Mystical weekend

Europe » Italy » Abruzzo » Gran Sasso
May 25th 2009

Published: May 25th 2009

I will repost all of these entries in a week or so with pictures when I get a better interent connection. For now, just use your imagination : )

Most of time here has been spent getting L’Aperegina ready for guests. It took me 3 days to mow all this stupid lawn. And this is hilly, rocky, stick filled terrain. And I was using an electric mower, so it had a cord. I hate lawns. I did more cleaning, cooking, painting, etc. Very domestic, but it feels good to be doing something productive and not have to think much.

Friday, people began to arrive, and I became more and more confused. When I talian people get together, they talk even faster, and no one wants to bother translating any it of it. Not that I think they shoud; I should learn Italian. But it gets very frusrating when I wtach and listen for hours and still only come up wth a vague suject of the converstaion…

This was a special weekend because there was a…mystic?…I’m not sure what to call her. I was told this was going to be yoga and herb workshop, which got me excited. I even found the est place to do yoga on the lawn of the new house- in fact, the best place to do yoga I’ve ever found in my life. However, it was more taro cards, praying to the earth, throwing bread ceremoniousy, rieki massage, talking about negative and psotitve energies…you get the picture. It might have been interesting, except I couldn’t understand anything she said.

Oh, another thing. The food has been simple, healthy, and delicious, and I was thinking I would be getting into shape with all the manual labor, and 3 small meals and no snacking. When I craved a dessert, I would just have a bit of jam or honey. And then they bought cheese, and then the baking began. When guests come, all we do around here is eat, and not so healthy any more. Elide made 2 cakes, 2 tarts, and cookies, and I made merignues from the leftover eggwhites. And I can’t stop eating them.

The Guests

There were many throughout the weekend so it’s hard to keep track, so I’ll just comment on the most memorable.

They Hippie Crowd: Sonya, the mystic, really loved to talk and never stopped. She was also rather greedy, eating and drinking everything in sight (what I want to do, but I have self control). William, who I think was her husband did tarot card readings and just acted odd. Some younger guy was just her for friday night and he also talked for hours about a bottle he was holding (I made up from the few words I understood that he could have prevent the Earthquake in L’Aquilla with whatever was in that bottle.) Then another woman came and gave everyone Reiki massages. It’s touching and healing energy….It felt good, I guess, ecase she had really warm hands and you are lying down, but I didn’t feel particularly healed.

Beautiful Italian Men: Ah, so gorgeous. Unfortunatley, they braought their pretty girlfreinds with them. Poalo spoke very little english, but had a great sense of humor and spent a lot of time trying to teach me italian and leanr english from me. It was actaually really helpful because I had to try to speak Italian, unlike when I talk to Elide and Marino (I know they understanmd english, so I rarely try Italian.) He’s a conoe guide at the local spring fed river. And his girlfiend’s an environmental scientist, but she’s not me : (
Then there’s Mario. He is just beautiful, and so nice. He speaks quite a bit of english, and so does his girlfriend…

There were other italians coming an going. At one point we had 15 people at the table. I listen closely to the converstaion, and end up understanding an average of 1 word per 5 minutes, and it’s usally useless like “this” or “yes”. I watch the expressions and try to figure it out.

Here are the various conversations and I understood them:
2-3 hours about the earthquake in L’Aquila. A lot of people were upset. I thought because the hippies were saying something about how it was meant to happen, or they could have predicted it, or something like that..
Political dicussions- they don’t like the current polititcians in Italy.
Sonya took us on a 2 hour tour of the grounds and talked about every plant. No idea. I know fiori means flowers. She also said something about our bithdays. All I know is that my plant is the quince (a wild fruit in italy), but the rest of those 5 minutes, she could have said I’ll aave 20 children- don’t know.

I spent saturday aftenoon hiding and studying italian. Marino says I have to stay with them, and not undertand the words, but understand the music. So I stopped hiding.

The “yoga” weekend also included burning a bunch of herbs under the stars, which was rather pleasant. The weather has been perfect here, with warm days and cool nights, and not a cloud in the sky.

Did I mention that there is a 2 hour scheduled nap time evry day after lunch? I don’t how I surved without that for so long, nor how I will ever go without it again.

I’ve been keeping track of all my meals and recipes for them, so you’ll hear more about that later. The honey they prodcue here is solid, and it’s because the bees visits “a thousand flowers”, and marino says, rather than one kind which produces the syrupy liquid honey. ‘ll have to bring some back.

Today, I went driving with Marino into town to get plants and other things. The driving is crazy and we witnessed a car accident right in front of us. Later, we planted tomatoes, zuchinni, and onions. The soil is rather terrible. Much clay and many rocks, so i’s just giant dry clumps, and it become cement if it’s compressed. But, things grow in it.

There’s a dutch couple that arrived yesterday, and I am so very happy they are here, because we speak english together! They also speak their native language, french, and german. I’m getting better at Italina, and teaching them some words and phrases is helping.

Last thing, I must again mention how gorgeous the view is from this place. At night you van see the twinkling lights of Pescara, the city below, but also the country lights, and even individual cars and motorcycles traveling the roads. In the other direction is a clear dark blue sky full of stars, bordered by mountains. In the day, the hills and valleys below seem do far and coe at the same time. You can see a tiny little car that you can imagine picking up and playing with, get you can hear it as if it was 10 feet away. It all seems like a fluffy miniature to me; there’s nothing jagged about it. Speaking of, I think I’ll go sit out on the deck right now, and do some star gazing.

Ciao!

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