Una notta a Roma

Arriving at Fiumicino from Oslo, I had approximately 13 hours to kill before my flight back across the Atlantic the next morning. What could have been an awkward period of waiting or a short, relaxing sedentary vacation at a hotel or hostel turned out to be neither. No, these few hours were meant to be savored, used to their fullest.

Locking my green backpack up at the airport, I made my way to the bus (much cheaper than the rip-off train ride from the airport) which got me to the Ostiense station by 2:30pm. 

Sure it was to be a night of people-less pictures. But it didn't matter. Tonight was a night for the soul. Of exploration. To see as much as I could. Of physical endurance. To walk as far as I could. 

I had covered the Coliseum and St. Peter's Basilica in my last visit. Without any itinerary, I resolved to wandering. Consistent with my philosophy, I refrained from taking pictures inside churches. And in this blog, I've spared you the cliche pics of the Trevi fountain, Pantheon, and Spanish Steps.

Fountain in front of the Pantheon

 

Ignorant of the Roman landmarks, I turned what seemed to me an ordinary street corner only to be surprised by this larger-than-life brilliant white feature: the seat of Italian government, Capitoline Hill

"I pini di Roma" (the pines of Rome): To capture the signature trees of the Roman forum and Capitoline hill; specifically, it is Pinis pinea, or "stone pine" or "umbrella pine", and is the type that produces pine nuts

Crossing back over the Tiber to Trastevere

On Gianiculum Hill, "Roma o morte" (Rome or death)

View of the impenetrable Castel St. Angelo from Gianiculum Hill

3:00am  The bricks of St. Peter's Square rest after another day of trampling

Turning around, a capture of Via della Conciliazione, the avenue given by Mussolini to the Vatican to mark their cooperation. Also empty except for the homeless sleeping in the crevices provided by porticos along the avenue

Marking the end of a memorable three months' trip to the country of my ancestors, I took the Ponte di Vittorio Emanuele II (bridge). It was 4am.  Legs sore.

Norwegian Wood (this bird has flown)*

*song title changed from "knowing she would" by Lennon/McCartney; set in a medieval church mode called mixolydian; title later used for Murakami's novel.

Yes, it is a year and a half after the fact, but if I never finish this, I'll go crazy.  Two posts remain - that of my week in Norway and of my 10-hour embarkation on Rome while I waited for my early morning flight home.

Norway's naval history is like none other. After retirement, these viking vessels used as burial containers for chiefs. They were found buried inland (not near the coast).  

 My pictures do not do it justice, so I've omitted the images I took at the museum containing the Fram, the wooden vessel which carried Norwegian explorers to the North Pole - and the first to do so.

Remnants of less preserved viking ship.

Weekend trip to Kine's family cabin some hours north of Oslo - with Simen, Marianne, and Kine. "Our cabin is in Gudbrandsdalen (that's the valley below, where the main road from Lillehammer to Trondheim, E6, goes). More specifically, it's situated by Musdalsætra, which is where the farmers from the valley brought their cows in summer. You can also say that it lies right in the middle between the alpine ski resorts Hafjell and Skeikampen (the second of which we have a great view to from the cabin)."

Plenty of hiking and levitating around Oslo

 Oslo is a harbor and the capital, and the most accessible "big" city I've ever traversed. The city is surrounded by three concentric roadways, the outermost being a highs-speed thoroughfare. Public transportation within the city makes sense. But biking from one end to the other is easy and sensible too, as I found out using K-A's brake-less bike.

And the bay in the background

Haunting sculptures in Oslo's Vigelandsparken (named after the artist) depicting Norwegian values. 

The sculpture park is part of a bigger park called Frognerparken.

The reason I went to Norway - Kine, M-A, and K-A (this was after the bean game, which preceded the barbarian game)

What's Brewing in Bremen

 I have to admit Germany was a lot like I expected: tidey, clean, organized cities and public transportation, mainly white people, and the impeccably recognizable German language. 

Upon arriving to Hamburg after spending many weeks in Italy, I immediately noticed a difference in cleanliness, efficiency, and general organization. In Hamburg I was greeted with my good friend from Ghana, Miriam Pahl, who greeted me with a Ghanaian flag in hand (and who graciously took me in for a whole week at her apartment in Bremen, 1 hour from Hamburg). 

