La dolce vita

We thought it would be an appropriate time to write another post as we sit in our little kitchen eating a delicious pizza dinner. Our diet here in Italy has consisted almost entirely of carbs (perhaps not surprisingly) with the occasional addition of extra-large gelato waffle cones, which is quite a welcome change from the 70% saturated fat meals we had every day in Germany.

One other totally random thing we noticed that is every different here than in Germany is the attitude towards jaywalking. In Germany, to walk when the little green man was not visible was strictly forbidden, on pain of audible tsking from those on the sidewalk (who of course know better) and immediate branding as a culturally-insensitive American tourist. In Italy, the rule seems to be as follows: jaywalk as often as possible, even if it means crossing the street when you have no other reason for doing so, and preferably at a time which poses the maximum safety risk to you and everyone else in the immediate vicinity. This is possibly the best-loved sport in Rome after football. Upon reflection, we think this may be due to the Germans' national reverance for their cars (explained to us by Tobi), which may result in them avoiding any behavior, such as jaywalking, that could potentially result in damage to an automobile.

Our time here in the Cinque Terre has been just wonderful. We hiked through the other four towns and everything is so postcard-beautiful. Today it rained all day and, as it is expected to rain the rest of the week and there is little to do inside here, we briefly considered spending the rest of the week in Pisa or Siena but decided to stay put instead. It's so relaxing and we love our little apartment so we don't want to leave any earlier than necessary. Tomorrow we may take the train into the nearest city (or at least large town) to see War and Peace (in Italian) at the movies! Ed is especially excited.

Our only real challenge here has been grocery shopping. We're trying to save money by shopping instead of eating out so we stock up on cereal, bread, fruit, nutella, and other essentials at the tiny (only) neighborhood groceria. The problem has been in attempting to order sandwich meat at the deli counter from a disgruntled woman whom we suspect does in fact know how to speak English but chooses not to. We've encountered this situation with her twice so far and it usually goes something like this (please imagine a line of people already waiting behind us as we try to figure out names and prices of mystery meats):
Us: buon giorno
Disgruntled woman: hm.
Us: uhhh... Prosciutto cotto (cheapest thing we can find)
DW: si (starts slicing). Quanto? (How much)
Us: uhh... Half... Er, um, mezzo kilo
DW: mezzo?? Un mezzo kilo?!
Us: um, si
DW: mezzo kilo?? For two people?? (Her only English phrase so far)
Us (now embarassed since apparently no other two people in Italy would think of consuming that much prosciutto cotto): uh, si
DW (shrugs): ok... (Lays 0.25 kilos on the scale) Ancora? (Or something similar meaning "more?")
Us: si, mezzo kilo
DW: (adds a few slices so it is 0.32 kilos) ancora?
Us: si
DW: (makes it 0.39) ancora?
Us: no, grazie
We have yet to make it all the way to a half kilo, though we request that every time, since we eat ham sandwiches for two meals a day. At this point we dread going back, especially after two other embarassing incidents, one of which involved a pile of apples accidentally rolling on the floor at the front of the cashier line, and the other an accusation of attempted theft from an 80-year-old man (for the record, we were not trying to steal chickpeas).

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Vandal turns water in Rome's Trevi Fountain red

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/front/5228889.html
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Venice to Bologna to Rome to Vernazza

