Tuesday, March 30

3/27/10
Chiuso o Aperto
Yikes…I am as good at this blogging thing as I used to be at face book. In December I realized that I hadn’t checked my face book since October. Updates have been difficult because internet access has been infrequent. It has become painfully obvious is that whether something is open or closed depends on everything from the weather, to the days of the week to what someone ate for lunch. While Amy and Jeff were here, the weather was very temperamental. Almost every day after eating “Pranza” (an extended Italian lunch) we were all in need of a good hike. A climb up “La Rocca” behind our house would have been perfect but we could never figure out when it was open. Wind, rain, too many beans for lunch, were all a good reason for the local forest ranger, (equipped in the latest, fashionable bright yellow rain gear) to close the gate. Lucca took many trips up to the gate only to read “Chiuso”. Its one of the first Italian words he learned. The internet cafes have been no different. While I appreciate the fact that no one seems to sweat the details here, I am also realizing how truly American I am. Doing business here must be a struggle. Maybe I can blame the fact that I have difficulty making it to appointments on time to the fact that I was born here (Umbertide, Umbria 1967).
Ear Worm
I feel very rich in friends. Everyone who has come for a visit has been such fun to spend time with. Jeff was his usual calm, collected dapper self. He and Tony took a trip to Palermo and confirmed my suspicions from a previous expedition with Amy. Palermo is the Detroit of Sicily. It is surviving somehow. Palermo is the 5th largest city in Italy (?) and is somehow surviving despite serious neglect and chaos. I suspect that the city would feel quite different if I were staying there with the right person. Right now, it seems like a tragic, crumbling version of its former glory. At least 2 guidebooks have quoted noted historians about Palermo’s stunning beauty in the past. It was considered by some to be the most beautiful city in the World. We decided not to take Lucca for a day trip because the traffic is so crazy. I have already lost several years off my life from my enthusiastic over consumption of pasta. I don’t think spending a day getting more grey hair while trying to cross the street is a good idea. This is supposed to be a vacation after all.
Andreas arrived and it was like we hadn’t skipped a beat. His frank, un-self conscious enthusiasm for travel and sweets is unparalleled by anyone else I know. Lucca couldn’t get enough of him (maybe because they are so similar). Andreas and Lucca spent at least two days at the beach in Cefalu building sand castles and “Greek Temples” out of sticks. Andreas remarked that it was such a shame that a grown man couldn’t do the same thing by himself at the beach…that he had to be accompanied by a child.
A little more about Andreas.; Andreas is a “former” East German. He grew up behind the iron curtain. Despite the restrictions imposed upon him he somehow managed to do a tremendous amount of traveling before the wall came down. His stories are mind blowing. We met him almost 17 years ago in Indianola when he was a camp counselor at Camp Indianola. We were smitten with him then, and we have seen him at least every 2 years since. He is a living contradiction; he’s German but he hates soccer, he hates beer and he would leave Germany and own a chocolate-teddybear shop in Poulsbo if he could. Despite the fact that he looks like he is Greek, he is convinced that Germans invented everything that has made modern life livable. I can’t count on my fingers how many times we were discussing some random topic and Andreas would remark that Germany was responsible for the particular concept, or invention. He hates to be wrong. One evening Andreas stated that there was a movie made in Italy that took place on one of the Islands off the coast of Sicily, the Island of Stromboli. He was sure that Gina Lola Brigida had starred in it. By happenstance, I found a mention of the movie in our guide book. It turns out that Ingrid Bergman had stared in the movie. Andreas was miffed that he had been wrong about the starlet. He asked me if I knew that Ingrid Bergman had shot one of her lovers and had spent some time in jail. I’m no expert when it comes to celebrities…but this didn’t ring a bell. We decided to make a wager…a chocolate covered torrone bar, my favorite sweet here (made with egg whites, pistachios, honey and chocolate). Do you know anyone who hates to be wrong? For me the victory wasn’t actually winning the bet…it was watching Andreas wring his hands when he went to bed that night. I had looked up Ingrid Bergman on Wikipedia on my cell phone that night and even though the site clearly stated that she hadn’t shot anyone and that she hadn’t spend any time in jail, Andreas was convinced that the American version must be wrong. He was determined to look up the information on German Google the next day. Victory is sweet…especially in my case. As it turns out, a German woman named Ingrid Von Bergen, who had been a star in the 60’s (?) shot her lover and killed him in a moment during a heated argument. She spent 7 years in jail. Note to self…move to Germany if you want to get away with murder! Ingrid Von Bergen is still alive and recently participated in the German version of Survivor. As Andreas stated…she’s not even “B” list anymore. The years haven’t been kind. Ingrid looks like she could be Ozzy Osbourne’s older sister. I ate my torrone with such pleasure.
We started to mourn Andreas’s departure a few days before he left. He is such easy company. He made our parting a little easier by singing the same song over and over and over again before he left. It was a song from a TV show for kids called “Jim Knopf and the Locomotive Driver”, according to Andreas it became a top ten song in Germany in the 90’s. Hours before his train left I thought Tony was going to kill him. Andreas explained that when you have a song that rings in your head repeatedly it is called an “ear worm” in Germany.
Here is the English version of Andreas’s “ear worm” song, translated by Andreas ;
“There’s an island with two mountains and the deep blue sea and the tunnels and the rail-tracks for the train traffic.”
