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!

The Selection Process

For several years now, one of the Rotarians in my church has been telling me about "these trips that Rotary takes young professionals on" (my words, not his!).  I've been crazy busy at work, though, and haven't been able to even consider such an excursion (4 weeks out of country).

This year, however, was different, and this blog has been created to tell the tale.  For now, the blog entries are likely going to be a bit of a ramble.  They'll get more organized once I get to where I have a specific topic to discuss.  For right now, though, I just want to get my thoughts on the page.

This year, the "trip that Rotary takes young professionals on", which is more accurately known as a Group Study Exchange (hereafter called a GSE) is to Northwestern Italy.  This is a location that has always intrigued me, and seems a bit more accessible (than some) to a world traveler neophyte like myself.  And, more importantly, being away from the job was a reasonable thing.

Back in December (I'm writing this on January 21st), my fellow church member and Rotarian told me about the Italy GSE and sent me web links to a brochure about GSE as well as the application PDF.  I discussed the trip at length with my wife, Mariya, and we eventually decided it was an excellent opportunity.

The majority of the application was very straightforward.  In fact, it would have taken about 20 minutes to complete, except for one brief paragraph telling the applicant to write an Essay of Intent.  So, during the first few days of the new year I thoughtfully and prayerfully considered what things I should point out during my essay.  There was no guidance on the expected or desired length of the essay, so I ended up settling on a target of one page, and wrote and rewrote that page.  Then I had my wife look at it, and rewrote again based on her feedback.

After completing the application, I arranged to get the signature of the president of the Rotary club that is sponsoring me, Champaign West Rotary Club, scanned everything in, and sent a PDF copy to the outbound chair as well as a paper copy via US Mail.  This was about a week before the deadline.

From doing research online, I had determined that GSE team sizes always ranged from 4-6 members and a Rotarian team leader.  All recent teams from the area of east central Illinois (District 6490) had four team members, so that I was what expecting.  When the outbound chair acknowledged receipt of my application, he mentioned that they had three applicants at that time and that they were expecting perhaps three more.  That seemed like good odds.  Let's just briefly fast forward straight to the interview day and state that there ended up being eleven applicants.

Anyway, back to the story...  The GSE selection process consists of an application (including the Essay of Intent).  Then, there is an interview with select Rotary members.  The interviews were set up for a Sunday afternoon in Mattoon.  The 6490 district covers a rather large area of east central Illinois (probably 150x200 miles)  I had to drive about 50 miles; I'm sure some drove more, and some drove less.  My interview was set for 2pm, and I arrived about 20 minutes early wearing my sports coat, slacks, and button up shirt.  When I drove into the parking lot, I got nervous!  I hadn't been nervous at all before that.  I had thought carefully about the application and essay.   I had thought carefully about possible interview questions.  I knew that if it were "meant to be" that I would be selected.  I truly wasn't nervous before.  But for some reason, when I drove into the parking lot, I got nervous!  So, I sat in my car for a minute or two and calmly prayed to God to help me out; my nerves calmed down a bit, and I went inside the building.  Around 2pm, the previous applicant came out of a door, along with two other people: the outbound chair, who introduced himself and also introduced Mike, the Italy GSE team leader.  Mike then took my picture, and the two of them disappeared back into the meeting room.  A few minutes later I was ushered in.

The interview took place in a small room with a lot of people.  I think there were 11 plus myself.  In my case, the Rotary members were uniquely qualified to be on the interview committee.  I believe that ALL of them were previous team leaders, so they had an excellent concept of the composition of the ideal candidate.  For my case the interview was about 25 minutes long.  The questions were well thought out and were clearly designed to determine how appropriate, prepared, deserving, and understanding I was. 

When it was over, I was told to expect a phone call later in the evening. I then talked to my wife, who was very curious about how the interview had gone, and received a phone call about 7:30pm telling me that I needed to pack my bags, because I had been selected.  I just want to take a brief moment to comment on the selection committee.  My job was easy yesterday.  I just had to show up and chat for 25 minutes.  They, on the other hand, had to spend the entire afternoon interviewing candidates and then had to choose four out of the eleven.  I am 100% confident that each of the 11 candidates was a very good candidate, and I'm glad that I didn't have to choose.  But, I'm very glad that I was chosen, and plan to represent this Rotary district to the best of my ability.

So, that's the story thus far.  I'll be continuing to blog about this experience.  I'm writing because I want to remember it, and hopefully others can get something out of reading it.  Stay tuned!