Per che posso!

Exact translation: Because I Can!!

As I said in my previous post, I had both Wednesday (Mercoledi) e Thursday (Giovedi) off from rehearsals so I decided to go on an adventure (big surprise there, right?) Also, as I mentioned in my last post, the plan for Wednesday (as discussed with Fabri) was for my to take il tren a Savigliano (affectionately known as "Savi Beach") then meet Fabrizio when he got off doctor duty at 15:00. And, having no cell phone, I would call him from a pay phone (there are many in Italia) when I got to Savigliano. No problem right? Now, let me preface the next couple entries with the fact that my command of the Italian language leaves ALOT to be desired. It is pretty limited to to the basics and for some reason I totally freeze up when someone ACTUALLY tries to speak to me in Italian. Also, not many Italians speak a whole lot of English. This includes the train conductors. My method of succesful solo travel in Italy is to wear a cute shirt, smile, say "non parlo italiano", e point to your chest and say your desired destination. WIth that method, I took a bus and a train and wound up in Savigliano. RESULT!!! So here's the rundown: ----> SWEET!! 1) After arriving in Savi Beach (at noon), I called Fabrizio (after figuring out how to work the pay phone) and found out that he would not get off work until 5pm. E non problema. As my shirt read, "Only boring people get bored" and I had both my point/shoot camera AND my Canon Rebel XTI. So I did the only logical thing--> followed the historical site signs and took lots of pictures.

<--- The "BEACH" at Savi Beach

2) Savigliano is a medium-sized non-touristy Italian town. For the most part, I just walked around and took pics of the historic buildings. True to form, random Italian men stopped to talk to me (Non parlo Italiano!!!!) and tell me about the things I was taking pictures of. Savigliano actually as an Arch di Triumph (erected in honour of the marriage of Charles Emmanuel the I and Infanta Catharine of Austrian Spain) and lots of really beautiful medieval buildings and squares. Savi Beach actually does NOT have a beach (as it is in landlocked Northern Italian mountains) but I DID manage to find a river. I figured that was something. I walked across a bridge to take pics of the river and came upon a really old chiesa (there are, strangely enough, ALOT of those in Italia), which turned out to be Monasterolo di Savigliano. Not entirely sure if I was SUPPOSED to walk in and take pics, but the door was slightly ajar and, as my father always said, "Tis better to beg forgiveness than to ask permission!" (Mi scusi! Mi Dispiace!!) I also kept that motto when I lit the little prayer candle at the altar. Absolutely BELLISIMO interior of the chiesa. I LOVE the chiesas d'Italia. The frescas are gorgeous and often appear 3-D. After the monastery, I wandered around the town a little bit more, (following the signs for the Olympic track and field stadium which I never found!) and eventually called Fabri. With minor confusion we managed to meet up in Piazza San Andrea.

<---Arch di Triumph

<---Piazza della Popolo <---Piazza San Andrea

<---All Monasterolo di Savigliano. Far right pic: the big candle is to save my tarnished soul!!

3) We had aperitivo at Caffe Roma just off of Piazza della Popolo (Plaza of the People, REPRESENT BITCHEZ!) and decided that our next step would be to go to Pollenza (in between Bra and Alba) to a little restaurant for pizza. Pollenza is a TINY Italian town that is home to the Italian University of Taste and some really kickass Roman ruins. The restaurant was AWESOME. We had several orders of foccacia- no question the BEST foccacia I've ever had. Then I had an authentic Italian pizza with zucchini, eggplant, roasted red peppers, and onions on it. American pizza just cannot compare. Apparently it is rude and infeasible in Italia to ask for una sacchetto di cane (doggy bag) so I HAD to eat the WHOLE pizza (pizza Italiano is the size of a small U.S. pizza if that and very thin crusted and light and tasty.) Then Fabri and I discovered that the restaurant had prosecco (Italian champagne) ON TAP. I have NEVER heard of champagne on tap. So of course, we had to have some of THAT too. I mean seriously, if you can get it on tap, can you get it in a keg? Picture champagne keg stands. OMG. How awesome would THAT be? For dessert we split a pancetta (essentially whipped cream, SO good) and each had a capucino in cute little painted cups.

