BUSKERS!

For the last week, we've been out every night at the fun that is the Buskers Music Festival! Every year, Ferrara hosts street performers from around the world for a week-long festival in the middle of town. There are musicians, acrobats, magicians, artists, and fortune tellers.  And it's so cool.

To kick everything off, the owner of the restaurant we like to go to by our hotel came out and sang to us the night before the festival. Halfway through, he had Robbie sing some songs with him. It got us in the music state of mind.

Robbie singing, Michael picking his nose

The first day of the festival, Michael and I were trying to let Daddy take a nap, so we went out by ourselves. Daddy's nap didn't last too long, because we found a section of buckets, shakers, rain sticks, and other kinds of noise makers set up just for kids to play with, so we called him out to come hang out with us. Michael played with the shakers for a little bit, then banged on a bucket for a while before he decided he wanted the bucket on his head instead.

 

Once we were done there, we wandered in front of the cathedral and saw our first performance--a group with drums, a guitar, and an electric violin. They were really good. We sat and watched the whole performance, Michael dancing in his stroller and my lap the whole time.

 

One of our friends here was performing this year. He had a friend come up from Arkansas and they played a country/folk/bluegrass set for the first 3 days of the festival.  It was fun to see someone we know and follow them around the festival.  They did a great job, though the Europeans don't really know what to do with country music.

 

There was such a variety of music.  There were groups with bagpipes and drums, more traditional bands with guitars, one group had a guy that played a conch shell, and there were several instruments we had never even seen before. It was really fun to walk around and hear all the different music.  We also realized how much Michael loves music and maybe is showing a bit of a talent for it.  Whenever someone would start to play, he would get so excited and start to dance.  He was surprisingly on-beat most of the time.  You could tell he loved it, and we stayed out every night as late as we could, riding that fine line between enjoying the music and too-exhausted baby.

 Fabulous piano player right in front of the cathedral

These girls were from Santa Barbara!

 

 

There were also several bubble stations set up every night, where kids (and adults) could play making huge bubbles. Michael loved to watch these too. He's getting to the age where he notices things more and is starting to actually like things (he normally has a very even personality and doesn't show much excitement for things), so we are having fun encouraging his likes. We went stopped by a toy store on the way back to our hotel one night to buy him some bubbles to play with.

 



 

 

Buskers is also good for people-watching, and we had fun watching all the people who aren't normally in town.  And babies in baskets:

 

And this picture doesn't have anything to do with Buskers, but I thought it was cute anyway.

 

It's a good thing we'll be busy moving into our apartment this coming week, because once Buskers is over we won't know what to do with ourselves! Tomorrow there's an antiquities market in the piazza I've been looking forward to, then we need to go work on our apartment a bit before the last night of the festival.  We need to fit in all the Busking we can!



Cemetery

I'm getting a little behind on my posts here, but last week I went on my first group outing with some of the other women here.  We went on a bike tour of Ferrara with an Italian friend of the group who is an architect, city planner, and native of Ferrara.  She talked a lot about the history of the city (back to the year 700!), and we rode our bikes around while she told us about some of the famous landmarks in the city.  It was really fun, and very informative.

One of the places we briefly went was through the cemetery.  Robbie and I knew it was there but thought it was blocked off.  Turns out, there's a Jewish cemetery that isn't open to everyone, but the big, main cemetery is.  We only saw a tiny corner of it on our tour, so Robbie and I went back to explore the next day.

I don't wander around cemeteries much, but this one was amazing.  There were parts of it that looked like cemeteries I've been in before--headstones in the ground and that kind of thing. But there were big sections of crypts where families are buried.  Many of them had beautiful statues and fresh flowers in and around them. You can tell the graves are visited often and well cared-for by loved ones. 

Here are some pictures:

On the walk down there, we passed this building and I commented on how much I liked the sculpture on it.  It looked like the balcony is being supported by little angels:

Then a couple days later we went to go check out a thrift store someone told us about, and I found a drawing of this same doorway.  Upon closer inspection, it's actually a photocopy of a drawing that someone added some brown marker to, but I liked it and it was only a few euro, so we got it.  I'll have to reframe it, but I think it'll look nice in our new apartment.

