Life Lesson: It's OK to Do Nothing

Since arriving in Italy six weeks ago, we have been doing a lot of nothing at all.  It has been WONDERFUL.  We have had holidays before, from which we arrived home exhausted and needing a holiday. 

Travel is hard!  It all looks as though it will be OK at the start;  you've booked and you just want to get on with it now.  In the comfort of your own home, you take down the suitcases, pack and unpack and re-pack them several times before you're (still only relatively) happy with your choices, deciding that if you have forgotten anything, you will have to just buy another while you're away (if you can buy another - there's always the lingering doubt - maybe the socks in Paris won't be as thickly warm as the socks you have in your drawer at home - *insert apprehensively concerned emoticon here*).  Is the pent-up excitement starting to unravel, just a tiny bit?

You organise a ride to the airport to drop you there hours ahead of your scheduled departure time. You worry that there might be a delay on the freeway.  What if there's an accident up ahead?  You worry that there will be a delay at check-in.  What if my case is too heavy?  You remember that you have left your watch on the bedside table at home.  You are irritated by the bazillions of other travellers at the airport.  You look around you while sitting at the gate lounge and think, "How can all of these people fit onto an aeroplane without it going down?" (OK, that's probably just me).  You wait forever until it's boarding time, realising that your seat number will mean that you are boarding almost last of all the people sitting around you.  You consider trying to queue jump.  You wonder if you should have brought a walking stick and pretended to be one of those people who need to be boarded ahead of everyone else - you wonder if that lady over there thought the same thing and is in fact faking it, with that plaster cast on her ankle.  You finally board and then you wait some more, until the captain announces a further delay because the pax numbers don't match the check-in luggage number... and on it goes, like that.

Shall I continue?  Shall I talk about stopovers and worrying about missing a connection?  Shall I talk about less-than-brochure-quality hotels and lack of facilities and the difficulties of navigating public transport in a foreign language?  Shall I talk about how it's all worth it, in the end?  It is. 

My conclusion is that short breaks away from home might not be, but when you take a longer vacation, all of the above are insignificant in the scheme of things, and it's a long vacation we are taking this time. 

Staying for a month in one place means that it is worth unpacking your suitcase completely, hanging things in a wardrobe and folding clothes into drawers.  You can open the curtains in the morning and depending on the weather make or change plans for the day.  You can afford to take an afternoon nap for 2 hours (every day...) if you feel like it, because "there's always tomorrow" to sightsee. Staying in an apartment instead of a hotel while you are away means that you can wash and iron your clothes when they need it, you can go into another room to read quietly while your partner watches TV in another language in another room, you can make sandwiches for lunch and salad for dinner if that's what you feel like eating, you still have the luxury of someone else coming in once a week to change the bedlinen and towels, clean the bathroom and kitchen and vacuum the floors, while in-between you can leave everything just as you please because no-one is coming through that door.  I highly recommend a long break coupled with staying in an apartment, if you're planning your next trip while reading this blog.

Doing nothing while watching others doing things is a very pleasant way to relax in Italy, if you have the time for it.  Below is a list of some of the people I have enjoyed watching over the last few weeks:

• the barber who runs the shop near our apartment - most of the time he seems to be sitting in one of his chairs with his feet up, reading La Nazione or La Repubblica, or chatting with buddies who've dropped by;
• the old guy who sits behind the newsagent's counter - he must be 87 and possibly hasn't shaved since Berlusconi's first time in office - he doesn't need to look up to say, "One euro."  How does he know I don't speak Italian without even looking at me?
• the shop owners who diligently and aggressively scrub the doorsteps of their shops every morning with hot, soapy water and a broom, only pausing to greet passers-by, all of whom they know by name ("Ciao, Giovanni! Che freddo!" - "Hi, Giovanni!  How cold it is!");
• the old men who gather in groups in all the best and sunniest spots around town - what do they talk about, so animatedly?  How do they know where today's meeting spot will be?  My personal opinion is that Italian men live longer simply because they function in these groups on a daily basis.  They laugh and chat and observe and consider and relate in a closely networked support group of friends.  It's good for them.  I bet there are no old gents in psych counselling - they sort it all out with their amici;
• the guy who owns the porchetta caravan, from which he dispenses just-out-of-the-oven-and-sliced-in-front-of-you slabs of stuffed suckling pig - fresh bread wrapped around it, optional - the long queue in front of the caravan is testament to the popularity of this snack, even at 10:00 in the morning;
• my blue-eyed, filmstar-handsome vegetable guy at the market - it's probably getting a bit obvious to him that I am a great admirer of his zucchini, because he always winks at me when he hands me the change;
• my hairdresser (yes, I have a hairdresser here - it only costs 14 euros for her to wash and blow-dry my hair - why would I do it myself?) - Anna is quite short - I have to scrunch right down in the chair for her to be able to reach the top of my head - no such thing as a gas-operated chair-lifting device;
• the French chap who serves us at the local wi-fi connected cafe.  "So, what are you doing here in Italy, Antoni?" reveals the obvious answer:  "I fell in love with an Italian girl," he gestures, pointing to the barista;
• the lady who lives behind us who calls out, "Ciao! Buongiorno!" as she hangs out her washing in the mornings and sees us on the sun terrace; and
• the doting nonnas (grandmothers) who push their charges around in prams, wearing the broadest of smiles which we can interpret as, "Do you see how beautiful this child is?"

