Brad
Last Monday, Lorenzo de Medici sponsored a "Slow Down Day," in which the computers were turned off to Facebook, email, and the world wide web, and our minds were turned on to conservation, relaxation, and Italian culture.  We were treated to an authentic Roman meal of lasagna and gnocchi followed by a glass of wine and I enjoyed a few relaxing silent hours of reading Harry Potter. 

We then had the option of attending a micro-ecology lecture explaining ways in which the individual citizens of this planet can all do their part in saving natural ecosystems, planet earth, and the human race. When individuals reduce energy, oil, and oil byproduct (plastic) consumption and use alternative energy sources, the demand for oil is consequently reduced and the war over natural resources can be eliminated.  In this way, one can do their part to promote world peace. 

It's easy - Reduce, Reuse, Recycle - turning off lights and appliances, buying products from "green" companies, driving less and walking more.  Reusing plastic bags (or reusable cloth bags) also helps reduce the demand for oil - and not to mention that plastics take years to biodegrade in soil.  Recycling paper reduces the demand for trees and can save rainforests (and animals that live within). 

Of course, saving the world cannot be done by one person.  This shift in awareness has to occur in one person at a time, each doing their part and helping their friends, family and neighbors.

The afternoon transformed into dusk as Sol drove his chariot of fire over the horizon.  We were introduced in a lecture to the Puglia region of Italy - the heel of the boot, so to speak.  Apparently, the whole Southern region is quite beautifully adorned with beaches, fascinating architecture, piazzas, and the Taranta - a native Southern Italian dance that began in the region as an interpretation of the way in which farmers bit by poisonous spiders could sweat the venom out of their bodies when harvesting the fields.  Though, culturally, the dance is believed to have been a way for the sexually suppressed conservative rural women to enjoy some form of intimacy with the opposite sex. 

The dance is simple, with a few basic footsteps that are incorporated into a primitive passionate game of cat and mouse, coy and promiscuous, with occasional poking duels between the men.  Our class all drank the Puglian region "Primitivo" wine and as we did, a sort of ethereal trance sparked inside of me. 

The class and other dancers lined the colorful lavishly decorated room's perimeter.  When the guitar player's fickle fingers picked and plucked his stringed instrument, the tambourine man joined in the rhythm with a steady beat and alternated with a bongo.  The resonating sound could have been that of a didgeridoo or electronically produced for that matter. 

Then the guitar player breathed in deeply, inflating his lungs and closed his eyes and passed air through his larynx whose powerful wind was vibrated by those longing and quivering vocal chords, and carried across the room to my eager ears and interpreted by my "Primitivo" entranced brain as the most beautiful audio experience I could have heard at that given moment. 

Then she appeared out of nowhere.  She was short, with thick dark hair, an olive complexion that screamed southern Italy, and a dark dress that bloomed like an inverted black bellflower when she would spin.  She and another man demonstrated the Taranta as we all watched and we were soon all invited to join in the dance. 

I probably would not have gotten up so quickly had it not been for the Primitivo, but I joined in and lifted my feet one at a time as I shuffled my opposite planted foot against the floor.  It felt completely natural to me as this was how I walked around elementary school hallways years ago.

The song ended and the student dancers all retreated to the perimeter of the circle.  This time, when the band struck up a song, the Italian man grabbed the hand of Erica, another student, and led her on to the dance floor.  And as they stepped and twirled and chased, a pair of eyes below a frame of dark hair caught my gaze and bit me like a spider.  The others had since stopped dancing, and the black-haired bella moved towards me, slowly, stepping, to the steady rhythm of the band and those eyes eagerly drew me out on the floor and the trance took over from there.

We danced the instinctual Taranta for what seemed like eternity, circling, stepping, chasing, engaging.  She gestured me to hold my arms around her as though holding a giant invisible barrel, and move my arms up and down in opposite directions as though shaking the barrel from side to side which in turn caused her to twirl like a tornado, her black dress expanding outward. 

The dance ended as quickly as it began and we were all so exhilarated by this cultural experience that we decided it would be best that the night did not end there, but continue on at a jazz bar by Vatican City.  And as we left, I turned and glimpsed the dancers and band members bundled up in their coats with their instruments all packed up, running giddily in the rain to wherever their life paths take them.  I did not know her name and I will probably never see her again, but I will never forget my first time being bit by the Taranta.

Jaime
Monte di Procida

View of the coast from John and Laurie's hillside villa

Thursday morning Brad and I did our routine ‘scurry out the door' for our 9:20 am class.  Little did we know that Rome's city transit system was on strike, so our professor had trouble getting to class.  It started out just being 20-30 minutes late, and then about an hour later, class got cancelled. It was a bit disappointing since we woke up SO early, but we got over it.  However, because of this strike, Brad and I had to walk to the main train station, Termini, to catch a train that afternoon to Naples-Napoli.

The walk isn't so bad, although it was one of the warmer days we've experienced in Rome and the trek is a constant incline the whole way.  Needless to say, when we got to Roma Termini, we were hot, sweaty, and not too thrilled for the crowded train ride to Naples.

