Happy New Year!

Buon Anno, tutti! I hope you all had fantastic holidays and are making an easy transition into 2014.

To state the obvious, I completely neglected the blog and am now over TWO months behind in posts. It also just so happens that the past two months have been the busiest and most worth-writing-about months probably of my life. But taking time to do it all justice would take the rest of the next semester, and I want to try to be more current. So I'm going to give the BRIEFEST of brief overviews of the highlights before instituting a new policy. I'm going to try to blog weekly and with briefer posts to give this blog a bit of efficiency. Wish me luck!

THE HIGHLIGHTS:

November 15-17: Took a fantastic trip to Brussels and Amsterdam with my friends Holly and Heather. Saw the Red Light District, took an evening canal tour, visited Anne Frank's House, scarfed down some Dutch pancakes, and whizzed through the Rijksmuseum (saw some stunning Vermeer, Rembrandt, and Van Gogh) in Amsterdam. Bought chocolate, ate Belgian waffles and frijtes, saw the Peeing Boy, toured the Cathedral, and struggled with French in Brussels.

Amsterdam canals

November 22-24: I turned twenty on the 22nd and was treated to a fantastic evening with my friends the night before hitting Geneva with Stephanie, Heather, Holly, Megan, Katie, and Tess. We ate chocolate, saw the great fountain, bought Swatches, shopped in Old Town, drank decadent hot cocoa, tried cheese fondue, struggled with Swiss francs, and climbed the Cathedral towers.

Geneva from the cathedral towers

November 28-December 1: After a Thanksgiving lunch at the Hard Rock Cafe, I joined my friends in Salzburg, Austria. Enjoyed the Christmas markets in the light snow, tried bosna (fantastic curry-sausage sandwiches with mustard), drank glühwein for warmth, saw Mozart's birthplace, and took a Sound of Music tour through the spectacular Austrian Alps. Took the train to Vienna and stood in line to get tickets to the famous Viennese opera for THREE EUROS apiece. (We were in the nosebleeds but it was fantastic.) Toured one of the infamous Vienna cemeteries and saw the burial places of Beethoven, Schubert, Suppé, the Strausses, and Mozart.

The view from the top of the Salzburg fortress with my friends Katie and Megan

December 6-8: I spent this weekend reconnecting with Rome. Visited the Capitoline museum and took long walks around the city to plan for my family's approaching visit.

December 13: I took a cooking class with about half the Rome program and learned to make traditional food from the Lazio region including soup, pasta, meatballs, and tiramisù. It was a delightful, fun, and delicious way to kick off exams and bid farewell to what had been an unforgettable semester.

December 19-23: My parents and brother arrived in Rome, where we spent days hitting the major sites including a few I hadn't seen before, like the stunning Galleria Borghese (with truly breathtaking Bernini sculptures). We also saw Pope Francis give a Papal Angelus in Saint Peter's.

December 23-26: We then went south to Sorrento in the Bay of Naples for a pleasant Christmas. We also climbed Mount Vesuvius, which afforded some spectacular views, and visited Pompeii (for a much more adequate amount of time than my previous visit).

From the top of Vesuvius! Notice the steam rising in the background...oooooh....

December 26-January 1: We sped north to Florence and hit the major sites there including the Accademia (where David is...sigh...), Uffizi Gallery, the Bargello, the Pitti Palace, the Medici Chapels, the Duomo, and the Church of Santa Croce (the burial place of Michelangelo, Galileo, Machiavelli, and others). Enjoyed a lovely dinner with my friends and their parents who were in Florence as well. We also took day trips to Pisa (which was much more beautiful than I would have thought) and Siena.

January 1-3: We finished our grand tour in Venice with a gondola ride, coffee in the famous Cafe Florian in Piazza San Marco, and several trips to the Rialto Bridge. It was sad to say goodbye to my family, but it had been wonderful to reconnect with them and show them a piece of Italy.

January 3-8: I was thrilled to be reunited with my friend Marta in her home country of Spain! Flew in to Barcelona and spent three nights with her family in her hometown of Lloret de Mar (right by the sea!), where I was welcomed in like family and even got to participate in their celebration of Three Kings' Day! We finished up our time together at Marta's place in Barcelona, where I got to see Gaudi's famous, still-unfinished La Sagrada Familia church.

 

Mediterranean Sea view with Marta and her sister Anna

January 8-10: Reconnected with my friends Katie, Megan, and Shannon in Paris, where we did a quick blitz of the Louvre, Versailles, Musee d'Orsay (with a fabulous impressionist collection), the Eiffel Tower, Notre Dame Cathedral, and our first Mexican restaurant in four months. 

I kept humming songs from The Hunchback of Notre Dame

January 10-15: Spent an incredible five days in London with my three Paris friends and our fellow Rome alumna Sinead. Saw too much to mention, but the highlights include Westminster Abbey, a tour of Buckingham Palace (with champagne!), Billy Elliot in the West End, Borough Market and pubs with the twins' cousin Chris, the Harry Potter set tour at Warner Bros. Studios, the Tower of London, Baker Street, and seeing some of the shooting locations of BBC's Sherlock, which in case you haven't heard is kind of my favorite show. London stole my heart and ignited my imagination, and I can't wait to return.

