The Monastic Life, Revisited

Dear Abbot,
I am sending this letter to formally request an opportunity to photograph at your monastery and to meet with you in the near future.
I am a John Cabot University student studying photography in Rome and am interested in photographing members of the monastic community in Italy. With your permission and guidance, I would like to request the opportunity to photograph at your Monastery. I am interested in compiling a photographic documentary on the monastic life in Italy.
I have photographed at a Monastery in the United States with monks of the Cistercian Order. I will call by the 5th of March to speak with you and discuss the possibility of this project.
Sincerely yours,

Michael Rudzinski

I sent this letter, in both english and Italian, over 2 weeks ago to the Monastery of Fonte Colombo in Rieti, Italy. A small industrial town near Assisi, Rieti and its 4 monasteries were the original 4 abbeys that St. Francis of Assisi visited. Fonte Colombo is still active, so I thought, why not do another photo project on monks?
My professor suggested the idea about a month or so ago, and I’ve been trying ever since to get ahold of Fonte Colombo. Whenever I call, I explain my situation in broken italian and receive a “call back in a few days.” A few friends helped me at JCU and interpreted for me, only to receive the same response.
So finally, I decided I was just going to go there this weekend. I got sick and couldn’t make it out there today, but called them and, to my surprise, someone picked up on the other end who spoke a little english. It turns out that Fonte Colombo doesn’t have an Abbot, which means no one read my letter. I’m staying there tomorrow night as a pilgrim inside the monastery and will start my project. Hopefully, I can win the trust of the monks and start to take more of the photos that I’d like.
More on this after I get back.

My Extended Italian Family (Take 2 and 3)

Carriekins, my lovable faux-hawked sister, visited me a couple weeks ago. And again we stopped by Gino’s, more than happy to oblige us. When I made the reservation for that night, GIno insisted on feeding me a small plate of food and giving me white wine. When you’re Roman, you’re family.
As many of you know, Carrie doesn’t drink. That left me in quite the predicament when Gino poured 2 glasses of white and then brought a bottle of red. Add the grappa at the end of the meal, and I was feeling it. I finished just about all of it, and held my own, anything for Gino!
When Gino brought us the cheese platter, the center of the plate was a hearty piece of blue cheese. Oh baby. Gino came by and drizzled that puppy with honey, at which I proclaimed “Gino! Questo e mi favorito!” And it is, that combination of thick honey with moldy cheese is unbeatable.
Later on, Gino returned with a plastic bag, reached inside to reveal . . . a jar of honey! I realized I should have specified “gorgonzola e miele sono mi favorito” . I’ve been eating honey on toast every morning since.
A week after Carrie, my best friend from back home came with his parents. There are 2 types of funny in this world: regular funny, and Brett funny. This is roll around on the floor, sides, aching, crying, pee-your-pants funny. I was happy to see Brett.
We visited Gino again this past Wednesday, this time with Brett and his parents. After a bottle of white, and two bottles of rosso, we were feeling pretty good and enjoying the great food. Of course, the best wine was from Gino’s home region of Puglia, a dark, rich Nero wine by the same makers of the Primitivo wine Gino sells. Gino even made a special dish just for Brett who had given up meat for lent. Grappa came afterwards, clearing the sinuses, and we even got a couple of pictures with Gino.
I gave Gino his present from my dad, 2 Chicago Bears T-Shirts, pretty crappy if you ask me! This guy gave us a bottle of fine olive oil, honey, and a Rosso del Montalcino and he gets 2 t-shirts? Come on dad, you gotta do better than that.
As a parting gift, Gino gave us 2 more honey jars, and a bottle of wine. I’m sure I’ll have more Gino stories to come.

Croatia and Plitvice, part 2

Didn't think my post on Croatia was adequate, so here's the rest of what I typed:

Croat |ˈkrōˌat; ˈkrōˌät; krōt|
noun
1 a native or national of Croatia, or a person of Croatian descent.
2 Ethnically, somewhere between Italian, Greek and Slavic Russian. Eats squid. Speaks funny sounding language similar to polish. Lives in a beautiful country. Hates Italians. Tasty trout.

