I.Words-"il fulmine" (lightening) as in "Il fulmine ha colpito mia casa (the lightening has struck my house)
"caldaia" (water heater) as in "Adesso la caldaia non funzione" (now the water heater doesn't work)
"il technico della caldaia (the water heater technician) as in "Il technico ha riparato la caldaia (the
water heater technician has repaired the water heater).
Mountain storms can be wicked!
II. Routing: There is no such thing as a "short cut" in the Italian road system. Unless you want to find
yourself crawling up a steep, cobbled street that is only a fraction of an inch wider than
your tiny Italian car (with the mirrors pulled in), only to reach the top and have a concrete
cone block the way. Not wishing to repeat your journey backwards, you skirt around the
barrier by hopping the "curb", drive down the pedestrian walkway, turn onto a one-way
street going the wrong way, and finally make your way back to the main road. Believe
the nice Italian hardware store owner when he tells you to go "sempre dritto" (always
straight ahead)
III, Romanticizing character: I have found the people of Abruzzo to be the kindest, most open and
generous folk I have ever encountered. It is easy to lull oneself into a romantic notion
of a people based on what you have found to be the case most often. I take you, as an
instructional point to the Little Man:
My guest Joanna and I, both being theater people, were intrigued by the story of Alba Fucens. These are the ruins of a Roman town near the city of Avezzano. In about 300 BC, the Roman emperor decided that conquering the town was not enough. He wanted to send 3,000 legionnaires to populate it and make it really Roman. So the guys walked from Rome, with their families, and settled there. And 100 years later, bored with the locals, I guess, they erected a 2,000 seat amphitheater. This we had to see, so we set off.
After testing the acoustics in the theater (incredible - we could stand in the center and speak in normal tones and our voices carried to every part of the seating area!), we climbed to visit the Church of San Pietro ad Albens, which was built over an ancient temple to Apollo. It is not usually open to the public, but there was a family there from the area and they had phoned the caretaker who was coming to let them in. They invited us to come in with them. Although it was a hot enough day that I was regretting the weight of my jeans, the Little Man who was the caretaker arrived wearing long pants - the kind of dark green, mid-weight cotton associated with work trousers, and, in fact, which I remember my father wearing. He complimented these with a long-sleeved wool sweater, a little wool golf-style hat, and beat-up leather lace-up shoes. One knee was slightly more bent than the other and he moved very slowly, but with precision and authority, reaching up nearly beyond his grasp to insert the key in the lock, kneeling to remove a wooden plank to reveal the original floor beneath, or negotiating the steep, curved, stone stairs down to the crypt so he could point out and explain the symbols on it: a lamb with a cross, a large plain cross, and a large flower, symbols, he said, of the knights templar. When Little Man was done with his tour, Marco, the dad of the local family, dug into his wallet and gave him a tip. I did likewise. Little Man pocketed the tips with a "grazie", then shuffled us over to an worn former holy-water font. Always summoning us to follow with the same economical wave of his left hand, he reached into the font for two sheets of paper. Each had the history of the church written on it, one in English and one in Italian. He placed them in the hands belonging to the respective language's speaker. Then he asked us to pay for them. Said his daughter would kill him if he gave them away for nothing. I didn't catch what he had said; his accent and/or dialect was too thick. Marco gave him a coin, and then translated for me, saying "We just gave him over 20 euro and he still wants money for a piece of paper." Then he chuckled. I guess sometimes you have to make your "spizzi" any way you can.
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