What to See

We had friends in town on Good Friday.  When Daniel met up with them in Rome upon their arrival, they had all gone out for gelato which cost, they realized afterwards, seven euro per gelato.  (We pay two euro per gelato in Viterbo, and generally slightly more in other towns/cities, including Rome.)  Now they were coming to Viterbo for an afternoon, and I wanted to have good meals ready for them.  Viterbo is not on a typical tourist guide, and I wanted to make parts of the afternoon good and easy for them.  They have two daughters, one a friend of Sebastian's from Plympton and one in grade four still at Plympton.  Daniel and I were thinking about what we could show them to make this one day of their eight day Italy trip, worthwhile: the terme (hot spring baths) or Pope's Palace or the medieval quarter or the UNESCO plaques for the Santa Rosa procession.

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The feast of Santa Rosa was such a novelty for all of us.  Since then there's been the day after Santa Rosa festival and the befana procession for Epiphany (the one with the women and the Fiats and candy -- where we temporarily lost Connor) and some feast late March when the streets were lined with stalls selling treats and bags and kitchen utensils.  There have been days that I've heard drumming and not rushed outside to find it.  For the Flower Festival two weeks ago all the piazzas in the medieval quarter were decked out with flowers and knitted creations of flowers and cactuses and wagons; on the side of the road folks were selling flowers and plants and baskets (Hannah stopped to watch a man shaving down a stick before adding it to the basket he was making).

In the past two days I've seen banners and signs for Santissimo Salvatore, and Thursday as I opened the shutters in my office and waved across the street to Renzo, who works or owns the edicola across the street -- every morning I see him and two other men standing outside his shop as I open my shutters -- he yelled something up to me that I partly understood.  He invited me for a caffe as he's done before, and I know that I should follow up on this one though I feel too awkward to walk across the street one of these mornings and say something like, "Buongiorno, Renzo!  Caffe adesso?"  He's asked me twice now from across the street, and I'd like to follow up, but this will take some courage on my part, courage that's not quite there yet.  He is wonderfully friendly with me and with the kids and complimentary of our Italian, even mine.  But still, there will be not awkward silences, but rather moments when he speaks and I need many moments to parse which words make up his sentence and which words I need to respond.  The quick Italian coffee may not be quick enough.

After the window caffe invitation, Renzo yelled up something about a procession that was going to go down Via Cavour, that I'd be able to see from this window.  A day later, noticing the window banners like the ones that hung down from windows during Santa Rosa -- those had pictures of the facinni (men who carried the macchina of the Santa Rosa back in September) on them -- I realized that this Saturday -- today! -- is the feast of San Salvatore, and one sign says that the procession is at 6pm.  The kids are procession-ed out; the drums and marching and dancing on the streets of Viterbo are no longer quite as exciting, and they are happy to stay home and relax even though they would need to walk about two blocks to see it.

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Before our friends -- the family of four from Waltham -- arrived early afternoon, I went for a short run, showered, and cleaned the bathrooms with Hannah.  Daniel cooked and cooked (caponata -- a Sicilian dish he learned to make after our Sicily trip; chicken with peppers and onion).  I ran out to do a few errands in the remaining hour.  I invited Mary, knowing that her Italian makes my life easier and my Italian less awkward since she loves to do the talking and does so effectively, but she declined.

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First: Bancomat for money.  Renzo's shop is a door or two down from the ATM.  He saw me and gave me his usual enthusiastic greeting, introducing me to his friends, pointing across the street at SYA, bragging on my behalf that I can speak Italian and I've been here since only August.  I protested (then later realized in talking with Daniel that really, not protesting is more appropriate -- Renzo is kind and effusive, yes, and he knows exactly how good and bad my Italian is at this point as Daniel pointed out), thanked him, moved on to my next errand.