I realized I never blogged on Croatia. It is a beautiful country and very cheap. Unfortunately, many Americans are still underneath the impression that there’s still a war raging in the Balkans. You’ll find a lot of bullet riddled houses(and land mines, if you venture off into the wilderness), but no war. The Croats are very nice as a people, and polite, not to mention cheap.
Croatia has yet to join the EU, and even though they have a deal to use the Euro for tourism, their main currency is the Kuhn(“Coon” just like the end of “raccoon,” which, oddly enough, means “Fox” in Croatian). It’s about 5 Kuhn to the American dollar, which is pretty awesome when you want to travel around one of the most beautiful places in Europe. Split and Dubrownik are considered the most beautiful part of the world by National Geographic(this is hearsay, but probably valid), but we didn’t have the chance to make it down there.
We did make it to Zagreb in the north, the Istrian Peninsula, and Plitvice National Park.
Croatia, despite claiming to be ‘South Central European”, is extremely Eastern. Conquered by from every direction by a variety of peoples(including the turks, russians, romans and italians), they’re a pretty unique culture that’s just starting to become more well known in the years after the war. We rented a car in Zagreb and drove to Istria, a peninsula of the northern coast. I had hoped to go to Venice while dad was in town, but there was a warning for Americans during Carnevale and we found cheap tickets to Croatia instead. Stumbling around the coastal towns, not really finding any tourists or anything of interest, I was starting to wonder how smart that decision had been. In Rjeki, a small town in the south of Istria, dad and I stumbled into a Carnevale festival.
In Croatia, men dress up as wolves during Carnevale to chase the evil spirits out of town(as I understand it). While waiting for all this commotion to occur, we were enjoying a cappuccino in a sidewalk cafe when a pickup with four guys playing homemade tambourines, trumpets and electric keyboards pulled up, one yelling into a megaphone. They tell me he was ‘singing.’
Behind the european redneck band, was another pickup with a lifesize plastic cow in the back, being chased buy a dozen men in masks and monkey suits. One was carrying a live chainsaw.
I had hoped they had come to sacrifice the band to the cow god, but that wasn’t the case. Instead, they danced around the cow in the square for a while, my favorite devil-worshippers being the guys dressed up as a wolf and a gorilla doing the tango.
Dad and I left after the guy with the chainsaw started spicing things up by chasing passers-by while revving the motor. I’m pretty sure he was drunk. All this time I’m thinking “I could be in VENICE right now at the real Carnevale!” I was kicking myself.
At the next town, dad and I stumbled into a wedding, which was also very Eastern European with fake tuxes and a bride with bad makeup. I think it was in the church courtyard where we decided Istria was a bust.
We piled back in the car after buying some bread, cheese, wine and baklava and started driving south. Switching plans on a trip can reinvigorate things, especially if your first plan doesn’t work out. In our case, it was just time to get out of Istria.
The road to Plitvice National Park was mostly highway until we started driving east. Climbing up a mountain in our tiny Fiat, we were taking 180 degree switchbacks along a narrow, wet road and praying hail marys like nobody’s business. That was before the fog. Once we hit the fog, we couldn’t see more than 20 feet in front of us, and ended up turning back for the nearest town.
We found a hotel just as the kitchen was about to close, and dad ordered squid for the 2nd night. I had veal, or what looked like a dark meat, as it was floating in a puddle of grease. Neither were anything to write about, but the irritable waitress and the owners were a trip.
We thought our server was a piece of work, until we were shown to our room. The two owners, an elderly german looking gentleman with a million wrinkles and teeth like nails, spoke in a raspy German accent to his accomplice. He stood no taller than 5’ 10”, but was the toughest looking Croat I had ever seen. Built like a brick wall, ‘Dozer,’ as I’ve come to call him, had a shaved head and looked like colonel from the war. When they led us into our room and discussed prices, I was convinced they were going to gut us both and take our money.
Dozer obviously had a way with women, especially his wife the irritable Croatian waitress who served us dinner. She had a way of rolling her eyes each time you asked a question and only responding when she felt like it. I’ve since decided to marry a Pole.
In the morning, we left Dozer and drove to Plitvice through still-thick fog. Totally worth the trip. The Hotel Jezero, overlooking the system of waterfalls Plitvice is known for, was very nice and the staff spoke english well. Plitvice has 10,000 visitors a day during the summer, but in February it was abandoned. One of the most beautiful places I’ve ever been.

