le frange sona di moda

roughly translated, that means that bangs are in fashion.

As most of you know, I am not a fashionable person. I don't think I have ever been, nor will be. So who knows what possessed me today when, while sitting in the chair at the hair salon, I pointed to the pictures of the lovely lady with long bangs and said, "this one. i think."

I am happy with the haircut. I am not happy with the bangs. So upon leaving the parrucchiere, I promptly walked into the first cosmetics store I could find and bought a package of bollettini (hair barrettes), pinned back my fashionable bangs, and proceeded happily down the street.

Today we were in Citta di Castello, the nearest big town to where I live. It is actually the perfect size, though unfortunately surrounded by hideous suburbs. Italian suburbs never cease to amaze me. Given the Renaissance and the hundreds of talented painters and architects this country has spawned, I will never understand the hideous flats that occupy the outskirts of every city, my beloved Castiglion Fiorentino included. It's unbelieveable.

Anyhow, Citta is the perfect size. Large enough to have a main street with lots of good shopping, a couple of quiet piazzas off the beaten path, hidden alleyways and clean streets, and small enough to where you don't brush shoulders with a soul unless you just want to. Room enough for all.

Another thing. Did I mention I learned to drive? As some of you may know, I had never driven a standard transmission until about 2 weeks before I left for Italy. Never. And I have basically been forced to learn under some rather dire circumstances. The first road I drove in Italy is the one leading down from Palazzo Terranova, if you can call it a road at all. For a hotel where the cheapest room goes for $500 a night, you would be amazed at the condition this road is in. Downright third-world. Rocky, amazingly steep, totally unpaved, and without a shoulder and barely room for a car, much less two, should you meet someone on the way up or down. Yesterday, on the way up the hill, I suddenly lost power. Otherwise known as: I ran out of gas. Not my fault, because it is a shared vehicle and I wasn't the last one to drive it. Anyhow, I began rolling backwards down the hill, because the hill was so steep that the emergency brake wouldn't hold. So I had to put myself into a ditch, perpendicular to the road, in order to stop rolling backwards. Luckily there were some farmers not far up the road who lent me a cell phone to call for help. While we waited, we exchanged typically terse dialogue regarding the state of the weather (ma dio, che caldo) and they offered me some homemade wine. In Italy, you always take what is offered to you, especially wine; never mind that I have never really developed a taste for it, and in fact I would rather have remained parched. But I took it like a champ; and it was actually better than most I have had.

Today, however, after I finished taking care of the little ones, I toodled off to Castiglion Fiorentino for the evening. I can do little more than toodle because the car is a purplish, dusty, dented Ford Fiesta, model year unknown. But I toodle quite well in it, and I can even navigate intersections now, a feat I am quite proud of; before, I used to look both ways and roll through stop signs very slowly, hoping for the best, because I was afraid I would stop and then not be able to get started again...but now I can obey the laws of the road with ease, or something like it.

The drive tonight was lovely. Castiglion and Ronti are separated by a large mountain, and so the drive is, though short in distance, about 40 minutes of winding up and over and then down again. It had finally cooled off, and I had the windows down (because there is no A/C). I was singing "Top of the World" by the Carpenters (because there is no radio, though that doesn't excuse the song choice). The sun was painting stripes on the hills and far below me in the valley, tobacco farmers were hard at work keeping their carcinogens alive. Pity it's such a vile substance, because tobacco plants are quite lovely, all lush and neat in their deep green rows. And my heart palpitated with joy, as it always does, when I reached the summit and began my descent because, around the first curve of the descent, Castiglion can be seen from my window. The tower was glowing brickish orange in the setting sun and in the foreground, the olive trees shone with a silvery light. Few trees are as lovely as an olive tree.

And now I must be off to bed, because I have to head back early in the morning for work. I will have an Illy cappuccino, watch the sunrise, and toodle off, leaving a trail of dust in my wake and obeying all posted signs along the way.
ta ta,
vanessa