Thanks Phil and Cliff!

A special blog shout out today to my old Philly pal, Phil; who was nice enough to forward me an article about a great running route in Rome from this month's Continental Airlines magazine. It is nice to think that when people think of Italy, they are now reminded of me! I am not sure if this is good or bad for Italy, but it is definitely great for me!! Since I just received the article this morning, and it is a glorious sunny Saturday in Rome AND I had just told Josh last night that I really slacked off in running this past week, I took the email as a direct sign that I should try the route out immediately. So after sleeping in a bit and my morning coffee I grabbed my running shoes and off I went. The day is perfect, 75 degrees (that is Fahrenheit thank you very much, I can't figure this Celsius stuff out for the life of me) in the noonday sun, with a slight, cool new autumn breeze filtering through the Cyprus trees. God simply does not grant better days than this. My only hope is that it is similar weather in Central Ohio today, where my Buckeyes are scheduled to kickoff in just a few hours at the Horseshoe.

The route was great, a 2.5 mile loop through Villa Borghese, which most people consider to be the best park in Rome. From my handfuls of experiences there, I have no reason to argue, it is beautiful! Think of 148 acres of green space with winding roads, museums, ponds and fountains. Up and down the rolling slopes, there is a view around every corner that is enough to keep you running to the next to see what lies ahead. Today was the perfect park scene. Picnickers dotted along underneath the canopy of trees, tourists resting with a gelato on the marble steps of the Museum of Modern Art, clear blue water in the fountains and ponds, well dressed Italians out for a Saturday promenade and children riding ponies... you can't make this stuff up!

To get to the park from our apartment in Monti is about a 20 minute walk/warm up trot through some great neighborhoods. I passed by the US Embassy along the Via Veneto, which you might recognize as the street of Audrey Hepburn's famous Vespa ride in "Roman Holiday". Today as I made my way to and from the park the outdoor, street side cafes were just starting to fill up with the ultra hip and trendy neighborhood crowd, this was almost as good as nature watching! I kept my eyes peeled for familiar faces, as there are supposedly many celebs in town, stopping off on their way to and from the Venice film festival for a little Roman Holiday of their own. George Clooney is said to be a very great admirer and friend of Rome's major and Brad and Angelina are rumored to have just bought a new yacht, docked off one of the coastal towns near Rome. Alas, no star spotting for me today, but I am certain I will run into someone at a bar or cafe one of these days!

The city is also abuzz with activity today because tonight is La Notta Bianca, the White Night. All of the major European capitals host this end of the summer festival. All of the piazzas are filled with musical performances or art installations, the museums stay open all night with free entry and in general everyone stays up all night and wanders through the city enjoying the scenes of music, dance, art and people watching. Josh and I are going to give it out best attempt. The whole city celebrates and there are so many things to see, I think it would be impossible to see them all, but there is certainly enough to keep you out all night. My goal is to make it to dawn to see the sunrise from the piazza on top of the Gianocolo hill, by far the best view of the city. We'll see though, we don't exactly have our European threshold of partying up to its full potential yet. Thank god I started drinking coffee!

A Normal Life?

Not much to report over the last few days. Which, to a new expat in Italy, could be considered news itself. This weekend was our anniversary, so Josh and I made a night of it with dinner and a movie. Ben Hur was showing on the outside Terrace of a local Palazzo/Museum...actually, since the movie was so long, we never made it to dinner! We managed to make it through the night on tiramisu alone. This was also an achievement, not being exactly the "domestic type", attempting to make a tiramisu was quite an accomplishment for me. It must have been alright because we both took the time to scrape the bottom and sides of the pan to make sure we ate every last morsel!

To further our status in normalcy this weekend involved one of our favorite US pastimes, Ohio State Football. Nothing can be wrong in the world, even in Italy, when the Buckeyes take the field on a sunny day for the first time in the fall. In fact, a good home opener combined with Michigan's embarrassing defeat made for a jolly weekend all around: even if we did have to imagine the game, since we were relegated to listening to the broadcast on the radio. Luckily we have both been to enough games in early September that imagining the sunlight hitting the sparkly silver helmets and afternoon shadows across Ohio Field wasn't a stretch for either of us. It was a bit odd however to watch a noon kickoff at 6pm, I am a bit nervous about those night games, which will begin at 2am here in Rome. The things you do for football.

