Pass the Cheese Please!

Here we are.  August 2011.  The semester following my time abroad.

As I am moving back into my fraternity house, I felt that it was only appropriate for me to write discussing the differences between living with my brothers, and living with three women.

For me, this past semester featured a living arrangement that was quite different than that of last fall.  Last fall I lived in my fraternity, Alpha Gamma Rho (social-professional agricultural fraternity).  This semester, as you know very well, I was living with three women.  As a result, I learned a lot and was forced to do many things.  Here is a summary.

1.  Toilet seat.  On the first day there I learned that I must always, ALWAYS, ALWAYS, put the toilet seat back down when I am finished in the bathroom.  I am proud to say that I have only forgotten to do this twice.  In the frat, you simply put the toilet seat in the desired position before you do your business.  I believe that the frat toilet seat protocol is a much simpler system.

2.  When around women all of the time, the do not think that “that’s what she said” jokes are funny, as clearly, a “she” did say the statement.  Had to quit saying that after a week.

3.  Women can be funny and play jokes back on you too

4.  Don’t pee in the shower.  Or at least don’t bring up that discussion at dinner.

5.  Girls will buy anything at little markets.  Personally, I have never seen a bunch of my brothers go to a market in downtown Ithaca soley to purchase underwear that has cows on it.

6.  Dinner Call.  In my frat, when dinner is ready , we simply yell up the stairs “DINNER!!!!”  Apparently this is unnecessary in our apartment.  I just did not want anyone to miss a good meal.

7.  No one gives you a high five for a good belch at dinner.

8.  Excusing yourself after burping is required.

9.  The question “what do you want to make for dinner?” Literally means “what do you want to make for dinner?”  Those nights I usually made grilled cheese.

10.  Why am I making my bed?  Apparently an unmade bed makes a room messy.  My room is by the bathroom so there is lots of traffic by it, so apparently it just looks better with the bed made.

This was a great semester for me, and I hope you got some entertainment out of this post.  I may have had to change some simple things, but the girls usually took good care of me too.

I am excited for the fall semester to start back up here at Cornell.  Whenever I see a reference to Italy on TV or hear one in conversation, I think to myself how awesome it was that I was there, and how badly I want to return.  It will not be nearly as relaxing as my semester in Parma, Italy.

Bouna Fortunata!

I made it back safe and sound!  I have a couple more things left to share before I close this blog!

One last weekend.  The only weekend remaining to go somewhere.  There was no way I was just going to sit around when I have more places on my to-go list.  So, this weekend, I hit up 3 of the cities I wanted to visit in Tuscany:  Florence, Lucca, and Pisa.

Florence

It was great to get back to Florence.  Last year with CUDS, we visited Florence and saw the Uffizi Gallery.  Florence is a completely different city in the second week of January compared to the first weekend in June.  There were people everywhere.  There were thousands of people just in the Duomo area.  We wandered around some Piazzas, went through the Galileo Museum, and stumbled upon a wine tour.  In the Galileo Museum, there were hundreds of astronomy and cartography related instruments, as well as Galileo’s middle finger in a glass jar.  The Wine tour was a wine event held in one of the Piazzas, just the other side of Ponte Vecchio.  Ponte Vecchio is a famous bridge over the river in Florence, where there are apartments and lots of jewelry shops.  The wine event featured Tuscany wines.  For 10€, we each were allowed 10 tastings and a wine glass.

Lucca

Sunday we went to Lucca and Pisa.  Lucca is 30 minutes by rail away from each other.  The historical district of Lucca is surrounded by an old city wall.  There are a lot of neat piazzas and churches here.  We visited San Giovanni church, which is an archeological site.  Underneath the floor of this 12^th century church, there are ancient ruins of former churches, towers, and Roman baths, among other things that have not been identified yet.  We were able to walk around this site.  It was neat to try to imagine what some of these ruins were when they were in their glory.  We visited Piazza dell’Anfiteatro, which is where a Roman amphitheater was located.  However, it was destroyed, and a ring of buildings in the same shape were put in its place.  There were lots of small restaurants and a couple small bands planning, and it still had the amphitheater effect because of how these buildings were built.  Our last stop was Torre Guingini, a tower in Lucca that has some trees growing at the top of it.  It makes for a nice climb, because once you get to the top, you have some shade instead of the sun beating down on you.

Pisa

After Lucca, we hopped on the train to Pisa.  When we arrived, we took a bus to the other side of the city where the Duomo, Torre, and Field of Miracles is located.  By doing this, we could reserve our time for climbing the famous Leaning Tower of Pisa.  We arrived to the sight around 4:00, and our assigned time for the 15€ climb was 5:40.  We were lucky, because sometimes the tower is under construction.  I did not even check to see if it was even climbable for the day that we went.  As we were waiting for our time slot, we took lots of tourist pictures of the leaning beast.  The clouds were dark, and yet the sun was bright, making for some awesome pictures.

The tower itself sure does lean.  It really is amazing how it is still standing.  It was so really neat to be in the presence of such a famous landmark.

The climb of the Leaning Tower of Pisa was definitely an interesting one.  There are 272 steps winding around to the top of the tower.  You can see marks on the walls from people’s shoulders rubbing on one side or the other depending on which side of the tower they were on because of the lean.  The lean really affects the climb, as it makes one side of the tower difficult to climb, and the other is easier.  You are almost stepping up as the stairs are leaning downwards.  Many of the steps are very, very warn, especially at the top, making it difficult to get footing sometimes.

The view from the top was spectacular, overlooking the clouds on mountains in the distance.  We were at the very top of the tower, with the only thing higher than us being the flag on top.  It was an easy climb, but it was also one of the most satisfying for me.

Parole: avanti (forward, onward, etc), museo (museum), regionale (regional)

Everybody knows that Monday is the worst day of the week.  Usually it is because you have to return to work or classes.  As the US celebrated Memorial Day, I had the day off from work experiences by coincidence.  So, I took advantage of this fact, and got on an early train to Torino.