Everywhere were things that lived up to my expectations.  Like the the fancy jet-engine hand dryers in the bathroom that dry your hands in 10 seconds!...    ...or how the metro from the airport to Hamburg links up with another train while in transit....    ...or the cleanliness of the train interior (and exterior: I actually saw an automatic train-washing machine - not existent in Italy I'm sure!)

The other big thing was the popularity of bicycles in Bremen - and bikes of all types too: some that recline as you pedal, some carrying a trailer with a baby, or a basket holding a pair of puppies. Everyone bikes - school children, middle-aged people, people in business suits, and the elderly.  But as you would guess, safety and traffic strategy take on a new meaning in Bremen.  All these things came as quite a shock after coming from Italy:

signs guiding pedestrians/bikers to all surrounding suburbs

• cross walks which people usually obey
• bike lanes (red brick quite consistently) between the street and sidewalk, and usually on both sides of the road.
• extensive bike trails (paved) which
• • are clearly marked with signs which lead you to virtually any part of the city or suburbs
  • are void of motorized traffic
  • are widely used by people living in the suburbs who commute daily

notice the wind turbines; Leif's job deals with the legal issues pertaining to  the installation of these privately-owned machines; they're common along highways and outside of heavily populated zones

On one day, Miriam and I biked at least 30 km north of the city to see the country-side.  Quite flat, wetlands, farms amongst residences as well as in wider, more rural areas (seem to be owned by some sort of co-op as opposed to a family or corporation).  And no dustbowls here, just green and lush. 

And then there was beer. I had quite a few admirable brews, among them Beck's (sold internationally, I know, but brewed in Bremen itself), Jever, and Hovels (put a double dot on the 'o').  German beer culture is hard to miss. Pubs dot every street, and pub-frequenting is deeply engrained in the culture. Fundamentalists, as I call them, were evidently never able to meddle with this aspect of their society, as was the case (and still is) in America. 

I was a complete failure when it came to picking up the language.  English may technically be a Germanic language, but I would argue that it is much easier for an American to learn a Romantic language like Italian. I am told that Old German was a lot more like English, but is no longer spoken.  I come away from Deutschland with only these:

Dunke (thanks)

Hallo (obvious)

Shus (bye)

Hackbraten

Sheiss die Wan dan!  (shit the wall) (sorry for the vulgarity)

Bremen had a good-sized daily outdoor market which sold fresh foods mainly. I stopped by for some bratworst, but had to settle for Herbsensuppe (chickpea soup) (mmmmm). Although I never got that bratworst, I got to try several delicious sausage dishes, and a traditional dish called Hackbraten (cabbage, potatoes, and minced beef).  On the weekend, Miriam's boyfriend's (Leif) parents invited us all to a bbq at their country home. DELICIOUS.  BBq'd lamb and pork.  

the dom

sir roland

rathaus

The main sites in Bremen are the townhouse (Rathaus), the statue of Roland the Knight in front (a sort of Robin Hood I believe), the rather small statue of the town musicians (characters from a Brothers Grimm fairytale who were from Bremen),  the Beck's Brewery, the university, and the iconic, two-towered Dom (double dot that 'o') (evangelical Lutheran). 

Bremen's extensive riverside park

Perhaps my favorite thing about Bremen was its parks. A major river flows alongside the city center. But the entire riverside vista area was left undeveloped (although grassed over), and serves as a sort of retreat from the city which surrounds it. 

Still, the truly impressive natural area lies behind the train station, north of the city. I would estimate its size at 80 acres or so.  It includes canals for kayaks, a gazillion pathways (it's easy to get lost), and it is well-used.  

