Semproniano 8/29 - 8/31

8/29 -

I’m up again at 7am.  No matter what I do, I can’t stay asleep any longer and I actually have a sense of urgency to get out of bed and get dressed to face the day.  Soon I’m all cleaned up and ready - - but for what, I don’t know.  I’ve got nothing to do!  So I keep myself busy around the house for a while, cleaning out the fridge, gathering up trash and then made some breakfast.  After all that activity, I picked up my PC and walked up the steps to the bench outside the pizza restaurant to connect to the Internet and update my blog. 

This confuses some of the townspeople because the pizza restaurant is closed, so they think the Internet is closed.   I tell them that the Internet never closes but that is hard for them to understand.   I don’t think the restaurant owners understand it either.  They have come by at different times when the restaurant is closed; they see me sitting there and see that I am on the Internet.   They stare at my computer and talk to each other about it.  It made me self-conscious at first but I got over that.  I figured if they ask me, I’ll try to explain it to them as well and I will gladly give them money for using the their Internet connection.   But, they don’t ask…

After hanging out on line for a few hours, I head home for some lunch and then it’s back out to the bench to watch people go by. 

I got bored, and it was hot, and I wanted a beer so I take a walk up the street to Bar Sport. It’s not a bar like an American bar; it is more of a gathering place.  They serve coffee, beer, gelato, brioche, and simple panini’s.   Most of the people drink coffee or nothing at all.  People sit here for hours on end talking about everything and never buy anything.  The owners don’t seem to mind.  

A view from one of my many tables at Bar Sport

I put my computer case on an empty table and step inside to get a beer.  I order a large which causes a few heads to turn in my direction.  No one else is drinking beer at 3pm and when they do, they order small ones and usually end up drinking more than one.  Which makes no sense to me as the large is twice the size but only one euro more.   I carry my beer back outside, passing Moreno sitting at a table with some of the locals.  I say hello and sit at my table.  He calls over to me and asks me to join him at their table.  I am grateful for the invitation.  Although I have made friends in town and do feel comfortable, I still feel like such an outsider as I exist in my own little ‘can’t speak-can’t understand Italian’ club.  I don’t want to intrude but I so want to be a part of the group.   Moreno makes me feel welcome- as they all do - but he is the only one that invites me to join in probably because I can actually communicate with him.  He pulls me into the conversation and tells me what they are talking about and translates some things for me so I can contribute if I want to.  I am so thankful that he is here and for his acceptance and friendship.   I want to follow him around all day long so I would have someone who I could actually talk to and understand all the time.   

I love the Italian language, but I miss English…  I miss understanding what is going on around me.  I am tired of being on the outside and it is driving me a little crazy.  I want back in…

All too soon Moreno has to go and the crowd at the table also leaves.  I stick around anyway, sitting and nursing my beer.  After a bit some of the guys I have come to know from Cinzia’s club stop by and join me along with some other townsmen.  Before long I realize that I am the only women sitting with about 10 guys.  Some are drinking beer, some coffee, but all are talking and at times try to pull me into the conversation.  They, like everyone in town, are very patient and use a lot of gestures to help me understand.  Mostly they ask when I’m going back to America, where I am going in America, if I’m having a good time here, where I have been, where I like best, if I like it here, and when I will come back.  I continuously apologize for not understanding or speaking well and all assure me that no apology is needed.  They tell me all is well and they complement me for all the traveling I have done in Italy and all on my own.     

I can see the front door of Casa Pellegrini from Bar Sport and around 6:00p I see Pina step outside and I hear her say my name.  She is asking the gang hanging around Cinzia’s club if they know where I am, so I say “Ciao” to the boys and go home.  Pina is thinking about dinner and wanted to know if I like beefsteak.   I say yes, she asks about my day and then ask me to sit on the bench and relax with her and Aimone.     

The sun is directly hitting the benches and neither Pina nor Aimone like that so I get chairs for us from inside the house and set them up on the opposite side of the street in the shade. 

We sit there for about an hour, again watching the town go by but now from a different angle…  From here we could see and be entertained by the men that gather with Mauro at the gas station for their daily ‘sit and chat’ session.