My train from Parma to the Torino Porta Nova station was not the most confortable that I have been on.  I had two options:  Take a 5:57am regionale train (the type we normally take) and get there around 9 for 14 euro, or take the 7:17am IC (intercity class) train and arrive at 10 for 22 euros.  I wanted the extra hour of sleep and didn’t know what I could do in Torino at 9am, so I went for the latter option.  My next option would get me there at 1:30pm, which would not give me enough time in the Museo Nazionale dell’ Automobile, which would close by 2.

That was my first mistake.  When I bought my ticket, the machine warned me that there was only second class standing room available.  By this point, this was my only option.

The trained pulled up to platform 3 and it seemed like it was a mix overnight bed cars and “cuccetti”, which are cars in which ¾ of the width is made up of “rooms” with 6 first class seats, and the remaining part of the train is an aisle with seats that fold out into it.  This is where I had to stay for the 3 hour journey.  With every stop I had to stand up to let people go by, carelessly banging their suitcases against me, reflecting  their attitude of returning to work after the weekend.  The only windows that opened were in the rooms and at the very front and the back of the train, and they only opened a little bit.

I finally arrived, grabbed my key to the city—the Torino Card for free access to museums, attractions, and public transport—and headed to the Museo Nazionale dell’ Automobile.  I Google mapped it the previous evening and knew approximately where it was, and I saw where it was on tourist office’s map.

Forty-five minutes later, I was beginning to wonder just where this museum was.  I stopped and asked two middle aged men, Dove il Museo dell’ Automobile? And they responded with, Uno chilometre avanti. I was on the right track.  They asked me a few times if I was really an American, why I was in Torino, and after a good talk, they asked for my phone number.

I arrived at the Museo after a little over an hour of walking.  Apparently on the map, it doesn’t indicate where the Museo actually is, but rather it tags it in small print as being 3 km south of the border of the map.  Missed that part.

The Museo is full of history and cars, and is brand new, having just opened this spring.  The first section concentrated on the evolution of the car, how the design is constantly changing, and that there is no way to know what the cars will actually be like in the future until we get there.  There were hundreds of cars from many eras in automotive design.  One section featured the evolution of the wheel, appropriately sponsored by Michelin.  The museum had a general concentration on European and Italian cars, but there was an occasional Oldsmobile or Cadillac.  The second section featured racecars, manufacturing, road signs and car parts.  The final section featured super sports cars and concept cars.

After the Auto Museum, I took at 10 minute bus ride back to the city center.  I wandered around to some of the landmarks, but many were closed because it was a Monday. I knew this from when I did some research on the city, and I was there because that was when I had the opportunity to go.  I really wanted to go up into the peak of the Cinema museum, housed in the Mole Antonelliana building, but that was closed as well.  From there I would have had a spectacular view of the Alps.

After some more exploring of palaces, castles, piazzas, parks, and the regional museum of natural science, it was time to go home.

Lessons Learned?

Always  take cheap, “regionale” trains in Italy. (Unless you are going a long distance, or would like the luxury of the high speed rail).  The regionale trains are generally comfortable and not overcrowded compared to the intercity train that I took to Torino.

Don’t be a tourist on a Monday. A lot of businesses and attractions are closed Mondays.  This may have been my only chance to stop in, and to see the Automobile Museum, so I took advantage of it, even though many other things I would have liked to see were closed.

Read the fine print on the map. Some things you want to see may be more than a reasonable walking distance away.

It is day 100 of my semester in Italy, and I only have 10 more days, but I still have so many more things I would like to do and to see!

Parole: bellissimo (very beautiful), escursione (hike), mare (sea)

Today Aubrey, Victoria, and I went to the Cinque Terre.  The Cinque Terra refers to a touristic national park located between Geneva and La Spezia along the west coast, just a little over 2 hours from Parma by rail.  It was filled with Americans and English appeared to be the dominant language.  Considering how small the towns are, I was surprised at just how many tourists there were.  Cinque Terre literally means five lands, and refers to five scenic coastal towns that make up the area.  The tows are connected by rail and by hiking trails.

The first town was Riomaggiore.  Our train went directly to Riomaggiore, but it stopped first in La Spezia.  At La Spezia, hundreds of people got on the train to go to Riomaggiore.  The train had to go through tunnels in order to get there.  Now and then there would be a 5 second break in the tunnels, and we would be right on the coast on the edge of the sea, and the entire overcrowded train was filled with “ooooohs” and “aaaaaahs” and overall excitement.  We went the wrong way after we got off the train and ended up on the trail headed to the next town instead of exploring the main part of Ropmaggiore.

This first path was between Riomaggiore and Manarola.  It is called Via dell’amore, or “way of love.”  It was a very scenic, paved, well-kept trail directly on the coast and surrounded by cacti and flowers.  It took less than a half hour to walk.  Once we arrived in Manarola, we grabbed a piece of pesto focaccia and a bottle of water, wondered around a small market, and headed to the next town.  However, we got to the trail head, and it said that the trail was too dangerous to walk and it was closed.  Based on the condition of the final trail of the day, I question how dangerous “too dangerous” really is.  It was probably closed for renovations.

Because the trail was closed, we had to take a train to Corniglia.  Once we got to the station, we were faced with 382 steps of a back-and-forth staircase in order to get to the town.  These stairs turned out to be a breeze compared to the stairs we had on our next two trails.  We took a pit stop in Corniglia, walked around a bit, and headed for Vernazza.  The Rick Steves’ Italy book says that this is a 90 minute hike, but it is the “wildest and greenest section of the coast…and is very rewarding but very hilly.”  So, we gave it a shot.  The trail was long with lots of stairs.  The scenery was amazing, and it took us through vineyards and olive groves on narrow and beat stone and dirt paths.  It was a rough hike and it took us probably around 80 minutes to complete.  It was quite a feeling of accomplishment when we sat down at the end of the trail at “Bar La Torre” for a glass of fresh lemonade, a sandwich, and a couple bottles of water.

The town of Vernazza, like the other towns, is pretty small.  It has a small beach and a castle and lots of tourist shops.  We decided to skip climbing the castle because of the steep hike to get to the town.  We got some gelato, more water, and went on our way to the final town, Monterosso.

