Day 2: Italy - Service Visit and Frascotti (Wednesday, June 30)

This morning, I went on my first Semester at Sea field trip. It was a service trip to the Republica de Ragazzi. It is an orphanage in Civitavecchia that was founded in 1945 – it is a home for Italian children whose parents can’t or won’t care for them properly. The children in the Republica are ages 9-18. They live in “families” with other children – there are 4 houses. About 30 Semester at Sea-ers went and we met with the priest and one of the directors who told us about the organization. Afterwards, we got a tour of the facilities. Everything seemed really nice and clean. It looked very cheerful – there were lots of colors, the kitchen smelled of garlic and bread.

We got to meet some of the kids during our tour. The interaction was a little difficult because of the language barrier, but it was really fun to converse with them despite the lack of total understanding. The only disappointing part of the morning was that we didn’t really do anything at the site. I expected to help paint, or clean, or build something. After being a staff adviser for the Alternative Spring Break program to Chicago this year, I was definitely prepared to get my hands dirty and pitch in to help a bit! So, a tour and a visit wasn’t quite what I had expected. One cool thing about the trip was that the tour company (who organized the trip) donated the bus and the other fees, so Semester at Sea donated the fees from our admission (which was a couple hundred dollars altogether) to the Republica. Although it was a nice thing to do, I have some questions about this type of service format. I wonder if this is the best type of service-learning trips that Semester at Sea can arrange (on account of it is more informational than experiential). After doing some hard-core volunteer work, I think that just showing up, taking a tour, and giving money is sort of an easy way to say that you helped a community. My roommate, Erin, is working the Service-Learning program on the ship and is going to have a post-service reflection session soon. It will be interesting to hear what the students got out of the visit.

After the service, Erin and I took a train to Rome and then another to a small hill top village called Frascoti (pronounced Fres-scottie). We missed two trains (not our fault, just bad timing) – so it took us like four hours to get there. As I mentioned before, Erin were eager to get out of Rome to a smaller town to just explore a bit. We picked Frascoti somewhat randomly. The only thing that we knew about this small town was that the area was famous for it’s Frascoti wine. Basically, we saw it on a map and asked the inter-port Italian student (Mario) on board if it would be worth a day-trip. He said yes, so we decided what the heck – might as well check it out.

I cannot stress enough that this was seriously the best decision that I have made in a really long time.

Ahhh Frascotti…even now as I type this, I am flooded with memories of this charming little hill-top town. It is located just 40 minutes from Rome, but it seemed worlds away. Frascotti is the opposite of Rome in almost every way possible. For as crowded and touristy as Rome is, Frascotti is sleepy and quiet. Erin and I were the only Americans there. Heck, we were the only tourists! I’d be willing to bet that all of the other people there had families that had been living in Frascotti for generations. When we got off the hot and grimy train, we climbed a bunch of steps to get to the center of the city. There was one small street that weaved in and out of main area surrounded by a web of narrow streets. After enjoying a generous chilled glass of the Frascotti wine, we soaked in the view and walked around the town, stopping in shops and chatting with the friendly people. We stopped in the “Frascotti checkpoint” – which is the closest thing they had to a tourist info center. There we met a very tall young Italian man who we think was a little surprised to see visitors. After we asked for some help, he proceeded to pull out a map and a chunky pink highlighter to outline the route which we should take to see the best of Frascotti. With his limited English skills, our limited understanding of Italian, and the help of Google images, we were able to understand what we had to do in order to get the most out of our visit.

First, we went to a plaza on the other side of town – and by other side, I mean a five-minute walk. There, there were stands set up selling a variety of market foods. We purchased some cheese (recommended by the woman behind the counter), some assorted olives and sundried tomatoes, two giant slices of pane (bread), and porchetta (which is a specialty of the area – it’s roasted pork that’s sort of the consistency of Thanksgiving turkey coated with rough-ground peppercorns). We gathered up our enormous amount of food and walked around to kill some time before 6 PM. We found a gelato place that had POPCORN gelato and had a free sample. Seriously, the popcorn was on the top and it tasted exactly like buttered popcorn!

At 6 PM, we strategically walked to this little Cantina in the middle of a small random square. There was an older woman who was setting up tables out in the middle of the street. This place was exceptional for a few reasons. First, it was unique because as a Cantina, it was a bring-your-own-food restaurant/bar – you buy the wine there. Secondly, it was cool because Erin and I were the only customers. We sat down and ordered a jar of Frascotti wine (has a very apple-ly flavor and is stored in giant barrels) and proceed to attack the small mountain of food we had just purchased. We savored every moment of that porchetta, let me tell you. YUM. I wish I had just one more bite to eat right now. Also, Erin had just purchased a balsamic glaze made with figs at a gourmet food store. It was fantastic with the bread and pork. One nice grocer-man walked by with a basket of produce and gave Erin and I both a fig. Now, I have only ever eaten dried figs, so I didn’t even know what it was! The nice man gave us a demonstration on how to open and eat it – you can eat the skin and all! After we had made our way through most of the food, the Cantina owner brought us over another jar of wine – on the house. They were so happy that we were there. Also, as we were sitting there, the locals would stop and stare a little at us. One sweet old man came over with bright white sneakers came over and talked to us for about 10 minutes. He didn’t speak a word of English and I know about 10 words of Italian, so the translation was a little rough, but surprisingly, it didn’t matter one bit. Erin and I could actually understand a lot of what he said – turns out that Italian is not really that different from Spanish!

After eating almost all of the food, we were pretty stuffed. The whole time that we were eating, several older folks had congregated at a long table with benches around it. As we were enjoying the evening and just sipping the last of the wine, the man at the head of this “neighborhood” table called out and motioned for us to join them. Before we knew it, extra chairs appeared and we were whisked into the whirlwind of conversation and laughter. The 10-12 people sitting at the table were so curious about us, asking all kinds of questions about where we were from and what we were doing there. They poured us more wine (YIKES!) and offered us generous portions of the modest food they had brought. Maybe I wasn’t clear before, but we had already eaten a TON of food…and we were VERY full, but it would have been very rude to say no. So, we sucked it up and ate slices of bologna olive loaf, salty pancetta, creamy creamy cheese, more olives, crusty bread, and finished with a delightful ring of a cookie that tasted like biscotti (the locals dipped this is the wine to soften before eating it – so we did the same!). The conversation (and did I mention the wine?) flowed freely, despite the language barrier.

As the shadows began to fall and the streetlights came on, Erin and I reluctantly agreed that it was time to go, despite the protests of our hosts. With great sorrow, we kissed our new Frascotti friends goodbye and lovingly received an open invitation to visit their table any Wednesday from now until forever. I loved so many things about this town, but the warmth and hospitality of the Fracotti people is right up at the top of the list. Even as we caught the last train out, we kept wondering to ourselves…WHY were we leaving? WHERE could we travel that we would have a more meaningful experience than that town and those people? We have no pictures of our friends at the Cantina and their names have since slipped from my memory. It’s nice, though, because the only souvenir I have is that wonderful memory – one that I know I will hold dear for a long time.