Chao Meets Ciao: "Look at the Squatting Baby!"

Hello again my devoted blog-ees!

So, I've been getting a lot of heat lately for not updating this blog (cough, Auntie!) but I have good reason: I've been in the Chianti region for this past week and have had little to no internet contact. AKA little to no facebook and/or people.com time. Yes, I am back-logged with the Venice trip and an AMAZING trip beneath the Medici Chapel (deets forthcoming!) entry that are both long overdue, but before all that jazz, I must blog about earning my favorite nickname--The Squatting Baby.

To preface all this nickname business, I must first write that native Italians find my name extremely, extremely difficult to pronounce. There is no such "Ivy," "Ivi," "Ivie," --and don't even get me started about "Aivi"--in their vernacular. There is, however, an Eve, or Eva. So as I trot around Florence introducing myself (me so proudly saying, "Mi chiamo Aivi!") I'm generally met with blank stares and a, "...Ah, si! Ciao Eva!" But I must declare that this past week in Chianti, I've been called a much different, though equally endearing, name.

All last week our Art Restoration class stayed at a small town called Castelnuovo Berardenga, mouthful, I know. It's this gorgeous archaic town made of stone and exposed brick (my architectural fave next to wood beam rafters!!) with plenty of rolling cobblestone-lined nooks and crannies. Everyday we ate breakfast at the B&B in Castelnuovo and then would get picked up to go to the main restoration site San Gusme'. Now, inside San Gusme, an even smaller, more medieval town, is the church we restored all week, La Chiesa della compagnia S.S. Annunziata (founded in 1582). Our goal was to finish the main 17th century altar piece our professor had started restoring many months before with the first crew. Little did we know that what seemed like a quiet, humble job actually involved and piqued the interest of the entire town. True, our school LdM had provided a food budget for us, but I'm fairly certain that didn't include lunch everyday at a Michelin-mentioned restaurant, La Porta del Chianti, in San Gusme' (right across from the church!) and dinner every night either there or a comparable place. The owner of the restaurant knew our teacher and was more than happy to accommodate us (I don't think it hurt either that we had pretty girls in the group, hello my housemates & hot mama maggie!). The townspeople, all 6 of them, even bought us a marvelous dinner of Bistecca Fiorentina aka Steak Florentine/Florence style, at the restaurant replete with Chianti wine and Tuscan bread. But I digress**. Aside from the townspeople loving us and truly taking us in and welcoming us, there was an old man--one of my favorite people!--who visited us without fail every day: Vezzio.

Vezzio is an eighty-year-old tailor (I think) and brought us water every single day. He spoke strictly Italian and truly believed we knew exactly what he was saying. He was so enraptured by our work that he would visit at least thrice daily. Each time, he would observe our work and either praise it or critique it (come si dice, "The line is crooked" in Italian??). On one special occasion, I was scraping three coats of thick, white paint from the altar piece bottom and found it difficult to sit cross-legged. So, of course, I reverted to my natural position, the ever classy Asian Squat:

(yes, it's so comfortable we make a social event out of it!)

Anyway, there I was with my mask on squatting at the altar's base. I was furiously but meticulously scraping away paint with the scalpel when Vezzio saw me in this most likely foreign position to him. Immediately, he turned to my teacher, let out an old man laugh, and shouted in Italian, "Look at the squatting baby!!"

Two words: yes, please.

Now, onto the eye candy!!!

Castelnuovo

via delle rosa which leads straight to the pastry shop, the Pasticceria. Of course it was heavily patronized by me. Of course.

The view from one of the sitting areas. Maggie and I did some nice journaling and devotion/prayer time here.

Hydrangeas are another favorite, especially since they reveal the soil's pH.

The park gate near the main square

The street I sketched one morning. A sketch-filled post is also in the works!

San Gusme'

One of my favorite views from a road circumscribing San Gusme'. Country Gentleman hat action, y'all!

Told you I'm a sucker for exposed brick.

The church!!

The main altar piece (FYI: before it was restored it was originally covered in three layers of white paint! Three! The beautiful colors repainted here are accurate to the 17th century original)