Andrea in....France? Spain?

Today is our official last day living in our "cozy" studio in the heart of Trastevere, Roma - our little home away from home. With little work available teaching in the summer months, and the city slowly being deserted by locals and filled with tourists, we decided to leave for the summer, and possibly longer, depending on what happens. We have been soaking up everything we possibly can about Roma lately - from the gelato and cappucini, to the view of the Vatican at sunset from the bridge near our home, to the loud, gesticulating Italians, to cold prosecco with friends, to the pretty piazzas, ancient churches, famous museums, enormous Greek-influenced statues and fountains. Like the book "Good night Moon," we have been saying "good night" or more like "goodbye" to all that has become dear to us over the last 10 months... "goodbye gelato, goodbye fontanelle with fresh cold drinking water, goodbye mean ladies at the supermarket who never want to give us change, goodbye friends, goodbye old man on our street who says buongiorno every morning, goodbye piazza di spanga, goodbye Italian MTV that we watch every morning, goodbye ponte sisto, goodbye church that has been my salvation at times, goodbye street performers that still make me laugh even though I have seen the act 100 times, goodbye lady who sells jewelery on the corner, goodbye tram, goodbye funny looking dog, goodbye long, warm walks on cobblestone streets, goodbye Roma...." Rome has found it's way into both our hearts and will always be a place we treasure above all. I have a feeling we will end up back here someday too.
So...what's next? We just got back from Termini train station where we basically played the ticket machines like they were slots in Vegas, and ended up with one way tickets to NICE, FRANCE! The plan is to spend a few night exploring the French Riviera and live the (very low-budget) VIP life. We have managed to fit our lives into backpacks and are slowly making our way over to the north coast of Spain with a few fun stops on the way....

A few of my favorite things

This dog is very sweet and sits outside a children’s clothing shop near our house everyday just watching people pass by. He has a very calm demeanor and seems like he is always thinking something profound. If you bend down to greet him, he slowly walks toward you, looks up at your face and loves to be pet.

Everyday there is a farmer’s market in Campo de Fiori (which translates to “field of flowers”). I love more than anything to go, get a fresh bowl of macedonia, which is cut up mixed fruits like grapes, apples, bananas, peaches, pineapple and watermelon, and sit next to the Bruno statue in the middle of the piazza with the hot sun blaring down. The market has every bright, colorful fruit or vegetable imaginable, and also cheeses, honeys, meats, fish and pastas. I love to watch the happy vendors and happy people and I love that this happens everyday of the week.

Lastly, my favorite gelato (big surprise) of the week is coconut, watermelon and orange. The tart orange mixed with cool watermelon go perfectly with the sweet coconut which has real coconut flecks in it!

Notti sul Tevere

“Nights on the Tevere”. In the summer the normally bum infested, pee pee smelling Tevere river and the beautiful Isola Tiberina are transformed into happening places to spend the warm summer evenings. You can grab a drink or aperitivo at one of the many loungy looking bars with dim lights, sparkly walls and soft sofas, or play one of the carnival-esque games such as shooting cans, or just shop around the many vendors selling hippie handbags, pretty-smelling incenses, summer dresses or fresh candies. We have strolled the river a couple times now just enjoying the soft lights glowing amongst the water.

Chiesa di S. Ignazio

This church is famous because Andrea Pozzo painted la finta cupola, a fake dome at the front of the church. The church didn't have enough money to build a real one, so this was painted to give the illusion of light filling the church from the dome. It looks like a real dome until you get close enough to notice it was actually painted on a flat surface.

Chiesa di San Pietro In Vincoli

We went to this 5th century church the other day which holds the vincoli, or chains that bound St. Peter in prison in Jerusalem. Apparently when they were compared with the chains of his final imprisonment, they miraculously fused together. They are sitting under the alter in the front of the church.

Also in the corner is Michalangelo’s statue of Moses.

