Genova, Italia 16.05.2010

I am currently being charmed by the view from my balcony.  I have the double doors open to let the cool afternoon air in (I drank too much coffee this morning and made myself sick...again) and it smells wonderful.  Birds are singing, a woman across the way is hanging laundry on the lines over her rooftop garden and I can hear the soccer game from here, but just barely.  I can hear the crowd roar in approval or disapproval (it's hard to tell which) and sing.  Sampdoria (a Genovese team) is playing Napoli for the championships today.  Which explains what we saw earlier...

We took the bus to Piazza de Ferrari, which has a huge fountain in the center of the piazza, surrounded by gorgeous buildings.  On the other side of the piazza from our bus stop, traffic was stopped all along Via Dante by a crowd of Sampdoria soccer fans in blue jackets.  They were singing and shouting and setting off what sounded like small firecrackers that let out orange smoke, billowing over the crowd.  This demonstration was a combination of a protest against their best player, Cassano, not making it onto the World Cup Team and pre-game excitement.  But this was nothing compared to the party we heard going all night after the game - Sampdoria beat Napoli 1-0 and is going to the championships.

From Piazza de Ferrari, we walked over to Porta Soprana, which is one of the two remaining gates of the city of Genova.  The house that Christophe Columbus was born in (and lived in until he was 8) is just outside the gates. 

Then on to Via San Lorenzo, where we stopped to eat at a little restaurant and I got to try trofie al pesto for the first time.  First, pesto here is nothing like the stuff you get in the U.S.  Thinner, no cheese in the actual sauce (just on top of the dish itself) and is never served with tomatoes (which seems a shame, because I love fresh tomatoes on my pesto...but my mom says it's basically sacrilege here).  Trofie are little twists of pasta that are particular to Genova.  The dish I had included green beans and potatoes mixed with the trofie, coated in the thin pesto and covered with a sprinkling of parmesan.  Parmiggiano.  Whatev.  It was fantastic. 

After lunch we walked down to one of the few markets that are open on Sunday - Di Per Di.  It is bigger than the shops that we went to Saturday, but still a small market (like a mini-Safeway).  I was utterly fascinated by the products because that's just the kind of weirdo I am.  My mom kept thinking I wanted everything, but no, I just wanted to check it all out.  The aisles were super narrow, but their shopping carts here move any way you please, so it's no trouble...unless you're a fat American and someone wants to get by you, that is.  You also have to bag your own groceries and do it fast, because the checker is not going to stop and wait for you and they certainly aren't going to help you.  Which is fine, really.  I like to bag my own, since I'm the one who has to carry them, and here we have to carry them pretty far, on the bus, up some stairs, into the scary-ancient elevator and up to what the Italians term the 4th floor (they don't get the ground floor) to my mom and stepdad's apartment.

Now I'm going to go eat some caponata with focaccia normale (with olive oil) and secca (dry, like a thick yummy cracker) while Morgan (the dog) sucks on his blanket.  So weird.