OK, that's enough.  I leave you with this pecorino tasting plate, which we enjoyed yesterday with a basket of fresh, crusty bread and two glasses of very good vino rosso.  The photo is not significant, save for me to underline again the point of this blog: sometimes the simplest things in life are the best.

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Florence

Having a day spare yesterday, we figured there was no better thing to do than jump on a train and head to Florence - and of course no trip to Florence would be complete without a visit to the area around Basilica di S. Lorenzo which is famous for the vast array of leather goods, mostly jackets and handbags. The various stall holders seem to know immediately that you are tourists, and that your language of preference is English, because they step out and greet you with some well chosen words that are aimed to entice you to their range of garments. If you don't see what you want on first glance, they are only too keen to usher you through the crowded street to their shop where the full range of product is available. The process seems to work because after an hour we walk away with Deb wearing a very stylish jacket to match the leather bags that she had bought in Padua and Venice.

The most notable landmark in Florence (with apologies to my namesake standing naked in another part of the city) is however the Duomo, which is the third largest church in Europe after St Peter's in Rome and St Paul's in London. The visual impact of the building is striking, and painted against the backdrop of another crystal clear blue sky, it's hard not to be impressed with all that you see.

There are a host of other churches and basilicas in Florence, and on this visit we chose to make our way to Basilica di Santa Croce, which among other things contains the tombs of Michaelangelo, Galileo and an honorary place for Dante, who for some strange reason isn't really buried here, but is so attached to the city that he gets pride of place in this very large church. On this occasion we also discovered that the scaffolding and sailcloth that have been so prevalent on the outside of so many Italian buildings, are now clearly visible inside as well, as the complete altar area is being restored.

As the day wore on we made our way to Ponte Vecchio to stare in wonder at the number of jewellery shops that line both sides of the bridge and all approach roads from every direction. Despite the fact that tourist season in Europe is well and truly over, there are still large numbers of people to be seen at this vantage point for this most beautiful city.

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The Zeppelin - A Play in Six Acts

Oh, what a time we've been having!  As I mentioned in the last post, we have a story to tell, but it has been happening in parts and we wanted the whole thing to be through before we began to record it.

Setting
On Wednesday morning we had been looking (as we do) for the next location for our morning coffee and pastry habit (elevenses, if you will) and passed the open doorway of Zeppelin restaurant which had been on our carefully researched list of places to try for dinner.  There was a large board outside with a photograph of a chef, advertising Cooking Classes with Lorenzo, so David asked if I wanted to call in and make a quick enquiry about those while we were in the area. 

Act One
I went in, but there didn't seem to be anyone around, so I wandered out towards the kitchen, calling out, "Ciao!  Bongiorno!  Hello!" as I walked.  Lorenzo came out of the kitchen with a broad grin, held out his hand to me and said, "Ciao!  You want a coffee?"  I said, "No, no, I'm here to ask about the cooking classes."  "No, no," says he. "First we drink coffee, then we talk."  I said that my husband was waiting outside.  His response was, "Forget husband! Come on!  Just kidding!  Get husband!  Coffee time!"

I should have sensed that this was going to set the scene for how things would progress from that point.  To sum up, David came into the restaurant, we drank coffee with this insane, fast-talking, ebullient, passionately Italian captain of good food and wine and his young American intern Luke, from Texas, and we signed up for the two of us to have dinner in the restaurant that evening, to attend the cooking class on Friday afternoon, a tour with them of Orvieto's farmer's market early Saturday morning and a wine tasting on Saturday at noon.  Those who know David know that he really does not cook - he doesn't mind cooking, but he doesn't cook.  It's not his thing.

