You know you're on Lake Como when...
- you arrive at the train station, which has no live operator, to discover Kathryn, your teacher for the next week, her daughter Felicia and her husband Terry waiting with a car to drive you down the one road that leads into town.
- your hotel is a private room, rented by a lovely 85 year-old woman who goes by Signora Seta, on the second floor of a salmon-colored, ivy-covered house right on the main piazza.
- your bedroom window looks out onto church with slate shingles, which turn blue at night.
- your morning coffee (a cappuccino and brioche) are served every morning at a local bar. Despite the fact that you go there every day (and the server is always the same), the price is different every morning.
- it takes you 20 minutes to hike up hill to Kathryn and Terry's apartment, but you leave yourself 30-40, because the view is exceptional (and it's so hot, you can't help but go slow).
- there are three of you in class (Felicia and Alexia, both rising high school seniors) and you begin to feel your age.
- as you begin to do Alexander Technique work with Kathryn, she begins every session asking you to look out at the lake and focus on the boats darting by. You see something far more expansive than this.
- after private singing lessons and coaching lessons (that's Terry's specialty) in the morning, you race home to take a quick siesta.
- your siesta always lasts longer than you expect.
- you venture out to the salumeria, where nobody speaks any English, to purchase sandwich makings for lunch. Through a mix of Latin, baby Italian and hand signals, you come away with three rolls, a half kilo of salami and a delightfully stinky goat cheese for under €5. This lasts you for lunches for the rest of the week.
- Kathryn, Terry and Felicia recommend a lunch cruise on the lake, a two hour event that takes you up to Colico and back. On a picture-perfect day, you hop on. While the lunch is somewhat lackluster, the views make up for it! The mountains shine, the green trees are vibrant and the water glistens. Your camera fills with pictures.
- Alexia invites you to take in the view from her hillside hotel, which turns into a lovely sunset-filled dinner with her and her father Bill.
- you determine that the gelateria requires a daily visit and discover that pistachio/chocolate and bitter cherry/chocolate are two of the most divine combinations of gelato known to man.
- you and Terry race through performance critiques on 15 songs in the span of five days, by which time Italian and English seem like the same language.
- Kathryn tells you that you have the potential to be "an Italian tenor," to which you reply, "well, I am a tenor and Italian, so..."
- Felicia sings a most delightful rendition of "Wouldn't It Be Loverly?" while Alexia performs a haunting Emily Dickinson poem set to music.
- mysteriously, your Alexander Technique allows you to sleep for 8-9 hours per night without any trouble!
- your USAA ATM card finally arrives and works! The angels sing!
- a physicists convention fills up most of the cheap-o restaurants in town, so you decide to head (by boat!) to the nearby town of Bellagio, where you have a delightful meal of gnocchi and caprese salat (wine and water included!) for under €10.
- for your last day of class, Kathryn hosts a dinner, with a gorgeous sunset view.
- when you wake up to head to Milan, a little piece of you says, "Can't we stay just one more day?"
(I apologize for the long, long, long internet silence. Varenna, while gorgeous, had one internet station with exceptionally expensive rates. Thus, my blogging (which does take me a little while has had to wait. But, now that I am sweating it out in Milano, surrounded by designer clothing, opera singers and graffiti, I'm back in action!)
- your hotel is a private room, rented by a lovely 85 year-old woman who goes by Signora Seta, on the second floor of a salmon-colored, ivy-covered house right on the main piazza.
- your bedroom window looks out onto church with slate shingles, which turn blue at night.
- your morning coffee (a cappuccino and brioche) are served every morning at a local bar. Despite the fact that you go there every day (and the server is always the same), the price is different every morning.
- it takes you 20 minutes to hike up hill to Kathryn and Terry's apartment, but you leave yourself 30-40, because the view is exceptional (and it's so hot, you can't help but go slow).
- there are three of you in class (Felicia and Alexia, both rising high school seniors) and you begin to feel your age.
- as you begin to do Alexander Technique work with Kathryn, she begins every session asking you to look out at the lake and focus on the boats darting by. You see something far more expansive than this.
- after private singing lessons and coaching lessons (that's Terry's specialty) in the morning, you race home to take a quick siesta.
- your siesta always lasts longer than you expect.
- you venture out to the salumeria, where nobody speaks any English, to purchase sandwich makings for lunch. Through a mix of Latin, baby Italian and hand signals, you come away with three rolls, a half kilo of salami and a delightfully stinky goat cheese for under €5. This lasts you for lunches for the rest of the week.
- Kathryn, Terry and Felicia recommend a lunch cruise on the lake, a two hour event that takes you up to Colico and back. On a picture-perfect day, you hop on. While the lunch is somewhat lackluster, the views make up for it! The mountains shine, the green trees are vibrant and the water glistens. Your camera fills with pictures.
- Alexia invites you to take in the view from her hillside hotel, which turns into a lovely sunset-filled dinner with her and her father Bill.
- you determine that the gelateria requires a daily visit and discover that pistachio/chocolate and bitter cherry/chocolate are two of the most divine combinations of gelato known to man.
- you and Terry race through performance critiques on 15 songs in the span of five days, by which time Italian and English seem like the same language.
- Kathryn tells you that you have the potential to be "an Italian tenor," to which you reply, "well, I am a tenor and Italian, so..."
- Felicia sings a most delightful rendition of "Wouldn't It Be Loverly?" while Alexia performs a haunting Emily Dickinson poem set to music.
- mysteriously, your Alexander Technique allows you to sleep for 8-9 hours per night without any trouble!
- your USAA ATM card finally arrives and works! The angels sing!
- a physicists convention fills up most of the cheap-o restaurants in town, so you decide to head (by boat!) to the nearby town of Bellagio, where you have a delightful meal of gnocchi and caprese salat (wine and water included!) for under €10.
- for your last day of class, Kathryn hosts a dinner, with a gorgeous sunset view.
- when you wake up to head to Milan, a little piece of you says, "Can't we stay just one more day?"
(I apologize for the long, long, long internet silence. Varenna, while gorgeous, had one internet station with exceptionally expensive rates. Thus, my blogging (which does take me a little while has had to wait. But, now that I am sweating it out in Milano, surrounded by designer clothing, opera singers and graffiti, I'm back in action!)
posted by Ethan at 1:01 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home