Rick Steves’ warns that the trail from Vernazza to Monterosso is another 90 minute hike, is very scenic, has lots of ups and downs, and many of the trails are rough, narrow, and some say are downright dangerous.  To us, this meant we had to try it.  As it turns out, Mr. Steves was right on the money.  The first 20 minutes or so was old rough stone & wood stairs which varied by size, length and width.  After that the trail started to go downhill.  That was because we had to go back down into a valley to get to the next set of stairs up.  The trail kept going up and down lots of stairs and there were narrow paths on top of high ledges.  It was always fun trying to figure out how to pass someone going in the opposite direction.  This one also took us through some vineyards.  All the time I would think to myself, whose idea was it to make these trails, and who is crazy enough to have agriculture on this terrain?  Just to get into the fields there were narrow stone steps.

The last 10-15 minutes of the hike was down steep stairs that were even rougher than the ones that we went up.  The drop down into the valley was so steep.  We took about 90 minutes on this trail, and it was very rewarding, especially because Monterosso has a beach, where we relaxed.  I took a dip into the Mediterranean and swam around a bit.  After the beach closed, we went to dinner at a restaurant on the beach, and then caught a train home.  We got back into Parma around 11, and I went immediately to sleep.

Overall the day was tiring, yet beautiful and extremely rewarding.  It was so nice to relax on the beach after a long day of hiking.  Overall we hiked about 7 miles, but it felt like so much more because of the rough terrain.  Parts of the trails made us feel like we were going through a jungle, with plants and trees hanging all around us, crossing little creeks and watching salamanders scurry all over the trails.  We were a little rushed because we wanted to get to the last town before the beach closed, but relaxing on the beach was so rewarding.

I am headed to Torino tomorrow so more posts to come soon!

Parole: viaggio (trip), gioco (game)

I sure have a lot of catching up to do!

On Tuesday, May 17^th we went to Roma with a group called Coldiretti. Coldiretti means something along the lines of directly cultivating, meaning you are in direct control of your farm.  The group is a young farmers organization which has some political influence and has support programs for agriturismos, small farm guarantees of quality, and local ag marketing.  We have been to a couple of their local meetings, and this was their national conference.  We got on a charter bus at midnight, arrived in the outskirts of Rome around 6AM, had wine, cheese, bread, and salami for breakfast (yes, at 6am, I love Italy!) and waited for the 10:30AM start time of the conference.  I am guessing that we got there so early so we could miss the rush hour traffic.

Unfortunately, because we were on a bus, we did not sleep very well, so during the conference we kept dozing off and had to keep waking each other up.  We felt bad because it was free trip to this national conference, but we were just too tired, especially when trying to translate what the speakers were saying.  The conference was about 4 hours long and then for lunch we went to an agriturismo just outside of Rome. Then we got on the bus, returning to Parma around 10PM.

On this trip we met quite a few people.  One of them was Manuel Busi, who owns an agriturismo south of Parma in the mountains.  Manuel has always loved comics and board games, and went to college for computer science and information technology.  Following college, he opened up his own comic book store, but the rent was too damn high*. He closed the shop and took on a new venture.  The European Union announced grants for starting agriturismos (usually consisting of a small farm, a restaurant, and some rooms, similar to a bed and breakfast).  Around the same time, his family purchased some land in the mountains of Neviano degli Arduini in the province of Parma.  These factors collided, and “Il Filare” agriturismo was born.

On Saturday we visited his agriturismo.  It is 3 years old and still in the process of being built.  The agriturismo and the landscape surrounding it are absolutely beautiful.  It amazes me how many round bales I saw on these steep, mountainous fields.  For facilities, the agriturismo boasted an old stone design, and had exposed wooden beams and rafters.  It has 4 rooms for rent, a restaurant, and a few common rooms.

Outside, Manuel had strawberries, raspberries, blackberries, and some spices.  A kilometer or so away he had a small plot for other vegetables, and another kilometer away was a small potato plot.  Everything grown and served at the agriturismo is organic—even the Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese we had with our delicious lunch.  Lunch featured Parmigiano-Reggiano with Balsamic vinegar, tortelli erba, tortelli stuffed with radish, and a third type which I don’t remember.  The second plate was goat meat, and for desert we had homemade gelato.  Everything at the agriturismo is made and grown by his family.

We also learned a card game called Briscola, which is commonly played by old men at bars. We used Piacentine cards, which are playing cards used in the north.  There are 4 suits numbered with 2-7, bishop, horse, king, and ace.  It was confusing at first, but it was a lot of fun.  Furthermore, part of the reason that we got to know Manuel so well is because he speaks English.  When he speaks, he has almost an American accent.  We arrived at his farm, and his father also spoke English without much of an accent.  Sometimes it made us forget that they were Italian!

For more information about this agriturismo, visit http://www.agriturismoilfilare.it/ It was a beautiful day and once again, we will never go hungry (unless we are sitting around our apartment.  Our fridge seems to be lacking in the “what can I eat right now” department.  Lots of PB&J sandwiches for meals lately!)

Ciao!

*For those of you outside NY, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rent_Is_Too_Damn_High_Party for more information about Jimmy McMillan and the “Rent is 2 Damn High” political party. This is purely a humorous reference and is not a political stance.

Parole: Caseificio (cheesehouse), fattoria per la produzione di latte (dairy farm), mungiturare (to milk)

Happy Mid-May!  I have been very busy since spring break with our work experiences and other things that we have been doing.  The weather has been warm to almost too hot, and has been nearly always sunny.  Today is no exception, being in the mid-80s and sunny as can be.  Here is a recap of some of the things I have been up to.

Caseificio

For the first week of the work experience portion of our program, I worked at a small Caseificio called Punto Latte. Punto Latte makes 6 wheels of Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese a day.  Being small, we were able to stop and talk a lot about the cheese making, so we could fully understand the entire process.  We were also able to help make the cheese.  The milk used at the caseificio is from their own farm and one other farm.  Also on site there is a pig farm and a cheese/meat/salami shop.  At the caseficio, I learned a lot about the art of making Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese.  Daily, there are so many small adjustments to be made to the amount of rennet (caglio) and siero innestra (whey from the previous day’s cheese; used for maintaining bacterial profile and increasing acidity of the milk) that is added to the caldron.  I did not realize just how much the acidity of the siero innestra and the milk would affect how much ingredients were put in and the quality of the cheese.  Also, the size of the curd has a lot of effect on the cheese.  Too small, and the cheese will be too dry, too large, and it will ferment during aging.  The milk fat affects how long the cheese can be aged and the milk protein (specifically casein) affects the overall cheese yield.  In general, it takes 16 kg of milk to make 1 kg of Parmigiano-Reggiano.  After the initial action, the cheese is more or less molded into the wheel shape, put in a salt bath for 20 days, and aged for 12 to 30 months.  The average is 24 months, and at 12 months it is checked by a quality control institute and branded with the Parmigiano-Reggiano consorzio marking.  If it is not up to standards, the rind is ground off, and it is sold as a regular, “national grade” parmigiano type cheese.

