Just a brief note. We received an email from a friend who said she was sorry she didn't get to see the photos from Paris, that she must have been too late. I replied that the Archives are still there. In case any of you reading don't realize you can do this, if you look on the right side of the blog page, next to the current entry, there are a list of Previous Posts and below that a heading that says "Archives." Under this title are the previous months that we have posted, all the way back to February, so if you missed some things or didn't have time to read everything, you can always go back and see what we posted. If you select "August" for instance, everything I wrote in August will come up, complete with our photos. And, you should then be able to look in the "Previous Posts" to select precisely what is included there.
Please let me know if you have any difficulty viewing any of this or commenting, or whatever.
Also, our daughter Jessica asked if we could date the entries so that when she went back to look, she would know where we were when. This probably isn't as important to most of you, but just so you know, I will be dating only the writings and not the photos. This only applies to the more recent entries, from around a month or two ago.
Grazie!
Rosemary
Friday, August 26, 2005
The Aboca Museum in Sansepolcro
Here are some photos we took in Sansepolcro and at the museum of herbs and medicinal plants. The displays were so beautiful we couldn't help but take a bunch of photos.
Bob at the city wall
Here's Bob at the ancient city wall - after climbing all over to get UP there! Of course his camera is his constant companion.
Book of Pressed Plants
One of the gorgeous books of herbs and medicinal plants with actual plants pressed into the pages and affixed with small strips of labels. If you know me, you can imagine how much I enjoyed seeing these books!
bottles in baskets
These actually looked like empty Chianti bottles but that's not what they were used for. (at least we don't think so!)
Drying herbs & flowers
The entire ceiling in one of the rooms was covered with dried herbs and flowers.
Feet Shampoo & more
We enjoyed seeing these old bottles of natural products and labels - like the one advertising "Feet Shampoo."
Sansepolcro, Toscana 8.24.05
Yesterday we went to Sansepolcro. Rita, our landlady, gave us some free passes to the Aboca Museum that traces the history of herbs and medicinal plants from ancient times. She owns an Erboristoria, a small shop that sells all sorts of herbs and natural products. This is clearly her passion and her profession. She and I share the love of gardens and flowers. Like the beautiful botanical drawings she used to decorate our apartment, that we have the pleasure of seeing every day.
She told us about this museum months ago and gave us free passes. We were determined not to leave Perugia without going there. Two different days last week we had planned to go and then it either rained or we were too tired to get up early enough to make the 7:13 train! But yesterday we made up our minds that rain or shine we were going and made sure we got up at 6 to catch that train. It was around a 1-1/2 hour trip and the views alternated between unattractive-looking factories and small villages to gorgeous rolling hills and fields of green tobacco, sunflowers - their now-brown heads bent towards the ground, lush vineyards and the blue to purple layering of mountains in the distance.
We have had a lot of rain lately - we think we must be getting some of the same storms that have caused flooding in Switzerland and Austria. Almost every day this past week we have had at least a little shower. Some nights have been filled with giant rolling thunder and torrential downpours. I know I have said this before, but after all our years in the desert craving rain, we are really enjoying this. Yesterday looked iffy but we decided to chance it and, being lazy, did not bring an umbrella. Deciding there would always be somewhere to take shelter in that event, we set out, walking through the quiet streets of Perugia centro, passing the workers cleaning the streets and piazzas and the trucks making their morning deliveries. At the station we grabbed a cappuccino and a cornetto and boarded the train. It's very funny to us how they send a single train car to each of these destinations, and even that is not nearly full to capacity.
Sansepolcro is a very pretty little medieval town (when we asked a man for directions later in the day back to the train station, he replied that it was easy to find, after all, he said "Non e Parigi." (meaning it's a small town and not as big as Paris) It is a walled city and according to the brochures, almost unchanged since the Middle Ages. We located the museums and, since it was still too early for them to be open, I sat down to do some sketching and Bob headed off to shoot some photos. We agreed to meet in the chiesa nearby if it started to rain but it never did. In fact, the sky cleared to blue with some storm clouds dancing around, but we stayed dry. I finished up before he got back and ended up getting a bit antsy waiting for him to return. Sometimes this is a bit of a problem for us as it's hard for him to know when to come back to where I am and for me to know which direction he went! At any rate, we found each other and scurried off to the museum.
The Aboca Museum (www.abocamuseum.it) was a real treat. For starters, the walls of the staircases are lined with these wonderful botanical illustrations by Basilius Besler, a botanist and pharmacist from the 1600s, and of course I drooled over every one! Each room in the museum is a delight. One room holds a collection of mortars of every shape and size, in alabaster, bronze, wood, glass, silver, copper, iron and ivory, from at least the 15th century. They have these incredible giant books of medicinal herbs where the actual plants were pressed right into the book and secured with thin strips of labels (I LOVED these!) In the corners of every room are these giant urns with dried herbs and the entire building just smelled and felt wonderful. Aromatherapy at its finest I would say! They had cabinets with painted ceramic jars, glass bottles and containers in a whole range of shapes and sizes and tools for cultivating the plants. In one room the entire ceiling is hung with dried plants and flowers creating the most beautiful effect. They have a complete apothecary shop with all the furnaces, distillation tools etc. for the preparation of medicinal herbs.
Across the street from the museum is an herb garden where you can see medicinal plants and herbs in their natural state. There's also a statue of Piero Della Francesca, the Renaissance artist who was born in Sansepolcro and whose famous painting "The Resurrection" hangs in the Museo Civico there, among his other works.
We had a lovely lunch in a small restaurant called Il Convivo. Bob had the spinach ravioli and I tried their Pasta Primavera, both very nice.
We enjoyed just walking around the city. It's fairly small and quiet. And flat. People were riding bicycles all over, which is quite a difference from Perugia with all its steep streets! Only crazy tourists rent or ride bikes around here!
We caught the 4pm train back to Perugia just as the storm clouds were gathering and watched the rain and the lightning from our comfortable seats. It was beginning to rain when we pulled into the station and we had just enough time to run across the street to a little bar and order a coffee and a panini before the rain - and hail - came down in buckets! We had our little snack and when it seemed to slow for a bit we asked the waiter if they could spare a "busta di plastica per refuiti" (plastic bag they use for garbage) to cover our stuff, and they were glad to oblige. We made it home without getting wet and it didn't rain again until later in the night.
We can't believe that next week is September! That will be our sixth month here in Perugia. Amazing. We've enjoyed this quiet month here but we're aware that in this next week the students will be back and the locals will come home from their vacations, shops that have been closed for vacation will reopen and things in Perugia will be back to normal. We have really enjoyed watching these seasons change and look forward to seeing what it looks like in the fall. Life is good.
Ciao,
Rosemary e Robert
She told us about this museum months ago and gave us free passes. We were determined not to leave Perugia without going there. Two different days last week we had planned to go and then it either rained or we were too tired to get up early enough to make the 7:13 train! But yesterday we made up our minds that rain or shine we were going and made sure we got up at 6 to catch that train. It was around a 1-1/2 hour trip and the views alternated between unattractive-looking factories and small villages to gorgeous rolling hills and fields of green tobacco, sunflowers - their now-brown heads bent towards the ground, lush vineyards and the blue to purple layering of mountains in the distance.
We have had a lot of rain lately - we think we must be getting some of the same storms that have caused flooding in Switzerland and Austria. Almost every day this past week we have had at least a little shower. Some nights have been filled with giant rolling thunder and torrential downpours. I know I have said this before, but after all our years in the desert craving rain, we are really enjoying this. Yesterday looked iffy but we decided to chance it and, being lazy, did not bring an umbrella. Deciding there would always be somewhere to take shelter in that event, we set out, walking through the quiet streets of Perugia centro, passing the workers cleaning the streets and piazzas and the trucks making their morning deliveries. At the station we grabbed a cappuccino and a cornetto and boarded the train. It's very funny to us how they send a single train car to each of these destinations, and even that is not nearly full to capacity.
Sansepolcro is a very pretty little medieval town (when we asked a man for directions later in the day back to the train station, he replied that it was easy to find, after all, he said "Non e Parigi." (meaning it's a small town and not as big as Paris) It is a walled city and according to the brochures, almost unchanged since the Middle Ages. We located the museums and, since it was still too early for them to be open, I sat down to do some sketching and Bob headed off to shoot some photos. We agreed to meet in the chiesa nearby if it started to rain but it never did. In fact, the sky cleared to blue with some storm clouds dancing around, but we stayed dry. I finished up before he got back and ended up getting a bit antsy waiting for him to return. Sometimes this is a bit of a problem for us as it's hard for him to know when to come back to where I am and for me to know which direction he went! At any rate, we found each other and scurried off to the museum.
The Aboca Museum (www.abocamuseum.it) was a real treat. For starters, the walls of the staircases are lined with these wonderful botanical illustrations by Basilius Besler, a botanist and pharmacist from the 1600s, and of course I drooled over every one! Each room in the museum is a delight. One room holds a collection of mortars of every shape and size, in alabaster, bronze, wood, glass, silver, copper, iron and ivory, from at least the 15th century. They have these incredible giant books of medicinal herbs where the actual plants were pressed right into the book and secured with thin strips of labels (I LOVED these!) In the corners of every room are these giant urns with dried herbs and the entire building just smelled and felt wonderful. Aromatherapy at its finest I would say! They had cabinets with painted ceramic jars, glass bottles and containers in a whole range of shapes and sizes and tools for cultivating the plants. In one room the entire ceiling is hung with dried plants and flowers creating the most beautiful effect. They have a complete apothecary shop with all the furnaces, distillation tools etc. for the preparation of medicinal herbs.
Across the street from the museum is an herb garden where you can see medicinal plants and herbs in their natural state. There's also a statue of Piero Della Francesca, the Renaissance artist who was born in Sansepolcro and whose famous painting "The Resurrection" hangs in the Museo Civico there, among his other works.
We had a lovely lunch in a small restaurant called Il Convivo. Bob had the spinach ravioli and I tried their Pasta Primavera, both very nice.
We enjoyed just walking around the city. It's fairly small and quiet. And flat. People were riding bicycles all over, which is quite a difference from Perugia with all its steep streets! Only crazy tourists rent or ride bikes around here!
We caught the 4pm train back to Perugia just as the storm clouds were gathering and watched the rain and the lightning from our comfortable seats. It was beginning to rain when we pulled into the station and we had just enough time to run across the street to a little bar and order a coffee and a panini before the rain - and hail - came down in buckets! We had our little snack and when it seemed to slow for a bit we asked the waiter if they could spare a "busta di plastica per refuiti" (plastic bag they use for garbage) to cover our stuff, and they were glad to oblige. We made it home without getting wet and it didn't rain again until later in the night.
We can't believe that next week is September! That will be our sixth month here in Perugia. Amazing. We've enjoyed this quiet month here but we're aware that in this next week the students will be back and the locals will come home from their vacations, shops that have been closed for vacation will reopen and things in Perugia will be back to normal. We have really enjoyed watching these seasons change and look forward to seeing what it looks like in the fall. Life is good.
Ciao,
Rosemary e Robert
Private Lessons 8.26.05
Private Lessons 8.26.05
Since we finished school in May we have discussed finding someone who could give us some private lessons. We tried checking the board in the lobby of the Universita per Stranieri with no success and just asking around. One day we ran into one of our former teachers, Chiara, and asked if she knew anyone. At first Chiara, who teaches at the Stranieri and is the mother of an adorable 2-year-old little girl thought we were asking if SHE could teach us. Her eyes became very large and she absolutely declined in a most emphatic way! We explained that we did not mean that SHE should teach us, but that perhaps she might know someone who could. She said she would try and also asked Federica, our other teacher and between them, they knew someone. Her name is Roberta and it took about a week for us to dial the phone correctly to call her back and tell her that yes, we were definitely interested in having her give us private lessons and we arranged to meet, to see if we liked each other and wanted to continue.