@ The Ambassador's:

Mired in midterms, our class continued presenting on artists for my Landscape Painting class on Wednesday. After sitting through 3 hours of Matisse and driving a screwdriver through my eye to relieve the boredom, class was dismissed and my professor casually mentioned "oh yeah, the US Ambassador to Italy wants to have drinks with some of the young American and Italian artists going to school in Rome. Anyone interested?"
BAH-ZING!!!
Oh baby, I'm there. I left my email for the invite and skipped out the door. And then, I received a little something in the mail:
The Ambassador of the United States of America
and Mrs. Spogli
request the honor of the company of

Mr. Rudzinski

at an Evening of Art and Music
on Friday, March 16
from six-thirty to eight-thirty o’clock

How do I pull this stuff off? Private mass with the 2nd most important man in the Catholic Church? Papal audiences? Dinner with bishops? Drinks with US Ambassadors? To know me is to love me.

More on this topic after I've networked the art scene at the embassy. Live vicariously, friends. Vicariously.

My Extended Italian Family

This post is over a week late, but one of my best experiences in Italy so far.
My dad visited over a week ago, and while trying to get out of the rain one day, we stumbled into a restaurant off Via Trastevere.
The secret to finding a good restaurant in Italy is quite simple: find someplace where no one speaks English. Not hard to do, but a challenge once you’re in the restaurant. But the reward was well worth it when we found “La Vecchia Bottega del Vino” at 9A/11 Via S. Maria del Pianto.
Brown wood shelving stacked 4 high to the ceiling with wine, impassioned romans having intense conversations(evident by theatrical hand motions) over glasses of vino, and a lime-green bottle of Olia di Oliva on every goomba’s table. Oh baby, you can’t go wrong. We were ushered in for lunch sometime around 1 p.m.
I knew we were in business when the owner addressed us in Italian despite our undeniably American looks. I had to work with what little Italian I knew, but we had only ordered two glasses of Barbera D’Alba(a Hilberg 2004, in case you’re interested) when a plate of smoked fish arrived. Thin slices of salmon, tuna and a few other pesce(fish) sat atop a salad of rugetta, a bitter but tasty green leaf that looks like dandelion, and the freshest cherry tomatoes I’ve tasted.
The next plate sold us on this place. I can’t really describe everything we ate, beauty would be lost in translation. In Croatia, we ate well. In Italy, we dined on art. My mouth is watering just remembering the plate. As dad said, it was a “cacophony of positive flavor.” That’s my dad.
The zucchini here is picked earlier, and is therefore smaller, tastier and more flavorful. A mountain of zucchini slices was the center of the plate, surrounded by different appetizer like pieces of food. Prosciutto wrapped around hard Italian cheese with a sprig of rosemary. Zucchini flowers stuffed with a cream of ricotta, parmesan and pistachios. Or ricotta in pineapple slices sprinkled with cinnamon. Every one was different, each was a work of art.
That was the best lunch I’ve ever had. But then we came back for dinner the next night.
We arrived before they opened and introduced ourselves to the owner, Gino, who seated us, gave us a tour of his private wine cellar(there was no one else in the restaurant except for Gino, Dad and I, and Gino’s brother), his 2000 year old Roman column and 2 glasses of Brunello di Montalcino. If you know anything about the town of Montalcino, then you know it’s wine, Brunello. It’s perhaps one of the best wines in all of Italy, starting somewhere around 30 euros a bottle and going up to 600 euros a bottle(when I was there with a school trip, I bought a bottle of Rosso di Montalcino for 20 euros. It’s 95% the same wine and much cheaper. But do let it age, dad wanted to drink it and it was much to early. You owe me wine, dad).
This wine was good, but nothing compared to Gino’s choice for the night. Gino speaks only a few words of english, my dad speaks no Italian, but there was never a misunderstanding between the two of them that night. By the time we left, they were brothers. Dad asked where Gino was from, next thing you know Gino has the map out explaining where his hometown is, he’s bringing us meatballs made by his grandmother, we’re getting loads of appetizers.
But what really amazed me here was watching my dad. Over dinner, dad kept asking about ingredients, about Gino, about his family and his restaurant. Dad was genuinely interested. And that’s where the story got interesting for me. I remember stories about my grandfather, and dad always used to talk about his father’s hunting trips out west. He would go out west, walk up to some farmer’s door and ask to spend the night. Years later, he would return and find they had added a room or an extra building just for Stan. I never understood how he did that until I watched dad and Gino talk. Dad really is interested in Gino, he really wants to know everything about the food, the ingredients, the wine. But more importantly, he’s interested in Gino. They didn’t speak each other’s language, but understood every word.
After another plate of fish, and then a collection of different food arts, dad and I enjoyed a Primitivo from Gino’s region of southern Italy. THAT was an amazing wine, better than the Brunello.
Later in the night, we had desert and Gino opened his private collection of Grappa(5 bottles!) for us. On the house, courtesy of Gino and Papa Rudz. Who better to enjoy grappa with than dad? 7 glasses of Grappa later, we left, dad and Gino exchanged emails, and they hugged. Somehow we found our way back to the hotel.

