the long awaited super update on my trip to italy...
yes tom/merlyn (they've been driving me NUTS! about updating!) i'm finally doing a REAL update. it's gonna be long, and i might do it in intervals or something, but whatever. it'll probably be my last huge update on lj, i'm into xanga now as well and i need to become less addicted to both (they waste all of my time lol). so without ado...lemme start off by being all sweet and sucha nd say how much i missed you all. yeah, it was av ery cool trip and all, but i longed for fat americans sitting in front of (television/computer) screens at times and i especially longed to have a chat room entitled "we ALL want to do the tab" or just go to the palisades mall and watch an american movie-in english. and i'm warning you now, if i get overly sarcastic and cruel-i'm sorry, i dont mean it much, but unfortunately i've been sarcasm deprived for awhile because nobody would understand my hinted meanings and it would all be terrible waste. so anyway, let me dive in to the entry entitled "what i did on my summer vacation..."
7 hr. 13 min. plane ride (up up and away we went) ok 1st off i gotta say yay for continental airlines-the whole individual tv set in the back of every seat was amazing. i watched CSI, the practice, friends and played games on it. the rest of hte time i read the good earth (awesome book!), listened to my music-my life support system-and tried to sleep but it totally didn't work. so eventually at 8:10 am on saturday, july 17th we arrived at milan/malpensa international in italia. the taxi dude was waiting so then we drove for a verrryy long time to get to albareto, my mom's home town. we [used to] own an apartment there-it's decent sized (3 bedrooms, 2 sitting rooms, 1 bathroom, kitchen) but the tv was ancient and only black and white, there's no normal shower (but most of italy lacks standing up showers). instead, one must sit in a tub and wash with those detachable shower heads. not the most efficient of methods. oh yeah, as of now we don't own the apartment anymore cuz my mom sold it to my uncle (long complicated mess, but it doesn't matter anymore). after dropping off our stuff, my grandma and i headed to casa mori, the house my grandmother was born in along with her 5 brothers (btw, my grandma and i went earlier and stayed for 2 weeks til my mom and brother came to italy on august 1st).
casa morimy grandma's brother, Egidio, lives there with his wife Angela and my little cousin (their granddaughter) johanna was there all summer so i had a nice little "friend" who spoke french and was 7 years old and an incredible brat. yeah, her father (laurent, egidio's son) lives in france so johanna only speaks french-making my life difficult. that meant i had to try to learn french all summer, along wtih italian and dialect. AHHHHH. my first day was pretty uneventful-had some DAMN good food (as i did every single day)-oh yes i had wine as well. yes, wine. and it was pretty good too. the drinking age in italy is 16!! and at meals i get to drink, though i'm technically not of age...they don't much give a damn about age, nice place, eh?
fare un giretto m grandma and i "made the rounds" by taking a little walk all around town and i came to the conclusion (very quickly) that EVERYONE is related to me some way or another in that town. yeah, it's that small. every person my grandma passed she knew and on the side she'd tell me, oh yeah, that was our cousin, maria; that was our cousin, luigi, etc. etc. i thought it quite pathetic, but w/e.
ok now i'm just gonna give more highlights and try not to go too in depth and bore you to death:
teeny cars and vespas the cars are ridiculously small (mostly b/c the roads are insanely small and the gas is so expensive) but honestly, fiats look like tin cans with wheels. the mini cooper looks huge there. and of course everyone must drive like the devil is chasing them, so it's a bit scary to look to one side and see this huge cliff leading into a ravine and imagine yourself falling down there at 100 miles per hour...oh i'm not sure if i mentioned that i'm from mountains. both my parents live pretty high up on the appenines (?) in northern italy (emilia romagna). i feel like a mountain troll or something.
GELATO!! the best substance on this earth and i really pity most americans for never experiencing REAL bonafide gelato. nocciola is the greatest. but anyway, it's soooo creamy and delicious and heavenly i wish i could have taken it back with me, but i'm afraid it wouldn't have made it through the security checks...arg. anyway, had lots of that lol to make up for not having it in 8 years. ::sigh:: fond memories flooding back right now, desire to have a cone of gelato in my hand burning harshly...
stone floors, no air conditioning but still suprisingly cool yeah, everything was marble or tiled which is nice in the summer because the houses still are much cooler than here, but in the winter they must be hell.
blue skies...yeah every day was beautiful-not too hot, but hot enough, with a lot of sun and not a cloud in sight. it literally rained like twice (and only at night) while i was there
la gotra "the river"-the town swimming pool pretty much. people go and hang out at the river and swim in it (though it's not terribly deep in the summer) and it's really really rocky/cold so instead i laid out on a large flat rock and sun tanned for 2 hours while listening to music. i also examined rocks (being the geologist that i am)..well no, not really.
mountain views=breathtaking took lots of pictures of the views. they are the most gorgeous views in the world.
