A Special Guest Blog!

 

After being home for a week now, I thought I’d better do my guest “blog” (what an ugly word! Is that the abbreviation for something?) before I forget about all the fun.

First of all, it was great to see Kim and Rachel again –and, it was great to see for myself if their life in Alessandria is anything like they’ve been describing it.

Now, I know there are a lot of other faithful “La vita Alessandria” readers out there who miss the girls and look forward to Kim and Rachel’s almost daily reports on their life in Italy (and are disappointed when they leave out a day of report/reflection) but I thought it might be interesting for them to read some comments from a somewhat more “objective” person.

Here are a few of my observations:

Oh yes, their little apartment is quite cute. The ceiling is a really ornate pattern of arched brick. Although the apartment’s small, it certainly gives them more of a “european experience”, where there just isn’t all the space everyone’s so used to in America. Rachel failed to mention that she uses the bidet to soak her feet on a hot day. I don’t know if any other reader noticed but Kim and Rachel have mentioned a number of times that people can see into their apartment. Now, I tried to explain to them that people can only see in if it’s lighter inside than out, which in the time I was there was only at night, when they closed their shutters anyway. But I’m glad they got their little gauze curtains cuz this will help with the mosquitos that eat poor Rachel up (I guess Kim and I aren’t sweet enough!)

About the cars and the noise…the courtyard outside their apartment seems to have the same acoustics they used while building the amphitheatre in Verona where Kim and Rachel enjoyed an opera. If you just talk normally while going from the apartment to the street or vice versa, your voice is carried and amplified as if you were on stage with a big set of Bose speakers. And although they mentioned that the cars have the right of way over all other modes of transportation, they failed to mention the SPEED with which the cars drive down the narrow little cobblestone streets! While lying on the pull-out couch in their living room (having chosen not to close the wonderful soundproof windows), on the morning of “the Ascension of Mary”, I thought I heard Lewis Hamilton drive by -the noise of his racing car also being amplified by the courtyard. I’m surprised no one is killed stepping out of their driveways.

Now, about those bikes Kim and Rachel wrote about -in the 6 days that I was in Alessandria, I remember they were pointed out to me only once. However, it seemed nowhere near where they live. I found that strange! Apparently, you have to travel to get to your bike in this city.

Do you remember Rachel saying that the phone technician spoke a bit of English? Well, I guess he probably moonlights as a national interpreter cuz I met NO ONE (with the exception of the beautiful student in Genoa, who helped explain to us the efforts of the train personnel) who spoke a word of anything other than Italian. We tried English, Spanish and German at the hairdressers but no go-just Italian. Luckily, Samuele and Co. knew what to do with hair AND were very friendly. So, Kim and Rachel found a place where they really have to learn the language and I was very impressed at how well both were doing at that.

As the last part of my guest blog, I’d like to go into a little more detail about the changing/showering situation at the beach on our trip to Cinque Terre. (Please refer to “the Odyssey Part 1”- third picture down). One had to throw all inhibitions to the wind because there just wasn’t any room to do otherwise. I took this picture of my oldest and dearest friend, naked, wrapped only in a flimsy towel, standing in the open public hallway of the shower/changing facility. Unfortunately, I failed to capture the people passing her on their way to the soda and ice cream machines located next to the cashier, who was seated behind me. What a pity! Good going Kimberly!!!