European Adventures Part 2: Angel in Lavender Pants

This whole blogging-while-in-Italy thing isn't happening as often as I was planning, but I've also been a lot busier than I was planning... in a good way. I can't believe I haven't written since the first week, but I'll try to sum up the remaining weeks with my family and the beginning of my study abroad.

After leaving Casperia, my dad, mom, and grandmother made our way to the Fattoria Tregole, a charming bed & breakfast in the Chinati region of Tuscany. There, we took a wine tour with a guy named Dario Castagno and learned all about the history of Chianti Classico, complete with tastings all the way through and a five-course meal to finish. It was my favorite day of the trip, until we got lost trying to tour some Tuscan castles and ending up driving through switchbacks for three hours inducing some rough carsickness... I don't want to talk about it.

I started the next day with a beautiful morning run under the Tuscan sun with some new Norwegian friends who were also staying at Tregole-- one of only five runs since I've been here, I'm sad to say. We spent the afternoon in Florence and went on a guided tour with a man named Bernardo, who showed us the Duomo, Michelangelo's David, Brunelleschi's Dome, the room where the Mona Lisa was painted, and Dante Aleighieri's church. Florence is overwhelmingly filled with tourists, but I can see why-- it has SO much incredible history.

From Tuscany, we headed south to Bari, where my grandma's parents were born. We stayed at a place called the Masseria dell'Isola, and I probably gained ten pounds in two days. Our host, Rita, served us endless dinners with so much food that, while delicious, I could barely appreciate because it was just too much. Breakfasts were similar-- cream-filled fried croissants called "Bomboloni," panna cotta, biscotti, and giant fruit plates. If we had stayed there for a week, we all would've been obese. But Rita was one of the nicest and most hardworking people I've ever met, and her passion for food was admirable.

While in Bari, we explored some beach towns and nearby attractions, my favorite being Alberobello. This tiny town has tons of structures called "trulli," little trianglular gazebo-type houses that aren't found anywhere else in the world. No one knows exactly why they're built the way they are, but apparently they're all structured in such a way that if a specific brick is removed, the whole roof collapses. This may have been because the Counts of Conversano, who founded the town, were trying to avoid taxes and needed the town to be quickly dismantled if royal authorities got wind.

The best part of our Southern adventure, though, was seeing the tiny town of Toritto where my grandma's parents actually lived. Almost immediately, we found a street with the last name of my great-grandmother. We also met an English speaker who, after looking at our family tree, told us that several of the last names in our lineage belonged to families who still lived in Toritto. We didn't stay long, since the siesta was going on and it looked like a ghost town, but that one little trip had a big emotional impact on my grandmother. Even after all the difficulties of traveling across the country as an 85-year old, seeing Toritto made my grandma's whole trip worth it.

Next up was Metaponto, another southern region not too far from Bari. We stayed at an amazing resort-like place called San Teodoro, where we soaked up the beach and the poolside and recharged our inner batteries. The best part about San Teodoro was our beautiful host Giovanni, the best-looking Italian I've met so far. :)

From Metaponto we drove to our final spot, Sorrento. Trying to take a big rental car through skinny roads built before the age of cars, handling impatient and speedy Italian drivers, avoiding Vespas that wove between people and cars, and attempting to follow a highly confused GPS was NOT a good idea. After getting stuck several times, almost getting into a few accidents, and becoming hopelessly lost, we were about to lose it when we met our angel. A man on a Vespa, wearing lavender pants and toting a three-year old in front, pulled up to our car and asked in English if we needed help. He then talked to our hotel manager in Italian, handed the phone back, and asked us to follow him. We followed our angel through town for almost ten minutes-- in the meantime, he pulled over to let his son throw away a juice box, stopped to shake hands with a friend, and frequently looked back to make sure we were still alive. When he finally pointed us to the hotel, he waved and drove away before we got a chance to thank him. It completely turned our day around.

Later that day we saw Pompeii, the volcano-destroyed ancient Roman city I've been studying in Latin classes since sixth grade. It was incredible and scary at the same time-- especially the bodies preserved in stone during their final agonizing moments. I would NOT want to get stuck there at night. I was much happier spending the evening eating fresh fish by the seaside and watching my grandma get, in her own words, "toasted" on vino rosso.

On my last full day with the family, we took a bus along the Amalfi Coast, stopping in Positano for lunch, window shopping, and a nap on the beach. We took a ferry home, had dinner at a nice but touristy place in town, and went to bed, all four of us in one tiny college-dorm style room. I know I'm usually away from my family for semesters at a time, but after three weeks of experiencing so much together, I think I'm going to miss them more than I thought.

In the morning, it off to Rome, where my mom came with me to the airport and dropped me off with my Urbino Project study abroad group. I've been here at the University of Urbino for almost a week, but since this post is already long enough, I'll write about my experiences here shortly. So far, though, I've made some great friends, had some late nights of partying, and realized that I'll be working more than ever in "real-world" style journalism for the next three weeks. Bring it on!

Dare e prendere.
Caryn