Sunday, 29 May 2016

This is Sunday afternoon. After we returned from church, ate lunch, and I had an hour nap with our air conditioner on (I did, Myrna came down and talked with the young missionaries).  That is a big deal, because we have an air conditioner in our bedroom and living room, but have not been able to get them to work, until today.  I guess I just wasn't pushing the right buttons, kind of like a fancy TV remote, which I have never been very good at.  It brought the temperature right down and I used the bedspread because it was a little cold.  The weather has warmed up quite a bit, although today it was raining.  Church was good, we had the Relief Society program.  Myrna even wore a black skirt and white top, as instructed, and sang with the RS choir.  Yes, Myrna sang, there were about 30 of them. They sang "as sisters in Zion," in Italian, of course. For third hour on this 5th Sunday, the bishop gave the lesson for the combined adult priesthood and women.  He started with the story of the 3 little pigs, which apparently Italians have he heard.  He told two versions, the first, Disney-like version and the second, he called it the "true" version where the first two little pigs get eaten by the wolf because they weren't obedient.  Then he had a woman, who actually lives in Opera and draws really well on the white board, draw a tongue and some knives coming out of it, which he used with scriptures to tell about the bad, cutting things, we say about each other. He spoke the rest of the time about speaking nice and being nice to each other in our ward family.  It was a great lesson.

On Tuesday we had new missionary training in Milano, at a church building.

Myrna made pound cakes, and served them with fresh strawberries and whipped cream.  The main course was her chicken salad with cornetti, which are Italian crissoints, or however you spell them, which we picked up at the bakery on our way out of town.

The assistants to the president talking to the new missionaries, who were all sisters this time, with President and Sister Dibb looking on.  I also presented about 45 minutes to them on how to use their mission funding (debit) cards, take care of their bikes and what to do it they lost their wallet or purse, etc.  Fairly mundane things, but it all happens, and, as a scripture says, all things are spiritual unto the Lord..  

Yesterday, Saturday P-Day, President and Sister Dibb invited us to ride in their car along with the two office missionaries, to a famous little touristy town two hours north of here called Bellagio, which is on Lake Como.  We have been planing for weeks to go there with the office missionaries, but we were going to take the bus (a three hour ride) because driving is pretty difficult.  The first hour is on freeway and is fine, but then you get to the lake and have to drive around it on a very small windy road only wide enough for one vehicle, but there is traffic going both ways and bikes and motorcycles, etc.  I rode in the seat behind the President, who drove, and has been driving here for 3 years and isn't scared to drive anywhere.
    
I was sitting behind him and this is a pix with his ear in the upper right and the car in front of us and a bus coming toward us.  We were so close to the other side, where Myrna sat, that she could have rolled down her window and touched the side of the mountain, and I could certainly have touched the side of the bus as we passed it, all the way following this Mercedes, of which there were many.

View of Lake Como from the car window.

We stopped once to take some pix.  You can see how wide the road is and where we parked wasn't very wide either.  The sign, with the red line through it, means you are leaving Valbrona. There is the same sign, without the red line, meaning you are entering a town.  These are very small towns along the lake, actually built up on the mountain.  These towns were founded long before Christ, and were used by Greeks and then Romans, who passed by them to cross the Alps.

We got to Bellagio and there was parking, for a fee, and we walked all around town.

The weather was pretty good, at least it did not rain, but it was a little hazy,.

The main street in town leads, of course, to the main church.

All of the streets, other than the main street, go up or down the mountain, which can get quite steep.  Here is Myrna, from behind.  I didn't notice, until I got home and saw the pix, that the Italian lady to the left of her was wearing about the same outfit she was wearing, although missionary dresses are longer than Italians wear.  Most Italian women still wear dresses, at least the older ones. The young ones do not generally wear dresses.

The church was open after lunch time, which isn't all that common.  (Most close from about noon to 3 pm.  Duomos are generally open, but not parish churches, like this one.)  Of course, we went inside for me to check out the organ.

Sign, on entering the church, asking for donations to repair the pipe organ.  It says, "offering to restore the antique pipe organ by Bossi"  Bossi is a famous organ maker.

