Fur coats, grappa and the sequence: 65,67,65,66

fur is in

high-tech weather station

Bologna

Venezia

Perugia

Venezia II

strange fruit

No connection between these 3 items, except my surprise.

Long, old-fashioned, politically-incorrect, fur coats are very common here -- traditional, long, mink coats that I haven't seen for years, but also more modern fur trim stoles, etc. They seem to never have gone out of fashion and seem to be considered elegant. I doubt that the coat in the picture is sealskin, looks more like polar bear to me.

OK, grappa. I still don't get it. I'm working on the concept and hope to appreciate it by the time we leave, but so far it is just a potent after dinner digestive. I guess it took me some practice a few years ago to enjoy scotch, but girly  limoncello is so far still preferable to grappa, and as a tourist I can just get away with it (unlike, say, a cappuccino after 10 a.m. which would be laughable for men). Now crodino on the other hand is a pleasant surprise......

Graffiti:
Here are a few pictures that I am collecting on a graffiti theme. We initially saw this acronym around
Perugia and finally realized it is a bit of a distasteful slogan but fairly common in Italy and Eastern Europe with an origin in England union strikes.
Consult Wikipedia to find out more about the acronym. The sequence 1,3,1,2 is banned, so for my title, I chose to use ASCII/Unicode -- couldn't decide whether to convert it to hex or binary, so let's just leave it in decimal, shall we?

Disclaimer: I do not in any way support the above message nor the groups who have appropriated the acronym.

Bertinoro and Venezia

The Roca in Bertinoro

Rimini -- Roman arch

Rimini

Rimini -- 2000 year old bridge

view from our room in the Roca

Venezi -- from the Rialto bridge

a typical Doge

Venezia

lounging on the Grand Canal

canal scene

We spent last week at a workshop in Bertinoro -- a small hilltop village with a Rocca (fort) at the top, in which we were fortunate enough to have a lovely room. The week before they had quite a dump of snow and many fallen trees, but by the time we arrived, more spring-like conditions prevailed. There was an excursion to Rimini on the Adriatic one afternoon, and there are some Roman ruins there that are impressive. The banquet included an antipasto course in a wine cellar followed by a few courses and platters of meat and of course grappa. Although this was a work trip, the people at this workshop
are always nice to spend time with, and there are no talks given, just time to hammer away on research problems with good people.

After the workshop, we went to Bologna for a night and then we spent the weekend in Venezia and shopped for glassware. Lots of walking. The Doge's Palace and Rialto market/bridge were highlights. The 5 hour train ride home to Perugia was relaxing.

Risotto e Firenze

Ponte Vecchio

view from the Duomo

Also from the Duomo

nice scarf, eh

also a nice scarf, and Santa Maria Novella in the background

Our local cinquecenta -- not the new model

Risotto e Firenze

We were invited to a special risotto evening with Beppe, Tecla and their daughter Martina at a
restaurant run by their friend. It lasted about 3 hours and included lectures on rice by a specialist and the cook. Apparently, there are well over 100 types of rice grown in Italy and of course each has different properties that must be suited to the dish. For example Santa Andrea rice is particularly good for soup and risotto.
We started with a crispy rice appetizer together with a rice-based beer. Several courses followed including: a rice salad with leeks, rice balls with meat inside (almost like a dim sum dish), thinly sliced vegetables deep fried in rice flour (like a very delicate tempura), minestrone with rice, risotto with osso bucco, and dessert was a rice panna cotta and rice gelato on a very thin wafer. Two white wines were served, one of which was Orvietto,  but the other was something from the north of Italy that I didn't know.
It turns out to my surprise that risotto is not just soggy crunchy rice!

On Friday, we took a day off work and caught a bus to Firenze for the day. The bus takes 2 hours and runs Monday to Friday at 7:30 am and returns to Perugia at 8 pm, just in time for supper. Makes for a great day trip. The weather was sunny and warm (about +15) and there were some tourists but not the droves that will appear later in the Spring. I climbed the Duomo to the bell tower (about 500 steps) and took quite a few pictures from up top. We had wanted to hit the Bargello gallery/prison for the cultural side of our outing, but it closes at 1:30, so we had to hit some churches instead. Walked all day and then came home and went out for supper at one of our favourite restaurants, Il Ghiotone, where the waitress is German and chatty, and the food is very good.

Assisi

Roca Majore

PAX

view from Roca Majore

Oops -- how did that get in there?

New leather coat in Assisi train stn

San Francesco -- Assisi

We went to Assisi yesterday (Feb 19). It is about 25 minutes by train and they run about once an hour.
The weather was great (16 C and sunny) and Assisi is a lovely town, a bit touristy but well maintained, and nice for walking. We found the trailhead for the hike to Mount Sebasio and may try that trip if we have some visitors that want an out-of-town experience.


I just got back from a workshop in Barbados -- it is a long trip from here. My luggage was a bit slow getting home but did ultimately safely arrive. Fortunately, both my coats were in the lost luggage which forced me to rush out and buy a lovely leather jacket before the luggage was found.

Lots of work to do, but it is nice to keep ourselves busy and productive. We're still managing to eat out in restaurants every night and there remain a few restaurants that we haven't hit yet.

Jan 30 -- University

About the University of Perugia: Shelly and I are working with a group at the Ingegneria (DIEI) which is not at the downtown campus but rather in Santa Lucia which is on the outskirts. We have found a walking route there which takes about 40 minutes each way (uphill on the way home, so a bit longer).
Shelly will start teaching a PhD course there this week on proof techniques and logic, so that will keep her out of trouble. Late this week I'm off to Barbados for a workshop and in March we will both go to Bertinoro for a workshop. So, work is going well -- the group we are visiting here (Beppe, Emilio, Walter and Carla) is very accommodating and productive. And hard-working. They are now between semesters and don't have serious teaching duties again until late February. We go for lunch together every day to a local pannini bar and usually manage a quick coffee or 2 during the day. The Italian system is quite different from what we are used to, for example on a recent first year programming final exam, only 20% of the class passed -- and that is considered normal! There are 2 reasons for such a low success rate: students are allowed to retake final exams up to 6 times, and there are no entrance requirements allowed for engineering -- any student has the right to try to succeed. Tuition is very low and there is high unemployment for young people, so there are lots of students. There are also deep cuts happening to universities and research grants.

the cappuccino brothers

probably not what you are thinking....

between DIEI and the coffee shop

DIEI

Jan 17

flaming dessert

soaking up sunshine

northwards

a quick coffee on Corso Vanucci

Settling in to the Italian lifestyle now. Suppers at 8 and quick coffees throughout the day. Lots of very wonderful restaurants -- we had to take a break last night from all the pasta so we went to the only Greek restaurant in town.

Perugia is a lovely little town with an elevated metro system that connects 1 end to the other. We've been walking mostly, sometimes for 2 or 3 hours per day. And it is a hilltop village, so one is always either going up, or down -- not many contour lines to follow. Most of the paperwork is done now, but we still need a visit to the police to get fingerprinted and to another office to get our "permesso di sigorno" -- then we will be legal.

Some friends visited last week -- partly for work, but also gave us a chance to explore. Shelly and Karen took a bus to a nearby town -- Todi, and enjoyed the excursion. Henk and I worked at the university and discovered a new route to walk to there -- about 45 minutes.

Made it safely to Perugia -- a long trip but no delays. The apartment is nicer than we expected with only a few nuisances: some traffic noise, hard cold marble floors, no internet.
Had lamb cutlets and ravioli for supper last night and our landlady took us grocery shopping today, so we are stocked up and eating well.