Category — Italy

It’s day two of my leap.

Because of the time change, day two is really two days: yesterday, the day I arrived (which was part of day one, I think) and today, which is about 48 hours after I left the US.

Here’s a recap:

Flight to Amsterdam was good. I got free upgrades for baggage and also my seat (thanks to my seat-mate for that last one).

Amsterdam had great chocolate and cappuccino.

That’s a rhubarb bonbon on the plate. Va bene.

The flight to Florence was good. Lots of turbulence, which I totally prefer on a small plane. Makes me feel like I’m in a car. The hum-drum of the big planes makes me a little nervous, like I’m on some alien aircraft that might not land (am I totally crazy? I might be totally crazy).

When I got to Florence, my friends Deb and Sandra were even there to pick me up! Serious bonus and kind of amazing seeing as we met for one day and communicated over the internet until yesterday. Deb even changed cars with her dad so we could fit all my luggage. Amazing.

We headed to a great pizza place for lunch on the way back to their home. The food was so good I forgot to take a picture until the cecina was almost gone.

Cecina is a kind of breadish thing made out of garbanzo beans. Yummy. Incidentally, while we were eating, I asked, tongue and cheek, if the pig flu was as big a deal in Italy as it is in the US. Evidently, Sandra and Deb’s son, Tommy, had it about a week ago. Sweet. He’s all good now. So, it’s not getting quite the hype here as elsewhere – although we did use a significant amount of hand sanitizer at lunch.

Then we stopped at the store to pick up provisions for that night’s dinner party, and some more hand sanitizer. Sidestory: while checking out, Sandra lost her rewards card when it was sucked backward into the moving belt in the check-out line. After partially disassembling the under-carriage of the counter, I found a card and recovered it. Sadly, after we checked out, Sandra realized it wasn’t hers! Too funny. Well, at least I got to take something apart. Then I used some hand sanitizer, just in case.

When we got to Fornaci di Barga, we dropped off the groceries and headed into Barga, which is up the hill from Fornaci, to switch cars and stop by the castagne festival at the old folks home. “Castagna” is “chestnut” in Italian. The trees grow locally, and are used in construction, and the nuts and flour are used in cooking and baking. We had some lovely castagne snacks, said, “caio” to some lovely old folks, met Deb’s dad, and a couple of Deb and Sandra’s friends who happened to be in town from Chicago. It was good times, for sure.

I asked what I was eating, and the ladies told me whipped cream. I’m telling you, this is not ordinary whipped cream. It was heaven. Maybe it’s changed since I last ate whipped cream, or maybe it was the setting. I don’t frickin’ know, but it was divine.

After the festival, we headed to Deb’s parent’s house to change cars, and say hi to Daisy.

The day, by the way, was beautiful. Warm, clear and lovely.
Once back at Deb and Sandra’s, we had about 30 mins before friends started to arrive. The evening was spent in the company of some fascinating people. First was a wild artist – beautiful and intense – who is known to walk the streets of Barga barefoot, promoting art exhibits. (More to come on her, I think. Deb showed me one of her etchings, and it was quite excellent.)

Next was a string of ladies from Lucca, the walled city down the road a way. It has a fascinating history. One of the women, a nurse originally from Genoa, reminded me strongly of my mother and aunt.

The other two are union organizers, one for the schools, and one for the workers in paper factories in the region. Cool. These two reminded me powerfully of union organizers I know in Oregon.

We spent the evening talking politics, figuring out how to build a loft in Deb and Sandra’s place (so that I’ll have a room of my own – can you imagine? These women are amazing, generous people), eating, eating, eating,

and eventually singing Beatles songs – learning each other’s languages along the way. Fantastico!

It’s also possible that Tommy and I snuck off for a short time to play some guitar hero. Amazing how easily that translates…

At the end of the night we made a lovely nest for me out of a mattress and sleeping bag. When my head hit the pillow, I was just able to grasp a piece of the enormity of the leap I had made. Today, I am comfortably in Italy. Yesterday (or something) I was in Oregon. Where will I be tomorrow? Probably Italy, but you never know!

***

This morning, waking late, I packed up my sleeping bag and enjoyed cappuccino #2, made lovingly by Sandra. Truthfully, it is one of the best I’ve ever had. It might have been the setting, or the company, I’m not sure.

I enjoyed breakfast with Tommy and Hollywinter, then headed to Barga with Deb for a photo shoot at the local dog shelter. She’s putting together a calendar to be sold to benefit the shelter. After a short shoot, which included a dog-bite [link] for Debbie, we headed over to her parent’s place, where we met her sister’s family (they’re living with her parents). One of the kids was on his way to a riding lesson, so we took the two boys to the arena.

We spent the next hour in an absolutely beautiful setting, collecting rocks and watching horses.

Now I’m sitting with Deb, drinking tea and watching Italian TV (Willie Wonka!), after a beautiful lunch with Sandra’s mother, who lives downstairs, and Sandra’s brother, sister-in-law (who is from Chicago) and their kids, all of whom had swine flu earlier this month. Looks like their tails have finally gone, so no worries.