Sicilia

After 6 hours on the train, passing lots of vinyards, smooth, green country hillsides and little towns that only made me wonder what people’s lives were like who lived in these small, isolated little cities, we reached a stop called Villa S. Giovanni. The train halted and didn’t move for a good 20 minutes. Off to our right was a body of water filled with cargo ships and a huge mass of land out in the distance. After consulting the map, we realized that huge mass of land was Sicily. I couldn’t believe it...we made it. I finally arrived to the destination that has been nothing more than a distant thought, or obscure, unreal, fantastical, scary location where the Marino/Spinelli families are from. “Sicily” was always just a name, or a word that was used to describe my paternal family history, but I could never place an image with this word. I really knew nothing about it, other than it existed and it was probably out of reach of my reality. And here I was. I couldn’t help but think of my family, at home, mourning the loss of our last remaining connection to this “old world,” our mother land. I felt an overwhelming mixture of excitement, disbelief, awe, appreciation and then sadness for my Grandma Jean and family.
The train was then shakily and noisily loaded into a ferry. We sat on the train, underground in a big, industrial-looking dungeon with no idea what was going on in the outside world. The ferry transported us over the water as if in the belly of a whale, to Sicily. For the whole last 3 hours of the journey, 2 little old Italian ladies talked and talked and talked and talked. Sean and I smiled at each other, and I again thought of Grandma Jean and Aunt Subbi, who probably did the same thing at some point in time years and years before.
We continued along the coast, which was strangely to the east, winding our way through tunnels, among rocky cliffs, more little towns, beautiful, glittering, tropical beach resorts on the white hot sand along the cool clear green water. On the opposite side, Europe’s largest volcano, Mt. Etna sat proud and mean, reminding everyone who’s boss.
In contrast to the beautiful journey, Catania was not what we were expecting. It was a little rough. Kind of like a big city, with not a lot of people. It was hot, and dirty, and smelly, and a little uncomfortable. We were greeted off the train with strange stares by strange folks and no idea which direction to go. I grabbed a café, to wake up a bit and we started our walk to find the city center. We walked amongst garbage, and fish guts and a bunch of merchandise supply shops with fabric materials or car parts. We walked to the coast to find a big dirty port filled with cargo ships from China slowly creeping in and out. We caught a bus that we expected to take us to some sort of beautiful beach location where we could find a hotel and post up on the sand and dip in the sea. No such luck. We rode the bus for about an hour, along the coast, where there were beach resorts covered in graffiti with teenage hoodlums hanging out, and had an unpleasant similarity to a beach resort one would find in T.J. The bus ended at what looked like a garbage landfill. I refused to get off at any of the stops we saw, so we just stayed on the bus and rode it back to the city center. We walked around some more and finally found a pretty piazza and the main street that was lined with nice clothing shops and delicious smelling pasticcerie filled with real Cannoli Siciliani (con ricotta) and colorful marzipane. We began to feel more at ease and enjoyed the sights and the touristy shops for a while and realized that parts of Catania were actually really nice. We found a cute little bed and breakfast hotel over looking it all. The hotel cost more than we wanted to pay, so we named our price and the owner accepted (once I told him I was a Marino, he had the look of fear glazed over in his eyes and said “Va bene...ok...anything you want signorina”). We went out for a nice, rich Italian dinner of gnocchi alla gorgonzola and penne al salmone, where we sat outside in the warm night. We walked the whole city and explored the happening night scene, where strangely all bars were called “American Bar” and we even saw 3 Irish pubs. We ended the night with a sweet ricotta filled cannolo with pistacchi and once cockroaches started scattering across the piazza we were sitting in, it was time to call it a night and sleep peacefully in our air-conditioned hotel.

