Il Mondo Selvaggio

A weekend of beautiful sights and adventures!

Saturday, we traveled to Grotte di Castellano, where we went on a 3km walk underground through a spectacular grotto.  The beginning was a bit like Goonies, with less buried treasure and more rock formations that resemble the Virgin Mary, and the pure-white stalagmites and stalactites that we found at the very end of the footpath were absolutely stunning. 

I was only able to get in a few shots at the beginning before they told me to put my camera away.

What really made the trip great, however, was that it was COLD underground.  We actually got to wear sweaters!

Next, we visited the trulli at Alberobello--the home of tax evasion.  Way back when, the inhabitants of these strange little houses would look out for the tax man coming over the hills and then quickly disassemble their dwellings, and putting them back together once he left to report back to the King that no one lived there.

Google Earth kind of killed that idea, so now they're all cemented in place.

Today, most of the trulli are gift shops, although some are still lived in.

Wasn't expecting anyone to be home.

Yesterday, we went trekking (...hiking) at Porto Selvaggio, where our hard work scrambling up and down seaside cliffs was rewarded with a picturesque sunset. 

 

I am without doubt ready to move on to big-city Bologna, but luckily I'll catch a few more views like this in Greece.

La Pizza in Puglia

Today, I was sitting around wishing for something to do when, like the perfect Italian dream come true, some friends stopped by with ingredients for homemade pizza!

We were feeling rather inspired from the cooking class we took earlier this week, where we learned to make our own pasta from scratch, and we were looking forward to practicing our dough-kneading skills.

We ended up with four delicious pizzas to share between the six of us--me, Chiara, Eli, Jenny, Mari and Speranza (that's Hope in Italian)--it's going to be one of those rare nights in which I pass on gelato.

The classic pizza margherita

The zucchini special

A blog can't convey how good this smelled

Our Italian advisers stopped by and were very impressed with our culinary skills, but they weren't quite sure what to make of dessert...

Nutella and Banana heaven

È ovvio...

I may be starting to pick up some colloquial expressions, but it seems being Italian is about more than speaking the language....

The other night, I was walking with Eli and Sarah back from town (where I got some yummy dried kiwi and kind of weird dried eggplant from a street vendor) when a woman stopped us and began to ask for directions.

Before she could finish (and before we had said anything), her husband pulled her along, laughing a bit and saying "Non sono italiane" ("they aren't Italian").

We tried to protest--we've lived here for two weeks, we speak Italian, we can help!--but he had already made up his mind. 

It left us wondering...what is it that makes someone appear instantly foreign in Italy?  Not everyone here fits the dark hair dark eyes image, and as this is a vacation town we've seen diverse-looking people from all over the country.  Couldn't we just have been northerners?  We're going to start paying more attention to the way Italians have of carrying themselves, to their attitudes and their mannerisms, and try to figure out what it is that we're missing. 

Lei è certamente italiana

Un Articolo Interessante

This was just published in The Wall Street Journal...looks like Lecce is the place to be!

http://online.wsj.com/article/NA_WSJ_PUB:SB128164458248227281.html#articleTabs%3Darticle

Un Italiana Vera

Well, I've been here for two weeks, and I'm still craving peanut butter, missing AC, and reverting back to English way more often than I should.  In other words, most of the time I feel hopelessly American.

Still, once in awhile I surprise myself...like the other night, when someone almost ran me over on his bicycle.

"CHE CAZZO?!?!?!?!!!!" I turned around and yelled after him, without even stopping to think about it. 

I won't translate the expression here for propriety's sake, but suffice it to say I reacted just like a true Italian. :)

La Storia di Lecce

The other night, a bunch of us went to see the ballet Carmen.  The show was well-done (according to the dance major sitting next to me), but the real attraction was were it was performed: in the 2nd-century A.D. amphitheater discovered in 1938 in the middle of the city.  For some reason, the original stone bleachers were cheaper than the plastic seats in the center, and they were definitely the better option.  Just sitting in the same seats where people gathered almost two thousand years ago to watch performances of their own made me feel more connected with history than I ever have before.  The whole time, I just kept wondering what they saw, and whether they too were given cushions to make the stone more comfortable. 

On a completely unrelated note, for the second time a gelato-scooper, noticing that we're (quasi) bilingual, has asked us to explain what Americans mean when they come in asking for a "taste."  Apparently, here people just trust that every flavor is going to be amazing.  It's always fun to explain the behavior of "our people" in "their language," but this time I was taken aback when he then asked me if it was also normal in America to take the free taste and then leave without buying anything.  I was tempted to apologize on everyone else's behalf, but instead I just told him that, in my opinion, such behavior was molto maleducato (rude) and picked out (and payed for) my flavors by sight.  Having been here for over a week, I know that there's really no way to go wrong with gelato. 