Westminster Abbey

Buckingham Palace

January 15-19: Wrapped up a titanic break with rest, relaxation, and family time at my cousins' house about an hour's train ride north from London. I was treated to wonderful home cooking, some delightful TLC from the family pets, and a few fun outings to the market, a pub, and some fantastic Indian food. It was great to reconnect with some relatives I hadn't seen in eight years - some I hadn't met before! - and prepare for the upcoming return to Rome.

THERE WE GO. I apologize for the neglect and the subsequent need to scramble to catch up. I will try very hard to make this a weekly instead of bimonthly project. Thanks for hanging in there, and please join me as we progress into my second semester - can't even believe I'm saying it - in La Città Eterna!

SPQR!

A Smick Adventure, Part II: November 7-9

After two days of volcanic ruins and Amalfi breeze, the Smicks struck again, this time driving away from the Bay of Naples toward the ancient city of Paestum. Once called Poseidonia (before the Romans took over), this cosmopolis began as a Greek colony on the Italic peninsula and benefitted from the business of the international trading community; it was influenced not only by the Greeks but also by native Italic peoples like the Lucanians, Oscans, and Etruscans. Still, the layout of the city and much of its architecture had a distinctly Greek flavor that provided an interesting juxtaposition to the definitively Italic cities we'd seen thus far. (Thank you to Archaeology class for giving me the ability to make these distinctions.)

The first half of our stay we spent in another museum, which wasn't high on anyone's list of priorities after a lovely day of free time in Amalfi. Looking at the tomb paintings we'd studied in class was definitely a highlight, though, and we listened to some more interesting presentations from our classmates as we wandered amid the hunks of marble pediments and fragmented temple sculpture. But everyone was relieved to be released for lunch in the largely deserted little town before hitting the actual ruins in the afternoon.

Paestum/Poseidonia is most recognizably characterized by its three massive Greek-style temples on the edges of town. They're impressive, beautiful, and very well-preserved. But Paestum is also an interesting blueprint of a Greek-turned-Roman town that is less crowded and more hands-on than some of the other cities we visited. While lacking the notoriety and completeness of Pompeii, it had its own benefits including a former ekklesiastron (a very Greek circular construct designed for discussions in early democracy) and a heroon (a definitive Greek stamp of the city's founding and identity). It was a surprisingly enjoyable afternoon, therefore, to wander around the largely empty ruins, and it was capped off by another large meal back at the hotel in Pompei.

The next day, November 8, was one everyone had been anticipating: Capri. A little island off the coast known for its thriving tourist industry and gorgeous views, Capri was in its final weeks before shutting down almost completely for the winter. We were blessed with a perfect day, however, with plenty of warm sunshine but significantly lower crowds.

We took the hydrofoil (a little ferry) from the coastal city of Sorrento to Capri (pronounced KAH-pree, not ka-PREE like the juice). Most of us opted to take a boat tour to the Blue Grotto, a famous Caprese site; some - including me - decided to go on a private ride around the island as well. As we sailed through azure seas around magnificent cliff faces, our tour guides pointed out several other grotte - the Green Grotto, the Red Grotto, the White Grotto - and looped through towering rock formations off the Caprese coast. When we got to the Blue Grotto, we had to clamber three at a time into tiny wooden boats and lie flat on our backs while our guides maneuvered the difficult entrance into the Grotto itself.

Allow me to explain the scenario. My friend Sinead, my Archaeology professor, and I squished ourselves into the tiny boat behind the standing oarsman; I'd been warned about how small the entrance to the Grotto was, and I knew I'd have to duck to get inside, but at this point I couldn't even see an entrance. I just saw a line of these little wooden boats disappearing one by one into what looked like the water itself. Then I saw a minuscule opening in the cliff face itself barely visible above the rocking sea. At this point, I realized why we were going to have to lie down; the opening couldn't have been more than a meter tall. Our driver steered us forward and grabbed onto a rope that was threaded inside the Grotto, and then flung himself backwards...on top of us. He pulled us through the opening until we were inside. The water glowed an electric azure, brilliantly illuminated by daylight streaming into the dark cave from a gap beneath the surface. We sailed around the cave, our driver singing to us in Italian, captivated by the natural jewel-like luminescence. (Exiting the cave was just as thrilling as entering.)

Getting ready to enter the Blue Grotto!

The beautiful electric blue of the water

After the Grotto, a group of us hiked across the island to the top of one of the peaks to the ruins of the villa of Tiberius, Rome's second emperor. It provided unparalleled views of the spectacular coastline and a nice opportunity to sweat in the unseasonably warm sun. As the sun began to set, we sailed back to Sorrento and drove to Pompei for our last night.

At Tiberius' villa

The next day we went to the archaeological museum at Naples and enjoyed some famous Neapolitan pizza and coffee before heading to Cuma, a final ancient site that featured heavily in Virgil's Aeneid as the place where Aeneas consults the Sibyl and descends to the Underworld. I gave my second presentation - about the Cumaean Sibyl - and enjoyed exploring the fabled "Cave of the Sibyl" (which, my professor gently explained, was actually just a water cistern).

