Odds and Ends

Yesterday I was wandering around and went into a shop which sold women’s clothes. I wanted to get myself a short-sleeved top because you have no idea how sick I am of the three I brought with me. Anyway, I was browsing and the shop keeper came up to me and asked if I spoke English which surprised me because I wasn’t aware I looked  particularly English. He actually wanted to tell me that if I liked something but it wasn’t in my size to ask him because not all sizes were put out. Well, that was nice but it isn’t  the point of this little anecdote. The first time he gave me the information, I really wasn’t listening to what he said; I was actually trying to place his accent! I had to ask him to repeat what he said and I apologized because this used to happen to me when I first came to the States and I hated it. People were so busy listening to my English accent and the way I said something that they didn’t get the sense of what I said until I repeated it. {He was a Scot, by the way. He said he had a Scottish mother and an Italian father and that he and his wife and little son were here in Lucca for a year.}

A total change of subject here –I am enamored of Italian ice cream. I have had a different flavor every day and there hasn’t been a bad one yet. Well, I couldn’t finish the coffee flavored one but that was because it was too rich. My favorite ones so far have been hazelnut, which actually had a whole hazelnut in it, blackberry {even though the seeds got stuck in my teeth} green apple, which had bits of apple and flecks of green skin, and yesterday’s was mint with little chunks of dark chocolate in there! And there are so many more new flavors to try!

I have no idea if I am gaining weight, and at the moment, I am not concerned about it. I eat what I like {and I like pasta} and I walk a lot. I walk up and down the 52 steps at the place where I am living usually twice a day because I go back after class to dump my backpack and get my purse before going out for the afternoon. I go up and down the 42 steps at the school twice a day. These six weeks are  a holiday, albeit a working holiday, and I will count calories when I get back!

I have been spending a considerable time looking around churches. I love old churches. Yesterday I went into the church of San Frediano. The piazza San Frediano is actually one of my favorite places to go. It has two nice places to eat outside, an expensive shop for women’s clothes so I can look but not buy, benches to sit outside, close proximity to the walls of Lucca if I want to walk there,  and many many tourists groups to watch! And, of course, the church was full of tour groups, many more than the few I had seen heretofor. Then I realized it was Saturday, which is apparently the day many tour groups arrive! I was going to go to the cathedral today but I think I will leave that one for a weekday. It is, oddly enough, bothering me a bit to see {and to be one of} the tourists talking and taking pictures in churches. I was brought up as a Catholic, and  although I am no longer a practicing Catholic,  I can hear the nun’s voices in my head telling me that this is NOT the way to behave in a church!

Now I must make my bed and then I will go to the site of the old Roman amphitheater. It is huge circle of shops and cafes. People live above the shops and the cafes have tables outside. I have been VERY fortunate in the weather so far. Most days are cool and sunny and there have been only two cold and rainy days.  We had a little rain last night,  but this morning looks as if the day will be sunny. One thing I saw that amused me on one of the rainy days was a young man walking down the street  in the rain as I was walking up and he was selling umbrellas in the pouring rain.  Oh, and taking about things that amused me, on a few shops I have seen the words Ingresso libero. Free entry? Umm, in what country are there shops that charge you to enter? I can see this on museums and art galleries, but shops?

I am finishing this up on Sunday which turned out to be quite a physically exhausting day because I actually got lost! After lunch– a panino with four cheeses and un caffe alla panna, which is thick whipped cream on top of the strong coffee–I decided to walk to the church of San Michele and I am glad I did because this is the first time I have actually seen the church when it was not surrounded by the stalls selling tawdry things to tourists. It is a fantastic church and I went in to the service that was being held at that time. The priest had just started the homily and I heard and understood when he welcomed his parishioners AND the tourists standing at the back of the church, but that was only because he spoke those sentences slowly and clearly! Once he got to speaking at the normal speed that Italians use taking to each other, I was lost again!

After that, I consulted my map and made my way to yet another church called Santa Maria Bianca and looked around there. When I came out, for some reason, I got turned around and instead of finding my way back to the center of town, I finished up at the walls! Well, since I had no idea where on the walls I was, I decided to walk into the city with the walls at my back which should take me more or less where I wanted to go. After a bit, I noticed people going towards the walls AND people obviously going back to the center of town and so I followed the latter. Now, I did have a map but so many of the little side streets are not on the map so until I came to Via San Croce, I recognized no names. However, once I reached there, I knew where I was. I must have been walking slowly {with several short stops to rest } for about two hours. I hadn’t planned that, but it was an interesting experience!

Which brings me to writing about how my leg is doing. I have no pain at all but I do lean more heavily on the cane as the day progresses. And, although I cannot as yet walk without the cane, I can put my full weight on the left leg for a short time  –which is the one that had the surgery– which is something I couldn’t do in physical therapy before I left the States three weeks ago. I am doing the exercises I was given to do every second day since I am walking so much and going up and down so many stairs!

Tomorrow, Monday, we don’t start at our usual time of 9 am but at 11:30. This is because it is an official intake day for new students and they will be taking a written test, as we did and being slotted into their classes. I plan on undertaking the big adventure of getting money from an ATM machine before I go to class. It is odd how I have no trouble handing over my card to pay for something here and yet am all nervous about using it in an ATM in a foreign county! As an addendum, the whole transaction went perfectly. I worry unneccesarily –worry for the sake of worry, I fear!

And a final TMI about the coffee with whipped cream I had yesterday. During the night, I had to get up and, well, let’s say I am SO glad I packed the anti-diarrhea pills! I had totally forgottenwhat whipped cream does to my digestive system!

More later…

QUOTATIONS:

"Step by step. I can’t think of any other way of accomplishing anything."

Michael Jordan

If you have the courage to begin, you have the courage to succeed.

— David Viscott