Ciao, Tutti!
Things are getting a little crazy around these parts as final papers start to come in, people begin to prepare for tests, the final concerts are coming up, and everyone who can't wait to get home gets antsy and people who don't want to leave get sad. After teaching last Wednesday, the teacher and I went over the next two classes I would teach before going back home, and it was more than a little disconcerting to think I would be gone so soon. The idea of spending a year or so here after graduating to teach English is becoming more and more appealing.
View from the Oberau Train Station
Before I talk about the perfect day in Cinque Terre (SHIN-kwe TER-a), I should mention my trip to visit with Shira and Billy, which was interesting since both Shira and I look quite a bit different than last time we saw each other. It looks like the baby will be here in about 5 weeks, according to my expertise in the area, or my calculations after hearing what the due date is. I was glad to have a chance to see where they live because there aren't many people who are going to be able to see the house where little Sophie is going to spend most of her first year. Plus, next time anyone sees Shira from out of town she will be a mother. I certainly felt like I was very lucky to be able to make this visit at this point in time.
View from Shira and Billy's backyard. The light made this picture hard to take.
The best part about the visit was the main reason I went, which was the passover seder. Last year I was in New York for the holiday, and I didn't get to celebrate it at all, though I do only have to blame myself for skipping the seder my friends were having. But it was so nice this year to be spending the passover with family, the way it's meant to be done, or at least the way I'm used to. Passover is an important holiday for me because of my version of the bar mizvah, where I spent a year studying the haggadah (not enough to spell it right, though) and learning how to lead a seder. It was just so nice and homey to be reading the story and singing the prayers once again with family. It was a small affair this year, only 10 once the stragglers showed up, which was probably a good thing for Shira. It was intimate, and we went at our own pace, allowing for the questions, serious or not, to be answered by the 4 Jews at the table. I had a great time, so great, in fact, that I completely forgot to take pictures, much to Aunt Marsha's probable disappointment. That says a lot, saying as I took 125 pictures at Cinque Terre. Taking pictures immediately makes one feel like an outsider documenting an event rather than taking part in it, and I was having too much fun to withdraw from that to get some photos to send back home. However, when I wasn't avoiding writing my paper, I did manage to get some good pictures of the house, plus I got some at the train station.
Another view from the Oberau Train Station
The small town Shira and Billy live in (whose name I don't remember) is very close to the foot of the Alps, which was evident as the mountains seemed to rise up from right in front of me. It was drop dead gorgeous, the whole scenery, the car ride, the train ride, and even the flight. They live in a small farming community which was very relaxing for me to spend the weekend after a semester of hard work, though it didn't help me tackle my paper. However, after a long stay, I can imagine it getting old. Still, I appreciated it quite a bit.
Shira and Billy's house
It hadn't stopped raining when I got back to Florence. the weather here has been very strange, and even the Florentines don't get it. I was really hoping for good weather before I left so I could see the Boboli Gardens in bloom as well as the gardens on campus. But, sure enough, spring arrived with T-shirt weather on Thursday, and, bounding with the temperature-induced energy, I figured I would get up bright and early at 6:30 to take a train to Cinque Terre Parche Nazionale and make up for the two times before I wanted to go but failed to do so.
View of Manarola from the mountains
It was completely worth it. My goodness, the place was so amazingly beautiful.
Cinque Terre literally means "five lands" or "five villages." It is located on the west coast in the middle of Liguria, the region north of Tuscany. It's about a 15 minute drive from Portofino and Santa Margarita, where I had visited about 3 years ago with my high school band. The five villages are spaced out along the coast and there are numerous trails that lead you from one to the other. Just behind the towns are rolling hills which double as a large farming community.
Manarola
Some initial observations: First of all, it was like the trip to Portofino back in the day, but many times more beautiful. The buildings were built in the same colorful style and the trail had the habit of running through random people's back yards. For example, we walked by a party going on in celebration of the Italian Liberation (I went on their version of Independence Day).
Note the crowd surfer. You can't really hear the loud music they were playing just by the photo, though.
Second, there were all sorts of tiny paths that didn't look like paths until you saw where they were going. A lot of times I had to double back in order to tell where that path began. These were usually paths that led up to farms or private residences. It was sort of like Venice, but the paths actually went somewhere instead of into the water. It gave new meaning to directions that don't use street names but "the third bush after the ninth tree" or something like that.
This door seems to be in the middle of nowhere, but there's actually a path that makes it important.
I think it's obvious it's a path because of how I took the photo, but it wasn't so evident as I walked by it.
Third, everything was so amazingly green! You can tell by the photos, but it was obvious spring had arrived and the farmers were happy. Combining the unnatural blue of the sea with the verdant green of the hills and trees made for a naturally vibrant hiking day.
The names of the five towns, in order, are Riomaggiore, Manarola (the one I got the best pictures of), Corniglia, Vernazza, and Montarosso. I got to Riomaggiore at about 10 in the morning to begin my hike. I wanted to get through all of the towns, and as a consequence I didn't take many pictures in Riomaggiore. I could have taken some looking back, but the sun was just rising in that direction and it was impossible.
Foot trails map
The path most traveled in the park is trail 2, which is not very strenuous and leads you along the coast so you can smell that wonderful sea air and get a good coastal view of all the towns you're going to. It's also the one built best for large groups of people, but even that wasn't enough to keep from congestion. As many of you know, I walk rather quickly, and this was the trail for families, and families don't usually want to walk in single file. I had originally wanted to do the hiking parts as fast as I could so I could have some time to explore the towns, but, as we will see, I ended up doing something much different.
