Looking Back: Seeing Prince

By the time we had reached Rome, the southernmost stop we made in Italy, Sarafina and I knew that we would rather spend a few extra euros and stay somewhere nice than settle for a cheaper, lamer hostel. With that in mind we found a hostel called The Yellow right near the train station in Rome that seemed to be safe and full of young folk (a much better option than the insane asylum we found ourselves in the first night in Perugia). The website for The Yellow actually made it look too cool. It reminded me of an iPod commercial. There weren’t any other options available that were as highly rated, though, so we figured we would just have to transcend the trend-factor.

Many of the hostels we stayed in over the course of the trip had their own bars, and The Yellow definitely ranks as the nicest of the bunch. One evening we found ourselves wolfing down a typical dinner – bread, brie, some pesto, and cooked spinach – and a bottle of wine at the largest table when a motley crew of guys assembled around us to watch a soccer game that was about to start. We all got to talking, and several hours and several bottles of wine later the game has ended and we are all having a grand time with our new hostel friends. One of them, a charismatic Irish guy named Nick who was looking for an apartment in Rome, mentioned that he was going to see Prince in a week and was super excited.

“Oh my God! That’s sooooo awesome!” I gushed.

“Yeah, he’s really good live. You should come!”

Well, that was enough of an invitation for me, so we grabbed one of the iPads the hostel rents out (see what I mean about trendy?) and searched desperately online to see if the show was sold out. We couldn’t find any tickets remotely affordable, so I gave up with a sigh. It would have been a fun thing to do, but oh well. Then, and maybe it was just an empty gesture that came from too much wine-inspired good will, but Nick offered to walk us to the ticket office the next day and interpret for us so we could ask in person about any tickets. When we finally decided it was late and time to head to bed he reminded us, “Just come to my room and wake me up if I’m not downstairs tomorrow!”

So, after a leisurely breakfast in the hostel’s cafe the next day, we went up to the room Nick had told us about and gave the door a little knock. “Is there a guy named Nick in there?” Sarafina called. Instantly, the door creaked open and we could see through the darkness that there are several partially dressed guys in bed and wandering around before Nick’s tired face peeks out.

“Oh Jesus” he said in his thick Dublin accent.

Fina and I weren’t sure if we had just interrupted some sort of gay sex den or something, and instantly regretted taking him up on this promise that was probably given when he was way too intoxicated to be planning the next morning’s activities. He said to wait 5 minutes and he would get dressed, so we lurked out in the stairway wishing we could somehow extricate ourselves from this situation. We were sure there weren’t going to be any tickets anyway, so why drag this poor hungover dude we just met out of bed for no reason? We couldn’t think of how to get out of it though, and 10 minutes later Nick comes out and we head down the many flights of stairs as he tells us how he had been up until 5 a.m. hanging out in the bar listening to music, so had only gotten 4 hours of sleep.

We had no idea where this ticket office was, so we just followed behind him as his long legs rushed ahead, and 20 minutes later arrived at a book and music store we had actually been to the day before. Feeling guilty that we hadn’t put two and two together so we could have saved him the trip, we followed him to the little ticket office in the middle of the store. He had a long exchange in Italian with the girl selling tickets, and relayed to us that the general standing tickets were all sold out. The next cheapest option available was in the farthest balcony for 70 euros – about $95. And, since the concert wasn’t for a week, it meant that we would be staying a few more days than we had planned… which would be several more nights paying for a somewhat expensive hostel. I could see Sarafina shuddering at the idea of forking over so much cash, so I told Nick we would have to think about it and come back.

He shook his head, but led us out of the store and across the street to an area full of ruins that currently serves as a cat sanctuary. We could only see a cat or two, though, which wasn’t too impressive compared to the descriptions we had read of a writhing mass of cats that people came from far and wide to photograph.

“I only have one thing to say,” Nick said. “Just do it. Just come to the show. It’s worth it. Just fucking do it.”

