No time to rest today, as we had to be out and about exploring Vasto at the ripe hour of 8am. Our first activity was to wander around in pairs to different food vendors and write down our observations. Shopping is done differently in Italy - rather than going to one big supermarket and buying it all in one place, you go to several small specialty shops. For instance, the fruttivendolo sells fruits and veggies, the panificio sells bread, the salumeria sells deli meats, and so forth, and on weekends there's always a big mercato all'aperto (open market). So our assignment was to go around in pairs (I was with Anna) and listen to what went on around us, noting the ways in which transactions were made and the like. Basically this required standing awkwardly and looking very foreign in the doorways of shops and frantically scribbling notes as we listened in on other peoples' conversations. And this activity was meant to HELP us with the immersion process and feeling like we belong here. Riiiiight...
We checked out a lot of the booths at the open market too. Italians do most of their shopping there, be it for clothes, shoes, trinkets, vegetables or whatnot. It's like having a big flea market that's open every single weekend, and sometimes during the week as well. We divied up the weekly funds and did the necessary shopping for pranzo. I also bought a beach towel for 5 euro, which came in handy because after lunch we went to... the beach!
Vasto Marina is the closest beach, about 7 minutes by bus, but it's private so you have to rent an umbrella and beach chairs, and on a recommendation from our TF Paola, Hannah, Luciana and I decided to go to Punta Penna instead. In addition to being an incredibly beautiful beach, it is also a nature reserve, so it's free. The trip took about a half hour by bus and it was SWELTERING hot (as I've come to expect from Vasto) but well worth it! When we were about to scendere dall'autobus - get off the bus - a woman and her son stopped us and asked where we were going. When we told them, they recommended that we stay on with them until the next stop and they'd show us a better way to get there, and we agreed and had a nice conversation with them. Turns out if we had gotten off at the original stop we would have had to descend down a mountain to get to the beach - thank goodness for the kindness of Italians! The woman and her son walked and talked with us until we arrived at the beach, and I was awestruck by everything about it.
The water of the Adriatic (my first time ever in a body of water other than the Atlantic Ocean!) was crystal clear and WARM; every once in a while you'd hit a little wave of cool water, but it was always a refreshing cool, and it was warm enough to walk right in without a second's hesitation-inducing shiver (now THAT'S never happened at Jones Beach! :P), and you could walk and walk without it even hitting your waist (and I'm referencing my waist in particular, which is only something like 4 inches off the ground, so you can really tell how shallow the water is!). It was calm and there weren't many waves, which is just the way I like it because I get knocked over easily in the ocean. The water was such a gorgeous shade of blue, and you could look way out into the distance and see it continuing and darkening in color until it reached the horizon line, where it blended seamlessly into the blue of the sky, as smooth and hazy as the brushstrokes in a watercolor painting. Even the sand was perfect, and as you lay out on it and look up you see not just the beautiful cerulean sky and the puffiest, fluffiest, clearest clouds but also this grass-covered mountain rising up along the side of the water, with a nature trail leading steeply up its side (the very one we would have had to walk down had we not had the good fortune to meet the woman and her son on the bus!). On the side opposite the mountain you see the boardwalk, which is surrounded by cement blocks (literally, square blocks) and on which you can see three or four trabocchi - essentially little fishing huts off of which extend the rods so that you can fish from an altitude; they've come to be a familiar symbol of Vasto and are found on a lot of postcards and local artigian craftwork.
Day's Recap:
Weird looks received from Italians who realized Anna and I were listening to their conversations and recording their every word: ~37
Time spent on bus: 1 hour, round trip
Number of Italian men seen wearing speedos who should really NOT be seen wearing speedos: ~49
Number of times my friends had to hear me exclaim "OMG this is just SO beautiful!": upwards of 50 :)
Abbronzata e allegra (tanned (at least a little!) and happy),
Michelina
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