Manarola
By the time I made it to Manarola I decided to try and take a trail above the rest of the people going on path 2, but I took one that took me about half way to Corniglia, then sent me back to Manarola, so I got to see it twice, which may account for why I was able to get better pictures of it. After the blunder I decided to walk seaside again to get views such as this one:
In Corniglia, on the way to the next trail, I saw a sign that looked like this:
So I looked at my hand held map and made sure the trail would eventually lead to the next town of Vernazza, which it did, so I whimsically went off trail and started the uphill climb, which turned out to be just about entirely uphill. There was an elevation gain of about 2,000 feet in about half an hour of hiking. All in all, the trail was 2.5 km long, so a mile of hiking that went up 2,000 feet. That means more than 2/3rds of the hiking was uphill as opposed to moving straight. Puts the trail at a 60 degree angle. My legs were shaking when I reached the road at the top of the mountain. But the view was amazing and it was totally worth it, though Mom would have hated how handicapped inaccessible it was.It made me worried, since I want to go to Yosemite this summer, but if I had such a hard time on this trail, I don't know if I'm quite ready to go all the way up to Half Dome, which is quite a lot more elevation gain than what I did in Cinque Terre.
Coniglia from above
This hike was the best part of the trip, even if my calves are still sore. It was very cathartic, very introspective, and I could feel my mind clearing. Suddenly I could remember things clearly, things from back in my childhood, and make connections to solve problems that had been forgotten by now (Flip Saunders needs to do this kind of hike). I was all alone in the mountains by the sea. It was an ecstasy, a mental cleansing, and I felt in a better, more optimistic state of mind that I can remember in a long time. I felt I could go back and finish Guest Artist in a sitting, that I could stop stressing about this movie score because I could just sit down and do it, that I don't have to worry about my exams because all I have to do is study for them. I even felt for the first time that I could talk to Mariel without anger, reserve, or fear. I felt like I could tackle all my problems as long as I was on that mountain, like my mind was sharp enough to handle anything set out for it to do. A feeling of "I can do this" about everything. Barack Obama would have been proud. He must do hikes like that all the time. All jokes aside, it was a profound experience for me, perhaps even as far as spiritual. And, of course, it felt like the perfect ending trip for this wonderful semester of mine, a feeling of closing up all the holes left open until this point. It was a truly wonderful feeling.
Part of the consequence of taking the long way around, other than the shaking in my knees, was that I approached the next town, Vernazza, from the back rather from the side, and the path winded down people's back yards, directly through the farming community next to a river. It was so green and full of spring that it was fairly obvious that the farmers were having a good time with the great weather. I liked seeing the little rails with carts on them used to transport things up and down the hills. The whole community seemed to take living on the hills in stride, though with all the uphill climbing they have to do as suggested by the crazy steep stairs, they must be very fit and worn out at a much younger age.
I just booked a hostel to Genoa for a couple days next weekend to celebrate May Day, which is a national holiday here. One last great trip in store for me before this whole adventure comes to a close.
Music Announcements
Very exciting news: The NYU in Florence jazz bands got a final surprise gig back in Marche in a town on the sea close to Macerata. This gig is going to be different than our normal club or cafe dates because we will be playing as a preview to their summer jazz festival in which two NYU groups are playing. This means they will give us a theater and 500 or so people to play in front of, as well as enough money for each band to give us a place to stay for the night and enough to pay the leader of the ensemble I'm in, a stellar trumpet player from Rome who takes our ensemble to another level, though we have yet to play with him in concert. This show will be on Saturday, May 3, so if any of you happen to be in Marche and in the city whose name I don't know yet, you might want to come and see the show.
Tomorrow, Monday, April 28, is the Jazz Party at Villa La Pietra where the bands will play for the students and staff at NYU's campus in Florence. The show should be nice, not that different than the one in the theater on May 3rd, though we have a pretty strict time limit. It is our last (sniff!) performance in Florence.
May 6th is the scheduled date for the performance of the film score. I suppose this means I have to finish it. This is the last thing in the school year that is pumping coffee into the butterflies in my stomach. I do have my friend Leo set to conduct it, and I trust him, but I'm most worried about leading a rehearsal because I don't really know how to rehearse this kind of thing. I hope everyone can sight read it. But if all goes well, the show should be like nothing I've ever done before. In a good way. And it has been fun doing this film score, but it's also been just about the hardest thing I've ever done. With hindsight I would have liked more practice with shorter scenes first, since writing 7 minutes of silent film music is pretty tough, but here I am!
Again, the shows for the summer, which will kick ass:
June 28 at the Bluesix Acoustic Room in San Francisco The first ever performance of Guest Artist, as well as a celebration of the year-birthday of my CD, "Summer Victory Dance." I will bring a repertoire of political music I have written as well to anticipate the end of Bush's final term.
August 17 at the Jazz School in Berkeley My last concert as a teenager will feature a different arrangement of Guest Artist as well as performances on many different instruments I have either never played on stage before or haven't for a while. I will take advantage of the electricity that Bluesix doesn't have.
September 25 at the Bowery Poetry Club in New York City The Sam Goldsmith 20th birthday celebration concert. I haven't planned far enough ahead to say for certain what the focus of this show is yet.
Every show will feature the Inspiration Sextet.