<---Best Foccacia EVER

<---University of Taste

4) After gorging ourselves, we got back in Fabri's car and drove the remaining 20 km back to Alba. Fabri told me all about different facets of Italiano culture and it was really interesting. The Italian moda di vida (that's probably not the right expression) pretty much involves assuming that everything will work itself out. Not making detailed plans. For example, assuming that even though you don't speak much of the native language you will be able to traverse the local transportation system. Another example, for aperitivo (Italian happy hour) you kind of just show up at a local establishment, assume you will see who you want to see and if you don't, you meet someone else so its all good (actually that's a LITTLE like the mentality of the Green Door now that I think about it.) I think I like this way of thought. That was today's Italian culture lesson. Stay tuned for more, the anthropological geek in me is thriving here.

5) When we got back to Alba I was SO food comatose I could not even fathom trying to meet up with the music crew out for drinks. So I came home and crashed for all practical purposes (ok I came home and chilled until I fell asleep at 2am).

This blog was brought to you by the following facebook album: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2024771&l=98976&id=115201684

Ciao bella!

~Dieci

LBD's, Self-guided vineyard tours, and Roman Stalkers OH MY!

<-- Ross, myself and Fiona

The adventure continues. I stayed up WAY to late on Sunday night/Monday morning and did not manage to drag myself out of bed until 10:30am or so. Oy ve. However, true to form, I was able to create enough adventures in one day to compose a sizeable blog entry. Here's the rundown:

1) I went to CB Outlet (the "discount" store in town) and managed to have enough of a dialogue in Italian (thank you Lonely Planet phrasebook!) to find the right size, ask the price, find a dressing room, and ultimately spend WAY too many Euros. Sometimes its better not to do the conversion in your head. But I bought an awesome euro-trash outfit (pantalones azul e una camisa amarillo that reads "Only boring people get bored" in black sequins) AND the most gorgeous LBD (Little Black Dress) EVER. No pics of that yet, but assuming that it still fits after all the yummy food I have been consuming, I will be wearing it soon. YAY!

2) After my purchases, I grabbed lunch at la cafeteria municipale then started walking. The town of Alba is surrounded by hills and I decided that I wanted to find one and walk up it. So I started walking up through neighborhoods and eventually got to a street that dead-ended into a little dirt path through the woods. Why not? I followed it. And came upon a HUGE open vineyard at the side of a hill. Having never been to a vineyard, I decided that the only logical thing to do would be to walk through it to the top of the hill. My reward: a SPECTACULAR view of the whole valley. It was fabulous. My other reward was a very muddy pair of New Balances. Turns out grapes are planted in clay which adds about 10 pounds (I'm not lying) to your shoes when it sticks to them. Totally worth the walk. I think I shall walk up another hill in a couple days.

3) After my self-guided vineyard tour, I decided I needed to head back down so I could have time for a shower before rehearsal. I got to the end of Via Vittorio Emmanuele (the street off which I live) and this random Italian guy starts talking to me. Which isn't THAT abnormal, but this one was sketch and also not from Northern Italy (Northern Italians and Southern Italians look markedly different.) I kept trying to tell him in broken Italian to go away, I did not WANT to have coffee with his dumb ass, but he kept following me and calling me "mi Bella" in very "Eurotrip"-esque manner. Finally, I spotted Beverly Babcock (SMCM Piano Faculty) walking in the opposite direction and ran to start talking to her. The skeezball KEPT following me. We went into a large courtyard where her rehearsal was off of, and also the music school. The guy kept looking into it. I was trying to wait until the music school opened so I could cut through it to another street, but they never unlocked the door. I eventually crawled through a window and made a McGuiver-esque escape back to my apartment.

