A Plague of Insects, and Plague of Toads, and a Plague of…Canadians?

Well, things have been…interesting since I last wrote. Kinda good, kinda not…

We had an incredible workshop that was an introduction to Italian opera. It was so good! Our Italian professor lectured for almost 3 hours and we listened to and watched clips of operas. I could have listened for another 3. It really, really made me want to try to sing opera. Not professionally, I don’t think, but I will DEFINITELY be trying out for the opera workshop at Vassar 2^nd semester and I can’t wait!!!

Short interjection: Italian keyboards are set up differently than American ones, and it took awhile to adjust, but we can only access the internet on the Italian computers, so I’ve been using them a lot. Now, however, I am on my laptop so that I can take as much time as I need to write this, and I keep hitting the wrong buttons because I’m used to the Italian places now. So I apologize if my punctuation is wrong…

We left for Rome early Thursday morning and arrived in time for lunch. Then we went to Piazza di Spagna, which was beautiful, and surrounded by stores like Gucci. After that trek, and a little window shopping, emphasis on window, we ate dinner at a lovely little restaurant. Our table was outside and there were violinists serenading the diners. The food was fabulous, as usual, and after dinner we found one of the best gelaterias in Rome. It was truly incredible. I had ginger and cinnamon and honey. Holy yum. If anything in the world deserves Roald Dahl’s title of “scrumdidlyumtious” it is ginger and cinnamon gelato. And then we ate our gelato by the Trevi fountain, which, especially lit up at night, looks like the entrance to a fairy kingdom. It was a magical experience.

Friday we toured the ruins of the Roman Forum and the palaces of several Roman rulers. It was only one palace, really, but each successive emperor had rebuilt it in his own style. One of the coolest things, I think, was getting to walk on the original Roman road. And standing in a piazza designed by Michelangelo. After that, we visited the Pantheon and 7 of us bought tickets for an opera on Saturday night. All before lunch. Then we went to the Collosseum. Zack and I had a mock gladiator battle. I won, of course, and Gabi, acting as emperor, decreed that he was to die. I’ll post the pictures once I’m back at Vassar. We trudged back to the hotel, napped, and went to dinner.

Dinner, again, was an incredible affair. We took a bus a little way outside Rome and ate in a, not really graveyard, more a mausoleum, with small niches for bones in the wall. Sounds creepy, but I should clarify that there weren’t any bones, and it was actually quite beautiful. The owner was a good friend of Guzzi’s, our professor from Vassar, and quite the performer. He was a riot. Also, he was a Harley-Davison man, which made me feel right at home. We what was probably my favorite meal so far, especially the cheese, which was possibly the best I’ve ever tasted, and the chocolate mousse. Yum. The group was split between three tables, which was sad, but my table played fun mind games, such as “umbrella,” all meal, which was hysterical. When we got back to the hotel, as an extension of what we were doing at dinner, everyone stayed up and played “psychiatrist,” with mixed success. Edoardo was scarily good at it.

Saturday we had to dress with special attention to cover our knees and shoulders, as they were considered too scandalous for our destinations: the Sistine Chapel and St. Peter’s . The Sistine Chapel was truly breathtaking. Even before you enter the chapel itself, the collections of statues and maps and tapestries is staggering. And the chapel itself is just… it’s like you’re actually in a painting. There are a zillion other people in the room, and despite the “no talking” signs and announcements there is a constant buzzing that occasionally grows to a dull roar, but you don’t notice. You forget that people are shoving past you and you stare at the ceiling and the walls and wonder how someone could have possibly created it. Maybe it’s because we had a guide who filled us in on some of the sordid details of Michelangelo’s fresco on the wall about the Final Judgement (the self portrait, the portrayal of a critic as the gatekeeper to hell, etc.), but I actually think I loved that painting more than the famous God/Adam one on the ceiling. Not that the ceiling wasn’t awing. I think I still have a crick in my neck from how long I stared, but, while the ceiling showed Michelangelo’s genius, the wall showed himself, and I found that more interesting. Then was St. Peter’s. Oh. My. God. It was…monumental? Gigantic? Monolithic? Freaking gorgeous? Words fail. It was an experience, no doubt. Wow.

