Merrily we roll along

9/22/08

Life is like a dream. Well at least parts of it are. Life is just so different than it has ever been before, I’m sort of just waiting for someone to punch me in the face to wake me up. It’s actually not a coincidence that I use the term “punch me in the face” because on Thursday (four days ago), after I left my buddy Luke’s birthday party, he was asking some people in a car for directions home and he and his buddy got punched in the face. They asked a couple in a car which way to go to get back to their house, and the guy got out of the car and punched first one and then while the first one is bleeding, he punches the other one in the face and then gets in his car and drives away. They didn’t get a license plate number. Weird. Italy is weird.
But enough about other people, let’s talk about ME! Dinner this evening was quite tasty, nothing outrageously bizarre, but when we finished with dinner, Giovanna cleared our plates and brought out bowls. Now, bowls usually means gelato that she pulls out of the freezer, but I guess you could say, there was something in the air that made me think that tonight was a different night. Something more miraculous than gelato was about to grace our presence. From the refrigerator, Giovanna whips out a cookie sheet of homemade Tiramisu. The only homemade Tiramisu I’ve ever eaten was Uncle Chip’s and while his was quite nice, I was reduced to primal grunts and occasional sighs of delight while I slowly took down the bowl of Tiramisu. I can’t describe it. It was probably the best thing that I’ve ever eaten. Giovanna says, “You like it?” and we don’t know how to express ourselves in Italian. Buonissimo. Molto buonissimo. Molto buonissimo di tutti mondo! I don’t know. I wanted to laugh and cry and do a little jig at the same time. All over a serving of desert. I’m going to get the recipe from her.
I took a spontaneous day trip to the Cinque Terre on Sunday. This was my dentist’s recommendation for the place I absolutely needed to go while I was in Italy. We caught the 7:45 train and made it to the third of the five cities at around 11. We bought our passes and started hiking. In trying to describe what the landscape around the Cinque Terre is like, I discover that it is sort of a combination of a number of both real and non real lands that I have seen pictures of. Combine the Shire with Narnia, the Garden of Eden, rural China, an orchard and the Olympic Coast. That is the Cinque Terre. Unbelievably beautiful. I couldn’t help but draw comparisons to the hiking trip I led for freshmen before I came to Italy on the Olympic Coast. Both places involve rigorous climbs to the tops of hills where you get breathtaking views of the sea. It was spectacular, the photos I hope to include soon can only partially express the beauty that is the Cinque Terre. While there was a large number of tourists, I didn’t feel completely closed in by them like I do around the Centro in Florence or anywhere in Venice. The climb was pretty difficult, but the train stops in each city, so we could’ve taken the train anywhere around there for around 1.5 euros. For lunch, we ate fresh 1.5 euro foccacia. It was so good. That might have been the hike talking, but that foccacia was, in the wizened words of Bryce McKay, ridonculous. Other highlights of the trip included sitting on a beach in a rainstorm, seeing an enormous grasshopper (probably about 5 inches long) and watching other students form Syracuse in Florence sprint across the last town to catch a train back home (we were on the train after that).
I met some cool new people, took some sweet pictures and ended up spending about 30 euros the whole day (this included train tickets, two meals, wine and the trail pass). I got back home and deliriously finished my Italian homework before passing out. I still need to catch up on sleep. I think I’ll do that right now. Arrivederci e buono notte.

AJC