“What the name of the island might be which is surrounded by nice beaches. Everybody should travel one time in its live to the nice island Lummerland.”
It sounds so innocent…you’d never know that this song was used by the German’s in World War II to extract top secret information from captured Allied soldiers. They just sang it to their captives repeatedly until their ears bled.
St Theresa
My Italian classes gave me enough of a vocabulary to make me dangerous. I can now say “My name is Brigitte, I have a husband who can speak Italian well…I cannot. My son is 5. I am studying Italian. I am American. I am staying in Sicily for vacation for one month. I would like an espresso.” That’s about it. The poor suckers I talk to are under the delusion that I can actually understand what they say after I’m done with my canned dialogue. When they encounter my blank stare they usually give up. I understand enough Italian to know that a few of them say; “You don’t know what I’m saying, do you.” I can order food in a restaurant, purchase produce, fish, meat, cheese from a vendor and get my cappuccino in the morning. I can also buy shoes….
My cooking teacher, Theresa, is a retired Bank director. She lives about 2 miles up a long hill in the countryside on the outskirts of Cefalu. She only speaks Italian. Theresa is a friend of a young woman named Jennifer who works at the language school “Cultur Forma” in Cefalu. It took a few days for me to piece together that Jennifer had dated one of Theresa’s nephews who died tragically 7 years ago. They stayed in touch. Theresa also lost her husband 3 years ago. She lives in an enormous 5 bedroom house on at least 7 acres with olive, chestnut, orange, lemon, apricot, and cherry trees all by herself. I am the first student she has ever had. I had 4 classes and they went remarkably well considering that each one resembled a very animated pictionary game. When it comes to food, I can speak any language. Really…give me a parachute, some spare change and a kitchen…I can poison anyone in any country. What I learned from Theresa (which is true anywhere in the world) is that nothing beats fresh ingredients. We cooked with olive oil from her trees, olives that she cured, sardines caught that very day….you really can’t make a bad meal when you keep it simple and cook from good local ingredients. I feel so lucky to live in the Northwest. We may not have fresh Buffalo Mozzerella , fresh Ricotta, or swordfish from the bay outside our door…but we have our own amazing seafood, locally raised meat and lots of fresh local veggies. I’m not disappointed that our water isn’t coming from ancient Roman lead pipes either.
I soon discovered that Theresa was a very generous, good humored and well educated woman. She opened her house to me and had the good grace not to ask me any questions I couldn’t answer in my cave-woman Italian. She talked, I listened…and amazingly, I understood a great deal. She insisted on inviting Tony and Lucca for lunch one day and Joni and Scott Kimmel the next. Her sister and brother in law, Ester and Guiseppe, drove everyone up from town. One day we sat having lunch (the television was always on) when it was announced on Italian television that Obama’s health-care bill had passed, we all raised a glass and made a toast. The whole world is watching us. Sicily is a country with an amazingly dramatic past and a long series of terribly corrupt leaders. Berlusconi owns everything, the television stations, the radio, the papers. People here are watching us, and by every indication it seems that they want us to succeed. They want to believe that Democracy is possible because they are hoping for change in their own backyards. Our country is so young and yet in such a short amount of time we have become a symbol of what is possible. Personally, I was thrilled to see Obama elected, but I feel the importance of our decision on a global level here. I am convinced, more now than ever how critical traveling is...especially as an American. Sicily is a good example of what is happening elsewhere. There are amazing sites to see, the landscape is so dramatic and moving, but there is ruin and poverty everywhere you turn. People are desperate for work and change. I can’t imagine living in a country where a huge part of the economy relies on tourists who arrive for an afternoon in huge buses, see a few sites, buy a few postcards, eat a meal and leave.


The Kimmels
Scott and Joni’s visit was a huge success. They arrived after spending 5 days in Rome and we had a wonderful time. I made them a few of the Sicilian dishes I had learned how to cook from Theresa…if they were feeding the dog under the table at least they were very subtle about it. They were a pleasure to host. It’s always a gamble spending time and/or traveling with someone for the first time. Ordinary people can turn into werewolves when they aren’t sleeping in their own beds, eating familiar food or living according to their normal routine. It can be hell when you are navigating a different country with someone who can’t roll with the punches. Joni and I work together well (we are business partners) for the same reason that we enjoy each others company in unfamiliar territory. We like good food, we like good wine, we are married to good men, we get a thrill out of having to respond spontaneously to unusual situations…and we are spot on when it comes to giving each other shopping advice. It’s a rare combination of attributes that only align once every 500 years or so.
A Few Observations of Sicily…
1. The TV is always on…and Italian television is, well…take all of our worst shows; Jerry Springer, Judge Judy, American Idol, Survivor. Make sure the host has over styled hair, breast implants, obvious cosmetic surgery, and a smoker’s voice. Add about 10 extraneous bimbos who just hang around on stage, and a huge over dressed, noisy, opinionated crowd.
2. I’m pretty sure the entire country has only one radio station and it’s an American “soft hits” station. I have never heard so much Barry White and Whitney Houston in my life.
3. If Sicily had a scent it would be a combination of fresh baked bread, orange blossom, cigarette smoke, espresso, with just a hint of cat urine