I want to talk about the farm I’ve been living and working on for the past month, and go into detail about my day to day life out here, but before I do that I feel like I should throw in a word or two about my travels up to this point and how I got from where my plane touched down in Dublin, Ireland to my little farm 60 km outside of Parma. I plan on going into more detail about this part of my trip in later posts, but for now here’s the abbreviated version.
Dublin: My first stop after leaving Boston. I was there for less than 24 hours as I had to catch a 3 AM shuttle to the airport for my flight to Paris the next morning. Dublin is small and very walkable. I stopped in at the James Joyce Center and took a walking tour hitting several sites from Ulysses. Afterwards I dropped into the national gallery to answer for myself Leopold Bloom’s question whether or not the statues of the goddesses had assholes. They didn’t. I spent half an hour looking for Oscar Wilde’s house. I couldn’t find it. And as it was approaching evening and I went back to my hostel to try and meet people. Instead I fell asleep.
I woke up a little after 10 and found that everyone was either in for the night or already out. I was hungry so I went out and grabbed a kebab. It was only 10 and I wasn’t tired so I decided to go grab a drink. I ended up meeting a couple of Londoners named Jonathon and Gary who were in supply chain management and in town on business for the night. One round led to another and before we knew it, it was almost 3. I said good night and took a stop to pee in the liffey before walking back to my hostel to catch my shuttle to the airport. After a series of naps interrupted by shuffling to and from different planes and buses, I found myself awake and lucid as my bus entered the Paris city limits.
Paris: Paris was amazing and after my first day there I was almost begrudging that I would be spending the next two days entirely at the French Open and not out exploring the city. The sporadic rain that delayed play on Thursday didn’t allow the first matches to finish until after 7 PM, did little to counteract these feelings. By Friday though all the rain had cleared up, and many of the holdovers from the day before pushed some of the better matches onto the sidecourts where I had access. As a result I got to see Fernando Gonzalez, Juan Carlos Ferrera, Samantha Stosur, and Robin Soderling. Having seen Elene Dementieva and Francesca Schiavone the day before, I ended up getting to watch a full half of the semifinalists, and 3 out of the 4 finalists (good look trying to see Rafa on a ground’s pass). Despite all the tennis, I did manage to see a good chunk of the city, and was lucky to find that the Centre Pompidou had a large Lucien Freud exhibit. I hit up the postcard sites, spent some time wandering around Montmarte and relaxed and read away the rest of my time in Paris until Saturday evening, when I boarded an overnight train to Florence. Watching out the window as we left city I began to wonder if it had been a mistake to take this trip in the dark. I polished off a 2 euro bottle of red wine with my cabinmates and went to sleep just as the sun had set taking the country hills and towns along with it.
Florence: I got raped by museum fees. Everything in this town is a museum, there are a dozen incredible churches and they all want at least 5 to 10 euros to get in and usually ask an extra 3 if you want to see what you came for. Anyway, David was really impressive, I like Botticelli more than I thought I did, and climbing up through the duomo was great. I’m glad I got to see this city but the hundred plus euros it costs to get around to all the museums still leaves me feeling a little queasy. At least I got to see the baptistry doors for free. Just as my wallet couldn’t take it anymore I hopped a train to Borgo Val di Taro where I met Simona, my new host and owner of the farm I’m currently living on. After a 15 minute drive up through the hills, we were there. I unloaded my pack from the car, took it to my trailer, and before I finished unpacking, it was time for dinner.
I’ve gotta get back to the field, it looks like my day to day life will have to wait til next time. I’m currently helping my friend Francesco put up a green house. We’re currently assembling the crossbars for the front and rear of the building. Fixing 3 beams together end to end and lining them up straight seems to be a very difficult and nuanced problem in Italy…
NowHere 