Archives for July 2013

Dear Mom,

Don’t move to Bartlesville, Ok. Move to Castel Gondolfo, Italy!

There’s a reason the popes live in Italy and Shakespeare set nearly a third of his plays there. It ROCKS!

Florence is great. Rome is awe-inspiring. But the popes win the genius prize for putting the papal summer villa in Castel Gandolfo on the side of an ancient volcano overlooking Lake Albano. Please, Mommy, move there!

Any of the 17^th century villages hugging the cliffs around Lake Albano would be fabulous. The narrow streets, shops and apartments hang on the cliffs like floral window boxes. I bought a scarf for you from a street vendor. You will look fabulous wearing it in any one of the cafes on the piazza as you sip cappuccino and nibble a tart made with tiny strawberries.

And mom, you’ll love the Woodson family which hosted us. Brady Woodson is brother of our friend Ashley Woodson in Austin. His wife Luisa grew up in Castel Gandolfo. We immediately fell in with their rhythm (I hope they would say the same) and had a great time with them and their three fabulous kids.

Can’t wait to discuss your expatriation to the Castelli Romani!

XOX, Sarah Pi

Rome (July 18-21, 2013)

We stayed outside Rome in the town of Velletri, with Ashley Woodson’s brother, Brady, and his family. This visit was too short – arriving on a Thursday afternoon and leaving on Saturday afternoon to catch an early flight to Batumi Georgia the next morning. We had a great time with the Woodsons. Brady and his wife Luisa have three wonderful children, all of whom we had a chance to visit with. If Nadine ever has an Italian boyfriend, I hope that he will be one of the Woodson boys.

On Friday we took the train into Rome and toured the Coliseum and nearby areas. Two things struck me about the Coliseum: First, the fact that much of it is still standing 1,933 years after it was completed (will the UT football stadium be here 2000 years from now?), and second, the huge number of people killed at the Coliseum. According to our blowhard Roman guide, many animals and criminals and sometimes as many as 50 gladiators were killed there each day. The guide said that the Romans considered the captive gladiators to be barbarians. Some might think that the real barbarians were the people who packed the Coliseum every day to watch animals and people kill each other.

We spent much of Saturday with the Woodsons around Ariccia and Castel Gandolfo, the little village where past Popes have spent several months in the summer. This region is very beautiful, has two lakes and many ruins, and is known for its roasted pork. If you have a choice to spend a romantic vacation in Paris or in Castel Gandolfo, choose Castel Gandolfo.

Dear Willie:

You would love Tuscany. The countryside, the City of Florence, the wine, the people all made me think of you.

We stayed in the mountain village of La Valle 20 km outside of Florence. La Valle is just a cluster of houses hugging the road passing through the most glorious rolling countryside. Everyone seems to have vegetable gardens, chickens and fruit trees. La Valle has a single store by the bus stop that sells basics plus meats, cheeses and breads made on premises. Like all of Tuscany (except the tourist spots) the store hours are 7am-1pm and 4pm-7pm. I want to be an Italian!

Life slowed way down. The land, the buildings and the people were beautiful, inviting and earthy. All of Tuscany seemed to take its time and occupy space with languorous confidence.

Even Florence, a city of 400,000 people, was in no rush. The narrow streets and incredible architecture hug the Arno River and are in turn are hugged by the mountains. The city is all old stone, fountains and flowers. Even the working class neighborhoods on the edge of the city, with the newer apartments and shopping centers, were lovely. Cars were small, busses were easy and bikes were everywhere.

The people, the buildings, and even the roads and trails are part of the landscape. I read this quote from Luciano Bartolini, Mayor of Bagno a Ripoli (one of the Tuscan municipalities) in a tour book:

“…the trails along which you will walk … have been opened, marked and cleared by those same women and men who … teach us the value of slowness, of a more respectful, almost symbiotic, relationship with nature.”

Wow, what a way to live!