The next day, it was too hot to move outside, but we left our ice cool 17 degree (celcius) room to see the rest of the sights of Catania (there weren’t much) and a big farmer’s market with fruits, veggies, meats, cheeses, fish and shouting Sicilian men and little old people doing their morning shopping. We ate some cherries and fragolini (little strawberries) in the cockroach piazza, then headed north to a little city called Giardini Naxos and then Taormina, which I absolutely adored. Thanks to Frankie for telling us where to go the night before we left on our journey. It was a quiet little beach town with posh shops, expensive Italian restaurants, cafes and gelaterie high above a breathtakingly beautiful beach. We walked about a mile down a steep rocky cliff to reach the beach and “La Isola Bella”, a little island that we walked to through the shallow water. The crystal clear water sparkled bright aqua and we struggled to walk along the pebbly, rocky beaches. I was eaten alive by mosquitos and have the big, red, itchy bites head to toe to prove it. We spent 2 days there lounging in the hot sun on the beaches, swimming in the fresh cool water which was more like a gigantic lake since it was so calm, and exploring the little town, which a cable car took us to, from the beach because it was so high up. Sean also nearly gave me a heart attack by jumping from giant boulders that sat in the water and then playing with a jelly fish he found and pulled out of the water with a stick. The main piazza had a checkered ground and beautiful bright purple flowers everywhere. We ate traditional Sicilian pizza, which was different than Roman pizza, but also delicious, and plenty of granite (fruit icy) just to stay cool. Everywhere in Italy, sunscreen costs 15 euro which is over $20. I grudgingly bought a bottle since the sun was so strong and figured our skin protection was worth the ridiculous price. So, luckily neither of us burned and I am guarding that bottle with my life as it must last us through the summer. We found a hotel on the beach which was a completely different experience than Catania. It had a beautiful view, overlooking the water and beach resorts, however, the air conditioning was broken and our room remained at a miserable 90 degrees through the night. I woke up and tried to open the door to the balcony, which was stuck closed, until Sean nearly broke it open to get some air. The air outside was also hot and sticky and humid and I slept very little. The one bonus being that I sleepily caught an amazing sun rise over the ocean at about 4am. Overall Taormina was awesome and we both loved the relaxing atmosphere and this bright, sunny little city.

We took an over night train back to Rome, which left Taormina at 8pm and arrived in Rome at 6am. We quickly realized why the tickets were so cheap as soon as we boarded. We expected an empty train where we could sprawl out on the seats and sleep through the journey back home. However, the train was packed with people who apparently all had the same idea. It’s no secret that I hate teenage boys. Sean has told me many times that I can’t say that, but here I am saying it now. They are unnecessarily loud, greasy, annoying, arrogant and stink. With our clear misfortune, we shared a cabin with 4 of the rowdiest, teenage Siracusa soccer fans (serie D - the lowest division, by the way) and their 6 friends in the cabin next to us, who were all pumped up for a big game in Rome. To show the whole train how pumped up they were, they shouted, chanted and banged the windows for hours. When they finally fell asleep they had no problem propping their feet up on Sean’s seat and rolling over into my space. The hot, stuffy, stinky air was suffocating and we had no water, as we finished it within the first couple hours of the journey. I continued to get bitten by mosquitos, and was loosely in and out of sleep the whole time. At around 5am, the chanting and window banging began again, and we only had to endure it for the final hour before we finally arrived in Rome. I practically ran out of the train to never look back at those horrible boys. Needless to say, I got home, took a long cool shower and have slept most of the day away.

Favorite words

For the 9 months that Sean and I have been learning Italian (one of us faster than the other), we have found ourselves often choosing a favorite word and then using it as much as possible. From day one Sean's favorite word has always been "ragazzi", which just means "guys"...at least several times a day, we hear, "ciao ragazzi!", which is obviously just "hi guys!" It rolls right off the tongue in such a pleasant way and is just a simple, nice greeting. It can be used in so many different situations too and we both say it about 100 times a day....and even better is "ragazzini" which you say for young kids.

My favorite word changes often. For a while it was "baffi" which means "mustache". This was a little bit more difficult to incorporate into my everyday speech, so it was mainly reserved for my lessons where I chose to teach my students the word, "mustache" just so I could say, "Baffi".

As of late, my new favorite is "infatti", which means "in fact". I now start just about every sentence I say with "infatti" and think I sound rather smart...even if I do fumble the rest of the sentence.

Fiori, Fiori, Fiori!

Today, Sean and I went to a little town on the outskirts of Rome called Genzano. I happily gazed out of the window during the relaxing, hour-long train ride, slowly winding along the green, vineyard-covered Italian countryside. We arrived to the small city center to find a long pathway leading up to a church, completely covered in a carpet of flower petals. The flowers are delicately arranged on the ground to create the most vivid, colorful religious murals in celebration of Corpus Domini, a Catholic holiday to remember The Last Supper and the holy Eucharist, or holy communion, symbolic of the body of Christ. It was a beautiful display in the middle of a typical, Italian small town - cobble stone streets and plenty of cafe bars and gelaterie. The sun was bright, and scorching, and I almost asked the guy watering the flowers to water me!

Grandma Jean.

