A lazy day in Siena...

I wrote this one a while ago but never posted it.  I hope you enjoy it:


Today took off to a bit of a lethargic start. Some of us slept in and arose just to work on school or other work, or simply to read a book. Ellie had awaken much earlier than I, and taken a walk somewhere around ten in the morning, but to this I was quite oblivious until later. At about noon, Ellie and I were sent off quickly to the supermarket, a journey from which we triumphantly returned half an hour to an hour later with a backpack full of fresh groceries for the night's dinner.

I stocked the groceries in the refrigerator or the cupboard, depending on where they needed to go of course, and resigned to the couch to enjoy a bit more of Mark Twain's enchanting invention, Tom Sawyer. Wonderful enough to read, but this is now a labor, being school work. It is true that all I must do is summarize each chapter and answer but a few questions, so it is not difficult, not in the least, only annoying. But isn't it true that this is the business of all school-related labors?

We were all quite happy with simply sitting on the sofa or laying in bed or whatnot and simply, as the kids are saying today: “ch-lax-ing”, but these sloth-esk ways were not the ways of the intrepid Bortman family, and we all soon began to take note of this. Soon thereafter, in fact, no more than an hour later than Ellie and I returned from the store, we had all decided to go out the the “Fortezza”, or small fortress-like compound just outside the city walls, for a jog.  Unfortunately, every member of our family runs at a different pace, so jogging together usually results in one extremely tired soul, and one who's breathing heavily, at most. But now that we know our surroundings in the tiny city of Siena quite well, none of us mind splitting up and meeting up again at the Fortezza.

Mom and I set out first, with Dad and Ellie following behind. We each had a pair of keys, hers in her pocket, and I, having no pockets, had tied mine onto my shoelace.  Then we both, each with keys jingling with every step, set out in opposite directions. Mom chose to take a more direct route to the Fort, up the main drag and out, whereas I had planned to go away from it at first, loop around the Duomo and hug the wall until I could no longer, then weave back to the main street and out.

After a mere five minutes, I accidentally, and quite unconsciously, stumbled back out onto the main street, for in such a small city, with roads which simply wind every which way with no rhyme or reason, it is extremely hard not to emerge just where you were trying to leave, but not even realize your blunder until you're back where you started. This was one of those moments, although I seem to experience them quite frequently. Fortunately, this happened just as Mom was passing by that spot, so I said hello, and we both continued on our way. For her, that was straight, up the main road, but I was going to cross the Campo and make a gradual arc back around to the street. I did this, but of course not without fairly completely disorienting myself in the process, only to recover by somehow stumbling back on to the Campo. That was where I rejoined the main street and set off down the same way mom had. Then, after following this road for simply a matter of minutes, I arrived at the piazza where the supermarket is, and, more importantly, the road to the Fortezza.

As soon as you leave the piazza, the road comes to a fork. I take the left, which I know is the longer way, for exercise purposes, but it's also a bit of a risk. I only know where the entrance is in relation to the road down the right fork. Even though the two roads do again meet directly across from the Fortezza, so that they form a kind of disfigured circle around the fortress, I'm not sure how well my sense of direction will hold up, for this is no slightly disfigured circle, like the one an over-enthusiastic child will draw with his worn-down Crayolas. This is one with angles and inversions and many other things not included in your stereotypical circle. I find the entrance soon enough though, and quite easily as well, I might add. I may not have known where it was, coming from the left end of the fork, but as soon as I got my bearings, I guided myself to the ramp which marks the way in with ease.

I spot Mom almost immediately upon entering. Neither of us had seen head nor heel of either Dad or Ellie, so we went in opposite directions again, hoping to sandwich them in between us. You see the part of the Fortezza that is mostly the part used by the pedestrians are the ramparts, which form something that would probably be called an irregular 28-agon. In other words, we succeeded in our task. We, meaning mom, dad, who we found, and I, went about half way around until I went ahead and put my energy into catching the two of them from behind, but after I achieved this feat, is was quite obvious that dad had also run ahead, for it was only mom who I caught, but this was okay with me, I ran a lap with her until we met up with dad and Ellie by the entrance.