Once we cooled off it was much more enjoyable, and the further we got from Rome, the more people that got off at all the stops between.  Two-and-a-half hours later, we arrived in Naples and patiently awaited Laurie to find us by the station to take us to her home in Monte di Procida. 

Laurie and her husband John are very good friends of our family, who we have known for a long time, and are stationed with the Navy in Naples; however, they chose to live off of the base in the quaint town of Monte di Procida. We got a little lost in Naples driving, because it was rush hour and they turn some roads that are usually two way streets into one way so it got quite confusing, but there was great conversation and we got to see a lot in the city!  

After many sinuous turns up and down hills, we arrived to John and Laurie's beautiful villa in Monte di Procida. It has a gorgeous view of the Mediterranean Sea, Naples, other neighboring towns and is surrounded by seven grape vines, fig trees, lemon trees, olive trees, great people and seven farm cats (all with names and two meals a day). 

That evening we headed to the neighbor's house for a quick glass of wine and then we all walked down to a favorite restaurant La Taverna dei Sapori. It is a fabulous restaurant where one will probably eat the best and most authentic Italian food from the Campania region.  La Taverna dei Sapori is owned and run by Mariella and her husband Pepe.

They are lovely people and their restaurant has a great ambiance and family feel to it. It is said in Italy, the best restaurants are the ones without menus, and this was certainly one of them.  We ate many typical appetizers of this region such as fried mozzarella balls, calamari, oysters, and croquets. 

Then for our main course we ordered two big dishes of pasta. The first was a dish prepared fusilli, which is different from our fusilli of the states. It looks more like telephone chords prepared with pumpkin and sausage. The other dish was Paccheri alla Norma, which is a typical pasta shape of the area, which looks like a one-by-one inch square that is actually a tube, prepared with eggplant and smoked mozzarella. 

There wasn't any left to bring home.  It was a very relaxing weekend, and it almost felt as if we were back home.  We also got to eat some typical Neapolitan-style pizza at a pizzeria owned by a man name Salvatore. It was definitely some of the best pizza I have ever had. It was so fresh and the crust was perfect. 

John and Laurie were so hospitable and so much fun to spend time with again. It was also very cool to see Italy from a small town perspective. Everything seemed a little more slowly paced.  It is amazing how much history this little groupings of towns have!  They are all surrounded by, or on the sides of, old volcanoes.  You can find sunken Roman towns, Venus's temple, ancient Roman baths, castles, the island where Brutus plotted to kill Caesar, the lake in which Dante refers to as the entrance to hell, and much more in such a small area.

Brad

Paesum temple

Jaime and Brad at the Paesum

The contemporary emperor of Paesum

It would have been exceptionally tempting to laze around at the lovely villa and simply bake in the sun all day while reading a book on the citrus, grape, and olive speckled hillside with a view of the Mediterranean coastline ... but Jaime and I are neither retired nor ready to be and our location was much too convenient for an adventure to the ruins of an ancient civilization. 

Escorted by our newfound naval aviator friend, Eric, (call sign "Dish") his cousin Jananin and her boyfriend, we confused our nervous systems with caffé corretto and weaved our way through the Italian highways along beaches, around active volcanoes, across farmland, and finally arrived at The Paestum.

The Paestum is the ruins of a 7th century Greek civilization that was subsequently conquered and ruled by the Romans.   Now nothing remains but the crumbling bones of history inhabited by a kingdom of lizards that, we theorized, had conquered the Romans some time ago. 

These ruins were unlike any others we have seen.  The massive pillared temples dedicated to such Gods and Godesses as Poseidon, Hera, and Athena and deteriorated neighborhood homes resided amidst a carpet of grass garnished with yellow wildflowers and surrounded by towering trees standing guard. 

A small Greek temple lay predominantly buried, apparently by the Romans, at the center of the ruins, yet was protected by a wall that they erected on behalf of reverence for the other culture's religious traditions.  It was strange to see such tolerance for a society who Rome had just pillaged, but admirable nevertheless. 

A third of an amphitheatre remained with white flowers all dotting the concealed grass.  We circled the entire archaeological site and treated ourselves to some sweet creamy frozen gelato to cool down before sleeping all the way home.

Jaime
Vulcano Sulfato

Hiding under umbrellas from the sulfuric steam of the volcano

One afternoon we drove to Il Vulcano Solfatara which is in the Phlegrean Fields volcanic region. As soon as we turned a corner a few blocks from the volcano, the smell of sulfur invaded the car. It is inactive, but still has steaming jets of sulfurous vapor up to 160° C.

Volcano Solfatra

There are also some mud fields that are bubbling because of the combination of the different gases in the mud and the mineral-rich water mixing together.  At one time it was even used as a spa. 

It was incredible actually standing in a crater of a volcano that once blew its top off.  There are numerous vents shooting steam out all along the crater walls, the ground is fairly soft because of the heat, and the pedestrian path is always changing because new vents appear along the way.  The rocky terrain is stained the yellow-green color of sulfur, yet in the distance you can see green trees and shrubs.  It was a very neat experience, and we are very thankful that it didn't wake up and explode us into the bay of Naples!