Milan

On Sunday, May 19 we had the pleasure of exploring the two "F's" of Milan. Faith, in the form of the strikingly beautiful Duomo or Cathedral, and fashion, in all the amazing shops such as Armani and Valentino. What a treat!

Rotarian Giuseppe was kind enough to meet us in the city center and give us a proper tour of all the best sights.

The Duomo is unique in appearance because of the beautiful marble which decorates the outside. The amazing stone comes from the nearby Alps.

Giuseppe treated us to a lovely lunch at a boutique wine and food shop. As ever, the food was delicious.



We enjoyed a walk around the central shopping area, stopping in Armani. The ladies drooled over the items in Valentino and Prada, but in the end we restrained ourselves from buying.



 We also participated in a local custom that is meant to bring good luck. One places his heel on the testicles of the bull in a sort of plaque in the famous arcade. Then he twirls around as many times as possible. We were skeptical of this rite truly bringing luck, but it must have worked as the forecast was for rain and all day the sky was ominous. In the end we were able to enjoy a rain free day walking around the city.

Ahh.. Genova

It has been a wonderful, fulfilling journey so far.  Each location that we have visited has been new and exciting in its own way, and Genova is keeping up the tradition.

Monday morning started with everyone checking out of our home at the Best Western Luxor in Turin. We

Rest stop with hills in background

then headed south for about a two hour drive to Genova.  For the first 80 minutes or so, we were in the plains... much like the area around Alessandria.  Lots of farming and agriculture.  Then we entered the hills that form the northern border of the Liguria region that we were heading into.  Locals call these hills the Alpini, or "small Alps".  I would describe them as the mountains of West Virginia.  Not mountains like the Rockies (or the Alps!) but definitely something I wouldn't want to cross with horse and buggy.  After a brief rest stop and  more driving through hills, several tunnels, and some impressive bridges we arrived on the outskirts of Genova.

Genova is squished into a very small area between the sea and the hills.  The difficulty of building on the hillside has caused the city to extend very far (10-20km or so) along the coast, but not very far inland.  There are about 700,000 inhabitants.  And 150,000 scooters; but more on that later.  Well...  why wait?  The scooters here make driving an experience unlike anywhere else I've ever seen.  They are considered to be the savior of the city (because they are small and don't take up the space that a car does) but they make every excursion an experience to be talked about, and video of a typical drive would make wonderful "chase" footage for your average action movie.  Add to this the hills and tiny streets (yet extremely curvy), this city holds the record, in my book, of the most intense driving experience yet.  Locals tell us, however, that this is nothing compared to driving in southern Italy.

Our van in the area around the Marcelline

Anyway, back to the story...  We made to our home for the week at the hotel Soggiorno Suore Marcelline and then walked down the hill to the seaside to find a place to eat.  A quick panini lunch followed,

and then we were off to an incredibly beautiful and perfect Italian scene

to wait to meet up with our Rotary contact for the week, Gian Michele Gancia.  We had coffee and drinks while we discussed our schedule for the week.

After this, we headed back to the Marcelline and prepared for a pizza dinner with one of the three rotaract clubs in the area.  This was a great evening.

 The rotaract members were very friendly and provided for a lot of interesting conversation.  In addition, there was live singing for the evening,

and everyone had a great time.  All in all, a wonderful first day in Genova!

The next day, I had a vocational visit to the Italy Institute of Technology.  The rest of the team visited a confectionery factory.  Following this, we all met together at the Hotel Bristol Palace for a lunch meeting with

RC Genova.  It was an interesting meeting.  There was a presentation on the history and current status of a garden park near Genova.  The presentation was given in Italian, but helpful translators at our tables, as well as nice pictures on the slides made it quite nice.

Following this, our helpful Rotarian friend Stefania took us on a brief walking tour of the city as we made our way down to the Genova aquarium.   We stopped at a church along the way and took a few pictures.   Down at the waterfront, we met our guide Mariam, who was incredibly knowledgeable about all-things-aquatic and we had a great time visiting the fishes and other marine wildlife.