We liked her right away. Her friendliness and easy manner was disarming and we felt that we could both be comfortable with this arrangement, which is for her to come to our house once a week on Thursday at 5:30pm and spend two hours with us. Some lessons might be separated with one hour for Bob and one for me, or we might just work together. We think she is going to be great and we have been working harder just in this past week than we had for a while. Partly it is too easy here. Too many people speak English and most of the people we have met are English-speaking foreigners like us. We have gotten the hang of talking with the grocer and the fruit and vegetable guy, in buying bread and ordering coffee. But we want to be able to speak to Italians about regular every day stuff and have meaningful conversations. Plus, we believe it will be even more critical that we learn more before we go to Sicily, where we don't expect as many English speakers. We're improving, but we're confident that with Roberta's help we will begin to make more rapid progress.
She gave us a bunch of homework, which we worked on diligently. One part of it entailed looking at 5 or 6 different photos and saying who the people were, where they were and what they were dong. And, what they would be saying. This is a perfect example of the differences between Bob and I. I looked at the pictures and created these little scenarios, each complete with names and a little background (like, the couple in the picture are married, they are going into the bank to borrow money so that they can buy a new house, they are nervous, etc) and made up a little dialogue of what they would say. Since Bob and I did not share with each other what we had written I was astounded to see that he had simply said, for instance, "this is a photo of a man and a woman. They are going into a store. He says "You first." Each of my answers took half a page. His were just a few lines! It was hilarious!! Our next-door neighbors, Doug and Esther said it was a perfect example of "women are from Venus, men are from Mars!" We had to agree!
One day we tried playing Scrabble using only Italian words. It was pretty painful and we didn't get far before we got frustrated. Then we decided another day to try just doing it the regular way (I won! - Bob says I cheat, but it's not true) but we had to look up or translate the words we made into Italian. That was more fun.
Mostly we just try to talk to each other as much as possible in Italian. We are always trying to figure out how to say in Italian whatever it is we want to say. And we watch Italian television (I've told you about the game shows!). It's amazing to me some of the really bad American films they have dubbed into Italian. Like the dreadful one we watched the other night about this crazy electrical storm that was wreaking havoc in a small American city. With Gary Sandy, and John Schneider (from Dukes of Hazard fame if you can believe that!). It was so dreadful, I had to keep making comments as if I were the guys in Mystery Science Theater (I hope you get the reference) making fun of the whole movie all the way through! A really bad film but somehow more amusing in Italian!
After our lesson we went over to Il Segretto, one of our favorite restaurants and had dinner (grilled chicken and potatoes for me, a pasta dish for Bob and we shared a mushroom bruschetta and a half liter of red wine).
Now it's after 11pm and I am fading fast. No rain today so we were able to do some laundry. I spent some time this morning cleaning the house while Bob went off to run some errands. A gelato was in the cards for this afternoon and we spent some time just wandering around and sitting on a bench in the sun in Piazza Italia. All in all a very satisfying day!
Buona sera,
Rosemary and Robert
Since we finished school in May we have discussed finding someone who could give us some private lessons. We tried checking the board in the lobby of the Universita per Stranieri with no success and just asking around. One day we ran into one of our former teachers, Chiara, and asked if she knew anyone. At first Chiara, who teaches at the Stranieri and is the mother of an adorable 2-year-old little girl thought we were asking if SHE could teach us. Her eyes became very large and she absolutely declined in a most emphatic way! We explained that we did not mean that SHE should teach us, but that perhaps she might know someone who could. She said she would try and also asked Federica, our other teacher and between them, they knew someone. Her name is Roberta and it took about a week for us to dial the phone correctly to call her back and tell her that yes, we were definitely interested in having her give us private lessons and we arranged to meet, to see if we liked each other and wanted to continue.
We liked her right away. Her friendliness and easy manner was disarming and we felt that we could both be comfortable with this arrangement, which is for her to come to our house once a week on Thursday at 5:30pm and spend two hours with us. Some lessons might be separated with one hour for Bob and one for me, or we might just work together. We think she is going to be great and we have been working harder just in this past week than we had for a while. Partly it is too easy here. Too many people speak English and most of the people we have met are English-speaking foreigners like us. We have gotten the hang of talking with the grocer and the fruit and vegetable guy, in buying bread and ordering coffee. But we want to be able to speak to Italians about regular every day stuff and have meaningful conversations. Plus, we believe it will be even more critical that we learn more before we go to Sicily, where we don't expect as many English speakers. We're improving, but we're confident that with Roberta's help we will begin to make more rapid progress.
She gave us a bunch of homework, which we worked on diligently. One part of it entailed looking at 5 or 6 different photos and saying who the people were, where they were and what they were dong. And, what they would be saying. This is a perfect example of the differences between Bob and I. I looked at the pictures and created these little scenarios, each complete with names and a little background (like, the couple in the picture are married, they are going into the bank to borrow money so that they can buy a new house, they are nervous, etc) and made up a little dialogue of what they would say. Since Bob and I did not share with each other what we had written I was astounded to see that he had simply said, for instance, "this is a photo of a man and a woman. They are going into a store. He says "You first." Each of my answers took half a page. His were just a few lines! It was hilarious!! Our next-door neighbors, Doug and Esther said it was a perfect example of "women are from Venus, men are from Mars!" We had to agree!
One day we tried playing Scrabble using only Italian words. It was pretty painful and we didn't get far before we got frustrated. Then we decided another day to try just doing it the regular way (I won! - Bob says I cheat, but it's not true) but we had to look up or translate the words we made into Italian. That was more fun.
Mostly we just try to talk to each other as much as possible in Italian. We are always trying to figure out how to say in Italian whatever it is we want to say. And we watch Italian television (I've told you about the game shows!). It's amazing to me some of the really bad American films they have dubbed into Italian. Like the dreadful one we watched the other night about this crazy electrical storm that was wreaking havoc in a small American city. With Gary Sandy, and John Schneider (from Dukes of Hazard fame if you can believe that!). It was so dreadful, I had to keep making comments as if I were the guys in Mystery Science Theater (I hope you get the reference) making fun of the whole movie all the way through! A really bad film but somehow more amusing in Italian!
After our lesson we went over to Il Segretto, one of our favorite restaurants and had dinner (grilled chicken and potatoes for me, a pasta dish for Bob and we shared a mushroom bruschetta and a half liter of red wine).
Now it's after 11pm and I am fading fast. No rain today so we were able to do some laundry. I spent some time this morning cleaning the house while Bob went off to run some errands. A gelato was in the cards for this afternoon and we spent some time just wandering around and sitting on a bench in the sun in Piazza Italia. All in all a very satisfying day!
Buona sera,
Rosemary and Robert
Sunday, August 21, 2005
Going to the Questura in Perugia 8-21-05
You have worked through the process, provided the certificates and the proof of all the things you need proof of and have been granted your visa! Congratulations!! You have arrived! You are living in Italy!! You are done, right? Wrong. Within 8 days of your arrival you must go to the Questura, the main police headquarters, which issues, among other things, Permessi di Soggiorno (stay permits) to foreigners and passports to Italians. They do a bunch of other stuff too, but just what is a mystery to us, because there is very little if any signage indicating who should go where for what service.
Here’s our experience with The Questura in Perugia:
It is located at Via Cortenese, Number 157, a short bus ride from centro and not far from the main train station – but the buses don’t run early in the morning so you might want to do what we did, and take a cab.
We expected that we would be able to apply for our "permesso di soggiorno" at the Universita per Stranieri where we had registered for a language class. However, we learned that since we do not have a Student Visa we would have to go to the regular Questura down in the lower part of town to apply. You are required to do this within eight days of arriving. The way this system works is that you get there as early in the morning as possible - they are only open Monday, Wednesday and Fridays - and get in line. Hopefully you get in that day. If not, you must come back and start all over. We decided to take a taxi in the early morning since the Questura is not that close to our apartment. Many of the people here in Perugia speak at least a bit of English, although it is not universal. Especially not, it seems when you are doing some official business like at the Questura. So be prepared.
We got up that morning at 5am and threw on our clothes, and called a cab. There were already at least 20 people waiting when we arrived. The way this works is, you get there early, around 5 is best. At 7:30 the door opens and an officer hands out numbers. When the door opens it is a mad rush to get one. You have to be really firm and stand your ground or these guys will push right through you. They let you into a big yard where there are a few tables and some chairs - most of us sat on the curbs with our papers in our laps and filled out the forms. We were happy to find that some of the terms were in Italian and in English. We have a 3-ring binder with plastic sleeves where we put multiple copies of all of our documents so it's easy to see find them.
They don't actually perform any services until 8:30am, but once we had our place in line we found a seat and settled in for the wait. They have 5 windows with plexiglass between them and you but at any given time the person behind the window disappears into the back of the office. In front of these windows are 5 separated queues (the word is “sportello” for these windows, in Italian.) We noticed that people were crowded into these queues who hadn't been in front of us originally and we figured out that they were calling the numbers in order of people who were there for the first time, but that if you were returning to pick up your document you could just work your way up the line and be served. Which explains why the numbers moved so slowly! We ended up with number 82 & 83 and waited for our number to be called, around 10am. Not as bad as we had expected. The woman behind the counter frowned reading through our papers and we were certain she was not finding things to her liking. We held our breaths as she looked through them, giving us back a few - copies of our birth certificates, the rent receipt and copies of our airline tickets. We brought all the same papers with us that we had sent to the Consulate in Los Angeles to obtain our Long-Stay Visa (Residenza Elettiva) in the first place with the addition of something called a "copia cessione fabricato" provided by our landlord, which is like a contract. We had to provide 4 passport photos - we had these taken here in Perugia in a little camera/telephone/electronics shop since they are a slightly different size than the ones we use in the U.S. along with what is called a "marco bollo" a tax stamp that cost 11 euros each which is the fee you pay for the document, and you can get these at the Tabacchi. We were so worried that she would want something that we didn't have and we would not be able to understand but all seemed in order and she put no less than 6 rubber stamps on the form and signed it, stapling the whole thing together and giving us back a copy. Then we were told we had to wait for the actual Permesso di Soggiorno, which was expected to take a few weeks. She told us we could check online to see when it was ready, but we never could figure out how to do it. At any rate, she said, it would definitely be ready for us to pick up there after May 17.
Back to the Questura
On that date, a Wednesday, we went back to pick up our final Permessi di Soggiorno. At 7:50am we left our appartamento and got on the bus so that we'd be there when it opened at 8:30. We did, it did, and we jockeyed for our position in line until we got up to the counter a half hour later only to get up to the window to be told that they only do return people like us on Tuesdays and Thursdays!
So, we returned the following day, didn't have to wait long and were handed our official, bonafide, authentic, genuine, 100% legal Permessi di Soggiorno (Permits of Stay)!!!
Of course, looking back on it all, it doesn’t seem so bad, and even amusing. Everyone who goes through this process can certainly offer the commune advice about how to make this process run more smoothly, like at least having an information booth where you can ask questions. Or a posting of the process and what you need and where to go. But they don’t and everyone there feels just a bit edgy, not knowing what to expect or where to stand or how the number system works, so we hope you find this helpful in working your way through it. The most astonishing thing is the people who really do want to crash your line and work their way to the front, no matter if there are 10 people in front of them. So stand your ground and keep moving forward. We found that a smile and a polite manner went a long way to having them help you through it all. After all, we are in their country, hoping they would let us stay, well worth the price of a few uncomfortable mornings.