italian language-didn't really know anything before going..but understood a helluva lot and learned a lot too!there are a lot of cognates, a lot of stuff similar to spanish, or just people who speak english to translate so it was all good.
babysitterjohanna (as mentioned above) adored me far more than i adored her..she constantly wanted me to play with her then threw fits if i didn't and she was just soo damn annoying for a 7-year-old. i also saw my little cousin luca who is now 4 and i haven't seen him since he came to america when he was 9 months old. he's adorable..but DOESN'T SHUT UP EVER. the energy in that kid tires me out just thinking about it. and he was always jumping on me, bothering me as well, and throwing such pathetic fits. omg brat brat brat. ::shudder:: yeah, good thing though-he taught me italian pretty well (without realizing it) cuz he spoke clearly and fairly simply. then when johanna's little sister, maielle, came i had her to deal with too (she's 3, babbles to me in french, and likes to be a pain as well-biting, pulling hair...all that good stuff)
everything copies americans music, clothing-everything's in english/american brands, styles, artists. it's pathetic. but italian music does suck...the radio is like purely english, and the clothing is all english (there was one shirt that said "Made in shopping" and we're all wtf is that supposed to mean?)
homemade...well everything from bread, to prosciutto, to ravioli, everything was homemade, fresh, and positively amazing.
cheese/fruit after every meal in addition to an antipasto usually and a huge main dish yeah wayy too much food to devour in one sitting.
french is a fucked up language. nuff said there.
fungi hunting no not fungi, FOONGEE-the dialect word for mushroom-so yes i literally went mushroom hunting in the woods wayy up high. it was pretty cool. albareto is well known for its abundance in mushrooms (including porchini) and so at this time of year people start going to harvest wild mushrooms. after walking around spotting lots of huge mushrooms (I FOUND THE HUGEST-OO SNAPS FOR ME) we had a picnic and all. it was a pretty nice day, lots of fresh air and exercise and stuff.
cafe which is espresso in america-yeah it was damn good and all, strong, but oh well, my growth is just a bit stunted for now...after every lunch people usually have cafe before taking their nap and heading back to work (it's a very relaxed lifestyle)
FLIES FLIES FLIES ok so there weren't many mosquitoes to deal with-but the fly situation was disgusting. everywhere were more flies. it was awful-most windows don't have screens so they all come in, but even with screens they find their way into homes and land on food and such. i hated dealing with them the most.
il moto-the quad in english yes very hot-got to ride my cousin's quad on all these snaky dirt roads (which are the main roads where my dad is from wayy up in the mountains) and at first i just rode behind giancarlo, but then he let me drive and i was all omg no, you're insane, but then i did and it was mad chill, yo. no seriously, i loved it. sooo much fun.
church arg, everyone is wayy too religious in italy. i had to go to church in town and that sucked because i normally don't understand the sermons, it's even worse when they're in italian. so i let my mind wander and fought hard against falling asleep (it would have been sooo easy) every mass.
master and commander-in italian yeah the people upstairs invited me up to watch master and commander with them, although it was dubbed in italian so i didn't understand a whole lot. the people upstairs were two brothers (simone and roberto) who were 25 and 27 respectively. it was a bit...idk creepy but i went anyway just to get out of the apartment and not sit around with my grandma all night, and hey i survived wtihout being molested or anything. sadly, neither one was terribly hot so yeah w/e i'm not sure where to continue this sentence lol.
santa anna every town has a patron saint and on the feast day for that saint they make a big deal and have special mass and big meals and all...so where my great aunt is from (about 10 minutes from albareto-called montegroppo) they had a big thing fro santa anna. went to mass (arg more mass) then to eat a reallly great lunch and i got to meet giovanna (my aunt's niece) who was uber uber cool. and i mean that in every way possible. she's 16, speaks a fair amount of english because she took 3 years of it in school, wears black converses, likes rock (nirvana is her favorite band!!), has really good taste in guys (yeah we managed to gossip about our crushes and all a lot), and most importantly made for REALLY good company compared to all the little kids/old people i'd been around for so long. we hung out a lot and i got to meet some other people through her, though i didn't understand all of them/they didn't understand me too well. eh, whatev. she was really nice and all and we've become penpals and such which is hot.
I GOT TO SWIM IN THE MEDITTERANEAN SEA-oo yeah yes indeedy i did. my aunt and uncle took me along with luca, to the sea one day and it was pretty nice-the water wasn't terribly cold and i got to relax on the beach. unfortuantely, guys like to wear speedoes...old guys...::Shivers in disgust:: and every woman-old/young/in between-wore a bikini. it was a bit discomforting to see some of these people, but at least they weren't topless (except for girls up to age 8 or so). those are the italians for ya.