Because of the other operations at the caseficio, we also watched pig halves be cut up into pieces to be sold in the shop, saw their pig operation, and saw some prepping for making salamis.  We also toured the dairy farm where the milk comes from to make the cheese.  The owner of the farm has very good dairy genetics as a result of meeting Dr. Robert Everett when he came to Modena a long time ago.

Paganina Dairy Farm

My second work experience was at a large dairy farm called Paganina.  This farm milks nearly 1000 cows, and had another 1000 in young stock.  I had never worked on a farm this large before; I have only toured them.  The farm’s milk went to their own caseificio to make Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese.  For facilities, all barns were cover-all type buildings, and in the building with the parlor, there were locker rooms, a commercial kitchen for everyone to use, and an office.

While we were there, we worked mostly with the vet and herd management staff, and we milked in the parlor.  Their parlor is a double-40 parallel.  This means that 80 cows are in the parlor at a time, and each group of 40 was in there for about 20 minutes.  Therefore, in less than an hour, I milked the equivalent of my entire milking herd at my farm at home.   There were usually 4-5 people milking.

Each cow has an ankle RFID bracelet/pedometer, which is a part of their “Total Dairy Management” program.  The cow is recognized by the system as she enters the parlor, and her activity level, milk, and milk conductivity are automatically entered into the system.  As she leaves the parlor, she is stopped on a set of scales, and she is weighed.  At this station, the computer also decides if she can return with the rest of the herd, or if she needs to go to the vet check pens.  If she has had a spike in activity level, needs to be checked for pregnancy, or a milker entered a problem code into the keypad in the parlor, a gate swings and she is separated.  I think this total integration is very cool.  It is neat to look at graphs of all of this data, and it helps in diagnosing problems.  One cow lost 100 kg (220 pounds) in one day.  She was sent by the system to the vet check pen.  She had a bad foot, which explains everything.

We got a lot of practical experiences working with the vets.  We got to practice a lot of rectal exams (or as they call it, “rectal exploration”) to understand the reproductive state of the animal.  We would feel for follicles, swelling, abnormalities, and pregnancies.  If she was in heat, manure was put on her rump to mark it (tradition on the farm) and then later she would be bred.  We learned how to prepare semen for AI, and since Liz is AI certified, she was able to breed some cows (with the help of a step-stool, of course).  One of the vets, Toto, liked the idea.  He is not any taller than Liz, and when I was there, he bred his first cow at this particular farm, and used the help of a stool as well.  While I worked with the vets, I gave a lot of shots and was able to help with a lot of therapies.  We also checked every breeding age heifer every day for heat.  If she was showing signs of heat, we did a rectal exam to confirm.

I learned a lot at this farm, especially because we spent a lot of hours there and worked with the vet staff.  It was my first time doing a lot of the things that we did with the vets, because my farm is so small that we don’t have nearly as many animals that need to be worked on.  I also learned a lot about how to improve personnel management on the farm.  It was nice to have an experience which was very hands on.  Both at the farm and the caseficio we were able to significantly improve our comprehension of Italian, as we were listening to it all the time.

Odds & Ends

Last week we did the next step for our “residence permit”.  Monday was our appointment at the immigration office.  We thought that we would be done with this whole process after this appointment, however, we are not.  We went to the immigration office, waited an hour, got called up basically to make sure that we were at the office, waited another hour, got called up for photo IDs and fingerprinting, and then waited some more, and then were called up to get our fingerprints taken again, along with our palm prints taken.  We were told last fall by the Visa Office in NYC that all we needed to do was turn in paperwork to the police office.  This whole thing is a bureaucracy madhouse in which we have had to do more paperwork, pay nearly 70 Euros, and waste a lot of time and fuel.  Our next appointment is in July, which is after we leave, as they know.  This whole “residence permit” seems pointless and has wasted many of our limited days here in Italy.

In a couple days I will post some more, so this post isn’t overwhelmingly long.  I hope the rain at home stops soon!

A dopo!

Here is the final chapter about my spring break.  This week, as a part of our work experience, I have been working at a caseificio called Punto Latte, in Novi di Modena.  I have learned a lot about Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese production and about cuts of pork.  Cheese making truly is an art.  I will have more details about all of this towards the end of the week.  I hope you enjoy the last part of my vacation!  I sure did!

Stockholm

The last day of my break was spent in Stockholm.  Stockholm is made up of many Islands and is the capital of Scandinavia.  Its Old Town truly seems like a completely different city than the rest of Stockholm.  It has such a different atmosphere to it.  Old town, like in many old parts of cities, has stone streets, narrow alleyways, the royal palace, large churches, and parliament.  Stockholm, like most Swedish towns, has a walking-only street.  The one is Stockholm is MUCH larger than the one in Uppsala.  It is like a “downtown” type area, with lots of little shops, restaurants, and pubs.  Stockholm also has a massive public transportation hub, for buses, subways, and trains.

The Swedish language was difficult to figure out.  Some words looked very similar to English words, or were English, but the rest looked (to me) like gibberish.  The Swedish language is the closest language to that of what the Vikings spoke (very cool).  Further, a majority of people (or at least of the ones that I ran into) spoke Swedish and English.  Many of them, like announcers on our cruises and in train stations, would switch back and forth with no problem and hardly any accent.  The word for Hello in Swedish is “Hej”, pronounced like a soft, friendly “hey” in English, making it difficult to figure out if the person you are about to speak with, knows your language.

