Sunday, December 17, 2006

August 2, 1986 Vacanza Romana

Here is my journal entry for August 2, 1986: "I woke up long before the others today. Once Sandy got up we went to town. Some friend of Maria Victoria's is staying with us too. I don't know her name. We went to the bar in town to make some phone calls. One to Alain--no one home. One to John DiGregorio's friend --no answer. One to my cousins -- nobody home. We need to be back home by 1 pm. We got some thing to eat and drink. I ordered a piece of that cake with all the fruit on top. Then who happens to be there but that cute Italian guy that we talked to before --Armando. He got a coffee and talked to us a while. We forgot the time and suddenly it was 12:30! Said quick good-byes. Oh he has beautiful eyes. When we got home the mom and dad were about to leave. The were going somewhere for the weekend. Sandy was returning to Canada before they got back so we took some pictures and then Sandy breaks out presents for them. My oh my. She had so many presents to give them. A bag full for each. Mine, that I will give them when I leave in a few days, will look pitiful in comparison. She had pins, T-shirts, baseball caps, ties, beads, collector spoons, decorative plate and little flags. Everything had Canadian symbols on them. Wow.
I cooked spaghetti with some sauce I made up. Then we layed in the sun for a while. It was very hot. Tomorrow I am supposed to go to Tarchizio's sister's house. I hope that he does not try anything romantic. I am not interested in anyone but one Frenchman right now. I think I would like to live on a boat. (Here I had sketched a picture of what the boat should look like.) When I get home I will make a cassette of music to remind me of the camp. I think the song "I honestly love you." and "The way we were" Then The Cure, Bronski Beat, The Communards and so on. Ok, the friend's name is Erica. For dinner we ordered pizzas. Maria and Erica went to pick them up. We stayed home tonight and watched TV. An old movie was on "Vacanza Romana", or in English "Roman Holiday". It was with Gregory Peck and Audry Hepburn. I have seen it lots of times and love that movie. We drank some wine. It was only ok tasting. We sat by the pool and drank wine and talked. There was a band playing down in the town. They played till midnight. we could hear it well at the top of the hill where we lived. It is Sandy's last night. She and I layed in bed and talked and talked. I told her to try to get some sleep and then she fell right asleep. It was a lovely evening. We watched a romantic movie, sat under the stars and drank wine. I think it was a nice end for Sandy's Italian vacation."

Once again our ignorance of wine shined brightly. We bought a big bottle of Lambrusco at the shop in town. We put in in the refrigerator to "chill". Our Italian host family must have thought we were crazy to chill a red wine. We drank it nonetheless. Lambrusco is a sweet cheap wine that should be slightly chilled 20 to 30 minutes, but we deep chilled it. It was warm enough that evening that it warmed up quickly. You can see the sweat on the bottle in the picture.

No comments: