first day in tuscany (july 15)

one of the machines in which wine is made (by magic).

a picture of the vineyard


i woke up in the middle of night twice last night. the reason was that i was getting eaten by mosquitos, and scratching myself awake. when i awoke in the morning, i thought that perhaps it was a dream, reminding me of the first (and last) time i was in greece, about 13 years ago. it was in a similar country town, and i must have had at least 30 mosquito bites at one time. anyway, when i woke up, i didnt find any trace of them, so i felt good. as the day went on, though, i realized that i wasnt so lucky, and, indeed, i had been bitten several times by something or another. it wasnt so bad, but still. i hope the same thing does not happen tonite.

so today paola’s fatherr took us around town, and showed us his winery business, and how wine is produced, and sold, and such. perhaps i can make wine now; it seemed easy enough, and i think i can do it without all the fancy equipment. afterall, how did people make wine before such technology? the same way i am going to do it! the country side is pleasant, and it is not far at all from the sea. we are on the west coast of italy, so i dont exactly know the name of the sea, but it is still nice. while paola’s father and wife had to attend to some important business (apparently some wine commision folks were coming by to find out if the wine was fit to be sold, and they had to attend to them), paola and i took their bikes, and rode to the beach.

i thought the path would be easy, merely go east, and we are destined to find sea, but it was not so simple. we basically got lost trying to get out of the vineyeard area (where many different people have are planting their own grapes), despite the directions that paola’s father gave us (i must admit that due to my overconfidence to find the proper path, i wasnt really listening, and apparently neither was paola). so after riding around in circles for a while (we rode by their house about three times), we finally found the main road (within the vineyard area, all the roads are dirt roads), and got to the beach. this, however, was not without incident.

being that this is the country, the roads are not especially wide (though wide enough for two way traffic), and certainly, there are no bike lanes. paola got a bit overwhelmed by this, and was very scared for pretty much the whole ride to the beach. by the time we got to the beach, we both rode far and hard (paola’s father said it was about 5 miles, and i am not inclined to disagree). paola’s face was beet red, and she declared that she would not ride back.

so we stayed at the beach for a while and enjoyed ourselves. we started by sitting at some beach chairs with umbrellas. however, these belonged to the hotel, and before long, we were told to move off. so we did. then we were told that the whole area was reserved for teh hotel, so we then had to move away. basically, the only region that did not belong to some hotel or other was a strip of land about 10 meters in width that went from the street to the water. so we had to lay out there. and it was nice. we finally rode back at about 6, just long enough to begin the foundations of a tan, but not long enough to really burn.

because everyone was leaving the beach at about this time, there was a lot of traffic. this definitely scared paola, but she was determined to beat her fear, and make it home. however, her dad happened to drive by (i doubt it was a coincidence), and her emotions got the best of her. she did carry on, though, not wanting to wimp out of riding the bike home....

after getting home, i shared a discussion with paola’s dad about linguistics, and history, which was very entertaining and informative.

later we went out to dinner to a nice restaurant which happened to sell paola’s dad’s wine (again, i doubt it was a coincidence). it was a nice seafood place right on the water. i mean right on the water; you could just about jump from our table into the sea. we were also lucky to catch a nice sunset. i also got a few good lessons at wine tasting, and learned that if i want to open up a restaurant, which i do (perhaps before or after or while becoming an architect and/ or wine maker), i should probably go to cooking school (my plan was to just let my dad run that part of the business, while i stood as the pretty face at the door). at the end of the meal (we stayed until closing), the host offered us a shot of grappa, which smelled and tasted like paint thinner. it wasnt so bad, though, as i am wide awake and writing this at 1:30 in the morning (and that is after sharing 3 bottles of wine between the four of us).