The highlight of the meal was focaccia made by Sandra’s mom. Bellisimo!

Tomorrow, I’ll go pick up a sim card for a cell phone and an internet pen drive. And I’ll likely have at least one cappuccino. I feel like I’ve already had a month’s worth of adventures. I am a lucky, lucky girl to have such beautiful and generous people in my life.

Today’s vocab words are cavolo and cavallo.  They mean cabbage and horse.  The difference is in the spelling and also in the accent.  Cabbage is accented on the “a” and horse is accented on the second “a”.  Here they are in a sentence:

“Il cavolo mangia il cavallo.”

Happy translating!

One of the first things I learned in high school Spanish was the phrase “poco a poco se va lejos.”  It means, “little by little, one goes far.”

Over the last few days I’ve taken a lot of little steps.  I purchased a pack and a new sleeping bag.  I picked up a new pair of walking shoes – after 8 years – and even a pair of fast drying underwear.  Fancy.

Right now, I’m typing on a new netbook, one that I think will work wonderfully for keeping in touch and updating MidLeap as I travel around.

I don’t know that I’ve ever purchased so many new things in one weekend.  It makes me vaguely uneasy.  I think it’s because it reminds me of the consumerist life I used to live.  Still, I’ve purchased a handful of things that I will be depending on every day for the next while, and I know they’ll help me in my grand adventure.

The thing I had the hardest time purchasing was my plane ticket.  That’s taken a while.  I’ve put it off because I have a lot to do.  I’ve put it off to work in the yard.  I’ve put it off because I wanted to play RockBand.  Today, I stopped putting it off.  Once I clicked the “submit” button, I felt a great relief.  But in the days leading up to it, I had a hard time figuring out why I was delaying.

Today I realized that the plane ticket was the last thing keeping me from moving forward…well, the last thing, aside from me.

I have great ideas almost daily.  Inspiration is never far off for me.  It’s the follow-through I struggle with.  I’d love to be part of a think-tank, developing fantastic, cutting-edge ideas, or an inventor, creating new things – and handing them to a team for implementation.

My decision to change the direction of my life isn’t totally out-of-the-ordinary for me.  My follow-through is.  When I bought my plane ticket today, it was a breakthrough moment.  I literally felt the push-back as I moved from the world where I have held myself back, into the world where all there is is opportunity, and support and love.

I know that my friends and family have always supported me in whatever it is I’ve done.  For the first time, maybe, I feel like I’m supporting me, too.  Now it’s time to see just how far I can go.

I realized that keys are power when I was in High School. It was right around the time I nicked the master key to the schools in the district and made myself a copy. That key lived secretly on my keyring for three years, allowing me access to every room in the school. For a high school kid, that’s serious power.

I was reminded of that this week when, one morning while locking the house on the way to work, I realized how light my keyring had grown. I only carry keys – no fobs or gadgets – just keys. Until about a week ago, I had probably7 or 8 keys on a couple of connected rings. When I looked down at them this week, I realized that they had started dwindling. Leigh took the key to the garage off my ring, as I won’t really be needing it anymore. As soon as my house closes, I’ll be losing my house key, and mail key. I have two keys for work, which will be ending in two weeks. That just leaves the key to Leigh’s house, and the one for my bike lock – neither of which I’ll need on my trip.

I’ve had a hefty key ring for the last 15 years of my life. Makes me wonder a bit what it will be like not to have a car key, a house key, or an office key – at all. Interesting how powerful symbols are. I know I won’t have the car, house or office, but the loss of the keys really hit home. “Hit home.” That’s funny.

Here is the English version of the Italian post from a couple of days ago.  I used a different online translator to convert it back from Italian to English.  I think it’s a nice demonstration of why I’m worried about not knowing the language.  I’m pretty sure this is what I sould like when I speak Italian:

The words are iportante. I say the all time. That he is l’ only thing that me renders nervous for my return in Italy and l’ adventure beyond. The words.

They have grown with a mother who was an English teacher. I have studied law and has written for a life. The words are my friends. They are my instruments, mine defense, my crews. More than every other thing, words mean humor. I am a funny person. In reality, I am enough funny.

But, my humour is in great part depends from intelligence and comic times. And ‘ something that I have cultivated so as to use in order to break off the ice with new persons, like diplomatic instrument in the tension situations, and equally general divertimento. Without mastery of the language, I will have to resort to the physical comicità.

I know that to this it allows me adventure to learn a lot on same me. It will be strip via what task I and leave me with my Core. They are ready to let to the shoulders the consumismo. They are ready to let to the shoulders ” l’ lawyer “. I am not thus sure that I am ready to let to the shoulders l’ humour. I suppose that it says something to me.

The slid week, my mother has asked to me if I have fear. I have said that I am not – and I am indeed not. I feel as if you were ready in order to know same me. Creed that not only I expected l’ learning would have begun thus soon.