Well, I’m leaving today. I’ve had a wonderful time here in the mountains (just outside of the village Chiozza, about 30 minutes from the town Castelnuovo di Garfagnana) doing all sorts of odd jobs. My first day here, Colm told me, “Hey, there’s a bunch of cardboard boxes and no space in the trash. Can you burn ’em?” I laughed. I thought he was joking. But no! So I got to play pyro, I’ve been gardening, stripping wood, cleaning up, painting, making the morning fires, getting a virus off a computer, mixing cement, helping build a sunshade….
It’s so beautiful here. I’ll definitely miss the serene silence of the mountains punctured by the roaring fights of a 9 yr old and a 13 yr old as they come crashing through the house. I’ve been staying with this amazing Irish family, hearing TONS of stories about travel, talking about adventure, creativity, music and books, and last night I learned to say “How are you?” in Irish! No hope of spelling it though. The only word I know how to spell and pronounce is “bhfuil” which is pronounced “will”. Go figure. Anyway, I’m really interested in pursuing that a bit more…I really like the way the language looks, so maybe I can get my cousin Michele to teach me how to read.
I’m not doing justice to this place at all, I’m really not. But I’ll write more later. In the meantime, I’m heading off to Milan this afternoon! I’m not looking forward to everything getting colder and colder. Grrrrr. Plus, my pants are getting to the stage where they need pants underneath them (due to rips), so I should probably invest in a new pair at some point. In the meantime, I’m just gonna rock the traveling grunge chic.
And no, I haven’t seen Harry Potter 7 1.0 yet. Hopefully I will soon! Eee!
I’ve come to a strange time. My uncle’s death is still achingly fresh in my mind (how could it not be?). I talked with Mom and my aunt today. They’re both strong and I can’t help but once again say how much I admire both of them for everything they do. They are really remarkable. There is a wake down in Texas happening today (in an hour, I believe), and his funeral will be tomorrow. In the spring, we’ll bring his ashes back up north to scatter them in Maine, like he requested. My aunt again reassured me that Uncle Jim would be pleased to hear that I’m still traveling, and other family members have told me that I should travel and collect even more stories that Jim can look down on and enjoy with me or laugh about. (And trust me, I’ve got a few that-well, I don’t know if I believe in a heaven or afterlife, but if there is one and he can see what’s going on, then he’s probably in stitches laughing his butt off. In fact, I’m certain that the storm lashing against my window right now is just him roaring with laughter. I’ll tell you all when I get home. Remind me by mentioning my computer. Hopefully I won’t forget. Otherwise, it’ll just stay between me and Uncle Jim.)
Anyway. So though a huge part of me wants to keep quiet here for a little while so as to leave the memorial post to my uncle front and center, I feel like I’d be doing him a disservice. Instead, I’m going to put up my Rome blog that I’d almost finished. It is perhaps a little more carefree than I’m feeling at this very moment, so forgive me if the voice seems a bit dissonant. But I just wanted to state that it is in his memory that I write all this. His only trip to Europe (that I know of) was a trip to Vatican City. The airline said that if he took that one trip, they’d triple his frequent flyer miles (getting him that much closer to his Big Journey). So off he went, flying to Vatican City first thing in the morning, and then he flew back that night. It seems ridiculous, but he had an amazing goal in store. And so, appropriately, this is all about Rome…and my trip to the Vatican.
“(original title: Roma, ro-ma-ma/When in Rome/Roman ‘round the city)
Alrighty, we got that out of the way.
At this moment, I’m sitting on a northbound train. We’re speeding through vast, lush green farmland. In between the greenery are dirt fields patterned like zen gardens. The mountains rise on all sides, cradling us in the valley that we’re carving into. Though the morning was rainy and grey, above us is a desperate blue and puffy marshmallow clouds are strewn across the sky. The sun seems to be laughing, sending sunlight slanting sideways streaming across the seats and casting a golden glow on my skin. The train is pretty much empty: the few other patrons have pulled the shades against the light, but mine is up, inviting it in, blinding me from the left. Runaround, by Blues Traveler is playing through my ear buds and I’m watching for the sky’s reflection in puddles in the fields. I’m racing my way up to Pisa even though I’m sitting still, being gently rocked. I’m warm, finally dry from the morning’s downpour, with the taste of milk and a Nutella sandwich on my tongue. How’d I get here? Let’s go back. Back to the Roman era.
Which is to say, the era when I was in Rome. We’ve heard all about how I spent time with the olives, and rest assured that I did my fair share of cleaning, cooking, and caring for the baby as well. With the weekend came a well-deserved rest and after a bit of indecisiveness (Tivoli?), my new and dear friend Eve and I ended up in the Eternal City for our two days off. Now, she’s going to be around for a few extra days, so she was happy to just wander around the city, but I had a (super vague) agenda: The Vatican and the Colosseum. They’re nowhere near each other. We decided to head to the historical part of the city (read: Colosseum). We hop on the M(etro), and get off at the stop “Coloseo”. As we’re walking up the stairs, I’m wondering how far we’ll have to walk before we get there. We get to the top of the stairs, and I look up.