I was on board. It’s true that it was really expensive, and our budget was obviously tight. But how often do you get to see Prince in ROME?? As Nick walked off to go meet some of his friends Sarafina and I discussed our options.

“The way I see it,” I explained, “is we could either go see Prince, or we could not go see Prince. And when I think about which one of those options would qualify as Getting Awesome, I’d have to go with the first one.”

Sarafina and I talked about the pros and cons of getting the tickets or not as we walked to find some lunch and after a couple of blocks had come to the decision that we would do it, because being able to tell our grandkids that we went to see Prince in Rome is a way better story than telling them that we could have seen Prince in Rome, but didn’t. I was ecstatic. Prince! I didn’t know too many of his songs, but I loved dancing to the ones I did, and he was guaranteed to give a great show. Nick had also confided that he had done some research and knew on good authority that ‘Raspberry Beret’ would be played. I could already predict that this concert would the the icing on my Eurotrip cake.

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When the day of the concert finally rolled around we had fully settled into Rome life. Nick had found an apartment and moved out of the hostel, and as tends to happen in such environments we had made new hostel friends and let the old ones go off on their adventures. We had tentative plans to get together with Nick before the show, but it had been several days since we had seen him, and we figured it would be more awkward than not to call him up at that point. Even without his excited energy around us we were pumped for the night ahead. We talked about it all day, and about how we had definitely made the right decision to go.

We were having a wandering-around-aimlessly kind of day, and came upon a cool old shop with lots of records and books and such. I was looking around when I came upon a box of photographs from the 80′s. It was filled with rows and rows of 4 x 6 photos of 80′s rock and pop stars, along with some random school photos and such things. There were dozens of George Michaels and Boy Georges, Michael Jacksons, Madonnas, even Bruce Springsteens. “I have to find a Prince one!” I thought. There should have been tons of them sprinkled in, I mean, c’mon, it’s Prince. He’s way cooler than Boy George! Sarafina came over to join in the search, and after going through most of the selection I finally found a great shot of him:

I don’t know if you can tell from this picture I just took, but the photo I found is actually a picture of a picture of Prince in Purple Rain. It’s pure gold. Right after I found this gem Sarafina found one of Prince’s silhouette surrounded by fog and red lights on stage. We continued looking to see if there were any others, but there weren’t. We had the only two.

As we left the used book store Sarafina mentioned that we should probably get raspberry berets to take our outfits to the next level. I thought it was a brilliant idea, and it shouldn’t have been too difficult considering how Rome’s streets are littered with street vendors selling scarves and hats and such. It turned out not to be as easy as we had thought, and after checking out every cart on the way back to our hostel we were close to giving up. We didn’t want a burgundy beret, or a maroon beret, we wanted an f-ing raspberry beret! Prince would know the difference! We decided to try one last street near the train station that had a handful of sketchy shops filled with cheap winterwear. It looked bleak, none of them had what we needed. When we got in front of the last shop of the row I peered inside and let out a yelp of delight. “There it is!!” I called to Sarafina as we hurried inside. On one of the displays was the perfect raspberry beret.

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We were ready to roll. We had the hat, we had the tickets, we had free drinks from the bar due to an unanticipated room change, and we had the sexiest Prince-like facial expressions we could muster (which, I admit, were not very sexy). So we went down the the bar to drink our beers and I realized that I was so I excited I was actually nervous. The bartender was playing a Prince playlist, and we spent a few minutes chatting with a couple that was also going to the show. They had sprung for more expensive tickets so they could be closer, which I was almost wishing we had done, but I knew that we would have a grand old time no matter where we were sitting.

After getting pumped listening to several songs we decided it was time to go find this place, so we bid the couple farewell and wished them a good show. The stadium was many subway stops away, and a long walk along a sidewalk down the highway, but when we finally got there it was everything you would expect an Italian show venue to be. Everyone was drinking in the parking lot, smoking, and in a disorganized jumble that didn’t indicate to us where the entrance actually was. Our tickets were in Italian, so it took us a little bit of critical thinking to decipher which entrance we were supposed to go in. Once we found the right door the guards glanced to make sure we had tickets and then ignored us as we walked through to try and find our seats.