XOX, Your little sister

Paris was one of those places that you never forget, in Paris we did a lot of things and one of the coolest things was going to the Eiffel Tower, we did not get to go onto the Eiffel Tower, but we did get to stand under it. There were lots of other things like The Arch de Triumph, which was a giant arch that had a lot of great sculptures on it. Another cool thing in Paris was the art museum, The Louvre, this museum had many famous paintings and sculptures in it, and one of those paintings was the Mona Lisa, the Mona Lisa was a lot smaller than you would think. There are many things in Paris that every body knows about, but there are other cool things in Paris that lots of people do not know about, like all of the restaurants, the restaurants were not always the best, but they were never the worst, they had chocolate mousse and baguettes. That is not all, they would have whole streets that were covered in stores that had every thing that you could imagine, there was even a store that was three 7 story buildings that were filled to the brim with clothes, toys, and accessories. These were all of the coolest things in in Paris, the city of love, the capital of shopping, and last but not least the city of bread.

Paris makes me think of that Marianne Faithfull song, The Eyes of Lucy Jordan – “at the age of 37 she realized she’d never ride through Paris in in a sports car with the warm wind in her hair.” I am 48. I have now felt the warm Paris wind and, … meh.

Lucy Jordan’s Paris was about running away from her family. My Paris was about reuniting with mine after being separated from them for a month. Big cities aren’t the best places for kids. But, it was a mighty glamorous spot for our much anticipated rendezvous.

We had a lovely flat with plenty of cafes and shops nearby. The closest park had a duck pond. You couldn’t sit on the beautiful lawn surrounding the pond. Everyone was of course, until a gendarme came through blowing a shrill whistle and scooting everyone off onto the walkway. The most fun we had as a family was in the Jardin des Plantes at the Museum of Natural History, the Zoo and the Botanical Gardens. It was beautiful AND you could sit on the grass! The kids could finally run amok.

Nadine and I had a fun girls’ day of shopping in the department stores of Boulevard Haussmann (I LOVE the fact that a street is named after a famous urban planner!). We saw the stained glass ceilings of Printemps and Galeries Lafayette. We marveled at the women of Paris who all wear painfully fashionable heels and flats. Even if our course American speech hadn’t marked us as tourists, our sensible shoes would have.

On a professional note, the urban planning and transportation system of Paris is excellent. Zoning and building codes have succeeded in making the city feel ancient and modern at the same time. If the historic buildings of the Louvre can coexist with a modern glass pyramid at their center, we in Travis County can figure out how to preserve the iconic buildings of our past while accommodating the new .

Narrow neighborhood collector streets open up to grand boulevards connecting neighborhoods. Cars are small, there are lots of motorcycles, buses and bikes and bikes and bikes. Women in painfully fashionable heels even ride bikes. Paris has self-serve bike sharing and electric car sharing stands, too. Although I missed seeing Copenhagen with Kurt and the kids, I hear Paris is working on adding grade separated bike lanes like their buddies in Denmark. Will some streets be designated for bikes only?

I’m glad I saw Paris! But, we’re all happy to move on to the fresh air and rolling hills of Tuscany.

World Cup preliminary match outside Florence, Italy (July 14, 2013). Camelot United (Kurt and Nadine) vs. FC Mordor (Hank and Sarah).

The final score of this match is unimportant. Key moments of the match included a beautiful pass by Nadine in the first minute to nutmeg both Hank and Sarah with one pass. Hank’s soccer teammates will know that this meant 5 pushups by Hank + 5 pushups by Sarah. Perhaps the most beautiful goal was by Nadine – a left footed volley thru pine tree branches from 6 feet out. Nature also favored Cam United: the gravity on the hillside field pulled FCM’s shots and passes into the bushes and out of bounds much more frequently than it did those of Cam United. Clearly, Cam United prevailed in nearly every way. The lesson from this match: History is written by those who take the time to learn how to use the website.