Almost home ....

Well, it was a tough last day in Rome.  I foolishly had a few too many things on my person to keep track of, and I either lost my cell phone or someone helped themselves to it from my cargo pants pocket.  If the latter, I think it was on a very crowded shuttle from Piazza del Popolo to Piazza del Venezia, where people were pressed all against me and I needed to use both hands to keep myself steady.

While it will definitely cost me $$ to replace the (uninsured) phone, it is the content, some video and photos of Dick that I am worried sick about.  I can't be sure they were backed up to my laptop (complicated reasons why I don't sync my Iphone as often as I probably ought.  Sigh).

My friend Joe Crook pointed out that my content may still be accessible via the ICloud since I'd moved to an Iphone 5 recently and content defaults to being stored there.  Here's hoping.....

So, I need some moments of gratitude to help my perspective.....

-- thank you Joe for replying so quickly about the Icloud.  My mind is a bit more at ease.
-- thank you Paul for dropping me off and picking me up too!  Can't wait ........
-- thank you Marta and Wally for the wonderful *gift* of staying with your family in Italy
-- thank you Mitch and Amy for giving us a raison d'voyage!
-- thank you to my boss, Lisa, for her supporting my taking this trip
-- thank you weather for being so good!
-- thank you to my poor abused knees, shins and feet -- you were put thru quite a lot of walking, climbing/descending and standing!
-- and while I will acknowledge the cell phone thing has really bummed me out, that was the only unpleasant encounter that I've had.  Everywhere, people have been helpful, honest and a couple times made sure I did not forget a bag, etc.   I have been well taken care of this trip by the people of Italy.

Next time I write, I will be in the good old USA!  

Feels strange to be abroad today

Just got done with a full day of traipsing around ancient Rome (with a little visit to see the pope thrown in for good measure), and I see some great news re: the supreme court.  I wish Dick had lived to see this day.   Time to write a letter to our governor when I get home, I think.

Link to Pisa/Volterra/San Gimigniano photos

https://picasaweb.google.com/115605385907234732594/20130620ItalyDay6?authuser=0&authkey=Gv1sRgCJ7gtfeL-rK8Ww&feat=directlink

Too tired to write much else tonight - ciao!

Jim

Why I love travel ....

Many of you are going to be shocked that I got a woman's phone number today.

So, I met Annie when I sat down for a beer and some lunch after a long morning spent walking, climbing stairs and steep hills.  She is from Australia.  In that way travelers have of opening up to each other, we quickly shared why we were in Italy and then got down to business.  She came here to do something she'd always wanted to do after her 35-year marriage broke up.
I told her about Dick and we mused about how the sudden, complete open-ended-ness of life is so disorienting, when suddenly there are so many choices and it really is just up to oneself. (Makes me think of my mom confessing that she splurged on Pepperidge Farm bread because she *could* !!)

We talked a bit about good trips and I mentioned the trip Dick and I took to French Polynesia and New Zealand, and how we met the wonderful Julie and Trevor on the ferry from Tahiti to Moorea when Dick took it upon himself to correct Jules' pronunciation of Moorea.  God, I remember so distinctly wanting to pull my hat over my face while he did that but the next thing you know he and Julie were swapping stories and it was clear we'd made new friends.  I told Annie how Jules had shocked us with her generosity in taking us around Auckland 3 days straight, and that it was all because Dick was .... Dick.

Well, we talked a bit more, and Annie pulled a card out of her wallet.
"Here: this has my address and phone number.  Give me a call when you come to Melbourne. Just say you're Jim from Assisi.  I'll remember you."

Another "why I love traveling" story:  so at the same place I met Annie, I met a couple from Scotland.  We talked about Andy Murray's chances at Wimbledon, the real possibility Scottland could secede from the UK, and they mentioned there was a choral concert tonight at One of the churches.  I headed over to tourist info and got the church and time.  Well, it was beautiful.  Works by Orff, Palestrina, Monteverdi, Tsaichovsky and others performed by four different choral groups.
They did a few chestnuts (the Randall Thompson 'Alleluia' for example) but most things I'd never heard before.  The end of the concert was all four groups singing a piece together, 7 parts -- a four-part SATB and a 3-part SAT counterpoint.  I was literally in tears at the end.  It was the music, the realization of place, the amazement that I was in Assisi walking streets St. Francis walked, the amazement at how rich life is, what a blessing to be able to hear this music, to be able to make music myself in my humble way, the beauty that all these people were combining voices to make ... this.

Beautiful.  Grateful.

Diet schmiet

After spending the morning and early afternoon tromping around Assisi, I ran into a very tired woman who turned out to be from Pittsburgh, so we had a very pleasant chat about the burg, Erie, and we agreed 100 percent that all this talk about the Mediterranean diet is a bunch of nonsense -- it has to be the *hills* and the *walking* !!

Put down the olive oil and do 30 flights of stairs.  Can't do it?  An Assisi nana can!!!

Catching up ...

A whirlwind the last few days:  Thursday spent a loooong day with Lara going to Pisa, Volterra and San Gimigniano.  Home at 11:30 pm.  Had a good boneheaded moment going out of Pisa.  We'd pulled over to make sense of the GPS and I put my flashers on.  Well they were silent and I forgot I had them on.  Fast forward a few minutes and as we turned to an intersection a very earnest Itslian man coming the other way gestured with his hands to get our attention and mouthed something to us. We couldn't make it out since it was Itslian after all.  He then rolled the window down and yelled to us.  We were so confused he must have been frustrated.  I am trying to think if I am about to make an illegal turn or something.  He then in desperation puts both hands in the air palms facing us, and starts to close/unfold them.   Well, I'm embarrassed to ait it but all I could think of was the baby from that movie "meet the dockers" who starts to use his hands for the milk sign when a rather buxom woman goes by.   Seeing we STiLL didn't get it, he sighed and drove off.  It was about two minutes later we figured out he meant the hazard lights.  Almost had to pull over again we were laughing so hard!

