today to try AGAIN to get this visa thing handled. I arrived at 8:05, having been told I needed to arrive before 8. And the reason why was clear upon arrival: the line to get in for a first come appointment was LONG. I was #28 in my line, which doesn’t sound too bad until you realize that each appointment takes 5-10 minutes. I waited for over 3 hours. I presented the docs that I had been told I was missing, always excepting the letter from the university saying I’m a student, since it doesn’t exist, and started to go into the whole student visa spiel again when the officer interrupted me. “Where is the Italian verison of the letter from the father?” Lat time I was here that guy down there (I could see him!) said I didn’t need it. “Well, you need it.” So now I have to get a translation of the permission letter Matthew signed, with a stamp from the consulate, and the originals of both the English version and the translated version. I opined that she had a stamp from the consulate, she opined that it wasn't in Italian. If I were to have this thing in hand by Feb 12, I could conceivably get it issued before Elise leaves, thereby ensuring her ability to come back here in June. If not, getting her back here may be impossible. I'll still need it in any case to get Rosie the correct visa. I have been told that Italian bureaucracy employs over 10 times as many people as French bureaucracy. At this rate I can believe it.

The REAL Christmas present: Venice

1.1 Happy New Year! Our neighbor Mauro and his family were here for New Year’s Eve from Milan, and brought fireworks. We could just barely see a town’s show over the mountains, but Mauro’s show was in many ways the best show ever. Nice fireworks, on our front patio, that we could watch from inside the warm house behind the protecting glass. Can’t beat that! Of course, it meant we stayed up until well after one am, which played merry hell with getting to bed early to get up early to go to Venice, but sure was cool.

Trip to Venice was easy. Much as one has to go through Atlanta to go to hell, one has to change trains in Bologna. It was purely freezing in Fidenza when we left, but warmer in Bologna and positively balmy in Venice. I had forgotten to check the map for our hotel before we left the house, but the information lady at the station knew it. I have done well: it was barely three blocks from the station, right on the main road past the front door. When we found it I became concerned. It was no more expensive than anywhere we stayed in Rome and much nicer, so I was convinced that the price I'd been quoted was in fact per DAY instead of for the week, but no, it was for the week! Very fancy. All red velvet and gilded fixtures. And lots of pictures of Mozart and his contemporaries all over the hallways on the ground floor (well, it IS Hotel Amadeus). The concierge told us where to have dinner, about another block further on, at La Vittoria, and it was delicious. I had budgeted 50E per meal because Venice is famous for being very pricey. So far so good, at 51E for dinner.

We did manage to get down to San Marco to have a look before dinner. AMAZING building. By far the most impressive church we’ve seen, and we’ve seen some impressive ones. I think it beats St Peter’s all hollow. Very similar to Hagia Sophia, I’m told. So, a little on St Mark. For a long time St Theodore was the patron of Venice. Yeah, I’ve never heard of him either. Then in 828 some enterprising Venetian merchants apparently stole poor ole St Mark the Evangelist from his burial place in Alexandria, wrapped him in bacon so the Muslim inspectors wouldn't make them put him back, and brought him on home. The foundation of the church as it is now wasn’t laid until 1063, and has been added to A BUNCH since then. Venetians, after all, travelled everywhere, and it was a poor traveller indeed who didn’t steal bring home SOMETHING to spruce it up with. The very famous Tetrarchs (Diocletian and company) are sitting at one corner. Hey, just because you spent your entire careers slaughtering as many Christians as you could lay hands on doesn’t mean your cool statue shouldn’t be part of a cool church, amirite?

The interior is even more amazing than the outside. I love mosaic floors. I took about 25 pix of the floors throughout the church before I saw the "no pictures" sign. Oh well, I'm not planning on publishing these anyway. But the mosaics on the ceilings…! They are, unfortunately, hard to see. I have to get a book on San Marco. Too much to take in.