lots of time to read so i read: the good earth, a stephen king collection of short stories (everything's eventual), cold mountain (for summer reading), rebecca, and mimosa grove:all awesomely yummy
the farm:my uncle, zio andrea (my dad's sister's husband) owns a farm and i went a couple of times to visit it. the first time i went i got to ride in the tractor which was...cool, but cramped. he was spreading manure which mean that there were these HUGE ASS PILES OF CRAP. not the most pleasant of smells...he owns 70 cows and is primarily a dairy farmer, but he also has fields of hay and such. the cows are kinda cool, but pretty nastily dirty and such. not the life for me...
fornovo in fiera my aunt (my dad's sister, the farmer's wife, mother of luca) lives in fornovo and took me to the fiera, which is basically an outdoor market (HUGE one mind you) that takes up all of the streets and there are vendors upon vendors selling everything you could think of. i didn't buy anything there though, it wasn't anything terribly exciting, a lot of it was poorly made and copies of american products. =(
nonno my great grandfather (well technically, he's not because he's my grandfather's "step" father although he's not even that because he never adopted him...long story there, if i have nothing better to do one day, i'll write about it cuz it's lots of drama and makes a good story)..so anyway he lives wayyy up high in this really secluded house by himself...and he's 89 years old and still damn good! yeah, he saw my mom (he had no idea we were coming) and he was all-IVANA!! he knew her right away and he hasn't seen any of us in 8 years. he still makes homemade wine-and it was amazing! it's sweet, a lot like champagne actually, and when he wanted to give me more, i was all "no no, no piu" (no more) and then he said something to the effect of "yes yes, it's sweet, it won't hurt you." so i think i drank a bit TOO much...but it was fun hehe. he also makes homemade cakes in these old fashioned stoves in his backyard. he is soo cool. i only wish i age half as well as he has.
borgotaro the nearest big town to albareto-it actually has a few people! lol yeah there are really nice stores and all the buildings are really old and pretty, there are cobblestone streets too! every monday there is an outdoor market (like the one in fornovo, but on a much smaller scale) and you can just walk up and down, although it does get really crowded. it's pretty cool to see all these people negotiating in italian, babbling hard to get a low price.
videotaping...well everything my brother videotaped everything, mostly because my mom wanted to have it to make into a video to show her class (the making of the video is where i come in-i have to use my imac and make a video like i did for history day...ugh) so everything we saw my brother had to take out the video camera and please my mother by capturing it on film.
festa di pijama in the summer, albareto (as with most italian towns) have town dances outdoors in the center in town and such, so one friday night there was a large "pajama party" in albareto. it was..interesting. yeah, i didn't dress up, but many of the townspeople did..making it quite...interesting...ok so men apparently don't need to prove their machoness in italy because some of the outfits they showed up in were utterly disturbing. they were wearing nighties and tiny little silk women's lingerie things. they were a bit too feminine and revealing for my taste...also met some english people there (apparently there are a lot of english peoples who visit italy in the summer) and they were kinda cool, a bit strange and drank farr too much (one person got really sick), some of them smoked, and they were all doing all this crazy stuff, but w/e it was a way to pass the night til 3am. i actually kinda had fun talking to one girl, jennifer, she was a bit more normal...
festa del avis yay for meeting more people my age! sadly, they like didn't speak english, but they were very cool for the most part and fun and welcomed me in and tried to communicate (giovanna was there so she was a good translator at times). i tried to speak italian, it worked at times, other times it didn't. oh btw, festa del avis is a two day party thing up in this really woody area that's held by AVIS which is a blood bank of some sort. there is really good food and music and such. alessio was really cool, he and i spent a really long time trying to communicate and all, we even talked a little politics...everyone in italy is quite fascinated with bush/american politics and so then he asked me, since he knew about bush, if i knew the president of italy. and i was all...uh no, not a clue as to who he is. eh well, who cares about italian politics? they also had a very strong fascination with my orbit gum...i gues they had never seen gum in that shape/with that kind of wrapping? they started fighting over the box after it was finished and lisa was all pleased when she won the game of rock, paper scissors (or whatever it was that they played). speaking of which i have to mail giovanna an empty pack of orbit to give to alessio, since i promised him it but never got to see him again before i left. i also taught them some bad words in english (piece of shit=pezo di merda...) and i yelled at someone to just shut up since he was being really annoying to this girl, and they all started saying shut up to him too, stai zito is shut up in italian but i was just angry so i said shut up because i couldn't think of the proper phrase in italian. yes i taught them very good english words O:-)
learning hand gestures italians are famous for talking wtih their hands (hell i do it too usually) and i got to learn some good hand gestures that they all use that aren't like BAD like the finger (which they do there as well) but are still really cool for expressing yourself without words or enhancing what you're saying.
bars are really popular in italy. every town, no matter how small, has one, and everyone goes there to hang out during the day/at night. so every night towards the end my mom, brother, and i would stroll down to the bar in albareto and have a cappucino. yumminess! cappucinos are awesome, especially when they're drank in italy.
