Dreaming In Italian

It’s been a long time between posts. A combination of being busy and distracted and a week without internet in Giulianova. I learned that I take for granted connectedness since I always have had internet accessibility so it seems like going through an addition withdrawal without it. Of course I always have my iPhone but it’s a poor substitute. In any case I’ll start some others flowing through.

In any city there are always a lot of things to see. When I remember to take my camera with me and remember to use it (compound risks here) then I sometimes get some nice photos. These are ones that I took at different times but all add a little more texture to my photos of my favorite city in Italy.

I rider on the bus. I hope someone is taking a lot of photos to show her in 20 years.

Frogs rampant on one of the main streets – Hugo Bassi. A special promotion?

Wait – I know that woman.!

Another portico shot. Of of course regular readers probably have their fill of porticos by now.

Coats of arms of some of the students in the early days of Bologna U.

Poster in a shop window

BIG old door.

A little gelato break

Doing it in a store window?

Very old portico. Only the oldest were made of wood

Vivid display of fruits and vegetables in the center of town

This latest Sunday I went to two, count ’em, two parties. The first was for a lunch at Paolo’s house in the country. I took a train to the nearest train station and he came to pick me up. There were already a bunch of people there, for the most part people that Paolo knows from work. The are dentists or  work in some other capacity at a dental office where he works once or twice a week. The total count of people was over twenty. We had food cooked “alla brace” (over coals). As you can see in the photos, he was two fire places. In one he keeps a roaring fire. After awhile he bangs on the fire with a big stick which causes coals to drop down and then he uses a fireplace shovel to move them to the other fireplace where the actual cooking takes place. Periodically he transfers other coals to maintain the heat under the food. First came bruschetta followed by grilled peppers. Then there were spiedini (skewers), sausages and finally pork chops. Oh, yes, there was also salad. All accompanied by red and white wind and water both still and bubbly. As if we weren’t all full enough then there were 5 different desserts, only 3 of which are pictured. Then, of course, the inevitable coffee and liquors: lemoncello, nocino (pretty local and made from green walnuts) and some other after dinner drink which was delicious but don’t remember the name. I was a good boy and didn’t drink too much since I knew that there was a party that evening. Here of the photos. I apologize for the quality of some of the photos. My camera works great but I got a little lazy and used my iPhone for the fuzzy one.

The fire

Ttransferring the coals to the cooking fireplace

Bread for bruchetta and the peppers

The meats waiting their turn

The spiedini on the grill

The table is set

Paolo’s “partner” Cinzia – Paolo is in the background with the gloves.

A cute little girl at the party with her mother – some defect in the photo. There was nothing on her face.

The two month old

The tiramisu

Chocolate and cream and raspberrys – oh, my!

My first plate – there were two more desserts that I also sampled.

I got a ride from Luciano back to the city. He ranted a bit about politics including his conclusion that maybe we should drop just a “little” atomic bomb on ISIS to scare them! When he dropped me off I told him that I was glad that he couldn’t give the order to drop the bomb. That evening I proceeded to a party at the apartment of Lisa. She’s an American who has lived in Bologna for about 25 or years and just last year moved into an apartment in a great location in the center of the city. Her passion is singing and so she knows a bunch of musicians of various sorts. So there was a lot of singing, hers and others, all very talented musicians along with some dancing. It all had to stop at 10PM to comply with the rules of the condominium (which certainly makes sense). More fuzzy photos follow.

Lisa (with microphone)

Dancing

Other singers in the following photos

Just part of the social whirl here in Bologna. I’ve also gone out with other friends; Renata, Gaudio, Marco, Vittorio, Claudia and Gianluca. Of course I forgot to take any photos but will see most of them again and will be less lazy and take some photos. Especially of a place that I went with Claudia last Friday evening. There’s a great little place in Giardina Margherita that I found really charming. It’s hard to describe without photos. I met a guy, Lorenzo, there that I hadn’t seen for two years. It turns out that he’s a partner in the place and said that he’s there almost every night so I’m sure to go back. And this time I’ll remember to take photos and get the name of the place!

It comes as no secret to anyone that’s flown on an airplane in the past few years that air travel has become such an ordeal. I suppose that it’s the price that we pay for relatively low air fares in a post 9/11 world. My (very) recent flight to Bologna certainly reinforced this point. I had booked the flight with Lufthansa but unfortunately the trip from San Francisco to Frankfurt was operated by United Airlines. Yes they have in-flight movies but no selection. For years I have been expecting a choice of on-demand movies on the seat back in front of you but I guess that United is milking those old 747s without putting any money into them other than cramming more and narrower seats into the same box. So it was the old routine with video screens attached to the roof of the cabin. Of course the seats recline something like 3 degrees so I can’t understand why anyone would grouse about having their knees threatened by someone in front of them trying to get even this small measure of relief. I’ve been flying foreign carries to Bologna for the last 3 years so I was startled that United now charges for everything alcoholic on international flights as well as domestic. And what do you get for you 1/4 bottle of wine on United that costs $8? Something probably more appropriate for killing insects that eating with the lousy meal. At least they match them up – lousy and disgusting. Foreign carriers seem to all provide drinks for  free. It does seem like the least they could do to help ameliorate at least a bit of the discomfort. Certainly the airlines suffered heavy losses after 9/11 but now they seem to be doing alright. If you have any doubts just do a Google search for “airline profitability 2014”. On one of the flights there was a piece in the in flight magazine featuring Orlando Bloom who gushed about how much he likes flying, the longer the distance the better. One can rest assure that Mr. Bloom is not flying coach. The foreign carriers have started charging to make a seat assignment over the last two years. So you want to take a chance on being assigned a middle seat for a 10 hour flight? No problem and no cost. On the other hand if you are larger than the typical middle school student you need to fork over 40 or 50 bucks to avoid one of these circles of hell. You can of course have wi-fi now as long as you want to pay through the nose for it.

One can almost see the future as airlines now promote “economy plus” seating which has a little bit more knee room at a price. Actually this is not a joke. One of the articles I found in my Google search regarding profitability opines that the airlines are deliberately trying to make the experience more unpleasant in order to upsell to a higher cost seat. Perhaps there is a law about providing meals on long flights or else we’d surely be forced to pay for meals even on a 10 hour flight. Just call me cranky. And don’t even get me started on the security screening! Let’s just say that it’s a good thing that the guy with the explosive shoes hadn’t had it in his underwear instead or we’d all be undergoing a strip search before boarding the plane.

There must be a song of that title but in this case it means that I’m headed back to Italy. First stop Bologna. I will be there by myself for two weeks seeing friends, trying to refresh my Italian and generally having a relaxing but good time. Then the lovely Ms. K arrives. We will stay in Bologna for about 10 days. Many of my friends also speak passable english (sometimes excellent english) so she won’t feel left out of conversations. My friend Paolo has said that we can use his apartment for a week and hopefully he will come through on that. After that we head to Giulianova in Abruzzo via train. A family that I stayed with last year when doing my travels to the south had said that K and I can use their apartment near the beach during this off-season time rent free. We’ll buy them a really nice dinner in any case. Of course that means a win-win situation for us as well since we also get a very nice dinner. After a week in Abruzzo we will probably go south to Puglia. A train to Bari where we will rent a car and see some lovely sights with a couple of nights planned back in Bari (which sounds pretty fascinating) before heading back to Bologna to spend a couple of nights before the flight back. So this 5th trip is only 6 weeks – the shortest so far – and 4 for K. I’ll be blogging of course. So I hope to be able to report some fine adventures.