#73: Umbria, USA and Munich, July-December 2011

Graduation, Marriage and Christmas

July

Valentina Rosati, whom many of you have met, graduated from medical school last week, and we hosted the party. What a special week it was, seeing this young woman, who’d worked so hard and persevered through difficult family times, cross this threshold into her new life. 

The graduation ceremony at the University of Perugia Medical School was changed from 11:00 to 8:30 a.m. because of the unusually hot and humid weather. Not knowing exactly where the med school was, we left home at 6:30 and drove the hour and 15 minutes up to Perugia. And then around and around the ancient town, trying to find the venue, stopping here and there to ask for guidance. Italians are not famous for giving good directions, and this was no departure from the norm. Finally, after 9 a.m., we got on the right track and arrived, only to see Valentina’s family just approaching the building. Ah, we thought, normal for Italy, the ceremony will start late.

Wrong. There was no ceremony as we know it in America — no caps, no gowns, no procession, no speeches, no “Pomp and Circumstance.” Instead, each of five candidates (a small group because it was summer, not spring, graduation) went into the building separately, accompanied by family and friends. The candidate, wearing a black suit (men) or black dress (women) then gave a fifteen-minute summary of his/her research to a panel of faculty. Valentina, the final candidate, presented evidence indicating rape/homicide, her specialization being forensic medicine. We all filed out while the faculty conferred for a few moments, and then back in to hear them grant her degree. They signed her diploma; she signed her diploma, and it was all over.

Except for the outside ceremony, the most charming aspect. The family of each graduate places a laurel wreath on the new doctor’s head, a tradition going back thousands of years to ancient Rome. Bouquets of flowers are also presented, and the official photographer takes photo after photo of the graduate with every friend and family member who attended the ceremony. Then it’s really all over. Like so many Italian ceremonies, it seemed a bit like a non-event, and this is hard to reconcile. Italians love ceremony and often have one when we would not. Yet their ceremonies are often less elaborate than ours. Is this because they have more ceremonies than we do, so the energy and creativity have to spread farther? Hard to say, but we were thrilled to be part of that morning and to see the little girl whom we once knew and the awkward adolescent who met weekly to practice English conversation now standing wreathed in laurel with the title “Dotoressa.” Very teary eyed, some of us, myself included.

I won’t bore you with all the details of the party. Suffice it to say we had 40 guests (with Valentina’s mom and I doing all the cooking): eight kinds of antipasti, two kinds of pasta, cold veal with tuna sauce, cold chicken fillets with tarragon-wine sauce, mixed salad, a fantastic cake from the bakery, fruit, wine, coke for the kids. We started with a prosecco toast at 8 p.m. and ended with coffee at 11. The last guests drove out the gate at nearly midnight, up our lane, among giant red balloons still flying ever since R&I tied them there that afternoon. (Red being the traditional color here for graduates.)

August

In the category of you-never-know-what-might-happen: At a dinner hosted by neighbors, the host was opening a bottle of pro secco. He very carefully pointed it away from the people, and a good thing, too, because the bottle literally exploded. I was most in line of fire and ended up drenched in sparkling wine. Fortunately, the shards of glass passed to either side of me, or we might have ended the get-together before it began, with a trip to the Emergency Room. At least one of the pieces was as big as a child’s palm, with jagged edges. That could have done a lot of damage. But happily, the hot breezes dried me in no time, and we settled down to a nice meal under the wisteria arbor.

Our nearest neighbors hosted another ceremony, the wedding of the older sister of the girl whose confirmation we celebrated in the spring. The day started at 9:30 a.m. with a buffet breakfast at our neighbors’ house, then a 10:30 wedding at Montecampano’s ancient little church, newly reopened after two-and-a-half years of renovation, followed by another mini-reception at the bride and groom’s new house, finally ending with a major blowout at a country inn. A multi-/multi-course lunch which we didn’t get to finish, because we had to leave for another engagement at 4:30, and they hadn’t yet got to the salad which always follows the meat course.

September

A heads-up: I’ll be departing for the States on the 24th, first to see (step)sister Mary Anne in WV, then to Fredericksburg for a few days with 97 year-old Aunt Ethel, finally to Johns Hopkins in Baltimore for my turn at an annual checkup. MA is fighting the good fight against her cancer, and Aunt Ethel is increasingly frail, so these are likely to be significant visits.

