The first part of this past week has been great. The heat finally gave way for a bit and it felt human again. The humidity was gone, there was a constant ocean breeze and the temperatures were a good 7 to 10 degrees cooler (and that's in Celsius which means something but I'm still figuring out the conversion). Then on Wednesday the humidity came back along with rain clouds. Humidity and rain are a lousy combination.
Speaking of Celsius, it's odd to have swimming pools under your arms and feel the moist drip of sweat slide down your back when the thermometer says 35. Thirty-five? Shouldn't it be snowing instead of the tarmac turning soft? While the temperature conversion continues to confuse me, I have made peace with the rest of the metric system. Sort of.
For distance, I've just decided that kilometers and miles, for all intents and purposes, will now be the the same thing. This works in my favor when a trip is, say, 500 kilometers, but only takes 3.5 hours. It's frankly terrifying though when you see the speedometer and you're doing 150 per hour in a Panda.
The metric system is fun in the kitchen. Most people have never heard of a measuring cup here as everyone has a scale and goes by weight. A quarter cup of sugar - using what size cup? I like it though. Makes me feel scientific. It also makes cooking pasta a breeze. Just weigh it. A typical serving is 80-110 grams per person. Done. But how much Parmesan should I add to the pesto? About a handful. And how much water should I add to the bean soup mix? A good amount, you know, enough.
Where was I? Oh yes, we were talking about my trip to the beach last weekend, or we were going to.
That's San Michele in Sirolo which is just a few kilometers/miles from Ancona. Going to the beach on the weekend is almost a formal requirement during the summer. I'm becoming more of a fan although I am not crazy about it which means it's just one more thing to be added at the bottom of the now quite long list of things my friends think are wrong with me. I'm trying hard to get more into the spirit but while they can spend six or seven hours at a stretch, the novelty wears off for me after a couple of hours. They are beach camels. Or whatever is something that is a good example of something that can do something for a long time. I am a fan of the rock beaches over the sand ones because I thought it would solve the whole "sand in the you know what" problem. Turns out you can also have a "small rocks in the you know what" problem which is kind of bizarre.
Sirolo is part of the Italian Riviera and survives mainly by what it earns from tourists in the summer. It's also a Blue Flag beach which is a cool program that started in Europe and is now spreading globally and basically means the beach is clean, accommodating to all, organized and well-run.
An Italian Lincoln City
The government owns the land but in the more popular spots, they lease it to companies who then rent the beach to visitors. You pay by the hour for a beach chair and/or umbrella and if you don't you can't stay in those areas. Not everywhere is like this and there are still places where you can drop towel and enjoy the beach for free.
To reach San Michele, we parked in the city center (and we found free parking!) and then hiked a couple of kilometers down a cliff through woods filled with pine trees.
It looks like a long way to the beach but remember, those are kilometers!
It was unsettling to smell pine in warm weather instead of Christmas but it was amazing. It's a rather steep, dusty track down to the beach, and there were cicadas in the trees making their racket. It was hot but in the trees there was a constant breeze that made it lovely. It all just screamed summer and by the time we made it down to the beach our feet were filthy, we were hot and a little winded and there was nothing to do but plunk down our kit and dash into the water. Most of the day was spent in the water floating and wrinkling. We had a picnic for lunch and then walked down the beach in the late afternoon for gelato. I got burnt but good. Being that I am brilliant, the night before I had frozen a bottle of water so I had that to drink all day as it melted. Delicious cold water.
They say nothing makes you as hungry or as tired as a day spent at the beach. "They" in this case being Valentina. For dinner we went to a pizzaria in Sirolo that only has outdoor tables. Just the bar and kitchen are inside. It's opens for the summer tourist season and does all the business it can before shuttering the rest of the year. There is a covered patio and a huge garden with tables nestled in amongst the shrubbery. It's really a very nice setting. The pizza was divine too. Thick, like Naples, and cooked in a wood oven. It's a party every weekend night as the town works to get as much money as they can during the season. Stores are open late, the piazza is full of entertainers, outdoor bars, vendors, etc. It's an amazing scene.
There was a Festa della Sangria held last Friday in a village called Belvedere Ostrense which besides great local food, overly sweet and hang-over inducing sangria, and a DJ playing Latin dance music, was incredibly entertaining yet mostly unremarkable except for the incongruous pairing of a Latin themed Sangria festival being held in a small Italian village. No one else seemed to notice so I just went with it. It was me, Massi, Lorenza and Stefania and we met Lorenzo (who was giving a performance with his dance class) and his wife Veronica (amazing dancer). A long, very late summer night with lots of happy people, plenty of food and some sangria (wait, flip that) and too much dancing.
