Simple thoughts

Last saturday it was St. John the Baptist day. Where I live it's the time we celebrate the old summer solstice (yes, in ancient times it was the 23, not the 21 june) and the old country tradition is still well remembered here.

    Where I live, it's an old and consolidated tradition to go out this night to eat "tortelli d'erbetta" (ricotta cheese, parmesan and spinach filled pasta) and stay outside to wait the midnight. We did so, like every year, we had dinner to our friends' home in the hills, and after some really good food and some laughs, we stared at a beatiful starry night! Here are some pics of the evening

  some bruschetta

  the tortelli

  the company

  the desserts

The same day, saturday, was the day the torch of the World Harmony Run arrived in our town. One of our dearest friends actually wasn't with us for the "tortellata" coz he was one of the runner of the marathon. Even our new Major was a runner for a short distance till the Council Hall as you can see I think it's a great opportunity to rise a little awarness on some problems.

Last sunday was also the last day of an entire week my town dedicated to Poetry. It's the third year of the event, a week full of occasions where some famous people, or just unknown poets, share their love for poetry. We had names such as Antonio Gamoneda  Jorie Graham Oscar Hahn José Tolentino de Mendonca It was a busy matter to follow all the events, so I decided only for the ones I knew well before, Antonio Gamoneda and Oscar Hahn, and I wasn't the least disappointed!

Today it was time for the last of the three written essays for Marty's exams, at last! The test was on 4 issues, Descriptive Geometry (don't ask, please, I still don't undertand what it's about!) Mathematics, Art History and English (a short description of an art masterpiece or a an artistic movement). Marty was enough satysfied of her work, it wasn't too difficult she says, so I guess it will be a good note. Now we're waiting for nex week's oral discussion of her thesis. So it's not over yet, still keeping fingers crossed!

Day 2 for graduation exams.

Today is the first of three days dedicated to make a project (first day= a simple color drawn of 3/4 samples to choose from - second day= make the architectural design with measures ect. of the choosen one - third day= make the model of the project respecting the measures/scale) for a given subject (a ticket desk for a train station, an open-air theatre, a square dedicatd to someone, a square with a fountain, the hall of a museum, whatever).

......... later.........

Marty just called me with news (after more than 6 hours dealing with the problem): this year the issue is about the renovation of an old furnace to make it suitable for a civic center with a theatre, a conference room, a cafeteria, providing the building with a new kind of roof, and to make the chimney suitable for storage. Marty's reaction: "They're a bunch of shitty crazy people!" Some of her classmates were deeply in panic, and even their design teacher said that it was a tough task to accomplish. Plus, due to the difficulty of the issue, they have fixed the dateline for next monday, it means 4 days for one single exam, with no hope for a relaxing sunday!

And there's a third written examination left, plus the oral discussion!

Sooooo............. this is Marty's first day of her high school final exams.  Today is for italian, the students have to choose between some titles to develop into a text, and after the envelope with the titles is open by the teachers, (and usually it's never what they expect) there's a moment of panic, before start to think about what to write.  No cell phone allowed in the classroom, no iPod, no any hi-tech stuff, only a pen and the dictionary, the papers are provided by the school with a seal on every page, and the text must be finished in 6 hours.

This year titles were about

1 - The Divine Comedy - XI cantico Paradise

2 - The places of the souls in literatures by Petrarca, Shakespeare, Foscolo, Manzoni, Pasolini, Masters

3 - The basic of the civil living - justice, rights and legality

4 - Born of the italian republic: from dictatorial to free democracy

5 - The modern science: how it was born from Galileo to today

6 -  New colonialism, immigration and its problems

7 - The global village and the global human kind

the red ones was Marty's choice, cross your fingers please and whish her well!

Kelli  just posted two recipes in her site, one of them I really want to try. She posted about her favourite foods for the summer and asked about ours. Well, I never really thought about it, but I guess these are mine:

  fruits salad

  guacamole

 rice salad

  feta and tomatoes

  eggs

  and any kind of cakes with fruits and cream!

For next september I registered to a very long walk through some places across our territory that was once part of the Via Francigena, the long road that brought the pilgrims from Canterbury to Rome

For knowing more, this is what Wikipedia says about it:

The Via Francigena is an ancient road to Rome for those coming from France. It was an important medieval road and pilgrimage route connecting north-Western Europe with Rome and the harbours to Jerusalem in Apulia (Bari, Brindisi, Otranto).

