can't stop writing.

It's become a force of habit to write a weekly email, so even though it's late and I've not really got internet, I'm sitting here writing. There would be a nice view over the valley if I hadn't drawn the curtains to keep out the bugs - we're in a rather posh hotel in Cortano because there weren't any openings anywhere, though tomorrow we move to a convent where our accomodations will be a bit more austere and a bit more reasonably priced. It's eleven and we've just come back from an excellent dinner and a ramble around town, up hill and down dale, cones of gelato melting about as fast as we could eat them.


It's been a long week with lots of traveling. First there was the sleeper train from Paris to Rome, which was nice. I hadn't been on a sleeper train since India, and I have to say, as a whole, I preferred them, though this train was certainly generally more comfortable. Less character, though, and no calls of "chai! Chai chaiyya chai!" or "teeeeeeea. Kaaaaaaappi. Kappi, tea" and no channa or sweet curd to buy. No families pulling feasts out of stacked metal containers. No barred windows to prop open, just lots of air conditioning that made my throat sore. But a pleasant train nonetheless, and we met some friendly people. Went to sleep in France, woke up briefly when the train stopped in Switzerland (but it was dark, nothing to see here), and woke up again to sunshine and square houses with red-tiled roofs and hills that were definitely nothing to do with Northern France.


I'm plugged into the tiny iPod, soaking up some music and just relaxing. Our posh room has a nice tub and I had a bath earlier and scrubbed away the lingering dirt of Rome and Sorrento and Capri and Pompeii. Sorrento was the first place we stopped: we caught a train from Rome to Napoli and then from Napoli to Sorrento, to stay at a little place in Sant Agnello, next to Sorrento. It's a hotel/hostel/cooking school called Mami Camilla's, and it was delightful. First, the food was great, and cheap. Because you can go and sign up for a week long cooking course, the lunches and dinners are student-cooked (with help from the excellent chefs), and so you can get a four-course meal in great company for fifteen Euro. The people that came and went were all so interesting: we met some Swedes, a bunch of English people, some Aussies, and of course a few fellow Americans, including two young tv-industry types on their honeymoon who told us a bit about what it's like to work at NBC or write for Prison Break. Second, the dorms were clean and homey, recently decorated and really well done. Not much street noise at night, either, and our roommates weren't too bad. Altogether a comfortable and highly-recommendable place.


We used Mami Camilla's as a base for the three days we were there. The first day was just getting there and settling in: they had hammock chairs that I made good use of, and Dad sampled the local wines, and everyone sat about and chatted and taunted the dogs (one enormous mastiff named Spike who had too much tongue for his muzzle and was gentle as anything, and then a fiesty Chihuahua called Lola). Sorrento's a sweet little place, all sunshine and citrus trees, and Mami Camilla's has its own small groves of lemon and orange trees, which meant there was always fresh-squeezed orange juice at breakfast. The second day we were going to head out to Capri, but it was a bit cloudy, so we ended up going to Pompeii instead, where a guide offered his services for "less than a thousand Euros. Ninety-five!", so we eschewed his help and just rambled around the ruins ourselves with the maps and explanatory pamphlets. It was an interesting place to see, even without the history laid out for us. The ruins are really extensive, and there's always the mountain glowering. We tramped about for hours and I took about two hundred photographs of doorways and archways and alleyways and shrines and statues and more archways and windows. I'm noticing some trends in my photography, I have to say. Very grateful for Saurabh's gift of the digital camera, though - otherwise I'd go through a billion rolls of film and have not much to show for it. These I can download and tidy up and upload so that you can all see them that much faster (in fact, they've been up for a few days already at my Picasa album along with the photos of my students and Cambrai).


The second day was clear and lovely, so we caught the hydrofoil out to Capri with a bunch of French students (mostly because we were too late for the ferry, but it was a great ride, very fast through the perfect navy blue water with its perfectly white crests of foam). I stood on the back of the boat and put my sunscreen on and licked the salt off my lips, listening to the students chattering.

"Where are you from?" I asked one of them (in French, of course).

"France!" she said.

"Yes, I know," I said, "but where?"

"Northern France."

"Where?" I asked, all a-tingle.

"Sin-le-Noble. Do you know it?"

"Yes!" And I do - it's one of the stops on the way to Douai, not so many towns over. Anna and I always joked that we really liked the name, even though Sin has nothing to do with sin, and is really pronounced more like "San", and there aren't so many nobles around. So that was nice, to meet some people from the area where I am. Was. Whichever.


We took a boat tour around Capri, Capri with its cliffs and its rocks and its greeny plants. The cliffs are so high that they catch or make clouds, even on a clear day: all around was sunshine and then the one scud of fog over the cliffs. We paid for the long tour all around the island because it was only three Euro more than the tour that only went to the Blue Grotto, where you have to pay again to get in, and it was definitely worth it. Two hours of tooling around in the beautiful water, listening to the boatman talk in English and Italian about whatever it is we happened to be seeing, avoiding the seagulls, taking a thousand photographs of rock formations and boats and lighthouses and villas and statues. We got around to the grotto and waited about half an hour to clamber out of our boats into tiny rowboats, pay nine Euro each, and squeeze through the passageway into the grotto, which really is lovely. The sunlight reflects off the water and off the rocks on the bottom and filters into the cave from underneath and just lights the place up with this perfect blue glow. Very calm, floating in the little boats with the boatmen singing that song about the moon over Capri (except ours was rather sullen, and the only song he sang was "and now you give me a tip for my good work").


