Friday, October 30, 2009

Saturday, October 24, 2009

350.

"I am sure the American people share with me a strong sense of the significance of this occasion and are prepared to give their full support to the United Nations to the end that our common aim of building a new and better world shall be attained."
--Former U.S. Secretary of State Edward R. Stettinius Jr.

These words, from October 24th 1945, refer to the offical ratification of the United Nations Charter. Fifty-four years later they are just as significant. Today, people all over the world are asking their leaders to support the United Nations in its efforts to reduce carbon emissions and protect our precious planet. See how at http://www.350.org/

Friday, October 23, 2009

Wet feet.

Yesterday, when I arrived in Chioggia--a city on the southern end of the Venetian Lagoon in northeastern Italy--the main boulevard was underwater. Caused by a combination of light rain and high tide, life at sealevel.

Saturday, October 17, 2009

Topo.

So today, like most days lately, was spontaneous. My plans for the weekend were to rest a bit, try to firm up the next few weeks, and see a bit more of Monselice.

By early afternoon I found myself down on the canal eating fresh bread and cheese and enjoying the sunshine--it was here that I met Nicola. He is a member of a local club that restores aging wooden boats. After communicating with him for a bit we decided that I should come back later in the afternoon. I left knowing that I had made a new friend, but had no idea what we were going to do when I came back--was I going to a)buy a boat, b)steal a boat, or c)go on a boat.

When I returned two more men were there to help load oars into the Mamo, a traditional working boat from this area, called a Topo. Fifty years ago this boat, and others like it, would transport stone and other goods throughout the Veneto. Today, though we were just out for a joy ride.

In the beginning we laughed, alot. Both at my clumsiness with the long, heavy oars and at my attempt to speak Italian. But as we settled in we began to understand each other and I began to understand the boat. The hour long trip on the canal was my first time on the water since arriving in Italy and the first time I have felt like I successfully carried on a conversation with Italian speakers.

After we returned to shore my new friends proudly showed off photos of other boats and their city. Then they invited me back for more later in the week.

Friday, October 16, 2009

Monselice.

For the next few days I am staying in the small town of Monselice. The town is nestled between medieval ruins and the Bisatto Canal, part of the extensive system of canals the Venetians used to link their republic to the Adriatic Sea.

The days here are clear, crisp, and beautiful. Autumn is in the air. It arrived late one night while I was sleeping in a small hut in Val Grande National Park in the Italian Alps. At 2 in the morning the Fohn winds from Scandinavia came south and forced my Italian colleague and I to spend an extra day in the mountains. He and I had left a larger group--composed of wonderful people from Italy, Greece, Germany, Switzerland, Poland, Spain, Portugal, Lithuania, and the Netherlands--the day before to try for another summit on the edge of the largest wilderness area in the Italian Alps.

The view from our hut by day was of lakes and valleys to the south and the stone, snow, and glaciers of the Alps to the north. And by night the bright lights of Milano stretched out below and the Milky Way filled the sky overhead and around us.

On our last morning, with the temperatures low and the winds finally calming we raced down from the mountains to return to the city, he had a PHD thesis to finish and my first Watson report was due later that day.

Saturday, October 3, 2009

Italia.

It has been quite a while since that train station in the Rhineland. That night I ended up sharing the floor of the station with a Polish political exile. I spoke no Polish and he no English but we still managed to have an intense and satisfying conversation. The next day I met up with a friend's family and enjoyed fine wines in a castle over looking the Rhine River valley.

Then south to Roma to meet up with a fellow wandering Watson and old friend. My three days spent there, a few hundred meters from the Pantheon, flew by and since then I've been living on a small farm near the northern Italian town of Piacenza. Long hours each day cutting wood in the forest and working in the vineyard followed by nightly Italian lessons and so much pasta.

The farm is located in the valley surrounding the River Trebbia, "the cleanest" river in Italy and a major tributary of the Po. Last week I spent most of a long day navigating my way to a amazing beach along the Trebbia--where I slept and swam away a sunny afternoon.

And in few days I head to the Alps, then finally to the coast.