We believe we had way more things in our binder than necessary, but here’s what we brought with us:
1. Our visas, of course
2. Birth certificate and, if appropriate, Marriage License, translated into Italian, with the added “Apostile” (certification of the certification done by the state/county/city of your birth/marriage applied to these certificates) before we left the states
3. Proof of a place to live (the copia cessione fabricato from our landlord)
4. Proof of income (lots of income – letters – and I do mean letters, not just bank statements – and pension amounts and bank account totals)
5. 4 photos that you have taken here in Perugia at the little camera/electronics shops who do it on the spot. They are a different size than the passport photos in the states so you have to do it here.
6. A “Marco da Bollo”, a tax stamp that looks like a postage stamp, and costs 11 euros. You get these at any Tabacchi and they should know exactly what you need.
7. Our return airline tickets
As I said before, the woman at the window/sportello gave us back some of the stuff but never really said just exactly what we needed so we figured more was more and thought it wouldn’t hurt to have extra stuff than to be sent home to get something else.
It’s so much fun and so rewarding to watch them with their little rubber stamps (at least 6!) – bam, bam, bam, stamping all over your application, with great vigor! That’s when we decided we were OK and went off for a celebratory cappuccino and a brioche!
So good luck. If you want to read more about our adventures, check out our blog at www.livecheapmakeart.blogspot.com
We have found also, that most of the expats we have met are more than willing to help and generous with information, so utilize this site and the others and let us know what we can do to help!
Rosemary & Bob
Here’s our experience with The Questura in Perugia:
It is located at Via Cortenese, Number 157, a short bus ride from centro and not far from the main train station – but the buses don’t run early in the morning so you might want to do what we did, and take a cab.
We expected that we would be able to apply for our "permesso di soggiorno" at the Universita per Stranieri where we had registered for a language class. However, we learned that since we do not have a Student Visa we would have to go to the regular Questura down in the lower part of town to apply. You are required to do this within eight days of arriving. The way this system works is that you get there as early in the morning as possible - they are only open Monday, Wednesday and Fridays - and get in line. Hopefully you get in that day. If not, you must come back and start all over. We decided to take a taxi in the early morning since the Questura is not that close to our apartment. Many of the people here in Perugia speak at least a bit of English, although it is not universal. Especially not, it seems when you are doing some official business like at the Questura. So be prepared.
We got up that morning at 5am and threw on our clothes, and called a cab. There were already at least 20 people waiting when we arrived. The way this works is, you get there early, around 5 is best. At 7:30 the door opens and an officer hands out numbers. When the door opens it is a mad rush to get one. You have to be really firm and stand your ground or these guys will push right through you. They let you into a big yard where there are a few tables and some chairs - most of us sat on the curbs with our papers in our laps and filled out the forms. We were happy to find that some of the terms were in Italian and in English. We have a 3-ring binder with plastic sleeves where we put multiple copies of all of our documents so it's easy to see find them.
They don't actually perform any services until 8:30am, but once we had our place in line we found a seat and settled in for the wait. They have 5 windows with plexiglass between them and you but at any given time the person behind the window disappears into the back of the office. In front of these windows are 5 separated queues (the word is “sportello” for these windows, in Italian.) We noticed that people were crowded into these queues who hadn't been in front of us originally and we figured out that they were calling the numbers in order of people who were there for the first time, but that if you were returning to pick up your document you could just work your way up the line and be served. Which explains why the numbers moved so slowly! We ended up with number 82 & 83 and waited for our number to be called, around 10am. Not as bad as we had expected. The woman behind the counter frowned reading through our papers and we were certain she was not finding things to her liking. We held our breaths as she looked through them, giving us back a few - copies of our birth certificates, the rent receipt and copies of our airline tickets. We brought all the same papers with us that we had sent to the Consulate in Los Angeles to obtain our Long-Stay Visa (Residenza Elettiva) in the first place with the addition of something called a "copia cessione fabricato" provided by our landlord, which is like a contract. We had to provide 4 passport photos - we had these taken here in Perugia in a little camera/telephone/electronics shop since they are a slightly different size than the ones we use in the U.S. along with what is called a "marco bollo" a tax stamp that cost 11 euros each which is the fee you pay for the document, and you can get these at the Tabacchi. We were so worried that she would want something that we didn't have and we would not be able to understand but all seemed in order and she put no less than 6 rubber stamps on the form and signed it, stapling the whole thing together and giving us back a copy. Then we were told we had to wait for the actual Permesso di Soggiorno, which was expected to take a few weeks. She told us we could check online to see when it was ready, but we never could figure out how to do it. At any rate, she said, it would definitely be ready for us to pick up there after May 17.
Back to the Questura
On that date, a Wednesday, we went back to pick up our final Permessi di Soggiorno. At 7:50am we left our appartamento and got on the bus so that we'd be there when it opened at 8:30. We did, it did, and we jockeyed for our position in line until we got up to the counter a half hour later only to get up to the window to be told that they only do return people like us on Tuesdays and Thursdays!
So, we returned the following day, didn't have to wait long and were handed our official, bonafide, authentic, genuine, 100% legal Permessi di Soggiorno (Permits of Stay)!!!
Of course, looking back on it all, it doesn’t seem so bad, and even amusing. Everyone who goes through this process can certainly offer the commune advice about how to make this process run more smoothly, like at least having an information booth where you can ask questions. Or a posting of the process and what you need and where to go. But they don’t and everyone there feels just a bit edgy, not knowing what to expect or where to stand or how the number system works, so we hope you find this helpful in working your way through it. The most astonishing thing is the people who really do want to crash your line and work their way to the front, no matter if there are 10 people in front of them. So stand your ground and keep moving forward. We found that a smile and a polite manner went a long way to having them help you through it all. After all, we are in their country, hoping they would let us stay, well worth the price of a few uncomfortable mornings.
We believe we had way more things in our binder than necessary, but here’s what we brought with us:
1. Our visas, of course
2. Birth certificate and, if appropriate, Marriage License, translated into Italian, with the added “Apostile” (certification of the certification done by the state/county/city of your birth/marriage applied to these certificates) before we left the states
3. Proof of a place to live (the copia cessione fabricato from our landlord)
4. Proof of income (lots of income – letters – and I do mean letters, not just bank statements – and pension amounts and bank account totals)
5. 4 photos that you have taken here in Perugia at the little camera/electronics shops who do it on the spot. They are a different size than the passport photos in the states so you have to do it here.
6. A “Marco da Bollo”, a tax stamp that looks like a postage stamp, and costs 11 euros. You get these at any Tabacchi and they should know exactly what you need.
7. Our return airline tickets
As I said before, the woman at the window/sportello gave us back some of the stuff but never really said just exactly what we needed so we figured more was more and thought it wouldn’t hurt to have extra stuff than to be sent home to get something else.
It’s so much fun and so rewarding to watch them with their little rubber stamps (at least 6!) – bam, bam, bam, stamping all over your application, with great vigor! That’s when we decided we were OK and went off for a celebratory cappuccino and a brioche!
So good luck. If you want to read more about our adventures, check out our blog at www.livecheapmakeart.blogspot.com
We have found also, that most of the expats we have met are more than willing to help and generous with information, so utilize this site and the others and let us know what we can do to help!
Rosemary & Bob
Bob’s Flower Images (and some Grapes!)
Here are some of the photographs Bob took down in the Garden where we live. A Paradise, we pinch ourselves every day that we have had the good fortune to be living in such a place. And to have Bob’s delicate touch in capturing its beauty.
Grapes in our Garden
This is just one of the beautiful bunches of grapes hanging off the arbors down in our Garden. Sergio says they are for eating and not wine and they will be turning purple we think.
Red flower with droplets
We really love the deep red color of this flower that starts with a greenish yellow center and opens out slowly.
Two red zinnias
These are the most amazing brilliant red flowers. I think they are in the zinnia family but if you know otherwise, let me know. Bob takes the most beautiful photos of flowers, don’t you think?
Sunday Morning Musings 8.21.05
I slept really late yesterday, after my sleepless night the night before, getting up around 10:30! Bob was already awake, which is really unusual, it's always the other way around. He had already had his coffee and was doing his homework (our new Professoressa gave us a bunch to work on) and the table was filled with all of our Italian books, dictionaries etc. He was waiting for me to have breakfast. It was such a gorgeous day (and the table was so full!) we decided to take our meal outside in our yard. There is a hibiscus tree next to the gazebo and it blooms flowers that start out pink and turn purple. It's covered with them right now. There are still a few roses blooming, some pinks and reds. The forsythia that was golden in the spring turned green early in the summer and is a deep green now. The lavender is starting to show signs of aging and its flowers are fading. Summer is not over yet, but there are signs of its passing.
Yesterday, after breakfast I worked on the images I wanted to post with my writing and we went over to the Internet cafรฉ to check email and post the blog. It was pretty empty and Giovanna, our friend who owns the place, sat beside me on another computer doing some research. We asked her if she ever had a day off - not really - it's open from 10 to 10 7 days a week, maybe a few less hours on Sunday. She has a teenage son, a big burly kid around 17 years old, who is one of these boys who loves to play video games and is always on the computer doing just that. He helps out if she has to dash off to take care of something. Anyway, we asked her if she could ever get away and have a pizza with us some time and she laughed but said that perhaps when Giuseppe came back she could. We asked where he was and she said "Sicily." "Sicily!!" we said in unison (because we have been researching this island quite heavily and trying to talk to everyone who knows about it firsthand). Yes, she said, his father lives there. "His father lives there???" "And do you know Sicily?" we were eager to know. "Certo! She said (of course!) "I LOVE Sicily!" she replied! We were so excited. We started asking her all these questions, she brought up a website and showed us all the beautiful places she insisted we visit when we go. I asked what it was about Sicily in particular that she liked so much and she looked at me and thought for a moment and said "The Life." "The People." "It's beautiful and different and don't let silly movies scare you. It's not that big and it has so much to see and do, you will probably never want to leave." We made her promise to come and visit us and she said she would.
It is absolutely invaluable to get information from people who have actually experienced a place and can tell you just where to go. She promised she would make us a list of places and tell us more about it but she thought, yes, it was a perfect place for us to go for the winter because the climate is so mild and yes, there might be some wind, but isn't that preferable to freezing cold and snow?? We agreed. So, more and more, little by little we are formulating our plan of what to do next. This has been a big issue and one we discuss often. So we are closer now. We will stay in Perugia through November and then get on the road heading south and find a temporary place to live while we look for an apartment. We have also been emailing a friend of Art & Barb who lives in Sicily and is willing to talk with us and give us her 2-cents worth so we are putting one foot in front of the other again and we'll see where we end up.
We were so excited when we left Giovanna's, talking and laughing and hurrying because the sky had grown dark and it felt as if it was going to rain any minute. Bob suggested we grab a bottle of wine and our umbrella and go down to our View to watch the storm roll in. Esther, our August neighbor popped her head out when we passed and we invited her to join us. She laughed, with the impending storm, but grabbed a jacket and followed us down.
It was already starting to sprinkle but the grape leaves above us kept some of it from falling on our heads and we noticed that Giovanni, the gardener had been hard at work weeding and trimming in that part of the garden - probably just that morning since we could see signs of the work he had done, in the neatness of the garden there and in the piles of trimmings he had not yet cleared away. Giovanni's gardening techniques amaze me. He has a really heavy hand at times I think, like the way he ties up an unruly flower bush as if it were a tomato plant! Much the same way we watched him tying the branches of the grapes around the arches, firmly, and without hesitation, as one who has lived with a garden all his long life and is going to show it who's in charge. My own gardening style (which always reminded me of my parenting style!) was to let the plants grow the way they wanted to, expressing their own individual styles and snipping some unruly parts but usually not early enough and allowing them be a little wild and rough around the edges, enjoying the natural beauty of something with a life of its own.