After the tour, more mundane things like lunch were almost forgotten. Dronile and I went back to the amazing gelato place, tho, and I got my favorite flavor, plus chocolate meringue, which was almost as good. Then we went back to the hotel, napped, and got ready for the opera. We saw “La Traviata,” which is pretty much Moulin Rouge, only in Italian and with fewer pop songs. Also, no eyecandy. It was pretty good. Obviously, we were able to afford it, so it wasn’t a really well known cast or anything, but the lead, Violetta, was terrific! Not that I’ve heard a lot of opera, but she was easily in the top three singers I’ve heard. And that includes professionals on the recordings we heard in class. Unfortunately, the rest of the performers weren’t as gifted. Most annoying was the man playing Alfredo (the hero)’s father. Yes, the whole opera was in Italian and I understood about 6 words, but this man mumbled soooooo badly it was infuriating. I watched his mouth change shapes, but still heard the same vowel. Gragh. And his eyebrows! Admittedly, eyebrows are very important when you’re singing, but when you move them at COMPLETELY RANDOM times, they are not helping you in any way shape or form and it just makes oyu look CREEPY and UNTRUSTWORTHY!!!! AH!!! Sorry. It’s a bit of a sore spot.

Anyway, then we went to a club. It was a blast! Some of the Italian boys, and, more unfortunately, men, were a tad skeezy, but the boys on the trip were truly wonderful at rescuing us, for which we are all eternally grateful. Us girls were also quite good at well-timed trips to the bathroom. We stayed out until 4am. Fun!

We left too early on Sunday. We actually left at like noon, but we had to be out of our rooms by 10 and after dancing until 4, that is just not enough sleep. So we slept on the bus back. Then Gabi and I unpacked and fell asleep in our room. The idea was to nap for a couple hours, then get up and study since we had a test on Monday, and the go to our review session, study more, and go to sleep early. Instead, we slept for 6 hours, woke up 3 minutes before our review, which we rushed to half asleep, without our homework done, and giggled through because we had no idea what was going on. It helped though, I swear. Then, in a panic, we went back to our room and studied for several hours and then tried to sleep. Having slept all day, however, we were wide awake, so we watched Grey’s Anatomy until 3am. It’s a great show, I’m pretty addicted now.

Monday’s test went ok. Not as well as I would have liked, but not bad considering the circumstances.

Wednesday we visited a tiny town that was home to a Pope. It was extremely picturesque. And we climbed to the top of an ancient fortress, very cool! And very windy! We walked to an adorable little restaurant were we had, surprise surprise, another fantastic meal. With the 2^nd best cheese I’ve ever tasted. With honey and hot peppers. Sounds gross, tastes amazing!

Friday we had another test. I don’t really want to think about it. I studied for hours, cuz I really wanted to better on this one, but it was pretty awful. Ugh. I’m just hoping I did better than I think I did. After the test we had an awkward party at Pazit, the professor’s, apartment. It’s a lovely apartment, but we were all miserable about the test, and there was no food, and really nothing for us to do, so we sat around uncomfortably for half an hour and then left to drown our worries in pizza and chocolate. It is somewhat comforting to know that everyone walked out of the test nauseous. We had a wonderfully tasty dinner and then all bought our own bottles of ridiculously cheap wine and sat in the piazza drinking, eating gelato, and talking about everything from how our parents’ met, to funny experiences with squirrels. It was a nice way to end a not great day.

This weekend has been pretty quite. Most people went to Bologna, and a couple people’s parents are here visiting, but Gabi, Sophie, Sophia, and I went to Firenze again to shop! I bought some presents for people back home, and a cute pair of shorts and adorable shoes and it was a very nice day. We had dinner at Cice’s, which is pretty much our favorite restaurant here in Siena, and then had a quiet night in.