It has been such a busy few days! It seems like our last post was forever ago, so much has happened since then. To get up to date:
We spent Tuesday in Bologna, thanks to Julie's recommendation, and had a fabulous time. We agreed that it wsd our best day in Italy so far, we just loved the city. It is beautiful and romantic with lovely arched porticoes on all of the buildings, most of which are bright yellow or orange so everything is so cheery and pretty. We did a tour and they said there are 23 miles of porticoes in the city, so they really are everywhere! We had a fun time walking through the university district - it's the oldest university in Europe (or the world?), dating from the 11th century. There were some outdoor markets and we explored one of the school buildings, which was all old stone with an interior courtyard, it's hard to imagine gping to class in such a beautiful place! It was just a great day and we would highly recommend Bologna to anyone visiting Italy.
Wednesday we took the entire day "off". We spent the whole day at the campground except for taking a walk through the neighborhood nearby and going out for pizza. Did laundry, etc. It was actually a pretty fun day.
Thursday we were up at quarter to five to catch our train to Rome. We had an unfortunate incident on the bus to Venice involving bus tickets (we didn't have one - oops), a crotchety driver, and public humiliation but otherwise our trip to Rome was fine. The trains are so easy to use.
That afternoon we met up with Aunt Linda and Uncle Bob at the Spanish Steps and spent the rest of the day with them - it was great! They were leaving the next morning after 3 weeks in Italy so we were so lucky to be able to meet up and it was fun to swap travel stories. It was also kind of nice to have some other English speakers and familiar faces for a few hours! We had a lovely lunch and then went back to their room, which was at the home of a really cute old couple named Luciano and Maria. It seemed like such a nice place to stay! We were going to head out to a cafe for some wine but Luciano and Maria insisted that we all stay there for their "vino della casa" so we had snacks and chatted abd it was really fun, mostly because the four of us spoke English, Luciano spoke only a little bit of English and otherwise Italian, and Maria spoke no English but Italian and French and I speak a little bit of French so there were lots of approximate translations and hand gestures going on! Then we went out for dinner before we had to catch a bus back to our hostel. It was a wonderful night and we were sad that they had to leave the next day but so glad we got to spend some time together.
Over the next two days, we went to the Vatican Museum, Sistine Chapel, and St. Peters and then the Colosseum and Roman Forum, all of which are of course magnificent and amazing. When we were at the Trevi Fountain all of the water was red for some reason and there were lots of police officers and TV camera crews there so we suspect it was not red on purpose, but we have yet to figure out what happened. We had planned to stay in Rome for over a week but actually ended up being there only two nights because our hostel was awful! Very icky and in a scary part of town and we couldn't find another place to stay, so we decided to leave. It was a little disappointing because we both really liked Rome a lot and would have enjoyed being there a few more days just to wander and take it all in. Also a little disappointing because we had a goal to see all of Michelangelo's work in Europe while we were here but since we left Rome early we missed two frescoes and one palace facade, but hopefully we'll be able stop over in Rome for a few hours at some point to see those.
In the end, it seems to have all worked out for the best because tonight we are in the breathtaking town of Vernazza in the Cinque Terre and we are staying in a small apartment! We haven't had a chance to explore because it was already getting dark when we got here but we're excited to see everything tomorrow and enjoy the next week here before we go to another farm!

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Venezia

We spent Saturday and Sunday wandering around bella Venezia. It is one of those places that in reality actually does look as beautiful as in movies and paintings, if not even more so. Saturday we really just walked all day and got lost way back in the side streets away from the main tourist area. Maybe it's just because we've been out in the boonies for the past 3 weeks, but Venice struck as us almost overwhelmingly touristy and crowded. It was hard to move in the Piazza San Marco and the lines were too long to visit any museums. When we were exploring the backstreets and little neighborhoods, though, it was beautiful enough to make up for the congestion of the main square. Sunday morning we got up early and went to mass at the Basilica San Marco, which was incredibly beautiful. Listening to the service in Italian, in an enormous gilt church feels like you've gone back 500 years in time.

Today we took the train to "fair Verona" for the day and had a lovely time. The city is picturesque, the weather was perfect, and we visited an art museum in the old castle as well as "Juliet's house". Verona was the setting for Romeo and Juliet, and in the 14th century there were feuding families named the Capulets and Montagues (or something very similar) so this was an old house that belonged to the Capulets and has a lovely balcony and all that. Okay, very touristy, but still fun.

It should also be noted that we've been eating pizza at least once a day and the pace does not seem to be slowing in the future.
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Auf wiedersehen, Deutschland and Buongiorno, Italia!

We left Schnepfendorf this morning and are on our way to Venice! The morning was a little stressful because the German regional train conductors union chose today to go on strike! So we had to wait a while for a train back to Munich and were a little worried that we'd be stuck for another day or so, but it all worked out fine. We got to Munich in plenty of time for our 1:30 train to Italy.

This train ride is great, we're really enjoying it. We're on one of those trains with individual seating compartments (you know, a Hogwarts train!) and riding straight through the Austrian Alps. It's pretty magical.

Yesterday we went with Tobi to the butcher where we processed (for lack of a better word) an entire cow. It took all day to go from the cow just quartered to dozens of sealed packages of all different meats. Sorry it sounds a bit gross, we weren't sure we wanted to go except that Tobi needed the help, but it was actually a very interesting experience. The butcher, William, just has a small shop and all of his meat is organic. He was very nice and it really was amazing to watch him work. Butchers have to be such knowledgeable anatomists! I wonder whether a butcher knows an animal's anatomy and physiology better than a veterinarian. We saw all of the huge ribs and bones and not a bit of the cow was wasted, except for some pure fat. We even got to help making wursts which really felt like being part of a German tradition.