After that, we took the funicular up from the beach to the town of Capri and had lunch with a couple from Chicago whom we met on the boat (also on their honeymoon - 'tis perhaps the season). Capri is posh too, mostly for the rich and famous despite its small size and accessibility, but fortunately it was the off season, and the narrow roads weren't choked with people, though it was rough when the students from various countries and schools would all try to cram through the same alleyway. Then it was gelato in the square and people-watching, since we didn't have enough cash for the chair ride to the top of the cliffs and we'd had a lot of sun anyway, and then we sat on the beach for a bit and then caught the hydrofoil back to Sorrento, and took a bus back to Sant Agnello so as to avoid the long hike up the hill from the marina. I met some French people and talked Italian buses with them, and then met some English and Australian people and talked cricket.


Tourists are interesting. The more I see them, the less I like them, generally, even though I am one. Self-hating, sure, but at least I'm not one of those tourists with an agenda. "I must see this, I must do that!" Maybe I'm no better than any of the others, but I'm content to wander. I don't expect a place to be my end-all, to answer all my questions. I'm not looking for ultimate peace, or for the perfect view of anything. Capri is beautiful. It didn't change my life. Maybe a place will, but that's not what I'm looking for when I go there. I come to the world and I let the world come to me. A cappuccino in Italy is good. A cappuccino in America is good, maybe not quite as good, but you can get a lot of different things in the U.S., and I'm sure Italy would quail at the thought of a gingerbread latte. Things are different everywhere and I refuse to rank them. Dad tonight was complaining about how there's no good food in Fayetteville, as compared to Cortano or Italy in general, and that's just not true. No place is going to solve all your problems and save you forever. Not even Paris, city of lovers.


Paris, city of keys. Roma, city of clocks, where I found a watchface in the road. I had Indian food in Rome too: there was a little place near the Colosseum that had a nice menu, so we went back after circumnavigating the Colosseum and the nearby ruins. "I wish they had South Indian food," I said, and then looked closely at the other menu, and it turned out that on Saturdays and Sundays at lunch, they did! So I introduced Dad to the joys of dosai and idli, sambar and chutney, vadai and lassi. Dad used his knife and fork and I used my fingers (thinking of Jaya beaming and Saurabh wincing) and basking in the sounds of Hindi and Italian from where the boss lady was talking to her son about menu formatting. Then I ended up talking India and Bollywood for at least half an hour with the boss lady, and that was nice. Wherever you go, there you are. She said that family in Italy, at least, is like India, though the Indian communities are better in London and the U.S., and we agreed that Bombay is a strange place with odd customs (people are getting into cohabitation and everything there) and she offered us pan parag, which Dad had to pretend he wasn't running to the bathroom to spit out.


I liked Rome. Rome was after Sorrento and Capri. The most surprising thing about Rome is that it's so small - there are some buses and a rather rudimentary metro with only two lines, but it's very walkable. We walked to Republicca and we were almost at Trajan's Column, and from the Column and the Wedding Cake, the Colosseum is visible. If there weren't so many buildings in the way, you'd be able to see the Trevi fountain as well. But there are plenty of little alleyways full of gelato, including San Crispino's, the best I've had so far (bergamot sorbetto and then a ginger-cinnamon ice cream: no wonder Let's Go calls it the best gelato in Rome). Lots of trinkets, lots of things to see and do in Rome, and it feels so friendly. There was sunshine and more sunshine, and some very nice restaurants (I forced Dad to try Ethiopian food and he liked it).


I've been reading a lot as well, with all these trains and long waits and early nights in hotel rooms because we don't always want to be out after dark when we don't know a place well. Julia sent me the first two books of the His Dark Materials trilogy, which meant I had to buy the third one, and I picked up Wicked as well. Lots of stuff about good and evil: might as well go on that theme. When in Rome, as they say, and if any place is going to lecture about sin, it might as well be there, all cozied up to the Vatican. We tried to go to the Vatican museum but didn't realize it was one of the days when it closed exceptionally early, so all we got from that was a nice ride on the metro.


Been missing my girls and the folk from Cambrai, so I'll probably skip home for a couple of days (and I can do my laundry!) to curl up on the couch and drink hot chocolate, even though it's getting too hot for hot chocolate and cuddling. I'll relate to them my few words of Italian and they'll correct me, since they were able to take Italian classes at Fenelon (pity Jacquard was too little to teach Italian, and that I wasn't around for half the classes at Fenelon and therefore couldn't take it, otherwise I'd be a bit more useful here). But I'm glad I came to Cortona - it's a little walled city perched up on a hill, all small windy streets and cobbled slopes, and as I've said, the views are very nice. It's quite peaceful here, since not many cars are allowed in the city, and the food's been wonderful. We ate twice at the same restaurant. I had two different kinds of gnocchi (and although one of them looked suspiciously like scallops, it's been nice to be in Italy where there are more things I can actually eat). Tomorrow we'll walk up the Citadel and I'll take another too many photos and eat a lot of gelato, and then Tuesday hopefully I'll catch a train to Paris and soak up a bit of the North before I head back south to meet Dad in Provence before coming back to Cambrai for the last time to finish up the packing. I'm anxious about the results of the French election, and about leaving, because it's finally sinking in that I have to leave my girls and Matthias, that Steffen and Katie and Anna have already left, that the little white house will be empty, that I won't have text messages to look forward to.

Oh, France.

Home now for a couple of days, soaking in my girls and the lovely spring air. Oh, Cambrai. I wish we had time to walk out to the hotel where Max works one more time, to take tea in the dining room that makes us want to take a turn about the room Eliza-Bennett style. Hotels built in castles, courts built on top of castles, surprises around every corner. I will miss the place, with the three spires.

Anyway, I'm off before I get maudlin. We had train adventures last night and I'm tired - remind me for the next email.