Painting, Wedding, Pilgrams, Vespa Festa!

Vespa Festa!!

It is 6am and I am sitting on the terrace. The pink light of sunrise is climbing down the face of the Sirentes. The little dog who lives by the fountain is mercifully silent after having barked itself into exhaustion over night. The mountains are still purple, but their mystery was solved when we drove up to Rocca Di Mese with Moose and Domi: the trees only have buds, no leaves. The green is creeping up the side of the mountains with the hot weather we have had this week. It is unusually humid. We had a big rain yesterday, but it did little to clear the air. The foothills are covered with low hanging clouds, but the sky is clear. 

Today is the Vespa Festa! Over 800 Vespas will be arriving in CVS. A few outriders showed up last night riding antique Vespas. I was much more excited to see that. I thought everyone might show up in Vespas that were motorcycle size. The bad news about old Vespas is that they are very stinky. The people here have been working so hard to pull off this amazing event. Lunch is being catered, but the gym had to be set up for the 800+ people. 1000 gift bags had to be stuffed with swag from sponsors and the entire town is spick and span with informational signs everywhere. 

Political Digression:

You may not know that I was a political science major in college. Even then I was looking for facts to fuel my ability to argue my political positions effectively. It was a useless pursuit, because facts are of no interest to many people. Now, I try to keep my options to myself. For instance, probably none of you know that I am supporting Bernie.

Hence, it is unbelievable to me that the U.K. has voted to leave the E.U. Ireland, Scotland and people under 50 voted to stay in the E.U. It was older, English people that voted to get out. Young people are saying that the old have sold their future. It seems that at least some oldsters are regretting their knee jerk anti-immigrant vote. Informational websites were swamped with people wanting to know just exactly what they had voted on. E.U. officials say that England will be out of the E.U. in a week. The pound has lost about 1/4 of its value already. Their are many English people with homes in Italy. I am wondering if they will be reduced to our status of only being able to stay three months at a time.

HIkers, possibly German just marched by. I guess they are headed up to the Sirentes to do some day trekking. They have full day packs and walking sticks. A few elderly women are talking in the middle of the road down the way, but otherwise it is just me and the birds!

We have been invited out to a friend’s house for breakfast at 8am. It is the earliest I have ever been invited over for a meal in any country. I am pretty excited, but also hoping there are not anchovies to eat. 

Doggy bag

There were no anchovies. There was coffee, cake, and the delicious waffle things. We had cherry jam, prune jam and delicious preserved figs. We got to bring a little of everything home with us. 

Same Church, Other Side

After that early start I went off to my painting spot. Drawing already completed, the pastel painted itself. No not really. I wouldn’t even like it if it did. I had this great idea that I would take a photo of a scene, draw it inside and add the color on location. Because it is so hot, this would allow me to paint longer and maybe finish things in one time. The bad news is that the more complex the scene, the less accurate the drawing from a photo is. Especially if I am looking up at something. Photos distort perspective even more than I realized. I had to give up on one painting, because the drawing was so hard to follow when I was really looking at the scene. It worked fine for today, but this drawing only took about 10 minutes anyway. I do like using the cropping tool on the computer to decide on my composition. That is one thing that works well.


Today I was searching and searching for just the right color for the stones on the church. At last success! But then I dropped the pastel. The good news was that the color was so perfect I could not find it on the ground. The bad news was that it was gone forever. Oh well. I keep having to remind myself that I am going to be layering colors not just finding the perfect match. 

On to the wedding!!

Around 11 I got too excited to work any longer. As I walked back into town I saw crowds gathering in every shady spot. I raced home to find Jim gone already. Swiftly I changed my shirt and ran back toward town. Did I mention how hot it is? I heard a band start playing and then amazingly I walked up just as the band and bridal party were coming up from the street below. People were throwing rice from the balconies. Little girls carried the train. This is the tradition in CVS. The bride comes to the church through the streets. I have seen many old photos of it, but never the real thing. 

I have so many portraits that I need to paint. People keep reminding me that, “two years ago you took my photo!!!” I also have a nun, singer and violinist all from Roma to do right away. In the winter I guess I get to do the ones I want, but in the summer I will be painting to order. It is a lot of pressure. Some people do not photograph well and I do not want anyone to be disappointed. It was interesting that the people from Rome smiled in their photos. Very few people from here do. 

Ok, still waiting for the Vespas and it is pretty dang hot out. I thought it must be over a hundred, but no, it was in the 80s. There were little booths set up with people selling regional food. I had two bottles of water and two pieces of pizza, but I wanted you to see a photo of the truffles. Unfortunately I do not think the Vespa people were actually shopping. They purchased their lunch through a catering service and it is hard to carry much on a Vespa. We hunkered down in a decreasing amount of shade when the bad news came that the Vespas would be late. But the walking pilgrims did arrive, although no one seemed to notice. They looked hot and sunburned and had been walking much longer than the Vespas would be writing, but they attracted no interest that I could see and they did not get a mass.

Danni

Truffles

Finally the Vespas arrived amidst noxious fumes and tiny horns. There was a Roman Gladiator proving that the Romans did invent the Vespa and used it to conquer the known world. There was a citron, I do not know why, and a Vespa car.  

Our friend, Pasquale, waits for some traffic to direct!

Roman troops arrive

A few speaches and beautiful music

Our friend, Armando, tries out driving a Vespa Car. 

Vespas in piazza

The bride and groom arrived to stroll through the parked Vespas. Then there was a mass for the Vespas in the piazza and the singer and violinist preformed. Her voice was achingly beautiful. I thought I was sweating but then realized it was tears from the beauty of her voice. I have no idea what the song was about. Meanwhile my face hurts more than ever from smiling so much. I loved this day!

After being outside for so long, we have been hiding in the house reading. Soon it will be time to go back to the piazza and post this to my blog. First I think I will have to have a snack. These are the possibilities: cake, waffle things, amaretti, two kinds of tort-like things, breakfast cookies or biscotti. We need to have a desert pic-nic. Honestly this is how picnic is spelled in Italy. And remember “i” is pronounced long “e”. pee-neek.

Afternoon rest