2.1 The hotel arranged for us to have a water taxi to Murano to see the glassmaking. We LOVED the water taxi! Even though the day was gloomy (it rained most of the morning), it was such a luxury to have a private boat across the lagoon. We laughed with joy the entire way.

The glass factory was really cool (and we were lucky to see it – most of the factories are closed this week for Christmas holiday). The one we saw specializes in chandeliers, and the glass-blowers were working on one while we were there. As a demo, one of them came over to us with a blob of glass on his pipe. I turned on my video camera. 95 seconds later it was a rearing horse, so hot still that when he dropped a piece of paper on it the paper burst into flame. Afterwards a salesman took us through the showroom to let us see the variety of stuff they do – mostly lighting, but a lot of vases and statues as well. The one that got me was a set of water glasses, 6 in different colors with gold flake in the bases, so they gleam in the light. Really pretty. Really expensive. I really wanted them.

We went down to the jewelry section and didn’t really see anything that appealed particularly until Elise found a necklace that I personally would never have looked at twice: a black glass snake with copper and bronze stripes, and an asymmetrical arrangement of variously-shaped beads. She fell in love with it. I was dubious until I saw it on her. Also really expensive, but it was gorgeous on, so we agreed that it would be her birthday AND Christmas present for this year. She was amenable to that. It's an art piece, unique, and it looks great on her. And hey, my shopping is done for the year! Besides, I couldn’t in good conscience complain, since I, er, ordered the water glasses.

3.1 Since today was gorgeous and warm for January, we decided that touristy and cheesy and expensive as it is, we must have a gondola ride. I mean really, go to Venice and NOT? “It’s SOOO cacciatore!” So we got one, and got some really lovely views of the city, as well as some lovely close-ups of the architecture. Expensive, yes, but it was great fun. Our gondolier didn't have the stripey sweater (it was cold out) and refused to sing for us, but he did have the hat with the ribbons!

Venice really is the embodiment of shabby chic – everything is so gorgeous but just a BIT run-down. Things that are TOO well kept-up look so nouveau riche! Elise has decided she wants to buy a 2nd or 3rd floor apartment here to just live above the water and take care of the one million lap dogs that everyone carries around with them. (No ground or first floor apartments, however, thank you very much – the water marks on the buildings told us that they flood a LOT.) After our gondola ride, we hopped on the vaporetto to go to Burano. Whose bright idea was it to name two islands next to each other MURano and BURano? Wackos.

Anyway, BURano is the home of world-famous handmade lace, and is also known for its brightly colored houses. Aurora had money from her godfather that she wanted to spend, so we stopped in a glass shop and she ordered a glass heart necklace with “Rose” on it in melted glass. Very pretty. We watched the guy making some of the little tchotchkes that he sells after he finished the heart charm – really interested after seeing the glass blowers at Murano, since this man was using sticks of glass, some as thin as embroidery floss, and a tiny blowtorch to make his pieces. We got the classic picture from the bridge in the sunshine of all the colors down the canal, shopped for lace, and eventually found the lace museum and went in. They said there were demos of lace making every day; today there was just one elderly lady sitting there. She said she was 86 years old and had been doing this since she was in her teens. The lace is so tiny and so fine, and there were so many pieces in the museum, some of the quite large – made my hands hurt just thinking about it. The factory used to employ a couple hundred women just sitting in these little specialty desks knotting thread all day long, but the lady doing the demo said the young people don’t stay in Burano anymore, so the technique is gradually being lost.

We headed back about sunset. Beautiful views over the lagoon. For dinner, we decided to try a restaurant down the block from the hotel which looked interesting. Turns out to have been a mistake. Though we were seated right away, it was 30 minutes before they took our order, and almost another hour before the food arrived -- COLD! Definitely not idea for diabetics. We were so hungry that we ate it anyway (it would have been quite good if it had been hot), but when the 56E bill arrived, 6E for servizio, I pulled out a 50E note and gave it to the server. After all, we had eaten. I was willing to pay for that. When he said, "Uh, plus 6 for service," I replied, rather loudly, "Since it took over an hour to get dinner and the dinner was cold when it arrived, I do not consider that I have received any service. So I'm not paying it." No one tried to stop me as we left. Hmph!