But I digress!
We shared a glass of wine with Esther telling her about Giovanna and Sicily but it started to rain pretty hard so we came back upstairs and sat talking with her in our kitchen. Doug and Esther are our current neighbors. A really terrific young couple, I've written about them already - they are sculptors who are studying the language so they can go and carve stone in a town called Pietrasanta near Pisa where very little English is spoken. Doug came in after a while and we decided to fix an impromptu supper for all of us. They added their bottle of wine to ours, Esther brought in a barley salad to go with my caprese and Bob and I cut the beautiful yellow, red and green peppers, onions and garlic we had just bought at the market the day before. I put some sausages in the oven to cook, sautรฉed the vegetables and heated a loaf of bread. Conversation flowed along with the wine and we talked and laughed until it was late and we were all tired.
The rain lasted all night. I laid awake listening to the sounds of it pouring down around us. This morning the sun is going in and out through a mottled sky of grey and while clouds. I don't know if they are predicting more rain but it is another beautiful morning. I think I'll go make some coffee.
Buon giorno,
Rosemary
Yesterday, after breakfast I worked on the images I wanted to post with my writing and we went over to the Internet cafรฉ to check email and post the blog. It was pretty empty and Giovanna, our friend who owns the place, sat beside me on another computer doing some research. We asked her if she ever had a day off - not really - it's open from 10 to 10 7 days a week, maybe a few less hours on Sunday. She has a teenage son, a big burly kid around 17 years old, who is one of these boys who loves to play video games and is always on the computer doing just that. He helps out if she has to dash off to take care of something. Anyway, we asked her if she could ever get away and have a pizza with us some time and she laughed but said that perhaps when Giuseppe came back she could. We asked where he was and she said "Sicily." "Sicily!!" we said in unison (because we have been researching this island quite heavily and trying to talk to everyone who knows about it firsthand). Yes, she said, his father lives there. "His father lives there???" "And do you know Sicily?" we were eager to know. "Certo! She said (of course!) "I LOVE Sicily!" she replied! We were so excited. We started asking her all these questions, she brought up a website and showed us all the beautiful places she insisted we visit when we go. I asked what it was about Sicily in particular that she liked so much and she looked at me and thought for a moment and said "The Life." "The People." "It's beautiful and different and don't let silly movies scare you. It's not that big and it has so much to see and do, you will probably never want to leave." We made her promise to come and visit us and she said she would.
It is absolutely invaluable to get information from people who have actually experienced a place and can tell you just where to go. She promised she would make us a list of places and tell us more about it but she thought, yes, it was a perfect place for us to go for the winter because the climate is so mild and yes, there might be some wind, but isn't that preferable to freezing cold and snow?? We agreed. So, more and more, little by little we are formulating our plan of what to do next. This has been a big issue and one we discuss often. So we are closer now. We will stay in Perugia through November and then get on the road heading south and find a temporary place to live while we look for an apartment. We have also been emailing a friend of Art & Barb who lives in Sicily and is willing to talk with us and give us her 2-cents worth so we are putting one foot in front of the other again and we'll see where we end up.
We were so excited when we left Giovanna's, talking and laughing and hurrying because the sky had grown dark and it felt as if it was going to rain any minute. Bob suggested we grab a bottle of wine and our umbrella and go down to our View to watch the storm roll in. Esther, our August neighbor popped her head out when we passed and we invited her to join us. She laughed, with the impending storm, but grabbed a jacket and followed us down.
It was already starting to sprinkle but the grape leaves above us kept some of it from falling on our heads and we noticed that Giovanni, the gardener had been hard at work weeding and trimming in that part of the garden - probably just that morning since we could see signs of the work he had done, in the neatness of the garden there and in the piles of trimmings he had not yet cleared away. Giovanni's gardening techniques amaze me. He has a really heavy hand at times I think, like the way he ties up an unruly flower bush as if it were a tomato plant! Much the same way we watched him tying the branches of the grapes around the arches, firmly, and without hesitation, as one who has lived with a garden all his long life and is going to show it who's in charge. My own gardening style (which always reminded me of my parenting style!) was to let the plants grow the way they wanted to, expressing their own individual styles and snipping some unruly parts but usually not early enough and allowing them be a little wild and rough around the edges, enjoying the natural beauty of something with a life of its own.
But I digress!
We shared a glass of wine with Esther telling her about Giovanna and Sicily but it started to rain pretty hard so we came back upstairs and sat talking with her in our kitchen. Doug and Esther are our current neighbors. A really terrific young couple, I've written about them already - they are sculptors who are studying the language so they can go and carve stone in a town called Pietrasanta near Pisa where very little English is spoken. Doug came in after a while and we decided to fix an impromptu supper for all of us. They added their bottle of wine to ours, Esther brought in a barley salad to go with my caprese and Bob and I cut the beautiful yellow, red and green peppers, onions and garlic we had just bought at the market the day before. I put some sausages in the oven to cook, sautรฉed the vegetables and heated a loaf of bread. Conversation flowed along with the wine and we talked and laughed until it was late and we were all tired.
The rain lasted all night. I laid awake listening to the sounds of it pouring down around us. This morning the sun is going in and out through a mottled sky of grey and while clouds. I don't know if they are predicting more rain but it is another beautiful morning. I think I'll go make some coffee.
Buon giorno,
Rosemary
Saturday, August 20, 2005
Vote for your Favorite Blog site (us?)
There is a web site called ExPats in Italy. It's a terrific site for people wanting to move to Italy and it is where we got so much of the information we needed to make our dream possible. There are other people like us who have blogs too and if you are interested in what other ExPats are doing here in Italy, you can read all about them.
You can also vote for your favorite blog at the following web address: http://www.expatsinitaly.com/oneadmin/links.php?parent_id=8
Hopefully you can find this site and obviously we want you to vote for us! Not that there are any prizes or anything, it would just be fun to see how many people are reading.
Grazie!
Rosemary & Bob
You can also vote for your favorite blog at the following web address: http://www.expatsinitaly.com/oneadmin/links.php?parent_id=8
Hopefully you can find this site and obviously we want you to vote for us! Not that there are any prizes or anything, it would just be fun to see how many people are reading.
Grazie!
Rosemary & Bob
A Few of my Watercolors 8.20.05
I thought you might want to see a little bit of what I have been up to lately so here are a few of the watercolors I’ve done recently. Let me know what you think!
R.
R.
Flower Painting detail
This is a detail of a work in progress - one of the incredible white flowers from our garden.
Palazzo Penna
This ancient palazzo is now the home of an art museum we like that exhibits contemporary works, as well as the work of the futurist painter, Dottori.
Wedding dresses in shop window
I saw these beautiful dresses in a wedding shop and just had to do a quick sketch. It made me think of our friend Helena, who loved this shop and I wanted to show here some of the new dresses!
Our Simple Life 8.19.05
It's midnight and I can't sleep so I thought I would just get up and write a little, maybe read my book. We took a walk last night after a late dinner (we have gotten into the after 8pm dinner times around here) and had a gelato. Too late for me I think because now I cannot sleep. Anyway, here I sit, trying to think of what I want to say.
I had a really nice conversation with my brother and his wife the other day and Fred asked me if we still felt like we were on vacation or if we felt like we really lived here. I answered without really thinking a lot about the question that since we did not have a house of our own or jobs or even a car, and that since we were still doing the things that tourists do, like visiting all the surrounding cities and going out most days exploring the different areas of the city, often with a camera around our necks and my paints in my bag, that we did still feel like tourists.
Not quite locals but more than tourists
So it's true, that we do not feel like "locals" yet. I don't think we ever would even if we spent years in this city, in this country. But the truth also is that we feel very comfortable and at home here. We have always liked Perugia, but spending so much time here, we have really come to love the city. We enjoy very much the look and feel of it - its broad Corso Vannucci, where everyone comes to passeggiata; the wonderful medieval streets with all the stone arches and portas; the colors of the city - its warm palette of golds, pinks and oranges, its tans and browns and wonderful old red tile roofs; the way the city cascades down the hillside meeting the green mountains around us. We love looking out at the lights twinkling around us in the evening from every viewpoint.
We know where things are and how to find most of the things we need. We know now to pick up the little guide each month that tells us what is going on where. We know which restaurants we like and where to get the best pizza. We have a favorite gelato place. We know how to send mail at the post office (more complicated than you might imagine!) and where to get the best notecards. We know if the sky is overcast we better bring an umbrella. We know how to buy our bus tickets from the crabby guy at the bus station (for weeks I would try to ask him in my best Italian about the buses and he was always cranky and unfriendly. Then one day Bob tried just tried asking him in English and he was perfectly fine, almost friendly! Go figure.)
The Rhythm of our Days
We have fallen into an uneven rhythm here. We sleep until around 8 - except for the days I get up earlier and maybe early enough to go out to watch the sunrise from our garden view. One of the things I love doing in the morning is opening the windows. I know that may sound silly to you, but in Phoenix, especially in the summer, our houses are locked up, closed down, trying to keep out the heat and keep in the A/C, we would never ever have the windows open all day as we can here! I have even slept with the windows open at night, feeling the cool summer breezes on a few of the warmer nights.
We have our breakfast together - sometimes out in our little yard, sometimes in the kitchen - cappuccino and some bread and butter, yogurt, fruit. Simple meals. Some days I just putter around the apartment, doing a little painting or writing or reading. Some days we go around to the market to pick up a few things. Sometimes we might explore another city by bus or train. Some days, like yesterday we took the bus to the big supermercato called "COOP" that is near the train station to stock up. They have everything there, all in one place and we only buy as much as we can carry, in our cloth shopping bags, home on the bus.
Touching Fruit and Drinking Cheap Wine
We like the big supermercato because we can touch everything ourselves and pick our own fruits and veggies (they provide these gloves that are like thick plastic bags with fingers so your naked hands are not molesting any innocent fruit). In the little markets we point or say "Vorrei degli pommodori, or zucchini or whatever (I would like some tomatoes...) and they pick you some and put it in a bag. We like supporting the little shops and the idea of it, but must admit the prices are better at the larger supermercatos, which is better for our "live cheap" lifestyle. And, at first it all seemed quite charming and romantic to go out every day to buy our groceries for the days' meal. That got old after a while and for us, there are just too many other things to do with our days than spend them in the grocery store. Sometimes we purposely make extra so the next day we can have the leftovers, heated up. Easy, quick and good. Sometimes the sautรฉed vegetables become part of tomorrow's pasta dish or the leftover roasted chicken gets tossed into a salad. We try to be very economical and not waste anything. Bread that's not too fresh in the morning becomes French toast.
We have limited storage space so we shop around once a week, putting some meats in the freezer for later in the week, making sure we shop before Sunday since everything is closed, even the big market. We buy bread more often at the pasticceria, and fruits and vegetables, as we need them also. But they know us now and it's fun to try different kinds each time, finding the ones we like and the ones we don't. Just yesterday in fact we found a wonderful chubby round loaf of whole wheat bread that is absolutely yummy!
Wine is really cheap and good. We only buy bottles that cost less than 5 euros and since we are far from wine aficionados we are perfectly happy with our cheap wine and drink some almost every night with our dinner. We sometimes take a bottle, some plastic cups and a snack and go down to our View, relaxing and watching the sun go down, very aware of how lucky we are.