At dinner, the beefsteak turned out to be a pork chop.  She kept referring to it as beefsteak and I didn’t argue.  It, like everything she cooks, is delicious.  She also made me some bean soup, knowing how much I like it and gave me the recipe.  Well, I get most of it anyway…   Wash the beans, cook them in a pot with just enough water to cover them, grind carrot, celery, a potato, rosemary and add to the mix.  Remove the seeds from five very small (the size of a big grape) tomatoes, add them to the mix along with salt and pepper.   Cook until the beans are soft then grind with that hand held grinder thing in the pot, then put through a mill to remove the tomato and bean skins and to make the soup smooth.  I don’t know what kind of beans they are or if I can get them in America, but this is what they look like:

While I was Internet surfing earlier today, I checked the US Customs site and found that I am not allowed to bring back any meat products.  I had picked up some in Pitigliano and thought about chancing it, but I have other things I am bringing home and don’t want to run the risk of making a custom agent angry enough to take everything.   So after dinner, I present the bag of meats to Pina and Aimone, explaining I can’t take them home so I want them to have them.  By their reaction you would think I just gave them a new car or something.  Pina then pulls vacuum sealed cheese packages out of her fridge and gave them to me to take to America.  She tells me I have to hide them in my luggage so no one takes them.  I tell her cheese is OK and I don’t have to hide it, she insists that I must hide it – so I tell her I will.  She also tells me she ordered Pecorino cheese from Christina (the baker) and it will be ready before I leave.  And she tells me that I need to get pasta and olive oil and Nutella and…   I’m thinking I may need to buy another piece of luggage…     

8/30 –

It’s Thursday – my last Thursday in Semproniano, my last market day…  Before I hit the market, I stop at Cinzia’s for my morning café.  I notice she has a new sign posted.

 

Translation: 

One coffee – 2.00

One coffee, please – 1.50

Good day, one coffee, please - .70

It’s 9am and I look for Pina and Aimone to see if they are ready to go the market but don’t find them in the house.  I see that Pina has gotten an early start to her day and has already started working on a fresh batch of salsa.  Annedia has picked more tomatoes from her garden…  I step out onto my kitchen balcony just in time to see them returning from the market with their weekly haul. 

As I am standing on the porch, Moreno steps out of the Tabacchi store across the street with his newspaper, looks up and says “Hello Juliet”.      

I walk the market and buy some produce for my last few days here.  The man at the produce stand remembers me, he is a very nice man.  I point to what I want and try to say it, if I am correct he says ‘brava’, if I mispronounce it he corrects me – I repeat it – and again he says ‘brava’.   When I am done and pay my tab, he says in very slow English “see you next week”.   I tell him no, that I go home to America next Thursday.  He frowns, offers his hand, shakes mine and then kisses it.  He thanks me, wishes me a good journey and tells me to come back soon.   I feel tears collecting in my eyes but tell them they are not allowed to fall out… 

I take my stuff back to the house and am unpacking my bags when I hear Maria’s laughter coming from the street below.  I step out onto the kitchen balcony; she sees me and yells to me to come down to walk the market with her.   I say “uno momento” and off I go again. 

Maria

I ended up buying a bag for the trip home.  As I am telling Maria it is for olive oil, pasta, vino and cheese, Moreno walks up and says’ ”and? and? and?”  I say “e lei?” (and you?) He responses “yes.”  Maria says “me too”.  I think I’m going to need a bigger bag… 

Maria & Pina talking in Pina’s kitchen

I spent another afternoon sitting at Bar Sport, watching the day and the people go by.   But this time I worked on my computer, writing some of this posting and I get a lot of stares while doing so.  I hear some of the girls at a table close by talking about WIFI and too much texting and Facebook.   I know them and I interject that in America lots of people don’t talk face to face much anymore. They are too busy texting, checking their email and Facebook.  The girls think it is just terrible.   They ask if I am on the Internet, I tell them no, that I am writing stories about my time in Italy but I put them on the internet for my friends and family to read.  I’m not sure they understood that, but they respond “va bene” anyway.    

Pina’s friend Emily walks by Bar Sport and tells me Pina is looking for me so I say “Ciao” to the crowd and head home.  Pina and Aimone are cleaning beans they got at the market so they can freeze them for later.  Once again I can’t help, but she tells I can watch if I want to and take photos for America.  So this is for you, America.

First they remove the beans from their shells

Then Pina washing them and spreads them on a cloth and dries them.

Then they put them in plastic bags for the freezer.

She doesn’t blanch them at all, just puts them directly into the bags and then into the freezer.  And then she told me of all the different ways she will prepare them later in the year including telling me the soup recipe again.  As they finish up, Pina tells me she and Aimone are going to see his sister and asks if I’d like to come along.  I say yes and take a few moments to freshen up after filming the bean documentary.   Pina packs a bag full of food gifts and two sweaters for herself and one for Aimone.  She tells me to bring one to because it is very cold where Aimone’s sister lives.   We stop at Mauro’s gas station so Aimone can fill the tank before we go.  With all this preparation I assume it is a going to be a bit of a journey – the drive was all of 15 minutes to a neighboring town.   We stayed just long enough for Pina to give them the contents of the bag and then we drove home again.  As we were walking back to the house from the car, several people stopped us to ask how the trip was…  Every little thing you do here is news and soon everyone in town knows all about it. 

We had dinner at the pizza restaurant tonight.   Pina remembered me saying I wanted to go back to get the one with the zucchini flowers.  She even reminded me to grab my camera before we leave the house.    We are joined for dinner by Emily, Annedia and her husband and another couple that I had not met before. 

