Dieci giorni in Italia

The solitude of farm life was quite a change from our new fast-paced lifestyle. It took a day or so to adjust to the fact that we'd be staying in the hills of Bologna without civilization, a computer, or a TV- not that we watched much anyway. Instead we were surrounded by chestnut trees, fields of hay and thorny bushes, deer that made the loudest mating calls I've ever heard in my life, and screaming babies. A far cry (pun intended) from honking car horns!

The family we were wwoofing with (willing workers on organic farms) was extremely nice. It was a young family, with Eszter the mother from Hungary, and Fabrizio the father from Italy. They had Stella, 2 years, and Flavio, 2 months. The good news with Stella was that I could practice my broken Italian and understand most of what she was saying. I'm jealous of her, though, since she can speak both Italian and Hungarian. She's already bilingual!

It's amazing how self-sufficient this family is. They grow and make all their own food, and the rest they get locally from friends (like wine, cheese, meat, etc.). They are happy without owning or doing much. The parents are around to watch the kids grow up. No one worries about high fuel costs, crazy housing markets, or even war.... although I don't know how they would find out about anything since they never see or read the news. I'm already antsy since I don't know what's been going on in the US. What if a giant herd of elephants invaded Boston and ate all of the cannolis in the North End? I have no idea.

After the sixth day, Kate and I got quite into the swing of farm life:

7:30- wake up

8:00- breakfast of yogurt and cookies and home-made jams

8:30-12:00- getting firewood, picking red currants, baking breads and pizza

12:30- lunch (biggest meal of the day)

13:30-16:00- nap time!

16:00-19:00- pruning the chestnut trees, picking and drying mint/herbs/figs

20:00- dinner

20:30-22:30- reading (I was excited because they had 1984 and Agatha Christie novels!)

23:30- bedtime

I should also take a moment and mention that they are amazing cooks. Unfortunately I wasn't a huge fan of their bread since it was dense and dry, but everything else was to die for. Because of their heritage, we had a mixture of Hungarian and Italian cuisine. Eszter made Hungarian cakes with apricots and plums from the trees outside. She also made lentil and barley soups. Fabrizio made pasta fagioli, pasta in pesto, pizza, and insalata caprese. It was great to get a little home cooking during our trip. I think I'm still drooling a bit.

Evaluations (so far)

food: if I HAD to pick a dish? the pasta fagioli! *****

coffee: mmmm espresso ****

beer: Peroni ****

Vespa to person ratio: 1 to 5

language hilarity: if only you could have heard me speaking broken Italian to Stella ****

would I return? over and over again! (I've already been before)