cinque terre was awesome. for those of you who don't know (because you're just so uncultured and pathetic that you don't know about cinque terre...naw jp, i didn't know about it til i went) it's 5 towns that are built into these cliffs on the edge of the meditteranean. they survived by fishing mainly and they are all attached by walking paths, but we didn't walk, we took a ferry thing between them. there are technically beaches there, but they are really rocky. however, they were packed because it was a beautiful day and it's a real touristy area (there were tons of people speaking english there) and there were more speedoes and bikinis unfortuantely. the towns were sooo pretty-we took tons of pictures of them. all the streets are narrow and steep, and all the houses are like 6 stories and skinny and brightly colored so that the sailors could see them from far away. there are all this terraced lands for vineyards around the towns and from the boat we could see them all from far away and they loooked soo cool. it was such a great day-it really felt like vacation that day at least. the ride home was a bit scary because in order to get to Monterosso (the biggest of the 5 towns and where we went to take the ferry) we had to go down a mountain, up a mountain and back down it, whcih meant majorly twisty roads, incredibly narrow with oncoming traffic, yeah it was quite terrifying. my poor mother had to drive all the way down in our mercedes wagon, which was quite larger than the other cars. the way home was even worse, because night had fallen over the land, making it difficult to see the curve and where the road ended and nothingness began. so it was much like a very unsafe roller coaster ride the whole way. still cool though.
foccacia often in the afternoon before dinner (since dinner is really late) we had a piece of fresh foccaccia bread, so soft, slightly salty and delicious. yeah the food was totally worth it.
pot, cigarette smoking yeah cigarettes are smoked by pretty much everyone still. and it's really funny since the packages say in reallly huge letters (like half hte package) SMOKING KILLS none of that tiny, fine print crap by our surgeon general. you can't miss it. but everyone still smokes. and there was a distinct stench of pot in the air at the festa di pijama. i swear, no wonder italian's have a much better life (all relaxed and such)-they drink like mad, smoke, and sleep in the middle of the day! the key to living well right there i've decided.
skinniness ok so here's the story, italians' eat tons of food, like 4 courses at lunch and fairly big dinners considering the size of lunch and snacks and everything else, yet they are all stick thin. even the older people for the most part. middle aged, mothers, everyone. obesity is nonexistent there. it's so strange. i figure they ahve to be thin to fit in their tiny cars, but it still doesn't make sense to me.
bimbo this is just put in cuz it's really funny to me. cuz i'm pathetic like taht. bimbo is like a slang word for little boy (taken from bambino) and my cousin, luca, was referring to the little baby at the beach as bimbo bimbo bimbo! and i was fighting back my laughter cuz i mean come on, it's this little 4 year old saying bimbo. who wouldn't find that funny?
Mer-chay-des! my mom rented a car and we got a mercedes (but in italy it is pronounced mer-chay-des). it was a really nice car, fairly large compared to most, and comfortable and all.
watching the cheese being made my uncle's farm is right next door to this man who makes parmiggiano cheese (yes the REAL stuff from emilia romagna not this fake crap in america-it is the king of the cheese as my uncle often said). so one morning we were able to watch the whole cheese making process. first they take milk from the night before and that morning's milking (it has to be like that, if it is older or all fresh it doesn't work for some reason) then they poor it in these huge copper vats that are like funnel shaped and put the curdling stuff in. they mix it with these huge ass whisks attached to industrial sized fans. eventually it becomes the right consistency and then they raise the heat in the vats until the cheese has settled to the bottom. then using this huge wooden paddle thing they scoop it off of the bottom where it has all formed and up comes this huge wheel of what is something similar to cottage cheese in consistency. it is completely tasteless really (i tried a little piece and it wasn't very good). then it sits in molds for a few days with a weight on top of it and once they are ready it goes into a huge swimming pool like thing of water that is 30% salt. for 20 days it stays in this brine and finally it comes out and goes onto a shelf for 2 years before it can be sold. the end product is so delicious that it is totally worth it. and out of a day's milking (70 cows) all one gets is 2 wheels of cheese. but each wheel costs at least $500 or so.
telefonini-italian cell phones! EVERYONE has a cell phone in italy and they call them telefonini which literally means little telephone but it's just an amusing word to say and i like it. they are really good phones too-they work in these remote places wayy up high in mountains or in houses wtih 9 foot thick walls (and no i'm not exaggerating) whereas here they don't even work on the palisades highway.
ok i'm getting tired so i'm just gonna finish up with santa maria-the feast day for albareto-incredibly anti-climatic, nothing exciting to write about-and cento croce where we went to this really cool restaurant for my aunt's birthday giovanna was there so that was cool and the restaurant was technically over the region border into liguria so the food was kinda different from what i had in emilia romagna.
