We are starting to do a bit more exploring now. After Briana returned to America, we had two days to clean the house and get our own bags packed before jaunting to Malta.
Malta is an island nation (actually a series of four tiny islands, but only two are inhabited) just south of the island of Palermo. It is as close to Tunisia as it is Europe, but thankfully everyone speaks English!!! So we had a truly relaxing holiday.
I really do miss being able to talk to people every day, and the strain of always searching for words in an unfamiliar language is very wearing. It took two days of being in Malta before I would say thank-you instead of Grazie or excuse me instead of Scusi. But what a relief it was!!!
We did very little sightseeing, except for walking from St. Julian's to Sliema on the coast line, and one daytrip to Valletta. But the relief of sitting in the sunshine and swimming in a pool and NOT eating pasta for a week was enormous.
Yes, we are all fed up with Pasta. We are tired of rice. I don't think we even want to see pizza for a while. Ice cream, though,and especially for children, will never get old. If only we could live on ice cream!
We also discovered a great secret of Europe: Maltean wines. The islands are so small that the grapes they grow are only used for local wine production. Nothing is shipped to the rest of Europe. There are varying grades of wine quality, though most are very good.
The whites, unfortunately, are very yellow. If you can get passed drinking something the color of...you get the point...then they are okay.
The reds are fantastic. In particular, we liked a Cabernet Franc by Palatino. Very peppery and smoky tasting. Both the 2007 and 2008 are excellent. I brought 4 bottles home to Italy with me. We'll see if I can get any back to Pittsburgh.
The Maltean food is a bit different, though. It is largely based on both Italian and African cuisine, with a bit of French thrown in. Unfortunately, this means there are a lot of pasta dishes. But since it is an island, there is also a lot of fish. the biggest downside to Maltean food, though is Mint: if you like it, you will love the food. If not, you're going to be eating Italian while you visit.
Malta gets very little rain, so herbs like Mint, which need little water, are ideal for flavoring food as they are plentiful. We had grouper with Mint; fish soup, flavored with mint (actually very bland except for the mint); fresh sheep's milk cheese rolled in pepper and mint; desserts flavored with mint...and so on.
I did not try the Maltean rabbit in Mint since no one would condone my eating the Easter Bunny, but it looked pretty good.
A big bonus was that we stocked up on our favorite foods from the US and UK that we can't get in Italy at all: digestive biscuits, Tetley tea, soy sauce, mayonnaise, cheddar cheese (which we actually got through customs), Head and Shoulders shampoo, oreo cookies and spices for asian food.
Two days after our return, things went down hill. Our house ran out of gas. Apparetnly, I have been told to read the gauge on the wrong tank for the past four months. So we were completely without heat, hot water, and hot food for four days. And while this was going on, the Prince informed me that I am supposed to have a full-time nanny and housekeeper, per the terms of our lease. Which, of course is written in Italian.
I would consider it, except that the gas cost for the year so far...is $7000. Yes, just the gas at this house has cost $7000. Which is more than gas, electricity, water, sewer and babysitters have cost us in Pittsburgh for three years.
And it took four days to get gas delievered.
Another W curve moment. If we can make Malta work, I think I want to move there. At least I can order gas in English when I need it. And read my lease.
Monday, April 19, 2010
Sunday, April 4, 2010
Immigration Update, First Visitor, Easter in Rome
Well, after a few emails from friends, and alot of kidding from my family about being an illegal alien, I can happily say that I am now a legal immigrant in Italy. Kind of.
My last trip to the Questura was successful: all the paperwork was accepted and the officer informed me that I didn't actually need the document from the Embassy saying that I am Me. However, until I get my fingerprints taken I am a tentative resident(no they don't take them immediately, they give you an appointment date and time and expect you to come back). After that, I must return again two weeks after the fingerprints to get the final documents.
In the meantime, I can try leaving the country on my own, but will likely get detained coming back in, unless my husband is with me.
Which leads me to the hardest part of being in Italy so far: On Friday, March 26, 2010 my wonderful grandmother passed away from cancer of the pancreas, liver and brain.
She was a wonderful woman, kindhearted and generous and loving to a fault. She taught me how to knit and crochet and give unquestioning love; I was unable to be at her funeral.
The day she passed I was in Santa Maria del Popolo, a beautiful and somewhat macabre cathedral in Rome. Many of the mosaics and tombs are decorated with skull designs, and just inside the door rests a statue of a woman, her skeleton draped in a shawl and held behind bars.
It was very thought provoking at the time, but has grown more so over the past days. That an artist, indeed a congregation of people from 800 years ago, thought it important to show us that there is beauty in who we are while we live and even after we pass should give us all pause. Our humanity does not end when our bodies die.
Santa Maria del Poppolo is not the grandest church in Rome or the largest or even the most visited. I pass it each day when I get off the train at Flaminio Station, and many tourists do not visit it at all. But it will forever be linked in my mind as the spot where I was contemplating life and life after death as my grandmother passed away 5000 miles away from me.
I have seen more of Rome than ever before in the past weeks, mostly because a friend of the family came for a visit before she starts law school.