The window I escaped through -->

4) The rest of my day was comparably tame. I had aperitivo, followed by rehearsal, followed by aperitivo parte due, followed by a concert (yay for timpani parts in modern pieces!!) in a GORGEOUS church (Chiesa San Domenica), followed by post-concert aperitivo and dinner at 11:30pm. That's how we roll in Italia. Fabrizio showed up and we decided that since I would have the next day (Wednesday) off, I would take a bus/train to his town of Savigliano (Savi Beach for short) and hang out then meet him after work for aperitivo and dinner before heading back to Alba.

The power of Christ compels you!!! -->

5) It was a characteristically crazy night out with the SMCM students/staff and the Scots. I ended up having drinks with Jen (the violaist) and her Italian friends who were all quite pissed (inebriated). I did try my first grappa. Kind of stiff in a Scotch-type way. It was very amusing listening to drunk Italians make crude jokes and try to translate them to English via hand gesture. Fiona, Chris, Audrey, Samu- Make your own caption here folks! Julio taking control of the situation at McLeod's

OK, off to my next adventure!!

Corresponding facebook pic links from this day:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2024620&l=fbe59&id=115201684

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2024639&l=df12b&id=115201684

Italy- an epic love story and reuinitation (a Bushism) of non-acquanited old friends!

Alright-chi. To Continue the saga: 1) After leaving my boy Mike last night at midnight, I decided to be responsible and walk back to my apartment to sleep, upload pics, and update my blog. En route, I heard talking at a side-street cafe and decided to take a look (ok, we'd missed dinner, I was hungry, sue me!) When I walked up, I ran into my friend Samu, whom I'd met the night before at McLeod's, and worked at the cafe (Al Dente.) While I was standing and talking to him, a representative of his final group of customers came up behind him and tapped him on the shoulder. The gentleman, hearing that I was speaking English, turned to me and asked if I would come to his table and give him and his friends a 30-second speach (in the language of my choice.) Samu whispered that they were harmless, so (being a generally amused individual) I agreed. 2) Turns out, I had an awesome time meeting 3 new yummy Italian boys, who were amused by my Italian nickname, 'Dieci' (Ten). One has endeavoured to explain to me the difference between drinking in Italy and drinking in the States. So far, I have only gleaned that drinking in Italy means starting at aperitivo (happy hour) and going until the wee hours of the morning. But enjoying every single drop of wine. Emmanuel has introduced me to the most wonderful vino EVER- called Barolo Chinato. It is un vino rossi locali a the Piemonti region (where I am). A slightly sweeter red with a spice to it. Rest assured, dear readers, I will be bringing back a bottle or four. Meanwhile, Emmanuel has taken my email and we are going out for aperitivo domani (Saturday). 3) Friday I woke up and went to commandeer a drumset with Noah (the SMCM RD at SMCM Alba.) The music store we went to ALSO had some sweet castanetos and rosewood drumsticks (I get hot and bothered by such seemingly mundane items!) So I bought those too. En route to the music school to set the kit up at lunch time, I ran into Maggie O'Brien (il Presidente de la scuola de SMCM) and we decided to do din-din that night. We actually met up at an exhibit of the 2nd oldest Violin ever (as mentioned in the previous post.) Which featured an ARMED GUARD. V. Impresivo!!

Italy- the journey and the first day (yep, its been that eventful!)