After leaving the aquarium, we walked around the port area for a while and then we had an hour or so of free time.  I walked around more and took some pictures.

The team had dinner at a restaurant near the waterfront and then we headed back to the Marcelline for a much needed night of sleep.

Saturday in the hill country

Saturday was an amazing day.  I've come to expect that here in Italy.  Each day has been amazing in its own

way.  We met Saturday morning and received some wonderful news from our driver, Allessandro.  Our 5 bags of missing luggage had arrived and was waiting for us at Rotarian Berello's house.  This made us very happy.

Once we had picked up the bags (and Mr. and Mrs. Berello) we headed out of town towards Cortazzone.  Rotarian Lorenza and her husband Attillio were waiting for us.  The trip took about an hour, and we went

from the relatively flat-ish area around Allessandria up into the hills.  It was quite beautiful and we got to see some really neat country homes.  We were on small backroads, gravel roads, and eventually we arrived at our destination.  Lorenza and Attillio greeted us as old friends and they were absolutely kind and gracious in every way possible for the entire day.

Building laws in Italy are apparently quite strict. When Lorenza and Attillio purchased their property it had two older homes on it (late 1800s.. not nearly as old as some things we've seen, but definitely among the older homes we see in America) they wanted to have a new home, but they were required to make the

facade look exactly like the existing structure.  The renovation took them about 18 months, but the results are really quite spectacular.  Due, in part no doubt to their backgrounds in computer science (they are both professors at the University of Turin, their home has the latest technology including several not-yet-released home automation products that Attillio's startup company is working with.   Attillio tried to reuse materials in the building of their home when possible:  All of the iron work on the balconies and stairs, as well as a large table (probably 3 feet wide/10 feet long) that he made for Lorenza out of wood from the original structure.  They've been married for 36 years and Attillio has a tradition of giving a gift to Lorenza each month and this was one of his more impressive gifts.

Lunch was amazing.  Before lunch even started we were served bread with 3 different toppings which I will describe as: sun-dried tomato spread, pesto spread, and ragu spread.  Ragu is a general term used to mean 'meat sauce'.  All were good.  For drinks I had a type of grapefruit soda and others report that the wine was very good as well.  We ate lunch-proper in their kitchen.  Again, I want to emphasize how much we were made to feel like coveted friends.  Course after course of food arrived, each as excellent as the last.  From the homemade pasta to the filet cooked for 18 hours over a low fire it was amazing, and very filling.

After our three hour lunch, we needed to do some walking.  It had been raining since shortly after our arrival (and continued to rain all day) so we got into the van and went to a museum and church dedicated to Saint Bosco.  The church was the first that we'd been in while in Italy and was impressively large.  It was set on the top of a hill which made it even more impressive.  You could tell that the architecture was quite a bit newer than the traditional hundreds-of-years-old churches that we had been seeing, but it was huge.  The museum was dedicated to the farming tradition of the area and had a lot of farm equipment used for grapes, corn, wheat, and bees.

We then traveled back to Lorenza and Attillio's home and prepared for supper, which was going to be homemade incredible pizza, with lots of Awesome Sauce.  While the fire was prepared in the outdoor brick oven, Lorenza showed me their conservatory (or garden, as we'd call it in America).  We first walked through a grove of hazelnut trees and then into a nicely manicured area where she is growing several varieties of peppers, potatoes, tomatoes, zucchini, cucumbers, and more.  They grow everything in a natural way with no pesticides at all, and they "can" all of their food to preserve it.  We walked back to the house where the brick oven was, and she showed me the collection of food that they have preserved.  The sauce we ate on the pizza was from this collection.

The pizza was astounding.  The dough consisted of flour, water, yeast, and a little bit of olive oil.  The tomato sauce was just.. tomatoes,  A little salt, oregano, some fresh sliced mozzarella (bufalo mozzarella as they call it around here) and maybe some speck (a smoke-cured ham that is common on pizza) or local lettuce-looking leafy vegetables (picked earlier that day while Attillio was mowing in preparation for our visit) was added to make things exciting.  A superb way to end a superb day!

