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| Charlottesville High School Orchestra |
Yesterday after work, Katie and I went back to Miranda's place with her, and then made our way to the nearby town of Poggio a Caiano, where Miranda's husband is a councillor of culture for the town. Right now the town is putting on a series of cultural events, and yesterday they hosted high school students from their sister city of Charlottesville, Virginia. Katie, being a UVA student, was ecstatic and ended up meeting a group of students who will be going to UVA next year.
In the afternoon, we went for a tour of Lorenzo Medici's villa and the impressive still life collection on the upper floor. (The Italian term for "still life" is "natura morta", or "dead nature".) Then Katie, Miranda and I needed to escape the sweltering heat, so we drove up to a hilltop town for a beer. When we got back to Poggio a Caiano, they were starting a buffet dinner for all the Charlottesville visitors, and we got to enjoy it too. There were tons of coldcuts and cheeses, and two of my favourite traditional tuscan dishes, ribollita (a soup/stew made of vegetables and bread) and pappa al pomodoro (an unappetizing-looking but delicious mushy dish of bread and tomatoes).
As dusk fell, the students of the orchestra played a beautiful short concert outdoors in a street that had been blocked off for the event. They played a fantastic mixture of American and Italian compositions (ie. 2 of Vivaldi's Quattro Stagioni, and an American piece called Hoe Down which I believe is by a composer named Aaron Copland). We were especially impressed that they didn't get distracted from playing by the church bells, barking dogs, and chatty Italians in the street.
All in all, a great day!
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| Katie and I in Poggio a Caiano. I've got new shoes and they're PAINFUL! |
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| Unrelated to this post, but this is the lunch I made myself yesterday... spaghetti with truffle cream sauce. mmmm |
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