“ I run a business of repute, I am the Mayor of this town; I look to you to sort this out, be as patient as you can…”- Alain Boublil et al, Les Miserables, At The End of the Day
Well, I did not have my appointment today: this morning I received a message from my translator Nicoletta:
I think “mayors” plural is a typo; but still - interesting! I’m getting to be kind of famous around here. Probably as “that crazy American lady,” but whatever.
Yes, the olive harvest is a big deal around here! That may be why we see so few people on the streets during the day. We do see and hear the farm trucks and tractors going up and down the roads with their loads all day long. In fact, I was surprised at the amount of traffic we were seeing for such a tiny town, until I realized what it was.
Since I didn’t have my appointment today, we decided to take a walk after breakfast to see where exactly the harvested olives are being taken - there is some kind of co-op here in town where the processing occurs. I will have to ask around exactly what happens as I know nothing about how olive oil is made, or if that is even what they’re doing - it may be that their just preparing them to ship elsewhere? Not sure, but hope to find out. We did find two sites that seem to be where the harvested olives are delivered:
We also walked around a part of town we hadn’t really explored on foot before (though we pass through part of it in the car going in and out of the comune). I took these pictures on our walk today:
After lunch, we decided to go look for Lago di Occhito (Lake Occhito - Eye Lake). We were having trouble figuring out how, exactly, to access it. After about a 30-40 minute drive through the beautiful hilly countryside (up and around and down the curving, twisty roads that only occasionally have guardrails) until we arrived in comune di Macchia Valfortore, where we eventually found ourselves on some kind of dirt road that lead into a forest of sorts. We decided that perhaps it was best not to go through there as there were signs posted that we couldn’t read, but seemed to convey some kind of a warning. We got the sense that perhaps we were not supposed to be there - at least not in a vehicle. So we found the lake, we saw the lake, but we didn't feel comfortable getting out of the car to walk around the lake. Despite some internet research, we still have no idea how to access it.
Lake Occhito
Dinner fail: While on our morning stroll, we stopped at one of the local butcher shops to pick up some meat for dinner. We thought we bought some sausage - it was labelled as sausage, anyway; turned out we bought some kind of "dry sausage.” Not exactly what we had in mind for dinner (although I guess it will make a nice snack along with with some truffled cheese I bought the other day). Fortunately we had a bit of chicken breast and prosciutto in the fridge, so I cooked the chicken with the slices of prosciutto laid on top, and made some rice and peas for sides. Note to self: be smarter about shopping - make a list in English, then translate it into Italian so you know what to ask for next time!
While I was cooking dinner, I received another message from Nicoletta saying my first appointment is confirmed for this Thursday at 3 PM at the town hall. Whoo-hoo!
I'm not sure what we’ll be exploring tomorrow, if anything, as my weather app indicates it will be pretty rainy and dreary all day. Good thing I did laundry today!
Drying laundry on the balcony, like a good Italian housewife
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