The "Cave of the Sibyl"

Returning to Rome a more unified group, we were nonetheless exhausted and ready for relaxing rest of the weekend.

A Smick Adventure, Part I: November 5-6

The blog delay has reached a critical stage, so forgive me for presenting the following abbreviated and long overdue account of the Saint Mary's Rome Program 2013 trip to southern Italy.

After just one school day following my weekend in Matera, all thirty-four Smicks* boarded a coach bus bound for the Bay of Naples, a few hours' drive south along Italy's west coast. Dr. Portia Prebys - director of the program - three professors, and two bus drivers would accompany us on five days of touring one of the most well-known, picturesque, and historically important areas of Italy. None of us really knew what we were getting into; all we knew was how exhausted we were as our bus pulled away at 7:00am on November 5, and how annoying it was when our professors barked into a megaphone to tell us about the history of some piece of wall we were passing, when all we wanted to do was close our eyes and nap. But as soon as the signature double-crest of Mount Vesuvius came peering out of the morning fog, there was no time to sleep. We were here!

First glimpse of Vesuvio 

We pulled into Herculaneum (modern Italian name: Ercolano) at about 10:30. Now, for those of you who haven't heard of this ancient city, you've likely heard of one of its neighbors: Pompeii. Both of these cities - and a few others, like Oplontis - grew up near the Bay of Naples in the shadow of Vesuvius, one of the most notorious (and yes, still active!) volcanoes on Earth. On August 24, AD 79, Vesuvius exploded in an cataclysmic eruption that devastated the surrounding area, burying Herculaneum and Pompeii in ash, lava, and superheated mud. The entire coastline was radically altered by the blast, and the cities remained buried until Pompeii was rediscovered in 1599 (Herculaneum, being much smaller, remained buried until the 1700s). Today, both cities (Pompeii in particular) are major touristic attractions because of how well the volcanic ash preserved everything from wooden doors to painted walls to skeletons.

Herculaneum

Since most of the Rome program is enrolled in Archaeology or Art History (or both, poor souls), much of our time in Herculaneum was spent giving and listening to presentations about various homes, buildings, and art decorations. There was something inexplicably eerie, though, to be wandering around the streets, touching the same stones and landmarks that the ancients touched...all under the shadow of the mountain that betrayed them. (There is simply no other way to put it; I've tried thinking of less dramatic language, but for me the moment was really that dramatic. It was incredible.) The most poignant moment, though, came right at the entrance. The city is below the level of the modern roads because of the meters and meters of ash that buried it, and at the edge - what was once the ancient coastline - is a stone arcade where ships would likely dock for the night. Inside the arcades is where the unlucky victims of Vesuvius spent their last moments, having made their way to the sea only to realize there was no escape. The skeletons have been left where they were found (or, at least, replicas laid in the exact positions and locations of the originals, which were moved for preservation and respect). It was a very personal encounter with the city, its inhabitants, and its demise that I was not expecting.

The ancient arcade

The bodies

After Herculaneum, we drove to the other side of the volcano to visit Pompeii. Many people who know me were undoubtedly aware of my excitement about seeing these ruins; since I was very young (like, elementary school) I'd been fascinated with the city, and visiting it had been on my bucket list since my first Latin class back in 2006. I also had my own Archaeology presentation to give, a five-to-ten minute speech about the Villa of the Mysteries, a sprawling country estate that had once housed wealthy families and a thriving wine business. But unfortunately - since daylight savings' had been a few weekends earlier - the sun was setting fast. We sped through the ancient streets with their signature "crosswalks" (see photo), cramming for a quick full-group photo in the odion (an ancient concert hall), crisscrossing the ancient Forum with Vesuvius brooding ominously in the background, coming face to face with plaster casts of ancient bodies in the Stabian Baths complex, giggling in front of the famous "Cave Canem" mosaic (below), and wandering the enormous expanse of the luxurious House of the Faun. All too soon for me, it was dark and we were leaving the city walls for a quick rendevous with the Villa of the Mysteries (I gave my presentation by the light of an iPhone...yeah).

Pompeiian crosswalks! (Wagon wheels could fit in the grooves while pedestrians didn't need to get their feet filthy with the muck and mud of the street)

Cave Canem: Beware of Dog

While excavating Pompeii, archaeologists found cavities in the hardened ash where corpses had decomposed and left their imprints behind. Since then, plaster has been poured into these cavities so that we can see the bodies of the volcano victims at the moment of death. 

Very eerie.

We were staying in a hotel in Pompei (note the spelling difference between the modern Pompei and ancient Pompeii) that gave us a fantastic meal that compensated for the abysmal WiFi and rocklike mattresses. It had been a full day, so my friend Holly and I collapsed on our beds after dinner and did very little else until morning, besides take a cold shower and read some of A Study in Scarlet. 