The Vasa

We walked around Stockholm a bit, and then we headed to the Vasa Museum.  The Vasa is a very old, elegant warship built by Sweden, which sunk in the Stockholm harbor in 1628.  She was about 1500 meters into her maiden voyage.  The ship had two levels of gun chambers and little room for ballast, so it was tipsy.  Investigations seem to conclude that it was poor design.  However, no one was blamed for the accident.  This is because half way through the building of the Vasa, the King demanded that a second floor or cannons be added.  This through off the balance of the entire ship, and as she tipped, the openings for the cannons were closer to the water than other ships, so she took on water, and went down.

The ship was recovered in the 1960s, and the entire project took several years to carefully excavate and bring to the surface.  It was well preserved in the anaerobic environment 40 meters deep into the sea.  It was slowly lifted by cables, and holes in the hull were repaired so it could float once it got to the surface.  Upon recovery, many skeletons were found.  Most of them were found alone, except for a man and a woman that were found together on the upper deck.  One skeleton was found pinned under a cannon carriage.  Not all of the sails were flying when it sunk, so several sails were found in the sail cabinet, never used.

The Vasa itself was very elegant and had a well thought out design (you know, except for the while faulty ballast engineering thing, which caused her to sink.  But we won’t talk about that).  The back of the ship was full of colorful statues, the coat of arms of Sweden, and the coat of arms of the Vasa family.  There were lions on all of the cannon port openings.  The lion is a symbol of Sweden, representing power and strength.  There were also lions on very front of the boat.  Sticking out from the sides, the ship had “musketeers’ quarters” for close contact battles with other ships.  Further, there were holes to drain water out of the boat  from upper levels, which would be plugged during battles, and the water would be pumped around the ship as fire-prevention.  This pump was a hallowed out log, and it worked similarly to a manual air pump for a bike tire.

Old Town

In the evening, I said goodbye to Kaylie, Adam, and Danna, and I stayed in Stockholm for the night because of early flight the next morning.  This is when I realized that I truly am a wanderer.  I enjoyed wandering around the old town some more, and finding the best place to see the sunset in the harbor.  While I was taking pictures, I noticed that a building across the harbor had a tower with a crescent on it, and another tower with stars on it.  Earlier that day, I saw a picture of only the crescent and the stars from this building on a postcard.  This is when I realized, that, the way I see it, a postcard is a challenge. You go to a place, see postcards, and they are usually some of the better sights of a city.  AND, you cannot buy a postcard with something on it that you have not actually seen, because that is called cheating the system!  I realized that the way I travel, is that I turn postcards into challenges for myself, which is perfect for my hobby of wandering around to get to know a place.

Parliament is connected to the Royal Palace through a tunnel under a bridge connecting the islands that the two are on.  Parliament looks like a really old structure, but it also has some relatively modern additions built right on top of it.  Appropriately, all of these buildings have lions on them.

Final Flight and what’s Next

I had an early flight out of Stockholm Skavsta on my final morning (Tuesday).  The landing into Milano Bergamo gave me the most beautiful view of the Alps.  Ever.  No argument about it.  (In case you were wondering, this is my 5^th flight over the alps since January 2010).  The airport I landed at is just south of the Alps, so we were very close to them on a clear, sunny morning.  The puffy clouds looked so beautiful with the snow covered alps sticking through them.  I couldn’t get a picture good enough to capture the true beauty of the Alps.

My spring break was an awesome experience, especially because I got to meet up with friends also studying around Europe.  I am so glad that got to see other countries, especially because I do not know if or when I will have the opportunity to travel in Europe again.  I never thought that I would ever be so far north or so close to Russia (while I was in Estonia, rumor had it that we were within 300 miles of Moscow….I looked at a map and we were even closer to St. Petersburg.)  The sunrise was at 4:30 am when I was on my way to the airport on Tuesday.  It is amazing the difference in the length of day between Italy and Sweden, purely due to geography.

The rest of the week I spent organizing pictures, writing about spring break, catching up on the news and with some friends back home, and working on some projects at the Faculty.

Best of luck to everyone back home as they finish up their final week of classes and enjoy finals week (if you can), and with the crazy weather in NY lately!

Here is Part 2 of my Spring break.  One final part will be posted soon!

Cheerio London.  Hej Sweden!

Thursday I flew to Sweden (back to my original time zone).  The Stockholm Skavsta airport is actually an 80 minute bus ride away from the city of Stockholm.  In Stockholm, I met up with Kaylie Ackerly, who is spending the semester at SLU (not St. Lawrence University) in Uppsala.  We got on a quick 40 minute train ride to Uppsala, where I spent the night and toured around this very small college town.  It has some botanical gardens, a Pink Castle, and a huge church.  Friday I met up with Adam McNamara and they were telling me that the snow had just melted a few weeks prior.  Snow!  I hadn’t seen the stuff since February!  Kaylie was wearing a T-Shirt and was comfortable, and I was chilly wearing my fleece jacket.  I think this warm, Italian climate is changing my cold tolerance.

Later that afternoon we went to Stockholm, met up with Danna Bohman, and the four of us went on our first cruise of Easter Weekend.  Actually, it was my first cruise ever.  Our overnight journey had a New York City theme, which was strange, as we were Helsinki bound.  Being the cheap students that we are, we were in a small room located under the waterline of the ship.  In fact, we were even below the cargo deck. The cargo deck has customer’s cars as well as tractor trailers.  It amazes me that there were tractor trailers on our ship.  I was very pleased that the ship had Lambrusco wine and Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese.  Unfortunately, the Lambrusco was from the region of Puglia, so it was not what I would consider to be REAL Lambrusco.

Helsinki, Finland

We arrived in Helsinki in the morning and walked around for the day.  This was one more time zone east, or “earlier” if you will.  In the city saw the presidential palace, some parks, and some markets.  One vender in the “Old Marketplace” building sold meat from the “United Steaks of America”. The city also has a cheap and effective Tram system, allowing us to go around the city and see the sights.  One of our planned destinations was to visit Temppeliaukio Kirkko, which is the “rock church”.  It is a contemporary church built into a large rock in the center of traffic circle.  Unfortunately, it was under construction and we could not enter it.  But, we could walk around the top of it.  Later at one of the markets, we bought delicious sweet bread.  It was similar to how a pumpkin roll is made.  He bread was sweet, and it was rolled with a cutter and sugar filling.  It was delicious.

