Il quattordicesimo. Gli amici del buio.

Dear you,

Yesterday was probably the best day I’ve had in Ferrara. No one really has class on Fridays, so despite the threat of rain Ann and I decided to have a picnic in the park. We wandered around the market for a while and then took sandwiches (peanut butter and honey for me) to a dry bench in Parco Massari. We convinced Marie to join us and played for a while on the squeaky swings and these crazy red slides built into the side of a hill and then when it started raining we took cover under huge pine trees that make a little fort beneath the branches. Riding back into town we were blinded by the wet cobblestones because the rain was pouring down on them out of the clear blue sky. Out of the clear blue sky! April weather is bizarre here.

The sun stayed out, so we settled into a café for a few hours with iced coffee. At some point we decided to call Monica, our professor from the fall semester, and a half an hour later she came to meet us bearing the cake she'd just made. After cake, we hopped back on our bikes and rode to this countryside kind of tucked away in the middle of the walled city. As anyone who has visited Ferrara knows, there isn’t a speck of green anywhere, not a tree or a plant or a patch of grass to be seen. But Monica found us blooming cherry blossoms and green fields and two really incredible cemeteries that otherwise I don’t think anyone would realize existed. On these little gravel roads I found it completely impossible to determine where we were in the city on the map in my mind. It occurred to me as we rode around in the sunshine just how attached I am to this place. How attached we’ve all become. Whatever other Italians have to say about it, or however un-noteworthy it may be according to American travel guides, I’m pretty sure that none of us is ever really going to be able to leave this city. We identify with it, I think. It’s nice. I keep telling people that I think I’m probably going to die here someday and they think I’m being morbid. Choking sentimentality is what it really is.

Monica invited the three of us back to her house for more cake and strawberries. While we were there, she gave me a copy of the book of poetry she wrote and recently had published. Monica is basically my editor right now for the translation I’m working on of a short story written by one of her old friends in Ferrara, Gianfranco Rossi. But Monica seems to be friends with just about everyone here. She unfolded the long table and laid out a blue blue tablecloth and called it a festa della primavera. A spring party, she said, better because it was improvised. We sat around for a few hours eating and talking and being watched from time to time by a white cat on the next balcony or old people across the way. Honestly, it was the greatest day I can remember having here in Ferrara. I even had to wash my feet when I got home. The telling sign of a really good day since I was a little kid.

I think I’ve picked up the Italian tendency to overdescribe, and I’m not sure I like it. In fact, I'm sure I don't. When I start averaging more than six adjectives per noun, will someone please slap me?

In other news, Italy just elected itself a new prime minister. And by new, I mean the same prime minister they've already "elected" twice before. And by prime minister, I mean evil billionaire. I was talking to Monica about the election this weekend and she said that whenever she talked to her friends about voting, they all said they same thing: The electoral process is a mess! The law really needs to be changed, and I'm not going to vote again until they fix it. This seemingly outrageous attitude bascially sums up the cyclical horror that is Italian politics these days.

What does all this mean to me right now? I just found out that Berlusconi owns my grocery store, and now I can't shop there again. I have to find another, and it's all because of Silvio. Boo.

a presto,

j