giovedì, giugno 14, 2007

Quite off the Beaten Path

AS I BEGAN TO REALIZE that my friend wasn’t going to make it to Cagli until almost an entire day after he landed in Rome, it really began to sink in: we are in a very isolated location.

“The Eurorail is amazing, fast, convenient!” I heard before I left. “You will travel so much!” they told me. Well, I’m pretty sure if they told that to [my friend], he’d be ready to argue a different point. Even under the expert guidance of Father Bruno, our trip to nearby Florence took between five and six hours each way.

The bottom line: Cagli is like a small Vermont hill town: beautiful, serene, safe, and quite off the beaten path. For me, these places are wonderful to visit, and not so nice to live in.
There are plenty of perks to residing in a small town. In Cagli, my dollar, or shall I say euro, goes far. Yesterday I got a huge cone of two flavors of gelato, whipped cream, and a cookie for the low, low price of 1.50. Nightly my friends spend only two or three euros on big mixed drinks—drinks that would be about eleven dollars back in Philly. At Caffe d’Italia and Caffe Commercio, we pay minimally for food and libation, sit in a lovely outdoor terrace, and then neither pay a seating fee, which is typical in larger Italian cities, nor are we encouraged to tip, which is absolutely expected anywhere in America.

On the downside, coming in at number one this week, is the lack of modern technology. I haven’t taken a hot shower in two weeks, I’m constantly fearful that I am going to burn myself if I try to light my gas stove, and as a result find myself eating fruit and cereal often. And although I finally figured out how to manually ash my clothes, they have been sitting on a drying rack for the past two days, damp and unwearable. I miss my dryer, my microwave, my electric oven, my hot water heater… and more. But there is a lot to enjoy and be thankful for here in Cagli, so that is what I plan to do.
-Mary Schell

Nessun commento: