Most of my Christmas was spent eating. Eating some of the best food I have ever eaten: Lasagna, Rabbit, Gnochi, Tortalini, Antipasta, and so much more. Christmas was a festivity that started the 24th and ended the 26th. We ate and ate and ate and ate and ate and ate, and then, we ate. I would go to bed way too full, and wake up only to be fed another huge lunch. In short, my ski pants fit before I left Bologna, but now they don’t really button. Oh well, the food is worth the inability to button my pants.
On Christmas eve, after Virginia, Tommaso, and I attempted to see a Nativity Scene near Aranzano, only to discover it was closed until midnight, we came back to eat and eat and eat. Dinner was delicious. Caterina is a fabulous cook. I ate way too much and felt way too full. Ricky ate so much he fell asleep at about 10pm. Luckily it was after the two Babi Natale (Santa Clauses) came to deliver a ginormous bag of toys to Ariana. We all exchanged gifts, laughed at the fact that two Santa Clauses had shown up, explained to Ariana that there were two because one was dad and the other was son. Poor Ariana was so surprised and quite preoccupied. She really did not know how to respond to the first Santa Claus, let alone two. After the Santa Clauses and elves had eaten their share of cookies and milk they went on their way.
Andrea had Ariana open her gifts faster than I have ever seen a child open gifts. After tearing the last piece of paper off of a gift, she was immediately handed another one to open with the same speed. She hardly had time to look at what she got. It was really comical actually. She got a lot of dolls, but most interestingly, a miniature kit to clean floors. Apparently she loves cleaning floors. She was so excited to set it up and use it. Then she, Chiara, and Francesca went to mass at 10:30.
I called Mom and skyped with her. Then she went out horseback riding.
Then, with much exhaustion, and an overly full tummy, I went to bed. Ricardo slept on the couch. He kept saying he would go home to his house, but he never did.
When I got up late the next morning, they told me to get ready because we were going over to eat lunch at Tommaso and Virginia’s. I looked at them with gorggy eyes, incredulous, and still full. But, I got dressed, and prepared myself for another amazingly filling but delicious lunch.
Ricky, Tommaso, Virginia and I took the horses out for a nice walk up the hill. Prince, the young horse, was a little wild and made me nervous. I just kept thinking about how the year before I had fallen off a horse at Christmas, and was not willing to carry on the tradition and get trampled by one this year. The older horse, Piolla, was the one that ended up escaping, and from Ricardo. It was pretty funny to watch him hobble along after the horse, who had seen the lovely green grass and was not going to let the opportunity to feast pass him by. Ricardo was yelling at Virginia because he couldn’t run; he had a bad bike incident a month or two ago and so running hurts his knee too much. I was not about to chase the horse, one that I don’t know. I have learned my lesson in dealing with horses I don’t know; better that I don’t.
When we got back, we sat around trying to figure out what we would do. I was still bursting from lunch. Tommaso disappeared, then Ricardo, which left just Virgina, Chiara, and I. We decided to play cards for a few hours. I learned Scopa and another game similar to Pidro but also very different. I found myself wanting to count fives as points.
After that, still incredibly full from lunch, we had dinner. It was just leftovers, and so I ate what I could not eat at lunch. But, still, I was incredibly full, and eating more just made me fuller.
That night, I went to Maria’s house with Robby. Maria is his secret girlfriend. She is older than him and so Caterina would not be happy to know that she is his girlfriend. So, we went to wish her a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. They are going to Istanbul for New Years. But, as far as Robby’s parents are concerned he is going by himself. It is strange to be privy to so many secrets, and to know that my cousins feel my Italian is strong enough to understand what I am aloud to talk about with their parents and what I’m not supposed to mention.
Maria is incredibly nice, friendly, and fun to talk to. She is would fit in quite well at Kresgy or Porter college at Santa Cruz (as would Robby). We sat around and talked about Christmas, about plans for Istanbul, about life. In general, many pleasant conversations. Her cousins from Sicily had come to visit her. He was thoroughly pleased to learn about the US and kept asking me millions of questions. It was fun to talk to an Italian so in love with the US.
The next day was very much the same routine, wake up, eat too much food, go about in cars, drive the Panda with Tommaso. Tommaso and Virginia drive now. Slightly terrifying, but they are pretty good. They still need some practice: Virginia needs to not hit sidewalks and Tommaso needs to drive a little slower.
We tried to see “Tangled” at the theater in Genova. 1. The machine that gives tickets decided to not accept the money, or at least not the last 40 cents, and so we missed the train. 2. We sat around in the cold (it was almost snowing) for about 45 minutes waiting for the next train. 3. We got to the movie theater and could not even get into the entryway in order to buy the tickets. 4. We turned around, walked into the mall, could hardly stand the number of people, and so walked back to the train station. 5. Got back to Cogoleto, drove home, and ate more food. We decided that Tommaso, Virginia, and I do not have much luck. Every time we try to go do something, we never actually end up getting to do it.
