These bloody mosquitos are driving me up the wall! And under my covers every night. I usually sleep buried under massive amounts of blankets and have to be covered by something most of the time. I generally sleep with my head under the covers anyway. But when it gets warmer (as it has been lately) it gets too hot to stay completely buried, after all, my comfortor is "filled with ducks" (meaning duck feathers but our landlord didn't know how to say that). But any part left exposed is bitten, then bitten again, and, just to be sure, is bitten again. Many a time is spent thrusting various body parts in eachother's faces going, look at this bite then scratching madly while vocalizing our displeasure through various animal sounds (not unlike grr.) Or, my roommate's face swells in the morning or another friend develops an absurd rash. Again, grr.
Wait a minute, Marissa, you say, shouldn't you be pretty used to mosquitos by now? I mean, hardly a year of your life went by when you didn't go camping. You've gone to Oak Openings a lot (a state forest near where I live for those who don't know) and were a 4-H camp counselor for many years. And, oh, I don't know, you grew up in a part of Ohio that USED TO BE A SWAMP. Suck it up and live with it already!
Yes, all of the above are correct. But just let me rant, okay? I mean, the mosquitos are inside. In my bedroom. On the walls of my shower and floating around the kitchen. No wonder malaria is/was so rampant here (Italy in general, not neccesarily Florence)-- they've obviously never heard of screens. Sure, they hang their laundry out the window but they can make "screen shutters" where they can swing the things open and shut or whatever. Ok, rant of the day finished. Time to move on. (But first, allow me to direct your attention to an organization called Nothing But Nets, an organization that raises money to provide mosquito nets to places where malaria is a serious threat: www.nothingbutnets.net.)
I apologize for not having blogged about Pompei yet but I will (hopefully). While waiting for that, let's go to Lucca. Last weekend, the day before Cinque Terre, API took us on a trip to the walled city of Lucca and a nearby olive farm for some olive oil tasting! Lucca was a pretty little city surrounded by the massive walls that make it famous. The city has expanded outside the walls but its historical center (which most Italian cities/towns have) and the parts most interesting to tourists is found inside. The wide city walls, built to protect against bigger cities in an ununified Italy (mostly Florence) have been turned into a public park. The government wanted to tear these walls down but the Luccans, horrified at the thought, raised the neccesary funds to keep them. They decided to create the park and planted trees and grass. When you're up on the walls you hardly notice you're there because it looks and feels like a park. Only when you look out and over the edges do you realize, hey, I'm on a wall (and, its really tall and, I gotta wonderful view of Tuscan mountains ... my little attempt to rewrite "I'm on a boat"). Our guide was a little crazy and spoke her English with an English accent, something that made me super happy.
The churches inside Lucca are lovely, as are every other church in Italy. What distinguishes their Cathedral, Duomo di San Martino, from other cathedrals is the relic they have: A wooden carving of Jesus on the cross or the Volto Santo di Lucca. Apparantly this relic was so important, so holy, it was part of the pilgrimage from Canterbury to Rome that thousands upon thousands took every year in the middle ages (think Canterbury Tales by Chaucer). What makes this cross so holy, I believe, is that is was carved by a contemporary of Jesus. Another fascinating aspect to the churches in Lucca is the mumified body of one of their patron saints, Zita. It was more than a little gross to see this dead woman, encased behind glass. Another interesting tidbit about the town: Napolean's sister lived there for a while and completely restructured on of its main piazzas by ordering the demolition of several buildings. Also interesting, another main piazza was built over the ruins of a Roman ampitheater which gave the piazza its unique oval shape. A part of the ampitheater can still be seen as the outside wall of one of the surrounding buildings.
We ate lunch at a little restaurant called Leo's. I had a delicious ravioli in spinach cream sauce. The ravioli tasted a bit eggy for me but the sauce was really good and made it work. Up til now, most places had provided basalmic vinegar along with olive oil for the bread but this place had a red wine vinegar. I had never tried such a thing before but I did and it was good.
Onward! We headed back to the buses (after gelato and shopping at Lucca's central market of course). Our guide at the farm was absolutely hilarious, she declared the film Under the Tuscan Sun to be full of bullshit. She told us to roar in order to properly taste the olive oil (another reason for the title grr, besides my opening rant). To go with the oil we were provided a veritable feast: bread, two types of salami (which I abstained from) olives and cookies as the finishing touch. (But not cookies in the American sense.) I highly enjoyed the repast.
And what would a visit anywhere be without checking out the local products? I bought myself a small bottle of olive oil to take home with me because God knows thats one of the things I'll miss most about the food here. But donìt expect me to do much sharing people at home! Maybe a little but I plan on making it last as long as I can. And, as our guide said, olive oil will last longer than most men and women will together. A good day? I think yes. Especially since we had great weather! What's up next in this fabulous life of mine? Sienna and Perugia aka thermal baths and wine tasting.
I apologize for the lack of picturage but Blogger is being mean and I don't feel like wrestling with it anymore.
Mosquitoes were referred to as "House Tigers" by the expats from England. That was probably in places where there were real tigers outside, but you get the intention. See if your landlord can find you a sleeping net or get one yourself. Otherwise drink lots of quinine. Preferably in gin. That's the way the English did it.
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