 

 

Venice: Lido

Yesterday we went to Venice again to try for a different destination: the beach. I've read about Lido, an 11 km sandbar in Venice that's one of the most famous European beaches. And, since we can get there by train and still don't have a car, it was really our only option. So we hopped on the train in Ferrara again and headed to Venice. 

Last time we walked the whole time, but you obviously can't walk to an island, so we knew we had to try the boat transportation.  It seems like the cheapest is the ACTV boats--you pay for the day and can use it as much as you want. We paid at the train station, and hopped on a boat to go through the Grand Canal and get to Lido--the very last stop. That sounds like it would be fun...but it was pretty terrible. They shove as many people as they can on these boats. It's hot, sweaty, and packed full of people. There are seats, but nowhere near enough for everyone, and there doesn't seem to be a capacity they adhere to. Whoever is waiting to get on the boat gets on, even if it doesn't seem like you could squeeze anyone else in there. And apparently when you get a bunch of tourists together on a boat, all courtesy goes out the window and it's a big free-for-all. As we were getting on the boat, I had some grandparent-aged people behind me literally pushing me (with a hand on my back) out of the way because they wanted to stand closer to the railing as I was holding Michael. I had read online that Lido is a 12 minute boat ride from the train station, but this took at least an hour.

We got lunch first thing in Lido because after the train and boat we were starving, then continued onto the beach. The free beach was packed with umbrellas and people. Tons of people were sunbathing and playing in the water.  Most of the women, regardless of age or body type, were in bikinis.  Most of the men were in Speedos. Walking around, there were many women sunbathing topless, kids running around... It was very busy, good for people-watching, and a far cry from the quiet, solitary beaches we got used to in Lompoc.

 

Michael loved it! We got him changed into his swim suit (he was by far the most covered up one on the beach, save for a middle-eastern woman who went in fully clothed and with her head covered) and he crawled right for the water. There weren't really waves--a couple of inches maybe--and the water was really shallow. We waded quite a way back and it was still only about waist deep. Michael loved splashing and kept wanting to sit down, but when I put him where the "waves" were crashing where he could actually sit he cried.  We went out a little further, he sat in my lap and played in the water.

Then, as I was holding him, I felt a stinging sensation float past my side... I screamed like a little girl and looked down, and there was a jellyfish!  It really didn't hurt that bad, it just surprised me.  I'm glad it got me and not Michael's foot that was a few inches away.  I don't know if those are particularly mild jellyfish, but nobody else seemed to be bothered. Either I was just "lucky", or nobody else cared. I can see it going either way.  Robbie totally didn't believe me, but when we were wading back up to the beach we saw one. They were actually really pretty. Kind of like this guy only with lavender tentacles:

So now I've actually seen a jellyfish in the wild. And gotten stung. Yay!

After that I was a little paranoid about Michael getting stung, because I didn't think he'd appreciate the experience like I did.  We went back up to the beach and Michael took of crawling. He probably made it 10 yards down (supervised, of course) before he kept trying to climb on people and had to be redirected back to me where he rubbed sand all over me.

We left shortly after, walked back to the dock and got back on the cattle car boat to ride back to the train station.  Not too many people got on at Lido, so we had a really nice boat ride back to the main island where people started packing on again and made for a cramped, claustrophobic boat trip. Luckily, Michael was exhausted from all the beach fun and slept in the stroller the whole way. We did get spots right on the rail though, so we got to see some of the Venice sites while trying not to get pushed overboard.
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Settling In

This has been a pretty slow week for us.  Little Robbie left on Tuesday morning, so we've been getting used to a new, quieter "normal".  We're still in the hotel, and tend to get a little stir-crazy just sitting there all day, so we've tried to be out and about, even if it's just to hang out in the piazza and watch people or eat gelato (which, unfortunately, Michael started having adverse reactions to and isn't allowed to participate anymore).  On Tuesday we went to our welcome dinner with the group and since it was only 2 miles away (and we don't have a car yet) we decided to walk.  It was a nice walk along a part of the wall we hadn't been on before.  We also saw the steeple of a church here in Ferrara which tilts like the leaning tower of Pisa. Apparently there are some flaws in the Italian architecture?  There are also earthquakes here semi-often, so maybe it got knocked off kilter during one of those.

