A wonderful weekend, and on to an equally amazing week, although in a completely different way. Thursday night, almost as planned, Mom made it to Macerata. She ended up catching a later train, after experiencing more than her fair share of travel chaos. So… while I waited, I cleaned up a little (but forgot to dust…), arranged for a taxi to meet us at the train station, and made up some potatoes, carrots and celery for her to eat when she got here. Then I walked down to the train station and waited… for a while, because her train was 10 minutes late and I was 10 minutes early. Finally, though, her train pulled up, and she got off, and we hugged each other and cried for a few minutes.
We walked through the station and hopped into our taxi. I showed her a little bit of the city all lit up with its night time lights and things. We got to the hotel, and the little city streets inside the walls were just packed with people as they often are at that hour. We sat and chatted, I gave her a bottle of water, and her potatoes, which were not exactly warm anymore, but they were indeed “real food.” After that little bit of nourishment, we determined that the proper next step was coffee and gelato. So we headed out once again into the streets to get some…but this time, there was almost no one out. It is a fascinating little phenomenon where around 7 PM you can hardly move in the streets, and by 9 PM they are deserted.
Mom’s first gelato was chocolate, and in my opinion from one of the best gelato places in town. After that delicious little snack, we headed up to my apartment, for a mini tour. I feel like I should have her as a “guest writer” so that she can describe her own experiences to you… I feel a bit silly telling you how much she loved her gelato, and how she loved our apartment.
Friday, I let her sleep in, but turns out she woke up earlier than I expected. So we went out for cappuccino and cornettos (croissants). We went to a little place called Pathos, that I really love (even though it is the place where I ended up with warm milk instead of tea recently…) The tables in the restaurant have literary quotes printed on them and they also sell books. The books are more of a side item, but it still gives it that classic coffee house feel. Mom was so excited about her cappuccino’s taste and price (half the price they were in Amsterdam in February) that she wanted a second!
After coffee, we walked over to the cathedral and the small basilica next to it. I gave her short versions of Filiberto’s lectures on each place, pointed out various art and architectural elements and so forth. Then we sat in the Piazza and waited for the bells to chime. Mom and I share a love for church bells.
That afternoon, we wanted to convert some American dollars to Euros… which turned into quite an adventure. We started at a bank, and they told us to go away, that the only place to do that was the post office. So we headed down to the post office. I was a bit nervous that they would not be open, because it was getting close to the hours of afternoon “riposo” but we got lucky and they were still open. Then we waited in “line” or until someone appeared available and open to helping us.
So I told the woman, in Italian what we were trying to do. She didn’t seem pleased initially, and after conferring with a coworker handed me a form, this seemed to be a good start. I began to fill out this form, and she took our “documents” mom had her passport, but I did not, but I did have my Italian Government Issue permit of stay card, and this seemed to satisfy her. I thought maybe we were going to make it out of there just fine. Wrong. The woman looks at me and says, “Carta fiscale.” And I do not understand what she means, and so I ask her to repeat. She repats, and I still don’t quite get it. She hands the form back to us with an X next to the place where the official is supposed to sign, and point to this line and ask her if we are supposed to sign again. She does not really answer, so mom signs again, and we hand the form back. Now the postal worker I getting irritated, she says “Carta Fiscale, dove la scrive?” Now she wants to know where we wrote it, hard to do when you don’t know what it is. She looks back at us demanding this item, and I whip out my dictionary, and I ask her to write it for me so I can look it up easier… she does not, I ask again, this time with a little pantomime, and then I tell her that I do not know what it means. This is nearly the end of all of us as she declares (her volume has been increasing throughout this interaction) that “Carta Fiscale è carta fiscale!!!” Thank you, ever so much for clearing that up for me. Once upon a time my 3rd grade teacher told us not to use the word in the definition (I’m assuming that also applies to not using it for the definition) Finally, another customer notices our plight, takes pity, and with his little bit of English explains to us that this is a card given to Italians at birth, and that we don’t have something like it in the USA. He then tells this to the postal worker who is not at all pleased. In the end, we gave her our driver’s licenses… she gave us our money, and we RAN.
After such an ordeal, it was time for a walk in the park. We tried to find a little hidden café that I have been wanting to go to, but we couldn’t find it… so we just wandered for a while.