Unlike in America, there was no real security at the show. No one scanned our tickets, no one checked our bags, no one told us not to record the show. It was a nice change, but we were a little unnerved to discover there was also no one to show us where to sit. We ended up climbing all through the section we thought we were supposed to be in (all the way to the left side of the stage and the furthest row back) asking other concertgoers where we were supposed to be, and they kept pointing to a section that was blocked off with a rope. Confused, we eventually found some people who worked there and spoke English to ask.

It turned out that our assigned section wasn’t even open, so we could sit wherever we wanted! Oh, Italy, sometimes your chaos is so lovely. We seized the opportunity and ran for the center of the last row, which was still remarkably close to the stage because the stadium was so small. (We chuckled to ourselves that the couple from the hostel had paid twice what we did just do be a few yards closer to the stage). We figured we would have plenty of room to dance on the bench, and had a perfect view of the the stage with all of it’s purple instruments. We were all giddy with anticipation, and laughed when we saw that venue-workers were selling popcorn like at a baseball game. Who eats popcorn at a concert? As it turns out, Italians do.

We didn’t even know who was the opening band, so when the lights finally went down and the crowd started cheering (and smoking, and holding their cameras up to record) we were extra excited to see what was going to happen next. Who would it be? Out of the darkness and fog emerged a form, but the lights were still down, so we couldn’t tell who it was. Nevertheless, we stood up on our bench seats and cheered along with everyone else.

“Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today to get through this called life…”

Oh my God! It was Prince! It was starting! Oh No, Let’s Go!

The lights came up and there he was in all his Princely glory. He looked as good as he ever has, and was wearing a more subdued outfit than used to wear. Black pants, black heeled boots, silk black ruffled shirt. He sang, he raged on the guitar, and we danced harder than I’ve ever danced in my entire life.

It was a perfect balance of super fun dancey songs that we all knew and loved, some slower sexier numbers, and even a great cover of ‘Nothing Compares 2 U.’ He played ‘Purple Rain,’ and as everyone in the crowd sang along and he worked his magic on the guitar I kind of felt like my heart was going to explode due to the awesomeness of it all. Then, it ended, and he abruptly said, “Thank you so much Roma! Good night!” and ran offstage.

I knew he would do an encore, but I was still devastated. It was too soon! I didn’t want the magic to end. Fortunately, he did come back out, and didn’t just play one encore, he played three! He was really taking us on a ride, and even though I didn’t think that anything could have been better than ‘Purple Rain,’ I was wrong.

My favorite song of the whole night was a long (at least 10 minute) version of ‘Little Red Corvette.’ He slowed it down to this lovely pace, and played such a great guitar solo that Sarafina and I agreed we both transcended time and space. That’s a pretty big deal. He had the crowd singing and clapping, and it felt like we were all in it together. I didn’t know whether to cry or orgasm or what, but I did know at that moment that magic is real, and Prince can take you there. And if that seems like a big statement, it is.

I found a video of a similar performance he did last year to give you an idea of what the live version was like. So just watch this (the whole thing, it gets great around the 3 minute mark) and imagine it being 10,000 times as cool and epic, because you are there in the crowd in the dark singing and clapping and watching him work his magic. One he had left the stage the crowd continued singing “slow down..” clap clap “slow down..” clap clap. “hey hey..” in a lovely show of unity and love.

After ‘Little Red Corvette’ he did another encore that got us dancing again and eventually the lights came up and we knew it was over. Wow. We were both exhausted from screaming and dancing for so long that we sat down on our bench as everyone started filing out of the stadium. A couple in front of us had left their water bottles, so we grabbed those suckers and started to hydrate as we talked about the show.

“I wish he could have seen us dancing up here!” I moaned. “None of these Italians even stood up! What’s the point of going to a show and just sitting there smoking and eating popcorn??”

“Oh, he knew we were here.” Sarafina replied with a mysterious confidence. “He knew.”

