a small, wonderful thing just happened. i was walking through Udine, through the center of the old town, in the dying sunlight, on my way home from work toward the train station. in one of the piazzas i spotted in a 3rd floor window of a bank (the building dated 1722) a handsome, blond italian man in a business suit leaning against the floor to ceiling window, watching the people on the street. he looked so very dapper in his nicely cut navy blue suit, and he was leaning in such an enduringly italian way- careless, exhausted, pensively watching, seemingly smoking a cigarette just with his expression, rapt attention toward the crowd- and the setting sunlight cast a pink glow through the window which seemd to work as backlighting, creating such an incredible silhouette of this man that i could not take my eyes off of him. i just walked and stared and was awestruck. he saw me watching him, and smiled down at me, and mouthed "ciao", and waved his hand. i blushed and smiled and waved back and walked on, grinning from ear to ear about the small, simple, beautiful things that you can catch if youre not afraid to look at people, and you take a second to notice their pink backlighting.
i love it here so much sometimes i cant breath. today on the train into town, the sun was still rising and the train seemed to be floating through mist. it has rained for the past 4 days, heavy, freezing rain that has inhibited late night walks and shooting-star counting of any kind. but this morning i awoke to a white-blue sky, and bitter cold wind coming in off the mountains. the train traveled through the mist, and when at last it broke, i looked out the window and saw with crisp, clear glass-like vision the alps rising up around me on all sides. they were blue and grey and looked like metal, and the tops were blindingly white with fresh snow. its so cold here now, but i found a coffee shop in cormons where they serve hot chocolate so thick they serve it with a spoon.
am not sure exactly what ill do this weekend, but i know i have a ton of work. i have to finish my final anthropology paper before i leave for france. this is a big one, an aculmination of everything that i have observed and learned about viticulture and italian terroir, and there is alot of research to do and she wants me to illustrate a map of friuli and all sorts of stuff.
yesterday i sat in on my friend gabriele's class in cormons. he drives in a few days a week to teach a class on genetics to the viticulture and enology students, and the classroom he uses happens to be the one right outside my bedroom door. so yesterday i rolled out of bed at 9am and brushed my teeth and popped next door for the lecture. the lecture is of course on a subject that would make no sense to me even if it was in english, but i like to listen and try to undertsand the senetences, and i bring my dictionary and make notes of new words i learn. actually, was kind of funny...at one point, as far as i could gather, he was talking about a gene and he used the word "lungo" which i thought meant "long" (it does...) but in the context i didnt think it made much sense (i'm not a scientist, but a long gene?) so i looked up the word. "lungo" also means "weak". when i read that i smacked myself on the forhead in a homer simpson type "doh!", because every single day, multiple times perhaps, i go to these great little automated coffee machines in my dorm/college and get a cafe "lungo"...i thought the lungo meant long i.e. double the coffee. now i know it means long i.e. weak. learn something new every day.
so anyway, after the class, gabriele gave me a ride into cormons. i had him explain the whole "pucitare" thing to me, which i now know is a verb, the verb for the killing of the pig in friulian culture. he told me all about the pucitare, all about having to wake up when it is still dark to get a big pot of water boiling, all about having to kill the pig (which is very hard and slightly inhumane), about cleaning it and using every usable part for something. he said that it is best to do it when it is very cold, because the air helps to cure the meat, but that you cant wait too late, or the blood will freeze and the taste will be bad. apparently pucitare happen through february, so me and the anthropologist i met (also named eleanor) will try and find one to go to...is tricky because they are private, small family ceremonies, so i have to know someone...if all else fails simone has his in january...
simone, btw, has broken his foot and has left me at the mercy of the other scientists in the lab, which is lonely because they dont talk to me very much...
anyway, gabriele also told me on our ride back to town, that apparently the drunk italians in my dorm have cause quite a scandal as of late. he said that a few weeks ago the deen of the whole university came out to cormons to talk to them about their behavior, becuase things get broken and people complain about the insane noise and someone started a fire in the quad or something. too funny...insanity and recklessness...thats what happens when you stick a bunch of boys out in the country...that has been proven for ages now...