May 5th 2008

Jason awoke to the sound of a train and decided to take a shower. Nick, on the other hand, awoke to the sounds of knocking on the door, courtesy of Jane. Breakfast was typical European fare, although the blood orange juice was a nice surprise. Martina’s new laptop had WIFI problems, which none of us could fix. Giovanni joined us for breakfast, and asked where the liar was. We explained that Martina (a lawyer) was still getting ready. Roberto (Catanzaro Rotary Secretary) didn’t speak much English, but did speak French, so we thought it would be a good idea if Jason and Nick rode with Roberto, since they both spoke French. Everything was fine until we picked up Roberto’s wife, Maria Teresa, who didn’t speak French. Then there were 3 languages being spoken in the car. Nick and Jason decided to revert back to Italian. Meanwhile, Giovanni’s car apparently stopped to take pictures of the Morandi bridge, which, by the way is 43 years old, and the 2nd largest single arch bridge in Europe. Then we arrived at the courthouse. We couldn’t find a parking spot, so we just stopped the car in the middle of the street, and got out. This seems to be common.

We then met Nunzio, the Vice President of Catanzaro Rotary club. When he learned Jason was a Geographer, he gave him a hug. Nunzio is a professor of Economic Geography. Nunzio thought Nick looked like Barack Obama, which earned Nick the nickname of “Obama” for the remainder of the day; possibly longer. Interestingly, you can smoke in the courthouse, and the witness stand has bars around it. Next, we proceeded to the MARCA Museum, which houses a collection of Calabrian art. Marcella, our English-speaking tour guide showed us the Mimmo Rotella exhibit. Rotella invented deCollage, a style of art where you layer posters on top of one another and rip pieces off. Quite interesting. His most famous piece is untitled and is 18m wide. It is all white with wrinkles and apparently worth 2 million Euros. We walked by a few local sights, and took some pictures. A journalist spotted us, (OK actually Nunzio spotted the journalist). Anyway, we had our picture taken. Then we had a meeting at Confindustria, a local organization that supports entrepreneurial enterprise. We met the Director (Dario), who is also a Rotarian. We were filmed by the local media, and apparently we’re going to be in the newspaper tomorrow.

The Confindustria organization offered us some aperitifs, and a book on Calabria. Next was lunch: 7 courses. First Course: Fish salad. Second Course: Bianchino – a white fish with breadcrumb crust. Third Course: Mussels. Fourth Course: Fish ravioli with pasta, shrimp, and artichokes. At this point there were 4 bottles of wine on the table, and Nunzio had offered at least 6 toasts. Fifth Course: Baked cod. Then we had salad. For dessert, we had lemon cake with crème. Jason had explicit instructions to investigate interesting culinary dishes, so he took pictures of each plate before eating. Someone proposed grappa, but we all said no. Instead they ordered us Amaro del Capo, which was an herbal liquor. At this point, Jane divulged that she in fact makes the best cheesesteaks in the entire world. At 4pm, we decided lunch was over, so we went to the Catanzaro Rotary Club to exchange gifts. We all tried on our new hats, and took some pictures.

Next stop: Roccelletta – Roman and Greek ruins. We wandered around for about an hour, and checked out the ancient amphitheatre. Then, we went back to the hotel to relax for about an hour, before heading out for….yes, more food. They took us to the local pizza favorite, Lido Don Pedro. For some reason, Nick decided to engage in a pizza eating contest with Julia, who was Marcella’s 13 year-old daughter. Julia won.

Still hungry? How about some pizza with molten dark chocolate on top? Jason was skeptical, but later conceded that it was pretty tasty. We had a nice time speaking with the Rotaractors, who we will see again tomorrow. We presented gifts to the district Rotaract representative-elect. Finally, Gregorio, the assistant district governor-elect drove us back to our hotel. Jason stated he is going for a run in the morning, and Nick is doing push-ups.