HOME! sure it took 9 hours but it was a good ride, even though we had to get up at 5am to get to the airport in time. i didn't sleep at all on the plane so i was totally jet-lagged when i got home and exhausted. i managed to stay up til like 10 before passing out in bed.
and that's that. i'd say that was quite a substantial update. ::bows:: btw i have a xanga now..so you can check it out and all and learn more useless knowledge about my life: www.xanga.com/ti_amo90.
um otherwise, idk what else to say. it's good to be home, yeah it is indeed, i'm home alone at the moment (actually for the rest of the night pretty much) cuz my parents are at my brother's ceremony thing/ball at west point and steven (my other brother) is at college now. so i'm playing my music super loud and updating my journal in peace. it's a nice feeling. lol :-D
peace,
jessi =)
7 hr. 13 min. plane ride (up up and away we went) ok 1st off i gotta say yay for continental airlines-the whole individual tv set in the back of every seat was amazing. i watched CSI, the practice, friends and played games on it. the rest of hte time i read the good earth (awesome book!), listened to my music-my life support system-and tried to sleep but it totally didn't work. so eventually at 8:10 am on saturday, july 17th we arrived at milan/malpensa international in italia. the taxi dude was waiting so then we drove for a verrryy long time to get to albareto, my mom's home town. we [used to] own an apartment there-it's decent sized (3 bedrooms, 2 sitting rooms, 1 bathroom, kitchen) but the tv was ancient and only black and white, there's no normal shower (but most of italy lacks standing up showers). instead, one must sit in a tub and wash with those detachable shower heads. not the most efficient of methods. oh yeah, as of now we don't own the apartment anymore cuz my mom sold it to my uncle (long complicated mess, but it doesn't matter anymore). after dropping off our stuff, my grandma and i headed to casa mori, the house my grandmother was born in along with her 5 brothers (btw, my grandma and i went earlier and stayed for 2 weeks til my mom and brother came to italy on august 1st).
casa morimy grandma's brother, Egidio, lives there with his wife Angela and my little cousin (their granddaughter) johanna was there all summer so i had a nice little "friend" who spoke french and was 7 years old and an incredible brat. yeah, her father (laurent, egidio's son) lives in france so johanna only speaks french-making my life difficult. that meant i had to try to learn french all summer, along wtih italian and dialect. AHHHHH. my first day was pretty uneventful-had some DAMN good food (as i did every single day)-oh yes i had wine as well. yes, wine. and it was pretty good too. the drinking age in italy is 16!! and at meals i get to drink, though i'm technically not of age...they don't much give a damn about age, nice place, eh?
fare un giretto m grandma and i "made the rounds" by taking a little walk all around town and i came to the conclusion (very quickly) that EVERYONE is related to me some way or another in that town. yeah, it's that small. every person my grandma passed she knew and on the side she'd tell me, oh yeah, that was our cousin, maria; that was our cousin, luigi, etc. etc. i thought it quite pathetic, but w/e.
ok now i'm just gonna give more highlights and try not to go too in depth and bore you to death:
teeny cars and vespas the cars are ridiculously small (mostly b/c the roads are insanely small and the gas is so expensive) but honestly, fiats look like tin cans with wheels. the mini cooper looks huge there. and of course everyone must drive like the devil is chasing them, so it's a bit scary to look to one side and see this huge cliff leading into a ravine and imagine yourself falling down there at 100 miles per hour...oh i'm not sure if i mentioned that i'm from mountains. both my parents live pretty high up on the appenines (?) in northern italy (emilia romagna). i feel like a mountain troll or something.
GELATO!! the best substance on this earth and i really pity most americans for never experiencing REAL bonafide gelato. nocciola is the greatest. but anyway, it's soooo creamy and delicious and heavenly i wish i could have taken it back with me, but i'm afraid it wouldn't have made it through the security checks...arg. anyway, had lots of that lol to make up for not having it in 8 years. ::sigh:: fond memories flooding back right now, desire to have a cone of gelato in my hand burning harshly...
stone floors, no air conditioning but still suprisingly cool yeah, everything was marble or tiled which is nice in the summer because the houses still are much cooler than here, but in the winter they must be hell.
blue skies...yeah every day was beautiful-not too hot, but hot enough, with a lot of sun and not a cloud in sight. it literally rained like twice (and only at night) while i was there
la gotra "the river"-the town swimming pool pretty much. people go and hang out at the river and swim in it (though it's not terribly deep in the summer) and it's really really rocky/cold so instead i laid out on a large flat rock and sun tanned for 2 hours while listening to music. i also examined rocks (being the geologist that i am)..well no, not really.
mountain views=breathtaking took lots of pictures of the views. they are the most gorgeous views in the world.
italian language-didn't really know anything before going..but understood a helluva lot and learned a lot too!there are a lot of cognates, a lot of stuff similar to spanish, or just people who speak english to translate so it was all good.