OH HI, COLOSSEUM.
OH HI.
Yeah, it’s literally right there. It’s like being britch-slapped with history. It’s massive. It’s massive and it’s old. I mean really old. (Warning: history content.) It was started in 72 ce (common era/AD), following the 70 ce sacking of the Jewish state. Roma was pretty pleased with itself and, now armed with heaps of booty and new slaves, erected this monument as a sports arena of sorts. (Arena: latin for sand. Sand, of course, covered the floor of the arena.) The foundations of the Colosseum were sunk an astounding 40 feet (13 metres) deep into the earth. The building towers…uh…tall. I forget exactly how high. But really tall. It was originally 3 levels, but the top 2 levels were added a few years later. All in all, this beast was constructed in 10 years. It was the home to all sorts of blood baths. Animals were captured from foreign lands and set out to kill each other. People who had been conquested were also set on each other and on animals. The arena had a series of blinds and below it is a complex maze of corridors and elevators so that animals and people could be raised to the arena floor through any of 80 trap doors. The arena could be transformed into a forest where a slave would have to hunt foreign beasts or be hunted, and of course, this was the capital of our favorite, the gladiator fights (so named for the swords they carried). The spilled blood would create an awful stench, so attendants often sprayed perfume into the crowd. The bodies of animals would be carved up and cooked and served to the spectators…much like how baseball fans get hot dogs at the game! (Mm, appetizing.) Furthermore, the blood would be mopped up with sponges and saved because human blood was said to have curative powers if imbibed. Yum, Roman beer!
Face-on-monument: a new game with Eve. That's the Colosseum.
Of course, all this blood and gore might get some folks sad…that’s okay! There were clowns and circuses and theater performances at “half-time”, destined to keep the people laughing. Of course, the emperor and vestal virgins got the front-row seats. (Vestal virgins were the 9 young ladies chosen at 10 years of age to tend to the vestal flame in the Roman forum. The vestal flame was a symbol of the city’s ‘hearth’.) (My music changed to a moody Yann Tiersen piano composition and appropriately, dark clouds have gathered overhead. Thick raindrops are splattering on the window, obscuring my last view of the setting sun whose last rays stubbornly blast through every available crack in the clouds, setting fire to the edges.) So these vestal virgins tend the flame for 30 years. If, after this time, they are still in fact virgins, they are granted a massive dowry and have their pick of men to marry and live in high honor and respect. If their honor has been previously sacrificed, they are given a loaf of bread, a lamp, paraded through the city on a funeral cart, and then buried alive. Bummer.”
At this point, the train pulls into the next stop, and screeches to a halt. I casually glance up. Pisa.
PISA. OH SHOOT, I HAVE A TRANSFER!
So even though I’ve got my computer out (and charging on a nearby plug) and my ipod and camera in my lap and my sandwich fixin’s out, I throw it all into my shoulder bag and yank my rucksack off the shelf above the seats as I sprint off the train before it pulls out. Needless to say, I didn’t get around to finishing the post. But you’ve been so patient with me, let’s pick back up where I left off.
I believe we’re at the Colosseum, yes? And the emperor and the vestal virgins have front row seats. But I’m actually telling this story completely out of order. Here, how about I stop wasting your time and try writing in chronological order?
SO, Eve and I get off the Metro and there’s the Colosseum. We walked around it for a bit, but didn’t go in, so all that history I mentioned was still a mystery at this point. Our first day (which was a Saturday) we mostly spent wandering around the old part of the city. But we did walk past the Vittoria Emmanuel building which is magnificent (but gets overlooked because it’s brand new: built in the 1800’s) and we walked into this military festival or something before we both realized “Uh..wait, what are we doing?” and quickly skedaddled.
But the next day (Sunday), we went back to the city and went to the Roman Forum. Now, I’m not one for shameless advertising, but I must. Rick Steve (of the infamous travel books) has a free podcast audiotour. You go online, download ’em off of iTunes, put it on your ipod and then wander through getting your own audiotour! So Eve and I armed ourselves with the five he offers for Rome: The Roman Forum, the Colosseum, the Sistine Chapel, St. Peter’s Basilica, and the Pantheon. So we got into the Roman Forum without too much of a wait. Fortunately, the tickets are valid for the Roman Forum, the Colosseum, and the Palentine Hill for one price. Which means while everyone else is waiting hours to get into the Colosseum, we could just flash our tickets and stroll through like VIP’s. (Definitely work knowing if you’ll be anywhere near Rome sight-seeing.) The Roman Forum was pretty cool. It was strange to think that once it was all intact and actually used. Hard to picture, really. It’s definitely the sort of place that you need a guide for, otherwise it just looks like a bunch of old ruins. But for example, there was this one green door….yeah, that door? It’s over seventeen centuries old. 1700+ years old. And it’s still holding strong. It’s pretty amazing.