And that reminds me of 4 additional things I saw which proved my pre-conceived expectations (aka stereotypes):

• city employees along the river use a blow torch to burn the weeds between the cracks in the cement
• a woman using a knife to scratch out the weeds between bricks in her driveway
• city worker cleaning a glass bus stop shelter
• the automatic train wash

meet Leif, Miriam, and Nike

On Saturday, Leif, Miriam, Nike (Miriam's best friend, really funny girl, can make incredible sound effects) went into Hamburg for the day. We climbed the Michel (double dot on the 'e'), a cathedral, visited a war monument  (a ruined cathedral),  ate some traditional German cuisine, and stopped in some dancing joints along the Reeperbahn.  Ever heard of the Reeperbahn?  The world-famous red-light district where the Beatles first gained fame.  Oh, and prostitutes, never-ending parties, and otherwise Amsterdam in Germany.

busiest harbor I've ever seen - Hamburg

On the Church

I came at an interesting time to Germany because the pope and I were visiting the country at the same time.  Protests were underway because of  his address to the German parliament (separation of church and state, no?).  We got into talking about religion a bit, and reasons for its decline in Germany (the decline in church attendance was largely the focus of the pope's journey to his home country). Leif explained to me that there just isn't a need for it anymore.  People live happily and peacefully without.  At a time of relative harmony in Germany, the church is no longer as necessary. The church could not keep up with the times, per say.  And so people left.  In Africa people need the church and God to give them hope.  But here, people get along fine without, Leif told me.  In fact, church-going people, he perceives, often irritate the harmony.  I'll explain:  The people that Leif described as "churchgoers" in his country seemed to fit my definition of (what I call) fundamentalists - that is, people, who instead of being freed by their religion, are blinded by it.  Leif told me about Christians he knew who viewed homosexuality as a disease. This seems a very fundamentalist way of thinking. They see world issues through the "Law" that Jesus warned us against instead of using their own conscious.  

Leif went on: Germany has had quite a history in the business of "putting up walls" and if that is what the church seeks to continue, then there is no place in Germany for the church.  (This is the message, the answer that the pope seeks in his trip to Germany, but I'm sure he is blinded from it, God bless his soul.)  My opinion (especially since I recently listened to a lecture by Richard Rohr about the Church's many mistakes) is that the church has strayed from its true role.  It has failed to provide the type of servant-based, humility-based, conscious-based, community environment that is the REAL teaching of Jesus.  Coincidently, last Sunday's gospel (Matthew 23: 1-12) is very relevant as it was a warning about religion.  As my guru Fred Mercadante said in an email, "True religion for Jesus is religion that serves others and lifts them up.  True religion is practiced with humility.  That is how our covenant with God is truly realized."  Being a Catholic myself, it is frustrating to see that what is preached is not what is practiced.

Sorry for the big tangent on religion. But it's important. Especially as immigrant Muslims put up mosques everywhere (although they blend in with the city, Bremen has 20).  I mention this only because I hope that German Christians will exercise more religious tolerance than their American counterparts (anti-Muslim sentiments in America, I'm sure, are rooted in the fundamentalist culture).  

Just so I don't forget (I thought it was quite interesting): When I asked about current German impressions of America, Leif said that as long as he could remember (growing up in the '90s), Germans and Europeans in general viewed Americans and our 'culture' as 'cool.'  The American way of life was somewhat envied. Until 9/11. "Then something changed," Leif told me. 

Being in Europe got me thinking a lot about the US, especially in terms of our foreign policy, and our habit of meddling in everyone else's business, all over the world.  While in Germany, one of the major headlines was the Palestinian appeal to the UN for a grant of statehood.  In expected anti-Palestine, pro-Israeli, American fashion, the US stated that its diplomats would not be present at the appeal hearing and would never ever support a Palestinian state.  My deal: how can Palestinians live peacefully if they don't have a place to call their own??  I thought that was just dumb.

Wrapping this up... North Germany is lovely and far beyond my part of the US (the South) in terms of infrastructure, intelligent city planning, and also more important things like acceptance and diversity.  I've been told I should not generalize all of Germany as parts (especially the east) are not so developed.  Specifically, I can easily see how Bremen would be a nice place to call your home.  River, parks, ability to walk anywhere, bike paths, not far from countryside, pub life, lack of ugly buildings/industrial buildings in city area, the university, people outside enjoying life....the list goes on.  

this one to prove i was there

RHCP, far beyond california

best up-close pic i've ever shot

Finding altitude in Toscana

During my stay at Pignano, Rahul contacted me about pre-employment trip he was planning on taking before starting with Bosch.  He would visit family in Ireland, friends in Germany and France, and me if I would agree. I remember I initially turned him down b/c I had just booked my fares for Norway and Germany and wanted more time for wwoofing.  But I came round, saw the error in my ways, and told him to come on round. Vieni!