It was a very emotional Friday night and Saturday morning.  Really felt both Dick's absence and presence.  Everyone was very nice to me, particularly Wally in his Friday evening toast.  I was close to tears thanking everyone for making me feel so welcome.

After a final set of family pics on Saturday morning, Lara and I drove up to Florence for some shopping and a walk thru the Academia to see the David and then off to a final drink with Marta and Wally at their Florence hotel before dropping Lara off at the airport and driving .... Tired as hell ... To  Assisi.

The arrival in Assisi I'll leave for later.  Internet access is limited to the hotel lobby so no photo uploads until Rome.  Now off to Messe in Assisi's duomo, St. Rufino.  Ciao!

Italy Day 5 - Siena and Jim cooks dinner

Pictures on Picasa

Being written in haste - took a long time to process all the photos, etc. from a big Wednesday.

Got the day off to a good start by going for a short run, waking up early so I could be done well before our 8 am plan to leave.  Siena is the first excursion that unites all 16 of us.

Brian (Steve and Debbie's son) surprised Lara and I by riding in the car with us.  Fun discussion with him about movies, science fiction, life on other planets, time travel, etc.

Once we parked (I *love* this Fiat, BTW) ... we walked to a large open air market that teemed with shopping opportunities.  However, I was thwarted by camera problems and couldn't get the camera to take photos.  Because I've not yet studied the camera in detail, it took me a looooooong time to get back to taking photos, and even then I think I did not have the autofocus set up properly.

From the market, we took a "shortcut" thru a valley separating our area from the cathedral.  It was a fantastic walk down a stairway into the valley below, and then we were able to get a series of escalators back up to the other side at the base of the duomo.  Yours truly, being good and anticipating dinner, took the stairs (pats self on back).

Marta and Wally were very kind and treated us to the tour of the cathedral as a gift.  Words can't do justice to the cathedral, so look at the photos on picasa.   All I can say is that the sheer density of decor and splendor was overwhelming.  Learning, in the course of the tour, that much of this splendor was simply for rich families to show their status and wealth, took a little of the awe out the experience :-)

We were on our feet for a looooooong time with much climbing of stairs and walking, and after a very nice lunch (pasta with crunchy bacon in a cheesy cream sauce - magnifico!), drove home.

Upon arriving home, I promptly passed out in front of the computer, and then had my boneheaded moment of the day when I woke up.   Walked into the kitchen and saw it was 5:30 -- great, two hours to get things ready.   I started the broth for the risotto (24 cups for 16 people!) and then moved to washing/chopping.  After a few minutes, Marta, Wally and Lara came in and offered to help, and I *let* them wash and chop, but I objected that I had plenty of time and all was under control.   After more time, Marta pressed me about whether I needed more help, and I pointed out it was only 5:30 when *she* then pointed out that the clock was stuck on 5:30 and that it was actually 6:20.  Gulp!

They finished what could be done at that point in time, while I internally panicked.  Fortunately, Debbie came in and I put her to work sauteeing egg-washed/floured chicken breast scallopine as I did them, and then poor Ethan offered to help and I talked him thru the process of making risotto from scratch.  (Somewhere, Dick is smiling; it was 24 years ago that he first made risotto con funghi for me and then coached me thru my first attempt in the strictest Italian chef manner.)

With Debbie on chicken saute duty and Ethan on risotto duty, I got the green beans in (using mint/basil instead of dill, which NO ITALIAN SUPERMARKET SEEMS TO HAVE!   While I like the dill better, the mint/basil mix was an inspired alternative, if I do say so myself.)

With the beans in, I then switched my attention to making the chicken stock/lemon sauce for the Chicken Francese.  Lisa, who happened along, took care of grating the parmesan and making the salad, God bless her.

Last thing to do was pour sauce over the chicken, stick it in the oven, taste test the risotto with Ethan for done-ness, and cut the bread.

To my amazement, things pretty much were done at roughly the same time, and at 8:20, I was able to call the rest of the family in for the dinner.    Mike had remembered to open the Brunellos we picked up in Montalcini several hours before, so they were ready for us to enjoy.

All credit to Ethan for doing a superb job with that risotto, and everything else came out pretty good.

A very tired, happy-to-have-avoided-disaster moi had a couple glasses of wine and soaked up just how beautiful it was that this family was in Italy together (minus Kryssie's Amanda and Matt, Marta's Matt and family).  I think that had to be my moment of grace for the day - really taking in that we were here, that they'd all made the time/commitment to be there, and that I'd been invited along too.  Wow.

So what was basically a great day ended with one of my most favorite relaxing activities of all:  cards!  Brian was shuffling a deck and looking a little restless, so I asked him if he knew how to play Gin, and taught him.  We got started, then Debbie joined in and the three of us went in search of a table and light.  Brian picked it right up, and then Steve, Erica and Alyssa joined in and we switched to "I doubt it" aka "Bulls---".   Much laughing as people were exposed in baldfaced lies and attempts to put down more cards than they said they were putting down, and damn if Alyssa didn't have the best poker face and played the game perfectly, innocently laying her last card down without any of us noticing, sweetly calling out after Brian played that "Did you notice that I laid down my last card?"  Scary, to be honest.  Don't play poker with that girl, Jim.

So, moment of grace:  taking in the reality of this family gathering and how blessed we are to be able to do this.  Boneheaded moment:  the never-changing 5:30 pm clock - perfect for an eternal optimist like me.