Blogs from Bologna, Emilia-Romagna, Italy, Europe - page 15

We headed out on the 12:25pm train to La Spezia from Riomaggiore. Was sad to see the cliffs and sea disappear. We had about an hour to kill till our train to Parma and I hate to say that Richard and I violated one of our cardinal rules here at this train station. We ate at McDonald's. We had just gotten kind of sick of eating pasta and pizza in a continuous rotation with a gelato sometimes in bewteen. I'll admit it though, it felt good to be in warm embrace of the Golden Arches. Caught the train to Parma. We passed through the mountains that pretty much divide Italy in half vertically, almost like its spine. It reminded me of the US, because after we had finished going through the mountains, it was nothing ... read more

When I woke up this morning it was pouring rain and pretty cold outside. I woke up at the usual 7:30 am and had myself a cup of coffee and a tiny piece of crusttata with cherry marmalade. The Italians don’t do breakfast and I think that might also be screwing around with my digestion. Big lunches and huge dinners, but virtually no breakfast. When you come in for lunch you’ve drained yourself of any reserve energy from the dinner the night before, and I find that every one eats ravenously. It makes sense that they take at least an hour and a half to eat lunch and then another hour and a half to digest it. It is a difficult cultural and culinary transition. Maybe I could make them yummy breakfast foods, but why? They ... read more

So I’m gonna start from the top. The ballet was terrible, horrible in fact and I feel justified in saying so because I had to sit through the entire ordeal. There is nothing quite like the helpless, restlessness that comes from being sandwiched between three relatively unknown older couples without a car and any hope of leaving before all the tiny babies take their bows individually and repeatedly. Jesus. So after three and a half hours of recital I left with the grandparents and other couple just to get the hell out. ... read more

Today’s a long day. And worse, tomorrow will be longer. Claudio told me at lunch that I haven’t been removing the vines from the ground. Well since I didn’t do it right the first time I might as well correct it on the second try. He says he wants me to know he’s not mad, that he thinks he explained wrong. Whatever the case it still means I gotta go back. I think I’ll go slower, try not to accomplish so much in so little. The vineyards are very vast and it will take me a lot of hard hours to finish, or even have an end in sight. I have a feeling I could be doing this for three weeks. ... read more

Family lore has it that Jose’s great, great grandfather, Luigi Querzola, came from Bologna. We went to the records office to see if we could find his birth certificate. Unfortunately, the helpful clerk was unable to find any information on him or children born to Domenico and Francesca Querzola (Luigi’s parents) around 1825. We could fill this blog with a detailed inventory of the day wandering the back streets of bologna and hitting the sites. But, perhaps, it might be worth just describing a wonderful moment. In the heat of the afternoon, we found a wonderful café in a street so small that cars were not allowed. As we sat there, the older Italian gentlemen behind us were having a heated discussion about the soccer teams (Jose identified the word squadra ( “team”) and Milano, ... read more