What wasn't incongruous was Saturday, 17 July, my friend Massi's birthday. To celebrate, he set-up a dinner at a local restaurant and then afterwards we all went dancing at the Passetto at a recurring party that happens every couple of weeks during the summer called "Passetto On The Rocks".
So after a big seafood dinner including (let's see if I can remember everything) raw octopus salad, salmon sashimi, muscles, snails, sardines in lemon and oil, cooked octopus, spaghetti with clam sauce, chitarra pasta with shrimp, grilled seafood platters, french fries and crema catalana we walked to the Passetto where there were two parties going on with separate DJs. The beach at the Passetto is rock, not sand and there are also a lot of large boulders forming a harbor for swimming. One the rocks there were also bars serving beer and cocktails. So, get it: Passetto On The Rocks? Not a bad double-entendre, no?
Eating dinner on the roof of the restaurant as the summer sun set, surrounded by many of the new friends I've made since moving here, and then going down to the beach for a gigantic, outdoor party - with only minor variations it could have been a birthday party in Portland, but as it was, it made me think about and miss the friends I have back home but also appreciate and realize how blessed I am for the new friends and the experiences I am having here.
And what can't and shouldn't be said with words can be summed up with this little number HERE.
Start your day, or enjoy your lunch, or end your day (your choice) with this little delight. Our beloved Prime Minister, Silvio Berlusconi has lent his mellifluous voice to a brief video spot encouraging y'all to come see Italy's magic.
And on the flip-side, this is the same politician who, in October of 2009, said about his political opponent Rosy Bindi, “I recognise you are increasingly more beautiful than you are intelligent.” This comment sparked wide-spread outrage and protests and has led to an on-going confrontation between the two that transcends just their political differences, the latest installment coming just recently, when Mr. Berlusconi, making remarks at a university graduation ceremony was reported to have said it was nice to see so many pretty young women and then went on to say, "there are young women who get top grades and don't look like Rosy Bindi".
These days, if you head out of Ancona, for a Festa della Sangria say, or to go to the beach, it's unavoidable that you'll pass numerous and frequent fields of sunflowers. They're beautiful. Turned to the sun, a yellow area rug on the sides of hills, at the base of hills, in between fields of wheat, showing off their color next to the greens and browns of the other crops. In the next couple of weeks they'll begin to turn brown and ugly as they are left to die and dry before being harvested and turned into oil. But for now, it's an incredible sight, faces turned to the sun, brilliant and eye catching. A blanket of yellow from a distance and then thousands of individual flowers, singular then blurred and tall as you zip past.
My friend Niky (Nicoletta Pasquini), an amazing photographer, has unknowingly donated the next two images and there a whole bunch of other great pictures on her website.
I think I mentioned some time ago that I was going to Barcelona for the weekend? If I didn't, I meant to, and I did, go to Barcelona that is. It's really simple to do from here. Take the train to Rome and then the plane to Barcelona, that's it. From there, where you are reading this that is, it might sound a bit more posh saying, "I'm going to Barcelona for the weekend". At least that's what Olivia told me when I mentioned off-hand in an email that I was going to Barcelona for the weekend. With all the budget airlines, it's sort of like buying a ticket to go to San Francisco for the weekend, about the same price, only when you get off the plane, instead of still being in the U.S. of A you're in Spain and once again you are clueless about what anyone is saying.
When I'm lucky enough to visit a city like Barcelona I'm struck by how international they are. The iconic buildings, instantly recognizable. The history. The vastness. How normal and ordinary it all seems to those who call it home. The sheer number and variety of people and languages being spoken. I made the mistake of hubris by ordering in Spanish once by combining the words on the menu with por favor and then having to awkwardly switch to English when the waiter's follow-up question was far beyond my ability to comprehend or respond to. No matter, he effortlessly switched to perfect English and I later heard him speaking French at another table. And in a bar later in the weekend, the bartender switched from Spanish to English to Russian without missing a beat, stole my heart, and wasn't even trying to show-off. What's my point? I don't know. Something like, Barcelona is one of those places that the world keeps arriving at and it's overwhelming and astounding - at once unfathomable yet also totally enjoyable and impressive.
The reason I went to Barcelona was to see it (of course) and because a friend of mine had invited me. See, when I worked at Lingo Systems for all those years I met a lot of people all over the world, but only via email, and over the years we became friends. When I left Lingo, a number of them very generously (foolishly?) told me I would be welcome to visit if I was ever in the neighborhood so to speak. When I got back in touch with my Barcelona friend she insisted I come to visit her and her husband and their dog Pepa. Thinking over her invite, I figured Barcelona was as good a place as any, if not better, to spend my 4th of July. And there it is. And here is Pepa doing yoga.
