the rest (settle in, this one's pretty long)

When we last left our heroine, she was negotiating the
hills of Forano with very little linguistical help...

That first day in Forano was a challenge, but the
reward was the wonderful welcome meal concocted by
Gianfranco's wife. It was pretty simple, really...
pasta, beef chunks, and meatballs along with fresh
bread and Gianfranco's homemade moonshine... I mean,
wine. The stuff is potent, but good in small doses.
The rest of the evening was pretty uneventful, and I
should have learned to get used to that.

Sunday (the 19th) was a very long, quiet day. We
didn't do a whole lot, and I quickly found myself
itching for some kind of activity. Unfortunately, all
I got was a day of watching Italian TV. Greece scores
a point for choosing to use subtitles instead of
dubbing over TV shows. Not that I watched a lot of TV
in Greece, but since it was the only thing to do in
Forano, I got bored pretty darn quick. In stride, I
took the day as an opportunity to learn about Italy's
viewing audience. From the commercials I could tell
that the most important things out there are cell
phones, bottled water, and Nivea skin care products.
And that was all before lunch. By the end of Sunday,
I was succombing to cabin fever, but Viola finally
eased my mind and told me that Gianfranco had a plan
for us to go around to some of the other villages in
the area on Monday.

Forano sits in a region called Sebina, and in Sebina
there are a good 20 or so tiny little towns, most of
which are built around either a castle or a large
church. On Monday, we traveled to about 7 of these
places, each one as quaint as the next. The drive was
an adventure in and of itself. As we left the house,
I went to buckle up only to be told by Gianfranco that
it °is not necessary to use now.° If you say so, man.
We were riding around in his tiny Fiat, so I figured
that if we did have an accident, the seatbelt simply
keep me from meeting the engine halfway. So I
practiced inconspicuously clenching my jaw and my
fists at each turn. I did okay, and thought that I
had my nerves under control until Gianfranco said,
°okay, now is a good time to put on the belt.° Gulp.

We took a good 3 hours to go around Sebina, stopping
at each little village for a quick looky-loo (which
always included some sort of hike up very steep and
narrow cobblestone paths). One of our stops was at a
small chapel built right into the side of the
mountain. The whole thing was carved out of the
granite and was no more than 20 feet long by 5 or so
wide. To get to it we had to climb a fair amount of
steps, naturally. We stopped for a quick lunch at
Gianfranco's (from here on out, he's going to be
referred to as GF) brother's home. This man, Luciano,
is a gourmet. He made the simplest meal (pasta and a
small steak) but it was so incredibly delicious. My
stomach and taste buds have definitely fallen in love
with Italy.

We finally returned home in the early part of the
afternoon after a visit to one last church that was
built (if memory serves...) around 1300. The coolest
part of it, literally and figuratively, was an area
underneath the altar. I'm not sure of its purpose,
but some of the original frescoes were still well
preserved.

Tuesday was our big travel day. The trip around Sebina
was just a warm up for a big road trip to Orvieto, a
medeival town about an hour north of Forano on the way
to Florence. Like the villages in Sebina, Orvieto is
built around a church. However, this was no little
church, but a huge cathedral with an amazing facade
complete with frescoes and relief images of ... I
don't really know... biblical stuff. :) The cathedral
itself is striped, like the Duomo in Siena (more about
that in a bit), and inside were even more frescoes,
reliefs, and beautiful stained glass. We wandered
around the inside for a while, in large part because
it was nice and cool in there and we were in the midst
of a heat wave. After a few minutes, my jaw dropped
to the rust-colored marble floor when I spotted
someone from my original Greek Islands tour. She made
the same °what the heck are you doing here?° face at
me. After all, it's a small, small world. We caught
up briefly, but she had to go as the bus was leaving
for Siena and this was only a bonus stop for them.

The entire time in Orvieto, GF kept talking about a
well, and I really wasn't sure what he meant. He
tried explaining to me that the donkeys would go down,
pick up the water and come back up. Without changing
directions. I just smiled and nodded figuring that if
it didn't make sense now, it might not ever. But
after an easy stroll around Orvieto, we came to St.
Pozzo's Well. Even as we paid admission (there's a
good racket...) I still wasn't sure where we were or
what we were doing, only that Viola and I would be the
only participants since GF brought his newspaper and
found himself a bench. But we paid, went through the
turnstile, and then began our descent. Viola pointed
through a window at the center and when I looked down,
I realized that we were walking down to the bottom of
the well. Good fun... and they make money off of
this! We walked, and walked, and walked, stopping
every so often to look up to see how far we'd come and
down to see how far we had to go. At the bottom was a
small bridge crossing over the water, which itself was
amazingly clear (once you looked past all of the
litter floating on the top). And instead of turning
around to go back up, we kept moving forward where
another tightly wrapped spiral brought us back up to
the top. The donkeys go down, pick up the water, and
come back up... all without changing directions.
Finally it made some sense. For kicks (?) I decided
to count the steps up. Only 248. The official blurb
about the well (which could have been useful before we
entered) was that it was built around 1500, is 53
meters deep and 7 meters wide, and has 248 steps in
each direction. The water, thanks to tourists, is no
longer drinkable. Although, I think that's probably a
good thing otherwise we would have shared those close
quarters with the donkeys. So ended our day in
Orvieto, and after a slightly terrifying drive on the
Autostrada (main highway) we were back to the safety
of GF's home.

Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday were very lazy days.
Viola and I attended a potluck at her church one
evening where we got to listen to the various choirs
(including the kiddie one) before sampling the
desserts of Forano. We also spent part of a day
roaming around another random village while GF took
his wife to a doctor's appointment. And we whiled
away Friday watching a few movies with the twins (who
stayed home from school for some reason). Finally...
FINALLY it was time for me to catch my (blessedly
airconditioned) train to Rome.

The main difference (besides gender) between the city
cousin and country cousin is the city cousin's command
of English. If I had the time between school, yard
work, heartache, two part time jobs and an internship,
I would have squeezed in some Italian lessons. But I
didn't, and I was grateful that Lilly could understand
and speak English way better than GF, Viola, and (at
times) me. :) She met me at the train station and
brought me across Rome to the building where her
mother and brother live (conveniently next door to
each other). The other main difference which had the
biggest affect on how I felt during this part of the
trip, was the fact that I'd met these people before.
And even though it had been at least 10 years since we
last saw each other, I was greeted with open arms,
many kisses, and (again) a big meal. I loved it and
felt better than I had during the whole week in
Forano. Plus, I was in a city, where we could go and
do stuff.

Then: Surprise... we're going to the mountains.
Great. Why not? So about 15 hours after getting to
the Eternal City, we were packed up and on our way to
Tuscany for 6 days. But it turned out okay. Lilly
made sure that we did something out of the house every
day, and even though that always resulted in a strain
on my patience courtesy of her (devil) child, it was
wonderful. We spent a couple of days wandering around
Santa Fiora (where we stayed) and the next °big° town,
Arcidosso. On another day, we went to the hotsprings
of Bagno San Fillipe (don't quote me on that name).
Even though it was way too warm to take a dip, I loved
seeing the cascading water pool in ... uh... pools of
light light blue before continuing their way down the
mountain. Of course, it didn't smell so good, but it
was pretty.

Our big adventure was a day trip to Siena, where I
came close to strangling the young Federica. Several
times, Lilly gave her the option of staying at the
house with her grandmother, but the little booger
insisted on coming with us even though Lilly told her
that it would be hot, hilly, and very exhausting. I
kid you not, we took fifteen steps from the car and
she began whining about how tired she was. The day
went kind of downhill from there. This was when
Lilly's knowledge of English was unfortunate, as all I
wanted to do was tell the child off (it was hot, and I
was cranky too) but couldn't. Let me tell you about
this kid. I said in the last email that she was 5.
She looks about 6, but is, in fact, 4 and a half.
She's huge. Tall and pretty stocky. She would
out-eat me at most of our meals, plus she would snack
all day. She's rarely told °no° and consequently she
knows exactly how to get her way, and doesn't stop
until she gets it. Usually it doesn't take too long.
She. Drove. Me. Crazy. (Can you tell I only recently
parted company with the reincarnate of Veruca Salt??)

But, I digress. Siena was another amazing medeival
town, built around the Duomo (another striped
cathedral) and the Piazza del Campo. From what I
understand (granted, limited knowledge at this point
in the day, heat, and humidity), twice each year in
the piazza, there's a kind of medeival festival.
Siena itself is divided into different sections, each
one represented by a different animal. (Think Harry
Potter and Griffindor, Ravenswhatever, Slytherin,
etc.) At the festival, there is a horse race where
each section of town is represented. I'm not sure if
the winner gets anything more than bragging rights,
but it's a huge event nonetheless. The center of the
piazza gets jam packed with spectators for the
day-long affair. Federica said she wanted to come
back for it (it takes place this Saturday). We spent
as much time as Federica would allow walking around
Siena. And shortly after her second fall of the day,
we called it quits and headed back to Santa Fiora. I
don't know about Lilly, but I had Excedrin headache
No. 34.

Whew.

Today, we came back to Rome where I got my first real
opportunity to experience city traffic at rush hour.
Holy cow. Bats can fly around in large groups because
their echolocation prevents them from crashing into
each other. I think drivers in Rome operate in the
same fashion. I don't know why I haven't seen more
accidents. Maybe I just need to spend a bit more time
in the city. And, I truly believe that the kamikaze
fighter pilots from WWII were reincarnated and all
live in Rome and drive scooters. They're nuts. And I
thought the country roads would give me an ulcer.

So, tomorrow I will finally get a chance to explore
part of Rome. I'm starting with the Vatican, only
because I managed to talk Lilly out of worrying about
me for a day. Yes, that means I can go all by my
lonesome, and we'll catch up later for a balloon ride
(a touristy, scenic vista kind of thing) in Villa
Borghese (Rome's version of Central Park from what I
understand).

Thanks for making it through this volume. Hopefully
my internet access comes a bit more frequently. I'm
going to send more pictures off soon.

All the best to everyone!
Love,
Michele