The high altar, gilded, with mosaic above.  Again, this is a small town with a small, but very old, church.

You may not be able to see the organ, which was in a dark balcony in front of the church.  It is a typical antique church organ, one manual with short pedal board.  They did, however, have a very fine three manual organ on the floor below, so this church probably has petty good funding, because of all the tourists and rich people who live there.

New organ, well, maybe 20 or 30 years old, but they still want the antique organ restored. There was no one there to ask if I could play it, so I didn't. (Myrna gets embarrassed if I play without asking, and I didn't want to embarrass either her or the President.)

This sign says it will, or did, cost 110,000 euros to repair the organ.

Right across the street from the church was a little shop that sold scarfs and men's ties.among other things tourists would like.  The silk is actually woven in Bellagio and is very famous (they even sell these ties in Nordstroms), and it wasn't all that expensive either.  Only 12 euro for a tie, and 5 or 16 for a woman't scarf.  I didn't buy a tie, but I am cheap (I bought lots at DI before I came), but I bought Myrna a necklace.  Sister Dibb had bought a glass nativity set there some time ago and broke one of the wise men, so she wanted to replace it, which she was able to do.  They also bought a hand painted oil painting of Bellagio, which President is going to have to hand carry home.

Some brave souls did drive cars on these narrow streets. Here, I would worry about running over a tourist.

This street leads down to the lake.  We had lunch at a little restaurant. Myrna and I split a salad and lasagna.  The lasagna I made this week was better, I thought.  The APs brought us down a piece of one they made today, for us to taste, which was really good.

Many famous, and rich, people, have lived in Bellagio. This sign was on Fraz Liszt's house. The sign says that Wagner was a also there. The Rockefellers had a villa here, which is still there and open for tourists, but we did not go to it.  Many movie stars also have villas here. There are many villas perched on the side of the mountains. One of our office missionaries, who went with us, had been there.  His father is a movie producer, they live in LA, but they own a villa near Rome and come to Italy every summer since he was a young boy.  His Italian is pretty good.

In this pix you can see the bell tower of the church and some of the hotels and larger buildings in this fairly small town.

We walked out on the lake on one of many piers.

Looking down, there are weeds growing out of the stones of the pier, with flowers on them this time of year.  People were swimming in the lake. I put my hand in the water and it wasn't as cold as I thought, but I wouldn't have wanted to get in the water, even if I could.

Looking across the lake you can see the towns on the other side of Lake Como, each with their own churches, buildings, and villas on the hillsides.  I bet there are about 30 of these towns on the lake.

Anziano and Sorella Hoopes, Sorella and President Dibb.  They are finishing their 3 year mission at the end of June, so this may be their last visit to this beautiful area of northern Italy.

Street leading to the water.  No visit like this should be done without having gelato, ice cream, and, of course, we did.  We even found a place to sit out in front of the shop. We generally buy it in cups, because cones drip on our clothes.


Lots of bikes and motorcycles, as well as cars and people, and very narrow roads.  This was about the widest spot on the road, and is near the parking area.  If you cross on the lines the cars are supposed to stop for you.

From the car window headed south, with lots of towns on both sides of the lake, with mountains in the background. The lake runs north to south,  but there are two fingers, with Switzerland to the north, where the water starts from Alps.

A biker on the right, the car ahead of us moved over to not hit him, but if another car would have been coming toward us the car would have to move over.  There was a road going right and the blue sign says to watch out for bikes.

It was a very nice day.  We left at 10:30 am and were back home by 5 pm, which is the young missionary P-day (seniors don't have designated hours like they do).  We came back to the office and checked our emails, etc., and then went with the APs to a baptism in Milano. Yesterday they were having the world soccer play off, two Spanish teams playing each other, in Milano, so the President had warned missionaries not to go out in Milano yesterday for safety reasons, but he gave us all, including the APs, permission to go to the baptism, which happened during the time of the soccer game, which didn't start until about 8:35 pm.  They had perhaps the world's largest TV monitor set up in the piazza in front of the duomo, and it would have been fun to go, but that would be too dangerous.