babysitterjohanna (as mentioned above) adored me far more than i adored her..she constantly wanted me to play with her then threw fits if i didn't and she was just soo damn annoying for a 7-year-old. i also saw my little cousin luca who is now 4 and i haven't seen him since he came to america when he was 9 months old. he's adorable..but DOESN'T SHUT UP EVER. the energy in that kid tires me out just thinking about it. and he was always jumping on me, bothering me as well, and throwing such pathetic fits. omg brat brat brat. ::shudder:: yeah, good thing though-he taught me italian pretty well (without realizing it) cuz he spoke clearly and fairly simply. then when johanna's little sister, maielle, came i had her to deal with too (she's 3, babbles to me in french, and likes to be a pain as well-biting, pulling hair...all that good stuff)
everything copies americans music, clothing-everything's in english/american brands, styles, artists. it's pathetic. but italian music does suck...the radio is like purely english, and the clothing is all english (there was one shirt that said "Made in shopping" and we're all wtf is that supposed to mean?)
homemade...well everything from bread, to prosciutto, to ravioli, everything was homemade, fresh, and positively amazing.
cheese/fruit after every meal in addition to an antipasto usually and a huge main dish yeah wayy too much food to devour in one sitting.
french is a fucked up language. nuff said there.
fungi hunting no not fungi, FOONGEE-the dialect word for mushroom-so yes i literally went mushroom hunting in the woods wayy up high. it was pretty cool. albareto is well known for its abundance in mushrooms (including porchini) and so at this time of year people start going to harvest wild mushrooms. after walking around spotting lots of huge mushrooms (I FOUND THE HUGEST-OO SNAPS FOR ME) we had a picnic and all. it was a pretty nice day, lots of fresh air and exercise and stuff.
cafe which is espresso in america-yeah it was damn good and all, strong, but oh well, my growth is just a bit stunted for now...after every lunch people usually have cafe before taking their nap and heading back to work (it's a very relaxed lifestyle)
FLIES FLIES FLIES ok so there weren't many mosquitoes to deal with-but the fly situation was disgusting. everywhere were more flies. it was awful-most windows don't have screens so they all come in, but even with screens they find their way into homes and land on food and such. i hated dealing with them the most.
il moto-the quad in english yes very hot-got to ride my cousin's quad on all these snaky dirt roads (which are the main roads where my dad is from wayy up in the mountains) and at first i just rode behind giancarlo, but then he let me drive and i was all omg no, you're insane, but then i did and it was mad chill, yo. no seriously, i loved it. sooo much fun.
church arg, everyone is wayy too religious in italy. i had to go to church in town and that sucked because i normally don't understand the sermons, it's even worse when they're in italian. so i let my mind wander and fought hard against falling asleep (it would have been sooo easy) every mass.
master and commander-in italian yeah the people upstairs invited me up to watch master and commander with them, although it was dubbed in italian so i didn't understand a whole lot. the people upstairs were two brothers (simone and roberto) who were 25 and 27 respectively. it was a bit...idk creepy but i went anyway just to get out of the apartment and not sit around with my grandma all night, and hey i survived wtihout being molested or anything. sadly, neither one was terribly hot so yeah w/e i'm not sure where to continue this sentence lol.
santa anna every town has a patron saint and on the feast day for that saint they make a big deal and have special mass and big meals and all...so where my great aunt is from (about 10 minutes from albareto-called montegroppo) they had a big thing fro santa anna. went to mass (arg more mass) then to eat a reallly great lunch and i got to meet giovanna (my aunt's niece) who was uber uber cool. and i mean that in every way possible. she's 16, speaks a fair amount of english because she took 3 years of it in school, wears black converses, likes rock (nirvana is her favorite band!!), has really good taste in guys (yeah we managed to gossip about our crushes and all a lot), and most importantly made for REALLY good company compared to all the little kids/old people i'd been around for so long. we hung out a lot and i got to meet some other people through her, though i didn't understand all of them/they didn't understand me too well. eh, whatev. she was really nice and all and we've become penpals and such which is hot.
I GOT TO SWIM IN THE MEDITTERANEAN SEA-oo yeah yes indeedy i did. my aunt and uncle took me along with luca, to the sea one day and it was pretty nice-the water wasn't terribly cold and i got to relax on the beach. unfortuantely, guys like to wear speedoes...old guys...::Shivers in disgust:: and every woman-old/young/in between-wore a bikini. it was a bit discomforting to see some of these people, but at least they weren't topless (except for girls up to age 8 or so). those are the italians for ya.
lots of time to read so i read: the good earth, a stephen king collection of short stories (everything's eventual), cold mountain (for summer reading), rebecca, and mimosa grove:all awesomely yummy
the farm:my uncle, zio andrea (my dad's sister's husband) owns a farm and i went a couple of times to visit it. the first time i went i got to ride in the tractor which was...cool, but cramped. he was spreading manure which mean that there were these HUGE ASS PILES OF CRAP. not the most pleasant of smells...he owns 70 cows and is primarily a dairy farmer, but he also has fields of hay and such. the cows are kinda cool, but pretty nastily dirty and such. not the life for me...