Since we were having such an American weekend anyway, we continued on with more less-than-cultural pursuits including two trips to IKEA (hey, it is "global" I suppose), vacuuming, moping and my personal favorite, rearranging the furniture! I moved "my office" and the computer into the main living room so that we will be able to "watch TV" (with our Slingbox technology) on our couch, furthering our normalcy, instead of in the bed. Watching TV in bed is nice we decided, but better as a treat than a norm.

A Papal Retreat

This past weekend Josh was fortunate enough to not to have to go into work, and I myself being of the unemployed/yet to be employed category had a bit of free time to spend as well. After some discussion about another whirlwind trip to visit old churches in yet another Italian city, we agreed that a change of pace might be quite nice in light of our recent traveling adventures and decided to stick around Rome. Knowing my love for sitting in the sun while burning my skin with harmful UV rays Josh received a recommendation from one of his colleagues about Castel Gandolfo, on Lake Albano. Home in the summer, to the world’s catholic head-honcho and exalted Roman figure, the Pope himself.

I figured it is good enough for the Pope, who has a very nice tan by the way; it will suffice nicely for me as well. So we hoped a local train out of the Termini station for a quick 25 minute ride to the lake. Josh tells me on the way up that the lake itself was formed by two ancient volcanoes and now basically sits in its own crater… how does he know these things? We arrive at the station, which isn’t much more than a spot where the gravel beside the rail bed widens and follow the road down to the lake. The view was wonderful. Although not the most majestic site I have seen since arriving in Italy, what it lacked in grandeur it made up for in pure charm. The popes really know how to relax! Indeed the small lake was nestled inside a continuous ring of gentle slopes. One side of the lack was completely covered in nature, pine trees and green vegetation, while the other side has the picturesque town and summer homes dotted along the rim and down the slopes. There is a main beach area, complete with all of the typical Italian “pay beaches”. These are new to me, but as I am learning, a very common practice. Instead of having a long shoreline of public beaches, as in the states, there are lots of little private beaches where people pay a nominal fee to the owner to rent all the necessities of towels, chairs and umbrellas. After a quick lunch, we found Giorgio’s beach rented pedal boats by the hour to take out on the lake and set sail for an afternoon of peaceful swimming and sunning in the middle of this freshwater oasis. It was one of the best days I have had, the water was deep and perfectly clear, cool, but not cold, perfect for a late day in August. Because we were out on the little boat, we were away from the usual noise and bustle of the beach, which gave me the luxurious feeling of privacy, something that you don’t get a whole lot of when living in a city like Rome (with a weird neighbor).

After a few happy hours of peace and pedaling, we took a short walk through the little community, where they were preparing for a festival that involved an annual tradition of taking a statue of Mary out to the lake and parading her around the lake in decorated boats. I didn’t see the pope, but think he would approve of the celebration, although I am uncertain of what he must think of all of the scantily clad folks that sun themselves on the shoreline of his lake. Maybe next time I will stop by to ask. On the way home, I made a mental note to look up the winter residence of the Pope, so far, he has shown to have excellent taste.

Name the Neighbor Contest

Have I mentioned the mysterious and somewhat creepy neighbor who lives across the street? He is a middle aged man, wears a thick gold chain, is balding and has a hairy chest and a hefty spare tire. I know this because he is constantly out on his balcony and seldom wears a shirt, thanks to the stifling August heat in Rome. See me secret footage photo above. His balcony is directly across the street and one floor above our apartment. I saw him out when we initially moved in and didn’t think much about it, other than a twinge of jealousy at his good fortune to have such an outdoor space in the city. As the weeks go by, he has become a source of annoyance and mystery to me. He is out smoking on his balcony at all hours of the day and night. Occasionally he is joined by a larger woman in a flowery dress, who I assume to be his wife. They don’t disturb me or make much noise, but it bothers me that they are out there peering off their balcony and by default, peering into MY windows. Of course, for me to notice this behavior, I am constantly looking up onto their balcony, curious as to their goings on. They don’t bluntly stare, but there isn’t much happening in our little corner of Rome, so here we are, day after day, in a neighborhood stare off.
Normally I would make up a name for him and his lovely bride, and after probably a funny story about this man does and how he has come to stay home all day. You see, I am home at all hours of the day, so I know that he is home… doesn’t he work? Does he work at night? I see him out there pretty late? He is a communist watching me and taking information about my democratic activities? You see, the possibilities for a good story are endless and so, before judging Mr. X for myself, I have decided to turn this over to you, my loyal readers to help me provide a name and story for this man.
Entries may be submitted via email, or preferably by posting a comment to this blog entry, so that all may enjoy and vote on your story!
Act now, don’t delay, big prizes will be awarded!

