A beautiful day

Ermelinda's family home

We didn’t know which things were really going to happen today and which things weren’t. Turns out they all are happening. We went with Vitorrio and Ermelinda to her family home up in the mountains. (thanks again, Gregor) It is a two room home that her mother, father and sister lived in. They were shepards and two shepards still live there in one of the many houses and there are sheep and goats. The sheep dogs look just like Angie. It was like a day from a movie. Socially awkward, inept speakers of Italian get invited to lunch at antique family home in the mountains. The Americans spend three hours there and eat the entire time. They eat cheese, bread, ricotta cheese marinated in the famous hot pepper sauce of Abruzzo, blood sausage (yes, I ate two pieces), three grain dishes made with smelt, an ancient grain the Romans ate, tomato salad, and lamb roasted outside over a fire. They drink water from the ancient Roman fountain. Sheep drink from one side and humans from the other. They drink the wine that their host has made himself and a walnut liquor that he also made. They eat fruit, including peaches in their wine. They finish with a bit of bread made with anise seed to give them fresh breath. They do all this in the smoke darkened, antique filled first room of the house. There is a fire inside, but in spite of how hot it is outside, it is not too bad inside. Communication improves constantly throughout the meal. There is really no way to describe how amazing a day it was.

We got home from the mountains, took a shower and it was off to the art show. It was in a town quite a distance away, that I do not remember the name of. It is a more prosperis town than Castelvecchio. The castel there is completely restored. It is open for roaming around. The lighting is dramatic as you wind through narrow, tall corridors. Rooms have been made to house costumes of the town, art exhibits and cultural displays. The best room was filled with miniture castels people had made. They were accurate representations of specific castels and were made with tiny stones, morter and little tiles for the roof. If there was a moot round the castel there was glass with fish underneath and tiny boats “floating’ on the glass. As usual three people, once they each had the mike in their hands, managed to speak for at least 30 minutes each. After they were done at about 10:00 pm the art show opened and singers dressed in regional costumes preformed. I am sad to say we missed all that. One of the artists was a cousin of the people who took us. She had a painting looking up a tree with the moon in a dark sky that I thought was intriguing. THere were also paintings of people at work. I am thinking they were inspired by the earthquake restoration. They were in hot colors and looked like they might have been painted from photoshoped photos. I met one other artist besides the cousin and let me say he reminded me of so many male artists I have met. He was so arogant and self assured. He told me the message of his work. I did like his work and I had already figured out the message. It was obvious. Man versus nature. I am not trying to be snippy, but it is such a type. We were all exhausted and our hosts had to be up for work at 7:00 and we had to go to the beach at 8:30.