Ellie wanted mom to go to the small clearing in the center of the Fortezza with her, which is also open to the public, but much less used, to kick a soccer ball around. Mom obliged and Dad and I completed a final lap around the fortress, but when we returned to the clearing in search of Mom and Ellie, they were nowhere to be found. We waited for them to come out of one of the nooks or crannies around but they didn't. We looked all about the ramparts, still no sign of them so we turned our own sights to home, where we figured they had set off to.

My father and I exited the Fortezza, but before we headed back the way we, or rather I, came, we came across a side road which we can only assume runs down to our car. You see, the walled city of Siena is on the top of a hill for obvious strategic reasons, being built in the Middle Ages. Beside the hill is a valley where the road is, and that is where we park our car and then ride the public service escalators up to the city. Yes, escalators. You see, one day the city was feeling generous....to an extent, but more conceivably plainly annoyed by many complaints from the citizens about the endless flights of stairs and hilly streets from the street below up to the city. In order to stop this flow of complaints, they installed a series of escalators up from street level to the city. Of course, its still possible to drive up to the city, as long as you have the right permits. If you live in the city center, you can drive your car into town , but it involves taking a very out-of-the-way and winding road. And then there's the matter of parking, and navigating the tiny, curving streets, and avoiding pedestrians as you attempt to do so.

Here are Ellie and I heading down the set of 6 enclosed escalators that go down the hill into the valley.  You still have to walk quite a way downhill to get to our car once you exit the escalators...but I'm not complaining!

But back to the matter at hand: Dad and I follow this road, with its many twists and turns, slowly descending into the valley below. That is, until we stop descending and start ascending, and at an extremely steep grade as well, but we fight through it and end up just where we started following this unknown road. Did I not mention how often a thing like that happens in Siena? For if I didn't, then I should. Almost constantly in Siena, you are lead to believe you have discovered some new section of town, one which you have not visited and explored before, only to have your hopes crushed the next instant by a sight more familiar than the skin on your knuckles. But dad and I return the way he and Mom came, down the main drag, and spicing it up a little by running off to either side and rejoining the original street a few blocks later.

We soon arrived at home where Mom and Ellie had already been for quite a time. We could tell they had arrived there a considerable time before we, for Ellie had already showered, a laborious and long ordeal in her case.  I went back into the room Ellie and I share, which is also where I keep my computer and all other school “stuff”, as the kids say, and get to work of a medley of different tasks.

After approximately an hour of working, I head back out into the kitchen, for dinner is long overdue by now and my stomach is grumbling and grunting like some sort of monster.  Ellie is making dinner this night and, of course, won't allow anyone else to help in the slightest, so progress is painfully slow. I decide to at least prepare a quaint salad. Mom has found a recipe for a homemade Caesar dressing. It sounds wonderful, if you ignore the fact that we do not have half the ingredients, but I set about making it anyway. I am only just finishing the first step, squeezing a lemon's acidic juice into a bowl, when I am stopped short. It's Ellie declaring that I may not offer any help, no matter if it is only at making the dressing for the salad, so I retire back to my room.

The meal, which we receive half an hour later, is a type of Asian stir-fried chicken and broccoli, which is meant to be eaten with the salad and makeshift Caesar dressing. It was not half bad in actuality, although it is one of the stranger combination of flavors we've had for dinner. It was quite good indeed, but the real treat was dessert. In our cooking class in Rome, we learned how to make chocolate lava cakes. Rich molten chocolate, just baked on the outside to form a warm, soft shell for the flowing ooze on the inside. We overcooked ours a bit, so they ended up more like actual cakes with a smidge of melted chocolate in the center, but still, the cake it formed is amazingly smooth and moist, and the centers, being made of batter that was half dark chocolate, weren't half bad either.

Our chocolate lava cakes...delicious.

Good Teachers

I know that this is generally been what dad has been writing, but I'd like to put my two cents into the “Good Teachers” pages. For the last four weeks on Saturdays, Ellie and I have been taking art and acting lessons in Florence, in both of which we had an awesome time. I think the amazing leaders of both of these classes deserve their own section in our “Great Teachers” list.

