New Bar on the Block

Alfredo closed his bar about 8 months ago, deciding that he'd rather be a barista than a business owner. He is now working in the Serrani GranCaffe in the piazza, and is happy as a clam.

In the meantime, his bar on the corner has been closed with white paper over the glass doors. We've been anxiously awaiting the opening in order to see what has been done! Here's the result:

Taken from just outside our door,
it is in the center of the photo on the corner

Large interior, clean modern lines, not fussy

I loved the counter! Coffee beans galore!

The verdict? The coffee's fine, the prices are similar to the other bars. In the winter, it might feel nice and fresh and bright. Unfortunately, their refrigerator case makes the most obnoxious rumble ever...so it doesn't make me want to linger. 

Love,

Alexandra

Todi Festival Featuring Jeremy!

Well, okay, rather overstating the facts. But Jeremy had the opportunity to perform a solo as part of Todi Festival as well as with the orchestra! For both performances, he was located in the courtyard of the 13th-century ex-monastery (now the high school where Florence and Ashley are enrolled). Usually, we can't see him because he is way in the back; this time, I plunked down in the arcade and got to see Jeremy sawing his heart out!

And here he is all alone!

Love,

Alexandra

Archery party

It's been a busy few weeks and I neglected to blog on an archery dinner we attended. It was the usual lovely gathering of men around the fire; unfortunately, we had to eat inside because of inclement weather (it was fine, but had been threatening rain).

Jeremy giving us scale on the pasta pot

The well-used grill

Warming oven

Rabbit

Albano

Two of our chefs!

Mauro readying the pasta

Arriving in the tent after having hung out in the outdoor kitchen, we found plates laid out with prosciutto and all kinds of other smoked meats (capocollo, salami, and more), along with bruschetta covered in mushrooms and truffles. And of course wine: red and white. Yum! Next up: pasta cooked in the huge pots shown in the photos; Mauro Passagrilli's famous vodka sauce. Which was really outstanding. Next up: Albano's prosciutto-wrapped rabbit (wow. Just wow. Although, due apologies to our bunny) and sausages. Then maybe veg? I've lost track by now. And then birthday cake! Come to find out that it was one of the archers' 18th birthday party! Limoncello and other digestivi, and it was time to go.

Usually these dinners run 5-8 euros a head. This time? Free. Because it was a birthday!

Love,

Alexandra

Thai Takeout

Pianegiani had another Thai-themed appetizer night: for 6 euros, it was all you can eat, glass of wine, and other goodies.

Slight problem: the weather didn't cooperate. And I was tired and fed up and didn't want to go out. But I did want to support the effort. So guess what! The boys were nice enough to go and get me a takeout plate!

This is what they came up with:

The two huge chunks of salmon were cold, having been poached with orange peel. Nestling behind the oyster on the right was some smoked white fish (don't know what kind), and tuna on the bottom. 

Okay, so the boys struck out with me by having chosen the oysters...but the rest? YUM!

Love,

Alexandra

Maria Pia's in Print!

One of my choir buddies, Maria Pia Rondolini, who has shown up in one or two other posts, has finally published her reminiscences! There was a dog-and-pony show today in the Archbishop's palace, and it was just lovely to see her beaming with pride.

Maria Pia is an extraordinary woman. She looks like a rather woolly old lady who has never done much in her life. However, just a few minutes of talking to her and you know that this is a woman not to be underestimated: she has spent much time over the years in Burkina Faso helping with mission work (including gallivanting around on bumpy dirt roads on a motorbike at the age of 78 or something), climbed mountains (probably not EVERY mountain, but a fair number), visited numerous religious sites throughout Europe, participated in twinnings between Todi and other cities throughout the world, and more.

Greeting her guests!

Humble, but interesting, this lady does not stand still. Not that she moves vigorously. But she has a force and a love of color (I covet her purses, hats, and shoes) that betray her energetic spirit. She has definite thoughts about how the world works, but despite that, she has the extraordinary capacity to listen and not tell you what to think or how you should do things better...she smiles and soaks in what you have to say and loves you even if she doesn't agree with you.

Il professore and Maria Pia

Unsurprisingly, the Bishop's room was full. Probably 100 people turned out on a rather nasty, wet day to see Maria Pia and support her excitement and celebrate her accomplishment. There was a panel including our parish priest, the mayor, and "il professore"...all of whom had to make a speech. Fortunately, said speeches (which I'm sure were delightful, but I was rather tired) were interspersed with Elisa's amazingly talented 12-year-old son Paolo on the violin accompanied by his friend on the guitar. Elisa did ask that we not post photos of the boys online, so I honored that by taking a video of the room while the boys were playing so you could enjoy the music, too!