Vesuvius in the morning

The next morning we enjoyed a delicious and very European breakfast courtesy of the hotel: pastries, muesli, yogurt, ham, cheese, fruit, rolls, cake, and lots of options for caffè. Then we loaded once again onto the bus for a drive down the legendary Amalfi Coast. Known to packed during the summer, it was equally beautiful even on this November morning, the sunlight illuminating the electric blue water and the spectacular craggy cliffs plunging into the sea. Our route wound through impossibly tiny streets in the most charming Italian towns, their brightly colored buildings practically shining in the daylight. Ceramic roofs and walls - yes, ceramic roofs and walls - in particular captured my gaze; have you ever seen a ceramic church steeple?

Amalfi Coast

Ceramic church

We ended our drive at little city of (surprise!) Amalfi, where we were finally let loose to explore its steep upward streets and its delightful shops, churches, restaurants, and seafront. First we explored the Cathedral of Sant'Andrea/Saint Andrew, where (some of?) the bones of the saint are kept along with many other holy objects, including what may or may not be a piece of the Holy Cross itself. The architecture was stunning and exotic after over a month in Rome; it had a distinctly Middle Eastern or Byzantine feel that classical, Catholic Rome would never have allowed back in the day, and it made for a very lovely tour.

Church of Sant'Andrea, Amalfi

Afterwards we found a cute little restaurant for a nice lunch up the hill (being right on the water, Amalfi climbs up the foot of the coastal "mountains") and settled in for a calm, relaxing afternoon of shopping and eating gelato...in true Italian fashion. It had been a very tiring few weeks for everybody, with early morning tours every Saturday and jam-packed weeks of studying, so there was nothing I would rather have done than spend a leisurely half-day in Amalfi. The air was warm and fresh and clean, the sky was brilliantly blue, the water was calm and sparkling with sunlight, and Amalfi itself was worth every bit of hype I'd encountered. (Plus, since it was off-season, the crowds were completely manageable, which made a tremendous difference.) I bought a little bottle of limoncello and a small ceramic replica of Pompeii's "Cave Canem" mosaic (since both ceramics and limoncello are typical exports of the Amalfi area). 

In the last hour before the bus arrived to take us back to Pompei, most of the SMC girls made it down to the waterfront for some photos. As we sat on the dock, dipping our feet in the chilly Mediterranean, it seemed to me that for the first time we were all actually bonding. Of course, throughout our first month we had been making friends and enjoying adventures together, but mostly we'd been operating in small groups of friends that occasionally shifted and mixed. But now, it felt like we were all just enjoying each other's company as a big group, not smaller factions.

Maybe it's something in the water. :)

*Smicks: derived from SMC; Saint Mary's College students

Matera: November 3

(Last installation on the Matera Adventure.)

I woke up (first to little Robin's wailing at about two o'clock in the morning, and then to my alarm five hours later) and trundled downstairs for a second attempt at breakfast with Armando. To my relief, he did not insist that I cook this morning but instead prepared a beautiful spread of foccaccia, hard boiled eggs, and delicious little pastries with white frosting. Espidenzo lumbered in and asked if I'd gotten my permesso di soggiorno yet (related to my visa, allowing me to stay in the country), because it seemed that Armando was about to welcome me into the family. (I blushed and Armando, not amused, swatted him with a towel.) It was true, though, that I was getting treatment far beyond the expectations I'd had for the owners of a bed and breakfast, and I was extremely grateful, eager to repay in any way I could.

Delicious little breakfast pastries

So Armando put me to work. Not grueling labor, of course, but enough to keep me busy for a good chunk of the morning. First, I served as translator between him and my Japanese friend ("Would you like tomatoes with that?"). Then I helped Armando strip some of the beds, first my own and then some of the other guests', after packing up my things for the return journey. I also wrote, at Armando's request, a glowing report of my stay at the Bagni di Sole, not a word of which was exaggerated. Armando told me he wanted me to work for him during the summer, which honestly was a tempting offer that I still consider from time to time when I think of how much I will miss Italy. Then we got in the car and drove around modern Matera to visit his wife, Rosaria.

We made a few stops along the way. As it turned out, Armando sold his eggs to a few people around town and gave them for free to a friend who was struggling to pay the bills. It was very touching to see him, by no means a young man, darting all over Matera with his precious eggs and striking up conversations with people we saw along the way. Clearly he was a recognized figure in town. (Perhaps it was because he rented out apartments and owned a business in addition to running the Bagni.) It was a beautiful day, and the drive - along with meeting plenty of friendly people - was a pleasant one.

Armando's wife was a delightful and hospitable woman who was completely surprised to see me...apparently Armando hadn't included me in his list of things he was bringing home. She immediately sat me down and asked if I wanted anything to eat or drink before taking me on a tour of their apartment, which was large and spacious and beautifully decorated. What looked like very high-quality paintings hung on almost every wall, and their terrace was practically a rainforest of beautiful potted plants (she almost gave me one after I mentioned how pretty I thought they were). She and Armando asked for my phone number and Rome address so they could contact me, and so I could contact them if I "need anything," at which point I was very touched. Then Armando gave me a tour of an apartment he rents out - one he wanted me to rent when I brought my mom to Matera, which apparently he'd decided I was going to do.