Benvenuti in Italia!

Saluti from Italy! The team arrived in Alessandria, Italy around 1:30am on Thursday. We were welcomed with open arms from the moment we hit the ground. Our tour guide for the month, Alessandro, met us at the airport in Turin and briefed us as we drove to "La Fiscala", our beautiful home for the week.

When learned from our pre-trip itinerary that we'd be staying at La Fiscala, we were excited to explore this amazing property. So you can only imagine how surprised we were to discovered that every team member would have a personal flat for the week! Segnore Morandi, the owner of La Fiscala and a Rotarian, was incredibly generous in providing us with such breathtaking and comfortable accommodations. Here's a look at one of our flats.

Although most of us hadn't had any real sleep in almost 36 hours, we were so excited when we arrived that we didn't go to bed until well after 3:00AM. We rose early the next morning to meet with Signore Bart, the GSE coordinator for district 2031, to review the program for the first few weeks. Signore Bart and his co-coordinator Signora Silva have put together an thoughtful program and curated activities that enhance the teams vocational and cultural experience.

Following our meeting with Signore Bart, Racheal jumped right in on her first vocational visit. The rest of us had some important errands to run. You see, when we arrive at the Turin Airport, Mike, Kirby and Kristin learned that their bags were MIA. So we needed to hunt for some clothing items to hold us over until they bags turned up. But our first, and arguable most important stop, was to enjoy some cafe and cappuccino at the enchanting Cafe Antonella.

Later we visited the open air market to pick up some clothing supplies and then it was off to the grocery store to obtain supplies for our new kitchen. While the store was similar to an American grocery, there were some differences such as the use of little trollies opposed to the large carts we use in the United States. Additionally the food selection was primarily fresh produce, meats, cheeses, breads and pastas. The availability of frozen and highly processed foods was much more limited compared to back home. Oh, and we learned that we weren't allowed take photos in the grocery store!

After shopping, Alessandro took us for a traditional Italian lunch featuring fresh breads, meats, cheeses, water, and juice or wine. It was buono, buono. We quickly learned the Alessandro knows where all the good eating spots are to be found.

After lunch the team re-grouped with Racheal and met Signore Luigi at the Alessandria Food Bank's distribution center to learn about the work volunteers are doing to help feed an estimated 23,000 people in the area. The food bank receives donated perishable and non-perishable food items from more than 160 church organizations and businesses in the food industry.

After the foodbank we went off to do more individual vocational visits and had a nice meeting back at Mr. Luigi's house before having a celebratory dinner with Signore Morandi. We had a wonderful time! And what was most interesting is the number of languages being used at the table. Our team's Italian is limited and Signore Morandi's English, is very good but still limited. So, some of us decided to speak in Spanish because both Mr. Morandi and some of the team knew spanish equally as well! Fun fact.

On Friday, we rose early to go off for our individual vocational visits in the morning. In the afternoon the team met up with Signores Morandi and Bart for our first Italian pizza meal and it was incredibly good!

After lunch we had the unique opportunity to join the people of Alessandria as the Giro d' Italia (Tour of Italy) cycled through town.

The team then went on a short road trip to visit the renewable energy plant of Gruppo Mossi & Ghisolfi. M&G's objective is to produce bio-ethanol deriving from fermentation and distillation of lingo-cellulose biomass hat does not conflict with food and feed production. The team at M&G gave us a full tour of the labs and production plant.

Following our tour, we raced back to La Fiscala to prepare for our first presentation at the annual Grappolo dinner. At the event we had the opportunity to meet many leaders and active members of the local Rotary clubs. It was a lovely evening-- and the food, of course, was amazing.

We're overwhelmed by the kindness and generosity of so many Rotarians and locals here in Italy. We're very much looking forward to the next four weeks. Up next is Kirby to share with you a once-in-a-lifetime experience from Saturday.