I'm not normally much for making lists except for the occasional grocery list or if there is something I need to remember to do later (which I guess isn't really a list but more of a note in which case, I'm a big one for making notes, but not lists). But anywhup, the point I'm trying to make is that I have decided to use the list format to recount my trip, but since I don't do many of them it might not be very good.
A List Of Things I Liked About Barcelona
I. Incredibly gracious, generous and warm hosts who opened their home to me, essentially a complete stranger, and went out of their way to make me feel welcome and share their city with me up until the day I left, even though after a few days, just like fish, I had probably begun to smell a little.
2. The hop-on-hop-off tourist bus. In a city this big, with so much to see so spread out, a bus that delivers you to the front door of most everything is fantastic.
Take the bus and all this will be yours.
I used the bus on Friday to "get the lay of the land" so to speak, and on Monday I used the Metro to re-visit those places I wanted to get a little longer look at. Which brings me to...
2a. The Metro. It's clean. It's affordable. It's a train arriving every two minutes convenient. It's air-conditioned. I love the Metro in Paris for its nostalgia inducing charm, but the Barcelona Metro smacks the Paris one around and makes it say, "Tío" or maybe "Oncle". It goes everywhere you want to be and blows cool air up your bloomers while doing it. And in Barcelona, cold air in your bloomers is awesome, like if you arrived at the Screen Door at 10am on Saturday morning and there was fresh coffee and no line. That kind of awesome.
I like food. No duh. So I liked this market, but this market is more than food. It's food art. It's like Pike Place Market or the PSU Farmer's Market but on steroids. Organic, locally-produced, seasonal steroids, but still, steroids. It's one of the more popular destinations to visit in Barcelona I gather. However, in my continuing quest to maintain my uninterrupted track-record of near total ignorance of each new place I visit I had no idea it existed and only stumbled upon it shortly before closing, otherwise I could have easily spent a couple hours wandering the aisles and ogling the merchandise. You know how Portland has a bunch of establishments where you can ogle the merchandise but you have to pay $1 to do so and you can't touch? Here you can touch and ogle for free! You have to see these pictures.
C. La Vaca Paca. It's only 10 Euros! A dining experience suited to the American abroad yet apparently enthusiastically embraced by both tourists and locals alike.
5. Drunk Dutch soccer fans. I was on La Rambla, a tourist heavy area when the Holland vs. Brazil World Cup match ended and a throng of about 100 oranje-clad Dutch fans danced and sang in jubilation over their victory, sweeping many unwary bystanders up and turning them Dutch for a moment. A distinctly nationalistic moment in an international city during a global event. The Rambla is fascinating. A wide, tree covered boulevard that connects the center of downtown Barcelona to the port by cutting through the center of the old part of town.
There are buskers and hustlers the entire way along it and while it's impossible to get lost on the Rambla, turn left or right into the gothic district and in moments you're wandering in circles or sitting on a bench drinking a cool beverage.
Not pictured: cool beverage.
VI. The Pool. On a Saturday where it was easily near 40 degrees, having this just outside your bedroom door was absolute luxury.
6. Seafood Paella and Sangria con Cava (Spanish champagne) on the beach for Sunday lunch. It's the perfect way to relax and prepare for the hottest part of the day and the perfect recipe for a siesta during the hottest part of the day.
I forgot to take a picture of it but the gin & tonic served as a digestif after the meal was astounding. In a large wine glass, no bigger than that, combine large chunks of ice and approximately 6 oz. of gin. Maybe it was 8 oz. It was enough that I thought to myself, "Wow, this is a big cocktail, two people could share this quite nicely," as I took my first sip only to discover that the glass just held gin. There was a small bottle of Schwepp's tonic on the side to add as appropriate.
8. The Architecture? I'm no expert, but apparently Barcelona is stuffed to the gills with architecturally marvelous and important buildings. Neat-o.
9,2. San Miguel Beer. Strangely, this beer has its roots in SE Asia, but it's served everywhere. I guess that makes it the PBR of Spain - originally from elsewhere but claimed by the locals. Everyone serves it in big, heavy, chilled mugs that instantly start to sweat in the heat with promises of vacationey goodness satisfaction.
Vacationey Goodness Satisfaction
10. Spain winning their semi-final. Fireworks, drums, screaming, car horns, dancing, flares, fires, a national celebration. I was Spanish for the moment. And I missed by a week the epic celebration following the final. My friend Isabel said she didn't go to work for the first three days the following week because of the fiesta everywhere.
A List Of Things I Didn't Like About Barcelona
1. The Heat. It was hot.
2. The Heat. Uncomfortably hot.
iii. Dutch Soccer Fans. I was rooting for Brazil in that match. Stop rubbing it in.
Quatro. The Heat. I mean really hot. Lead story on the Spanish nightly news hot.
