Happy Monday!!! Today ended up being another lab day. I think I’ve walked you through that procedure enough, so rather than bore you with those details I’m thinking it’s about time I explained Caffeina and what I’ve gotten to see so far. Now before I dive into this, I may have some details a bit skewed. I’m working out of an italian program and my internet isn’t fast enough to run google translator!
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| Caffeina Tents in our Piazza |
Caffeina is a two week long festival unique to Viterbo. It’s described as global cultural, with books, movies, art, music, and food. Along some of the more well traveled streets inside the walls they have set up tents, stages, information points, and road blocks. They set up for Caffeina started a week in advance, leaving Lexy and me more than curious about what was going to happen. The festival location starts basically in the center of Viterbo traveling down Via Roma down to Piazza del Plebiscito. (You’ve seen pictures of this piazza, it’s where all the official buildings are) Then it travels down Via San Lorenzo, past Piazza del Gesu, down to Piazza della Morte. (That one should sound very familiar. I can see tents outside my window) From there it takes a turn to the east to continue in the medieval quarter down Via San Pellegrino. There are about 25 event areas, and over 100 booths throughout that area. This is a serious festival.
The festival started last Thursday. That first day Lexy and I just wondered around our piazza checking out the booths. We have a few of the Slow Food Italia booths right outside our door. The Slow Food movement is a movement that was started here in Italy where they get all the ingredients for the food as locally as possible. Simple food, with simple origins. I’ve heard about this in the states, however it’s much larger over here. So, we have a gelato booth, a fruits and veggies booth, wine, olive oil, honey... One had bread the other day, but that seems to change on occasion.
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| Saturday night's band |
My first real taste of Caffiena was on Saturday night. After our beach day Lexy crashed hard (silly sun!) so Claire and I met Alfredo and Stefano in the Piazza del Gesu. There was this crazy band playing!!! Organicanto & Progetto Danza DNA. At least I think that’s the name... It may be the second line of Conderto Folk. Danza, pizzaca e taranta. I still have a lot of Italian to learn.. Anyway, this was absolutely crazy to watch. Alfredo explained that the type of music they were playing was from Southern Italy. Apparently the closer to Rome you get the more influence the Pope has on music, and this type of music is discouraged. Rome music seems to center around more of a singer and guitar. I tried to ask if it was acoustic, but I couldn’t adequately explain that to a non native speaker.. So anyways, this music. I know when I think of a band I’m thinking guitars, bass, drums, you know, ordinary stuff. Sure, that was there. Although I’m not sure I saw a guitar... They also had and accordion, bagpipes, a flute, an oboe, recorder, piano, violin, banjo... I’m sure there were more, but I simply can’t remember. Some of the songs had vocals, some did not. All were very up beat, easy to dance to. In front of the stage there were these two young ladies that were dressed in white skirts with white tank tops and a red sash around their waste. They also had red scarves they were dancing with. You could see these girls dancing with each other, then they would get people from the crowed up to dance to. Several other girls appeared with their own personal scarves and would try to imitate the professional dancers, it was so fun to watch. Stefano explained the scarves like the woman were spiders and the scarf their web to catch a man. Love italian metaphors!
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| The Parade |
Sunday Lexy and I stayed home, so when dinner time rolled around I was ready to get out of the house. Lexy opted for a quiet evening, so I ventured out on my own. It was so much fun! I followed the festival all the way down the medieval quarter where I hadn’t been before. At the very end of the festivities, there was a large group of people congregating. This turned out to be the beginning of some kind of parade through the Caffeina. They were all probably high school age kids broken up into groups. Naturally I couldn’t read the signs, so I’m totally guessing... They had banners and the Italian flag out front, some brass players, then came all the students. Took two minutes for the entire group to pass my location on the side lines. Then the whole crowed I was with followed them. They traveled all the way through the area to Piazza del Sacrario where they all gathered in an amphitheater type area. I wandered away at this point, not sure what they were doing.
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| Sunday's band. Note the cute little groupie! |
I made it back to Piazza del Gesu knowing there would be music there. I found a good spot by the fountain there, easy to find since they were just starting to set up. For the first nearly hour they had a lady on the stage with two gentlemen interviewing her. Occasionally a blonde haired lady would sing a short song with a piano accompaniment. I believe they were interviewing the first lady about her life and influences of music, that’s about all I could figure out. The stranger part of it all was on the TV on the front of the stage they were playing a video about making cheese... Ricotta to be exact. Not sure why they were playing that. Anyway, as i was sitting there Scott and Donica walking into the PIazza. They sat down at a table with two of their friends. A short time later Scott came over to me and informed me they were giving away free gelato, so naturally I indulged. Scott adopted me at this point, and I joined them at their table. By this time the original lady had taken the stage with her band. This music had a very latino feel to me, nothing like the music from the night before. She was a beautiful singer, and on occasion a few people got up to dance. I found it amusing that one of her accompaniment players was literally playing the box he was sitting on. He must have been bored. I’ve also noticed that they are very fond of smoke machines. The band the previous night had one, and so did The William Band from a week ago. It’s so funny since they are outdoors that smoke never goes where they intend for it to go. Wonder how the photographers like that...
Didn’t venture out tonight to the Caffiena. Instead we went to the hot springs that are all around this area. Some of them you have to pay to get into, these ones were free. Nate, one of the USAC students, told us about them. Alfredo and Emmanuelle brought us to some pretty close to home where we hung out for about two hours. So relaxing. And surprisingly comfortable, you’d think after being in the hot Italian sun hot water wouldn’t be so nice.
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| What I want for breakfast |
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| What I had for breakfast. Still good, but I want sausage and regular bread! |
Rome with Scott tomorrow, so I’ll have lots to report then. We are taking our flood walk, so looking at all the different locations of flooding that there are records for in the Rome area. Then we are meeting with the historians. I know some of you will love that part, assuming I can understand what they are talking about...
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