The frescoes date I believe to the 1600s, but I don't quite remember. There were some later updates in the 1800s in specific areas.

With love to Maria Pia and many congratulations,

Alexandra

Summer's day

I know that is a really lame title and that there are probably about 6000 other posts with the same title, but I couldn't come up with anything better. So there you have it.

Sunday the 11th, I stayed up until well past midnight because I was foolish enough to accept a request to perform. The performance consisted of music, an introduction, more music, Shakespeare's sonnet 18 in Italian, more music, sonnet 18 in Spanish, more music, sonnet 18 in arabic, more music, sonnet 18 in English, more music, everyone reciting sonnet 18 on top of each other, and one last piece of music and a closing speech. It looked a lot better in real life than on paper. On paper, it seems somewhat bland, but the music fitted really well, and somehow, miraculously, we managed to captivate the audience's attention well enough that they got really testy when some guy decided to pick up his phone in the middle of my recitation. The entire thing took about 20 minutes, but then we had to stay afterwards for the ceremony, which I would have been quite happy to skip. It's a good thing that I didn't get my way, because we tied first place (given that there were only four groups of performers, they decided we would be competing for first place only).

But my makeup looked really good and I was all dolled up in a cream suit, so I had fun.

Ciao,

Florence

Note to anyone reading this blog post: I wrote this when I was rather testy after having gotten up the next morning. Writing about something after getting far too little sleep because of that thing is a bad plan.

Kaoutar (my desk mate and the one who roped me into this) for her Arabic recitation 

Francesco's Spanish recitation

Filippo's Italian recitation

The only photo with me in it. Kaoutar is in the window that you can only see half of on the far left, and I am on the balcony on the far right.

Barbarossa's challenge

Yesterday, I had the opportunity to shoot at the most beautiful castle in a darling little town. If I can find the name, I'll be sure to put it on here somewhere. The Lucaronis were kind enough to give me a ride, which was great. We left at about one and wherever we went was a bit over an hour away.

The competition was supposed to start at two thirty, so we started promptly at three-fifteen. It was twelve-target course so it was fairly short and we had finished by five. Most of the targets were animals, which I'm usually quite bad at, but I was surprised and pleased at how well I managed to do. I even managed to get full points twice (actually I'm fairly certain that this is the first time that I've managed to do that. I could be forgetting but I'm not sure. I only count it if it's three bull's-eyes). I also managed to get four points on one of the targets, so it averaged out.

After the competition, we explored town a bit and I hung out with Matilde, the Lucaronis' cousin and Riccardo's daughter. At seven-thirty, we were fed. It was the best food that I had had at a competition, although that isn't saying much. After dinner they had prize giving and the finals (I didn't make it to the finals, so I just had the prize giving, but Matteo was one of the finalists, so he had to finish shooting).

Matteo jokes that he makes it to the finals, but I'm the one who gets the prize. Unfortunately, most of the time it's true, and yesterday was not the exception. I placed first among the women, after a bit of doubt whether I was a girl or not (with 182 points despite the fact that they said that I had gotten 153 points. Either way I won first). So I now have a piece of wood that says I'm awesome.

After the prize giving, they did the finals (it's basically a competition for a flag that says "we have the best team, nana-nana-boo-boo"). We did not win, for the first time in a while, and it was AWESOME. One of the archers on the team that won was crying for joy. The entire team was impressive. One of the finalist's targets was a formation of nine circles in a square; hitting three along the diagonals doubled the score. When one of the men on the winning team managed to shoot the diagonal, everyone started cheering. It was the ONLY time that night that someone managed to do it. After pictures and celebrations, we headed home, at twelve o'clock.

After getting in at one o'clock, this morning's ten-thirty choir rehearsal seemed awfully early. Oh well. That's what happens when you stay out late to do cool things.

Ciao,

Florence 

My score sheet 

Alessio, Pietro, and Riccardo 

Pietro and Riccardo 

The fortress at which we were shooting 

Alessio's piazzola 

part of my piazzola. Stefania is wearing a headband with bells on it. At the beginning of the competition, Matteo gave everybody a headband or bracelet with bells on it. Whoever got the least number of points at each target got extra bells. This is the girl who won the mini competition, but she was shooting badly on purpose because she didn't want to have to stay for the finals.