Most everyone from the stands and about half of the people in the general standing area had left already, when all of a sudden people started coming back onstage. We stood up. Everyone was looking around kind of confused trying to figure out what was happening, when out came Prince again! The folks who had been on their way out rushed back in and with the lights fully up Prince played another secret encore just for the fans who had stuck around!

It was the coolest thing ever.

When we were sure that the extra encore was over and there was no more bliss to come, we headed outside chatting excitedly about every detail of the evening. Suddenly we here an “Oi!” from behind us, and it’s our old friend Nick! Fate had brought us together again, and we embraced him warmly and thanked him for encouraging us to take the plunge and come out to the show. I told him that it had been, without a doubt, “the best experience of my entire life.”

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We didn’t get much sleep that night, our adrenaline was pumping far too hard for that. Over the next few days I admit I was in full blown Prince-obsession mode, and was thrilled to learn that he was going to start a U.S. tour this winter. A week later, when we were settled in Barcelona, I looked up the tour dates and splurged on a ticket for one of his shows in New Jersey. I’m going, alone or with friends, and I couldn’t be more jazzed to see Prince surrounded by Americans who like to, you know, get crazy and dance.

Until then, I’ll just be in my room rocking out to ‘Darling Nikki’ and remembering that getting awesome is always a better idea than not getting awesome.

Moms in General, and Mine Specifically

I have been back in town for a week now, and despite the wave of confidence and excitement that I rode in on initially things have pretty much settled into my usual living-at-home routine. This involves a lot of Facebook checking, food cooking, laying on top of the covers wondering what the hell I’m doing with my life, and of course, catching up on all of the Project Runway episodes I missed while I was gone.

My first episode back was “There’s a Pattern Here,” where each of the remaining seven participants is given the task of making a garment that uses a fabric they design based on a memorable time in their lives. Oh boy, I knew a tearjerker episode was about to unfold, as everyone was looking at family photos on their stupid, overly discussed HP touchscreen computers and getting weepy. But then, in comes Tim Gunn with some Special Guests.  You can tell the designers were wary of “special guests” at this point, because they usually end up being people who had been kicked off the show in previous weeks assigned to help the ones still in the game sew something, despite oozing resentment. But this time the designers instantly start screaming and crying hysterically, but before we see who walked in they cut to a commercial. Who could have gotten such an insane response? Their moms, of course!

One by one, each designer’s mother filters in behind Tim and their son or daughter collapses into their arms in tears. As an audience, it is impossible not to cry as you watch it. Here are seven adults who have been emotionally and physically drained for weeks while completing design challenges, and as soon as their moms walk in they all instantly regress to children again. It was very, very poignant. Even the folks who didn’t have the best relationship with their mom clung to her at that moment and shed a few tears of relief to be safe in her arms.

It got me to thinking about how universally powerful the role of Mother is; how primal our relationship to our own mothers are. How deep down, when we are struggling or sick and tired, all most of us really need is to lay our head in our mom’s lap and know that there’s at least one person in the world who loves you no matter what.

My thought-train then curved around to the realization that in many ways we get so caught up in defining our mother’s as “MOTHER” that we overlook the fact that she isn’t actually some otherworldly creature, but just a woman living her life who happens to have some kids. Moms are people, too.

My own mother reminds me frequently about her life outside of her children. I never know when she is going to come out with a new story. “Did I ever tell you about the time I was working on an apple farm/ living on the side of a mountain eating lentils/ a news anchor/ on a movie set with Linda Blair/ living at a Transcendental Meditation retreat center in Switzerland?” she might innocently ask. “WHAT?!” is my usual reply. And then the story comes out, about some previously unrevealed part of her life that I never imagined existed.