Then we got a tasty lunch (pizza for me, kebab for Eve) that we ate on the side of the road before zipping into the Colosseum. It really was impressive. Not just in the “Oh, wow, cool, you can do a handstand” impressive. Impressive like building a monstrous stone structure without any kind of machinery and to have it standing largely intact 1938 years later. Because that’s what it is.
After the Colosseum we wandered more and talked more and saw all sorts of ruins along the roads. OH! And the Pantheon! We went to the Pantheon! Another thing you need a tour for, otherwise it’s just a big room with a hole in the ceiling. But I liked picturing it as a pagan temple for all the gods. It must have been truly amazing.
Then Monday, I went into the city again. I had been planning to couchsurf for 2 days, but I couldn’t find a host. So I was planning to find a hostel for one night, just Mon-Tues. Yet my help exchange hosts reassured me that I should stay with them instead, which was absurdly generous. But it was perfect because I got one more full day in the city, and when I came back I did dishes and helped out as much as I could to earn a little extra keep.
Anyway, Monday in the city was really exciting. I left the country. Yep, I went to Vatican City! I’d been told that although St. Peter’s Basilica is gorgeous, the lines are too ridiculous and it’s not worth it. I went anyway. Fortunately, since it was about 9 am, the line was only 10 minutes long. I spent about an hour inside with my jaw open, startled and confused by all I saw. I actually forgot to even listen to the audio tour I had. An hour later, I left, dazed and overwhelmed. The line stretched out for hours. Good timing, self.
Next, I glared at the rain and marched off to the Vatican Museum (read: Sistine Chapel). I ended up standing in the POURING rain for about 2 hours while I listened to Snap Judgment (a free NPR podcast full of stories, stories, and more stories). But finally, I got in! I was so anxious to see the Sistine Chapel, I decided I’d go see it first, then everything else. But the museum is set up to bring you to a million exhibits, ending with the chapel. So I took a moment, reigned in my impatience, wrote for a few minutes to center myself, and then embarked to appreciate all of what I was looking at without being too distracted. It’s a good museum: it’s got your Egyptian history, your Syrian history, Greek, Roman, and Chinese history and loads more. I made myself slow down by first looking at the room I entered before looking at the things in it. A few times I noticed a lot of inspiration from the Pantheon dome, which was a cool small detail.
St. Peter's Basilica
But of course, the Chapel. Michelangelo’s crowning glory. I climbed up a bunch of stairs, wound through some corridors, breezed past some modern art (sorry…I know, but it wasn’t my type and I was really eager to see the chapel), and then THERE I WAS.
I stopped.
I looked up.
I thought, “Meh.”
I KNOW, I KNOW. I’m sorry! But that was honestly my first reaction! I was disappointed. First of all, I didn’t realize the Sistine Chapel is a rectangle…for some reason I always thought it was a dome. Secondly, the bit with Adam touching God’s finger (the spark of life) is just a panel in the whole design. And it’s kind of a blah panel, frankly. But I put on the audiotour, found a space on one of the benches around the edge of the room, and listened.
By and by I realized my mistaken first impression. After slowly going through each part of the fresco, hearing the story behind each panel, detail, and figure, learning about the actual logistics and religious background involved in it….it truly did earn its reputation. And the Day of Judgment fresco behind the altar? It’s horrifying. I mean, truly horrifying. It was painted several years after the ceiling, and is clearly representative of the change in beliefs from benevolent, kind gods to the doom, hellfire, smite-you-down sorta deities. The first thing that caught me about that painting was this figure to Jesus’ left (the smite-you-down side). One of Jesus’ angels is holding this grotesque, flayed skin, that drips like a Dali painting and has a face in the same expression of howling as in “The Scream”. Apparently, that is Michelangelo’s self-portrait. He didn’t think things were going to end well for him, I suppose. Anyway, it really is horrible, and I can’t even imagine people’s reactions to seeing it for the first time. Must have really created quite an impact.
Also, for those of you who know about my weird thing about dreams, one of the figures in a far corner was in a nightmare I had back in my first year. I actually gasped when I saw him there. It shook me up quite a bit.
But nightmares aside, it really was a really inspirational experience. And to finish it all off, I went back to St. Peter’s basilica (evening by now..I spent 6 hours in the museum), where they were having evening mass! And so I attended my first mass not in a wedding. It was short, and kinda fun to see the priests (bishops?) in their red robes. The music was nice too. And the lighting in the basilica is completely different in the night versus the day, so it was interesting to see the whole place transformed.
