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092105: A Mocking and some Fountains |
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written
by justinvf / 10.25.2005 |
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Itinerary |
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| personal photo |
| The Offending Cookies |
| I have never taken so much ridicule for my food preferences. |
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| The Fountians |
| All of these spectacular fountains are powered by a natural spring. |
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| The sage |
| Joe points me in the right direction of the much anticipated monkeys. |
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| The Monkeys.... |
| OK, not quite what I was hoping for. Still cool though. |
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| Kinda??? |
| You have to admit that it looks a bit like a monkey at least. |
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| Standing around |
| This trip was a time for everyone to relax. |
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| A nice lunch |
| We stopped for a delicious and comparatively cheap lunch on the way to the monastery.
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| Wind |
| Joel stands strong in the gail. Angela, with her umbrella, is not so lucky. |
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| The Monastary |
| This place was just so soothing. |
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| Death |
| This picture is supposed to show how arbitrary death is. |
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| Our guide |
| This was our guide. Lisa did a marvelous translation job for the tour. I had been experimenting with using my head as a tripod, and a few curls crept in this shot. |
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To battle the morning with caffeine, I headed with Minh-An and Katie to "Judy's bar”, so named because she swapped e-mail addresses with the barista. After my experiences this morning though, there is no way I would give that guy any of my contact information. Apparently in Italy, it is absolutely grave faux pas to order biscotti with your cappuccino. As soon as two delicious cookies were in front of me, served by his gracious female assistant, his sarcastic tirade started.
“Two cookie, just like bambino”
“Would you like anything else bae-bee”
“Why don’t you be a man and eat coronetti”
It just didn’t stop, and he was smirking at me all the time until I left. He was good spirited about everything though, and additionally it gave me a fantastic little story to start off my daily diary.
After a short bus ride, made even shorter by Tito Puente on my MP3 player, we arrived at the fountain garden. There was some information given about it by Lisa but I don’t remember much besides her mentioning monkey fountains, which captivated my imagination for the duration of her short talk. The monkey hunt would become my chief goal once inside, but despite my efforts I couldn’t find them. I had a monkey charade all planned out in my mind so that I could ask the groundskeepers about their location (not having a clue how to say monkey in Italian) but luckily for both me and the groundskeepers I bumped into Joe first who pointed me in the right direction. Once found, the monkeys were sort of a let down, as I really played them up in head. I was expecting a big cluster of monkeys in wild poses squirting water at each other. I got what you see on the left. There was this statue of a woman though that looked like a monkey from the right angle. Check it out. Maybe a monkey? The most exciting part of the park turned out to be the bushes. Sariah showed me that when you slap them sideways, they jiggle like Jello. This kept a number of us amused for at least a good thirty minutes.
The next adventure was a visit to the original Benedictine monastery, where St Benedict lived as a hermit in a cave for three years. This was the most peaceful church we had seen, and its small size gave it a tranquil spirituality wholly different from the monumental churches of Rome. Sariah especially seemed taken with the place, and almost decided to just stay there. Shawn apparently persuaded her to come home in the end though. The rest of the group, though impressed by the monastery, were most thrilled by the gift shop. Everyone took this opportunity to stock up on soaps, honeys, and curious monk made liqueurs.
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