The pilgrimage to Rome

The Via Francigena was the major pilgrimage route to Rome during Medieval times; even today pilgrims travel this route but in far fewer numbers than the Way of St. James. The route was first documented in the 10th Century when the Archbishop of Canterbury Sigeric the Serious travelled to Rome to see the Pope in order to be consecrated.

The Via Francigena is not a single 'road' in the strict sense. It comprises a number of possible routes which changed over the centuries as trade and pilgrimage developed. Depending on the time of year, the political situation and the relative popularity of the shrines of saints along the route, travellers may have taken one of three or four crossings of the Alps and the Apennines. The Lombards paid for the maintenance and defence of the road as a trading route to the north from Rome, avoiding enemy held cities such as Florence.

Usage

It is not strictly correct to use the name via Francigena for the whole route used by archibishop Sigeric in the year 990. This is because the name Francigena means "generated in France" in Latin; therefore only the Italian part of the route can correctly be called "Francigena".

The Via Francigena today

Today those who make the pilgrimage to Rome on foot, horseback or bicycle still travel this route but in far fewer numbers than the Way of St. James. There are fewer facilities for pilgrims than on the Way of St. James and pilgrims are forced to camp out or stay in more expensive accommodation such as hotels and pensions. The Via Francigena was designated a cultural route by the Council of Europe in 1994.

This is the road we'll have to walk, anyone is allowed to choose a route to follow for as many km as one feels like, obviously, not anyone is a marathon expert, right Kelli?

I really want to go, but it seems that the date fixed is the same of my two days along the river Brenta to Venice. I registered anyway, I hope to be able to partecipate!

Last friday we had a charity dinner to raise money to help Giampiero and Marianna with the mission's children down there in Brazil.

  Marianna (blue shirt) and some of the children

We had a really good time, laughing and cheering to the guys doing their hard job so far from home. And the food was good too, so it was a nice evening!

Sunday morning, after the usual visit to daddy, me and Raf had a long bike ride, approx 90 km, with his collegue and her husband, to have lunch at the Ranch Camillo, near the Passo Cento Croci ("one hundred crosses" gap) in the mountain

  the gap

  the ranch

http://www.rivieradilevante.net/pubb_miste/ranch_Camillo/ranch_camillo_eng.htm

We've been there twice before, and it was always good food, better wine and a great view!

  the couch with our helmets resting on it........

Going back home, we changed the road to see others amazing valleys and places

the castle of Bardi

  Raf taking a cigarette break in the little village of Varsi

Yesterday evening we celebrated the end of the yoga course, with a dinner at our teacher's home. She's an amazing host, we all felt so much warm and love with her and her husband. And she treated us well with a very good dinner, and even better choice of wines (her husband is a wine pro)

  appetizer

  asparagus risotto 

  strawberries tiramisù

See you all next october girls!

I'm scarcely breathing, suffucating under a pile of papers, tax forms, appointments and, most of all, stupid people! In this time of the year, it seems that all the stupidity of the world is being thrown on my face, and I can't really stand it no more.

Where's my little island on the northern France's  coast? I truly dream about it so more often these days....

From yesterday, on tv it seems that the only valuable news is about the G8. I know it's an important event, but I guess that after it will be over, nothing really will change, not until Bush won't change his mind about poverty, pollution, or really saving energy, or until China (now the most polluting country) isn't invited at the talking table.

http://www.g-8.de/Webs/G8/EN/Homepage/home.html  for more about it.

To add more to my pessimism, it's more than a week that's raining like hell here, it seems fall is coming instead of summer. Being trapped at work 10 hours a day, it's not that bad, but it's raining on weekends too, damm!

At least, I had time to cook, I tried some recipes I found online or in forgotten books.......

  Parma ham and grapes

  grapefruit cake

  rice with zucchini

  spaghetti with ricotta and spinach.

And I really like the books club I've joined, I sent out a book, and I'm waiting to receive two

Next weekend will be a working one, but one to spend with friends too, starting friday night at dinner, I'll keep you updated. For now I can't wait for Kelli  http://www.africankelli.com/ to share with us the pics about her trip to Mozambique!

This is the last week of school, before the beginning of the final exams, I'd like to fall asleep right now and wake up at the end of it!

................ I got the tickets, and here's the proof...........

So long before the 22 october...............