When my mom was growing up her father worked for the National Park Service. This meant that they moved around frequently, and lived in some amazingly beautiful places. When I did my Wilderness Orientation for college in Arizona, I remembered stories of her living at the Grand Canyon as a child, and how she had run down the same trail I was currently on with her friends decades ago. One time they ran right into a rattlesnake that was poised to strike, but managed to escape that episode unharmed (unfortunately the snake couldn’t say the same). She also lived in Jamaica as a tween and went against the fads by starting her own Anti-Beatles Anti-Fan Club. Later, she came around. As hard as all the moving and culture shock was, it must have ignited a love of travel in her that she still has today. Growing up, there wasn’t a year we didn’t go on an epic road trip around the United States. Every alternate year we went back to Estes Park, Colorado, where my mom has the fondest memories of living as a kiddo.

Once I asked my mom what it was like to be a teenager when the Civil Rights movement was in full swing. I guess I expected some kind of short, uncomplicated answer, like, “It was rough.” Or “it was inspiring.” But out of her lips tumbled a detailed account of how she was going to college in San Francisco (one of many, many universities she attended in her 10 years of undergraduate schooling), during some of the more intense protests. The school was closed until things smoothed over, but her boyfriend, a handsome African American athlete/upstanding student was giving a tour of the campus when someone threw a brick through one of the Dean’s windows. The police were called, and questioned her boyfriend about the incident. Despite his impeccable record they felt the need to break several of his fingers, one by one, when questioning him. That’s what it was like for my mom during the Civil Rights movement.

Everyone’s mother has stories that remind you that she is a real person, who had a life before you and continues to have one outside of you. This is a good thing! One of the things I appreciate most about my parents is that they are passionate people who immerse themselves in their interests and hobbies. Ever since she was my age my mother has been exploring spirituality and personal growth. As a student of psychology myself, I am deeply impressed with her continued interest in how to strengthen her connection with herself and others. Even though her dedication to self-work is probably what inspired me explore it also, I like to think of our spiritual journeys as being something I can relate to her as two adults on parallel paths.

I love the things that allow me to connect to her as a woman, an equal, and not just her amazingly wonderful and gifted first child. That’s why when we find ourselves lagging behind the boys of the family on a hike or some such thing I like to ask about her former loves, lovers, frequent marriage proposals, etc. Growing up in the 60′s and 70′s, and being a (somewhat reluctantly) self-declared Hippie, my mom has great stories of former flings. All that long hair and peace and love just makes them all the more intriguing to me. My favorite anecdote is one where my mom meets her boyfriend in his family’s cabin for a weekend away, and upon opening the door discovers that said boyfriend has painted the walls with her name and passionate exclamations of love. YES, LYND, YES! I am still waiting for a romantic gesture of this magnitude to happen to me. Come on, guys. Up your game!

Even after having kids and adopting the role of Mother, my mom has kept the adventures alive. Travel, writing children’s books, attending workshops, leading workshops, supporting organizations, starting organizations. Even in her retirement she is working every day on projects she is passionate about. Once my brother and I get off of our lazy butts and leave home I can only imagine the adventures my parents will embark on. The more I recognize the ways she balances motherhood with her own needs as a woman, wife, adventurer, the more impressed I am.

Today is my mom’s 60th birthday. That’s 60 years of one of the fullest lives I have had the privilege of being a part of. I will always see my mother first and foremost as someone who will hold me when I am completely exhausted with the world and tell me it’s all going to be ok. Just watching all the contestants on Project Runway run to their mothers brought me to tears, because I knew their relief at having mama’s arms to find safety in. But more and more as I get older, I appreciate the other roles my mom embodies, and am grateful to have such exciting footsteps to follow in.

So happy birthday, Mommy. There are many more adventures to come.

Back in Action/ The Olive Harvest Part 1

I’m back in the dear old U.S. of A. and I couldn’t be happier!

That being said, I have a ton of blogging to catch up on, and that is a bit daunting. But seeing as I am unemployed and living with my parents once more I have plenty of time to git ‘r done.