Sunday was our first day to really sleep in. Unfortunately, the Canadians have arrived, and that made sleep at all, much less late, slightly difficult. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve been to Canada twice and loved it. I generally genuinely like Canadians. These ones, however…. There were 3 sitting in the hall not talking but shouting until 5am. There are so many of them. They’re everywhere! And they’re so loud! It’s ridiculous. The poor door ladies at the dorm are going crazy because they don’t speak English and the Canadians don’t speak Italian, and they can’t make the Canadians hush. I would be nicer, but someone just stole Gabi’s $200 dress out of the washing machine, and her beautiful shirt, and we no longer feel safe, or even really comfortable, in our own dorm. We suspect the Canadians because we’ve done laundry before, when there were only Italians and us here, and didn’t have any problems at all. Argh. It is really not okay at all.

The one good thing that’s come of this is that the door ladies really, really love us now! Even the one who didn’t like Gabi and I before (there was a miscommunication about a missing pillow…), is now pretty much our best friend. She’s been commiserating with us about the Canadians. I’m really glad to be able to talk to her even a little, and it’s also very gratifying to know that we aren’t seen as inconsiderate intruders. That, more than anything else, makes me want to keep learning Italian.

Wow. I’m sorry this is so ungodly long. I really meant to keep it short, but so much has happened! Venice next weekend! I’ll write more after that!

A belated contribution from BB

Hi to all,

Thanks to Domino, Susan and Matt for getting things started. For lots of days, nobody blogged after the 6/21, our first day in NJ.

That was a busy week and some of the highlights included helping Lyn and Declan tie his bow knot for the prom with the assistance of a video which we played a number of times after finding it on Ask.com!! Right after that we went to the home where Declan , his date and 7 other couples had a photo shoot and boarded a Hummer limo to go to the prom. Lyn took time on one of her first vacation days to take we grandparents for a nature outing at the Great Swamp, a F&G. She also found time to take us to a new food market in SO, Eden Place, and the Farmers' Market. Graduation ceremonies were impressive and fast paced in a gym at a local community college and this was followed by a dinner at a restaurant Declan chose; an Ethiopian place in SO where guests don't see any flatwear after the salad forks disappear--really Hands On! Didn't see of Magdalena as she was busy with 2 jobs, but enjoyed our final visit when she and Declan provided us with a ride back to the Newark airport on 6/27.

We were "hardly' home when we had a call from Kevin on Sunday evening 6/29 reporting that he, Magdalena and Declan had arrived at Grandma Georgie's safely. On Tuesday, 7/1, the three of them came to spend part of the afternoon with us
and Declan mowed the back yard which I promised him when in NJ that I would save for him. We had a quiet 4th and on the 5th, Magdalena and Kevin, after they had taken Lyn and Declan to their plane for home, came here to pick me up so that we could join David, Mark, Capri and Finn in Dousman for a Drumlin Trail bike ride. We rode to Sullivan and back, almost 12 miles, with Finn really setting a great pace--but Grandpa did manage to keep up!

And we weren't finished yet for 7/5. Our destination was then the Richter cottage at Blue Springs Lake. All the RO'C's were there along with Maura, Tim, Kevin, Mark, Magdalena, Calvin, and Capri. Susan and Jay came before dusk after attending a wedding. So there was great food, lots of visiting with Richter contemporaries and fireworks in every direction.

The weekend concluded with a band concert at the Lutheran Church where the 84th Division Army Reserve Band was excellent. Lots of local folks enjoyed the music and ice cream.

It has pretty much garden, yard and postponed chores since the 4th, except for getting busy on a blog entry.

Heard about a Agate show on WI Public Radio which was to be held at UW-Fox Valley in Menasha. Alerted Susan and David but Susan had been invited to the Madison Art program so could not think about attending. We drove up and got a great introducation to the agate WORLD! A nice break.

Spent last Sunday 7/20 in Sheboygan where we had a visit with every RO'C except Cooper who was at work. Toured the exhibits on a mild, fairly breesy afternoon--cooler near the lake!

With all the rain we've had our flower beds are doing well and the garden vegies in the squares are doing well. Had our first green beans this week and enough picked for another meal of two. Tomatoes have a lot of fruit and the vines bushy. Maybe we'll have some by 8/1. Even have 2 growing up-side-down from
modified hanging baskets.

Enjoyed the news from Matt along with the swimming pictures featuring Freya. Glad that experience enable you to cool off a little during the learning session.