There are no words that can possibly describe the tremendous loss our family is experiencing. Being so far away, words are all I have, and so I will try. Grandma Jean...has been more than just a grandma, mom, aunt, great-grandma, great-aunt, sister, daughter, wife, friend...she has been the glue that has kept our family together, she has been the link to our family history, the story-teller of times past, the wisdom, the humor, the bond, the blood that has made us a family. She is one of my favorite people on this planet, and she will be dearly missed. As I try to put into words how important she is to each and every person in our family, memories flash into my mind and every emotion in the book fills my heart. I remember...the grandma Jean of my childhood, visiting her home on weekends with dad, the smell of some kind of delicious Italian food filling the kitchen, going though her old photo albums that sat in the drawer under the tv, the Dodgers playing on the tv in the background, stealing candies from the jar on the coffee table, grandma and grandpa in their matching reclining chairs, or drinking soda on a warm day in her backyard, catching up on life, admiring her roses and that peculiar pond that sat in the corner with nothing in it, Frankie and I playing or just jumping off that "stage" in her backyard too. I remember her organ that sat in the dining room, and the smile she would get when my dad would play and we would all sit around, she would close her eyes, sometimes humming along - especially when he played her favorite "Spanish Eyes". I remember her enormous hugs and kisses when we walked to the front door like she could wipe away the problems of the world with them, and her standing outside waving goodbye as we drove away at the end of a nice visit. I remember staying over at her house sometimes as a kid, and having cornflakes for breakfast, and everything always being "nice..." especially the cornflakes. I will never forget the story I have been told of her waiting in line at the store for hours and hours to get a Cabbage Patch Doll, at the height of their popularity, for my 4th birthday. I would have never known it then that she worked so hard to get such a big smile on my face that day. I even remember her and grandpa taking the grandkids camping one summer - Gina, Frankie and I - I couldn’t have been more than 5 or 6 years old and it was so exciting to stay in their fancy motorhome over night. I remember her sitting on the phone with me, patiently and happily, for about an hour, helping me complete a family tree report for grade school. I remember her excitement when I started wearing make-up, even if it was just for a school play, and the millions of times she took me shopping - always fun, buying me something special and embarrassing me with questions about boys when we’d stop for a nice lunch. I remember her visiting me at college during my first year, and showing off my little dorm room on the 3rd floor, after she and grandpa climbed about 200 steps to get there, and then her making the long journey again for my graduation. She was always there for the milestones in our lives - always proud...She rarely missed a chance to see Frankie perform, and she truly loved his gift in music, maybe even seeing the passion my dad has for music in my brother. Her story-telling was the best - of her adventures with Grandpa Don, or funny stories of my dad, aunt Pauline and uncle Joe as kids - those were our favorites. She always had us laughing no matter what. I remember staying in grandma’s guest room for a couple weeks after I graduated college, and us sitting in our pyjamas every night watching some sitcom or reality show on tv. She’d make a nice dinner or we would go out, I would chat with her about my new role in the "real world" and I didn’t realize then how important that little time was together. We would catch a movie here and there on weekends, and always a nice lunch. Mimi’s and Coco’s won’t be the same without her. Nothing will be the same without her....not Christmas especially. No ones cooking can even compare to Grandma Jean’s - there is no competing with her colorful Christmas cookies, or her spinaci bread which no one else has quite mastered like she did. She loved feeding her family, making sure we were all healthy... "Mangia!" she would say, even if we weren’t hungry, and we would, just cause she told us to and she always knew best. She loved all little children, loud, running around, the chaos, and just being surrounded by a family full of noise, laughs and love. And I loved the security of knowing grandma would be there ready with one of her powerful hugs every Christmas eve no matter what. She would always make everyone laugh by giving all the adult men the same gift, usually a sweater, in a different color so they had to open their presents at the same time, or stealing the best gift (even from one of the kids!) during the ‘Secret Santa’ gift exchange. The memories are endless - her voice, her Boston accent, her laugh, how sometimes she would laugh so hard she would cry, her face, her smile, her generous heart, her young spirit, her warmth, how she made everyone feel at home and part of the family, even Sean the few times he got to meet her, how she instilled such a strong sense of family within each of us... Family is everything... I remember the day I told her I was coming out to live in Italy for a year, and after she said, "Madonna!" she just said, "well, hurry up and get it out of your system already!" She told Sean to take good care of me...before we said our goodbyes.... I knew leaving to travel the world was a risk in the sense that things change, life changes, and people may leave the world we live in. I prayed grandma would be there when I returned - to hear my attempts at speaking Italian, to hear all about my adventures, and to share some of hers, to make us her famous canoli that I have been telling Sean all about, and to pick up life just where we left off. I prayed she would be there to see me get married someday, or even someday hold my children like she held us when we were babies.... Grandma lived 88 full years, living each day loved by her huge family. I have faith that grandma knows how loved she really is and how important she is to so many. And how this great big hole in our family will never be filled....will never be the same without her. I pray that God holds her tight, and that she is reunited with grandpa and aunt Subbi, as I know she has missed them terribly as well. I am forever grateful to have had such a special person in my life, that I knew my grandma and have had so many wonderful years of my life with her in it. About a million happy memories of grandma Jean will forever be in my heart.