I took a couple of pix during lunch time today on my cell phone (we usually go from noon to 1, and then the office elders go from 1 to 2 pm).  I left the office at 12:15 and went to the closest grocery store to buy some fresh bread, while Myrna went up to the apartment and heated up the lasagna I made two evenings ago, for our lunch today.  We try to eat our biggest meal of the day at lunch time, which is what the mission recommends to the young missionaries.

Anyway, while I was walking down the sidewalk to our car I was walking behind a little old lady, who I thought was very typical of little Italian ladies.  She dressed up, in a dress, with nylons, heeled shoes, etc., and had her hair well done, just to go to do her spese, which means daily shopping.  I don't know exactly where she went, but her bags are typical; she probably went to the fruit and veggie store  (green bag) and bread store (black bag), although these colors are not specific, just a guess.  Italians generally take re-usable bags, although stores sell plastic bags for about 10 cents (in euros, ten cents is one tenth of a euro, which is worth about 1.12).

At the large grocery store where I went there were more modern Italians, not in dresses, etc., doing their shopping.  They sell nice looking fruit, veggies, bread, etc, at the large grocery store, which are cheaper than at the neighborhood shops, although you can't do much gossip at the big store, which I suppose is a highlight of the day for these older Italians.

Anyway, I came back by 12:40, and Myrna had meanwhile made a salad with fresh tomatoes, cucumbers and onions, dressed with balsalmic and olive oil, and we cut the bread and at the lasagna.   We have a fairly small glass "cake" pan (Myrna makes microwave brownies in it, it is perfect for that), but the other night I used some of the Bolognese sugo I made to make some lasagna, the first I have made.  The noodles, which I bought at the supermarket, are traditionally home made (a mound of flour, make an indention, put in egg yolk, and mix by hand and roll out), but, of course, they sell them pre-made, both dried (which I bought) or fresh in the cool case. The dry package says they contain 25% eggs and the rest 00 flour.  For home made noodles, you do not boil them first, but I boiled my dry ones for about 5 minutes, while I was assembling the ingredients.  I also bought some bescimilla sauce, which is a thick white sauce made with cream, which you can buy in a carton, about a pint for 59 cents, which I did.  I put a layer of that in the pan, then added a noodle, and on top of that some Bolognese sugo, and then cheese (mozarella and parmesian and/or whatever you have), and then I added a layer of ricotta, which we had available, but usually isn't in Italian lasanga, but is good anyway, and then another thin layer of bescimilla, another noodle, sauce and repeated it until the pan was full.  Then I cooked it in the oven, 200 degrees C,  for 20 minutes and took it out to cool, put alum foil on top and in the fridge for later use.  It was very good.  In the pix you can see the cut bread, which, with butter, is wonderful as a meal by itself. I so much like the fresh bread here, even that I buy at the supermarket.  If stores in US could make it this good they could get rich, although a loaf, which is only 250 grams, sells for 69 cents, which is what we buy for two meals.

Myrna cutting the lasagna.  We both had our hair cut yesterday, so you can see Myrna's second Italian cut.  She is not coloring her hair, this is by now it's natural color.  The woman who cut it the first time has been doing the mission president's wife's hair for years, but is not at the shop any more, so Myrna had her hair washed, cut and styled by the oldest guy (probably owner), yesterday.  He was much faster than the woman and not as meticulous with each hair, as the woman was, but she likes the length better.  Mine was done by an underling who I think did a fine job.  I am using an Italian shampoo, made by Pantene, which I like better than anything else I have ever used.

Anyway, we are enjoying life, May is beautiful because there are so many flowers, especially those which smell good.

I will tell about our experience last evening because I didn't take any pix.  We have been assigned to home teach 4 families, including the bishop.  We had our appointment at his home last evening.  Myrna made bar cookies and I talked about Pres. Monson's talk about Alice in Wonderland, which Italians have all heard of (at least our families knew about it.).  We had never been to their home before, which is in a relatively poor neighborhood, where we had a hard time finding a place to park, but we did. Their living room, furnished with fine couches and a large TV, also has the kitchen in the other side, with a dining table, etc, all in the same room.  I suspect they have one bathroom and two bedrooms, maybe 500 square feet.  They have 3 children, one daughter in her 20s working somewhere, a son 20, on a mission in Chile, and a girl, 15 at home.  The bishop is a caregiver at a 71 bed nursing home and his wife is a caregiver at another nursing home, 55 beds. (These are, by American standards, small nursing homes.)  They are both from Peru, but have been in Italy for over 20 years and speak good Italian. They do not speak English, although the wife's sister was there when we first came (she left with the daughter, who she was taking to the church for a seminary test), and she is learning English. He said it normally takes the daughter a half hour on the bus, with a 1.50 ticket, to get to the church for Seminary, but this time the aunt took her.  So the four of of us talked for about an hour, then we had dinner.  She served us a plate with boiled potatoes with a Peruvian white sauce on it (I discussed the concept of gravy, which this was sort of), and a large pile of flavored rice with a chicken leg (with skin, which we all ate) in it, and a fairly large salad, which we ate on our plate after we had eaten the potatoes, rice and chicken.  For dessert they first offered fresh fruit, but we all opted for the cookies Myrna made.  We drank water, and had a wonderful meal. They were very hospitable, and we didn't have a hard time communicating with them in Italian for 2 hours. We will enjoy going there home teaching.  I had better get back to work.  I have rents and utilities to pay today.

Myrna, from the front, making the comment, what on earth are you doing that for?  As you can see from the clock, we were back down to the office by 1 pm.
 

Sunday, 22 May 2016

We returned from Milano yesterday afternoon, the hottest day we have had, so far, in Italy.  After resting (taking a nap) for an hour or so, we went grocery shopping, then I came down and did my blog for the day we spent in Milano.

I took this pix down the block where I walked last evening to get some frizzante (carbonated) water from the well, but it was 8:15 pm and they turn off the water apparently at 8 pm, which I didn't remember. You can see the corner of our block where people hang out at the caffeteria.  Caffeteria means coffee place, like a pizzaria, is a place for pizza, and a paneteria is a bakery, but in English we use the word caffeteria to mean a place where you get food.

Italians usually live in apartments, but they have balconies (we have 2) where they hang out and plant flowers, etc.  This is a very small balcony, on which they have installed the outside part of an air conditioning unit.  One of our balconies is quite large. The roses are in bloom and will probably continue to bloom until fall.

From the corner to where we enter he locked gate to the mission office the hedges are in bloom, and the flowers smell very nice.

This is our smaller balcony, right off our bedroom.  The plant on this side of the middle geranium is basil. We bought a small basil plant at the grocery store and we pick leaves for making things.

I took this pix from our balcony about 8:30 pm last evening and it shows the same place I took from the ground, with the caffeteria on the corner.  Across the street, on the same side as the caffeteria, is the city well where I get water in my bottle.

While I was napping and writing the blog in the office, Myrna was up making pound cakes. She is making them for our luncheon on Tuesday, when the new missionaries return for their two week orientation.  I do about an hour on finance with them.  There will be 36 to feed.  Myrna will slice the pound cakes and top with fresh strawberries and whipped cream.

I emptied the mission mail box and took out these natural gas bills, which I will pay tomorrow.  We have about 100 active missionary apartments, and the bills come on different days for the electricity, gas, water, trash, etc. That is my main work, although every day I also get letters and emails from missionaries who send me receipts for transportation (bus, metro, train), medical and other reimbursable expenses that I reimburse by putting money on their debit cards.  All of this work is done on-line, we do not write checks.

Saturday, 21 May 2016

Today was our regular P-day, we got out work done, even though we took off on Wed, so we went to Milano today to see what we want to see in preparation for Amy's family visit at the end of June.  Here are some of the things we saw today, some of which we have already seen:


You come up out of the metro station onto the large piazza of the duomo, or cathedral.  Duomo comes from Latin and refers to house of God, and is what Italians call cathedrals, which means that is where the bishop's cathedra, or throne, is located. Any large church is not necessarily a cathedral.  For example, St Peter's in Rome is a basillica, not a cathedral, even though it is the pope's church, although his actual bishop's cathedra is in another church, St John Lateran.  Anyway, I don't know why I didn't turn around and take a pix of the imposing duomo of Milano, which is I think the world's second or third largest church.  It was a fairly warm and sunny day. We wanted to go to the roof, which costs 15 euros each (about 18 or so dollars), so we stood in line to buy tickets.  It also costs 1 euro to go to the bathroom at the duomo, those Catholics know how to make money.  The above is of the Italian equivalent of George Washington on his horse, in front of the duomo.