The most striking, other than Santa Maria del Poppolo, were Santa Maria degli Angeli; Santa Maria della Vittoria; Santa Maria Maggiore; the crypts and cemeteries of Rome; the Appia Antica; and the numerous restaurants I got to try.
Santa Maria degli Angeli is marked in most tourist guides as a lesser basilica, occupying the baths of Diocletian. At the time I visited, the basilica was hosting a tribute to Galileo: Gallileo tried to argue to the Catholic church that science would prove there was a God. He was nearly excommunicated and his friend and colleague, Father Carlo Bruno, was in fact burned alive in Campo di Fiore for supporting Gallileo's writings.
This church spoke to me as gold leaf can not: that science could prove God's existance. There is a statue of Bruno there as well as a meridian line in the floor, which on a sunny day, can tell the day of the year and show your astrological sign, set into the marble floor of the massive basilica. Impressive in itself, but especially when you think how the Catholic church had men killed for arguing that the sun, and not Earth, was the center of our universe.
Santa Maria della Victoria was tougher to see: it took no less than three tries to get into this home of The Ecstasy of St. Theresa, a statue so scandalous that it was removed from Santa Maria Maggiore, and hidden at della Vittoria. I didn't see what was so scandalous about St. Theresa: Rome is full of completely nude male and female statues. A marble statue with an rapturous, some say orgasmic, look on her face, is really quite tame after seeing Castor and Pollux at the Capitolene. (30 foot naked male statues are really a bit over the top for this Wisconsin girl...)
Santa Maria Maggiore is beautiful, one of the most ornate I have ever seen (I have not yet been to St. Peters: Andrew got us kicked out of one church for screaming, so I am not going to try the Vatican until I have a full-day babysitter.)
I have seen three of the four major crypts: The Cappuchin crypts in Rome are really too much for children: skeletons of 3000 friars decorating a crypt(Can you imagine? Please go get father Ted's remains. We need his vertebra to finish the butterfly on the ceiling.") is too much. The crypts at San Sebastian had the best guides and the crypts at St. Domatilla were the most extensive. The guide there even let us take photos of the crypts in one un-monitored area, which is completely taboo in all the crypts.
Now for food updates: the absolutely best wine so far is by Baroncini, a Montepulciano; the best ice cream is at Gelateria del Teatro ai Coronari near Piazza Navonna (white wine with fig and almonds, mmmm), though I did have a very good violet ice cream two doors away from Trattoria Valentino on Via Cavour; best lunches at Hostaria i Clementini on Via di San Giovanni across the street from San Clemente (which has a very good excavation of the layers of Roman life, up to 7 stories below street level) and the Trattoria Valentino on Cavour is a close second; WORST price gouging is La Scala, near Barberini Metro on the Via Veneto (15 euros for one Beck's, 4 euros for water, 16 for a bad pizza and a mandatory service charge); WORST English/British pub is The Albert near the Trevi fountain (3 euros to play pool and the balls were all different sizes and VH1 was on TV instead of the Manchester United versus Chelsea game).
I have also been to the zoo in Villa Borghese and have some advice to impart: take your children, but try to get a guide. I think they deliberately change/omit/move the signs so that you can't get out of the zoo. Also, take a lunch, because there are only three restaurants, and only one is open throughout the year: we walked for three hours trying to find food, water, and an exit. Other than that, it is a wonderful zoo.
But if you are in Villa Borghese and stop at the Cine Cafe, reachable by the children's train, go into the cafe to order: you get a 2 euro per item charge for each item you order if you sit outside. For instance, ice cream inside is 2 euros each; outside they are 4 euros each.
My funny story is that I went to the Appia Antica, an ancient road that ran from Rome to Brindisi and was flanked by cemeteries and underground crypts. Brianna and I went together, taking the A metro line to Colli Albani and then a bus to the Appia Antica.
We did that, saw the crypts, ate a great lunch and headed back; just as the metro line A shut down completely during evening rush hour. The shut down left Brianna and I almost 7 miles from Flaminio train station, which gets us back to my house. I think we walked past every site in Rome, passing people, passing packed busses and cabs trying to get to the train at Flaminio. We made it, covering 7 urban miles of hills and cobblestones at rush hour, in just over 2 hours. Not bad for an out of shape mom and college student with stress fractures...
At least I walked off two weeks of ice cream.
My last trip to the Questura was successful: all the paperwork was accepted and the officer informed me that I didn't actually need the document from the Embassy saying that I am Me. However, until I get my fingerprints taken I am a tentative resident(no they don't take them immediately, they give you an appointment date and time and expect you to come back). After that, I must return again two weeks after the fingerprints to get the final documents.
In the meantime, I can try leaving the country on my own, but will likely get detained coming back in, unless my husband is with me.
Which leads me to the hardest part of being in Italy so far: On Friday, March 26, 2010 my wonderful grandmother passed away from cancer of the pancreas, liver and brain.
She was a wonderful woman, kindhearted and generous and loving to a fault. She taught me how to knit and crochet and give unquestioning love; I was unable to be at her funeral.