Saturday, we went to Assisi-and thanks to me-had to run to the bus station. I woke up 5 minutes before we were planning to meet to walk to the bus, so we rushed. But we made it! One very long, warm bus ride later we were dropped off in Assisi, but not in the city center or really anywhere near it, so then we had to call a cab. But once we finally got there, it was just as beautiful as I remembered, and mom loved it too. We walked through the basilica of San Francesco, and then did some shopping in the town. There were lots of shops with beautiful lace, some with pottery and ceramics, and some really interesting clothing shops. And then there were also multitudes of shops with little prizes related to San Franceso, of course.
Saturday night we went out for a nice dinner, and split it in what is a classic style for my friends and I. One person orders a “primi piatti” which is the first course, basically pasta. And the other person orders a “secondi piatti” which is a meat dish, and you each eat half and trade. That way you can each get your balanced meal at half the price and without needing to be rolled out of the restaurant. I took her to a little place that I had eaten before with the best risotto known to mankind. It is an herbed risotto with flower petals, thyme and marjoram. Profoundly delicious. We also got a pork chop to share that had a very gentle sweet flavor to it.
To round our Saturday night, we had a little sleepover at the hotel. We stayed up late gabbing (which we did a few of the other nights as well, but returned to our own respective beds) Being able to just talk to someone without worrying about losing my internet connection is definitely something that I miss.
Sunday, we went to Civitanova for the beach, no good Michigan girl could come this close to a body of water without touching it. And she did. She went in up to her ankles, but it wasa bit too chilly to go farther than that. But the beach in Civitanova is full of really cool stones and beach glass, and so we spent a very long time there sifting through. After a while though, the coastal wind did start to chill us, and so we headed into town to find a little something warm to drink. On the way however, we got distracted by a pretty storefront… and we went in. As soon as we walked in we both gasped when we saw a rack, but for different reasons. I was shocked to see a little sign in pink highlighter announcing that the items on the rack were 50 % off, they do not do enough sales in this country, and so I get incredibly excited when I find one. But what mom saw, I also saw a moment later. A beautiful coat, on that very sale rack… and I was in love, so of course I had to try it on. And it fit, and so, now it is in my closet behind me. We may have set a record for not being a mission shopping, finding something, trying it on and buying it. Fairly certain it was less than 10 minutes.
Sunday night we met Giulia, my language partner at Maga Cacao. Because mom could not possibly come and go from the country without having had Maga Cacao and met Giulia. Mom got a basic milk chocolate hot chocolate, “con la pana” which basically means, with a mountain of delicious whipped cream above your pure chocolatey goodness. We talked with Giulia for a couple hours, and it was all quite lovely, and we covered a wide variety of topics. Mom even let Giulia and I have our little Italian lesson that is supposed to be part of the Tandem partner deal.
Monday morning, I had class, so mom took herself out for a cappuccino. Then we met up when I was done and ate some lunch. We had a while then to wander and shop, which seemed like a brilliant plan until I remembered the number of stores that are closed on Mondays, period, and the fact that there is riposo from basically 1-4. However, we did get a cup of gelato, and managed to wander around until it was more stores were open, and had some fun shopping. After shopping, I had class again, and then we had Thanksgiving dinner. Delicious. The entire group went, plus all of our teachers, and a couple other people connected with the program and the university. We sat at a table with a few other girls from the program, and Professor Antonio Zampa. He is very cool, and fun to talk with. I don’t have him for class though sadly. But I did find out that he once came to Michigan to play Italian folk music on guitar and came through Alma, didn’t stop in at the college though. But it was funny to find someone on this side of the world that had actually been to our little town.
Today, after class, mom and I went out for one last little lunch together. We each had a plate of spaghetti alla carbonara, and a tiramisu. There were three things that I felt she absolutely had to eat before she left: 1) Maga Cacao (check) 2) Tiramisu (check) and 3) a Kinder Bar (bought at a vending machine, and given as a train snack). Kinder bars are similar to Kit Kats, but lighter, better, and with hazelnut cream inside. After our lovely lunch, I had class again, but then we called for our taxi and headed down to the train station. We got the ticket for Roma Termini, and then I helped her onto the train and double checked with the conductor that it was going where we wanted, you can never be too careful with these Italian trains.
To finish off my night, I went out for a great dinner with the other four Michigan students. We talked about proper hand geography, and hometown favorites, over really great food (ravioli with prosciutto for me)
But now I should really get to bed! Early train to FLORENCE tomorrow!!!!!
Home in less than a month!!! Crazy how time flies!
