Pass the Cheese Please!

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.