La Via Cavagnolesi

Sorry for the delay, folks! We're having a blast in Florence/Firenze now, but had no internet access during our stay in the small towns of Northern Italy. I just had my morning cappucino and croissant from the corner caffeteria (check the last photo posted), and now I'm sitting in the internet cafe next to our guest house, and loving every minute of being in Firenze so this will be a short recap with more to come later!

snow outside Courmayeur on our bus ride under  Mont Blanc, through Aosta to Torino

We arrived in Torino in the afternoon on December 22nd after a snowy busride through the Alps. It was really fun to bus through and see all the lovely scenery. We took the train to Chivasso, where we had planned to call Francesco Capello on our cell phone... unfortunately the French SIM card we bought did not work in Italy, but we used a pay phone (yes they still exist!) and soon a man with flowing white hair and a completely mustard outfit was strolling toward us saying "....Saree? Saree?" Signore Capello had invited his english-speaking friend Flavio to join us for a tour of historic Chivasso, but first we got coffee and piccolini (a small puffy hazelnut dessert popular in the region) at the oldest caffeteria in Chivasso. We were then taken to see Francesco's studio, met his wife, and headed to the airpost to get Alex (REUNION!!!), then to Brusasco to see the place we'd be staying for a few days. Obviously, we were already meeting the nicest people in the world -- why else would you cart around complete strangers, helping them every step of the way, feeding them and giving them history lessons, unless you'd been heaven sent?

Flavio and the Capellos, who gave us a tour of Chivasso and drove us to Brusasco on our first night in Italy

a view of foggy Cavagnolo-Brusasco from the hillside

Siri and Alex walk the hills of Piemonte with their photog in tow (yours truly)

Everyone kept wondering why we wanted to hang out in such small towns, and we responded, with such good people, great food and lovely countryside, where ELSE would we want to be? Everyone in Brusasco and Cavangolo will insist they speak very poor English (untrue), but with our very limited Italian phrases and their varying degrees of English we were able to et along quite well. Siri mused that itwould be a similar situation if three Italians showed up in her hometown of Jackson, MN, which has the same population as Brusasco-Cavagnolo, about 1000 inhabitants. We immediately found a sweet shop and cafe we loved and returned to daily, took a walk on the hillside, enjoyed the house's warm radiators, large kitchen table (perfect for games of Scrabble), and TV where we could watch Italan-dubbed American classics such as Die-hard.


il Dolcezze Cavagnolesi -- a lovely sweet shop!



The Christmas Day dinner crew -- back row: Alex, Alessio, Fabio, front row: me, Daniella, Carlotta, Siri

 Christmas Eve we went out on the town with Gabriella Ferrero to a nice dinner in downtown Torino. Christmas Day was spent with the Mussano family in a little hillside town called Montelero, where we were served a true Italian family dinner with about nine courses in the utmost syle and everything was DELICIOUS. It was so great to spend time with a family during the holiday, though it made me miss my own family because like mine, this family was boisterous, funny, cooked delisìcious food and just overall made it a grand party! Certainly a Christmas I'll never forget.
I'll writesoon about Florence, but it's museum time now! Arrivedercci, or as Gabri would say, "Ciao -- Ciao ciao ciao CIAO" :)

Firenze: the caffeteria/pasticerria near our guest house, cheers!



A real vacation

So remember when I said we were headed to Geneva in the last post? That ended up being more of an adventure than we planned! Turns out it's been snowing in Europe just like it has been at home in the Saint (ok, not quite as much. i think you guys still have us beat by a few inches). This picture was taken as we waited at Orly airport for hours -- passing the time by, what else, playing a rousing game of travel Scrabble. We finally got to board at 10pm only to fly through blizzard conditions all the way to Geneva, where we got stuck on the plane due to a frozen walkway arm, followed by a blustery shuffle across a tarmac to an abandoned gate and along empty corridors, before our reunion with Mathilde! All's well that ends well.

This stop on the journey was well worth all that drama to arrive here. In the end, it's unclear whether or not we'll even see Geneva, but I don't think either of us mind! Mathilde and her family have hosted us in three towns over the past 6 days. Our first stop was Massongy, a village near the  town of Annemasse (we flew into Geneva for easy access, as public transit in this region of small cities and towns isn't the most navigable way for foreigners to travel here -- much better to have a friend to guide us!). Then we hit the road for the Jura -- Lons-le-Saunier and Poligny, where Math's family lives. The Jura region is beautiful French countryside that many tourists never see, because it's just regular people who do their thing without a lot of pomp and circumstance (again, similar to a certain region pf the US we call home). Mountains, rolling hills, lovely little village plazas that are all lit up for the holiday season. This  part of the trip was about people -- and because most of what we did involved hanging out with family, it felt like a real vacation one would take to visit family in the US. Less tourism, more long walks through town and forest (we saw PONIES!), fun and lively conversations (leaving my tongue tied and brain fried as translator), and SO MUCH HOMECOOKED FOOD. Have I ever consumed so much cheese? It's been a joy to see this wonderful, loving and extremely generous family again after six years, and I hope I get the chance again soon!