Here is a photo of my pizza pie

It’s baked with mozzarella cheese, a few pieces of anchovies and a few very thin slices of zucchini.  Then when taken out of the oven, the raw zucchini flowers are added around pie.   Delicious!  

    

Pina is, as always, the center of attention and I’m pretty sure she talked non-stop for over two hours.   She allows others to get a few words in but then she takes over again.  Her friends don’t seem to mind but I do see some eye-rolling and hidden smiles from time to time, especially when Pina asks everyone why she is always the last one to finish her food… 

Here are two photos of desert items – the first is the restaurant’s version of Crème Brule, which is brought to the table on fire and the second is a pear cooked in red wine mixed with pear juice and cooked into thick syrup.   Oh Madonna….  

Note the tiny knife…  I told you they use tiny utensils and glasses and stuff here…

After dinner the group broke up, Aimone went in the house and watched TV, Pina sat with her girlfriends on the bench in the plaza and I did three laps around town.  That’s how many it took to make my jeans feel comfortable again…

8/31 –

Today is a cold and rainy day but I still took a walk around town with the memory of last night’s dinner and the lingering snugness of my clothes.  I have got me some work to do when this sabbatical thing is over.   Although I walked across most of Italy prior to Semproniano, here I have become a lazy old lady and I am paying the price.  I miss feeling strong and fit and having muscles and being able to breathe when wearing my jeans…   I am trying not to get down on myself about it, but it is hard to do when surrounded every day by incredibly beautiful and mostly physically fit Italian women and men.   I think they all must meet somewhere in secret and have massive workout sessions as I never see them running or even walking fast, just strolling around town a couple of times a day.  Yet the majority of the townspeople, including many of the older men and women, have clearly visible muscle definition in their arms, abs and legs.  Mama Mia!   They go through a lot of bread, pasta and olive oil and most are smokers - so it’s got to be something in their DNA or their coffee…   I don’t know, but I hope that maybe if I get another shot at life (I like to believe that God is into recycling) that I can come back as an Italian, but a non-smoking one.     

As I am nearing home, I see Mauro and he waves me into Cinzia’s club so he can buy me a café.   After he leaves, another elderly man from town buys me a second cup and a third offers but I have to turn him down, he says he will buy tomorrow.  Then another elderly dude gives me a bag of figs picked fresh this morning.  If I were into elderly men with barely any teeth, I could rock this town…

I get back home just before a downpour hits and help Aimone batten down the hatches.  I found that when it rains, there is really NOTHING AT ALL to do.  People don’t go out, not even to Bar Sport.  It rains off and on all day long.  When it’s not raining, I help Aimone open the windows, when it starts to rain, we shut them again.  Good grief!  Please be sunny tomorrow – please be sunny tomorrow – please be sunny tomorrow – please be sunny tomorrow…

When there are breaks in the storm, people hit the streets and I join them by standing on the kitchen balcony.  Every time I am out here, someone looks up and says “Ciao” or “Ciao Lean-da”.    It makes me feel so good.    When the rain comes back everybody disappears again.   I spend most of the day typing, playing solitaire, listening to my IPOD and practicing some songs that I would like to try with my friend (and piano playing goddess) Stephanie when I return to Chicago.  I don’t like rainy days in Semproniano, I miss seeing everybody…

Pina calls for me a bit later in the afternoon, it’s thundering in the distance and she is getting nervous.  You can clearly see by the cloud formation in the sky that it is not coming anywhere near us but she wants me to turn off my computer and unplug things just in case.   And I will probably have to close the windows…  Oh Madonna.   

For dinner tonight she made the bean soup again but this time she used chickpeas.  Chickpeas?  I hate chickpeas, I know that for a fact.   Yet the clouds part and the heavenly angels sing as  another miracle occurs in Pina’s kitchen and I find that I love her chickpea soup.   What is going on?!?!  How is this possible?  I have never liked chickpeas!  But here I am eating delicious, creamy chickpea soup.   She makes me promise that I will make the soup for myself in America and we go over the same recipe again to make sure I understand it.  She tells me if it doesn’t turn out good the first time to keep trying until I figure it out and that I must write to her to tell her if I still like it in America.  I promise her that I will.

I have composed letters to both Pina and Aimone and used Google Translate for the Italian translation.  Now I am writing them in long hand, using capital letters so there is no confusion with the letters.  I feel like a first grader practicing their printing.  I hope Google Translate is accurate and that I am not saying anything offensive.  Oy, oy, oy…

Tonight I take another two laps around the town when the rain lets up for a bit and then it is off to bed, but first I stand at my bedroom window and look up at the almost full moon as it plays hide and seek with the storm clouds.  It will be completely full on Monday night.   I remember that there was a full moon the last night of the 2006 Italy trip as well.  Everything comes back to where it once began...