The wall

The path along the wall

The leaning tower in Ferrara

We spent a few nights just sitting out on a wall in the main piazza where the cathedral is.  There are tons of people out there.  Young students, families, and seniors all riding their bikes around town to dinner or to sit somewhere and have coffee.

 Picking the cathedral statue's nose

 Playing in the square

Dinner!

Yesterday we did more walking along the wall (since we found a nice spot on our way to dinner Tuesday). Michael has taken to yelling all the time. Not because he's upset about anything, but just because he likes to make noise.  We walked for about an hour and a half, and he yelled for probably 75% of it.  Strange kid.

This morning we finally made it out to check out one of the markets in the piazza.  They have them every Monday and Friday morning and there is tent after tent of shoes, clothes, jewelry, and household items.  We got another pair of shoes for Michael, a dress and scarf for me, and some sunglasses for Robbie.

A view of the market

Our hotel rents bikes at a fairly reasonable rate, so today we decided to bike around the wall. I thought I was being so smart getting the baby seat for our bikes before we came here, but in Italy, everyone has them.  The hotel even had one we could get for free with the bikes for Michael.  It sits on the back of the bike whereas mine is for the front, but he loved it anyway. I think it was more exciting for him to watch things go by a little faster than in the stroller.  Plus, there were shadows to look at, and he had to constantly check behind him to make sure I was still there.  We made it all the way around the wall (about 6 miles) and he didn't yell the entire time!  Just sweet baby noises.  Now we can't wait to get our stuff so we can go out more often and let Michael ride on the front of the bike!

 Ready to ride bikes!

 This is hard work. Need water.

 Tree-lined top of the wall

Biking on the wall

Our plan for tomorrow is to head back to Venice and go to the Lido, the famous beach there.  Michael woke up at 4:30 am today, so hopefully he sleeps a little better so we're in good shape for the train, water taxis, and a day in the sun!

Sights (and sites) in Ferrara

It's been hot and we've been kind of lazy so we've just been hanging out around Ferrara and trying to see what the city has to offer.Without going inside any museums or anything, since little Robbie gets bored and Michael tends to yell. So here's a few things we've seen in the past week. 

 

A few blocks from our hotel is this huge monument with a fountain. Apparently it's some kind of monument for soldiers or something. The statue is of a guy pouring water on (bathing?) a bunch of babies.  

 

Wednesday nights are the busy nights in the square in Ferrara, so as we were hanging out waiting for the restaurants to open, these three girls walked over and started playing violin and singing. They were really good! Lots of people stopped to listen, and I think they made a good bit of money.We listened for about 15 minutes, then went to dinner planning to stop and listen more when we were finished but they had already left.

While driving around one of the house hunting days, we saw a park with a zip line and a few slides built into the side of the hill. It was also by the wall, which we had been wanting to check out. Our hotel is right in the middle of Ferrara, so nothing is too far away. We decided to walk over there and check it out.

The next day we decided to walk to another park. At this one, there was a fountain and some playground equipment and lots of walking trails. We hung out for a bit, played, then the jungle gym turned into an obstacle course/speed challenge (Robbie is the undisputed champion of making it up over the "web", up to the slide, and down in the shortest amount of time). We even had to go back today for little Robbie to try to win, but alas, he was unsuccessful!

Little Robbie leaves on Tuesday, so this is our last weekend to hang out and enjoy Italy before he leaves.  Not sure we have anything major planned, but I'm sure we'll be visiting many of these spots again in the next couple of days!