j

  clockwise: with mamie marie-helene; les raclettes, personal cheese fondue set; mamie, michel, mathilde and me; a view from the country house

 

  

 clockwise: timothe and mamie denise; us with mamie, francoise, mathilde and cedric; us aith mamie and german shepherd cross stitch; the church facing mamie's house in poligny; francoise et moi

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We said our goodbyes in Lons this afternoon and headed back to Massongy. Tomorrow's docket: a trip to a medieval township outside of Geneva, perhaps Geneva itself, and laundry before we get on the bus for Turin at 8:45am Wednesday morning, say goodbye to languages we can speak for 13 days, and say HELLO to Alex, Italy, and Christmas in Brusasco!

 

For the enjoyment of the viewer: Rouget de L'isle, who wrote the French national anthem "la Marseillaise," was born in a tiny town outside Lons-le-Saunier. Clearly it was time for some Epic Statue Photography to honor this supremely silly pose.

time to shine

I arrived in Paris on Tuesday morning after a long and uneventful journey, including a six-hour layover in Toronto (snore. I have family in Toronto who I'd have loved to see, but I had no way of contacting them). The parting gift of a sleek little ipod nano has made traveling so much more musical, though, which is very enjoyable for me. (Shout out to the fam for helping your luddite niece-cousin back into the twenty-first century!) I waited for Siri in Gare du Nord, where we met Elisabeth, Siri's second cousin. We headed back to her apartment in Zone 3 (RER stop Croix de Berny) to freshen up, then back to the city to see Notre Dame.

Siri and the Notre Dame Christmas tree

Elizabeth met us after her English lesson and took us to Montparnasse for traditional crepes, with their "aperitif authentique," hard cider. Mmmm. 

Wednesday I slept off the jetlag a bit, and awoke to fresh pastries and coffee. Elisabeth is an amazing host, did I mention that yet? After breakfast we went to the Centre Pompidou and spent several hours in the galleries there. I especially liked a small room showing an exhibit by Gabriel Orozco, and a set entitled "Extreme Tension" by Louise Bourgeois. 

looking out from the Pompidou escalator with la Tour in the distance

After our day at the museum, we walked all the way to the Eiffel Tower -- it felt great to be outside, it was a beautiful night, and it was fun to see everything all lit up in the dark. Just as we turned the corner on la Tour, the bulbs began to flash and we got to see the sparkling tower up close!

So that's Paris, then. It's been pretty wonderful. We're heading out tonight for Geneva and South-eastern France, but I'd say la Ville-Lumière did right by us.

SNOW.

Oakdale got 20 inches. The total snowfall here in the Saint was 15.2 inches. Maddi and I were completely snowed in all day, watching out our drafty windows as it sifted down, accumulating in enormous drifts over all it touched. Cars disappeared. Branches once strong and straight drooped low under the weight of it. The wind blustered, scooping what had already fallen into concurrent whirlwinds, blowing plows off the road.

Some ventured out into the storm. We made soup.

a news brief, of sorts.

Musicheads, long prisoners to the spaces between their earbuds, now have a place to find one another.

Sady Doyle strikes again. This lady regularly geeks out about nerdstuff I've never read or seen, and then I read or see it with my little feminist-colored glasses on. And then I realize  I should be wearing those things more often when I read my own nerdstuff.

Been thinking a lot about this article today. Mr. President, how long does one continue to trust a man who's behaving questionably? I want to trust that man -- he's certainly the best leader we've seen in decades. I start to justify, justify, justify.... and then, you know that rash I tend to get, the really nasty one -- the one that's so irritated by tax cuts for the rich? Well it just starts to flare up and I can't concentrate anymore! The single most-fucked-up thing: the rich just keep getting richer, and you know the rest, no matter what happens. MY DISPARITY* RASH ITCHES.


*game: replace the epidemiological descriptor with your favorite buzzword! try these: privilege, injustice, first-world superpower, international development, corporate conglomerate, tea party, free market capitalist, evolution-denying, bipartisan, terrorist, prison industrial complex...

wiglet sees the world

la laaa la LAAA! sniff sniff

(via snuzzy.com. yeah, i subscribe to the rss feed, don't hate.)

so i'm going on this trip. if you continue reading throughout the holiday season, you're going to hear about it here. i'm bringing camera gear so i can upload photos. i'm putting on my extra-descriptive, super-poetic spanky-pants. i'm bringing a couple of friends, only 2 bags and 3 pairs of shoes, and this little book with my name on it and some stamps inside (dunno, mostly decoration i think). i'm traveling by plane, train, automobile, snowshoe, and hoof. i'm going to see some things i'll need to collect.

FASTEN YOUR SEATBELT, BLOGOSPHERE.

wiglets can fly.