 4.1 We decided that we could not do without a look at the original Jewish ghetto. Venice’s oldest synagogue was built in 1538. It's in the New Ghetto, which is the old part. The Old Ghetto was made part of the Jewish area later! (Ghetto is a Venetian dialect word meaning foundry or ironworks. The Jews were originally cordoned off in the newer of the ironworks areas.) We took the tour and they wouldn't let us take pictures inside, but here is a pic of the inside: http://www.museoebraico.it/images/sinagoga1.jpg Here's an interesting tidbit on the Venetian synagogue architecture: Since Jews weren't allowed to belong to craft guilds of any kind (thus their all being doctors and bankers), they couldn't even build their own buildings. So they had to hire Christian architects and builders to put everything up. (The synagogues are all added onto the tops of buildings because there wasn't any space to put anything on the ground.) So the interiors of the three 16th C ones we saw all had a distinctly church-y plan and decoration. The bima is not in the middle because the ground in Venice is so unstable that you have to balance all your architectural elements to keep your building square, and when they originally put it in the middle it made the floor buckle. Thus there are only pews on the sides so you can look one way and face the bima and look the other and face the ark. The women and kids sit behind the screens upstairs. Our tour was ostensibly in English, but that was a bit debatable: I had to keep translating for Aurora because the woman was so hard to understand.

After the tour we walked through the museum for a bit. Having seen the lace at Burano we had a slightly better understanding of what went into some of the Torah covers and other vestments that were hanging in the museum – Elise and I agreed the amount of work and care lavished on these things was crazy. I like the way the museums handle displaying the textiles: the display cabinets are multi-level bureaus, basically. You slide the glass-topped drawers back and forth to see what’s underneath, so about 5 times as many pieces are available to view as would be in just an ordinary display case. There were several rooms on Shoah, but Aurora started to get very sad about the whole thing and so I chickened out. I read a few of the wall cards, but only a few. One of the cards said that of 8000 Jews deported from Italy, 8 came back. It was difficult.

We did, however, look at the little Holocaust memorial in the piazza. The Italians may not have been wild about Jews, but they were OUR Jews goddamit and we won't have a bunch of Germans coming around taking OUR Jews. There were about 1200 Jews in Venice when Mussolini was killed and the Germans arrived to round folks up; the Venetians managed to hide or disperse to safety nearly 950. The memorial is a bronze bas-relief entitled The Last Train, showing people being herded into the cars, with the names and ages on the wall around it. It couldn't have been more than about 8'x5', but it was very moving.

The concierge’s recommendations for restaurants have been uniformly good. La Vittoria, in the piazza next to the hotel, was delicious, and the waiter even brought us a sardine appetizer that is supposedly a Venice specialty. The girls refused to eat a whole fish, but I liked it. For lunch today we ate at a restaurant near the ghetto, also delicious (and very good crème brulee for dessert!). After lunch, we went shopping. I became bitter when Elise found EXACTLY the boots I wanted, in her size but not in mine. Grr. However , I did find a pair of granny boots and a pair of short cowboy-style boots that were both highly adorable, and the shoe man said if I bought all three pairs he would charge me only for the two more expensive. Since the more expensive were only 10E more than the least, it worked out nicely. I still want a nice pair of black boots, but we’ll see how we go. Elise also found a red belt that she really liked, and since it was a bit too long, they cut it down for her and put two extra holes in, just in case.

Aurora continues to collect goodies. At Murano she selected some glass dolphins as part of her present from her godfather David; at Burano, a lace parasol, Barbie-sized; and today she found a turquoise mask with tall feathers that she liked. So she has quite the representative sample of Venetian wares.