Well, its been an eventful week thus far. I'd love nothing more than to provide a fully detailed description of my exploits, but given that it is 3am here and I have a rehearsal at 10am I am going to keep it brief. Mostly because if I wait, the story will only get longer and more entertaining while my time will only get shorter. So to itemize my trip thus far: 1) AirFrance is AWESOME. Personalized TVs for every seat (games, new releases, TV shows, music.) The food is the best airline food I've ever had. This may seem trite to those of you who have only flown domestic airlines, but any international airline (i.e. KLM, Icelandair, Lufthansa) go all out on food. AirFrance is the best by far. Oh yeah, and they give you free champagne and alcohol of all sorts. Movie review: "The Bucket List"- Really good, but sad. "Charlie Wilsons' War"- started out good but I fell asleep during; " Dan, in real life"- funny moments but lame overall. However, the featur that I enjoyed the most was the delightful speaking voice of the pilot. Picture a cross between the chef from "The Little Mermaid" and the Merovingian from "The Matrix Reloaded/Matrix Revolutions". Twas glorious. Just an example of the speech cadence "madames e monsieurs, wee arr about to heet zee turboolanz" 2) The awesome-ness of AirFrance was inversely counteracted by the absolute chaos that is the customs line at Charles deGaulle airport (prounounced 'Sharl de-gaw'). You cannot possibly imagine the CF. Seriously, it was pretty much several thousand people trying to filter through 5 portals. Oh, and the rumour that the French do not use deoderant is entirely factual. I had been travelling for 12 hours and upon the plane landing in Paris, I was greeted as the best-smelling person in airport. Not a pleasant experience at 6am, when technically you are still on EST and it is midnight. 3) One uneventful flight to Torino, Italia, followed by a 2 hour bus ride, put me in Alba, Italy. An absolutely GORGEOUS little city with medeival flare topped off with Gucci, Fendi, and Dolce. HOT! For some reason, everytime I go to Europe it rains on my first day or two there. Which is what it has been doing. After arriving, I dropped my luggage off at my apartment on Via Cavour, then went out with 2 of my flatmates for a late lunch (yay hummous and red wine!!) Afterwards we went to an orientation-type meeting where we got flat keys. Woohoo! The street where I live... 4) Went out for dinner at Vin Cafe, then to Ashkay for their double-pint Hoegarden's (YUM), then to McLeod's for some Tennents. Made friends with a few Italians and an awesome Macedonian waiter named Alex. At 2am I finally decided to come back to the flat. Now, this is where the first good story comes into play. I have one key to get into the apartment building and one key to get into the actual apartment. Well, at 2am, I discovered that the key that gets me into the apartment was, in fact, non-functional. Being a polite individual (and also being minorly inebriated), I decided that the best course of action would be to NOT wake up my flatmates and to sleep on the marble steps until a reasonable hour to wake them up. FYI marble stairs = not comfortable. Me and my buddy Alex This entry seems to be getting lengthy. Time to post pics and go to bed :-) Mike at his little desk

Cuddly Creatures

Being an unfortunately habitual cynic, I often (in fact, consistently) scoff at those who send me websites such as http://www.cutelittlekittens.com/ and http://www.kittenwar.com/. Please do not misunderstand me, I love animals more than the above-average homo sapiens sapiens, but websites have a tendency to cause an uncharacteristic gag reflex emanating from the utter sap of random animal pictures. However, before I am strung up for such statements, I will issue a personal admission. Earlier this week I ventured out of Washington D.C. to the farm my current equine training project resides on and spent the cumulative total of several hours playing with the two newborn foals at the farm. Having a somewhat tempestuous week (make that entire year,) for some reason the adoration of the two babies cheered me up immensely. Rueben (the bay) kept chasing me around to have his chin scratched. Magdalen (the pinto) preferred licking my face. I actually was an active participant in Magdalen's birth, and then stayed up all night waiting for Reuben to be born. I have attached the pictures to share my preferred form of therapy with my beloved, albeit few, readers :-)

My Day

At the behest of one of my dearest friends, Shawna Troutman (nee Dean) I am creating a bulletized list to describe my day, even though this form of blog entry does not fully exhibit my superiorly sardonic (oooo alliteration!!!) writings. (btw Shawna, this is the most recent pic I have of us, do you know when it was?)

1) I finished making vegetarian chili. I seem to have come up with an overabundance of fresh vegetables which I need to use before I leave for Italy (Monday!!!) For anyone interested, my recipe is as follows (quantities are at the whim of the chef!)

- Black beans

- Kidney beans

- Morning Star veggie crumbles

- Fresh, diced tomatoes

- Onion

- Green pepper

- Sweet potatos

- Zucchini

- Yellow squash - Cloves of garlic

- Serrano peppers

- Jalapenos

- Random spicy-looking red peppers that I found in the vegetable aisle

- Cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, ginger, cumin, oregano, basil, chocolate (grated), molasses

I don't remember what else, but it sure tastes good! I froze a bunch of it for later.