Our two elderly cats have each entered another phase of decline. Mama is increasingly senile, howling and yowling through the night, fighting phantoms only she can see. Perhaps more seriously, we’ve learned Baby Cat has cancer. Her hyperthyroid condition and advanced age argue against anesthesia, so surgery is out of the question. They both enjoy a fairly healthy life, so we’re making a special effort to cherish the time we have with them. 

Around the middle of the month, we took old friend Mario, his sons and daughter-in-law out for dinner at a country inn. You may recall that Mario took over working with us after his brother-in-law, Graziano, passed away. Then late last fall, Mario was in a terrible car accident that killed his wonderful wife and left him severely wounded. The crazy driver who caused it is still in a coma. We hadn’t been with Mario for some weeks, and it was a shock to see how frail he’d become. He’d lost a lot of weight, and there was an understandable underlying sadness to his demeanor. He was to leave for Bologna the next day for surgery on his shoulder, which hasn’t healed properly. Although it saddened us to see him like that, we were glad to be able to give him and his remaining family a special evening before he departed for yet another medical ordeal.

October

Last month’s visit to the States saw me spending several days with Mary Anne, catching up on news and views, sharing meals, seeing family and friends. It was a special time and even more so because she went into hospital and then rehab soon after, so I felt really fortunate to have had time together.

I found Aunt Ethel in not such good shape, in terms of both her health and her environment. Her nursing-home room was a mess — closet, drawers, clothes, etc. The nurses reported that they periodically straighten her room, but then the guy (“X”) who has all her powers-of-attorney comes and jumbles it up again. I spent some time and money on bins and other items to help bring order to chaos, went through her clothes, buying new ones and mending old ones as needed. Her hair was bedraggled as a Beale sister’s, so I paid for her to have a haircut immediately and another one nearer the Holidays. Through it all, we had a couple hours every morning and again in the afternoon of visiting, and that seemed to do as much good as the rest of it. She had a terrible growth on her cheek, and I tried to get that seen to, but she can’t visit a doctor without X, and he’s been in California for some six weeks. He’s back now, so I hope she’ll finally be able to see a dermatologist.

Happy news at Johns Hopkins, where I learned my few bodily complaints are just due to my age and therefore nothing serious.

Now back in Italy, I learned the country has been hit with a succession of severe storms. When we saw the next weather report, we decided to bust our bummies to get as many of the olives harvested as we could before the wind and rain ruined the crop. Young friend Francesco and his buddy, Antonio, worked with Russell to bring in over 1000 pounds of olives. I did some plucking, but mostly I was keeping the troops fed — mid-morning coffee and a sweet snack, followed by washing up, then a substantial hot lunch, more washing up, then a salty snack and drinks at the end of the day.

We ended the month with a Halloween party, feting expat friends — Austrian, English, Dutch and Turkish. We asked everybody to make their own masks, and I must say we had some creative responses. Just like in grade school, everyone won a prize, so there were no hurt feelings.

November

Neighbors from the other side of the hill, Dutch Jacques and Turkish Oslem, got married! We hosted a buffet supper for her family the night before — 15 dishes of international foods, everything from hummus to pepperonata to yakitori. We filled our plates in the dining area of the main room, then moved out to the verandah to sit at a long table with the twinkling lights of villages all around. I realized during the final preparations that it was, perhaps, as special a time for me as it was for Oslem. I have no daughter or younger sister, so hosting a wedding party for a cherished younger woman-friend was probably as close as I’ll ever get to that sort of pleasure.

They had a civil ceremony the next day in the Renaissance-frescoed town hall where Amelia’s Town Council has met for centuries. Russell served as Oslem’s official witness (normally in Italy, it would have been a woman, but we’re guessing that because she’s Turkish, having a man serve in that capacity was for her family’s comfort). That night, we all gathered again at a nearby country inn for the wedding dinner, a long series of wonderful traditional dishes, lots of laughter and joking, Oslem still radiant and Jacque’s face full of happy contentment that all had finally gone as he’d hoped for so long.

December

Hope your Christmas was as lovely as ours and that your New Years will be even better. December, for us, was a time of great busy-ness — over 20 doz. cookies baked and distributed to local folks who’ve provided services during the past year, green tomatoes harvested and used to make chutney, dinner parties hosted and attended, kitchen mantle decorated for the holidays (but no tree, because we’d be away) poinsettias selected at our favorite nursery and taken to friends before departure. But mostly, it feels like the month was blessed with some pretty super travels.