Rahul came in September for three nights in Firenze, during which we camped (Italian style) above the city.  (We both recommend the place, called "Camping Michelangelo" which is situated on a hill just across the Arno from the city, and within walking distance.  For 14 euros per night, enjoy a pre-pitched army-style/walk-in tent with bunk beds, and great views even from the public bathrooms.)

From climbing to the top of the dome of the duomo to drinking wine from the steps in front of a "Michael" on the hill above the city to trekking in the mountains east of Florence, the whole shin-dig was full of great views.

Rahul; background is il ponte vecchio (old bridge) - only one not to fall during WWII; used to be for butchers, but today jewelers

Notice the very Tuscan fascade w/ green on white, and stripes

 For the second day, I invited Pignano residents Anna, Maria, and Veronika to join Rahul and I for a day in Florence.

The Slovakians - Maria, Anna and Veronika - and Rahul

This pic is from the base of the dome, high above the altar; heaven is at top, hell on bottom

Climbing the between 2 domes; the ceiling is the outer dome - the roof

Looking towards front of duomo; campanile =bell tower

gang's all here

I think it was this night that we stopped in for a showing of some Italian film about the Risorgimento - Italy's revolution for the unification of its states and the reclaiming of papal lands. It was put on by a study abroad program through NYU. After 3 hours of subtitles and a very Italian (unhappy) ending, we heading up the hill.

 On the third day, Rahul and I decided we wanted to somehow transcend all the obvious tourist stuff - museums and monuments - and see some nature.  So we took a bus (or 2) about 40-50 km northeast of Florence (stopping in Pontassieve for a long time) to spend the day hiking.

Mountains near Castagne d'Andrea

 Having reached the peak after some 2.5 hours or so, we learned of a nearby waterfall described by Dante.  After meticulously calculating the amount of time we could devote to reaching it before having to head back to catch our return bus to florence, we set off hiking up a winding road.  After a pretty trying climb, we came to this sign which told us there was much more to go.  Unfortunately, we were out of time, and had to set off down the mountain.  With an occasional jog, I might add.

"Valley of Aquacheta" - This valley famous for the waterfall which Dante recorded in canto 16 of his Inferno has immense significance, esp. its cultural and historical landscape.  Visitors are invited to do so with respect.

 After heading back to Florence, this time via Dicomano, we stopped in for a showing of Monty Python's Meaning of Life - in Italian. Yup, somebody was showing it in their front yard with a projector.

A well-placed Rahul. 

Early, early in the morning. (Rahul had to be at the train station at 5:30)

Also very early

La Comune di Bagnaia

My best advice to people considering wwoofing is to spend at least three weeks.  Don't cheat yourself. There's something that clicks between the second and third weeks.  Before my first wwoofing experience I was so hesitant to concede to the 3 weeks minimum that Zak wanted me to stay at Pignano.  When it was all said and done, I stayed a month, and the only reason I felt it was time to move on was because all my fellow wwoofers were on the way out, including Zak the baker.  

At my second post, I arrived without a set departure date.  As I got to know the place I realized I could easily stay a month.  What stopped me was my original intention to experience at least three places in Italy, and the ease at which I could transfer to a farm nearby.  After two memorable weeks with Andrea, Monica, Camilla, and Teo, I moved just down the road to a very interesting place...

 

La Comune di Bagnaia

Stefano, un burlone

Una coppia felice, Guerino e Lucia

I learned about the place through Lucia, the sister of Andrea. She had called the place home since its founding in the 70s or 80s.  Like its name implies, the "settlement" is a community of 13 people living together.  It was founded to serve as a place where both city-folk and country-folk may live together peacefully and sustainably.  It is like nothing I had ever hear of before: people of no particular religious following (mostly non-practicing), of all ages between 28 and 85, married people, single people, but all people who had distinctly chosen Bagnaia as home.  (Fyi, don't be deceived into believing that this way of living is at all common in Italy. While others exist  - and I did even hear of a nationwide conference for communities like Bagnaia to help in developing community-based/charity project amongst the different communities - they are few.)