Pleased, too, that Susan found time to write some blog news. We really haven't had a chance for extensive Europe de-briefing from the very busy Susan and Bridget!

Michele really was correct when she wondered about e-mail in the last month. There really wasn't much despite the teasing about
juicy items alluded to by Mark.

If your days have contintued to be as busy and hectic as those you described, Domino, you must be existing on minimum sleep. Wonder is you will be in Sienna when the horse races are held in the piazza? We had our first visit there 3 years ago and did a lot of walking and had lunch in the piazza. You need to know that I was turned away from the Duomo in Florence in 1975 when I was wearing long (Bermuda) shorts and knee high socks! I then put on long pants and was admitted. When we were there in 1989, we went to Saturday evening (English) mass and I was asked to be a lector and I agreed. On that trip, too, I climbed the bell tower, but not the dome. It was great to be back there 3 years ago and
go our favorite spots. I still believe that Florence is my favorite of all the places we have been. Hope that your trip to Rome is
wonderful, too! Aren't the freeways and all those great tunnels
exciting?

No time for more comments. We are headed for Quivey's Grove restaurant in Madison to have lunch with Charleen and Bob. Know that we there are other things we should mention.
Sorry. Not even time for spell check!!

Love and prayers, Mom and Dad

Hi everybody:

I realized the other day that news from Idaho has been sparse at best, so here is our family update.

Casey has been extremely busy with work, taking on lots of new responsibilities and tasks as asked and needed. She had training in Colorado earlier this year to become the point person on a new travel reimbursement system. As the lead trainer, she has to field lots of questions and has had to train most of the other personnel at the fire base. That has kept her very busy, and has lead to some headaches as the glitches in the new system burp their way out every day. She has been getting much deserved kudos for handling things smoothly and for leading the way in problem solving some of the glitches. Freya and I are quite proud of her. With a potentially busy fire season ahead, I don't anticipate her workload slacking off anytime soon. She is taking time to work out several days a week at the base weight training area, which has been really good for her. My schedule is pretty flexible this time of year, so I should be able to flex my time to accomodate any short notice schedule changes.

Miss Freya continues to be the high point of our lives. At 29 months, her vocabulary is quite enormous, and seems to grow a bit every day. The terrible 2s are evident on some days, but she continues to be a sweet little girl most of the time. We just finished two weeks of swimming lessons at a neighborhood pool on Thursday night. Freya's confidence grew throughout the two weeks, and she was a pretty confident little girl by the time the lessons were done. It was a parent and me class, just the same as we took last summer. It was nice for Casey and I to be able to be in the water with temps. in the 90s. School continues to be fun and enjoyable for Freya, and she is starting to bring home many wonderful art projects. We may need to invest in another major appliance to put her artwork on! I am going to Freya's school to talk about animals two weeks from now. I am looking forward to having a bunch of two and three year olds looking at animal hides and antlers. I will likely get some interesting questions. A video from swimming lessons is attached for your viewing pleasure.

The Fish and Game business continues to be busy for me. I am going to be interviewing again for the position of Assistant Chief of Enforcement for the department. It would be major pay raise, some more regular hours, and a major challenge as far as having to learn many new things. My main responsibilites would be hiring new officers and coordinating the statewide training routines for our existing officers. I will have fierce competition, but I will give it my best shot. I still have a pretty secure day job to fall back into. Last night, one of my cohorts and I floated the Boise River on catarafts to check fishermen. Not really tough duty, but we do usually run into some strange characters. On our last group of the night, a guy who were nabbing for fishing without a license had an outstanding felony warrant for failure to register as a sex offender. The arrest went without incident. The bad guy commented to me that Idaho is just not a very welcoming state. My partner and I were working undercover and wearing Tevas and shorts, so I'm guessing the uniformed officer that came to transport the bad guy had to do a double take.

We have been in the midst of a heat wave, and the temp will be pressing triple digits today. Lots of backyard time with the hose. Our garden is doing well, and Casey and Freya planted two wonderful flower gardens adjacent to our patio. The flowers are really nice, and they have done a great job of watering and keeping them alive during our sweltering heat. We would trade some heat for some of Wisconsin's record June rainfall, we could have used an inch or two of it! We hope that everybody is doing well and enjoying summer. Love to everybody! Matt, Casey and Freya.