Vacation Recap

Last week we embraced the Italian culture and celebrated the 15 of August, “Ferraugusto” by going on holiday. Ferroaugusto roughly translates to everybody-gets-the-hell-out-of-town-and-goes-on-vacation-for-at-least-three-weeks. Since we didn’t have three weeks to spare, we at least took advantage of Josh’s office being closed and left Rome for the week. Have I mentioned that everyone goes on vacation in August? Our neighborhood is officially a ghost town, even the creepy bald guy across the street hasn’t made an appearance on his balcony for a few days. Almost every shop has the happy little sign on the metal security door, “Chiuso per ferie”, closed for vacation.

After much consideration we made a last minute swap in plans and decided to head north for the week. Our original vacation destination was to drive to Capri and spend the week on a beach, until everyone gave us a heavy sigh and warned us about the traffic and the mad rush for the beaches during Ferraugusto. Neither heavy traffic nor throngs of Italian vacationers sounded all that pleasing, so we began to envision a cool escape to the mountains. Being from the mid-west, both Josh and I have a strange fascination with the Alps, as anyone who recently viewed our vacation photo album can see. My friend Kelly once said that traveling is bittersweet, once you have been out to see the world, you realize there is oh, so much more to see. You can become pseudo obsessed with all of the places that have yet to be visited, and with our determination to “make the most out of living in Europe” this is especially true. So as not to totally “waste” any precious tourist time, we decided on a hybrid vacation, a few relaxing days in the nature of the Alps, followed by a few days touring Venice.

GETTING THERE:
We found a nice little national park about an hour or so north of Venice at the start of the Italian alps that would be a perfect spot for a little a nature intake. The name of the town is Belluno, population 35,000, a village compared to the metropolises that we have become used to. Our first vacation adventure is, as always, the journey. To get to Belluno, we took a bus from the Rome train station to the secondary airport, where we found tickets on a European airline (think of a Euro Southwest Airlines, no assigned seats, etc etc) to Venice for around 5 euro per ticket, yes that is 5 euro, about 7 bucks. The taxes were significantly more than the tickets. We boarded the bus at 4:45am to catch our flight a little before 8. A short flight and we were in the secondary Venice airport by 9ish. Another bus into Venice and a short walk to the train station by 10. After a quick check of the local train schedule we caught a train to Belluno through Padua, about a 1 hour, 45 minute ride. We forgot to “validate” or train tickets in our rush to catch the connection in Padua and learned that this is a costly mistake, a 25 euro fine, ouch! I am told the trip was quite scenic, but I wouldn’t know, trains knock me out cold with all of their gentle swaying and subtle click, click, clicking. Other than that, a smooth arrival in Belluno, a little town with 4 tracks at the station. Our Bed and Breakfast was just outside of town, about a 15 minute walk from the station. Our hosts were great, they spoke little English, which was great, a perfect time to practice our Italian. The husband was chatty and our language barrier didn’t stop him from giving us an hour and a half introduction to Belluno and Italian culture in general!

BELLUNO:Our original vision was two quiet days in a sleepy mountain town surrounded by nature. We were in a sleepy mountain town, but the nature seemed to inspire more activity than we bargained for. After a wonderful opening dinner, Josh claims to have had the best piece of meat in his life so far, and I am not far behind in my praises of the ravioli, we spend the next two days climbing up and down mountains…literally. We spent the first morning walking around the charming little town and enjoying the charming little mountain people, enjoying the most the charming lack of tourists. That afternoon we took a bus to Nevegal, Belluno’s mountain (can a town OWN a mountain)? Mainly a ski resort in the winter, people summer there and enjoy the fresh air and wonderful views. We took the ski lift to the summit and hiked back down to the resort. A word of advice, hiking down a mountain seems like the easy way to go, but descending isn’t as easy as one might think, there is a reason that people literally SLIDE down the side of the mountain in the winter, it is steep! A great day nonetheless, exhausted and tired we made our way back to the B&B where our hosts were throwing a party, and of course insisted that we stay to chat for awhile and share in some grappa.