But that's it. Nothing really.
It deserves another look. There are so many gardens and parks and other things to explore that due to the time I had, the size of the city, and sheer scope of options (and yes, the heat) I feel like I hardly took it all in. I just have to convince my friends they want this smelly salmon back.
A line, as in a queue, is called la fila in Italian. I don't know why they have a word for it because Italians don't do lines. They do blobs. Maybe they came up with a word for it so they could describe what they WEREN'T doing. As in: Non facciamo la fila: perchè mai dovremmo? In the US, if people are waiting for a ticket window to open in order to buy tickets to a movie, a line will form as more and more people arrive and wait. In Italy, as people arrive they will all hover in the general vicinity of the window, and as soon as it opens there is a simultaneous migration to the window and an attempt to prove that two bodies can indeed occupy the same space at the same time.
There is never a line. Don't look for one and don't stand behind a person expecting to shuffle forward in an orderly fashion behind them. If you see something that looks like a line, don't be fooled. It's a practical joke being played. A line won't happen. If you aren't moving forward, you're going backwards. Bars. Kebab stands. Gelaterie. Ski lifts. Anywhere there is more than one person trying to get somewhere. Look out for number one, that's you. Italians in foreign airports are fantastic because they apply the same principle that apply at home and can't understand the hostility they encounter from everyone else dutifully waiting their turn.
This problem of the line is exacerbated in any situation where there is no "official" form of control. For instance, on Tuesday, I was sat in the waiting room waiting to see the immigration official. The process is to greet anyone already waiting and inquire about who was the last to arrive. That person identified, you will follow them and thus, a "line" forms. Invariably though, there are those for whom this just will not do and they attempt to circumvent the wait through a variety of tactics, odious and obnoxious. They lurk near the office door and sidle in when it opens for the next person. They say they just have a quick question and rush in, only to take twenty minutes. They latch on to whoever happens to actually be next, like a parasite, and follow them in, and just like in nature the host organism is left hollow and whithered while the parasite thrives. Or with a shrug of the shoulders they simply cut and bull their way in. Any of these, despite the squalling and protestations of the abused. Understandably, nobody likes when their turn is taken, but they all know that next time it will be they who take the mickey out of a waiting-room full of chumps so the protestations are never too insistent. More an acknowledgement of a game well played than distaste for the behavior.
None of this is good news for an American indoctrinated in the absoluteness of the line and intoxicated by its orderly efficiency. And the Germans practically lose their minds over it. When I see a group of German tourists in town I follow them around waiting for them to start a line in a shop or bar somewhere and then I watch the hilarity ensue.
The post-office and banks have solved the blob problem by installing ticket systems, like a US DMV office. Take a ticket, when your number is called, approach. It's a cultural adjustment and understandably will take time, so people still hover near the teller windows, genetically predisposed to trying to cut the queue. Or they feign needing a pen or something totally unrelated and the attention of the teller gained they launch into their business. But if your ticket doesn't have the right number, both the teller and the customer whose turn it actually is have the right, and the pleasure, of hollering at you. The fun starts when your teller can't help you (maybe their printer is out of paper and they haven't bothered to get more paper) and they tell you just to go to the next window over as soon as it's free. So you do. Except the next person with the ticket for that window has also arrived which means at a minimum there are now four people involved which is more than enough for a complete impasse.
But in the end it all works itself out. We get by just fine the way it is. I eventually picked up my documents. I eventually mailed them from the post office. Only two steps left and I'll have my new permesso. Figo!
I promise I'll post something in the near future more interesting than my oddly tilted and disembodied head and Valentina's maleducatiòn.
Not for nothing, a day at the beach might not cure what ails you after a long night out quite like brunch at the Screendoor or Gravy's, but it's close.
My Permesso expires in September which means I have to start the renewal process now if I want to maintain my legal residency status as it can take 60-70 days for the new one to be issued. Assuming all goes well. Since this is bureaucracy, Italian bureaucracy at that, all will most likely not go well. Not to mention, it will soon be August and in Italy, as in most of Europe, absolutely nothing gets done during the month of August when everyone takes their summer holiday. So far, I've had two appointments to obtain and complete required paperwork. They went very smoothly so I'm optimistic that previous experience and good fortune are on my side. All that remains is purchasing the required tax stamp, taking new identification photos, a trip to the post office, fingerprinting, and two trips to the Questura and at the end of all that I'll be a legal resident for another year. The question is, can I get that at all done before September? The better question is, will they let me get that all done before September? The quest is on!
In September 2009 I moved from Portland, Oregon to Ancona, Italy for two years to begin My So Called Italian Life. In October 2022 I moved from Salt Lake City, Utah to Sitges, Spain for some years to begin again. Same blog. Different story.