Le Nuove Amiche

Grazie a Facebook, I have lots of photos of my new friends to share!

(Ridiculously happy to be eating gelato)

La Libreria

This morning during language class we went on a field trip to the bookstore!  I was just as excited as I was back in first grade, when we went to the public library on my birthday. 

Pretty much all of the bestsellers from the US were there in translation, which led to lots of surprising moments- I'd be studying a book with an interesting cover, and it would take me a few seconds to reconcile the Italian title with the one I'm familiar with in English. Sometimes, titles had to be changed in order to make sense; Roald Dahl's The BFG (The Big Friendly Giant) became Il GGG (Il Grande Gigante Gentile)--same meaning, different initials.  Others, like The Catcher in the Rye, seemed to be too difficult to translate without confusing people (although I never really understood the English title, either), so here it's just "The Young Boy Holden." Some of the books seemed to have lost a bit of their magic in traduzione: a title like The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants says a lot more than "Four Friends and a Pair of Jeans."

Aside from that, it was a lot like the Barnes and Noble I worked at--except, this being Italy, here I probably could have used my employee discount on the extensive wine list.

I Lunghissimi Giorni

It is hot here.  Very hot.  Everything closes from 1-4 because no one in their right mind would be walking around, so we spend our afternoons listening to music, napping, eating lots of fruit, and wishing we were back in Gallipoli...

The name comes from the Greek for "beautiful city," and it's full of fresh seafood, ornate churches, and the remains of ancient underground olive oil presses. 

 

And, of course, beautiful views. As yesterday was a national holiday, Ferragosto, we were treated to a fireworks show after sunset, which we watched while swimming in the Ionian Sea. 

Vespa

The Italian equivalent of my jeep?

Che un sogno è la nostra vita

Today we went to Leuca.

And took a boat ride

The water was so clear and beautiful.

The boat went right into the grottos

Then we jumped out and swam to one that was too small for the boat

Era un bellissimo giorno!

Il Giro Della Nostra Casa

This morning, as I waited in line for hours at the post office to complete my permesso di soggiorno, I mentioned to Nadja, our trip leader, that everything in Italy is exactly the way books and movies portray it--except they always skip over the bureaucracy.  She agreed that Under the Tuscan Sun definitely leaves out the part where it takes a TON of paper work to move to Italy, even if it's just for a little while. 

Still, it's totally worth it!  This is where I'm living for the month:

La porta d'entrata

 

Il soggiorno

La cucina

My room (yes, that's a Trainspotting poster on the wall)

The best part of my room- so much sunlight!

Il cortile

Una Piccola Cambia

I've decided to go by "Lina" (pronounced lee-na) - similar enough to Lindsay, but much prettier in Italian :)

Notte di Stelle, Notte di Vino

There were a lot of kite surfers at the beach.

The water was clear, warm, and very salty.

Tuesday night, after a relaxing day at the beach, we cooked dinner as a house (salad and pasta with pesto and tomatoes) and then went to the town center for a wine tasting event.  The entire old city was taken over by dancers, musicians, and representatives from vineyards throughout Puglia.  For £10, you received a wine glass and a bag of crackers, which gave you access to unlimited tastings.  We arrived around 9, and there were already a lot of people there; by 11 the city was packed with tourists (mostly, it seemed, from other parts of Italy).  After the first few samples, it became a lot easier to socialize in Italian.  I've noticed that people really seem to appreciate it when we tell them that we've come to Italy to learn the language and that they're very patient with us. It's a different attitude than in America, where we tend to be annoyed by people who can't speak English well. 

Our first house dinner, where we learned that you can only drink alcohol here if you can figure out how to open the bottle.  We take turns buying ingredients and cook together every night.

Everybody came out for the wine tasting.

There really is no drinking age.  I guess there aren't any babysitters in Italy, because the kids were out all night with everyone else.

Me, Jenny, Liz (Now Eli) and Chiara.  It was difficult to find someone who could hold the camera steady.

The beautiful old city.

Yesterday, after taking our placement exams, we ate lunch in the city and checked out some of the shops.  In the afternoon, we sat for a lecture about Italian pop music from the 50s to today, featuring some hilarious music videos. By dinnertime we were all starving, since it's difficult to get used to eating after 8, but the huge feast-- with pizza, pasta, and more wine--that our trip leaders provided for us was worth it.  While we ate, we watched a performance of the Tarantella, which is the traditional dance of this region.  Today in class we learned that the tradition started as a way of treating those bitten by tarantulas--the frenzied dancing helped the inflicted to sweat out the poison from the venom. I was pretty freaked out by this, but our teacher, Antonella, assured us that we're not likely to see any giant spiders around here. 

Right now I'm finding it difficult to write in English--this post took me forever to write, and I keep second-guessing my grammar.  I guess that means that the immersion process is working!