5.1 I got up early to try to catch the sunrise on the vaporetto, as my friend Rob had recommended this as a very beautiful view. I overslept, of course, so only got a glimpse, and got on the wrong boat so ended up in the industrial docks directly across from the mainland. Ugly, but still interesting since I had no idea Venice actually HAD industrial docks. Got back on the right boat toward the Rialto and climbed up over the bridge, but it was less interesting than usual as everything was closed for the tail end of the Christmas holiday. Modern photos also take major advantage of photoshop before being published: the bridge is covered in graffiti.

Our train didn’t leave till 2:30, so we decided to have one more look at San Marco before we left. Elise was a little calmer this time and came in. She was really wowed by the interior (as indeed I was, again). Truly one of the most beautiful buildings we’ve seen in Italy, and that’s saying something! I got pictures of them climbing on one of the lions. We also got severely freaked out by the clock tower across the piazza from the church: when we were here before, it was just a tower. Today it had a big ole bronze statue on the top! And we KNOW we’re not hallucinating because the clock tower was really cool so I took a picture of it when we first came on Tuesday. NO STATUE.

After a light lunch we headed for the train. We’ve all got significant inner ear issues from the rocking of the boats, and apparently of the very islands Venice is composed of. Everything sways just a little. It’s a little unnerving, but we definitely want to try to get back here before July. And we definitely will stay at the Amadeus again if we come back. Breakfast got two thumbs WAY up and wigglin’ from all concerned.

7.1 We were sad to leave Venice -- we had barely scratched the surface in 4 days -- but it was nice to get home again. Since we got home after dark on Saturday, we couldn't see much of the surrounding countryside, so we didn't know that it had snowed last week until we went out Sunday afternoon -- into the 60-degree weather! Seems they got 8 inches of snow Wednesday morning, but it had been upper 50s to low 60s the rest of the week, so only the very shadiest spots still had snow.

Today I did laundry and hung it out in the morning. Bright sun, blue sky, and 62 degree low humidity weather is ideal for hanging out laundry, I think. Elise and I went for a walk at lunch and saw rabbits, lizards and butterflies. Not what one expects in January 5 days after a big snowstorm, but we are NOT complaining. Weather is supposed to cool off through the week, but no snow in the forecast before the weekend. We're hoping it stays nice so we can take in another castle or two before Elise heads back west in February. Other than that, we're pretty much back to the usual schedule. This weeks’ project is sorting through all the Venice pictures: we took over 500!

In the afternoon my friend Ida called and asked if we wanted to join her and her children and nieces at the Epiphany tombola in Pellegrino. It is traditional to play tombola (an Italian variant of bingo) at the end of the year, and since Jan 6 is the last day of Christmas, it sorta stands in for the last day of the year as well. We went down, and the whole village it seemed was crammed into the school auditorium playing tombola. When the next round started, we bought a couple tickets and played, and lost, not a big surprise. You should know that there are 5 levels of prizes: the first person to get two numbers in one row (the card is three rows of 5, but only rows, not columns or diagonals), then the first to get three, then four, then five, then finally the first person to fill all 3 rows gets the top prize for that round. We played again (one card for me, one for Rose; Elise didn't feel like going), and the 2,3,4 and 5 prizes went very quickly. I only had 8 of 15 squares filled. After the 5 prize was claimed, however, the next 8 numbers were mine, mine, mine, mine, not mine, mine, mine, mine. I was as surprised as anyone to hear my own voice call out, "Tombola!"

Befana (beh FAH nah) the candy witch fills stockings and shoes with candy the night of Jan 5, so Epiphany, the day the three kings arrived with presents for Baby Jesus, is a day of sweetness. The girls got candy from Befana, but I did not, as Befana is well aware that I am chubby :) However, a basket the size of a laundry basket filled with panettone (traditional Italian Christmas raisin bread), 2 bottles of wine, a bottle of amaretto, half a kilo of local honey, and half a kilo of parmesan cheese with a fancy grater MORE than makes up for it!