We have done so much traveling since we arrived, going to the festivals, touring other cities, the month of July was amazing with going to the seaside and then our 10 days in Paris, that we promised ourselves we would lay low in August and just stay in Perugia. I wanted to paint more and read more. We have set out most days to do just that, going our separate ways in the morning and meeting up at home later in the day. I have had some lovely naps in the afternoon (the other day I set my glasses on the bed next to me and then rolled over on them! I took the mangled mess to an eyeglass shop near our internet cafรฉ and thankfully he was able to straighten them out for me so I didn't have to buy a whole new pair of glasses!) We have taken advantage of the cultural events in the evenings. Our days are full and productive but unrushed and relaxing. We take each day, each hour of each day, as it comes. By bedtime I can hardly keep my eyes open. The only stress we have is self-imposed: to write, to draw, to paint, to photograph; and of course dealing with the various technical issues of the computer. What will come of it we don't know. We are just trying to enjoy the process and not worry about the product, but that is often difficult especially for me but I'm trying!
Italian Lessons
We decided that we really needed further instruction in the language. We practice speaking with each other and of course on our daily rounds but still are far from fluent and want to be able to understand better what is being said and to be able to have more complicated conversations than those we have at the supermarket about which tomatoes to buy. I get so tongue-tied sometimes trying to think of the right words to say and it's really difficult to have all but the simplest conversations. It's the weirdest thing sometimes - we think one thing and out of our mouths comes the wrong or even completely opposite thing to what we wanted to say. Like the day I told Rita, our landlady, that we were going to Paris for 10 years when I certainly know the difference between "giorni" (days) and "anni" (years) but that's the kind of stuff that happens. So we asked our former teacher at the University if she knew someone who could help us and she put us in touch with a lovely woman named Roberta, who is going to come to our apartment once a week for two hours and give us private lessons! It's affordable enough for us and will, we hope, help us learn more quickly. We'll let you know how it goes.
I hope whoever is reading this finds it interesting and not too boring. It's always nice to know who's out there and what you think, so thanks for the comments. Our daughter Jessica asked us to put dates on the posts so that she could keep better track of where we were at any particular date. So I have started dating just the stories but not the photos that are posted. So if you are looking at the list on the right side of this blog page, you will see the past entries. The ones with dates - from the past month or so I guess, and before that - are the stories, undated titles are photos.
Buona notte, (maybe I can get back to sleep now!)
Rosemary & Bob
p.s. Thanks to Barbara (Barb & Art) for sending me all the wonderful recipes. I can't wait to try them!
I had a really nice conversation with my brother and his wife the other day and Fred asked me if we still felt like we were on vacation or if we felt like we really lived here. I answered without really thinking a lot about the question that since we did not have a house of our own or jobs or even a car, and that since we were still doing the things that tourists do, like visiting all the surrounding cities and going out most days exploring the different areas of the city, often with a camera around our necks and my paints in my bag, that we did still feel like tourists.
Not quite locals but more than tourists
So it's true, that we do not feel like "locals" yet. I don't think we ever would even if we spent years in this city, in this country. But the truth also is that we feel very comfortable and at home here. We have always liked Perugia, but spending so much time here, we have really come to love the city. We enjoy very much the look and feel of it - its broad Corso Vannucci, where everyone comes to passeggiata; the wonderful medieval streets with all the stone arches and portas; the colors of the city - its warm palette of golds, pinks and oranges, its tans and browns and wonderful old red tile roofs; the way the city cascades down the hillside meeting the green mountains around us. We love looking out at the lights twinkling around us in the evening from every viewpoint.
We know where things are and how to find most of the things we need. We know now to pick up the little guide each month that tells us what is going on where. We know which restaurants we like and where to get the best pizza. We have a favorite gelato place. We know how to send mail at the post office (more complicated than you might imagine!) and where to get the best notecards. We know if the sky is overcast we better bring an umbrella. We know how to buy our bus tickets from the crabby guy at the bus station (for weeks I would try to ask him in my best Italian about the buses and he was always cranky and unfriendly. Then one day Bob tried just tried asking him in English and he was perfectly fine, almost friendly! Go figure.)
The Rhythm of our Days
We have fallen into an uneven rhythm here. We sleep until around 8 - except for the days I get up earlier and maybe early enough to go out to watch the sunrise from our garden view. One of the things I love doing in the morning is opening the windows. I know that may sound silly to you, but in Phoenix, especially in the summer, our houses are locked up, closed down, trying to keep out the heat and keep in the A/C, we would never ever have the windows open all day as we can here! I have even slept with the windows open at night, feeling the cool summer breezes on a few of the warmer nights.
We have our breakfast together - sometimes out in our little yard, sometimes in the kitchen - cappuccino and some bread and butter, yogurt, fruit. Simple meals. Some days I just putter around the apartment, doing a little painting or writing or reading. Some days we go around to the market to pick up a few things. Sometimes we might explore another city by bus or train. Some days, like yesterday we took the bus to the big supermercato called "COOP" that is near the train station to stock up. They have everything there, all in one place and we only buy as much as we can carry, in our cloth shopping bags, home on the bus.
Touching Fruit and Drinking Cheap Wine
We like the big supermercato because we can touch everything ourselves and pick our own fruits and veggies (they provide these gloves that are like thick plastic bags with fingers so your naked hands are not molesting any innocent fruit). In the little markets we point or say "Vorrei degli pommodori, or zucchini or whatever (I would like some tomatoes...) and they pick you some and put it in a bag. We like supporting the little shops and the idea of it, but must admit the prices are better at the larger supermercatos, which is better for our "live cheap" lifestyle. And, at first it all seemed quite charming and romantic to go out every day to buy our groceries for the days' meal. That got old after a while and for us, there are just too many other things to do with our days than spend them in the grocery store. Sometimes we purposely make extra so the next day we can have the leftovers, heated up. Easy, quick and good. Sometimes the sautรฉed vegetables become part of tomorrow's pasta dish or the leftover roasted chicken gets tossed into a salad. We try to be very economical and not waste anything. Bread that's not too fresh in the morning becomes French toast.
We have limited storage space so we shop around once a week, putting some meats in the freezer for later in the week, making sure we shop before Sunday since everything is closed, even the big market. We buy bread more often at the pasticceria, and fruits and vegetables, as we need them also. But they know us now and it's fun to try different kinds each time, finding the ones we like and the ones we don't. Just yesterday in fact we found a wonderful chubby round loaf of whole wheat bread that is absolutely yummy!
Wine is really cheap and good. We only buy bottles that cost less than 5 euros and since we are far from wine aficionados we are perfectly happy with our cheap wine and drink some almost every night with our dinner. We sometimes take a bottle, some plastic cups and a snack and go down to our View, relaxing and watching the sun go down, very aware of how lucky we are.
We have done so much traveling since we arrived, going to the festivals, touring other cities, the month of July was amazing with going to the seaside and then our 10 days in Paris, that we promised ourselves we would lay low in August and just stay in Perugia. I wanted to paint more and read more. We have set out most days to do just that, going our separate ways in the morning and meeting up at home later in the day. I have had some lovely naps in the afternoon (the other day I set my glasses on the bed next to me and then rolled over on them! I took the mangled mess to an eyeglass shop near our internet cafรฉ and thankfully he was able to straighten them out for me so I didn't have to buy a whole new pair of glasses!) We have taken advantage of the cultural events in the evenings. Our days are full and productive but unrushed and relaxing. We take each day, each hour of each day, as it comes. By bedtime I can hardly keep my eyes open. The only stress we have is self-imposed: to write, to draw, to paint, to photograph; and of course dealing with the various technical issues of the computer. What will come of it we don't know. We are just trying to enjoy the process and not worry about the product, but that is often difficult especially for me but I'm trying!
Italian Lessons
We decided that we really needed further instruction in the language. We practice speaking with each other and of course on our daily rounds but still are far from fluent and want to be able to understand better what is being said and to be able to have more complicated conversations than those we have at the supermarket about which tomatoes to buy. I get so tongue-tied sometimes trying to think of the right words to say and it's really difficult to have all but the simplest conversations. It's the weirdest thing sometimes - we think one thing and out of our mouths comes the wrong or even completely opposite thing to what we wanted to say. Like the day I told Rita, our landlady, that we were going to Paris for 10 years when I certainly know the difference between "giorni" (days) and "anni" (years) but that's the kind of stuff that happens. So we asked our former teacher at the University if she knew someone who could help us and she put us in touch with a lovely woman named Roberta, who is going to come to our apartment once a week for two hours and give us private lessons! It's affordable enough for us and will, we hope, help us learn more quickly. We'll let you know how it goes.
I hope whoever is reading this finds it interesting and not too boring. It's always nice to know who's out there and what you think, so thanks for the comments. Our daughter Jessica asked us to put dates on the posts so that she could keep better track of where we were at any particular date. So I have started dating just the stories but not the photos that are posted. So if you are looking at the list on the right side of this blog page, you will see the past entries. The ones with dates - from the past month or so I guess, and before that - are the stories, undated titles are photos.
Buona notte, (maybe I can get back to sleep now!)
Rosemary & Bob
p.s. Thanks to Barbara (Barb & Art) for sending me all the wonderful recipes. I can't wait to try them!
Wednesday, August 17, 2005
Corciano, not Deruta as planned! 8.13.05
Yesterday (Saturday) we planned to go to Deruta but didn't get there. We arrived at the bus station about 40 minutes early, decided to go grab a slice of pizza, stopped at the tourist information office nearby and ended up missing the bus! So instead we went to Corciano, a small village that is close to Perugia also and one we visited before for a medieval festival (see "Primavera dell'artigianato" in a previous blog post). We like this little town very much - it's tiny but very charming, very whitish/pinkish stone buildings with flowers spilling out of all the flower boxes and pretty, stained-wood doors and shutters. It's a prosperous-looking town. They were also having a festival, which was to begin in the evening with food and music.
We arrived in town around 2, during the "riposo" when all the shops close and, in small towns like this, they roll up the sidewalks and everyone goes home for lunch and a nap. I actually like to be in these small towns during this time because we have it pretty much to ourselves and it's so quiet and peaceful. I like to find a place to sketch and can just go to work, undisturbed and without distractions of people walking in front of what I am trying hard to draw! Around 4 the town started waking up, shops opened and people started walking around. The crew that was setting up the sound for the night's performance was at work testing the equipment and the musicians began showing up, bringing their wonderful instruments with them. This group of Troubadours performs secular music from the 12th and 13th centuries on authentic instruments from this time period, beautiful in themselves, just to look at. We really enjoy this kind of music and sat mesmerized watching them practice and rehearse. Bob took tons of photos and I did some quick sketches of the instruments for my journal. (my friend Terri would have been sketching the people, while I just focused on the instruments and their shapes and colors that I found so fascinating).
No car*, no umbrella, no sausages! But one really terrific afternoon.
Unfortunately, because the buses don't run after a certain hour, we could not stay through the evening for the grilled sausages we could smell as we hurried past, or the actual performance, but felt so lucky to at least have had the opportunity to sit through their rehearsal. We were also aware of the darkening sky and worried about getting caught in the rain with all our cameras and art supplies. You would think we would just carry an umbrella with us, but with everything else we haul around, if we don't have to, we don't take it, especially if the day starts out bright and sunny. Of course, if we head out and it looks threatening, we bite the bullet and stick one of our little umbrellas in the bag and we are usually glad we did. As it turned out, it did not rain on our parade.
The last bus was at 8 but we wanted to take the one at 7 just to be safe. (of course everything was scheduled to begin around 9pm!) We managed to purchase a CD since we had enjoyed the music so much, which I am listening to while I write. The CD is titled "Music of the Troubadours" and it's called "Early Music" - the group is actually two groups in one - Ensemble Unicorn and Oni Wytars. If you are interested in this type of music, it's produced by a company called NAXOS (www.hnh.com).