Let’s just dive in. I have a couple things that I wrote while I was traveling, and tons of gaps to fill in, so the next couple of weeks will just be a jumbled orgy of memories and musings. First things, first:

The Olive Harvest, Part 1

Many things inspired my trip to Italy, among them: my love of Italian art, food, wine, the name Marcello, and so on. But I would be leading you on if I didn’t admit that my desire to visit that fine land started when I saw Under the Tuscan Sun when it was released. Sure, it’s not the ‘best’ movie in the world, but give me a bottle of wine and I’ll get totally invested in Diane Lane’s antics, and besides, it painted a picture of Italian life that I found enchanting. I loved the rolling landscapes, little alters down dirt roads, fascinating characters (one of which, unsurprisingly, is named Marcello…), crumbling old houses, big meals eaten together with veggies from the garden, and especially the scenes of everyone working together to pick olives come harvest time.

When Sarafina and I signed up to WWOOF, and discovered our visit happened to coincide with the olive harvest, these romantic movie visions returned to my mind. Of course, I didn’t remember much of the actual olive picking process depicted in the film… just scenes of smiling people on handmade ladders in ancient trees and the same folks leisurely gathering up nets of olives at the end of the day. The part involving getting the olives from the tree to the net was mysteriously blank in my memory.

The mystery of how we would actually pick the olives grew as we spent our first WWOOFing experience shoveling poo, and even beforehand when Lorenzo, our chain-smoking wise-ass hostel host in Florence, explained the process as “hitting the trees with sticks.” And possibly shaking them. He laughed as he explained it and how tired we were going to be, which I thought at the time was a bit concerning but now realize he was probably laughing because he is a city boy from Rome and had never actually seen olives being harvested.

When we arrived at Terranera our curiosity grew exponentially. No one could give us a clear answer about how we would be picking the olives. Paolo just said that we would begin on Monday because it “felt right.” Olive harvesting began to seem like a very esoteric art. For our first few days there we wandered the grounds admiring the ancient olive trees. There are 400 on Paolo’s land, many of which were planted 1,100 years ago by Benedictine monks. We timidly grasped a branch of one and gave it a good shake, but not a single olive fell off. Curioser and curioser. We moved to another tree, thinking perhaps it would be riper, but nothing happneed there either. Shrugging, we decided we would just have to wait and see.

Work was sort of an afterthought at Terranera. Those first few days there never seemed to be much to do, and just when we would get in the swing of some chore or another it seemed to be time to take a break for lunch… and then a siesta, which lasted until it was time for meditation, or zen tennis, or dinner. Rest was the primary activity, so when we finished breakfast Tuesday morning and followed the one farm employee – Alexandra – up to do what we assumed would be a short chore and discovered that it was finally olive harvest day we were thrilled. The secrets would finally be revealed! And, as with everything in Italy, the simplest answer is usually the right one. Alexandra didn’t hand us sticks, she handed us little plastic rakes – the kind kids play with at the beach.

Of course! You rake the olives off.

And so we did – working our way around and under the few trees that had nets set up under them. It only took a few minutes to get inot the meditative rhythm of sweeping the branches from their start to end everywhere we could reach. For the higher-up branches there were machines that look something like a rake / duck bill on a pole that flap open and shut rapidly as the wielder jabs it at various places on the upper branches. Also, of course, there are the tall thin ladders that usher the brave into the highest spots.

For the first time during our visit we worked a solid 5 hours raking the olives into the nets, which quickly got covered in the little guys so you had to tiptoe carefully between them as you worked your way around a tree.

Harvesting olives was perfect work for me. It’s outside, but still shady, as you have the protection of the tree. It’s active, but not strenuous. It’s repetitive, but not mindless. And it fed my perfectionist streak, because I could aim to get every little olive before moving on to a new section. In fact, I had to be careful not to get too anal-retentive when I would come to a part that Sarafina had been working on and then abandoned to start a new tree. “How could she leave all of these on the underside?!” I thought, following in her tracks and getting the strays. Later that day she explained that her only goal was to stay our of my work space – so she would move on to a different spot to avoid getting in my way! We laughed at that. How well she knows me.

The next morning we woke up excited to dominate a new batch of trees, and were disappointed when told that it was too wet outside to work. But we looked forward to when the sun would come back out and allow us to continue the harvest, which turned out to be just as idyllic as we had imagined.