Un po di rigraziamento...

My students brought me flowers to say thank you on our last day of class. These were from the 4 women I taught every Wednesday. They were my most eager students, and we spent most of the class talking...it was almost like a therapy group but I corrected their English while they spoke. They were equally helpful with my Italian. They are very sweet, and I am truly touched.

Amalfi Coast

Sorrento, it started to rain...we decided to look for a place to stay before it got too late, and we got too wet. We found a phone number in our guide book for a cheap hotel, so we called and were directed to a restaurant. After trekking in the rain, stopping every 5 feet to look for cover, we arrived to the restaurant off a little side street, soaking wet, and were greeted by a nice Italian couple, who made us yet another espresso. Another woman took us to our hotel, where we dried off a bit, relaxed for a minute and then headed out into the rain to walk and explore the city a bit, which we pretty much covered in less than an hour. Sorrento is a beautiful little beach town high up on a cliff, with adorable shops, expensive cafes and is well-known for the lemons grown in the area, which were literally about the size of my head. The next morning, we walked down to the water, where a tiny harbor sat full of tourists and little restaurants, amongst the green landscape to create a perfect picture. The water isn’t dark blue like California, it is more an amazing clear blue-green and I would have given anything for it to have been warm enough to jump in! We could still see Vesuvio in the distance, and also the island of Capri. The sun came out for a bit so we sat for a while in the harbor, soaking up the rays and I enjoyed a fresh delicious granita (lemon Italian icy). Next stop...Positano

The bus from Sorrento to Positano rode around a zig zag windy road, on the edge of a dangerous cliff. We decided to get off early, out of fear for our lives, motion sickness, and the fact that the view was the most amazing thing we had ever seen and pictures needed to be taken. Millions of lemon groves sat high above the aqua-colored water, rocky cliffs hung over our heads, and a small town was tucked amongst all this luscious green nature. We walked for about an hour winding our way down to the little town. The town was full of touristy shops, the scent of lemon filled the air and boats lined up on the black, pebbly sand. We sat on the beach until the rain came, then headed into a café for an afternoon tramezzino/calzone snack, before heading off to Amalfi....

Amalfi was small enough to see standing in one place. The bus ride there was short but equally scary and zig zaggy and also with breathtaking views. Another quaint, beautiful little city full of lemon scented touristy shops, restaurants and cafes, which sat right on the beach. The main focus was the big, gold duomo church with about 100 steps leading to the top. We couldn’t find a hotel since everything was booked, so the receptionist at one hotel called up his friend and he set us up with an apartment complete with kitchen and separate rooms and bathroom. It was super nice, and since it was so late at night, we got a great deal. Amalfi had a lovely romantic feel, and after a crazy storm passed, it was nice to go on a late night stroll through the small town with Sean. The next day, we got up again bright and early and headed out to slowly walk the beach and town, and do a little touristy shopping. We walked to some other look out spots with a view of the neighboring city Atrani, where the winds were so strong they nearly blew us right into the sea. We took the bus South after that and got to see the rest of the Almafi Coast, including Maiori and Minori, which were also little charming beach towns, all the way to Salerno (which is just a big industrial-type city, described as la piu brutta cita di Italia: the ugliest city of Italy), where we got on the train and headed back to Rome.