In the late afternoon, we got on our second boat:  A 2 hour cruise across the Balitc to Tallinn, Estonia.  It was only a 2 hour cruise, so we did not have a room, but we did have some comfy couches.

Tallinn, Estonia

I hate to admit when I fall for things, but Tallinn was a city that I fell in love with. I’m not sure that I could live there for a long period of time, and there language is very foreign (as was Swedish and Finnish), but I really liked how the city was set up, and what it had to offer.  A fun fact is that it was named the 2011 European Capital of Culture.  Because of that, it is holding several large events throughout the year.

We arrived around 7PM.  We checked into the hostel, watched a Fiat Panda get turned into a 120 foot Limo on the British TV show Top Gear, and wandered around part of the city.  I was determined to find the sunset, as it was looking gorgeous.  We kept walked towards the sea, and we found this large, abandoned concrete structure.  This is it.  Let’s go up those stairs! We climbed up the stairs and found some other photographers, and saw a glorious view of the sun setting on the Baltic.

Before we returned to the hostel, we found a store which was even more like a Wal-Mart than the Ipercoop here in Italy.  It was cheaper and had a better selection of everything.  We also saw a tractor trailer which was some sort of snack bar.  The trailer was pulled by a semi with a long nose…the first non-flat fronted truck I have seen since February.

We woke up and turned on the TV to watch America’s Funniest Home Video’s on TV, subtitled in Estonian.  It is interesting what shows you find in other countries.  (The other night here in Italy I was watching the Italian version of Who Wants to be a Millionaire, and a dubbed Walker Texas Ranger). Sunday also meant that it was Easter.  After living in Italy, I expected EVERYTHING to be closed.  False.  Shops, markets, and attractions were open.  We even visited this local foods store which had all sorts of delicious treats, from dried fruit and cookies to chocolates and honey.

The great part about Tallinn is that old stuff is built in with the new stuff.  There are extremely modern, completely glass buildings as well as medieval buildings.  There is also an Old Town, which is surrounded by a medieval wall, and contains many churches, and a gothic-style Town Hall.  Adam and I climbed up the city wall.  In the viewing area, there were signs describing what the various towers and unique buildings were that we could see.  We could also see some half-melted snow piles in shadowy areas by buildings.  I saw St. Olaf’s Church, and saw the size of the tower, and saw people up there, and said “We are going up there”.

The Old City is built on a hill.  There are not many hills here in the Po River Valley, where Parma is located, so I had to get used to Ithaca-type streets and paths again.  We saw several churches.  One of the, Alexander Nevsky Cathedral was unique because its architecture was Russian (Estonia has been a free country only for 20 years, since the collapse of the USSR).

After lunch, we went up St. Olaf’s.  The tower is about 120 meters tall in total.  It was 60 meters to the viewing area, which is literally the edge of the roof at the base of the steeple.  The wooden platform we were standing on was about 3 feet wide, sitting on top of the roofing, and there was fencing on the edge for safety reasons.  It was then another 60 meters to the tip of the steeple (which we could not go up to, unfortunately).  The view was marvelous.  We could see for miles over the Baltic and inland.  The 263 steps up the narrow, bidirectional staircase gave us some satisfying exercise.

In the evening we boarded our final cruise ship back to Stockholm.  This room was above water level, and had a TV.  We watched The Ugly Truth and Flyboys, both of which had the original audio and Estonian subtitles.  The TV also had a channel telling us where on the Sea we were, and a channel for the camera on the front of the boat so we could see where we were going.  As we were traveling west back to Stockholm, and entering a “later” time zone, the sun seemed to never set.  I think it was nearly 10PM Estonian time when it set.  I have no idea which time zone we were in when I finally dipped under the horizon.

Parole: Londra (London), torre (tower), fiume (river)

Spring Break 2011 will be a time that I will remember for the rest of my life.  I visited many countries and met up with other friends studying abroad around Northern Europe.  At one point during my journey, I realized that I was in 4 countries and 3 time zones within 3 days.  How awesome is that?  My destinations included London, Uppsala & Stockholm, Sweden, Helsinki, Finland,  and Tallinn, Estonia. By far, my favorite city was Tallinn.  I would say that London was a close second place.

So let’s get down to business.  I will be posting over the next few days so that I don’t overwhelm you!  On a sidenote, the work experience part of our program will be starting Monday, so two of us will be staying at Federico’s farm and working at a nearby caseificio and two of us will be staying in the apartment to work on a large fattoria per la produzione di latte.

Arrivederci Parma.   Hello London.

On Sunday, April 18^th I was the only one left in the apartment.  So, I went to Federico’s farm for the evening and came back on Monday.  I had a lot of fun.  While I was there, I helped him and his father work on many little, random projects around his farm and house, both of which are in the process of being renovated.  I was the only American there, so obviously, English was not the dominate language.  I feel like I learned a lot of Italian and improved my speaking abilities significantly by being alone with a family of Italians.  I hope that I get this opportunity again.  Even Federico’s three-year old son was teaching me Italian.  At dinner, he would say a word (usually complicated ones like Italian names for dinosaurs) and then I would have to repeat it.  After I would repeat the word (or at least try to) we would all laugh at me (I can’t pronounce words correctly in my own language, let alone in Italian!).  In return, I did the same thing to him with English words.  I was nice and said simple words like “water” and “plate”, as opposed to things like “ippopotamo” (hippopotamus…in Italian it is a lot harder to say than you think!)