The day she passed I was in Santa Maria del Popolo, a beautiful and somewhat macabre cathedral in Rome. Many of the mosaics and tombs are decorated with skull designs, and just inside the door rests a statue of a woman, her skeleton draped in a shawl and held behind bars.
It was very thought provoking at the time, but has grown more so over the past days. That an artist, indeed a congregation of people from 800 years ago, thought it important to show us that there is beauty in who we are while we live and even after we pass should give us all pause. Our humanity does not end when our bodies die.
Santa Maria del Poppolo is not the grandest church in Rome or the largest or even the most visited. I pass it each day when I get off the train at Flaminio Station, and many tourists do not visit it at all. But it will forever be linked in my mind as the spot where I was contemplating life and life after death as my grandmother passed away 5000 miles away from me.
I have seen more of Rome than ever before in the past weeks, mostly because a friend of the family came for a visit before she starts law school.
The most striking, other than Santa Maria del Poppolo, were Santa Maria degli Angeli; Santa Maria della Vittoria; Santa Maria Maggiore; the crypts and cemeteries of Rome; the Appia Antica; and the numerous restaurants I got to try.
Santa Maria degli Angeli is marked in most tourist guides as a lesser basilica, occupying the baths of Diocletian. At the time I visited, the basilica was hosting a tribute to Galileo: Gallileo tried to argue to the Catholic church that science would prove there was a God. He was nearly excommunicated and his friend and colleague, Father Carlo Bruno, was in fact burned alive in Campo di Fiore for supporting Gallileo's writings.
This church spoke to me as gold leaf can not: that science could prove God's existance. There is a statue of Bruno there as well as a meridian line in the floor, which on a sunny day, can tell the day of the year and show your astrological sign, set into the marble floor of the massive basilica. Impressive in itself, but especially when you think how the Catholic church had men killed for arguing that the sun, and not Earth, was the center of our universe.
Santa Maria della Victoria was tougher to see: it took no less than three tries to get into this home of The Ecstasy of St. Theresa, a statue so scandalous that it was removed from Santa Maria Maggiore, and hidden at della Vittoria. I didn't see what was so scandalous about St. Theresa: Rome is full of completely nude male and female statues. A marble statue with an rapturous, some say orgasmic, look on her face, is really quite tame after seeing Castor and Pollux at the Capitolene. (30 foot naked male statues are really a bit over the top for this Wisconsin girl...)
Santa Maria Maggiore is beautiful, one of the most ornate I have ever seen (I have not yet been to St. Peters: Andrew got us kicked out of one church for screaming, so I am not going to try the Vatican until I have a full-day babysitter.)
I have seen three of the four major crypts: The Cappuchin crypts in Rome are really too much for children: skeletons of 3000 friars decorating a crypt(Can you imagine? Please go get father Ted's remains. We need his vertebra to finish the butterfly on the ceiling.") is too much. The crypts at San Sebastian had the best guides and the crypts at St. Domatilla were the most extensive. The guide there even let us take photos of the crypts in one un-monitored area, which is completely taboo in all the crypts.
Now for food updates: the absolutely best wine so far is by Baroncini, a Montepulciano; the best ice cream is at Gelateria del Teatro ai Coronari near Piazza Navonna (white wine with fig and almonds, mmmm), though I did have a very good violet ice cream two doors away from Trattoria Valentino on Via Cavour; best lunches at Hostaria i Clementini on Via di San Giovanni across the street from San Clemente (which has a very good excavation of the layers of Roman life, up to 7 stories below street level) and the Trattoria Valentino on Cavour is a close second; WORST price gouging is La Scala, near Barberini Metro on the Via Veneto (15 euros for one Beck's, 4 euros for water, 16 for a bad pizza and a mandatory service charge); WORST English/British pub is The Albert near the Trevi fountain (3 euros to play pool and the balls were all different sizes and VH1 was on TV instead of the Manchester United versus Chelsea game).
I have also been to the zoo in Villa Borghese and have some advice to impart: take your children, but try to get a guide. I think they deliberately change/omit/move the signs so that you can't get out of the zoo. Also, take a lunch, because there are only three restaurants, and only one is open throughout the year: we walked for three hours trying to find food, water, and an exit. Other than that, it is a wonderful zoo.
But if you are in Villa Borghese and stop at the Cine Cafe, reachable by the children's train, go into the cafe to order: you get a 2 euro per item charge for each item you order if you sit outside. For instance, ice cream inside is 2 euros each; outside they are 4 euros each.
My funny story is that I went to the Appia Antica, an ancient road that ran from Rome to Brindisi and was flanked by cemeteries and underground crypts. Brianna and I went together, taking the A metro line to Colli Albani and then a bus to the Appia Antica.
We did that, saw the crypts, ate a great lunch and headed back; just as the metro line A shut down completely during evening rush hour. The shut down left Brianna and I almost 7 miles from Flaminio train station, which gets us back to my house. I think we walked past every site in Rome, passing people, passing packed busses and cabs trying to get to the train at Flaminio. We made it, covering 7 urban miles of hills and cobblestones at rush hour, in just over 2 hours. Not bad for an out of shape mom and college student with stress fractures...
At least I walked off two weeks of ice cream.
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