I don't know why I took this pix while we were standing in line to buy the tickets, but it does have a website, where you can visit the duomo.  The duomo is in the background.

To enter the duomo, armed (with machine guns) guards pat you down and then wave a wand over you, like at the airport.  I forgot and left my little red Swiss army knife on my key chain, but a similar guard in Florence on Wednesday, when he saw my name badge and said out loud the name of the church, told Myrna to just put my keys in the bottom of her purse, because they visually check purses, they don't scan them, then he said to her, in perfect English, now don't kill anybody. So we did the same here and they let us through. The above is the marble floor of the duomo, in case you can't tell.


So you look up you see the ceiling, which is not painted with frescos like many Italian churches.  This one is very large, but is not very bright or colorfully painted inside.  It has, I believe I read, some 3,500 statues and lots of stained glass.

Detail of a window,( there are none with plain glass) they are all very large, this was probably 30 feet high, but the bright light outside lit the windows well today and my optical zoom works well.

As you walk past the many altars along the sides of the nave you see many dead bishops under the altars.  They have signs telling you who they are and when they lived.  This guy is fairly new, although I believe they have St, Ambrose in this duomo, and he lived I believe, without googling it, in like the 200s or 300s, a very long time ago.  He was the bishop of this church and was baptized here in this church.  Milano uses an Ambrosian form of the mass, not the one used by Rome, although, of course, it is also in Latin.

This is the high altar (bottom left), showing, of course, the organ.  Now it looks like there are six organs, at least cases of pipes, but during the mid 1900s they made them all play from a single 5 manual organ, which is a little bigger than the Tabernacle Organ.  They also have a small pipe organ on the floor, which we heard today being played in preparation for a concert, which I wish we could have stayed to hear.

I don't know why I snapped this pix, maybe because she was holding a skull.

This is a side altar, showing some stained glass.  The largest stained glass windows are at the rear of the church.

This poor dude was pretty skinny and muscular, although I did't pay attention to who he was, there are just too many statues.

This guy actually had clothes on, but most are fairly naked, although, unlike in Florence, they cover their privates.  The Medici seemed to like classical nudes, whereas the Sfortzi of Milano, the ruling family for a long time, must have been a little more modest, but they had no problem chopping off heads.

Another view of the central nave of this very very large building.

From the side at the front you can see the preaching pulpit, above.  The preacher climbs the stairs and stands above the congregation.  When this dumo was built they did not have amplification of sound, so a loud voice can be heard pretty well as the building is built of marble, which is quite sonorous.  You can see one of the organs to the upper right.  The painting can be closed to cover the pipes, although I have never see them closed.

We walked past the sacracy, or place where the priests put on their vestments.  This guy, called a sacristano, was folding this morning's vestments. In smaller churches, this is the guy I try to find to let me play the organ, because he has the keys, which are generally stored in the sacracy.

When they re-built and enlarged the organs about 60 years ago, they put some new pipes in another case, which is shown on the right.  The left case, and several others, is from the 1600s.

This is the bottom of one of the large stained glass windows at the rear of the church.

Even though they have the huge organ and a smaller pipe organ, I spotted this humble reed or pump organ in the corner.  Almost all Italian churches have a reed organ sitting around somewhere for when they just need to give the pitch for singing, usually small congregations in the chapels.


We got there just as an organist was working out his stops on the smaller organ. the large one is to the right. This large one is the one I played about 50 years ago, and have a pix of me playing.

After finishing practicing for a few minutes, the organist went over to give last minute instructions to the singers.  I have never seen a very large choir in a Catholic church, but this group is probably not the their regular choir, maybe a visiting choir.