Thanks to my being down with a respiratory infection in late November, we started off December with a belated Thanksgiving celebration that turned into a full day of happy surprises. We drove through central Italy on mostly country roads, stopping at Capo di Monte on the south shore of Lake Bolsena for a cappucino-with-a-view. Then on towards Saturnia and, finding ourselves a bit early, we decided to take a detour to see the ruins of Castro (“cah-stro”), as noted on our map. We had no idea what Castro was — other than the name of a Cuban dictator — but we thought that if it was on the map, it must be worth a visit. Down, down a winding blacktopped road we drove until we ended at a parking lot with marble column commemorating the dedication by Countess Barbone of the current effort to uncover the ruins of the city built by her ancestor long ago.

Turns out Castro was founded in prehistoric times, then fell into ruin over the centuries, only to be revived by the Countess’s ancestor in the 1500s. This ancestor, Pier Luigi Farnese (“far-nay-say”), was the son of a Pope (well, they did such things in those days…). He rebuilt Castro in accordance with the latest Renaissance ideas of city planning. However, Popes being as they were, a later Pontiff from a rival family had the city destroyed in 1649. It then went into a long decline, a forest grew over the ruins until, at length, the city was forgotten completely, only to be rediscovered in the late 20th century.

Photo credit: Wikipedia

We left the parking lot and headed up a marked but increasingly narrow path through the woods, braving overhanging brambles, crumbling wooden bridges over dark chasms, steep steps up a hill, until finally we arrived at another sign with a copy of a 1633 engraving of the city and some discussion of what remains. Not much, but what there is made for a wonderful adventure. We felt like explorers who’d discovered a long-lost civilization still mostly vanished under nature’s advance. And no one was there!! 

Modern archeologists had uncovered the main piazza, but most of the magnificent buildings were now only piles of carved stone with trees and bushes on top. Further along was the ruined church of Santa Maria, still with some frescoes intact on the wall behind where the altar would have been. But mostly we saw rows of arches almost hidden beneath modern ground level, road-paving stones here and there, a collapsed barrel vault which must have  been through the walls that once protected the city, fallen columns recalling the Renaissance’s love affair with classic architecture. “My name is Ozymandias,” I couldn’t help but think — another giant ego’s works lost to the passage of time. (By the way, the city’s name has nothing to do with the Cuban dictator but is taken from the Latin castrum, meaning “castle.”)

We spent the holidays in Munich, traveling up and back by train. We didn’t get the hoped-for white Christmas, but they’d had snow the week before, and the days were still crisp and often sunny, so it felt like Noel just the same. Lots to see and do in the city, from world-class art and science museums through Europe’s largest park (almost three miles in length), to beautiful architecture from the 15th century onward. Our hotel building was c. 500 years old. Standing near the elaborate Isartor gate, it was perfectly located for exploring the city and staffed with friendly, helpful folk from the front desk to the housekeepers.

For Bavarians, Christmas Eve is the big celebration, and fortunately, our hotel informed us before we left Umbria. So we had a reservation for a five-course dinner at the hotel that night — venison consommé, noodles stuffed with pumpkin, a sorbet to cleanse the palate before choosing between carp or roast chicken for the entree. We ended with a ginger mousse that was the perfect finale to this remarkable meal.

The rest of our stay, we opted for traditional Bavarian fare at traditional restaurants — various kinds of sausage, hot potato salad, potato pancakes, sauerkraut, goulash, dark bread and many varieties of seed-covered rolls. The hotel breakfast was a very generous buffet, including all sorts of meats and cheeses. sweet and plain rolls, cereals, yogurt, fruits and juices, plus various egg dishes to order. With all this food added to the always tempting, rich sweets of Bavaria, I think we each must have returned five pounds heavier.

Photo credit: Wikipedia

Two trip highlights were the train ride through the Alps and the Christmas fair that spread from the central Marienplatz though all the other squares in the old town center. The train journey was our first time through the Brenner Pass, and it didn’t disappoint, with castles and steep-spired churches rising above deep snow and tall evergreens. The fair ended at 2 pm on Christmas Eve, but that gave us enough time to see the traditional foods, crafts and clothing. I tried really hard to buy Russell the Bavarian version of a fedora, but they didn’t have his size, to both our regrets.

It is very clear to me that when we finally sell our Italian farmhouse, one of the things I’ll miss will be spending Christmas in the great cities of Europe.