But now, to skip ahead into the future (which is to say, the present), I’m staying in a small town not too far from Lucca. It’s perched on the mountain, looking down on the town below. The storms get trapped between the mountains and rage on for days, but it’s beautiful to see this ethereal mist cloaking the land. I’m helpx’ing here, doing a lot of handyman type work (stripping wood, gardening, building, mixing cement) and enjoying the company of this lovely Irish family. Yesterday we went for a 7 hour hike up and across the Apennine ridge. It was about 3 hours of climbing 1,500 meters up, and then several more hours on the undulating ridge before we finally started down toward the town where we were attending the local Chestnut Festival. There, I had my first chestnut pancakes (chestnut flour plus some salt and water, fried and served with riccotta cheese) and “fritta pasta” (kind of like fried dough sticks with salt), roasted chestnuts, and there was lots of local wine. OH, and marinated chestnuts. Chestnuts that have been soaked in pure alcohol. I tried one (none too voluntarily) and nearly spat it back out. The only reason I didn’t was…okay, well, two reasons. One, because I consider spitting to be one of the most offensive things to do in public, and two because I didn’t want to further upset the locals around me who were looking on proudly. But I did give the other half of it back to Colm. Eugh. As someone who doesn’t like alcohol…..bleh.
Anyway, now my legs are sore, the storm is hurling rain against my window, and I’m exhausted. Tomorrow I’ve got a normal day of work and then I’m making a full pancake breakfast-for-dinner. Here’s my menu plan as of now:
choco chip pancakes (some w/banana for the kids)
sliced orange (w/cinnamon?)
berry sauce
scrambled eggs (w/onion, greens, other veg?)
bacon
apples, brown sugar sauteed (walnuts?)
My next post was supposed to be about visiting Rome. It was going to be cheerful and excited and convey my awe and delight. But as my mom often says, life is what happens when you’re busy making plans.
My Uncle Jim had a stroke a year ago (almost to the day). There were many complications, but we all planned…or hoped or believed (needed to believe) that he would get better, get stronger, and soon be back to being the loud uncle with the massive laugh who moved down to Texas (Texas? But we’re Yankees!). My Aunt Carol had been caring for him night and day, never leaving his side. She’s a rock and has been absolutely everything for him (and, by extension, us). She sacrificed so much. I didn’t need proof that she loved him, but her unflinching determination is proof beyond this world.
My heart aches to say that my uncle James Matthews passed away yesterday morning.
My mom has gone down to be with my aunt. There aren’t any immediate plans because he wanted to be cremated. I was shocked when I heard, but as though Mom was reading my future thoughts, she said that I shouldn’t worry about coming home. My uncle Jim had been saving up thousands of frequent flyer miles for years so that he could take a trip around the world. Mom insisted that if he knew I was thinking about leaving this grand adventure to come home because of him, he’d be furious. So I’ll continue on my journey, with him in my heart whenever I arrive in a new town. It’s hard for me to be away from my tight knit family at this time, but I’ll be home in 5 short weeks and I’ll be able to get all the hugs I need now.
A sincere thank you to my super supportive friends and family. And for my Aunt Carol, thank you is too weak a word for such a strong woman. Please keep her in your thoughts. She’s the most amazing person and I’m so grateful for her being in our lives.
Ah, my dear readers, it’s lovely to see you again! Where did we leave off? Ah yes, we were collecting up the nets, dumping into buckets and spending this all the live-long day.
SO, what happens after the olives are all in buckets? Let me tell you! At the end of the day, as we’re getting ready to head off, we put all the buckets on a truck.
OH! But no, stay with me for a moment longer. You’ve already got a mental image, but let me give you some proper images to help with all this. Let’s just recap the work process so far:
Grape vines in the grove
First, get to the grove. In the morning light, the leaves look silvery, like the hair of elderly women, and the gnarled, twisted trees contribute to that image.
