Ode to the Farting Horses of Italy

Tuesday, November 14, 2006
Current mood: complacent

First thing's first, and APOLOGY: Okay. So I know I haven't written anything in an eternity. Blame it on the ridiculously high Internet prices here in Europe. It was exactly what I was afraid about starting a whole blog during my trip- that I would soon not be able to afford to keep up with it.

I have seriously fallen in love with Italy. I love everything about this WONDERFUL country. I love the food, the people (except for that god damn bus driver that fined me 40 euros...) the AMAZING and INCREDIBLE SCENERY!!!!!! Oh my god! On my first farm (which only lasted for 1 and a half weeks versus the month that it was supposed to last because of the mean Romanian kitchen lady) I was up by Torino in the Italian Alps and one day while driving around the countryside, I stopped, and all I could see around me were rolling green hills covered in vineyards, each topped with its own castle and medieval stone village. Unbelievable. I also spent a week down on the Italian Riviera (my escape from Daniela, that mean kitchen lady) where all the houses an buildings hugged the steep, jade-green hills and were painted in bright lemons, soft tangerines, marmalade's, strawberry sorbets, and there were flowers everywhere and yachts and it was just too incredible. I spent that week with Davide and his wonderful family who's mother cooked for me all the local specialties, and made sure there was fresh foccocia--REAL foccocia bread every morning and fresh coffee.

After that, since I still had a week to spare, I decided to get lost in the medieval bliss that is Florence and all its churches, cathedrals and galleries. I spent this time with 3 guys (from couchsurfing), my main "host" being Francesco, who kicked ass---gave me a tour of Florence along with all the little historical tid-bits, and re-introduced me to an old friend- Mary J. (you all know who I am talking about ;) and just had a GREAT TIME with him and his roomies.

Now. I am working on a small farm (with farting horses) in a small town called Borgo Val di Taro, outside of Parma, which is THEEE HOME of Parmesan cheese people!!!! HOW COOL IS THAT? (Aside from the farting horses). Anyway. the farm is located on top of a VERY tall hill overlooking a GORGEOUS valley, and it is fall and it is just BEAUTIFUL. I have been working on the farm for about 3 weeks now, and while the solitude is challenging, it is rather lovely. (Again, aside from the farting horses).

I want to say a word about those farting horses. the farm has one and I thought that only our horse was farting (occasionally throughout the day I would be working near enough to the horse to hear it farting away (and coughing, poor thing----so it's always going something like "cough, fart, cough, cough, fart" ---a quite musical horse really....) and I also occasionally hear it when I am out at night too---rather disconcerting noise too when from out the silent country night the loud gastric noises of "Jokamina" burst forth. Anywho. so I thought though, that it was only our horse that had a problem with chronic farting. But NO! Today, as I was leaving to come and make the long journey over hill and dale to check my email, I passed a horse from the farm right above ours. And do you know what that horse did to me??? It came over to me, acted all sweet and nice and then suddenly, spun around jumped its hind legs up and down in the air several times and let off a couple of FARTS AT ME! WHAT THE HELL???? Is this normal of all horses??? Or is it just the ones in Italy??? I WANT TO KNOW.

Anyway. Lots more to catch up (the Trans Siberian Railway for one thing, along with Latvia and the rest of Italy). So eventually I will get to them. So I shall leave you pondering about the farting horses here. Hope everyone is doing well and fine! Ciao, ciao!


8:27 AM