Monday, I headed to the Parma airport for my cheap RyanAir flight to London.  I had so many thoughts running through my head.  The most common ones where Keys? Wallet? Phone? Passport? Tickets? Electircal tape? (hey, you never know).  I must have looked funny patting myself down every few minutes to make sure that I still had all of the essentials. The London airport that I flew into is a 40 minute train ride outside of London, so I got to my hostel around 6:30 that evening.  I took a walk around the city.  It was really peaceful because the tourists were all back at their hotels or at dinner for the evening.  This meant that I was able to observe a lot of native Londoners.  It appears to be a very physically active city.  The bikers and joggers wore reflective gear, which is not something you see in Italy.  The bikers also were wearing helmets, and their bikes had headlights, also a rareity in Italy.  Something I did not figure out is why 96.475% (just an estimate) of all runners that I saw were wearing backpacks.  They were not even backpacks with waterbladders in them.  Most of them were just regular backpacks!  Anyway, Parliament and Big Ben were pretty all lit up in the evening.  I also noticed that the water level on the River Thames seemed to be pretty low.  One former boat is now a bar/resturant, and it was sitting on pieces of wood holding it up off from the shore!  There was also some sort of rig that had a platform and some small cranes, and it was near the riverbank, and it was about 15 feet above the water level, and there was no water underneath it on once side.

Wandering around, it was difficult to cross the road.  Why?  It is so hard to figure out which way to look when crossing the road.  The whole “left hand” driving thing is still so trange to me.  For the tourists, most of the intersections had signs on them that said “look left” or “look right”, just to lessen the chance of us getting hit because we didn’t check for cars while J-Walking (read that as cross walks weren’t always used anyway).

The next morning I got up early and headed to Buckingham Palace, some memorials, and some parks.  Because the time was one hour later than what I was used to, it was no problem for me to get up early, grab a quick breakfast, and be on my merry way.

It is amazing how peaceful a city is at 8:30 in the morning.  There was less than 20 people around Buckingham Palace.  I walked some more and explored Hyde Park (500+ acres, has beautiful gardens, a pond, a resturant), Green Park, and Saint James Park.  While I was in Hyde Park, about 200 guards on horses went by.  Following the calvary was a trailer that said “HORSE AMBULENCE” and a street cleaner.  They clearly have a system.  There were also a few people riding their horses around on dirt paths in Hyde Park.

By 11:30, there were literally hundreds and hundreds of people outside of Buckingham.  In the afternoon I went to the London Aquarium. Ironically, there is a sushi bar located on top of it.  Then, I met up with Katie Grandle, a Cornell student spending the year studying at Durham University, and we went on the London Eye.  The London Eye had a great view.  For those of you who don’t know, it is a giant ferris wheel with 32 “pods” that hold around 30 people.  Now, it only has 31 pods.  Number 13 was removed because the Britis are very superstitious people.

A majority of the day Wednesday I spent on one of the famous “The Origional Tour” open top bus tours.  I learned a lot about London, and found some sights that I really wanted to see.  Best of all, my ticket was good for 24 hours, so I could use it to get on and off the bus to go around the city.  I also did some more wondering around the actual City of London, and walked around St. Paul’s Cathederal, walked over the Thames on the millineium bridge, and walked around Shakespeare’s Globe Theater.  A final destination Wednesday was the Royal Mews, where the Golden Carraiage is loacted.  The carriage weighs 4 tons and there is 1 man for every two horses in the team of horses that pull it.

If I ever get the chance to return to London, I have a few more places that I would like to visit.  I would like to visit the Tower of London, Westminster Abbey, and the Britian at War museum.  Westminster Abbey was closed when I wanted to tour it because of a Holy Week service.  I did walk around the outside of it a few times. It was also being prepared for the Royal Wedding.

Fun Facts about London

• “Big Ben” refers to the 13.2 ton bell that rings every hour, not the tower itself.
• The actual city of London is only about 1 square mile.  It is the business center.  It contains the oldest and the newest structures in London.  They are working on digging up ancient Roman ruins there.  It is amazing how the Romans were all the way up there, and actually founded London.
• The city of London was completely destroyed in 1666 with the great fire that started at the Kings Bakery on Pudding Lane.  If the memorial tower to the fire is set on its side, the tip will land at the source of the fire.
• The great fire destroyed the entire city but only killed 4 people.  The plague killed hundreds of thousands of people.  The fire is believed to end the plague, because it killed the rats and the pathogen-carrying fleas that were on them.
• St. Paul’s Cathedral was destroyed in the London Fire.  The builder of the new Cathedral, Christopher Wren, also designed a pub just down the street from the Cathedral.  Which was built first?  Yep, the pub.  The tour guide said he is the “best boss ever” because is workers could take a break, “drink a pint, and go back to work!”
• The narrowest pub in London is “Ye Olde Cock Tavern”, at 9.5 feet wide.
• “Alfred’s Pub” had a bell in it for when a vote was about to happen in Parliament, so the councilmen could get back in time to make a decision.
• The Brits are very superstitious, as I mentioned about the number 13 pod on the London Eye.  They say the country is in danger if the “Lions drink”, referring to the lion statues on the edge of the Thames.  The Thames is a tidal river, and while I was there, they lions almost got rid of their thirst, because the water level fluctuated greater than 10 feet daily.  The floating restaurant I mentioned earlier was actually floating during the day, and the rig I talked about only had a few feet in between the water level and the platform during the day.  Further, Ravens are kept in the Tower of London.  If they disappear, the monarch is in danger.  Many of these Ravens died during WWII.  As a result, they had to repopulate the tower with Ravens, just so that the Brits wouldn’t freak out.
• Winston Churchill was a wise, brilliant, and a funny man.  A guide on the Original Tour told us some quotes.  Someone once said to him “if you were my husband, I would poison you.” He responded with “If you were my wife, I would drink it!” Another evening, Churchill was drunk at a bar, and a woman said “you’re drunk.” Mr. Churchill responded with “and in the morning, I won’t be.  In the morning, you will still be ugly.” Like I said, he was a very smart man.

Thanks for sticking with me.  Part two will be posted soon!

Parole: rompere (to break), pianificare (to plan),

Wow!  I can’t believe that it has been 12 days since my last post!  This last week was the final week of the coursework portion of our exchange program, so naturally it was a busy one.  We have the next two weeks off and when we come back, our work experiences will begin.