Dinner and a Reading in the Garden
Exhausted, we fell into one of our favorite trattorias here in Perugia "Antica Trattoria delle Volte" on Via Volte della Pace (off Piazza Matteotti) for dinner. Bob had a lovely spinach tortellini with grilled vegetables as his main course and I went all out for the fixed menu that included a penne pasta in a fresh tomato sauce and a delicious grilled veal chop with a green salad. We shared a half-liter of house red wine and a piece of Torta della Nonna and made our way home.
As we approached via Porta Sole we saw a bunch of people going through the gate by Sergio and Rita's (our landlords) palazzo - the Palazzo Rossi Scotti - and stopped to see what was going on. Sergio waved us in and it turned out to be a reading in their private garden area of excerpts from the book "Perugia Della Bell'Epoca" about the history of the city of Perugia and it turned out to be standing room only. We've been working hard at trying to learn a bit about the history of this city and were able to sort of follow along, with our understanding of events and recognizing the important names like Garibaldi and Emmanuele and of course, the infamous "pappa" - the pope with his swiss army that destroyed part of the city to build his Rocca.
It was a late night for us and our neighbors Esther and Doug stopped in to say hi on their way home from their day trip to Assisi (our window is usually open and we see them as they pass) and we compared notes of our days' adventures.
Today is Sunday. More rain is expected although this morning it is sunny and warm. We plan on just hanging out at home and just reading and relaxing. We're doing a lot of reading about Sicily because we want to go there next. Tomorrow we will go and find out why we haven't received our residency card yet in the mail as we think we should have gotten it by now. We'll spend some time going through and preparing some photos to post as well but probably won't be able to post any of this until Tuesday since tomorrow is a national holiday - Ferragosto - the 15th of August, a bank holiday and the mid-August exodus where everyone goes on vacation - and our internet cafรฉ will be closed.
That's it for now. I'd love to know what all of you are doing this summer as well, so keep me posted!
The church bells are now chiming noon and I have been writing since 9am with a break for breakfast and conversation with Bob in between so I will say ciao.
Buona giornata,
Rosemary & Robert
*we have started checking out the different makes of cars available now and will be buying one soon we think, once Sergio returns from his vacation and can come with us and help us through the purchase process!
We arrived in town around 2, during the "riposo" when all the shops close and, in small towns like this, they roll up the sidewalks and everyone goes home for lunch and a nap. I actually like to be in these small towns during this time because we have it pretty much to ourselves and it's so quiet and peaceful. I like to find a place to sketch and can just go to work, undisturbed and without distractions of people walking in front of what I am trying hard to draw! Around 4 the town started waking up, shops opened and people started walking around. The crew that was setting up the sound for the night's performance was at work testing the equipment and the musicians began showing up, bringing their wonderful instruments with them. This group of Troubadours performs secular music from the 12th and 13th centuries on authentic instruments from this time period, beautiful in themselves, just to look at. We really enjoy this kind of music and sat mesmerized watching them practice and rehearse. Bob took tons of photos and I did some quick sketches of the instruments for my journal. (my friend Terri would have been sketching the people, while I just focused on the instruments and their shapes and colors that I found so fascinating).
No car*, no umbrella, no sausages! But one really terrific afternoon.
Unfortunately, because the buses don't run after a certain hour, we could not stay through the evening for the grilled sausages we could smell as we hurried past, or the actual performance, but felt so lucky to at least have had the opportunity to sit through their rehearsal. We were also aware of the darkening sky and worried about getting caught in the rain with all our cameras and art supplies. You would think we would just carry an umbrella with us, but with everything else we haul around, if we don't have to, we don't take it, especially if the day starts out bright and sunny. Of course, if we head out and it looks threatening, we bite the bullet and stick one of our little umbrellas in the bag and we are usually glad we did. As it turned out, it did not rain on our parade.
The last bus was at 8 but we wanted to take the one at 7 just to be safe. (of course everything was scheduled to begin around 9pm!) We managed to purchase a CD since we had enjoyed the music so much, which I am listening to while I write. The CD is titled "Music of the Troubadours" and it's called "Early Music" - the group is actually two groups in one - Ensemble Unicorn and Oni Wytars. If you are interested in this type of music, it's produced by a company called NAXOS (www.hnh.com).
Dinner and a Reading in the Garden
Exhausted, we fell into one of our favorite trattorias here in Perugia "Antica Trattoria delle Volte" on Via Volte della Pace (off Piazza Matteotti) for dinner. Bob had a lovely spinach tortellini with grilled vegetables as his main course and I went all out for the fixed menu that included a penne pasta in a fresh tomato sauce and a delicious grilled veal chop with a green salad. We shared a half-liter of house red wine and a piece of Torta della Nonna and made our way home.
As we approached via Porta Sole we saw a bunch of people going through the gate by Sergio and Rita's (our landlords) palazzo - the Palazzo Rossi Scotti - and stopped to see what was going on. Sergio waved us in and it turned out to be a reading in their private garden area of excerpts from the book "Perugia Della Bell'Epoca" about the history of the city of Perugia and it turned out to be standing room only. We've been working hard at trying to learn a bit about the history of this city and were able to sort of follow along, with our understanding of events and recognizing the important names like Garibaldi and Emmanuele and of course, the infamous "pappa" - the pope with his swiss army that destroyed part of the city to build his Rocca.
It was a late night for us and our neighbors Esther and Doug stopped in to say hi on their way home from their day trip to Assisi (our window is usually open and we see them as they pass) and we compared notes of our days' adventures.
Today is Sunday. More rain is expected although this morning it is sunny and warm. We plan on just hanging out at home and just reading and relaxing. We're doing a lot of reading about Sicily because we want to go there next. Tomorrow we will go and find out why we haven't received our residency card yet in the mail as we think we should have gotten it by now. We'll spend some time going through and preparing some photos to post as well but probably won't be able to post any of this until Tuesday since tomorrow is a national holiday - Ferragosto - the 15th of August, a bank holiday and the mid-August exodus where everyone goes on vacation - and our internet cafรฉ will be closed.
That's it for now. I'd love to know what all of you are doing this summer as well, so keep me posted!
The church bells are now chiming noon and I have been writing since 9am with a break for breakfast and conversation with Bob in between so I will say ciao.
Buona giornata,
Rosemary & Robert
*we have started checking out the different makes of cars available now and will be buying one soon we think, once Sergio returns from his vacation and can come with us and help us through the purchase process!
Rosemary Painting in Corciano
Many people ask why we are in Italy. Look at this face and you tell me.
Hurdy Gurdy player in Corciano
We think this is called a Hurdy Gurdy. If anyone knows differently please let us know.
Tenera รจ La Notte a Perugia
(A program of music & other cultural events) 8.14.05
Friday night we went to a music performance. Not really sure what to expect, it was part of this ongoing list of events that is the city of Perugia. We picked up a brochure at the Information office (There is also a monthly publication called "Viva Perugia" which lists events for the month if you live in the area and haven't seen it, it costs euro 0.80 and is available at newsstands) "Tenera รจ La Notte" (translation: Tender is the Night) is just chock full of all sorts of interesting performances and readings and what have you. Friday's turned out to be a quintet of musicians and a guy reciting parts of plays - not singing, but reciting monologues and he was amazing. We are understanding more and more Italian and he was so expressive it was just fun to watch. And, we think it's just good for us to listen to Italian spoken and hope that eventually we will be able to comprehend more.
The event was billed as "la musica e la parola" (music and words). Their first piece was the overture from Fiddler on the Roof - the room was quiet, the lights dimmed and suddenly we heard the sound of a drum, then from the back of the room, a flute, followed in turn by each of the other 3, an oboe, clarinet, and French horn, very sweet and seductive almost and so unexpected to have the musicians come up from around the room like that. It was so conceptual as well, to have them begin with this play that is so rich in narrative, with Tevia talking to the audience. Anyway, the musicians played and the "Voce Recitante" recited some poetry, some monologues - like the balcony scene from Romeo and Juliet and other works of Italian literature we were not familiar with but enjoyed listening to all the same. The finale was a song all the Italians in the audience knew and were invited to sing along with, followed by the last refrains of "Fiddler" again, coming full circle. The Sala de Notari is such a cool building anyway with its painted walls and ceilings it is such a terrific backdrop to these types of performances.
Throughout Perugia, and the surrounding area, are concerts, dancing, light shows, tons of stuff for kids, art exhibitions, movies, music of every genre, from classical to jazz, to rock to salsa and everything in between - truly something for everyone. It's just amazing how much there is to do and most of it free to the public.
On Thursday Bob went by himself to a light show that included a live orchestra performance in Piazza IV November. I had hurt my foot (I actually found the phrase "sbattere il dito del piede" - to stub one's toe - in the dictionary!) so I didn't want to walk around anymore that day and stayed home. But he said it was amazing and I will be adding photos he took. I have a lovely purple bruise now but it's getting better every day. I should know better than to walk around barefoot but I still have not learned this lesson!
Friday night we went to a music performance. Not really sure what to expect, it was part of this ongoing list of events that is the city of Perugia. We picked up a brochure at the Information office (There is also a monthly publication called "Viva Perugia" which lists events for the month if you live in the area and haven't seen it, it costs euro 0.80 and is available at newsstands) "Tenera รจ La Notte" (translation: Tender is the Night) is just chock full of all sorts of interesting performances and readings and what have you. Friday's turned out to be a quintet of musicians and a guy reciting parts of plays - not singing, but reciting monologues and he was amazing. We are understanding more and more Italian and he was so expressive it was just fun to watch. And, we think it's just good for us to listen to Italian spoken and hope that eventually we will be able to comprehend more.
The event was billed as "la musica e la parola" (music and words). Their first piece was the overture from Fiddler on the Roof - the room was quiet, the lights dimmed and suddenly we heard the sound of a drum, then from the back of the room, a flute, followed in turn by each of the other 3, an oboe, clarinet, and French horn, very sweet and seductive almost and so unexpected to have the musicians come up from around the room like that. It was so conceptual as well, to have them begin with this play that is so rich in narrative, with Tevia talking to the audience. Anyway, the musicians played and the "Voce Recitante" recited some poetry, some monologues - like the balcony scene from Romeo and Juliet and other works of Italian literature we were not familiar with but enjoyed listening to all the same. The finale was a song all the Italians in the audience knew and were invited to sing along with, followed by the last refrains of "Fiddler" again, coming full circle. The Sala de Notari is such a cool building anyway with its painted walls and ceilings it is such a terrific backdrop to these types of performances.
Throughout Perugia, and the surrounding area, are concerts, dancing, light shows, tons of stuff for kids, art exhibitions, movies, music of every genre, from classical to jazz, to rock to salsa and everything in between - truly something for everyone. It's just amazing how much there is to do and most of it free to the public.
On Thursday Bob went by himself to a light show that included a live orchestra performance in Piazza IV November. I had hurt my foot (I actually found the phrase "sbattere il dito del piede" - to stub one's toe - in the dictionary!) so I didn't want to walk around anymore that day and stayed home. But he said it was amazing and I will be adding photos he took. I have a lovely purple bruise now but it's getting better every day. I should know better than to walk around barefoot but I still have not learned this lesson!
