Santa Comes To Vernazza

Christmas celebrations will last the next few days in Vernazza, but today's celebrations were started on a sad note. The morning of the 23rd, Vernazza was finally able to put to rest the three victims of the flood, Pina, Giuseppe and Sauro. It was a long ordeal of bureaucratic nightmares trying to get their bodies released from France. In fact, the funeral was supposed to be several days prior, but last minute paperwork kept delaying their release back to their families. In the end, the funeral was held the same day as the Christmas party for the children.

Vernazza: December Update

Well, Christmas is just around the corner and it has been a very busy December in Vernazza. Not only have the workers continued their excavations of the canal and the upper road into Vernazza, but Vernazza itself has been busy with meetings, interviews and project planning. We have also had a fair share of emotional ups and downs, frights and celebrations. 

  

The beginning of December brought the first of the winter storms, and the first festa or town party. December 5th gave a little taste of the power of the seas with mareggiata, or high, rough seas that crash against the rocks in a violent display of nature’s power. Fortunately, it did not cause any damage and everything calmed down for the Festa dell’Immacolata on the 8th.

Europe: Pessimo Politics

  
Embarrassing moments this morning in the Italian Senate as Mario Monti’s speech was repeatedly interrupted by members of the Lega Nord, an extreme right political party. As Monti kept on with his monotonous speech on Italy’s relations with the EU, heckling and posters continued to interrupt him despite the futile pleading for order by the president of the senate, Schiffani. 

There are definite positives to having a new government made up almost entirely of professors--not politicians--but in situations like this, Monti was a fish out of water and looked confused and disheartened to be heckled during his speech. While he is used to academic conferences and civilized EU meetings, the Italian senate is more like a jungle. It is a theater of roosters where each has to splay their feathers and make a lot of noise. Not to mention the cock fights! Just the other week, a couple senators came to blows on the senate floor (again involving the Lega Nord). It is just no place for a patient and composed professor.