Plans

In the back of my mind I have a running list of all the things I’ve learned on my travels to share on the blog when the trip is complete. One of the most enlightening things for me was learning that plans aren’t really all they are cracked up to be. Sarafina and I knew that we wanted our trip to be our own, and that meant not being glued to a set itinerary.

So far, it has worked out wonderfully. We switched up the order of towns we visited in Italy, added some spots on the fly, and adjusted the gameplan to how we felt at the moment. It was really a wonderful experiment for me, who usually needs to know exactly what is going to happen next. If we had been tied to a set itinerary we wouldn’t have discovered one of our favorite little towns, Perugia, stayed in Rome longer to see the Prince concert, and we would be stuck in Sicily farming instead of here in Barcelona. There were some consequences to living on the fly, of course. We lost some money on already purchased plane tickets. We changed hostel rooms every night in Rome. We had to constantly reevaluate what we were excited about. But it was all worth it to know that we were doing exactly what we wanted to be.

On Saturday (after missing our original flight two days earlier – whoops!) we left the crazy smokey world of Italy and took a plane to Barcelona. Everyone we had met on our travels said that it was their favorite city in Europe and that we would love it. We were really excited, but when we arrived here I just didn’t feel my usual travel enthusiasm.

Spain was always an afterthought to me when planning the trip, so I had no idea what to do in Barcelona. I’m not a Gaudi fan, and his unique architecture just seems messy and insane after Rome. The nightlife is fun, but I don’t have the party spirit that most tourists in Barcelona do. It is such an international city that I didn’t get a sense of the culture like in Italy. My time here quickly felt like a way to put off real life just because my calendar happened to be clear for the next month. 

After weeks of talking to Fina about what we wanted from the rest of the trip after our second farm, we finally decided it was time to go back home. Italy was really amazing, and all the plans we made for the future and the growth that took place there were starting to fade for me. In the spirit of going with the flow, I booked a ticket yesterday to London and changed my flight home to next Monday. Sarafina has already been to London and was more interested in hanging out here in Barcelona, so the time has come to part ways. I think it speaks to how much more mature and flexible we have become that we are ready to split up and finish our trips in our own perfect ways.

Traveling around Spain wasn’t the only plan that changed, obviously I had hoped to do far more blogging. Well, that didn’t work out in the past, but it is something I look forward to for the future. I kept a journal of our travels and will get to some serious blogging once I am back in the States with a computer and plenty of time at my fingertips.

Until then, or until things change some more, ciao ciao ciao!

Paolo vs. Paolo

Now that we have been in Rome for almost a week and left our two WWOOF farms behind us as distant memories, I am able to look back and do a little compare and contrast between them. Funnily enough, both of our hosts were named Paolo. The first Paolo was at Il Frantoio, the olive mill/agriturismo outside of Cortona that was so chaotic. Our second Paolo owns Terranera, the olive farm and naturist (read: nudist) agriturismo about an hour west of Siena. These to places, and two Paolos, couldn’t be more different. For the sake of keeping things straight in this post I will refer to the first Paolo as Old Mill Paolo and the second Paolo as Naturist Paolo.

Communication

Old Mill Paolo had the distinct disadvantage of speaking no English, and refusing to engage in any sort of miming activity to get his point across or communicate with us. Sometimes he would ask us “Va bene?” (“Everything good?”), but that was really the extent of our daily interactions. Sarafina, being much more outgoing than I, tried talking to him frequently. Unfortunately, it turns out Old Mill Paolo is a bit of a dog, and kept trying to get his hands on her goods after that, which sort of made us disinclined to continue any communication attempts.