Equally as interesting were the ways in which it sustained. Some worked in the city (three as teachers, one at a bank, one in a library, one as a street entertainer) and others on the farm.  But all profit -every euro cent earned - was put together to support the entire community.  That financial dependency was one of the things that inevitably brought them closer together.  Trust and Love.  

Andrea, Lucia, Stefano, e Cecco

The other thing that brings them together is lunch and dinner. Residents take turns cooking, and every lunch and dinner is another incredible Italian creation. I can't say enough about the things I ate.  Things straight out of the garden.  Homemade Tuscan bread.  Red wine from the vineyard.  And every meal followed by a shot of espresso (which I would usually pass up after lunch in order to get some shut eye during the mid-day siesta/pausa).  And after dinner maybe a game of "Wist" as they called it - a card game based on Briscola in which you are rewarded for predicting the number of sets you can win per round. 

...

When I arrived at Bagnaia, the women were de-feathering chickens. I right away jumped in, eager to show that I was willing to work and thankful for their reception.  What followed left me without an appetite for a well-prepared lunch....

How to clean a chicken: 

• after defeathering by hand, we used a propane torch to burn off all small hairs and feathers. 
• break leg at knee and discard chicken feet
• pierce skin where body meets neck. Pull out cord which extends up the neck. At bottom of cord is the "vocal cord box" of the chicken. Pull it out and discard
• Pierce skin at anus.  Pull out end of rectum. Make sure any loose excrement is removed.  Pull all intestines out and discard.
• Reach into the butt and pull out organs.  We would save liver and heart and discard the other parts.  Basically what you're doing here is making a tunnel from the butt up to the bottom of the neck where you pierced earlier.  When this tunnel is clean, your chicken is a clean one.
• Chop off neck (we saved these for flavoring stews), Wash thoroughly, and refrigerate. 

Had I used gloves, my hands would still have stunk to high heaven.  However, nobody was using gloves.  The worst part was when I went to bed -because I usually sleep with my hands under my pillow.  This was in no way possible for the next two nights though.  Chicken innards have a relentless odor. 

While I value that experience, I was glad that there was no repeat during my tenure.  In fact, one of my normal tasks was helping Cecco with preparing orders of firewood (la legna) for buyers.  Aside from having ~3 acres of vegetables, ~12 acres of vineyards,  and lands for cattle, Bagnaia owned 40 hectares of woodlands, and the selling of firewood was a sizeable income generator. They already had a massive stock pile of fallen logs.  I would find the big logs (~1 ft in diameter and 3-6 ft in length) and he would cut them with a band-saw hooked up to a power-take-off on a John Deere.  Then, for the second wave, Stefano and I would split these into appropriate sizes with a hydraulic log splitter hooked up as an implement.  Bigger girth logs would be split into thirds or even quarters.  

Stefano

Karin

I first met Stefano doing exactly that.  We developed trust immediately; in fact, we'd alternate putting the fate of our hands in the others' hands.  Literally, one person would be loading the log while the other would operate the hydraulic splitter controls, which would take off an hand in a heartbeat.  Stefano - an ex-hair stylist appealing for acceptance to Bagnaia (with his girlfriend Karin) having already been there for a year trial period - would become my closest friend there and now my main contact.  In fact, in my second week at Bagnaia after a weekend meeting among the current members, Stefano and Karin were officially accepted into the community as full members (and the youngest, being in their late 20s). 

As I was accustomed to with wwoofing, I did all sorts of things at Bagnaia... cleaning out the chicken area, feeding the cows, picking walnuts, picking dried beans (let to dry in the pod on the plant until dry), stacking hay, weeding, collecting figs, eating figs...

Another thing that made Bagnaia awesome was that it was like a zoo. They raised... allow me to list: ducks, turkeys (called "faraou"?), chickens, pigs, several bulls, several cows, pidgeons, and rabbits.  They'd produce their own prosciutto. 