Olive tree
Often, The Wizard (an elderly, very Italian guy with a sharp suit and classy glasses) is there. He and Michele talk, then The Wizard vanishes. You start in on work. After laying the nets down, shake the olives off the trees by using a crazy picker-clapper thing. It’s worth noting, there is a certain kind of spider (I can’t quite remember what Michele called them…some Italian name) that lives in the olive trees. Actually, let me back up quickly to give you a better understanding of how this works. Okay, so the clapper thing has a dual purpose: it both shakes the branches of the tree and combs it to remove the olives. The olives, since they’re being vigorously shaken, don’t just fall to the ground. They actually fly in every single direction, especially the ones at the top. So as you use this clapper thing, you get about a million olives flying everywhere and raining down on your head, shoulders, and on unfortunate occasion, into your eyes. Feels like little Smurf punches. Really unpleasant. But it’s really satisfying to see ‘em going in every which direction. But of course, this is where the spiders become a problem. The spiders are roughly olive sized, but maybe a bit smaller. I don’t think they actually eat the olives: I think they probably eat the ants and other bugs that do, but I don’t really know and since I’m afraid of spiders, I don’t particularly care either. But as you can imagine, when you’re raking through the trees with this crazy comb-clapper thing, the spiders get a bit shaken up too, and like the olives, they go in every which direction. Of course, there’s many more olives than spiders, but you definitely have to harden up and get used to quickly brushing the spiders off while also trying to keep a hold on the Shake Weight-style comb-clapper. I did get bitten by one (they don’t particularly like being shaken from their homes) on my forearm. It’s not too bad, it’s just insanely itchy and it’s a welt a bit bigger than a mosquito bite. I think it’s healing up though (Course, now that I’m thinking about it, now it’s itchy again. Gr.) Later, Michele, in all his hilarity, noticed and commented (I’m summarizing from his roundabout English) “Oh good, you’re not allergic.” Huh? Well, as it turns out, apparently a lot of people are really allergic to these spiders. Like, huge welt followed by hives all over the body. I guess it’s common enough that local farmers usually have to check in with the people harvesting to make sure someone’s got an epipen or something. But Michele said first of all, the spiders don’t bite too often, and secondly, foreigners aren’t usually allergic to ‘em, sort of like the opposite of the smallpox blankets situation. But anyway. So you shake all the olives and spiders out of the trees.
Pickin' dem olives!
Next, collect up the nets to consolidate the olives. Pull out the largest branches and sticks. Try to be brave, but end up asking Eve to toss out the stray spiders. (My hero!)
Huge pile of olives (and Eve)...sorting through them to pull out branches
Dump the olives into plastic crates.
Green and black, we don't discriminate.
After a long day’s work (12 hours on average), we load the olives onto the tractor. Why yes, yes I did get to drive the tractor!
I DROVE THE TRACTOR!
Then, we drive aforementioned tractor to this garage back in town where the tractor hangs out overnight.
Piles of olives on the truck...and Fabio!
The Wizard shows up again. Again, he and Michele chatter away, then The Wizard vanishes again. There, we use a “machine” to get rid of all the extra sticks, leaves, dirt clots, while also separating the clustered olives from their branches. The way this works is that Fabio (on the back of the tractor) pours the olives down the ramp. The ramp is a metal grate-like contraption, with metal bars that only go in one direction (downhill). The roughness of the metal catches the sliver-shaped leaves which then fall in between the bars. Meanwhile, the olives happily tumble down into the bucket. Of course, it’s not as easy as that. You need to vigilantly pull out branches and clusters of olives need to be pulled from them. However, with the cascade of incoming olives, this needs to be done fast. The most effective way to do it is to actually just gently yet firmly rub them horizontally across the metal grate, where they break away from their branches. This works most of the time, but you still often need to manually pull them off. And of course, with so many leaves and branches, it’s a pretty overwhelming, tiring, fast-paced job. Really I just ended up pushing the leaves back uphill to deal with them at a free moment. So Eve, Michele and I would do that while Fabio poured, and the olives would go into an empty crate. Many leaves got through anyway; it’s an imperfect system. (Go for it Dad. I know you’ve already got a solution. I’ve been hearing you in my head constantly.) On our third night, Attractive Teddy Bear (as he will henceforth be known) brought over a machine where you just pour the olives in and (theoretically) branch/leaf free olives come out the bottom, since the lighter leaves are blown up and out. However, you still have to make sure they don’t all jam up and many branches and leaves get through anyway and then you’re covered in the leaves and it’s just about as much work as the other system except it’s louder.
The "machine" to seperate the leaves and sticks from the olives
Three times a week, the olives need to be pressed. If you just let them sit, then they ferment or rot or something, so they’re quite fresh when they’re pressed. So the tractor rumbles up a few blocks and around a couple corners to the pressing station.