Not MUCH it's not his thing!  More on this later.

Act Two
Dinner on Wednesday night was a delicious theatrical experience.  To detail a couple of the dishes we enjoyed: hat-shaped pasta stuffed with shoulder of wild boar, served with a burnt butter, toasted hazelnut and sage sauce and ravioloni with asparagus and cheese filling served with black truffle and almond sauce. 

Desserts we shared were apple and raisin crepe with warm vanilla sauce and chestnut mousse.  The food was very good indeed, but the theatre component was that dinner guests were invited into the kitchen to watch elements of the food preparation and the sounds of laughter, shouting, singing and hilarity emanating from that area assisted in creating a very convivial atmosphere out in the dining area when patrons returned to their meals and chatted across tables like old friends.  Good fun!

Act Three
Friday afternoon we arrived at 3:30pm at the restaurant for the scheduled class, already knowing we would have a continuation of the fun that had been started on Wednesday night.  We met the other students who would be in our class with us, four young women from the U.S. who are in Rome for 3 months as part of their college studies and who had organised a couple of days in Orvieto to attend this class.

During the next four hours we made savoury fried bread pockets stuffed with salami and cheese, focaccia with olives and capsicums, pizza with tomatoes and mozzarella, gnocchi with parsley and radishes (yes, radishes), sausage, eggplant, mixed vegetable sauce, stewed wild boar with olives and tomatoes, tiramisu and biscotti. 

We also talked about the origins and elements of Italian cooking, we learnt (better) knife skills, we came to a better understanding of how a commercial kitchen functions, we nibbled on dozens of different sample dishes, we drank a large amount of prosecco and we laughed a lot.

Lorenzo was loud, funny, informative and totally in control of us all, plus his team of six interns, as well as the constant stream of business-related visitors, old friends dropping in for a chat and constant phone calls.  He was like an orchestra conductor, managing it all with great good humour and charisma, and David was his sous chef, having an absolutely brilliant time and learning a lot, as we all were.  I may have to fight him for the whisk and spatula when we get home. 

Act Four
At about 7:30pm we sat down to eat the fruit of our labours - needless to say none of us had an appetite because we had been snacking, sampling and drinking all afternoon, but we all wanted to see it plated up and eat it sitting down!  By then we had formed a good relationship with the girls and at dinner we chatted as though we had known each other forever, exchanging Italian travel tales and tips and hearing their interesting stories.  One of Lorenzo's former students, a young Columbian guy, who had dropped in to say ciao, sat with us (sat with the girls, if the truth be known) and Luke, the Texan intern, served us and chatted about his time at Zeppelin.  It was a wonderful meal and although we didn't actually finish a whole plate of anything, we felt very proud of our work - it looked and tasted very professional. 

Act Five
Saturday morning we all met again at Zeppelin before 8:00am to go to the open-air food market with Lorenzo, his young staff, the American girls, Lorenzo's girlfriend who had arrived from Boston, Lucky Phil (the Columbian) and a couple of other hangers-on.  We walked around the various stalls, where Lorenzo is clearly well-known, sampling the wares and buying food for the restaurant.  Trial samples as we walked around included roast stuffed suckling pig, olives, pecorino, hard Umbrian crackers, dried chestnuts, green leafy vegetables of unknown origin, buffalo mozzarella, chocolates, rice pudding tarts, very alcoholic peach-shaped doughnuts filled with custard and shots of a cinnamon-flavoured spirit.

We then dragged ourselves home for a rest... seriously!  We knew that we had to be back at the restaurant for the wine tasting at midday.

Act Six
The wine tasting was interesting in that it was conducted by a knowledgeable sommelier and we tried four local Orvietana wines - two whites and two reds.  Needless to say, there were accompanying plates of salumi, proscuitto, a selection of cheeses, breads and roasted artichoke dip.  We were joined for the tasting by three other people who are in Orvieto for a conference on... (wait for it)... torture recovery therapy.  I kid you not.  They are part of a group of 55 people from all over the world who are here to chat amongst themselves about their work with victims of imprisonment, abandonment and other shocking circumstances. 

After the wines and food had been consumed, Lorenzo presented us with our certificates, Zeppelin aprons, bags of biscotti and recipe booklets while we and the girls hugged each other, exchanged email addresses and promised to meet up in Rome in three weeks.

So, that's some of what we've been doing.  It has been absolutely brilliant fun.

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