Aisha the retriever

Turibio's Dog Aisha. Obviously there is some retriever in this dog as she loves sticks and she'll chase the Frisbee all day.

Turibio's House

On Sunday I went to Turibio’s house. And again it was an adventure. I bought some pasticcieria on the way, which was easier than I thought. With so many little pastries to choose from I wasn’t sure what to pick. At the shop I ran into to the famous Nello. Now he’s working in a café and bakery shop. Or maybe this is just another one of his jobs. I know he said he had 3 jobs when he worked at the restaurant “La Locanda degli Angeli”. I must admit I didn’t believe him but now I do. I wish he still worked there because he really did take care of you. I didn’t realize it until he was gone.
When I arrived in town Turibio, Marco, Lorenzo, Stefano, and I went out and played disc golf in a pine forest. It was very tough and short. Turibio won the first round after I got lost (several times). Then I won the second round easily by taking the right turns. When we got back to his house there was a quite a commotion. Turibio’s father was up on the roof and he dumped a big bucket of sand down through the chimney because it was blocked or something and it made an awful mess when it hit the fire in the fireplace sending ash into the house. Later someone showed up with a big brush and they cleaned the chimney and started another fire. While this mess was being sorted out we took Aisha (Turibio’s dog) for a walk. They really don’t realize how strange it is to me to be hanging out in an olive grove. The craggy trees and tumbled down stonewalls that could have looked like this 2,000 years ago. This time I took a few photos of particular trees for me and Aisha retrieving sticks for Turibio, as he doesn’t have any pictures of his dog yet. When we got back to house Mara, Ramona, Naomi, Gigi, and Antonella had all arrived. Antonella had brought her daughter as usual but she (I don’t know her name) was the only toddler this time. You could see her disappointment with only adults around. The young adults (those of use in 20’s and 30’s mentioned above) went on a walk to see one of the oldest olive trees in southern Italy for my benefit. To me it was really cool and I took several pictures of it, to them I was like some sort of Japanese tourist. Lunch was served around 1:30 and we ate well. First there was this piedina, which is a deep fried bread ball. Then we had penne and sauce that was simple and very good. The sauce seemed to be just tomatoes ground beef and cut up green olives but it had to be more than that as it was so damn good. Then grilled meat again like they did last time. They have this little portable electric grill that they set next to the fireplace. So the meat starts sizzling away after we finish up our pasta. After lunch it’s time for dolce and that was my contribution. It was cool because I got to be like the Italians I see every Sunday carrying a covered tray of carefully wrapped pastries. I especially like the ones that looked like swans. Maybe I’ll post the picture I took of them. I also made a mental note to try to see which are eaten first in case I need to bring something again. The younger adults again went for a walk after dinner like back in November. After the walk we came back, talked a bit, then Turibio and I took Lorenzo home. It was funny before we left, Turibio’s father screamed from the other room only because Lecce had tied up the score in their game with Cagliari (in the end Lecce lost 3-1). I left my apartment “for lunch” at 9:00 AM and returned back around 7:30 PM. And I’m still amazed at how everyone seems to disappear on Sunday. It’s so easy to figure out if look at what I just did yesterday.

Patty

The lovely Patrizia at Goblin's pub. She just got back from South Africa last week. While there she got hair extensions, which is why I took this picture. Usually her hair is very short. She plans to keep them for about a month. I think she should grow her own hair long as she looks great like this. She is almost the first person I met outside of work and we tried to go out but she works at night and I work during the day so it doesn't seem to work.

Brutto Tempo!!!

Well this weekend they were showing 3 feet of snow in the mountains only 2 hours from me. It had blocked the A3 for 3 days and this is the main (only) highway from Naples to Sicily. It’s a great highway to drive as you’re riding along up in the mountains all the way to Sicily. The highway has many tunnels and each seems to change directly into a bridge that gives you a great overlook and you feel on top of the world. However, being “up” in the mountains seems to have a drawback when the snow comes. So shipping things south of me was impossible by truck and vice versa. That made me worry. A lot of produce for sale here comes from Sicily this time of year. We still have beautiful tomatoes and zucchini at the market thanks to the warmer and wetter conditions in Sicily right now. I never thought of it before but now is probably the best time for growing things in Sicily. In the summer it’s too hot and dry to grow things except olives and grapes. You would need to irrigate a lot and there aren’t many lakes a rivers use. This country is amazing when you think about it. It has roughly the same area as Nevada and yet it has all the climates of the US. In Sicily and here it’s roughly the same as Florida or Southern California and up north they have bone chilling cold and snow like New England. We even have the unwritten division between north and south. Which is really funny when you look at how Italy really runs east to west. Those Burlesconi loving fools up north are always calling this area “il mezzogiorno d’Italia” (literally… the midday of Italy) or even worse North Africa.
Now today the rough weather seems to be hitting Brindisi. This morning the temperature was about 38F but somehow a cold wind brought in a mix of rain, hail, and snow, all at the same time. I mean it, we had all three types of precipitation falling together. The snow melted as soon as it touched the ground but this combination made for a most unusual sight. I was at work so I couldn’t get a photo. It was bad enough for people to stop work for a minute and look out the window in wonder. By lunch the sky had cleared up and it was sunny with hardly a trace of the bad weather. Maybe I’ll head up into the hills this weekend. I hear they may have snow in Alberobello for those of you who have been here, can imagine what that would look like? The goofy little round trulli houses with their cone shaped roofs covered in snow. I’ll try to get a good picture.