Day One: Team Work Makes the Dream Work

Saluti from Washington D.C!

Yesterday was the Rotary GSE Team’s first full day of travel. The plan included flights from Bloomington to Minneapolis/St. Paul to Paris to Turin, Italy. The day was off to a great start. We all arrived at the airport on time. Our checked bags were underweight. And we posed for our first team photo of the trip.

Shortly after we arrived at Bloomington’s airport for our flight to Minneapolis/St. Paul we learned that the plane was having mechanical issues and that Delta would book us on a later, smaller plane to Minneapolis. The catch was that we’d only have about 15 minutes to make our international flight to Paris. You know where this is going, right? Not to Paris!

Delta’s staff was awesome from the moment we hit the ground in Minneapolis. They let us off the plane first and told us to run and catch our flight. So that’s what we did. We ran as fast and as hard as we could to the other side of the airport for about 12 minutes.

We arrived at our gate just in time to watch our flight to Paris roll away. Delta’s team jumped into action to identify a way to get all five of us to Turin Italy by Tuesday---but most flights were overbooked. We had some options that could get us there, but it would require us to split up and take different flights to places like New York City, Atlanta, Rome, Paris, etc. And you know what they say, “Team work makes the dream work"! So we decided to stick together and the end result is getting to spend some rest time in two amazing cities: Washington D.C and Paris.

Monday was full of unknowns, flight changes and adventure! Our team worked together to overcome some early travel challenges and made some responsible decisions that kept us focused on our goal: getting to Italy.

Tonight we're taking the red eye to Paris. We'll have a half-day layover there before we take our final flight to meet our new Italian friends!

Arrivederci!

5 days to departure and a Facebook page

Here we are, just five days away from departure.  I can definitely say that I've reached that frantic point of wondering how I'm going to get everything ready to go while being very excited about the actual go-ing.

We have made a Facebook page for our little journey.  You should go there and click the Like button.

Rotary 6490 GSE To Italy

We have various pictures there and we'll be keeping it up to date.  We'll likely put shorter posts there and longer posts here.  The two are meant to work together, though, and you'll want to keep track of both locations.

11 days until departure

As I write this sentence, we are 10 days, 22 hours and 54 minutes from leaving the airport gate at Bloomington nonInternational Airport.

It has been a crazy 3.5 months since my last post.  Our team has gotten together several times and we are starting to learn more about each and I know I'm really getting excited about going to Italy.  I'll briefly talk about some of the events of the past few months.

Our team first met each other in early February in Mattoon.  We had a brief but incredibly useful Italian language session with Professo Dominica Amato and then enjoyed a fine Italian meal prepared by Mike's wife, Diane.

In early March we met in Champaign and made great progress on discussing clothing, brochures, and much much more.

In late March, the 'Inbound' GSE team from Italy arrived in our District.  I had the opportunity to meet with them as they toured my workplace, the Beckman Institute at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Later in the day my wife and I attended the Champaign West Rotary Club meeting, where the Inbound team gave a presentation about their country that I found very useful.

In April our team had the opportunity to get together a couple of times.  First, we met in Urbana and spent a fair amount of time taking team pictures.  Later that day we received from our friends in Italy the first version of our itinerary, and it definitely made things more "real" to start seeing the plans that were being made for us.

Later in April, our 6490 Rotary district had their yearly conference and the team was invited to attend.  It was a very useful experience as we learned more about Rotary, had ample opportunity to again meet with the Inbound team, and worked on more issues for our trip.  We peppered the Inbound team with questions about what to expect in Italy and how everything would work.  They were very gracious and answered question after question.

Now it is May.  Just last night we got a more detailed version of the itinerary for the first 10 or 11 days of the trip.  We have information about the vocational visits that each of us will be going on, and I think I can speak for all of us when I say that we are even more excited.  We have another planning session coming up in a couple of days and we are really looking forward to May 13!

Stick around.  It's going to be a neat ride!