Pressing olives
People pay this place to squish their olives. Olive oil comes out and voila! But anyway. So you get there. The Wizard is there. You take a shot. (Just kidding. But Eve and I did say how if it were a drinking game, you’d probably keep a steady buzz.) Right, so The Wizard’s there. He talks with Michele, then talks at you for a while. You smile and nod and say “si” and shrug if he asks you questions. Then a (the guy diagonally in front of me is playing a zombie game on his PSP. Smashing zombies: it’s internationally awesome. His chosen weapon is a baseball bat. I’m tempted to sing “Don’t Stop Me Now”, -a la Shawn of the Dead- into his ear. But that would be creepy.) Uhhhh, right, then a bunch of guys hop onto the back of the truck and dump the crates of olives into one MASSIVE crate, which a forklift them comes over to carry to the machines. It’s dumped into one machine where the olives are blasted with water to clean them and get rid of the remaining small stems and leaves. Then they’re ground up into a paste. This paste (if not being used for olive oil) is used as a spread, like jam. It’s not my favorite. But if it’s used for olive oil, as it’s churned, the oil rises to a top and is then drained off. In the third machine, the liquid is separated from the solid waste. The solid gets sent outside through a pipe (ah, zombie guy got a gun. He’s doing a lot better now.) and olive bits end up in a massive pile about 10-12 feet high. Michele was saying it can be used for bread. Or in the fire…I didn’t quite understand. So either it’s used as fuel, or it’s used for things like olive loaf. No idea, but point is, it’s unneeded leftovers. Back inside, the liquid is spun in a washing-machine type thing, which separates the water from the oil. The oil is drained into buckets and…
Olive oil, actual color.
Voila! You’ve got something tasty for your bread!
I feel like even this excessively-long description isn’t quite long enough to convey to you how tiring it is. There’s a lot of heavy lifting (crates of olives are a two-person job unless you see one of the guys pick one up, so then you do too and then they yell at you but you do it sometimes anyway just to prove you can), there’s a lot of getting up and down and yanking nets and walking all over and sorting the olives is really tiring, especially at the end of an already-long day. So yeah, now you know more about your olives!
Bounty of the earth
FAQ:
Do you sort out the black from green ones? No. We don’t segregate. We’re more open minded than that. (Harhar.) But seriously. Many olives are sort of half-and-half, so you couldn’t sort them out anyway. Plus, it’d take forever and it doesn’t make a difference insofar as flavor.
How do you get rid of the rotten olives? You don’t. They all go in. Far as I can tell, there aren’t really any rotten olives anyway; just smooshed ones (which are disgusting if you accidentally stick your finger in one). But they all go in, you don’t handpick any out.
How do you get rid of the pits? Magic. No, actually, that’s all part of the olive-oil thing. They just get separated in the pressing process.
What’s the difference between olive oil and extra virgin? Extra virgin is the first press. That is, when you squish the olives into paste, the resulting oil is extra virgin olive oil. Plain olive oil is a BAD IDEA. It has nothing to do with the olive whatsoever. Whereas extra virgin is made from the flesh of the olive, olive oil is made from the seed. It takes a lot of chemicals to extract the oil from the seed, so that oil is full of chemicals and is truly abhorrent. Don’t do it. As far as I know, the difference between extra virgin and virgin olive oil is the word ‘extra’. Once the olive has been made into pulp, there’s no more pressing involved, so there’s not really any other classification besides extra virgin and (plain) olive oil. It’s kind of black or white.
Are you tired? Yes.
Did you eat the olives right off the tree? One. Never again. Eugh. They need to be marinated for about two weeks (which I may have mentioned but since I’m writing this on a train without internet access to check, you’re going to have to deal with my repetition). Mostly, they’re just marinated in salt, which brings out the natural oil. I will confess, I don’t know a whole lot about this part of olive production since the olives we were harvesting were for olive oil, not for eating straight. So I’m ignorant on these matters. If you’re seriously dying of curiosity (coughcoughDadcough), wikipedia probably knows. Or will tell you convincing lies. But then again, I might be telling you convincing lies. SPEAKING OF WHICH, I made up the bit about spiders. That’s the Aussie humor I imbibed years ago. But I do have a mystery bug bite, so maybe I didn’t make it up. WHO KNOWS!?
What of the oil? Eventually it’ll get packaged up and sold at farmer’s markets. Even the local shops have commercial oil from up north, which is unfortunate. But about one liter of olive oil costs over 6 euro, so it’s a bit pricey. (Justifiably so!)
1) I was recently hit on the head rather hard.* The short version is that I got hit, but I’m okay. But if something here seems poorly written or something, that’s my excuse.
*Okay so there’s this tall cabinet. And I opened one of the doors to put a mug inside. And there’s this 5 liter glass jug on top of the cabinet (so almost ceiling height) and I guess it must have shifted and when I opened the cabinet door it fell on my head and I dropped the mug and they thought the mug fell on my head and they were all really concerned. But then I pointed out that no, I’d been HOLDING the mug and the jug fell on my head (and I pointed to where it landed right side up! and intact!) and there’s the spilled liquor everywhere and they freaked a bit. I was forced to sit down but I got back up and got some frozen veggies (see, no brain damage) and then sat back down and iced it. There is a large lump on my head though, so that’s satisfying. But my head hurts quite a bit. But as I said, I’m okay and my pupils are the same size, so no long-term harm. This is the result of my affinity for drinking copious amounts of milk.