The NBA

“No Basket Ability” was a good quote after the first meeting of the Avio employees experiment into basketball. On Monday night Fiorentino, Mauro, and myself took on Fabio, Domineco, and Giuseppe in some “from the street” style hoops action. While none of us had much ability and trash talking was a little weak we did have fun. We got off to a bad start when we arrived at the location and they said we didn’t have the court reserved. After a 10-minute discussion it was agreed that since no one was using it, we could. Then there was only one ball that could bounce and again we were lucky because it was a little smaller than a regulation ball so I think that helped our scoring. The highlight was when I made a 3 pointer and then Giuseppe had to answer with one of his own. Meanwhile Fiorentino and Domineco battled under the basket and showed signs of real basketball talent. Mauro and Fabio should be called “the hackers” so we let them cover each other. Needless to say this is going to be a Monday night tradition from now until the weather gets warmer… Then we’ll go back to playing soccer where we are all a little more comfortable.

Salento Coast

Salento Coast near Torre dell'Orso. Is it goofy to say I like the blues and greens in this photo? Look carefully for the stairs carved in the rock going down to the sea.

Lorikeet

Lorikeet at the Newport Aquarium. I needed to add some bright colors to this blog in these winter months.

Puglia 2005

Well I’m back in Italy and things have changed in the month that I was gone. The biggest change is the no smoking law I mentioned in my last blog. This is good and bad. One of the reasons I would call it a night at the Big Ben was because the smoke started getting thick. Now I have no reason to go home. That could be bad. Poor Ottavio has to go outside his own bar to smoke. On the good side it doesn’t seem to have hurt business. And it is so nice not have to worry about where I sit. I had found a particular place at the bar where it seemed the smoke would go straight up so I wouldn’t get it straight from someone else. Now that knowledge is useless. The bar also now has a computer that they use to surf the web during the slow hours and it controls the music. No more diving thru stacks of CDs looking for what they want to play. Daniele loves showing this new toy to everyone.At my house things have changed too. The island near the wall in front of my building has been landscaped (check it out on the webcam, I gave you the address last year). It has a desert motif with brown gravel, cacti, and succulents. I would say it looks pretty good. Let’s see if it can withstand dogs and people. Also the store in my building has finally opened. It has expensive furniture from India and Southeast Asia. I haven’t been inside yet because I do need some new furniture. The biggest news for me on the personal front is my TV has more channels now. I know you don’t think that’s big. Last year I bought a little box that’s called “terrestriale cable”. Until now it all it did was make the channels I had come in better but now by magic it has about 7 new channels, which makes the total about 13. But of those, one is BBC World. Now I have a channel in English (real English at that). It’s perfect because I can get the news, but it’s not real interesting (I really don’t care what Prince Harry has done this week) so I won’t watch it much. This box also has a card that’s like pay per view. You put money on the card and then put it in your box. When you want to watch something like an important soccer match you select it and it deducts the price from your card. Never a monthly bill, I love that. This card thing hasn’t been available in my area until now. So the next Juventus vs. Inter match means a party at my house…

Learn something new...

Well I don’t understand this. I was trying to translate something from Italian to English and I kept getting “to drink a toast” for some strange reason. So I typed “toast” in my Collins translator and guess what came back, “brindisi”. I don’t know why no one told me the town I live in means toast (as in a speech given with a drink, not the burnt bread thing). I would have thought that SOMEBODY in Brindisi would have thought that this is a fun fact to share with Americans. I assumed it didn’t mean anything since no one said anything. Also “brindare a” means “to drink to”, now this is something I could use. I’ve tried other town names but they seem to not mean anything, unless it’s really obvious like Alberobello, which means “beautiful tree”. I knew that one a long time ago.
I also want to put this blog up before I’m back in Italy because I have been reading articles about the new law in Italy that prohibits smoking in public buildings (some exceptions for places with sufficient air circulation blah, blah, blah). Will the Big Ben be smoke free? The news articles make it sound like a big deal but I have a feeling I won’t see a difference. I really don’t notice people smoking inside that much. That may be because the weather is normally nice enough for people to go outside and smoke. A lot of them already do out of courtesy for others. I know it’s hard to believe. I guess the streets may have more cigarette butts in them as more people go outside and throw their cigarettes down EVEN MORE than they do now. There are two sides to every rule. I’ll come back to this subject next week.

New Year

I’ve been back in the States a while now and the holidays are over so I guess it’s time to reflect back on what has happened. I went around and did a lot of things I’ve been planning to do. What are the highlights? I mean besides gifts and tons of snow. Let’s see. After Christmas I finally made time to hang out Newport Aquarium and I got to go behind the scenes because of family connections. I’m so cool. Then I had dinner with some college friends and ended the day staying at my brother’s place. It was great and unique chance to hang out with my brother and my future sister-in-law. The next day I went on to my sister’s (and Kent’s) place for a night. We did some light hiking and good eating. I managed to make it back to Indianapolis in time for a New Year’s Party at a friend’s house. You can see photos of this party at www.emilyandchristopher.com. I stayed with them rather than drive around late at night after New Years. In the end I was out of hotel room for 4 straight nights so I guess I should have checked out and then checked back in. Now, it’s Sunday and all is calm. Tomorrow I go into work for a little while before heading back. I’m getting antsy to head back to where my stuff is. I guess I’m also ready to go back to Italy because I know I’ll be back here in March for my brother’s wedding. My work visa has already come in the mail so I can go back except for a few things that I need to get done here first.