2) Went out to the barn to hang out with the new foals (Magdalen and Reuben) and ride Maxamillion (my current training project.) Luckily, he did not make attempts to bite me today (he has an attitude problem, similar to my own.) Although yesterday one of the mares almost kicked me in the head- like I heard the woosh of hoovest go buy my frontal lobe. This sound is very much akin to what one might imagine one's life sounds like as it rushes before your eyes.

3) ATTEMPTED to go to the Sports' Legends Museum, by Camden Yards. Ziemann (Ravens' Marching Band President) says that he will give me a discount on the Natty Boh Baltimore Ravens merchandise. Although I personally hate the beer (please don't keel-haul me for saying that SMCM folks!!), I feel it is part of my heritage and must be acknowledged at the very least in running-shirt format! Unfortunately, my timing, as usual, was a bit poorly planned, since the O's were playing the BoSox at home and there was nay a parking spot to be found. Hopefully tomorrow.

4) SUCCEEDED in finding a Barnes and Noble in Baltimore where I bought Italian language cds and a Romanian phrasebook. So far, I can say 'yes' (da) and 'no' (nu) in Romanian. This may, at face value, seem minimal, but at the very least I shall be capable of responding to the imminent marriage proposals appropriately- depending on desirabilty, number of teeth, and musical instrument of choice. For the record, I can already speak basic Italian phrases (Thatsa spicy meat-a-balla!), complete with dialectually (is that a word?) proper accent which, like a good wine, improves with age and as MORE Italian wine is applied!

5) Sat at a park and read more of "The Amber Spyglass"- Book 3 of Philip Pullman's 'His Dark Materials.' AWESOME series. Don't be fooled by the sub-par nature of "The Golden Compass" movie.

6) Attended marching band practice. I have recently been assigned to actually march tenors in the Baltimore Ravens' Marching Band (versus instruct and play in the Pit.) I love tenors because they are more challenging than the average marimba part, however the drums make up roughly 60% of my body weight, which makes stopping, going, and rapid turns theoretically improbable when the basic tenets of physics are applied. But, hey, I've always been one to ignore those and defy gravity! (not to be cheezy, but I'm listening to the song.)

7) Drove home and talked to Shawana about how much Italy is going to rock and how I need to write in my blog.

Oh! Apparently Ziemann wants me to play timpani for some reception in November at the Sports Legends' Museum for all non-deceased past and current Maryland-residing Olympians. Alot of stipulations, but I think the turnout will still be considerable. Dorothy Hamill is showing up and so is Michael Phelps (he's SO hot!) Guess that's it for now!! Sorry SaxySLD, didn't end up being a brief entry afterall!

My New Phone

So a finally got a new phone. Which is good, because my last one was no longer functional unless it was plugged into a wall or car charger. In defense of the old Samsung, it HAD lasted almost 3 years. Additionally, it had survived several potential telephonic disasters, most notably the following:

1) Two Trash Talking Tournaments (yay for drunken SCR Golf) which included such events as it falling in toilets (simultaneously with Jenn's), falling off a golf cart, and being tackled on a sand volleyball court.

2) Falling onto asphalt a minimum of 5 times a week.

3) Falling off a horse.

4) Skiing and sliding through snow.

5) Falling off a sailboat.

6) Surviving a Jimmy Buffett concert, in the rain. Which for some reason entailed me mudsliding down a steep hill on my stomach several times in random succession. Don't ask me, ask the margaritas!!

My new phone is a pretty pink Motorola Razr. It is much more kitsch and swanky, but does not seem like it will have the capability of taking quite the beatings that my old one did. I DO have one additional beef with the new phone. It, for some unknown reason, does not auto-fill the descriptive term "douche" or "douchebag" in text messages. WHY NOT?!?!? It seems to be an essential vocabulary word for me right now. Very inconvenient. I will be writing to both Motorola and "7 on your Side" in protest.

That is all.