Light show
The orchestra played as light filled Piazza Novembre. It was beautiful to hear and see while standing in a sea of happy people enjoying the night
Wednesday, August 10, 2005
Tuesday, August 09, 2005
Fun with Art & Barb 8.9.05
Art and Barbara, as all of you know who read her blog http://www.expatsinitaly.com/blog/barb/ are our American friends from Kentucky, who live in San Venanzo, about 20 minutes south of Perugia. They bought a house there and restored it and are now just taking every day as it comes. They are about our ages and retired and although we do not have a house of our own and have not gone through the same process, nevertheless have a lot in common in simply loving Italy and wanting to live here. They are also like the American welcoming committee for all the ex-pats here and are incredibly generous in sharing their knowledge and experience with anyone needing help of any kind. They wrote to us before we left Phoenix and were the first to offer assistance and friendship and English-speaking companionship.
Late last week they called to see if we wanted to go to San Venanzo for the weekend - well, to stay Saturday night at their house in order to go to a festival in Roticastello, a tiny medieval village near their house. On Saturday all the citizens were to dress up in medieval costume and there would be food and music and a general sense of family fun and festivity. Since we don't have a car, they suggested we take the bus to Marciano, which is close to them and Art would pick us up there and drive us to their house. Another family - Diane, her husband Pio and their six-year-old son Dante were also in San Venanzo, staying at a hotel next to Art & Barbara's - for the festival and so we would have the opportunity to meet them as well. Pio was born in Italy and lived in New York for about 40 years. His wife Diane is from Long Island and they talked about his desire to return to Italy where his family still lives and many of his friends. They are building a house near Rome. Their sweet little boy, Dante, is quite the artist and it was so much fun to see him drawing picture after picture of all sorts of things. It reminded me so much of my nephew Matthew who was always drawing as a kid and is now an artist.
The festival was delightful. Rotiscastello is delightful. This tiny town has been undergoing extensive restoration and is quite beautiful with its stone buildings and tower. Barbara has written extensively about the festival, and took some great photos, so I am going to suggest you go to her blog "artandbarbarelivinginitaly.blogspot.com" http://www.expatsinitaly.com/blog/barb.html to see her photos and read about her adventures. It's a whole other take on this Italian experience and really enjoyable to read. Suffice to say it was a very nice evening. We enjoyed getting to know Diane and Pio and friends of Art & Barbara's from England, Hazel and Adrian and just hanging out.
On Sunday we had breakfast at their house and watched CNN in English and drank American coffee in their spacious country kitchen. For lunch we all went to their favorite pizzeria "Ternana's" in Marciano and they drove us all the way back to Perugia since there were no buses on Sunday coming in this direction. They were coming back to Perugia on Monday night for the English-language film and so were interested in finding the parking lot nearest the theater in the daylight. Since we don't drive in Perugia, we weren't much help in navigating these narrow streets that are often one-way and barely wide enough in places to fit even a small car. Ultimately, we found the parking lot and they dropped us off close to our apartment and we planned to have them come here on Monday for dinner before the movie.
Making Dinner, or how NOT to bring Eggs to Room Temperature
On Monday we spent the morning cleaning the apartment. Partly because we were having "company" and mostly because we hadn't done any cleaning since before going to Paris so it really needed it. Barbara and Art were not expected until around 7pm so there was plenty of time to do that and to shop for and prepare dinner. Barbara is such a great cook, I was anxious to make something good that they would enjoy - or that at least didn't suck (and, OK, show off what I could do in the kitchen as well). I made some of my mother's tomato sauce with pasta when they were here last which is kind of the specialty of the house but now I wanted to make something different. I found an interesting recipe for a pasta carbonara with a different twist in the Bon Appetite magazine my friend Bitsy sent me a while ago that seemed easy and "gourmet" enough and another for a light salmon salad to go along with it, from another cookbook I have.
A really funny thing happened that I was too embarrassed to tell Barbara (see "she's a great cook" above) so she should get a good laugh when she reads this! The recipe called for whisking two eggs with grated Parmesan cheese and stirring the cooked pasta into it, which was easy enough, but the eggs had to be at room temperature so that when you toss in the hot pasta, the eggs cook. And of course I had not taken the eggs out early enough and was afraid they would not be warm enough to use. So I decided to put one egg in each of my jeans pockets while I cut and sliced and diced all the other stuff so they would warm more quickly. (You see this coming don't you?) All went well until I accidentally bumped the counter and one of the eggs in my pocket broke! It was like some silly comedy! How does one remove a broken egg from ones' pants pockets when it is now scrambled? Not very easily I can tell you. I made a quick change and then was back at square one with the eggs and had to resort to the pocket technique again, this time staying clear away from any furniture and holding them over the pot of boiling water to warm them a bit more. Everything else went fine. I managed to get everything done and on the table, we ate, it didn't suck, the torta from the bakery was tasty and we made it to the movie on time.
I'm kind of on the search for new recipes, having exhausted my repertoire at this point and not having brought enough with me. So if any of you have some you like that you want to send me I'd appreciate it very much.
War of the Worlds at the Zampano or One Cold Night in August
The Zampano Theatre is an outside amphitheatre where they show films at night under the stars (an amazing display in this part of the city). On Mondays they show English-language films and last night's was War of the Worlds. In preparation for seeing this movie Bob and I had read the H.G. Wells book and were interested to see what Hollywood would do with it and how much it would actually resemble the original story. We were surprised to see that Spielberg had actually stayed pretty true to the book with the exception of setting it in New York and the east coast in modern times. H.G. Wells was a genius of science fiction and his creativity and imagination are really impressive. My one complaint with his writing is that it was heavy on description of the alien invaders and the death and destruction and light on character development. Spielberg, in my opinion, kept pretty true to the spirit of the book and eve though he threw in the cute little girl and complicated family dynamic, this was not his usual tug at your heartstrings kind of movie. But you did not tune in here to get a movie review so I won't say any more. But if you see it, let me know what you think.
As I have said, the days have been quite cool. (Today is gorgeous and warmer with crisp blue skies and no breeze to speak of - I am sitting out in the yard writing) Sunday night we had an amazing storm with wind and rain and fog and yesterday remained quite chilly and windy. But we were all determined to see the movie so we bundled up - Bob put on a sweatshirt, Barbara and Art came prepared with jackets and sweaters and of course I had my usual layers when I expect it to be cold. We even decided to bring a blanket just in case. The move was supposed to start at 9:30 and didn't really until around 10, so sitting outside through the movie we were really cold, wrapped up in our quilt, spread over the four of us, like some sort of a slumber party for grownups! We were annoyed by a group of young Americans talking and laughing through the movie, typical. Parts of it I must admit I felt like laughing at also but they did get carried away and rudely.
It was after midnight when we said goodbye to them as they headed for their car and us for our apartment and bed. It was a lot of fun with them this weekend and we hope they feel the same. They promised to come back again in two weeks for "Million Dollar Baby" which will be showing then and maybe we'll have to bring a portable heater with us by then!
Today I plan to go down into the garden and do some sketching. It's such a clear day and I am becoming aware of the summer coming to a close in a few weeks - hard as that is for me to imagine, having lived in Phoenix for so many years, so I want to take advantage of the greenery and the flowers.
I hope to hear from you if are reading, let me know what you think. I hope you enjoyed the photos from Paris. We may throw a few more on there once Bob downloads the rest of his discs. In the meantime I hope all is going well out there.
Ci vediamo,
Rosamaria e Roberto
Late last week they called to see if we wanted to go to San Venanzo for the weekend - well, to stay Saturday night at their house in order to go to a festival in Roticastello, a tiny medieval village near their house. On Saturday all the citizens were to dress up in medieval costume and there would be food and music and a general sense of family fun and festivity. Since we don't have a car, they suggested we take the bus to Marciano, which is close to them and Art would pick us up there and drive us to their house. Another family - Diane, her husband Pio and their six-year-old son Dante were also in San Venanzo, staying at a hotel next to Art & Barbara's - for the festival and so we would have the opportunity to meet them as well. Pio was born in Italy and lived in New York for about 40 years. His wife Diane is from Long Island and they talked about his desire to return to Italy where his family still lives and many of his friends. They are building a house near Rome. Their sweet little boy, Dante, is quite the artist and it was so much fun to see him drawing picture after picture of all sorts of things. It reminded me so much of my nephew Matthew who was always drawing as a kid and is now an artist.
The festival was delightful. Rotiscastello is delightful. This tiny town has been undergoing extensive restoration and is quite beautiful with its stone buildings and tower. Barbara has written extensively about the festival, and took some great photos, so I am going to suggest you go to her blog "artandbarbarelivinginitaly.blogspot.com" http://www.expatsinitaly.com/blog/barb.html to see her photos and read about her adventures. It's a whole other take on this Italian experience and really enjoyable to read. Suffice to say it was a very nice evening. We enjoyed getting to know Diane and Pio and friends of Art & Barbara's from England, Hazel and Adrian and just hanging out.
On Sunday we had breakfast at their house and watched CNN in English and drank American coffee in their spacious country kitchen. For lunch we all went to their favorite pizzeria "Ternana's" in Marciano and they drove us all the way back to Perugia since there were no buses on Sunday coming in this direction. They were coming back to Perugia on Monday night for the English-language film and so were interested in finding the parking lot nearest the theater in the daylight. Since we don't drive in Perugia, we weren't much help in navigating these narrow streets that are often one-way and barely wide enough in places to fit even a small car. Ultimately, we found the parking lot and they dropped us off close to our apartment and we planned to have them come here on Monday for dinner before the movie.
Making Dinner, or how NOT to bring Eggs to Room Temperature
On Monday we spent the morning cleaning the apartment. Partly because we were having "company" and mostly because we hadn't done any cleaning since before going to Paris so it really needed it. Barbara and Art were not expected until around 7pm so there was plenty of time to do that and to shop for and prepare dinner. Barbara is such a great cook, I was anxious to make something good that they would enjoy - or that at least didn't suck (and, OK, show off what I could do in the kitchen as well). I made some of my mother's tomato sauce with pasta when they were here last which is kind of the specialty of the house but now I wanted to make something different. I found an interesting recipe for a pasta carbonara with a different twist in the Bon Appetite magazine my friend Bitsy sent me a while ago that seemed easy and "gourmet" enough and another for a light salmon salad to go along with it, from another cookbook I have.
A really funny thing happened that I was too embarrassed to tell Barbara (see "she's a great cook" above) so she should get a good laugh when she reads this! The recipe called for whisking two eggs with grated Parmesan cheese and stirring the cooked pasta into it, which was easy enough, but the eggs had to be at room temperature so that when you toss in the hot pasta, the eggs cook. And of course I had not taken the eggs out early enough and was afraid they would not be warm enough to use. So I decided to put one egg in each of my jeans pockets while I cut and sliced and diced all the other stuff so they would warm more quickly. (You see this coming don't you?) All went well until I accidentally bumped the counter and one of the eggs in my pocket broke! It was like some silly comedy! How does one remove a broken egg from ones' pants pockets when it is now scrambled? Not very easily I can tell you. I made a quick change and then was back at square one with the eggs and had to resort to the pocket technique again, this time staying clear away from any furniture and holding them over the pot of boiling water to warm them a bit more. Everything else went fine. I managed to get everything done and on the table, we ate, it didn't suck, the torta from the bakery was tasty and we made it to the movie on time.
I'm kind of on the search for new recipes, having exhausted my repertoire at this point and not having brought enough with me. So if any of you have some you like that you want to send me I'd appreciate it very much.
