Aug. 16, 2009

Sunday

Aug. 16, 2009

Today was almost a perfect day. I woke up and went to the bar with a group of people from “the Container”, the other housing facility for the dig. Some of the members of that group included Teresa, Simone, Constantina, and her boyfriend Gerardo. There were at least two others, but I don’t remember their names. We got coffee (and a doughnut for me) while we waited for the last three members of our group. Those three were from Venezuela, so I got to practice my Spanish, which was a nice surprise. It seemed so easy after Italian, that I wondered why I had ever struggled with it… The woman (also Teresa) and her boyfriend Juan Carlos and the third guy (I never knew his name) were all really nice. It was also nice being able to talk to people in their language without struggling. The Italians are all very good about helping, being patient, and meeting halfway (or ¾, or 9/10…) when it comes to my Italian language skills, but I still feel like a toddler, sometimes. The only trouble I had with Teresa and Juan Carlos was the accent and some dialect issues. They were really nice, though Juan Carlos is really smart, too. He speaks Spanish, Portuguese, English, and Italian, and is learning Chinese and Japanese.

Anyway, once they arrived we all took off (in 3 cars) to our first stop – Civita di Bagnoregio. The town, like so many others around here, sits on a mountaintop with sheer rock faces acting as natural fortifications for the city. Only one road leads in or out, and in this case it was only accessible by foot. So far, Italy is not wheelchair accessible, and I haven’t seen one yet. Maybe in real cities it’s easier. Bagnoregio is called “the dying city”, because though it was once on a wide-topped hill like Orvieto, the hills and walls began to erode and fall, taking the city with them. Now there are only about a dozen residents on the hilltop itself. What is still there, though, is beautiful, including a really pretty church.

After walking up to, around, and down from Bagnoregio, we were hot, tired, and ready for the lake. The largest lake in Italy created from a former volcano, Bolsena lake is almost perfectly round and fairly large. Not to mention that its great views and black sandy beaches are perfect for relaxing. We went swimming for a while, ate sandwiches, I went swimming again, and just laid around reading, napping and chilling. When late afternoon clouds rolled in, we packed up and went into town to see the castle and the Basilica of Saint Christina, who was martyred near there when she was 11 during the Great Persecution of Diocletian. We ended our trip with an outdoor mass and gelato, both in the town square.