Pepignello, the little kitten!

Pepino, his papa

As we drove back to the Bagni, Armando stopped and took me for one last gelato before I grabbed my things and headed for the bus station...but not before a brief stop at the B&B. There, I was also given an entire loaf of fantastic Matera-made bread and a homemade whistle in the shape of a bird. I'd seen clay whistles like these in the shops down in the sassi, and this one apparently had been made by Gianfranco and his friends. Armando also gave me a tour of his chicken coop, which was crawling with cooing hens and a few strutting roosters, and pressed a few cans of juice on me to take on my long journey back to Rome. By the time I boarded the bus to leave, I was teary-eyed at the prospect of saying goodbye; in just three days I felt like I'd received a third grandfather. I kissed him on each cheek in true Italian fashion, promised that I would mail him the photograph I'd taken of the two of us, and wished aloud that I'd be able to return in the spring. Then the bus pulled away and headed back to Bari.

                       

The gifts I received from Matera!

I arrived with a good hour and a half until the train from Bari to Rome left, so I went into the piazza in front of the train station to eat a snack and drink one of the juices Armando had given me. I sat on a bench near a bus stop and was minding my own business when two older Italian women sat down next to me and started chatting. I wasn't paying particular attention - not that I could have understood much if I had - until I realized that one of them was speaking directly at me.

And so I embarked on another adventure with native Italians. In fragmented Italian, I realized that they were talking about my nose. "It's a French nose," said one of them.

I told them I was American, and we were off. They wanted to know where I was from, what I was studying, how I liked Bari, which school I was with, how I liked Italy...etc. Then, they introduced themselves - Angela and Gina - and pulled me into the nearest bar to buy me a caffè. Angela was a tiny woman with a deep, gravelly voice who smoked heavily; Gina was a plump light-haired grandmotherly type. I was so bewildered and pleased that I went with them; Gina was almost giddy with delight when I offered her my arm to help cross the busy street, and the three of us squeezed into the crowded bar and drank strong espresso. I asked if the two of them were sisters or friends; Angela's response was a bit too fast for me to catch, but it sounded like they also had just met each other! (Italian hospitality - particularly southern Italian hospitality - never fails to amaze me, even now.)

After our caffè, we went and sat down outside. They (like almost every Italian I'd met that weekend) asked me if I was engaged; I said no, not even to an American, and they launched into a banter that I half-understood about marriage and children and so forth, something about making sure to find a good husband who helped share the work. I told them I went to an all-women's college so I didn't need to worry about boys; they seemed to appreciate that. Gina invited me point-blank to come stay at her house (never mind that I'd met her about twenty minutes earlier on a bus stop bench and could barely speak the language).

And then, once again, I had to say goodbye to my two new friends. They told me exactly where to go to catch my train and kissed me goodbye. I was getting sad from all of the farewells from these ordinary yet extraordinary people I'd met, but I was eager to return to Rome to tell my friends about my adventures. I boarded the train feeling completely different from the girl who'd arrived barely forty-eight hours earlier. Exhausted, but thrilled. Ready for whatever came next.

Thank you for bearing with this drawn out and incredibly long recount. Up next: the Rome Program five-day holiday to the Bay of Naples. SPQR!

Matera: November 2

(Continuing from the last post.)

By the time I got downstairs the next morning, Morlaine and Robin had gone. I was sad to see them go but already eager for today's adventures. I found Armando right away, who greeted me with a kiss on each cheek and offered me eggs for breakfast, "straight from the ass of the hen." I heartily agreed and was brought into the kitchen, where Armando asked me for how many minutes ("Tre minuti? Quattro?") I wanted my eggs to cook. Not having a semblance of a clue, I said four; he had me keep an eye on them, cooking in their shells in a small cup of water. After four minutes, I said they were finished, and Armando brought them to one of the guest tables with a piece of foccaccia. Espidenzo brought me a fresh caffè, and Armando sat across from me as I started to work on the eggs.

They were pure liquid inside. Not wanting to appear rude, I tried to inconspicuously spoon the globular, membraney, totally uncooked egg-white out of the shell. It pooled in a swimming mess on my plate. Failing spectacularly to appear in control of the situation, I frantically tried to mop up the goop with the foccaccia. That proving largely ineffective, I tried scooping it onto my spoon like soup; for the most part, it just slid right off. I kept my face as composed as possible amid the fragments of eggshell and puddles of egg and dove into the second (equally problematic) egg, trying vainly to at least scoop out the yoke (which, as I thought bravely, I liked runny anyway).

The fateful breakfast

Finally, I swallowed my pride and confessed to Armando in rudimentary Italian that I didn't know how to eat eggs like this. To make a long story short, he didn't either, because contrary to my belief Italians prefer their eggs cooked all the way, too. So it was not a cultural difference I was experiencing after all; I was just dumb enough to eat raw eggs for breakfast. I apologized to Armando for wasting two of his beautiful fresh eggs, and he replied easily that tomorrow would be better. Grateful for his understanding, I scarfed down the rest of the foccaccia and a sweet veneziano square before getting my things for our trip to the Belvedere (literally "beautiful to see"), where Armando still promised to take me.