Naturist Paolo, on the other hand, spoke pretty good English. He told us all about his love of zen tennis, naturism, animals, etc. It took us several days to realize that his English wasn’t really as good as it seemed, because unless we asked questions in the most clear and basic ways he would give very strange, sometimes outraged, answers. One example of this was when we were eating dinner and Sarafina was admiring a new beeswax candle on the table. “Who’s the candlemaker around here?” she asked. Horrified, Naturist Paolo guffawed “WHAT?! How should I know?” It was a classic miscommunication. Fina wanted to know where the candle came from, and Paolo had interpreted that as a question equivalent to “What is the name of the employee who works at the company that produces this candle that was given to your sister three years ago?” After that, we really tried to keep things basic.

Horses

As I have already written about, Old Mill Paolo had dozens of horses on the farm for riding lessons and horseback rides for tourists. It turned out when we arrived at Terranera that Naturist Paolo has horses too – except his are ‘wild’ horses that he bought in Rome and just lets live out their lives on his ample land. Sarafina and I hated the way that Old Mill Paolo’s horses were confined and forced to do carriage rides and such things, so we thought Naturist Paolo was on the right track. But, then we met his horses.

Wild horses look different from traditional ones – their faces and snouts are smaller, and they just have a wild look about them. Naturist Paolo has two stallions, two mares, and two baby horses. They are all white, and due to their freedom to live free, are literally covered in shit. The stallions tend to get in fights with each other, so they were sporting some open wounds and one was walking with a limp our first day. Right after coming from a place where the horses were groomed every day, seeing Naturist Paolo’s horses was a bit shocking. It seemed like he just went way in the opposite direction and the horses were just as bad off, just in a different way. As our time at Terranera wore on we could see that the stallions healed up and were actually fine, and after a good rainstorm they weren’t so dirty, which was nice. But either way, I think people should just leave horses alone. If you move them, feed them and play with them, they aren’t wild.

Olive Oil

Both Paolos produce their own olive oil, and we were surprised to discover that the tastes of the oil were very different from each other. Old Mill Paolo’s oil was spicy and very flavorful, while Naturist Paolo’s was much lighter and cleaner. We asked Naturist Paolo about this and he explained that his oil is Extra Virgin, first press. It has no additives, unlike what we typically buy in the store in the US (which only has to be 20% actual olive oil!). Using this information I think that Old Mill Paolo’s oil must not have been first press. They were both amazing in their own ways, though, and both pure.

Food

One of the most distinct differences between the two Paolos was their attitude towards meals and food. Old Mill Paolo apparently had a garden, but it was totally grown over and didn’t provide anything more than a few tomatoes and carrots. The way that food was handled was that Old Mill Paolo would give 20 euro or so to Luigi, the other WWOOFer, and tell him to get enough food to feed everyone for a few days. This always resulted in a very stressful trip to the supermarket where we had to pinch every penny and ended up getting bread, maybe some cheese, and whatever the cheapest pasta was. It was not fun.

Naturist Paolo, on the other hand, actually took great care of his garden. Except for grains, all of the food we ate was from the garden. Cabbage, broccoli, garlic, tomatoes, lettuce, every herb and plants for teas, apples, you name it! The bread we ate was handmade. Each meal had at least 3 different dishes, and they were all amazing. It was so inspiring to be able to choose what to eat from such a glorious assortment of foods.

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There were many many more differences between farms (they were really like night and day, with completely different business philosophies), but that will do for now. Il Frantoio turned out to be a great experience, but after we got off work we would sit in the kitchen and drink wine to pass the time for lack of anything else to do. At Terranera we would get off work and lay in a field drinking tea from a nearby bush and thanking our lucky stars that we were so blessed to be there. That’s the real difference between Paolos. One of them ignored us, one of them gave us sanctuary.

Back in Action

Hello, hello out there! I survived the wilderness (aka the extremely luxurious time I spent on a naturalist olive farm/agriturismo in Tuscany) and have hit the city of Rome. It’s a great city – unlike anywhere we have been so far. Many stories to come, but time is scarce at the moment. But the good news is: I am seeing Prince on Tuesday!

Internetless

Dear World:

Away from internet while at second farm. Loving it, though. Set up nets for olive harvest today. Sat in hot springs. Eating local veg.

See you when I re-emerge!

-Kat