Photos from Plitvice

Istria:


Almost forgot, photos from Plitvice:





Check out the rest on my flickr page:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/rudz1985/

Hidden Treasures: Plitvice National Park

Frustrated by a fruitless wine tour of the Istrian Peninsula, Dad and I piled into our 4-door Fiat and left Croatia's beautiful Coast. We had had enough of empty vineyards, vacant hotels and grumpy locals. We wanted wine, there was no wine; we wanted beautiful countryside, everything was brown; we found the coast, and no one was on it. Time to move on.
Luckily, this decision came on the 2nd day of our trip to Croatia, my father's 3rd day while visiting me in Europe. Instead of sticking around the unexpectedly vacant coast, we reverted to our original plan: Plitvice National Park. The first shot of the Serbian war was fired in the park, killing a ranger. That was 15 years ago, and, to our delight, most Americans still think the war is going on. Over 10,000 visitors a day during the summer aren't afraid of the park, its maze of waterfalls and dense forest, or the sound of water crashing on the rocks below the 70 meter Veliki Slap waterfall. Although we drove through several old warzones(complete with bullet riddled houses, buildings with half the frame gone from tank shells and one outdoor display of heavy armor, including a MIG, modified Sherman Tank and some Russian armor)
, Croatia is probably one of the safest countries I've been in.
But Plitvice is an amazing treasure, mostly undiscovered by Americans and Western Europeans. It reminded me of something between Yellowstone National Park and Niagara Falls. It didn't have the dramatic fall or breadth of Niagara, and lacked the buffalo, bubbling mud pits and grizzlies of Yellowstone, but I could have spent another 2 days hiking and exploring the huge network of waterfalls, emerald green lakes and beautiful birch forest.
What really made our morning arrival special was the thick fog. We had to stop at a hostel the night before, forced back before the park due to thick fog, and the next day was no different. We drove to Hotel Jezero in thick fog and hiked the main network of lakes in heavy blanket of white fogginess. Loved it. The forest was a thick, soupy consistency 100 meters in front of you, and every lake ended in white.
Favorite moment: hiking past Veliki Slap, the tallest waterfall at 70 meters, and finding a spot hidden from the roar of the waterfalls. Just on the edge of one of the lakes, we were behind a hill, hidden from all the noise, so quiet all we could hear was the running water and the Croatian ducks flapping their wings above us. Dad and I agreed it reminded us of Boy Scouts, hiking long days and sitting in the tent late at night when all that we knew were the stars, the wind and our own whispers. Of course, what good is silence if not enjoyed with a cuban cigar and Croatian wine drank from a plastic water bottle? Not any good at all.
We enjoyed a delicious dinner of Croatian trout(the waters are teeming with them, but fishing is forbidden in the park. Damn). We also met a large group of Americans, on tour in Croatia; another couple of Americans from Venice, on vacation for their anniversary; and another couple, Barry from Virginia who was working at the US Embassy in Moscow for the State Department, and his fiance, Nina, who had the most contagious laugh ever and worked at the Embassy in Sarajevo. She said it was beautiful, I'd like to go.
Both mentioned working for the State Department, and I must say that it sounds quite appealing. Traveling the world, expenses paid, working for the government. I have been bitten by the travel bug.
Croatia is beautiful, I highly recommend. But no one beats Poland.