Passions with a Passport: Since I'm not going to NYC for another 2 weeks... I'm doing the next best thing...

Thursday, May 29, 2008

Since I'm not going to NYC for another 2 weeks... I'm doing the next best thing...

Yes, I am jumping on the cosmopolitan filled band-wagon. My friend Lindsay got us tickets to see the mid-night screening of "Sex and the City." I don't think I need to explain my love for this show, everyone claims to be it's "BIG"gest fan. But, I do claim to be amongst those who can relate. Well, I actually have my best friend (not Lindsay) that can realte. See her and I met while studying/I was nesting, in Italy last year, and she, just like me, met this Italian guy, she totally fell for him. I had the same thing happen to me the year before, only in a much different way.

It's hard comparing relationships, especially being that there is a HUGE demographic of American girls, girlfriends, or now, wives, to these strapping Italian men. It's quite unique. It's like we have settled in a new colony. We are Pioneers from the West, bringing our free-once "Single-wmoen" Carrie like behaviors, and settling into a fairytale small town of Italy. It is a harmonizing mix though. It is one of the deepest, complimenting communities I've ever been to. That's why my friend was so eager to get in.

Not like you need a boyfriend to keep you in this town, on the contrary, all you need is your brain, and your laughter, and an open-sense of life and adventure. But she was convinced to get this guy. She moved all the way from Jersey, and like "Carrie" wanted to expand her life, and it's possibilities in Italy. In the 6th season of "Sex an the City," Carrie goes to Paris and instead of writing about her life goes and "lives her life." So what came first the chicken or the egg? Do we need to read inspiring books to help us suck it up and get on the plane? But what's waiting for us when we get there? I say get all you're chickens lined up first, and your friends, and then you can choose your next daring leap. But hey, for now, get lost in "Sex and the City."

I am sooooo excited for this movie!

Click bellow to see the trailer

http://movies.aol.com/movie/sex-and-the-city-2008/30247/video/trailer-no-2/2081927

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A Traveler's History of the Cinque Terre - by: Rick Steves

It's a sunny afternoon a thousand years ago in the Cinque Terre (CHINK-weh TAY-reh), long before it became the Italian Riviera. This string of humble villages, surrounded by terraced vineyards, is a two-day sail from Genoa.

The leathery old farmer, taking a break from tending his grape vines, picks a cactus fruit to quench his thirst. Suddenly howls come from the crude stony tower crowning a bluff that marks his village of Vernazza. Turkish pirates are attacking.

Avoiding powerhouse cities like nearby Genoa and Pisa, pirates delight in the villages. These Cinque Terre towns, famous since Roman times for their white wine, are like snack time for rampaging pirates. Villagers run for cover down corridors buried deep in the clutter of homes that clog Vernazza's ravine.

A thousand years later, another leathery grape-picker is startled by the roar of a smoke-billowing train. Emerging from the newly built tunnel, it flies a red, white and green flag. It's 1870 and the feudal and fragmented land of Italy is finally united. This first Italian train line, an engineering triumph of fledgling Italy, laced together Turin, Genoa, Rome...and, by chance, tiny Vernazza.

Decades later, in the 1930s, an Italian dictator teams up with a German tyrant. The war they started is going badly. In 1943 the German Führer calls on Vernazza's teenage boys to report for duty. The boys, who are assured they'll only work in German farms and factories, know they'll end up as fodder on the front. Rather than dying for Hitler, they become resistance fighters. Running through the night, they climb the ancient terraces like giant stairsteps into the hills high above the village cemetery.

The 1970s bring on a different battle scene. Hippies exercise their right to lay naked on the Cinque Terre's remote Guvano beach. Outraged, an angry armada of villagers — fully clothed and accompanied by a raft of reporters — converge on the ratpack of sunburned big-city hedonists. Conservative little Vernazza makes headlines across Italy.

Next, the age of tourism arrives. In 1978 a college-aged American backpacker, stumbling onto the region, finds the traditions vivid, the wine cheap, and the welcome warm. Inspired by the Cinque Terre and similar places throughout the Continent, he declares the region a "back door" and writes what will become a top-selling guidebook on Europe.

By the 1990s, word of this paradise is out. More and more travelers visit — staying in local apartments rather than in hotels. One day, at the crack of dawn, another invasion comes...this time by land. A platoon of Italian tax inspectors blitz the sleepy town, rousting out the tourists and cornering locals renting unlicensed rooms. B&B income in Vernazza is suddenly no longer tax-free.

Today gnarled old men still tend their grapevines. Now Vernazza's castle — named "Belforte" centuries ago for the screams of its watchmen — protects only glorious views. And the screams ringing out are of delight from children playing on the beach below.

But the local economy has changed. The poor village is now a rich village, living well in its rustic and government-protected shell. Tourism drives the economy as the less-calloused locals feed and house travelers. While the private rooms rented are basic, the cuisine — super-charged by a passion for pasta, pesto, and seafood — is some of Italy's best.