Tales from the Homefront

Greetings!

I have promised an account of Lucca. We went during Carnivale, and there was a celebration in the main piazza. Small children dressed as superheroes, princesses, and animals ran around, throwing handfulls of confetti on each other's heads and spraying silly string and some mysterious substance that appeared to be styrofoam bits in an aerosol can. On the stage, a poor magician performed his heart out, calling for audience participation, while the children ran around or stared into space. There were a few parents with their toddlers strapped into front carriers on those wonderfully ancient bicycles that everyone rides around Lucca in lieu of cars (I think, perhaps, the most picturesquely Italian sight I've seen so far was a nun in dress and wimple riding an old-fashioned bicycle down between the medieval stone buildings in Lucca). Scattered about the town was an antique market with everything from books to furniture.

Later that evening, we returned to the piazza on our way from a night of opera (Puccini, sine Lucca was his home) to a wonderful dinner (I had ravioli and tiramisu), and we heard noises coming up behind us. Preceded by a cop car was a procession of people in medieval garb playing drums and carrying flags. They marched in a rather haphazard fashion around the piazza, causing us to keep dodging out of their way. The Italians just joined the procession. Then, they stopped, and young men came out to demonstrate their flag-throwing prowess. One man had five enormous flags at one time. One or two were always aloft, and one was always clutched in the crook of his leg. In the middle of the performance, a high school marching band complete with majorettes came up behind us and starting playing, drowning out the sound of the medieval drumming. Then, onstage, a woman dressed as catwoman started testing the microphone and talking about what was going on. It was utter chaos and utterly Italian.

This is a picture of the antiques market in Lucca.


I snuck a picture of some of the revelers. Note the baby in the bicycle basket.


A confetti-strewn piazza in Lucca.

The other morning, I woke up to the sounds of, I kid you not, a swim team match. Groggily, I opened the shutters and light spilled into my bedroom. The pool behind my apartment was filled, at 8:30 am, with people in swimsuits, sunbathing. I spent the entire day in the daisy-filled lawn behind my apartment, studying in the sun in my short sleeves and skirt.

My host mother is cooking dinner for David when he comes to Siena next week, and she has been stressing about the menu for a week. She is making him lamb, because he is Turkish, and Turks eat lamb. Also, she is making beef ragu, because Turks eat lots and lots of meat. Dinner will also include an antipasti, dessert, fruit, cheese, wine, and a vegetable course. I don't think I'll be able to adjust to living in the states again. The care given to food here is really incredible. Everything I eat is organic, local (all of the veggies are grown by my host father) and cooked in the very best olive oil. Until last year, Giulio and Giuliana even picked the olives to make their olive oil themselves to ensure they had only the best. I drink chianti (actually from Chianti) every night. At any rate, they are quite excited about meeting David. Giulio says he will be the judge of "quello turcho" (that Turk, his name for David).

I am very busy but well-pleased.