northampton, ma

In the category of Super Fucking Amazing, Italy won the World Cup last night and the entire city went insane. I was with some friends I had met in Ischia, we watched the game in a giant classroom at their university. Talk about passion. Imagine a room with two hundred 20-something Italians .. shouts, tears, cries, joy, everything. Afterwards we joined in on the madness in the streets and ended up in two of the city fountains, the one in the middle of piazza della Repubblica, and of course the grandest of them all, the Trevi. I put Anita Ekberg to shame by clambering up the fountain, with one hand (had to carry my beer with me, right?), up up up, up all the way until I was sitting on top of Neptune's head. I think unforgettable experience is defined by you sitting on top of a Roman god's head in the most famous fountain in the world, while hundreds of people are below you packing out the fountain and the piazza going insane. Talk about a view and a feeling. We had waterfights, girls in various forms of undress (and unfortunately way too many dudes in their undies), chanting, singing, hugging .. it was beautiful.

The game itself was pretty good, with of course the Zidane shocker. Italy clearly tired at the end and was fortunate to go into penalty kicks, where unheralded guys like De Rossi, Materazzi, and Grosso sealed the victory. Buffon and Cannavaro were incredible again and Italy absolutely deserved the victory.

My poor father missed out on all the action. He flew out of Fiumicino roughly 6 hours before the game began, talk about bad timing. Sorry Dad. Love ya.

And here I'll finish some backstory and recount my week in Umbria with Dad. Brigolante, our agriturismo, was really serene and peaceful. Rebecca was great, even if not much of a singer. In one week we managed to see Assisi, Perugia, Spello, Montefalco, Bevagna, Todi, the piano grande and Castellucio, the Valnerina (including Arrone and Scheggino and Papigno), Civita di Bagnoregio, and Orvieto. Dad almost got convinced into buying a house in Civita, but apparently there aren't any single young females in the town's population of 15 so he decided to pass on the idea. I really enjoyed each place, with the exception of Montefalco. Sounds like a very busy week, and it was, but really I didn't feel like we were rushing and our energy levels stayed good and we stayed happy. But luckily I have nothing to do now except relax (and figure out where I am going today, damn hotel in Pitigliano isn't answering their phone.. maybe hungover from last night still?).

Dad proved to be an able driver, with one exception of a very tight corner in Orvieto that left a nice rash on the side of our Lancia. Ironic that it would happen in our last town and not at the beginning. Either way, he did well for not having driven a stickshift in 15 years. He proved to be somewhat less able at pronouncing Italian words, although by the end he was making progress. I lost track how many times I said, ''the letter C [insert Brian Regan here] never, ever ever ever, ever ever ever makes an S sound in Italian'' but I was patient with him and he did pretty well. It was hilarious though how he would mutter Italian words under his breath, over and over, trying to get the pronounciation right ... sometimes it sounded like he had Tourette's. We'd be driving down the road and all of a sudden I would hear him muttering something, usually a word he saw on a sign or something, and he'd go at the word for like two straight minutes. I didn't let myself get annoyed by it, since I remember when I first went to Munich and spent an entire day trying to pronounce München properly .. I'm sure that annoyed the hell out of my friend, and so as to avoid hypocrisy I didn't ask him to quit.

On a food note for Mom, we had some really incredible meals. Highlights were brie on top of potatoes and pancetta; roasted pork with a Sagrantino wine sauce; umbrechelli (a type of pasta) with black truffle sauce; steak with black truffle sauce; a carpaccio of bresaola with strawberries, rucola, parmesan, and a balsamic vinegar-carmelized red wine sauce; gnocchi with asparagus and burrata; tagiatelli with a wild boar ragù; and one particularly delicious dessert, passion fruit ice cream with actual passion fruit on top. It was like I died and was back in Peru.