IZSLER

Last Friday with our Food Safety class, we visited the Instituto Zooprofilattico Sperimentale della Lombardia e dell’ Emilia Romagna.  This more or less means we went an organization which does consulting, experiments, and lab work for anything that has to do with animals and food.  There is an entire network of these institutes across Italy, and the one in Brescia is the headquarters for the regions of Lombardia and Emilia Romagna, and is where the milk testing lab is.  We learned a lot about what the Instituto does, and toured the facilities.  They began milk testing for quality reasons as it was related to milk pricing.  Now they do tests on individual cow’s samples and daily bulk tank samples.  They also test the long term stability of foods in their “challenge lab”, where they make foods or new food ideas from producers and see what happens from a microbiological standpoint.

Dairy Farm, Horse Breeding, and a Milk Processing plant

Tuesday, we went on a surprise field trip with Giovanni and Giuseppe for ag systems, and we visited a 450 cow dairy farm with a 30 stall herringbone rotary parlor.  The workers stand on the inside of this rotary, and it only requires 2 workers because they can walk straight across the middle instead of around the outside of the carousel.  They also have many horses they use for breeding, some beef cattle, and lots of solar panels.  We saw a couple fouls that were born within the past week.

After lunch, we went to a latteria¸ which processes Provolone Dolce and Provolone Picante (like a sharper, more flavorful cheese, not necessarily “hot and spicy), Grana Padano (a cheese that is made in a process similar to Parmigiano-Reggiano, however is not the same as it), UHT milk, and fresh milk. We toured the cheese making facilities and at the end, we got to taste some cheeses in the cutting room.  The Provolone was the best that I have had.  It was Picante, and had a strong flavor.  After the cheese facilities, we toured the fresh milk processing and we were each given a liter bottle of milk.  That milk was the first fresh milk we have had here in Italy.  We usually but the UHT milk because it is cheaper and does not need to be refrigerated (yeah it takes some getting used to seeing milk on a shelf.  Eggs don’t seem to be refrigerated in stores either).  The UHT packaging is especially neat because the containers are filled aseptically, meaning without coming into contact with air after pasteurization.  This means they are filled in a vacuum.  It was a productive day and it was interesting to see what a commercial, “American sized” milk processing facility looks like here in Italy.

TIM

Down the road we have a small TIM store.  TIM is telecom Italian Mobile—my cell phone carrier here.   The same two women are always working in the store whenever we visit.  Last weekend, I gave in and bought an internet key—it was just too frustrating at times not having internet in the apartment.  It was also a really good deal.  When you buy an internet key, they need to copy your passport.  The women know some English, and were reading the “We the people…” section of the passport, and said “we want to go to New York!  How about you run the TIM store and we come to New York?”  Today I stopped in to put some more credit on my phone, and when we walk by we make sure that we wave.  It’s fun to get to know and talk with the locals.

Silages

Wednesday we went to a seminar in the morning on Silages and Inoculants presented by Dr. Limin Kung Jr, PhD from the University of Delaware.  It was presented to the Faculty in English, and Federico had to translate to Italian.  He did a great job.  After, we went to dinner with some faculty members and with Dr. Kung.  Dr. Kung knows Van Amburgh and Overton, speaks at a lot of meetings in the northeast, and does research with the Miner Institute.

Dinner with Bentley

Thursday night we were invited to go to dinner with our Cultural Aspects of Food professor—Stefano.  He teaches for the ALMA Culinary institute, and his class of 20 American students was going to an authentic Sardinian dinner, and he invited us along.  As always, it was delicious.  We had many antipasti, and the main dish was a suckling pig.  The antipasti included cold cuts, salami, dried eggplant, tomatoes, breads, and a minced fish in a sauce with celery sticks.  The pig was juicy and delicious.  We also had a red wine to accompany the meal.  Most of the antipasti had cheese on them.  Usually it was some type of sheep cheese, as sheep farming and cheese making is very popular in Sardinia.  The restaurant owner himself is Sardinian, and he came out several times to check on us.  It was a very filling and a meal that was worth the money.

Bad Luck

For me, this week has been full of both good and bad things.  On a good note, this week Federico gave us the bikes that he has been telling us all about.  It is so nice to bike to and from the Vet campus.  When you include walking to the bus station and the tardiness of the bus system, going to the faculty by bus can be a 30 to 50 minute commute.  On bikes?  I have made it in 9.  Everything is so flat around here too, so it is easier than biking around Ithaca.  The only hills we have are to go under the rail on each side of the river.  These hills also cause some problems.

Being a road bike, “ol’ red”, my bike, has a few gears to choose from, but the only way to change the gear is to take the chain off.  Let’s just say that my bike thought it was time to shift.  Read that as I was coasting fast back up hill after going fast downhill under the train tracks, and the chain came off.  I coasted to the top of the hill and tried to get it back on.  I noticed that the chain was on the second smallest gear that day, and it seemed like it was pedaling harder than it was the previous days, leading me to think that the chain slipped to the smaller gear at some point (as the sprockets are not light up straight with each other).  So I wanted to put it on the next gear, where I thought that it was before.  I put the chain on the rear sprocket and popped it on the front one, but I popped it on too tight.  The bearing is bad that the rear sprocket is on, and it pulled it forward with all of the pressure of the tight chain, and now it doesn’t pedal at all.  Looks like I need to loosen the rear wheel and slide it forward to get the chain back off and maybe put a new bearing on it.  Guess I will be borrowing some tools from Federico soon.

To top things off, I also do not have a camera.  My trustee GE J1455 camera bit the dust this week—or rather, got bit by pavement.  I don’t really understand how it happened entirely, but as I was pulling it out of my pocket to take a picture, it fell to the ground, on the lens, with the lens extended.  No more pictures from that camera.  The lens rattles, there is no picture, and the screen says better luck next time.

Cibus Tour

Friday we went to the Fiera, which is an exhibition center.  It has many open halls and buildings for exhibitors.  This weekend the Cibus tour is there, and it features local producers and displays with the Slow Food Foundation.  The Slow Food Foundation purchases foods from small, traditional producers and markets them, in order for the producer to remain in business.  We tasted so many samples of balsamic vinegars, oils, salamis, cured meats, and cheeses.  We also picked up a lot of literature on local producers.  Further, we also saw the producer that we visited last week with Bentley, who made the Culatello for the upcoming Royal Wedding.

Now is the start to spring break.  We will be busy traveling somewhat separate ways as we meet up with other friends studying all around Europe.  This means it may be a while before I write again.

Ciao!