Italy in Michigan

Sirmione castle: many of the photos I have posted have been taken with Steve's fancy camera. Sometimes I would ask him to take specific shots or I would borrow his camera. He doesn't see things the way I do. For instance, he impatiently waited for this boat to pass whereas I liked the contrast in color.A few photos I have posted are from my iPhone but even fewer from my 'regular' camera. These are all from my camera. Its light sensor was acting up. Now that I have my new iPhone with its much better camera, this camera will be retired

town of Garda

Garda again

Bologna

Rich people used to see how big they could build towers in Bologna without much consideration to whether they were on stable soil. Many had to be taken down or have the tops lopped off

Colorful student graffiti in Bologna

I had been fretting that once my Aperol bottle was gone, no more spritzi for me. A large liquor store in Ann Arbor had a couple bottles, which we bought. My fellow traveler from my cooking class, who is Italian-American told me about this huge Italian grocery in Plymouth which Steve and I went to the other day. It has its own bakery, pasta factory, and gelateria along with any Italian grocery item one could imagine plus a restaurant and a take-out food place. So we bought rainbow cookies (the first I ever saw in Michigan)cannoli, sfogliatelle, good parmesan, good meats, blood orange juice and a few other items. I had some fig gelato: good though it cost quite a bit more than in Italy (though much less than the North End of Boston). I did taste some very ripe cow's cheese from Alto Adige that smelled like a gynecological infection. Yuck.

Ann Arbor has many ethnic communities within, mainly Chinese, Korean, Greek and Arabic but hardly any Italians. The closest Italian community is in Windsor Ontario (who some of its members were on my Summer Abroad program 6 years ago. We Americans would be welcomed and the Canadians would remind the hosts that Canadians and Americans are not the same). There is actually a large community of Italians in the UP in Negaunee who immigrated there to become miners along with the Finns and the Cornish people (who gave us pasties..lots of pasty stands up north and the charming yooper dialect that substitutes 'd's for 'th's). The Italians blended into the population in the suburbs but still have Italian clubs. I was a guest of my former roommate at one. It was a fundraiser for the victims of the April 2009 earthquake in the province of L'Aquila (where we were staying..our monastery was severely damaged).

And as long as that grocery exists (it is very popular), I will never run out of Aperol. I did notice they had bottles of orangicello..sounds good?