Though it was foggy when we left the Bagni, it was clear by the time we reached the Belvedere in Armando's car. It was a stretch of flat ground at the top of a rocky outcrop across a small valley from the old sector of Matera, a picturesque view of the sassi, which are entire neighborhoods carved out of and into the stone cliffs. (Matera is one of the oldest continually inhabited settlements in the world, with some prehistoric cave dwellings dating from the Paleolithic period.) Armando led me down the great hill for some good photos, pointing out landmarks in the city like the Duomo. We spoke all the way down (and in the car) in Italian, for unlike the younger workers he knew zero English; like many of the Italian adults I was to encounter, one of his first questions for me was whether or not I was engaged (that I was only nineteen did not seem to register as an adequate reason for not having a fiancee), followed shortly thereafter by whether I was Protestant or Catholic. For about twenty minutes or so we wandered around the hill as I took pictures and asked questions, peering into a few ancient caves used by shepherds and bandits during and before Biblical times.

The sassi from the Belvedere

Armando!

See the stone cave ahead of the rock-cut homes

The tower is the church of San Pietro

Shepherds and bandits would live in these caves

The sun peeped out as we drove away from the Belvedere. Armando took me to a cafe and treated me to a small southern Italian sweet, a custard-filled pastry with cherry jam on top, and a caffè. Then he offered to drop me off at the sassi so I could explore on foot; with another kiss on each cheek, he bid me a good day and promised to see me either that night or the next morning.

For the rest of the day, then, I wandered the beautiful streets of the Matera sassi, peeking into abandoned wine cellars and climbing through old stone-carved residences, even a little chapel. For about a half hour I sat on the roof of one empty house overlooking the sunny little valley, just breathing and enjoying the fresh, quiet air. (After six weeks in Rome, the clean stillness of the air was a welcome release.) Then I wandered into a medieval wine cellar (still set up as it would have been centuries ago) and met Fabrizio, the owner.

From my rooftop perch

Inside one of the rock-cut wine cellars

We started chatting, and then he offered me a sample of Basilicata herbs in olive oil. It looked so good I decided sit down and try it...and then ended up being served a delicious meal of typical Basilicata cheeses, salamis, olives, crackers, wine, and cookies. Fabrizio cooked it all from scratch, and as he cooked (and I ate) we talked about traveling and life in Matera. It turned out that he was a business owner in Rome but spent parts of tourist season in Basilicata, where he maintained this wine cellar/restaurant overlooking the little valley. I told him how much I appreciated getting away from the city busy-ness for a while, and he spoke of how important it was to take time to be alone, to appreciate the stillness and engage with your surroundings not in the frantic manner of a tourist but in the unhurried ways of a traveler. He had a very calm and composed personality (we spoke mainly English, but with a little Italian sprinkled in...probably for my benefit), and I had a lovely afternoon sharing travel stories and listening to his advice about experiencing Italy. When it came time to pay, he told me I could pay whatever I liked and showed me a little wooden box where patrons put their bills. I had no idea how much to pay, so I dropped in what I hoped was a generous offer for what had been a fascinating afternoon, wrote a thank-you note in his guest book, and said farewell.

Lunch with Fabrizio!

I made my way slowly back through Matera, stopping in a few little shops and making the trek uphill to the Duomo for a spectacular view of the city. As the sun began to set, I left the sassi and headed to more modern territory on the way back to the Bagni di Sole, pausing to watch a spectacular sunset over the distant mountains and feeling absolutely content. When I reached the B&B, Armando was there, greeting a young French couple - Julien and Sandra - and their little son Robin. Armando offered to make me bruschetta for dinner, which I eagerly accepted, and as he bustled about I talked to Julien and Sandra. They lived in Paris, I learned, and were traveling with Robin for the first time (he was only a toddler), though they had traveled much more before parenthood. Sandra spoke excellent Spanish and therefore helped decipher what Armando was saying. (Spanish and Italian are so similar that it's not difficult to have a working understanding of the other. Since I speak about ten words of Spanish, this has not benefitted me much yet.) She seemed astonished, however, when I told her I didn't speak French.

"You don't speak any French?" she asked, genuinely surprised.

I muttered my excuses about taking Latin instead, but the truth is when you're around young Europeans, you just have to get used to feeling like the least intelligent organism in the room. Not because they try to make you feel stupid, but because many of them not only speak but are fluent in at least two languages. Now I'm not one who's in the "AMERICA SUCKS" camp - I mean, being isolated from the great Continent understandably lowers the urgency with which we are inclined to become bilingual - but I do feel a bit defunct by speaking only English with any kind of consistency.

Anyhow, back to bruschetta: It was delicious. I shared some with Espidenzo, who made snide comments to Armando about treating me like a principessa, a princess (I had to admit he was right). Domenico returned and, with the customary kiss on each cheek, asked me if I'd enjoyed last night's dancing; I assured him I had. As he left, he wished me farewell and said it had been a pleasure getting to know me. I was going to miss him, I realized!

