Athens to Italy, part I

I've written this so many times in my head that I'm no
longer sure where to begin now that I've finally sat
down at a computer.

The basics:
I'm in Italy. And it's hot. But, as they say, it's
not the heat that gets you....

Since I'm such a fan of backtracking, I should pick up
where I left off: Athens. The previous night was that
great, impromptu concert with Mr. Domingo. The next
day I finally hauled myself up to the Acropolis. I'd
seen it from every angle and figured I should break
down and make the hike. Thursday was insanely hot,
but I just slathered on the Coppertone and made tracks
for the ruins. I was as amazed by the site itself as
I was by the number of people milling about. I hadn't
encountered that big a crowd on the trip, and the
combination of the numbers and the less-than-stable
terrain made the experience a bit of an effort. The
tour groups had it good. The guides explained
everything on the top, their purpose, their history,
etc. For all the groups, I couldn't find one with an
English speaking guide (because I had no qualms about
pretending to be part of a group for the free trivia).
So I kind of milled about and went 'ooh. pretty!'
every now and again.

Later that night I managed to run into a few folks
from the islands group and we decdided to continue our
anti-greek food trend and went out for sushi. It was
great on its own, but it was REALLY great because
there were no olives, feta cheese, or moussaka to be
found. After dinner, we decided to try and find an
movie theater. Hahh.. That proved to be an adventure
and a half. And a totally fruitless one at that. We
gave up after a few hours (we found one place showing
Batman Begins, but that didn't interest any of us) and
decided to meet again the next evening and head
directly for a theater that we knew of that had a sign
advertising Mr and Mrs Smith.

I woke up on Friday thinking that it would be just our
luck to show up for the movie only to find that it
wasn't showing, so I headed to the theater, found out
that, in fact, it wasn't showing for another week, and
then started a quest to find a theater that I could a)
find and b) find again when I got back with our
shrinking group. It took most of the day, but I did
it. The place was a tiny little outdoor theater in
the shadow of the Acropolis (I learned to be less
impressed by this as my time in Athens went
by...everything seems to be in the shadow of the
Acropolis). We found a happy hour before the show and
were in prime form by the time it started. When ice
cold beer is as cheap as ice cold water....

I said goodbye to Athens on Saturday, and made the
quick hop over to Rome. I had arranged to meet up
with my cousin at the airport, and I found her without
any difficulty. What surprised me, however, was that
a different cousin was standing right next to her,
both of them holding 'Michele Summa' signs. Whooops.
They talked amongst themselves for a short bit and it
was decided that I would head off to the country
first. Fine by me. I felt bad for the city-cousin,
mostly becuase her 5 year old was staring at me from
behind some big brown eyes and I couldn't explain to
her that I would be back. And so, I was off with
Gianfranco... a 75-80ish yearold, tiny man with bright
white hair. He was accompanied by his two
grandchildren Edoardo and Viola. (Viola I remembered
hearing about from my grandmother when she had visited
Italy back in 1992. Viola was probaby 3 or 4 at the
time, and my jaw dropped when I realized that the 17
year old in front of me was the chubby bambino from
Grandma's photos.) We made our way to the train
station (already familiar to me from my trip to Athens
from Paris) and left for Forano.

Forano is large by comparison to some of the other
villages in the area, but when compared to any other
city on a map, it's tiny. It's the town of origin for
the (I'm going to butcher this spelling... sorry Dad)
Pazzaglia family. Among the 11-12 Pazzaglia children
was my great grandmother (as well as her famous
sister--the woman who played the dying Italian mother
in Moonstruck). Gianfranco is one of many first
cousins in my grandmother's ginormous generation. So.
Suffice it to say (yeah, why start now?) there's a
lot of people to meet in Forano. And Gianfranco
paraded me around proudly, introducing me as 'the
niece of Billy.' A title that sort of irked me. My
uncle visits there frequently, but my parents have
been there as well. So I just made sure to follow the
introduction with the clarification that I was (more
importantly) the daughter of Donny and Joanne and the
grand daughter of Jeanette. Good enough. I can't say
how many people I was introduced to, and I couldn't
say much to them either. The language barrier threw
me for a loop. Even though I had some key phrases
memorized, and even though I did pretty good at
understanding questions and nodding or shaking my head
in response, I couldn't say much. Call it performance
anxiety.

This is still day one of the adventure, but I must
give the keyboard a break. More will follow in a few
days. Stay tuned. :)

In the meantime, photos from London, Paris, and Greece
have been posted at the website. Check them out. :)

Love,
Michele