fornovo in fiera my aunt (my dad's sister, the farmer's wife, mother of luca) lives in fornovo and took me to the fiera, which is basically an outdoor market (HUGE one mind you) that takes up all of the streets and there are vendors upon vendors selling everything you could think of. i didn't buy anything there though, it wasn't anything terribly exciting, a lot of it was poorly made and copies of american products. =(
nonno my great grandfather (well technically, he's not because he's my grandfather's "step" father although he's not even that because he never adopted him...long story there, if i have nothing better to do one day, i'll write about it cuz it's lots of drama and makes a good story)..so anyway he lives wayyy up high in this really secluded house by himself...and he's 89 years old and still damn good! yeah, he saw my mom (he had no idea we were coming) and he was all-IVANA!! he knew her right away and he hasn't seen any of us in 8 years. he still makes homemade wine-and it was amazing! it's sweet, a lot like champagne actually, and when he wanted to give me more, i was all "no no, no piu" (no more) and then he said something to the effect of "yes yes, it's sweet, it won't hurt you." so i think i drank a bit TOO much...but it was fun hehe. he also makes homemade cakes in these old fashioned stoves in his backyard. he is soo cool. i only wish i age half as well as he has.
borgotaro the nearest big town to albareto-it actually has a few people! lol yeah there are really nice stores and all the buildings are really old and pretty, there are cobblestone streets too! every monday there is an outdoor market (like the one in fornovo, but on a much smaller scale) and you can just walk up and down, although it does get really crowded. it's pretty cool to see all these people negotiating in italian, babbling hard to get a low price.
videotaping...well everything my brother videotaped everything, mostly because my mom wanted to have it to make into a video to show her class (the making of the video is where i come in-i have to use my imac and make a video like i did for history day...ugh) so everything we saw my brother had to take out the video camera and please my mother by capturing it on film.
festa di pijama in the summer, albareto (as with most italian towns) have town dances outdoors in the center in town and such, so one friday night there was a large "pajama party" in albareto. it was..interesting. yeah, i didn't dress up, but many of the townspeople did..making it quite...interesting...ok so men apparently don't need to prove their machoness in italy because some of the outfits they showed up in were utterly disturbing. they were wearing nighties and tiny little silk women's lingerie things. they were a bit too feminine and revealing for my taste...also met some english people there (apparently there are a lot of english peoples who visit italy in the summer) and they were kinda cool, a bit strange and drank farr too much (one person got really sick), some of them smoked, and they were all doing all this crazy stuff, but w/e it was a way to pass the night til 3am. i actually kinda had fun talking to one girl, jennifer, she was a bit more normal...
festa del avis yay for meeting more people my age! sadly, they like didn't speak english, but they were very cool for the most part and fun and welcomed me in and tried to communicate (giovanna was there so she was a good translator at times). i tried to speak italian, it worked at times, other times it didn't. oh btw, festa del avis is a two day party thing up in this really woody area that's held by AVIS which is a blood bank of some sort. there is really good food and music and such. alessio was really cool, he and i spent a really long time trying to communicate and all, we even talked a little politics...everyone in italy is quite fascinated with bush/american politics and so then he asked me, since he knew about bush, if i knew the president of italy. and i was all...uh no, not a clue as to who he is. eh well, who cares about italian politics? they also had a very strong fascination with my orbit gum...i gues they had never seen gum in that shape/with that kind of wrapping? they started fighting over the box after it was finished and lisa was all pleased when she won the game of rock, paper scissors (or whatever it was that they played). speaking of which i have to mail giovanna an empty pack of orbit to give to alessio, since i promised him it but never got to see him again before i left. i also taught them some bad words in english (piece of shit=pezo di merda...) and i yelled at someone to just shut up since he was being really annoying to this girl, and they all started saying shut up to him too, stai zito is shut up in italian but i was just angry so i said shut up because i couldn't think of the proper phrase in italian. yes i taught them very good english words O:-)
learning hand gestures italians are famous for talking wtih their hands (hell i do it too usually) and i got to learn some good hand gestures that they all use that aren't like BAD like the finger (which they do there as well) but are still really cool for expressing yourself without words or enhancing what you're saying.
bars are really popular in italy. every town, no matter how small, has one, and everyone goes there to hang out during the day/at night. so every night towards the end my mom, brother, and i would stroll down to the bar in albareto and have a cappucino. yumminess! cappucinos are awesome, especially when they're drank in italy.