And here's Freya out earlier today, washing her ride:

Learning Culture and Spreading Truth

Ciao Tutti!
Greetings from bella Italia!
After a looong day of traveling, (9 hours to New York, thank you layovers, and another 14.5 hours to Pisa, thank you sitting on the tarmac while a part was flown over from LaGuardia and installed…yeah), we arrived in Pisa, tired, starving, sweaty, and excited!
The first day we didn’t do very much. Drove from Pisa to Siena, showered, unpacked, ate dinner, and crashed. Also, I lost my cell phone somewhere in transit. Lovely. I’m still trying to track it down.
Day two started off early when we all assembled at 8am to get breakfast before heading to our first day of class. Breakfast was delicious. I will probably never be able to eat a store-bought croissant ever again. The first day of class was pretty relaxed and fun. We got to know each other and our professor a little (she’s wonderful, and so are all the kids on the trip), and then we went on a tour of the places that 007 Quantum of Solace (or whatever it’s called) filmed in Siena. Don’t worry Dad, I took plenty of pictures. The rest of the day was spent doing homework and acclimating to Siena. By the end of the day we could find our way around pretty well. There are definitely still parts of the city I haven’t seen, but Siena’s not large, and even if you get lost, pretty much everything leads back to the piazza eventually, and from there it’s easy. Also, I changed my money, and between the pathetic showing of the dollar currently, and the fact that I got WAY ripped off (19.90% exchange charge that they don’t tell you about until you see it on your receipt. Thank you for stealing $200 from me stupid cambio. I hate you.) I have slightly less money than I thought I would, but I think I’ll be okay. I just might not be able to buy the shoes, and the purse, and the new wardrobe I was planning on… ah well. Now I know what to avoid.
Day three was another very early day. We met at 8 again to eat breakfast and hop on a bus to Firenze (Florence). After two hours, and a nice nap, we arrived and were greeted by Carlotta, the Italian exchange student who had helped teach our class at Vassar. She lives in Firenze and took us on a tour. Parts of it were really wonderful. We got to see the Duomo, which is a HUGE, incredible beautiful basilica, sort of, and many incredible sculptures, and a museum full of things owned by the Medicis, which was probably my favorite thing we saw. There were documents actually written by Archimedes. So cool. The not so cool part was the fact that we thought we were going to be entering the Duomo so we’d been instructed to wear clothes covering our knees and shoulders, and then didn’t end up going in and it was literally 110 degrees out. I did, however, try what is so far my favorite gelato flavor: meringue. Followed closely by cherry, strawberry, lemon, rum and chocolate, and chocolate orange. Did I mention that gelato is delicious?
Day four, surprise surprise, again required waking up absurdly early. We caught a 7:50 bus to the beach. Ironically, after our day of 110 degree weather when we really didn’t want it, it was raining when we arrived at the beach. Luckily, it was still warm and the rain wasn’t bad, so some of us kicked a soccer ball around on the beach until it stopped, and the storm made great waves, so we did a lot of body surfing. At one point Eduardo and I swam really far out, which was a ton of fun, but then we had to go back in because there were red flags up on the beach which means you’re not supposed to go out farther than the first buoys, which were about 50 feet into the water. Oops. Also, we spent a lot of time playing the alphabet game, using the soccer ball as a volleyball, and counting instead of doing the alphabet, because that’s how the Italians play. We were counting in Italian, which was a great way to review numbers, although the ones that we reviewed most were 1-3, and I already pretty much had those down… Over lunch we played Egyptian Rat Screw, which a lot of the people didn’t know. Eduardo, our sort of assistant teacher/tour guide/all-around helpful person, tried to make us explain the game in Italian, which was quite possibly the most confusing thing ever. After lunch was more playing in the water and some tanning. It was lovely. Then we came back to Siena and Sophie, Sophia, Gabi, Marissa, Conrad, and I shared some delicious pasta.
Day five we had to press our noses to the grindstone once again. Class is 3.5 hours long, but it feels like much less than that. Our professor, Pazit, is hilarious. And she obviously really wants us to learn. After class we planned on getting on the internet for the first time, doing our homework, going back to our dorm to do homework and nap, and then going to our tutoring session with Eduardo and then dinner, but, as with most plans, it fell apart almost immediately. The computers had been reserved for us, but there was an exam in the room, which we were told would end at 2, so we decided to go to a garden behind the building to do homework. To get to the garden you have to walk through the library, and for some reason you’re not allowed to take your backpacks into the library, so we had to do homework inside. At about 10 after 2 we went back to the computer room, which was still occupied, so we sat outside and talked until about 3. Getting on the internet was wonderful. I can’t imagine what it used to be like without email. Went to the review, then dinner, and then we went for gelato and sat in the piazza for a couple hours. Poor Conrad had to listen to our girl talk. We all sincerely hope it wasn’t too boring/mortifying for him. He was very quiet. Later Gabi and I ended up on the piazza again, this time with Sophie and Sophia for wine, more girl talk, and “studying” for Italian. We really did have good intentions, but they ended up amounting to very little. It was a blast, tho! Marissa, Conrad, Nicole, and Francesca found us there later, and we all hung out sharing stories, truth, and nutella pizza. Talk about good times. At about 11 we all went back to the dorms, but then Zack came over to Gabi and my room and we talked until about1. I have yet to get more than about 6 hours of sleep.
Day six started with class, as usual. After, Zack and I checked our email and then shopped for a little while. Yay cute shoes! Then I did homework and laundry, and then Gabi and I went out to buy her a notebook. We never did get one, but Gabi bought Cinderella in Italian, and then we read it out loud to each other. It’s pretty much exactly at our level, but we got some strange looks because we were sitting outside. Then Gabi, Sophie, Sophia, and I went to the best restaurant we’ve been to so far. The pesto was absolutely amazing, and I ate good tiramisu for the first time ever. Then all the girls sat in the piazza drinking wine while the boys played soccer. They joined us later for gelato and then we all went to an Italian party because Bren’s roommate had just finished his exams. We drank wine, made some friends, spoke more Italian than we have so far, and then walked to the piazza where we sang everything from the Beatles to Moulin Rouge to Spice Girls. In the middle of the piazza. It was wonderful. And now it is 3:30am and I have class tomorrow, but I’m not tired. I will be tomorrow for class, tho. Ah well. It was totally worth it.
This weekend we go to Rome! And we get to go clubbing. Yay! I’ll report more when I get back!
I miss you all!!!!