2) You leave home only to learn new things about it. Let me tell you a story about Ben & Jerry’s ice cream. (Relayed to me from Eve, one of the fellow helpxers here, who went to a talk with Jerry.) So, apparently Ben is a rather unique individual. Ben can’t taste. At all. Which is strange, given his reason for fame. But so it goes.
However, since he can’t taste, he is rather sensitive to things like texture (a man after my own heart). He insisted that his ice cream had to have a good texture. Now, many of you may know me and know my preferences well. My general rule of thumb is ‘nothing I can chew with my tongue’. I don’t like smooshy foods. Pudding, Jell-O, plain yogurt, none of that is for me. I put granola and berries in my yogurt and I prefer my ice cream to have stuff in it as well. Most ice cream companies evenly distribute the chunks in their ice cream. There are uniformly sized chocolate pieces all throughout the ice cream. Ben decided he wanted variety! The spice of life! So he threw in chunks of cookies that ranged from being fully crushed to almost entirely whole. Each bite was completely different from the next. Jerry wasn’t too keen on this, but in taste tests, everyone preferred Ben’s, and so it was! Chunky, interesting ice cream!
Okay, but enough of this silliness. Let’s get down to business. I don’t really have any good way of getting into it, so much like the work, let’s just jump right in with a day-in-the-life-of-an-olive-harvester.
It’s dark, you’re having a magnificent, vivid dream, but you hear a thunk, which drags you into consciousness. You manage to haul your eyelids open to reveal a room which is gently lit by the morning sun which has not yet managed to peek over the top of the eastern mountain. You look over at Eve (because you’re me right now), the fellow helpx’er. She’s similarly forcing herself awake and is squinting at her phone to see what time it is. You ask her in a croaky, sleepy voice and are informed that it’s a few minutes before 7. You close your eyes again in resignation. Oh shoot, no, wait, open them or you might fall back asleep. Okay, actually, just get up. Oh god, it’s cold out there. But eventually you get up and stretch out your muscles a bit which aren’t achy, just tired. With a big yawn and a couple satisfying morning scratches, you pull on the same pants, shirt and sweater you’ve been wearing for the past few days. They are coated in dirt and smell….’natural’. Whatever.
You pad into the kitchen which is bustling with life. Simona’s got coffee on the stove, Michele is playing with the baby, and Fabio’s keeping up a rather animated conversation with Michele. Half of the conversation is hand gestures: fingers pinched together, palms up or hands pressed palm to palm and shaken emphatically. You scoot onto the bench at the table which has a bunch of mugs, a loaf of bread a knife, and some honey and homemade jam. You grab yourself a mug and then check on the stove. Oh sweet, Simona’s heating up milk too. Excellent. You’ll wait for it, rather than pouring some cold milk. Back to the bench and you grab the bread, hunt around for the knife and then hack off a chunk. Sweet, you didn’t cut the table cloth this time! Slather on some honey and chew while staring vacantly ahead before your brain realizes it’s actually awake. Soon you’ve got a mug full of hot milk and sugar which is warming you up inside and before you know it, you’ve yanked on your boots, grabbed your waterbottle and you’re out in the cold morning air. The Land Rover is hardly warm and smells like petrol from when the gasoline spilled in it the other day. You can see your breath, but it’s not that bad and as the car bounces along the dirt road before swinging out onto the main road, you’re prepared for another day of work.
The short (15-20) minute drive is beautiful. The driving is fast and somewhat reckless, but other cars dart and dash around with such a sense of abandon that you quickly understand this is just how it is. After a series of turns, you’re in ‘town’ (no idea where). The digital display outside a pharmacy informs you that it’s 5/11, 8:30, 13 degrees C. The car takes a left at the fork to head downhill and screeches to a halt near the big green wooden double doors. The large skeleton key is produced, put into a rough hole in said door, turned, which releases a metal thing so that the massive bolt can be slid from the locks. The doors swing open and there’s the truck! You help put the crates full of olive leaves onto the back and stand in the road helping Michele back out onto the busy curve where cars screech to a halt just a few feet in front of you. Eventually the loud hitching sound of the tractor fades off as he drives to the grove and the three of you (Eve & Fabio) hop into the Land Rover to follow. The windy, downhill drive is absolutely beautiful. It looks out on the neighboring towns and you can see the patchwork quilted groves of olive trees and the clusters of houses and the rolling hills and the morning sky just starting to warm up.
