Today I took a day trip to San Gimignano. I decided to say c'est la vie to the snakes and take a day apart to see if we can think about our differences separately and then to regroup for negotiations tomorrow. Which we will be doing - regrouping, that is. I potted 17 bunches of vines yesterday so I have 23 to go, and that means more entry into the lairs of those whom I detest. Anywho, today was a day away from all that.
I took the bus into Siena, and grabbed another bus from Siena to San Gimignano. (It's about a one-hour bus ride). San Gimignano is a small hill town and it is particularly famous for it's plethora of towers. Like Siena, San Gimignano is very well kept and it's a beautiful, albeit touristy place to walk around for a day. It also happens to be home to Piazza Della Cisterna where there is a very cool fountain for people to look at, sit on, and oh! meet at to reunite with long-lost maybe loves... Seriously, it's a place where real life magic has happened. To the two M's - I was thinking about you both today. It was a lovely day, and as you must suspect it was one full of food, strolls, and relaxation.
While I waited for the bus to travel back to Siena, I heard/saw some very loud Americans yelling to each other. It occurs to me only now, actually, that they might have been drunk. Before any of us could stop him, one of them (these people were in their 60s) stood up on a bench and began to yodel. It was... interesting. I wondered what motivated this kind of activity. I can only imagine that it was the rolling hills to his right, but even with the expansive scenery, why yodel? This one time I can truly say that an Italian bus driver saved me from an insane American. He swooped in and picked me up, and delivered me back to Siena, far away from the yodeling Wisconsinite. (What, did you think that a guy loud enough to yodel didn't also yell to the whole of San Gimignano that he was from Wisconsin? Guess again.)
It was interesting that on the drive home there were actually two men on the bus who checked everyone's tickets. Here people are expected to buy and validate their own tickets (for trains the tickets get validated on the platforms, for buses they get validated on the buses). Usually the tickets never get checked... at least I've never seen it before. Today, I did! And there were literally two men on the bus to check them. So, including the bus driver, 3 of the maybe 35 people on the bus were men employed by the bus company. That math seems odd to me, but so it goes. Brava Italia! This is a country of madness. And that is part of why I love it so.
As an aside, Lorena has been talking to me about changing things up here at La Gavina. She is feeling like it's time to do things differently. She's tired of running a B&B, which I can understand because when there are guests she works very hard, as if she's never really graduated from being a full-time mother. But she is constantly flooded with an unpredictable number of children (i.e. tourists)! That would be exhausting for anyone, but for someone who spends the majority of her day chasing four geese away from her vegetable orchard, I imagine it's especially tiring. Lorena's heard about something called "co-housing" in Germany. She asked me whether I might be able to research it a bit on my computer. I don't think that Lorena's up on the internet. (When she took it upon herself to find bus times for my trip today even though I told her that I would be able to do it easily on my own, she called an Italian hotline to get the information. Needless to say, she was on hold listening to a loop auto-message for about 1 hour before finally giving in to me.) What I've discovered so far is that there are two similar concepts that are already being experimented with in places including Germany, New Zealand, Australia, Ireland, and the US called "co-housing" and "eco-villages." These are small communities built to support sustainable environmental and community development. It seems interesting - mostly about creating new types of close knit communities for young families, especially those with children. Lorena is trying to steer clear of anything having to do with children. She did tell me, though, that they are waiting for permission from the zoning board to build two new houses on their property, and she hopes to rent them out for seasons at a time to people who will want to live somewhat communally. She's not sure about the details beyond that, and she's hoping to get some ideas from more developed concepts in other places. So we're going to take a look at some materials together, but it seems like La Gavina will soon be evolving, which could be exciting and innovative.
Tomorrow we're having a visit from a previous WWOOFer. She's Australian and she's coming with her boyfriend - she was here when she was only 15! Lorena said that Australians tend to know what they're doing when they come here. I'll fill in the blank and point out that American's don't. At least not this American. But alas. They're stuck with me!
Lastly - I do want to state that I saw a third snake after I wrote yesterday, and Lorena told me that I was uniquely blessed because snakes are a good sign and three is the blessed number - the father, the son and the holy ghost. She asked "what else could you ask for?" I'll tell you what else I could ask for. Guess. I could ask not to see any more snakes. Also, unfortunately I think I'd have to believe in that particular rule of three for that "blessing" to apply to me, but maybe I'll try to accept that great compliment retroactively.
So, tomorrow is another day. Tonight, I go to sleep with a belly full of Tuscan food, and a mind full of yodeling.
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