Rabbits and pigeons

When I wasn't eating figs or staring at the bull, I was wondering around the quiet hillside (around Sovicille).  Bagnaia was located in a valley.  At the top of a nearby hill was both an old monastery and the former estate of a significant family in Sienese history - a family which produced not one but two popes. Check out these pics...

Along the path: stations w/ frescos

My target is the monastery at the top

stone staircase to the top

Looking at mansion at bottom of staircase

mansion from top of staircase

front fascade of monastery

Posted sign on monastery

I ventured into the woods, enticed by a low rock wall that looked centuries-old. As you can see, what seems to be man-made neck-high property boundaries. 

the resident sculptor

Occasionally I'd peer into Guerino's workshop.  Guerino, the resident geezer-sculptor-jokester, was in the process of a marble piece to serve as a tribute to the founding of Bagnaia. The sculpture, a rendezvous of male and female nudes in the countryside - is a depiction of the "union" of friends from the city and the country.  Guerino was crazy about what he did; it was his job.  He'd miss meals just to finish sculpting a leg or a breast.  He was also the funniest guy there.  Without a lick of English in his vocabulary, Guero would go off in long tangents of fast Italian to me (knowing well that I wasn't getting it) and end with a "ah?" as if I'd completely gotten his point.  For all I know, he was giving me useful advice for life. 

La Vendemia

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Most of my time at Bagnaia was pretty lax in terms of workload - maybe a few hours in the morning and two hours after a pausa (4-6 perhaps).  It was September, and there was nothing to be planted, only harvesting.  And the big harvest came on   Monday, September 19.  After two months of drought in Tuscany, the rain fell, summer turned to fall immediately, and the grapes were declared by the resident farmer Andrea to be ready for harvest. Called "la vendemia", the grape harvest is a period of intense work, meaning irregular hours, no after-lunch siestas, and work rain-or-shine.  To help, three grape-harvest hobbyists - Italians who do it yearly for free - arrived on Sunday. On Monday, we started with the whites as there was only a half-day's worth of work to collect them.  Afterwards, in a not-so-pleasant misty rain we started with the real work, the infinitesimal rows of reds. 

cluster, un grappolo

Unfortunately, in July, the grapes had been hit by a hail storm, leaving a good 20% of the grapes on each cluster shriveled.  These were our enemy.  Andrea insisted that in years past, these shriveled grapes had given the wine an unpleasant flavor. Therefore, each cluster had to be examined and the bad grapes had to be removed.  Had it not been for this fact, the harvest would have moved at a significantly faster pace, and been much more pleasant. As a result of that hail damage, Bagnaia collected compensation from the insurance company for the first time in 20 years.  (That's how bad it was.)

Storage for final product-after pulp removed.

Still there were a lot of grapes.  After two days of insane hours in the vineyards, I was so glad I had booked those tickets for Norway.  After the trailer was full of crates, they were taken back to be de-stemmed with a machine, and then pumped into the vats to begin fermentation.  [See my video below].  Bagnaia makes three wines: a lot of red, some white, and a rose' (which is come from the second press of the reds).  Wine is not sold by the bottle but by the caraffa (~10 gallon jug set in a basket covering to shade it).  

Petriola 

Chestnuts - Castagne

I would be impossible to fully convey the awesomeness of Bagnaia to you in my weak English.  Let me however leave you with a bizarre experience.  On the weekend before Stefano and Karin were officially admitted as members, everyone was gone on retreat except Stefano, Karin, two wwoofers from a nearby farm (Spinocchio) and myself. With nothing to do after dinner - it must have been 11:00 - we set off to a place called Petriola, a natural hot springs where I encountered the most stark naked people I had ever seen in one place.  What struck me about this place was its Italianess. Something like this could never exist in the states.  We would call them hippies (but they were just regular Italians).  I almost want to say that Italians are more mature than us.  Baring themselves in front of others (it was all adults) was not an issue.  I was, shall I say, impressed.  But to conclude (well, almost) my Italian experience it was perfect: I was sitting in an ancient pool of steamy hot water coming straight out of the earth, with Etruscan ruins surrounding me.  Above the water was a brisk summer night air.  It was after midnight. A clear night, a starry sky.  Need I mention sitting amongst a bunch of naked Italians?