After bruschetta, I hung around the fire Armando had made and talked a little bit more to Julien and Sandra before they headed out for dinner. A young Japanese man came in shortly after; though he didn't speak much English, we talked for a little bit, and I learned that he was traveling alone across Europe for a few weeks (though he was a medical student back in Japan). My own two-night adventure had been intimidating enough; I couldn't imagine trekking alone across Europe for weeks on end! (After a few more weekends of travel, I now can picture myself in that situation a bit more easily.)

Overall, it was a peaceful evening after a very full day. I journaled, talked to the Japanese man, told Espidenzo and Gianfranco a bit about what Wisconsin was like, and took a brief walk outside to enjoy the beautiful stars and fresh air one more time before returning to the city the next day. Even in just over twenty-four hours, I felt that I had changed, that my perspective had changed so much. As I stared avidly up at the stars and breathed in the crisp Basilicata night, I had never felt luckier, or more fortunate, or more blessed (however you see it). In coming here alone, I had done something that had scared me - many things that had scared me, in fact - and I had not only survived but loved every second of it. I'd met people, seen things, done things, eaten things, experienced things, and I felt finally like a traveler. Not a tourist. Not a displaced American. Not a wannabe European. A traveler. One who lives in the world. A citizen of Planet Earth. It was a very exciting, very tranquil moment. More than before, I felt ready for what lay ahead. Ready, and even hungry for it.

(I'll continue with November 3 as soon as I can.)

Matera: November 1

The following is adapted from journal entries I wrote while in Matera. Because of the length, I've broken it down by day. Feel free to skim, because I realize it's quite extensive, but I didn't want to leave anything out!

My first solo adventure began thus: At about 6am I peeled myself from my bed and caught the bus to Roma Termini train station for an 8:05 train to Bari, a city on the southeastern coast of Italy in the region of Puglia. It was about a four-hour ride, so I passed the time by watching Troy (after reading Homer's Iliad in Mythology I felt the urge) and killing a spider crawling my neighbor's bag (I didn't know the word for "kill" or "spider" in Italian, so I just did it myself). It was a smooth procedure, but getting off at Bari was a different story. It was November 1st, All Saints Day, which is a national holiday in Italy, meaning that everything is closed except a grungy bar on the corner. Very few people were around, and all the graffiti on the store doors gave it a distinctly seedy and eerie feel, along with the garbage, peeling posters, and dingy shops all veiled in the ever-present haze of cigarette smoke. (It was in all likelihood completely safe, but being alone in unfamiliar territory I felt uneasy and was very happy when the bus to Matera finally pulled up.)

Pull up this picture and you'll find Bari near the heel of the boot and Matera just within the eastern border of the Basilicata region (between the heel and the toe)

I was nervous the whole bus ride because, as we wandered around streets of cities whose names I missed, I realized I didn't actually know where the hell I was going once the bus reached Matera. A nice young man took pity on me (as I frowned over an ancient map the librarian had given me) and told me that the last stop was central Matera - my goal, I thought. But when I disembarked, the deserted streets held nothing familiar. I scrambled between three pieces of paper: the map, a piece of looseleaf with Internet directions, and my itinerary with the address and phone number of my bed and breakfast. Like Bari, the city was completely shut down and totally devoid of passersby. Trying to get my bearings, I set off in what I thought might be the right direction and was stopped almost immediately by a car, in which a polite man asked for directions (which I immediately knew was obviously a sinister plot to catch me unaware and abduct me). That got me very nervous, and I walked onward muttering continuously to myself a combination of encouragement and swearwords. I wandered, hopelessly confused, for almost in hour, completely turned around with woefully inadequate directions and an egregiously oversimplified map. City streets melted into residential avenues in the blinding afternoon sun; I panted and prayed and begged to find the damn place before dark.

Just as I was convinced I was going off the edge of the map (here, there be monsters), I saw a sign for BAGNI DI SOLE B&B. I almost whooped with joy and headed toward it. The scene must have looked quite ridiculous: a sweaty, red-faced, obviously-not-Italian woman half-running toward a bed and breakfast sign, wearing a raincoat in the middle of a gloriously sunny day, carrying a foot-thick backpack and an enormous leather bag. But in my head I was stumbling half-dead toward the Promised Land, having snatched victory from the gaping jaws of defeat.

My situation must have been quite plain as I trudged to the gate, where a young man asked me if I had a reservation. THANK GOD, I HAD MADE IT.

I was welcomed like being welcomed home. Espidenzo, the man at the gate, instantly caught on when I responded that I spoke little Italian but was trying to learn. Armando, the elderly owner, embraced and kissed me, asked my name, introduced himself as the "papà" of the house, and reminded me it was All Saints Day. Gianfranco, the young owner, showed me my room - a spacious, private single - and then left me alone, where I blissfully changed into fresh clothes and tried to cool down. Shortly thereafter I went outside to snap a few photos of the gorgeous view over Basilicata, the region in which Matera lies. Espidenzo explained carefully (in Italian) how to open and shut the gate; then I followed a gravel road to a hillside overlooking vast plains and towering hills and the distant white sparkle of a lake. It was spectacular, especially in the twilight of late afternoon, and I indulged in a few selfies while the disembodied barking of dogs punctured the still, tranquil quiet of the countryside.