First, in the morning was art with Marco. This was really a personal class, because Marco had lots of kids coming at all different times for different periods of time, so Ellie and I made up one entire “class” of our own, if you will. Marco was a wonderful teacher. He introduced us to a form of art called bas-relief. It may have been a lot of work (we made a clay model, a plaster cast and then we finally created the final product out of concrete, which of course needed to be painted), but we learned so much about all different mediums and had a great time doing so.

The clay was fun, just as clay usually is, but this was much different than regular sculpture. First, we took a lump of clay and made it into a sort of tablet. Once we had the tablet, we picked a picture from one of the nature books Marco had (I picked a tiger shark and Ellie chose a flamingo), and drew the outline on our tablet. From that, we actually built upwards, placing on tiny bits of clay on top of the outline. That was the most time consuming part, for me at least. I'm sure it could have something to do with me being a perfectionist and never having been able to get anything done in a short amount of time, anyway.

Then we applied plaster over the clay. The first layer of plaster we dyed pink, so when we dug out the clay, we would know when to stop. The rest of the layers were white and all of the plaster went on rather quickly and dried faster than I expected it would. Once the plaster was dry, we dug out the clay model and carefully washed our plaster casts in Marco's freezing cold sink. After I had brushed my shark's teeth, it was time for cement. Ellie, Marco and I mixed a couple buckets-full and ever so carefully poured it into our plaster molds. We shook the molds to get the air out of the cement then covered. We were then forced to wait until the next class to do any further work.

Once the cement was dry a week later, we took a hammer and chisel and chipped away the plaster shells to reveal the final forms. We, again, scrubbed down our new creations and then went off to paint. Ellie finished painting her flamingo that day, but I, being quite a bit more meticulous (to put it in a nice way), didn't finish until the following and, sadly, final week. I am proud to say that all of our efforts paid off and we now have some wonderful cement bas-relief panels to take back to the US.

After we left Marco's studio each weekend, we made our way across the Arno River and town to the acting class in that was held in the cafeteria of a private school in Florence. It was taught by Suzanne, Elia, and two other English speaking moms, who were obviously seasoned professionals. It was definitely more of an actual “class” than Marco's operation. It was a six week course in improvisation and the Commedia Del'Arte, although, sadly, we were only able to attend four of the weeks. The class was composed of about sixteen kids, most of whom spoke English, two or three didn't, but it wasn't a problem.

Each week we would warm up with vocal and body exercises. Some days we would do some improv activities, others we would learn about our Commedia characters, who we would be acting out. Some weeks we also made real Commedia masks based on the ones our characters wore. I was actually to be playing two female roles, so I had no restrictions on my mask (actresses didn't wear masks in the Commedia Dell'Arte), so I definitely took advantage of that. One week, we even brought in random house-hold items and, on the spot, had to integrate them into our little sketches.

We had a wonderful time meeting all the other kids, but it truly was the teachers who made the class so novel. Their teaching, coaching and advice in the Commedia, improvisation, and just acting overall was nothing short of wonderful. We learned so much and I think it really helped us to discover ourselves as actors, even if it means Ellie's voice is two octaves lower than mine, and I have boobs the size of bowling balls (see video).

Here's me making my mask on my face for a custom fit.

Here's Ellie and I wearing our masks after the improvements made in acting class....i may still have even a couple more ideas.

Our whole acting class wearing our finished masks.

Marco and I with my shark.

My shark

From left to right: Marco, Ellie, Me

Here's a quick run-down of all the characters in the skit (we all chose Comedia Dell'Arte stock characters and studied and adopted their personalities)

• Ellie is an inamorato ("o"=male), or lover, named Izabello (see the "o" again). I am an inamorata ("a"=female) named Izabella. Both lovers are extremely self-consumed and vain. They care about their appearance more than anything else. They do not truly love each other, only themselves, and they enjoy one another simply because they think the other person looks like them.

• Mia (the short girl) is Arlechino (otherwise known as the Harlequin). He is mischievous, energetic and always pulling pranks on other people. He is extremely acrobatic and dances around rather than walks.

• Vivian (the taller girl in all black) in Stintarello, a slightly less common Comedia character, but still extremely funny. He is fat, slow and stupid, 'nuff said.

( We had to cut the video into two parts to get it to load.)