I have been out with Ricky and Robby and their friends. Robby left today for Istanbul. Dario, Calca, and another friend left today for Edinburg. Tommaso and Virginia left for the mountains to celebrate New Years at a friend’s house. (I was going to go with them, but tomorrow I’m going skiing with Andrea and Ricky.) So, that leaves Ricky and I to celebrate New Years with a few of his friends. I’m sure it will be fun.
This time I have gone out the most with Tommaso and Virginia. It is fun and their friends are fun. But I know Ricky and Robby’s friends better. Also, I feel a little old going out with Tommaso and Virginia and their friends, because they are all about 18 or so. I’m used to my friend in Bologna who are between 20 and 30 years old. But, it is fun nonetheless.
I have also been skiing with Antoinette and Stefano. They took me to Pidmonte where we spent most of the day on mountain. It was absolutely beautiful. The sun was shinning all day (I sang the sun song after all… “oh Mr. Sun, Sun Mr. Golden Sun, hiding behind a tree or a cloud…”).
Well, it was a completely different experience to go skiing at this place then at Dodge or Badger in California. Perhaps, if I was one of those people who traveled to go skiing then I would have been more prepared for the spectacle that awaited me. First, they do not use stickers for ski passes. They use a little plastic magnetic chip. Then, every time you want to go on the lift, it is like waiting in line at Disney land—you have to pass through those turnstiles, make sure the thing reads the chip in your pocket, and then rotate the bars (which are bellow your knees).
The strangeness does NOT stop there. When you get to the front of the line, you are filed into little stalls, as though we were horses in a derby, which only open when it is your turn to go. The chairs held between four and six people. To get on the chairs, you do not hobble you way out there, however. Oh no, the system is much more entertaining that this. You get on a moving sidewalk that takes you along as the chair comes swing at you.
Once you have made it through the turnstile, out the gate, on the moving sidewalk, and onto the chair, there is one last surprise—the footrest. It consists of a large bar that you pull down over your head, which then has a few bars on the bottom where you can rest your feet, and a bar that acts a lot like a seat belt. Unfortunately, this is much more convenient for skiers than for snowboarders, especially if you have to sit on the end where you can barely angel your foot onto the footrest. I took two different kinds of chair lifts: 1. Shoots you up the hill and then slows down when it hits the get on and off points 2. Picks you up pretty fast, but goes up the hill at the same speed it picks you up, so is rather slow.
The actual runs are about the same length as the ones at Dodge or at Badger. There were quite a few runs, because there were a large number of mountains (yes more than one). The really amazing thing is that you can see all the mountains. And when you get to the top, you can see a huge valley, and Torino, surrounded by mountains. It was absolutely beautiful. The runs were rather narrow in respect to those I am used to, which always makes me nervous because I like to zig-zag to avoid going too fast. It also gives you less space to avoid others. Also, because I prefer the slightly easier runs, and the slightly wider ones, I was stuck avoiding beginners, in minimal space, which gave me little room to practice in order to feel comfortable enough to go down the more difficult hills.
I did a pretty decent job, however, and was pleased to see my improvement. I was using a faster, lighter board, which changed the dynamics a lot. The only near dangerous accident I had was when I almost took out a kid. It was not totally my fault though. His parents should have use more common sense; their small six or seven year old should have been dress in a more noticeable color than white. I already have to wear my goggles over my glasses, which then sometimes fog up. On top of that, my ability to distinguish the white of a jacket from the white of snow is poor. Thankfully, I was not going fast. I did not and could not see the kid until I had almost hit him. I managed to avoid him, fell hard, and then got yelled at by his parents for going too fast. Funny thing was, I was going really slow, I just looked like I was going fast because when I fell I had to do a strange maneuver to avoid the kid, which made it look like a nasty wipe out (and felt like one too). I was annoyed with the parent for yelling at me like I was some evil, out-of-control snowboarder, out to get all the little children. I just wanted to tell them to put their kid in a different color than white. He looked more like a lump of snow than a child. Oh well, no one was hurt, and I paid more attention to the strange white objects as well, just in case one might be a kid instead of a lump of snow.
As the sun went down, the people started to disappear, and I had more room to use more of the mountain to do what I felt comfortable with. Antoinette and Stefano had turned in, so I put on my headphones and got into a good grove. I was able to go faster because I had more room to slow down and more room to wipeout. The last run I did, I wipedout hard, enough that I felt like I had jarred every bone in my body. It made it hard to sit the car ride home.
In good skiing tradition, we got a tasty hot chocolate (similar to hot pudding) and then snacked on cookies on the way home. I ended up falling asleep.
I half slept as I ate my dinner that night, and then, Virgina and Tommaso took me out for a little “giro” in Cogoleto. But no one else was out, so we didn’t stay down for long. Then I got home and slept quite soundly.
I woke up, stiffer than I would have imagined, and almost incapable of crawling out of bed. I took a nice long walk to warm my muscles up, ate very little all day in hopes of being able to button my pants when I go snowboarding the next time. However, seeing as that will be in only a few days, I doubt it. Darn Caterina and her amazing cooking!
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