Even though the door at the bottom was locked, the sign says that this is the baptistry for early Christians, the font of Saint Steven at the Font, from the 4th century.  It is a real baptismal font.

This is the "font" they use today to sprinkle babies, etc.

Then we took the elevator to the roof, for 3 euros, to see the statues on top and the city of Milano. It was quite a sight for sore feet.

Gargoyl.







What is amazing is that there are statues you could never see from the ground, you have to walk around the roof and look down, or up,or sideways, to see them.

I suppose dirt blows up there and falls in the cracks and then weed seeds blow up and before long you have weeds on the roof, which I suppose they pull off or it would damage the marble.  Notice the gargoyl, or mythical figure on the left, which also could not be seen from the ground.

The piazza in front of the duomo, in the front is the statue of the Italian equivalent of George Washington, who lived in the 1800s.

Form the roof, on the other side, you can see the Swiss alps. I don't know why I didn't get a pix of them today, as you could see them, which is rare.  Normally it is pretty hazy.

We're back on the ground and this is the back of the duomo, showing one of the many stained glass windows, from the outside.

We walked away from the duomo down this not very busy side street.

And went under a fruiting tree, which was somewhat messy.  In Thatcher, Arizona, were I was raised, we had mullberries that were like this.

They were messy underfoot.

This was the next church we were trying to find.

And there was another type of fruiting tree we passed.

This was a church with a separate chapel full of skulls and bones, from the days of the black plague, of people who wanted to be buried within the church, and they certainly were.

They even used the bones to make designs.

And some are just there, behind wire, I suppose to keep them safe, so tourists wouldn't take them home for souvenoirs.

The church with the bones is next to another ancient church, why they built them so close I do not know.

Italy does a good job with signs,in Italian and English,usually.

Bum sleeping on the busy street, but with his money container nearby.

We walked down Via Dante about 20 minutes, in the hot sun, to the Sfortzi castle, in the background.  the big 2 and 1 are for some type of temporary exhibit, we did not see.

Myrna sitting at the fountain in front of the castle.

Gate to the castle, of which there is a very large moat, now with grass and feral cats, around it.

A patriarch was coming out as we were headed in.

It was a large city inside the walls.  On the left are bleachers, where they now have concerts, etc.

A pair of nuns, which you don't see very often now in Italy.  There is a museum, actually many, in this castle.  One has Michaelangelo's final sculpture,still unfinished, of a skinny Mary and Jesus, which we were too tired to pay 5 euro to see.  The walking and heat about did us in.

Myrna sitting in the shade, with the moat below.

If you can enlarge this pix, you can see two cats on the grass.  I suspect they keep the rats at bay.

Gate to another part of the castle, where we climbed up about 4 stories of stairs (way too many marble stairs) to see a school, admission free, where they teach how to make violins and other stringed instruments, with hand tools.

Raw ingredients for violins.





They weren't all violins, this was a hand held pipe organ, with keyboard, and a little drum to beat time, how about that.

I have no idea of what this thing sounds like, but I assume it sounds heavenly.

We came home and rested for about an hour, then went grocery shopping for the week, Myrna cooked up some pasta for dinner and we ate it with some Ragù alla Bolognese I made last week (we freeze it). Now she is up making pound cakes for the new missionary orientation, for about 30, we are catering on Tuesday. We will serve it with fresh strawberries and whipped cream.  The main course will be chicken salad on croissants, which we have already ordered from the neighborhood bakery. (Myrna is making the salad, we are looking for chicken breasts on sale, which we hope to find on Monday afternoon, so we don't have to freeze them.). All of these new missionaries are sisters.  Had there been some elders, Myrna was gong to make Cafè Rio pulled pork and she is going to try making flour tortillas, which you can actually buy (in the international section of the grocery store), but they are expensive and not very fresh.  I also watered our "garden" out on the balcony from our bedroom today, it is doing well. The weather is certainly changeable.  All week it rained and was a little chilly, but today it got up probably in the 80s and was sunny.  We will sleep with the windows open tonight, and when it gets really hot we have air conditioning, which most Italians don't.

Ciao for now.