Banaigna bonfire and the walk to bread

Sat 17 Jan 2009

So I'm sitting with my feet up on the windowsill in our kitchen again, writing an entry that will become blog once I return to a location with wifi. Yesterday and today are the first days that have been sunny for more than 30 seconds since we've been here, which is awesome. It's been warm and I've been able to wear sunglasses, which are two excellent things. Major happenings since I last wrote, and it's giving me good vibes about the rest of this trip.

Thursday night brought courage and determination to buy new boots, which weren't the ones I originally planned on. BUT the ones I got were 20 euro less than my original plan, are short, black with stripes of gray, and, get this: have a heel. It's about an inch high and pretty clunky, but oh yes, I bought shoes with heels. Take that, preconceptions about my balance.

Friday started with language class like any other day, but was also the first day of culture class. No one was really looking forward to cafeteria food followed by three hours of italian culture, so we had lunch between classes at a panini pizza place (it is literally impossible to find a bad pizza place within the city walls here, no joke) before heading back outside the walls to SMG and a course in culture.

Once back at campus, I got a cappuchino from the while-U-wait vending machines, which I discovered a few days prior have about 4 times more caffine than the while-U-wait caffé con latte from the same machine. It got me pretty wired, which I figured I was going to need. In class, I took a seat next to Lauren, a girl who I hadn't talked to much. It soon turned out to be probably the best decision I made that day.

Our culture professor is a small woman from god knows where, but I know I heard Scotland and Italy mentioned as options. Her accent makes her sound like Mrs. Doubtfire, which was fun for a good 15 minutes until she started explaining our syllabus. Instead of a culture class that I and most others expected, where we'd learn about italian life, politic, etc, the professor told us we'd be spending basically the entire course reading and analyzing Under the Tuscan Sun. Then she told us she hated both the book and the movie, but we were going to read and watch both anyway. The first half of class was spent reading passages the professor had photocopied from the book and Lauren and I discovered our mutual inability to pay attention and love for the song from those Fanta commercials. During our break about halfway through class, all discussion turned to the bonfire in Banaigna, a town a 20 minute busride away, that night.

Pretty much everyone was going, and everyone who wasn't in the culture class had already left so they could look around the gardens there (which I saw pictures of, and they're gorgeous so I will definitely be going back there when it's light out). We sat through the second half of class spending the entire time watching a good chunk of Under the Tuscan Sun. Thrilling. Lucky Wacky Jacky, a seat over from Lauren, was only auditing the class so she got to leave halfway through to finish the nap she had already started at her apartment instead of at a desk, and Lauren got to run about a half hour early to go tutor some guy in English.

A group of us ran to a Tabacchi after class, the we-sell-everything store, to get tickets for the bus. Most of them were running to catch the 5:40, but Stefano and I, who both live on the opposite side of town from SMG, decided to take the 6:20 bus so we wouldn't have to run and could stop at our respective apartments/dorm rooms.

The following comes a moment of truth. My new boots were expensive and had heels. I knew we would most definitely be walking back from Banaigna, which would be about an hour walk, since the buses stop running at like 8 here. My Converse are made of fabric and keep ending with my feet frozen and wet after an hour. A store on the street next to corso italiano had boots I had been eyeing for a few days now that cost 25 euro.

This is how I know Europa has already changed me. It clicked that this trip is what I've been saving all my money for, and everything I get here is italian, for christ's sake. I'm not getting this chance again for a while. I'm buying the freaking boots. So in the 50 minutes I had, I ran to the shoe store, tried on 38s (I'm pretty sure that's my size here) that fit perfectly so it must have been a sign, bought 'em, ran back to my apartment, had a bowl of Special K because I was starving, threw on my sexy, warm, dry, heel-less new boots, and ran upstairs to get Jacky from her apartment.

The timing wasn't as good as we'd hoped. We ran to the bus stop with about five minutes before it was supposed to leave. The kid that Lauren was tutoring had been a half hour late, so she had five minutes to run to a bus stop 10 minutes away from her. Stefano had gotten caught up in the "go with the flow" 'tude of italians that we had discussed only an hour before, and also had five minutes to run a 10 minute walk. Needless to say, we missed the bus. The next one wasn't until 7:20, but at least some other USAC kids had the same dilemma as us, so we waited together and I got to meet Fubio (I'm still not completely sure of his name or the spelling), one of the Italian kids that ended up in an apartment with USAC students. He practiced English on us. We practiced Italian on him. He translated for the guy sitting by us who said Lauren, Jacky and I were bella, and then walked with us further down when the guy became a bit of a creeper and, Fubio later translated offered us a ride in his car. Which also made no sense because he left before us on a different bus.

We discussed italy and america and life on the bus while some 16-year-old italiana girls with braces stared at us and played Katy Perry on their cell phones. Took lots of pictures with Fubio using his orange camera.

Finally, much later than we planned, to the bonfire. Saw my roommates waiting the busstop on the opposite side of the street when we got there, waiting to go back to Viterbo. I can't believe they were willing to leave so early, because the rest of the night was awesome.

The bonfire in Banaigna must have been about 5 really tall trees cut into a huge pile the size of a building with a low ceiling. Like two floors of Wicomico at UMD, or a bit taller than the Chatterton playground in Merrick. And all of those logs were on orange and purple fire. It was gorgeous, it was so so warm, I have pictures that will hopefully soon end up on flickr. We enjoyed pizza, gelato and drinks from the ristoranti and bars surrounding the piazza that held the bonfire. Then, we spent about three hours dancing to the italian band that played only 50s du-wop and swing hits. Meaning at least three different songs about doing the twist or shaking it up, baby or splish splash, taking a bath.

We didn't really plan ahead, because by the time our feet were all so tired we couldn't twist and shout anymore, we had to venture out for the hour walk back to Viterbo. Luckily, it was basically a straight shot back and we had a whole bunch of kids from last semester with us, so it would have been hard to get lost. Not so luckily, everyone's feet were destroyed by the end.

But of course, not even dead-tired feet could stop (some of) us from getting midnite pane. It was probably about 1 a.m.; a few went home, many went to Shu because the night was young they weren't quite done going out, and four of us headed to get pane. Got to try pieces of all three that night, and oh man are they delicious. Didn't feel like walking all the way back to my apartment and didn't want to wake up my roommates that I figured would already be asleep since they left the bonfire at around 8, when we were getting there, so crashed at Christine, Lauren, Felicia and Hanah's apartment. They have a good couch, fyi.

Felt gross, but got up this morning in time to have some awesome coffee made by Christine and head to the market that's only on Saturday mornings for an hour before it closed. Met up with Jacky there, bought a pair of sweet all black velcro high top Converse rip-offs for 10 euro, a pair of black leggings for 5 euro (why are they so expensive in the states??) and walked around awed at all the different stuff they had there. Vendors were selling everything from pants and dresses to jewelry and shoes to candy and blankets. It was awesome.

Broke off with Jacky to head to the Despar for a couple groceries, then back to the apartment to shower. Probably heading over to the Ipercoop in a bit because Jacky needs scissors and I'm up for something to do. Tonight will be dinner and, oh yes, a reggae festival right here in Viterbo.

Rome for the day tomorrow. Italian life is good.