After a few steep moments, and a rather bumpy ride, you’re in the grove. With the car and tractor off, it’s quiet. The branches of the twisted olive trees hang their olives and silver leaves like small weeping willows while the gnarled grape vines crouch, held up by other trees and metal wires like crutches. It smells like morning dew and a little bit of something like pine and occasionally some mint. And of course, the gas from the tractor. The morning chorus of birds is a cacophony and the way the early light falls on the bright yellow grape leaves with pink veins blushing out is simply beautiful. You like the red one best. The leaves are a bright red with a yellow glow around the edges. Anyway, as you walk through the grass, the dew leaves dark kisses on your boots and pants, but they’ll dry soon. On the back of the tractor is a machine that powers the tree-shakers. The men fiddle with it and chatter in Italian while you and Eve wrestle the nets out of the shed and pull them over the ground under the trees. The nets through your fingers have a waxy feeling and the large green ones and the small tan ones seem to be made out of cloth threads while the middle-sized black nets are some sort of nylon mesh. At this point you’re not even consciously thinking about lying the nets down, you’re just talking with Eve while your hands and body spread, tug, yank, rearrange and tuck in around the trunk. In just a few minutes, the dirt coats your hands and forearms and has snuck its way back under your fingernails and creates a chest plate of grit on your shirt. You don’t really notice.
Soon the machine roars to life and again, you smell the diesel strong in the air. The sound of it drowns out the birds, but when the men pick up the tree-shakers, you and Eve wander over to a distant tree and stand underneath it picking olives mindlessly. As your fingers run through the olive switches, popping off olives, you talk about everything. Sometimes you target clusters of olives and you’ve recently figured out that by applying pressure just so at top of the olive, you can make it pop off, rather than just fall. You sometimes see if you can get some good distance. You can’t. Pretty much just 10 inches or so. Whatever.
“Lay-dee! Lay-dee-dee!”
Oh! Michele’s calling you. You look over at him to see that he and Fabio have finished a tree. So without even pausing in conversation you and Eve grab a couple red crates and walk over to the tree. Nearly all of the olives are now on the net below, though you pick off the few stragglers at eye level. On the net olives and leaves have collected in rivulets where the net isn’t laid totally flat. Several branches lay scattered around as well. You pick up a few of the larger branches, toss them aside, and then lift the corners of the net so as to chase the olives to the center, or at least to a central area. After a few minutes of pulling at the nets, folding down the excess, tugging more so the olives all slide together, and then shaking them a bit for good measure, you’ve now got a fair pile of olives, leaves, and branches. You drop to your knees and pick through to get a few more branches out, since you know you’re going to have to do it later anyway. Then you gather up the nets to create a little nest, lie the crate sideways and slide/pour the olives in. The sound is like a cascade of large beads, and after they’re in the crate you need to carefully slip the net out so they don’t fall through the handles or out of the top.
You do this countless times. Sometimes you get to use the tree-shaker which is like two huge combs that clap together attached to a long pole. It shakes violently and soon your arms ache. It’s a bit of a work out. One hand squeezes the handle at the end of the pole and the shaker roars and (since it’s attached by a thin blue hose to the machine on the truck) occasionally puts forth bursts of air and some kind of dark grease the color of which stays on your hands long after you’ve washed them.
Sometime mid morning, not too long after your stomach has started growling, you stop for a rest and a snack of bread (with jam, sometimes with cakes) and water. It is delicious. So is the rest. You’ve been bending over, crouching down, reaching up and walking around all day. But resting is lovely and it’s quiet so the birds make themselves known again. You wander over to a grape vine and pull off a few grapes. The skin is yellowish pinkish and the fruit bursts in your mouth sweetly. The seed leaves your mouth feeling dry. Later in the day you’ll bite into an olive (even though they can’t be eaten unless they’ve been marinated-usually in plain salt- for 2 weeks). It’s the texture of a berry and tastes of extreme olive oil. It’s worth noting olives and olive oil do not taste the same. Olives like you eat taste different. To bite into a ‘raw’ olive tastes like drinking straight olive oil. The taste gets into your head and is strong and bitter and not at all pleasant. You spat it back out. No wonder no one eats ’em like that. It’s interesting that the juice that squirts onto my hands is often a bright pinkish purplish, though olive oil is actually nearly fluorescent green.
Anyway, this process of spreading the nets, dragging them in, dumping the olives, and sorting through goes on until ’round mid-morning when your stomach growls and everyone rests for a quick snack and some water. Then it’s more work until lunch, and more work until dusk.
A result of my stubborn nature (and apparently surprising strength) is the nickname “Lady Iron” from Michele. He can’t usually remember names, so girls are often “lady”. The specific addition of “iron” to my name is much appreciated.
These 12 hour days are exhausting. Too exhausting to even finish writing about, so let this be your first installment. The second installment will include details about the process of preparing the olives for pressing, oil, and perhaps some pictures. And at some point I will have time to write another post about the city of Rome!
Goodness me. Too many things, too little time. Clearly I’ve been kept busy.
Wanderlust 