Partee time

We have had bad internet connection for a few days. Being out of books and paper and not having the internet work are taking a toll. I had a big plan to get some books from the New Zealanders, but it turned out they left for Rome and then Greece. Wait, they just got here! It has been a busy social life and we are starting to need to write things down. I went to Mass on Sunday night just for the hell of it. The church is so beautiful and a friend sat by me and showed me where we were in the liturgy. Everyone else knew it by heart. JIm and I had been confused about an event that was happening down town. He waited in the piazza. As we were leaving a bunch of Italians, some of whom we know a little bit invited us to sit down and join them for coffee. Then they started calling over people they knew who spoke both English and Italian so they could quiz us. It is exhausting trying to understand or be understood.

Monday night we went to a party at the Danish artist’s studio. Her studio is so beautiful. She works from her imagination, so it doesn’t matter about the light. It is semi-underground and I bet it is always cool. It has vaulted ceilings with exposed brick. This is the same place where Anja and Casper have their office. It used to be the city hall. There are arches and areas where the old stone is exposed. They had candles lit all around and it looked mysterious. There are stairways going this way and that and large wooden doors and the bracing for the earthquake damage. I met a man and his wife who had an apartment upstairs that is now considered unsafe. He took me up to see his terrace and the view was incredible. We have a 180 degree view, but he has 360. In the distance we could see all the towns in the valley and when looking down the view was of dozens of tile roofs with the tiles going in all directions. I feel so badly for these people when I see their houses with most of their stuff just abandoned there while they live with friends or temporary housing. I am glad I was not here for this earthquake.

After days of trying to speak Italian it was bizarre to be with a large group of people speaking Danish. The only native English speaker there was a man from Ireland who is married to an Italian. All Danes really do speak English, because no one else in the world speaks Danish, but I just listened. People got quite drunk and were telling me many things that, if they remembered, they might be embarrassed. Jim had a great time. The food was marvelous. A combination of Scandanavian dishes and Italian. There were lots of tables set up and everyone brought all their own cutlery, dishes and glasses. Everyone set up their tables and then grilled the meat they had brought. Our neighbor Dane told us that we did not need to take a dish to share, because there would be too much. She was right. We took lamb kabobs, but I mostly ate other people’s salads and let the Danes have the kabobs. There were Danish pancakes with lingonberry sauce and tiramisu for desert. I will admit that I had a lot of that.

Today Gale is coming over at 1 pm for lunch. She is leaving this week and is bringing us all her flowers to be enjoyed a little longer. In turn, I will give them all to the neighbor when we leave. Tonight is the “Wayne in Abruzzo” event. Wayne University in Detroit does a summer institute in Gagliano. We have no idea what the program is about, but we are going. Wednesday is a free day. Thursday lots of Danes are coming for dinner, including the artist Dane. Friday there is a tour of the catacombs and then we are going to dinner with the same lots of Danes.

We had an electrician come yesterday to look over the wiring and to see if we could add some plugs upstairs, the only ones up there are two in the bathroom. I think the guy was horrified. He came back today when he had a friend that we could talk to on the phone and explain what he said. It was a complex conversation. In the end we are going to do it, but it costs 400E and will not bring the house up to code. Now we will have plugs in each bedroom so one can have a light without turning on the overhead light.