.: A great weekend

I knew it would happen. I love the island life, but there is something so fascinating and irresistible and recharging about the mountains that I find myself thinking again: “why am I living so far away?”. Maybe it is that the mountains and the family here has always be a part of my life, and I consider it reachable, ordinary. Instead the rest of the world needs still to be all explored… This is way I need to live this heaven to look for more.

I am sure I will probably retire in the Alps, I would love to be one of those old ladies working the land and enjoying the heat of the sun from my balcony… but I am still very young, and it is my time to explore now.

This weekend has been fantastic.

In these weeks there is a town party in Trento. By town party I mean a party held in all the main streets and squares that includes all citizens and anybody who happens to pass by. In Italy there are town parties organized everywhere. It is usually a revocation of an events (usually happened during the Middle Ages), or the coming to season for a particular kind of food (vegetables, mushrooms…the collections of the grapes to do wine….) Can be anything…

In Trento the town party is in celebration of the Saint Patron of the city (everything is Italy has some Saint protector, cities, barraks, people… (my Saint is Santa Barbara of course, and my “Saint day” – a sort of second birthday- is the 3^rd of December). For this occasion, there is a fight between the Jusi (the Jokers, like in the cards) and the Gobi (the hunchbacks). They have different fights, a very particular race on rafts down the Adige River, and a traditional medieval game held in the main square, that consist in a group of woman at the center of the square cooking Polenta, circled and defended by a human ring of Gobi. The Jusi try to break the ring to get to the Polenta. I got a paper that explained the rules of the game; it was very interesting to read how the women should be beaten if the polenta was not cooked at the perfection.

Town parties also mean lots of free drinking and eating in the streets, free concerts in the squares, plus markets, games… Saturday night was Trento’s “white night”, that is a night where nothing closes and nobody sleeps, concerts are held until 4.00 am in all main squares, and drinks and snacks are given free to everybody. Barbara, my brother’s wife, my cousin Lisa and I went downtown for the occasion… Trento, usually a very quite place on earth, looking just like a big metropoly. We met different times a group of cheering Gobi scrolling up and down the main road. The king of the Gobi, a man on his late sixties I would guess, was riding a 100 liters beer barrel pushed by other 6 Gobis. They were quite tipsy, distributing beers around. It felt home. It felt home being in a place without (known) drinking age limits and where streets and roads are meeting places where you can still walk around sipping beer and wine.

Leaving town early was hard, because we knew the party just started, but Lisa and I planned to go hiking the next day and we needed some sleep.

(why can't we have shops like this is Samoa????)

(earlier in the day we met some Jusi)

(Lisa, Barbara and I drinking in the street)

(the King cheering up the Gobis. He is sitting on a 100 liters beer barrel)

(Drink, drink some more... what a big beer glass!!!)

(Picture!!!!!!!!)

(Myself, on the right, playing with my identity thieft, the other Barbara. married to my brother)

(Note: I do not want you to think the italians are a bunch of drunk people, drinking everywhere at any age. Drinking in Italy is very social and accepted, being tipsy is ok, but being waste drunk is saw as something very bad and only kids do it. By the time you are 21 you are most often already a responsible drinker that does not pass the own limits. Being a woman and being drunk is terrible and socially unacceptable)

Leaving town early was hard, because we knew the party just started, but Lisa and I planned to go hiking the next day and we needed some sleep.

Sunday we drove to one of the tons of valley you find in Trentino. On my opinion, Trentino is the hiking capital of the world (New Zealand did a great job publicizing itself with this title, but after being there, I am even more convinced that Trentino is much better!). After 2 our hiking up the mountains, we reached the Rifugio. Hiking in itlaly is great because you do not need to carry with you all the weight of food or sleeping bags; scattered everywhere, the Alpinos (it is an part of Italian army) built Rifugios, small rocky mountain house where everybody is welcome to rest, sleep (in rooms with the most astonishing views!), get fed, try the local grappa and warm up.

We hiked for a total of 7 hours, we had an elevation gain of 900 meters, (700 m to the Rifugio Al Laugher, elevation 2608m, first built in 1882; 200 m more to reach the glacials). We saw marmots, drunk creamy hot chocolates, ate polenta with deer meet, walk barefoot in glacial streams… a great day overall! Views, smells, colors, sounds, energy, all is so refreshing! I could spend a life hiking in these mountains.

(The start of the hike)

(my cousin Lisa and I half way up to the Rifugio)

(Rifugio Al Larcher, first built in 1882, elevation m 2608, feet 8556 above sea level)

(Lisa with Gomma -the white dog- and Michele - the black one --the dog of my cousin Rossella that we were baby sitting)

(Lunch at the rifugio: Polenta, Crauti and Spezzatino... hum...)

And once back home, all ready to watch the soccer game of Italy again Spain. True, we lost at the extra time, but being there, surrounded by Italians (after that shock of being the only Italian for thousand of mile during the World Cup), was just priceless!