Taverna Etrusca.  I love their pizza.  This would be good lunch for today.  Without Mary I walk in and ask about ordering pizzas.  The man recognizes me and takes my order.  I'm thinking five pizzas for ten of us.  But I hesitate.  I ask him how many pizzas he would get for ten people.  He says, Whatever you wish.  I say, Yes, but what do you think?  He says, Italians get one pizza per person.  I realize he's right, but I don't want to over-order.  So I order eight pizzas.  (Ultimately, this is ridiculous because we'll be ten people for lunch at 1pm, yes, and then we're having an early dinner around 5pm, and Daniel's cooked for hours, and I can't have us not hungry.)  I walk out of Taverna Etrusca laughing at myself, but also delighted that I've ordered the pizzas successfully and had a lovely conversation in Italian with this man.  I need to keep moving.

Pane Pizza Dolce at Fontana Grande.  Daniel's requested a loaf of bread for dinner.  Pane Pizza Dolce is our favorite bread and pizza slices spot (whereas we order whole pizzas and usually eat at Taverna Etrusca which is an actual restaurant).  Mary comes here each morning before school to get her pizza (bianca or croccante -- I'm not sure which) for morning snack; the school sells pizza -- 1 euro for 2 pieces -- and the others all bring money to school each day.  Mary prefers this PPD pizza, so she stops every morning, likely adding a few minutes extra to her daily tardiness.  One Saturday in the fall Daniel and I stopped at a bakery by Piazza del Erbe to pick up bread to go with lunch.  Before we walked in, Daniel said, "Would you order?  I never know how to get bread."  At first I thought he was faking it, encouraging me to practice my Italian and get out there.  We walked in, and I looked at the options, loaves of bread whose differences I could not discern, and I thought, I have no idea what to order.  Or how to order.  Do any of these have salt?  I don't remember exactly, but likely I turned to Daniel and we pieced together a request for a loaf with salt, she didn't have any left with salt, and we left with a loaf of bread that we all finished off at lunch salt or no salt.

Saturdays we often end up at Pane Pizza Dolce at Fontana Grande to grab slices for lunch.  It's delicious and inexpensive.  Mary orders, and we bring it home or on a hike or bike ride for everyone.  But Mary's still not with me.  I walk in, wait in line, and when I get up to the front, I make my request for a loaf of bread with salt.  Again, I don't remember whether there was any with salt or not at that point, but I know that I walked out happily with a loaf of bread, thrilled that the woman recognized me, granted my request in some way, and I was returning home with a loaf of bread.

Final stop: I really wanted a coffee post-run.  Break Bar is downstairs.  I walk in and the barista recognizes me.  I come here maybe once every few weeks and get a cappuccino to get energy for afternoon classes or endurance for a Saturday out when I've not slept well.  She knows my order, says, "Cappuccino?" before I speak.  This is the place where an older woman once treated me, a woman I didn't know, whose offer I accepted because she said, "Offro io," as she paid.  I stand at the bar and sip my cappuccino.  A woman I recognize walks in; she's a host mom for an SYA student.  Dorianna -- I'm inwardly thrilled that I remember her name and which student is living in her house.  She says hello, orders her caffe, and we talk for a few minutes.  She's Italian: her caffe is gone in two minutes.  From the moment I saw her come in and order I knew that I wanted to treat her to her coffee, an easy offro io to accomplish.  But Dorianna is done before I am; quick and smooth, she walks around me and goes to the register to start to pay for my coffee and hers.  I cannot have another offro io moment here at Break Bar.  I need a turn.  I insist.  Dorianna relents.  The barista smiles.

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I return home nearly ecstatic: these errands brought me so much joy.  Or rather, the people at all my stops made me feel connected, seen, accepted.  I'm not Italian, and I'll never really belong, I know that.  But for that forty minutes I felt like part of this neighborhood, able to communicate in the smallest ways, able to know where to go for what.

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Mary and I put out only five of the eight pizzas (the other three do come in handy for breakfast and lunch the next day); we take our friends to the park by The Awakening sculpture, walking some through the medieval quarter on the way; Daniel takes five kids to the terme for an outing, and I give the most miniature tour of Viterbo possible to the adults -- piazza San Lorenzo and Pope's Palace; Piazza Commune with a gorgeous view; a Santa Rosa plaque in the street; the Stumbling Stones by Porta Verita. 

What I wish I could have shared with them though was those errands.  They would have held no meaning for them -- a spot for money, for pizza, for bread, for coffee.  But they are the stuff of life for me.