I found this face highly amusing. I had just severely screwed up a shot.

Me and Matteo shooting 

Simona and Stefano

Group photo (with everyone who was still in their costumes at the end)

The winners of the bell competition 

My piazzola 

Yes, that is St. Sebastian they were shooting at. I was the only one who found that remarkable in any way, shape, form, or fashion.

Twinkletoes

The boys, Michael, and I were sitting playing post-gelato bridge at Pianegiani today when the melodious strains of a light piano piece came drifting down the alley. As I was thinking how lovely the music was, behold! An apparition: a white piano with a live ballerina on top!

The piano circled around in the piazza, then drifted back up the street, ballerina twirling all the while!

Love,

Alexandra

We came across the piano later in Piazza

It has lights at night! 

Wool Gathering

When we were in Chianciano, Eleanor and I chose some lovely wool and cotton yarns at a local yarn store (I never blogged it, but it was a lovely story in and of itself. Briefly, I was standing with my nose pressed against the glass, drooling prodigiously, and whimpering because the shop was closed and we would be leaving that day, a Sunday. A lady came out of a nearby residential door and asked what in the world I was doing, so I explained. She replied that it was an easily solved problem...her cousin, the owner, would be happy to come down and help me, since she didn't get enough business tucked away like that in a small town. After much deliberation, and a lunch that had hilarious mistranslations on the menu, Eleanor and I rang the owner's doorbell, and then proceeded to make it worth her while to emerge from her Sunday torpor). Some of my purchases I knitted up right away (the cotton, obviously), but I saved the wool for when I was in Scandinavia, so it would not be as obnoxiously hot to work with.

Once in Scandinavia, I did a lovely job. Finished the body. The first sleeve. Went to start the second, only to realize that...somewhere along the way, one of the skeins had gone walkabout. SOMEONE in Stockholm or Oslo is about to make a lovely cowl with that wool, but it will not form part of the sleeve for a nearly-completed sweater.

This is what is known as a "yarn emergency".

Now, had I bought the wool here in Todi, there would have been no problem, obviously. But I hadn't. I had no idea of the name of the shop, I had no receipt, and my only immediately apparent recourse was to drive to Chianciano to ring the private doorbell of the lady who owned the place. Bear in mind that of course I had already contacted all the hotels and rail systems we had used throughout Scandinavia, to no avail.

Then I got clever: I used Google maps in the street view to walk myself virtually to her shop, from which I was able to see the name printed over the door: Il Gomitolo ("the skein"). Clever, huh? A quick glance in the Italian version of the online White Pages and I'd be done, right?

Wrong.

Of course, phone lines cost money. And commercial phone lines cost more. So clearly Il Gomitolo does not pay for such extravagances as a commercial phone number! Hmm.

I ended up "walking" across the street to the hairdresser's, which actually did have a listed number and website, so I sent them an email enlisting their help. They were happy to, but informed me that the lady was on vacation, so they would deal with it when she returned.

Several weeks passed.

Not wanting to be a nag, it was time to move to Plan B: I called the restaurant where Eleanor and I had eaten dwarves (one of the more hilarious mistranslations on the menu...I think dwarves were zucchini?). The gentleman who answered the restaurant's phone was absolutely delightful and knew the lady's name right away! He kindly looked her up in his local phone book, and suggested I call her outside of normal business hours since this was actually her home phone number. Great idea!

Well, Aurora picked up the phone, remembered me, and very helpfully offered to call me back when she had checked out her stock. And she did! And she had the wool, even to the correct dye lot! She will be checking out the cost of mailing it to me tomorrow, and then I will be back in business.

Now, if we could just have cooler weather....

Love,

Alexandra

Front Row Seats Without Leaving Home!

Tonight, we were lucky enough to have a play acted in our courtyard, set up in the entryway. As a result, we could happily place ourselves on chairs we took out to the balcony to enjoy the theatre under the stars.

It was a one-woman comedy act that veered from farce into the ridiculous. She started off with silliness related to internet dating/personal ads, and ended up performing mouth-to-mouth resuscitation on her purse (which failed, hence the playing of Mozart's Dies Irae).

I think it was the first time I have had the possibility of attending a theatrical performance in my pyjamas.

Love,

Alexandra

Mise-en-scène