cinque terre was awesome. for those of you who don't know (because you're just so uncultured and pathetic that you don't know about cinque terre...naw jp, i didn't know about it til i went) it's 5 towns that are built into these cliffs on the edge of the meditteranean. they survived by fishing mainly and they are all attached by walking paths, but we didn't walk, we took a ferry thing between them. there are technically beaches there, but they are really rocky. however, they were packed because it was a beautiful day and it's a real touristy area (there were tons of people speaking english there) and there were more speedoes and bikinis unfortuantely. the towns were sooo pretty-we took tons of pictures of them. all the streets are narrow and steep, and all the houses are like 6 stories and skinny and brightly colored so that the sailors could see them from far away. there are all this terraced lands for vineyards around the towns and from the boat we could see them all from far away and they loooked soo cool. it was such a great day-it really felt like vacation that day at least. the ride home was a bit scary because in order to get to Monterosso (the biggest of the 5 towns and where we went to take the ferry) we had to go down a mountain, up a mountain and back down it, whcih meant majorly twisty roads, incredibly narrow with oncoming traffic, yeah it was quite terrifying. my poor mother had to drive all the way down in our mercedes wagon, which was quite larger than the other cars. the way home was even worse, because night had fallen over the land, making it difficult to see the curve and where the road ended and nothingness began. so it was much like a very unsafe roller coaster ride the whole way. still cool though.
foccacia often in the afternoon before dinner (since dinner is really late) we had a piece of fresh foccaccia bread, so soft, slightly salty and delicious. yeah the food was totally worth it.
pot, cigarette smoking yeah cigarettes are smoked by pretty much everyone still. and it's really funny since the packages say in reallly huge letters (like half hte package) SMOKING KILLS none of that tiny, fine print crap by our surgeon general. you can't miss it. but everyone still smokes. and there was a distinct stench of pot in the air at the festa di pijama. i swear, no wonder italian's have a much better life (all relaxed and such)-they drink like mad, smoke, and sleep in the middle of the day! the key to living well right there i've decided.
skinniness ok so here's the story, italians' eat tons of food, like 4 courses at lunch and fairly big dinners considering the size of lunch and snacks and everything else, yet they are all stick thin. even the older people for the most part. middle aged, mothers, everyone. obesity is nonexistent there. it's so strange. i figure they ahve to be thin to fit in their tiny cars, but it still doesn't make sense to me.
bimbo this is just put in cuz it's really funny to me. cuz i'm pathetic like taht. bimbo is like a slang word for little boy (taken from bambino) and my cousin, luca, was referring to the little baby at the beach as bimbo bimbo bimbo! and i was fighting back my laughter cuz i mean come on, it's this little 4 year old saying bimbo. who wouldn't find that funny?
Mer-chay-des! my mom rented a car and we got a mercedes (but in italy it is pronounced mer-chay-des). it was a really nice car, fairly large compared to most, and comfortable and all.
watching the cheese being made my uncle's farm is right next door to this man who makes parmiggiano cheese (yes the REAL stuff from emilia romagna not this fake crap in america-it is the king of the cheese as my uncle often said). so one morning we were able to watch the whole cheese making process. first they take milk from the night before and that morning's milking (it has to be like that, if it is older or all fresh it doesn't work for some reason) then they poor it in these huge copper vats that are like funnel shaped and put the curdling stuff in. they mix it with these huge ass whisks attached to industrial sized fans. eventually it becomes the right consistency and then they raise the heat in the vats until the cheese has settled to the bottom. then using this huge wooden paddle thing they scoop it off of the bottom where it has all formed and up comes this huge wheel of what is something similar to cottage cheese in consistency. it is completely tasteless really (i tried a little piece and it wasn't very good). then it sits in molds for a few days with a weight on top of it and once they are ready it goes into a huge swimming pool like thing of water that is 30% salt. for 20 days it stays in this brine and finally it comes out and goes onto a shelf for 2 years before it can be sold. the end product is so delicious that it is totally worth it. and out of a day's milking (70 cows) all one gets is 2 wheels of cheese. but each wheel costs at least $500 or so.
telefonini-italian cell phones! EVERYONE has a cell phone in italy and they call them telefonini which literally means little telephone but it's just an amusing word to say and i like it. they are really good phones too-they work in these remote places wayy up high in mountains or in houses wtih 9 foot thick walls (and no i'm not exaggerating) whereas here they don't even work on the palisades highway.
ok i'm getting tired so i'm just gonna finish up with santa maria-the feast day for albareto-incredibly anti-climatic, nothing exciting to write about-and cento croce where we went to this really cool restaurant for my aunt's birthday giovanna was there so that was cool and the restaurant was technically over the region border into liguria so the food was kinda different from what i had in emilia romagna.
HOME! sure it took 9 hours but it was a good ride, even though we had to get up at 5am to get to the airport in time. i didn't sleep at all on the plane so i was totally jet-lagged when i got home and exhausted. i managed to stay up til like 10 before passing out in bed.
and that's that. i'd say that was quite a substantial update. ::bows:: btw i have a xanga now..so you can check it out and all and learn more useless knowledge about my life: www.xanga.com/ti_amo90.
um otherwise, idk what else to say. it's good to be home, yeah it is indeed, i'm home alone at the moment (actually for the rest of the night pretty much) cuz my parents are at my brother's ceremony thing/ball at west point and steven (my other brother) is at college now. so i'm playing my music super loud and updating my journal in peace. it's a nice feeling. lol :-D
peace,
jessi =)