Leaving the farm was a little bit sad this morning. It was sad to say goodbye to everyone and think that we may not see them again, though hopefully we'll stay in touch. And we are excited to move onto a new place - it's hard to believe we've been in Germany for almost a month already! We just heard our first announcement in Italian; we must be getting closer! It is SO different from German, it will be fun to be surrounded by a completely different language for the next month. We have some fun plans for our time here, and thank you to the lovely Juliana for sending some great recommendations!

In other news, we heard from a woman named Anna in Sicily who would like us to house-sit for a couple of weeks in January while she's on vacation in Australia! We're definitely planning to do that!

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Home alone for the weekend!

Lots of things to talk about and we can finally do it because Tobi, Susi, and the kids are away for the weekend visiting Grandma in Munich so we have the house (and computer) to ourselves! Very nice. We've done a bunch of laundry and got to sleep inside for once! We also spent several hours this morning trying to upload at least some of our photos but finally gave up. This computer is way too slow, it was going at a rate of 15 minutes per picture and we just couldn't wait. Hopefully we'll find some other opportunity to do that. Tobi and Susi said that we could have whatever we wanted to eat from their kitchen or the store. So, faced with an entire store filled with fresh produce and organic goodness all for the taking, we chose to have canned ravioli for dinner. At least it was organic.

We only had to do potatoes that one day last week and we were surprised that we weren't too sore afterwards, though we found out that between the two of us and Tobi we harvested a little over 3,000 pounds of potatoes in one day! The rest of the week we harvested some leeks, picked tomatoes, and learned how to feed the pigs. We really like the pigs. We also played soccer since, naturally, they have a soccer field in the backyard. One of our very favorite chores this past week has been catching runaway chickens and returning them to their coop. They somehow manage to get out no matter how much fencing is put up, there is one orange one that gets out almost every day and it's great chasing it around the yard. We actually just saw it walk past the window so when we're done writing this we have to go catch it again.

We have figured out a lot more of our itinerary for the next few weeks. We plan to leave here on Friday and go to Venice for about a week, then to Rome for 10 days before our next farm in Tuscany. Exciting!

Before we leave here, we have to cook one dinner for the family and we still haven't figured out what to do. We are open to suggestions! Something "American" that's easy to do.

There are some interesting things that are different here compared to how they are at home. The fridge for instance is the same size as a normal college dorm room fridge and it's for a family of 5. There's no freezer or microwave, and you have to pour the water out of the dryer after every cycle. They use a broom, not a vacuum (that seems to be just a toy for the kids, they like to suction it to their skin) and the milk and eggs are not refrigerated, though the cheese is. They also have a very interesting system for strengthening the local economies in small towns that is too complicated to explain here but that seems like a good idea. On the other hand, some things are the same, most notably the constant soundtrack of Beatles music and the radio playing almost exclusively American pop music (the first song played at Oktoberfest was Gwen Stefani's Sweet Escape).

We're off to chase the chicken now, hopefully we'll be able to post one more time this week, otherwise auf wiedersehn/arrivederci until Italia!

Update

After a couple of rainy days at the farm, we have just now had our first FULL day of harvesting potatoes. It was very hard work but very rewarding at day's end.

Another fun activity we enjoyed today was seeing the new baby sheep that was born yesterday. Needless to say it was very cute and Marisa took several pictures.

Also this weekend we visited the nearby town of Rothenberg, which you should visit for a day if you can. It's just beautiful. We went to the criminal museum, ate some Schneeballen (some special pastery ball) and walked along the castle walls that surround the city.

Sunday we went to Tobi's friend's Harvest Fest and it was gorgeous outside and a really nice day.

I'd say that as of now we're enjoying farm life and are hoping that it will somehow be a part of our life in the future. Both Tobi and Suzi have been great with entertaining our curiousities and handling the language barrier. We both really feel like we've become part of the family here after only one week. We've spent a lot of time sitting up chatting with Tobi and Suzi and their friends and it's nice because they're not all that much older than us, just six years or so. It's a lot of fun being on the farm and learning so much about the crops and animals; we're enjoying it very much.
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