I can't believe that nobody has been on this since the end of June. Its been a pretty crazy period. We have moved out alot of stuff from the basement, which has also spurred getting rid of alot of stuff from other areas. Its amazing what I haven't looked at in 10 years.

We lived through our neighbor's annual 4th party and this year the wind was right to carry all the detritus from $6000 worth of fireworks to some other part of the lake. Our lake association lifted the no wake restriction for the 4th even though the water level was still high, but its back on. I bought an inflatable floating island with two docking lounge chairs that is anchored in the swimming area and its been a delightful place to sleep and hang out. We got it in the lake in time for Bridget's party, but it was kind of cool and windy that day so no one but me went in.

We go to Madison this weekend to register Bridget. Colin gets to stay home with the dogs and go to the golf tournament. I think he is getting sick of us, so it will be a nice break for him.

The kids go back to school August 23rd, so we are starting to get gear amassed for them. We found a deal on a futon couch for Bridget which is stored in our basement for the time being.

I have a meeting in Sheboygan next Friday afternoon, so I hope I can make my customary stop at the R-O's, looking hungry so that they invite me for dinner. Sometimes I even stay overnight if they feed me too much. Not sure if there is an art show the next day, so I need to check with them. Sorry we only saw Kevin and the kids for about 40 minutes total and Lyn not at all this trip. We did have a nice time out at Blue Spring seeing lots of Richters and O'Connells.

Well, I have an early meeting so should go to bed. Too hot to do much tonight except keep shoveling stuff out of the house and jump in the lake. This is when I really appreciate it. Hope everyone is doing well and that Domi is safely in Italy. Love, Susan