The next day was officially Ferraugusto, the 15th of August, a national holiday in Italy. Our plan was to take the bus to Marmolata, the highest peak in the area, but after arriving at the bus station, we discover that the local buses don’t run on this sacred holiday of relaxation… in fact, the town was closed up tight. Upon conferring with the local tourist office, which by some miracle was open for the hour in which we were there, we discovered that there was only one way out of town, the train, further, the train schedule that day only went to two places. So we picked one that had a lake and decided to see where our Ferraugusto fate took us. In the mountains, everything and everywhere was new and beautiful to us, it didn’t matter that much which direction down the tracks we went. We ended up in an even smaller little berg called Callazo. Very cute, an hour north of Belluno, north enough that we were pleasantly surprised to see signs pointing to Austria! Every building in town could have been a postcard of what you imagine a village in the Alps to look like, Chalets with boxes of flowers overflowing off of verandas. We found a map and decided to hike it up the local mountain. We checked out the enchanting town and then walked up the trail for almost 3 hours and maybe made it ¾ of the way up before we had to turn around to catch our train back to Belluno. It is impossible to accurately describe the true sights and sounds of an experience. The scent of fresh pine was amazing, I have always been a fan of the detergent Pinesol, and I see where they got their freshness inspiration (I know, a very bizarre thing to reflect upon surrounded by such glorious nature). For most of the way up we followed a mountain stream making its way towards the valley below. The coolness of the air around the stream was incredible; it literally gave off its own breeze, and the cold water! We simply dipped our bottles into the stream for fresh, pure mountain spring water, it was incredible! Exhausted, not well rested, but happy and full of fresh mountain air, we had a wonderful time in Belluno and regretted having to leave, but were excited to continue on to Venice.

VENICE:
We caught a direct train to Venice out of Belluno at 7:30AM, our hosts were gracious enough to prepare an early breakfast, including some of the best coffee that we had yet to experience, and which I am somewhat obsessed with trying to replicate. We were back in the Venice train station by 9am and hoped on a waterbus boat for a ride down the Grand Canal to our hotel. Italy is a tricky country to navigate. Well developed before the invention of cars, streets often lead to nowhere and seldom go in any sort of straight line or direct route. Venice is even trickier; streets simply dead in at a canal, and the only way out is to retrace your steps and find a bridge. So after a few detours, we found our way to our hotel, dumped off our baggage, and were off to see the city. Already exhausted from climbing mountains and 6AM wake up calls, we simply wandered about the first day, taking in the lay of the land and enjoying sitting in the Piazzas and people watching. A shock to our senses that had been dulled by our few days in the mountains, the pure masses of people were overwhelming. There were tourists everywhere! We met up with some friends for dinner and then took a nice twilight walking tour of Venice. I won’t bore you with the details of just how many Venetian churches we saw and toured, but the next day was filled with as much sightseeing as possible. San Marco, San Giorgio Maggiore, Il Redentore, San Margahrita, lots and lots of churches. For a break we intertwined religious architecture with art, touring both the Academia and Peggy Guggenheim’s personal collection. The Academia was amazing, but Peggy provided a nice respite with her modern pieces. I cannot believe that one person owned that much art, she had Picasso next to Klee, surrounded by Pollack, it was a dream! If I am to ever run into millions and millons of dollars, I just may decide to be an art collector. It seems almost selfish that one person could own so much, but so thrilling at the same time. After getting a pretty good feeling for the mainland in Venice, we decided to take a boat out to some of the islands in the Lagoon. We headed for Torcello, the first inhabited island in the area, the birthplace of Venice. It was lovely, but we arrived too late, and literally, the island was closed, locked up tight. The boat dropped us off and there was no one there and no churches to see, so we took the next ferry back to Borano, the next island over. I highly recommended, an old fishing village, all of the houses are painted in bright colors so that the fisherman could pick out their homes from out in the sea. It was nice to see a quieter part of Venice, a perfect way to end our day.Alas, we had a plane to catch the next morning, but first we had to catch the 4:50am water bus to catch the 6:30 autobus to take us to the airport to catch our flight. A side benefit: watching the sunrise over the Grand Canal. An amazing vacation, tired but happy, we returned home to Rome, which is a funny thought… to go HOME to Rome.