War of the Worlds at the Zampano or One Cold Night in August
The Zampano Theatre is an outside amphitheatre where they show films at night under the stars (an amazing display in this part of the city). On Mondays they show English-language films and last night's was War of the Worlds. In preparation for seeing this movie Bob and I had read the H.G. Wells book and were interested to see what Hollywood would do with it and how much it would actually resemble the original story. We were surprised to see that Spielberg had actually stayed pretty true to the book with the exception of setting it in New York and the east coast in modern times. H.G. Wells was a genius of science fiction and his creativity and imagination are really impressive. My one complaint with his writing is that it was heavy on description of the alien invaders and the death and destruction and light on character development. Spielberg, in my opinion, kept pretty true to the spirit of the book and eve though he threw in the cute little girl and complicated family dynamic, this was not his usual tug at your heartstrings kind of movie. But you did not tune in here to get a movie review so I won't say any more. But if you see it, let me know what you think.
As I have said, the days have been quite cool. (Today is gorgeous and warmer with crisp blue skies and no breeze to speak of - I am sitting out in the yard writing) Sunday night we had an amazing storm with wind and rain and fog and yesterday remained quite chilly and windy. But we were all determined to see the movie so we bundled up - Bob put on a sweatshirt, Barbara and Art came prepared with jackets and sweaters and of course I had my usual layers when I expect it to be cold. We even decided to bring a blanket just in case. The move was supposed to start at 9:30 and didn't really until around 10, so sitting outside through the movie we were really cold, wrapped up in our quilt, spread over the four of us, like some sort of a slumber party for grownups! We were annoyed by a group of young Americans talking and laughing through the movie, typical. Parts of it I must admit I felt like laughing at also but they did get carried away and rudely.
It was after midnight when we said goodbye to them as they headed for their car and us for our apartment and bed. It was a lot of fun with them this weekend and we hope they feel the same. They promised to come back again in two weeks for "Million Dollar Baby" which will be showing then and maybe we'll have to bring a portable heater with us by then!
Today I plan to go down into the garden and do some sketching. It's such a clear day and I am becoming aware of the summer coming to a close in a few weeks - hard as that is for me to imagine, having lived in Phoenix for so many years, so I want to take advantage of the greenery and the flowers.
I hope to hear from you if are reading, let me know what you think. I hope you enjoyed the photos from Paris. We may throw a few more on there once Bob downloads the rest of his discs. In the meantime I hope all is going well out there.
Ci vediamo,
Rosamaria e Roberto
A Rainy, Restful Week in Perugia, 8.08.05
We have been home from Paris now for one week. We promised ourselves that we would do nothing but rest and relax after a whirlwind 10 days there. August, we had been told, is the quiet summer month here in Perugia as many of the locals take their vacations and shops close. There are fewer students around and the streets have less people. It's been a nice change for us. As I've said before, students come and go in the apartments above and us and some months have been quieter up there than others. At the moment we believe the apartment must surely be empty because we have not heard any movement. I must admit that at times we have had neighbors up there - young students away from home possibly for the first time - who like to stay out very late partying and then come home in the wee hours oblivious to anyone else's existence but their own and clomp around and talk loudly when the rest of us are trying to sleep. Fortunately this did not happen every night during those months but enough for us to resort to occasionally banging on the ceiling (with a broom stick!) and usually that got their attention.
Where do we go from here?
We have now been here for four months. As with most things, it feels at the same time longer and yet it seems to have gone by so quickly. There are still so many things I want to see and do, I want to be sure to do before we leave Perugia, some time this fall. We still don't know where we are going, crazy as that may sound to you and I wish we did. We want to take a trip down to Sicily in early September (everyone tells us to wait until then as July and August are crowded with tourists and quite hot) so we can scope things out before deciding if that is where we will go. Anyway, if anyone has any suggestions, who has spent any time in the south of Italy, please let us know what you think. We are afraid Perugia will be too cold for us all winter and so we want to go further south. It will be cold down there in Sicily also, but not like up here in the mountains. If you know anyone living down there who could help us in our search, please let us know. In the meantime, our friends Art and Barbara have given us the name of a friend of theirs we are waiting to hear back from and we are doing our homework on the Internet etc.
Fog and Rain
We had the most amazing storm last night! Bob ran out to get a pizza to bring home from one of our favorite pizzerias with a wood-fired oven, and very close to our apartment. When he got back, he was breathless and grabbed his cameras, leaving the pizza on the table and shouting at me as he ran towards our view that it was raining and the fog was incredible! I grabbed mine - and my big umbrella - and followed him down. He was right. The fog was hanging in the trees of the park and completely enveloped the valley below. It was getting close to sunset and the clouds were gray and rolling. We stayed out there watching a shooting, under our umbrellas, trying to capture the beauty and drama of the storm, as the fog rolled and alternately shrouded, then revealed, the hills and the city under its blanket. Finally the rain became too heavy and we were forced to go inside, but it was quite a show.
Hibernation
This week truly was a relaxing one. I spent all day Monday writing about Paris and a lot of time during the week going through all of our photos and deciding which ones to post. The weather has been stormy a good part of the week. It was hot when we got home on Sunday but then it grew dark and cloudy and we've had rain on and off all week and cool enough to need a sweater in the evening. And, as it has been all along, it's warmer down in the center (just a few minutes walk from our door, but often it feels like another climate zone!). For two days after we got home I don't think I even ventured down into the garden. I felt like I was hibernating! But also I realized it was the first time since long before we left Phoenix (for months we were packing and getting ready to sell the house and all of that), that we were not running off somewhere, doing something. There have been days here and there, of course that we spent at home, but as a whole it has been a busy time. So we slept in, stayed home, read and relaxed all week. I did get down into the garden, did some sketches of the flowers there with my markers and just doodled around.
Coffee with Sergio and Rita
On Tuesday or Wednesday we were invited to our landlords' apartment for coffee after lunch. Lovely people, they only speak a little English and with our limited Italian, we were a little nervous about just sitting around a table with them and how the conversation would go. Other times we have spent with them have been with other people, or driving in the car seeing sights with other activities interspersed so you didn't feel like you had to keep a conversation going. But I shouldn't have worried. It was very nice, we found many topics to talk about and Sergio even said he would help us when we go to buy a car, offering to take us to places he knew and help us through the process.
Thinking about Cars
Buying a car will be our next big step. We have enjoyed very much (mostly!) using public transportation. It has been as easy to get around as we had hoped it would be and we were able to go many, many places. But with the expectation of leaving Perugia, we are sure we will need to have a car to explore other places off the path of the trains and buses and are ready to do that. Our kids are coming to visit in October and (fingers crossed) our friends Art and Chris from Phoenix in the fall also. We could rent a car, but it's time to have one of our own now. Sergio and Rita will be leaving for a week or so on their vacation, but when they return we will look in ernest. Any of you out there who own Italian cars and have any advice, we'd love to hear from you. Obviously we want something reliable, not too expensive or too large, but large enough to be able to carry us and our luggage (or the luggage of friends or family who come to visit) We'll keep you posted and let you know how it goes.
I know I have rambled on and on and I hope I haven't been too boring or long-winded (don't laugh, of course I am!). I write this journal really, so that whoever is interested in our adventure (from the exciting to the mundane!) can follow along, but mostly as my personal diary of this time here in Italy. I love hearing from all of you and want to know what you are doing in your lives also, so please do keep in touch.
Ci vediamo,
Rosemary & Bob
Where do we go from here?
We have now been here for four months. As with most things, it feels at the same time longer and yet it seems to have gone by so quickly. There are still so many things I want to see and do, I want to be sure to do before we leave Perugia, some time this fall. We still don't know where we are going, crazy as that may sound to you and I wish we did. We want to take a trip down to Sicily in early September (everyone tells us to wait until then as July and August are crowded with tourists and quite hot) so we can scope things out before deciding if that is where we will go. Anyway, if anyone has any suggestions, who has spent any time in the south of Italy, please let us know what you think. We are afraid Perugia will be too cold for us all winter and so we want to go further south. It will be cold down there in Sicily also, but not like up here in the mountains. If you know anyone living down there who could help us in our search, please let us know. In the meantime, our friends Art and Barbara have given us the name of a friend of theirs we are waiting to hear back from and we are doing our homework on the Internet etc.
Fog and Rain
We had the most amazing storm last night! Bob ran out to get a pizza to bring home from one of our favorite pizzerias with a wood-fired oven, and very close to our apartment. When he got back, he was breathless and grabbed his cameras, leaving the pizza on the table and shouting at me as he ran towards our view that it was raining and the fog was incredible! I grabbed mine - and my big umbrella - and followed him down. He was right. The fog was hanging in the trees of the park and completely enveloped the valley below. It was getting close to sunset and the clouds were gray and rolling. We stayed out there watching a shooting, under our umbrellas, trying to capture the beauty and drama of the storm, as the fog rolled and alternately shrouded, then revealed, the hills and the city under its blanket. Finally the rain became too heavy and we were forced to go inside, but it was quite a show.
Hibernation
This week truly was a relaxing one. I spent all day Monday writing about Paris and a lot of time during the week going through all of our photos and deciding which ones to post. The weather has been stormy a good part of the week. It was hot when we got home on Sunday but then it grew dark and cloudy and we've had rain on and off all week and cool enough to need a sweater in the evening. And, as it has been all along, it's warmer down in the center (just a few minutes walk from our door, but often it feels like another climate zone!). For two days after we got home I don't think I even ventured down into the garden. I felt like I was hibernating! But also I realized it was the first time since long before we left Phoenix (for months we were packing and getting ready to sell the house and all of that), that we were not running off somewhere, doing something. There have been days here and there, of course that we spent at home, but as a whole it has been a busy time. So we slept in, stayed home, read and relaxed all week. I did get down into the garden, did some sketches of the flowers there with my markers and just doodled around.
Coffee with Sergio and Rita
On Tuesday or Wednesday we were invited to our landlords' apartment for coffee after lunch. Lovely people, they only speak a little English and with our limited Italian, we were a little nervous about just sitting around a table with them and how the conversation would go. Other times we have spent with them have been with other people, or driving in the car seeing sights with other activities interspersed so you didn't feel like you had to keep a conversation going. But I shouldn't have worried. It was very nice, we found many topics to talk about and Sergio even said he would help us when we go to buy a car, offering to take us to places he knew and help us through the process.
Thinking about Cars
Buying a car will be our next big step. We have enjoyed very much (mostly!) using public transportation. It has been as easy to get around as we had hoped it would be and we were able to go many, many places. But with the expectation of leaving Perugia, we are sure we will need to have a car to explore other places off the path of the trains and buses and are ready to do that. Our kids are coming to visit in October and (fingers crossed) our friends Art and Chris from Phoenix in the fall also. We could rent a car, but it's time to have one of our own now. Sergio and Rita will be leaving for a week or so on their vacation, but when they return we will look in ernest. Any of you out there who own Italian cars and have any advice, we'd love to hear from you. Obviously we want something reliable, not too expensive or too large, but large enough to be able to carry us and our luggage (or the luggage of friends or family who come to visit) We'll keep you posted and let you know how it goes.
I know I have rambled on and on and I hope I haven't been too boring or long-winded (don't laugh, of course I am!). I write this journal really, so that whoever is interested in our adventure (from the exciting to the mundane!) can follow along, but mostly as my personal diary of this time here in Italy. I love hearing from all of you and want to know what you are doing in your lives also, so please do keep in touch.
Ci vediamo,
Rosemary & Bob
Monday, August 08, 2005
Friday, August 05, 2005
Conciergerie
We saw the cell they kept Marie Antoinette in before they cut her head off in this building that looks like a castle.
Eiffel Tower from below
Bob's interesting take on the Eiffel. The little pyramid shapes are the lights that are virtually invisible during the day (except in this photo!) but outline the entire Tower with lights at night.
Versailles fountain at night
We went to Versaille for an evening event that included costumed characters (Napoleon, the Kings and Queens etc) and fireworks.
Wednesday, August 03, 2005
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