My room!

As I made my way back, I ran into Armando again. To my utter delight, he spoke to me in Italian, repeating when I didn't understand and allowing me time to comprehend what he was saying. He invited me to come with him to a beautiful vista for photos the next morning. He also told me that I was "a daughter" and could thus use the informal with him, which nearly brought me to tears, for here was the kind of experience I'd been hoping for: meeting people, interacting with them, experiencing them as they are outside of the tourist world. Being welcomed in such a way was what I'd hoped for.

I expected to spend the rest of that evening at the Bagni di Sole with my emergency stash of granola bars; it was, as I'd discovered earlier, quite far removed from the rest of Matera, and being alone and at night I decided it wouldn't be wise to wander off (and everything was closed for dinner anyway, as far as I had seen). I sat outside with the host of pets, including an adorable and energetic ginger kitten named Pepignello, and then mustered up the courage to talk to a couple sitting inside. They were young and, as it turns out, Dutch, but they spoke excellent English. Their names were Morlaine (I know the spelling is off) and Robin, probably in their mid to later twenties, and they lived in Amsterdam (about which I proceeded to pick their brains, since I had a trip planned in a few weeks). It turns out they travel extensively and have been to China three times (including a six-day train ride from Beijing to Moscow), the Middle East, all over Europe, East and West Africa...but never the Americas or Oceania. They were absolutely delightful and incredibly kind to me; Robin asked if I was going to the pub later, and when I said I wasn't, they invited me to join them. Gianfranco, Espidenzo, and their friend Luigi were going for a folk music night. I was kind of nervous to accept such an invitation, but their friendliness and the ease with which I was speaking with them made me agree to go.

After picking up Antonio, Gianfranco's friend, in Gianfranco's absolutely ancient Jeep (of which he was very proud), we arrived at "Irish Cream" Guinness pub. I stuck to Morlaine and Robin like glue, having finally revealed my age to the inquiring Morlaine. I think now they may have realized they were taking me under their wing, but they said and did nothing to make me feel belittled or even like a third wheel (which, let's face it, I was). They ordered beer, and I helped Morlaine order a sandwich in Italian before ordering one myself (I was mortified to find out later that Morlaine had paid for it and would not let me pay her pack). The three of us sat on a table as the music began, a group of four musicians from Puglia playing traditional southern Italian songs on the accordion, the fiddle, the guitar, and the drum. I had never seen anyone play the drum like that : his hand was almost fluid, gliding across the drum as if stroking it but producing a powerful, driving rhythm. People of all ages gathered to watch and to dance - children through grandparents - on a floor awash with swirling skirts and colored lights.

Blurry picture of Gianfranco (in the cap) playing one of the instruments

Then Domenico showed up. I'd encountered him briefly when Armando had invited me to see the vistas, a mild presence in the background. But this Domenico was totally new: a deep red shirt (which he quickly soaked with sweat and thus removed), gel-crisped hair, tattoos on his neck and arm, sleek glasses, and a hoop earring in one ear (he has to be at least 45-50 years old). This Domenico greeted me as if we'd known each other our whole lives and promptly pulled me in for a kiss on each cheek before reminding me of my meeting with Armando tomorrow (which he would continue to do throughout the evening). This Domenico also brought castanets and showed Morlaine and me how to use them (after about two minutes I thought I'd developed carpal tunnel). And, of course, this Domenico hauled me onto the dance floor with him. I was horrifically clumsy and awkward, but he just grinned the whole time as I mimicked the other dancers and occasionally demonstrated where to put my hands or how to kick my feet. Morlaine and Robin drank their beer and watched as I alternately danced with Domenico and gasped for breath on the sidelines. This was just like a very rowdy and energized American wedding reception, except that this was just another night of folk music for the Italians!

Towards the end, Robin and Morlaine went out for a cigarette (Robin pointed out exactly where they would be and stayed within my view the whole time, bless him), so I mustered up some confidence and rejoined Domenico on the dance floor. I knew I was experiencing something very special. This was Italy - authentic, unsolicited, unrehearsed, by itself and for itself - and we were lucky/fortunate/blessed enough to be welcomed in as guests. It was obvious who the "outsiders" were, but we were treated so kindly that it didn't feel that way. I felt safe with Robin and Morlaine, who also expressed their feelings of luck/fortune at having experienced such a memorable night out.

When we finally left at about 1am, we were treated to Gianfranco and Antonio belting out a song "of love and passion" as we drove through the illuminated Matera. At the Bagni, I tried to express my gratitude to Robin and Morlaine as I said goodnight, but I had no real words for it. I considered writing a note of thanks, maybe with a few pizza or gelato recommendations for when they made it to Rome on their trip in a few days, but I decided against it. I guess there are moments in life when you must accept the gift of another's actions and not be able to repay them...and be at peace with that. I'll certainly never be able to repay all the people who made this trip so special.

(Tune in next time for November 2...which hopefully will be less rambling than this one.)