1. i went to italy...

or,
the annotated and illustrated summary of vegan and non-vegan highlights from my trip to the south of italy during the 2005 winter holidays:

• first, here's a pretty faithful representation of our route:

(this map of the roman empire is way old, so please disregard entirely)

but in fact our final destination was campania/the greater napoli area:

(paestum being the hometown of my officemate francesca, lucky her - and me!)

• the drive from napoli to paestum was exciting because of: the mediterranean architecture, bustling roads, vesuvius looming in the distance, the lemon and orange trees, cacti and unbelievably giant agaves everywhere, and the store names that were very similar to romanian ones so i could understand them all (like "calzature": in english there's no exact translation for this but basically it's like "clothing" as a generic term for all kinds of clothes, except for shoes instead of clothes - and the romanian word is "incaltaminte", which has the same root as the italian one, the latin "incalceare"); anyway, we made a special stop on the way to get some "mozzarella di bufala" - people there really worship this fresh cheese (it's not even considered cheese, but a category of food on its own), there are lots of water-buffalo farms in the region and i was told many of the animals are treated better than people (maybe, maybe not?)!
  
• then we had a mid-day feast that included baked stuffed artichokes and pasta with this funky broccoli that's very popular locally. later, we went to a produce store (like romanian "aprozare"!). i also got soft-serve soy ice-cream (delicious chocolate, vanilla and hazelnut flavors, though apparently the "soy flour" and "crunchy bran" - both of which they were sadly out of - are the best ones!)... and this from a regular ice-cream corner store!
• that night, on xmas eve, we went to the church in the center of the village. non-catholic and non-very-christian as i am, i still quite enjoyed it (maybe a little bit in the same way that i used to enjoy easter midnight mass in romania, for its cultural and social aspects rather than the religious, though it goes without saying that i appreciate baby jesus as much as the next person, as well): all the people braving the cold to be there, the live nativity story that was staged - with all its excitement and/or mishaps along the way, including a little (bad!) angel's wing catching on fire!! - and the midnight mass, which i listened to from the choir section; i was impressed especially by the good, pretty "modern" songs played throughout (you won't find that in orthodox churches).
  
• next day we had a lovely xmas, with a lot of food of which actually little was NOT vegan:

(the dishes: soup - the non-vegan one shown had ravioli and tiny meatballs but mine was a great minestrone, then handmade pasta with tomato sauce, then various marinated roasted vegetables and mushrooms, peas, fried potatoes, and crusty bread, and "dolci" which included ricotta and chocolate-vanilla "cannoli", "struffoli", and vegan chocolate-covered nuts and figs stuffed with nuts and orange peel); my new favorite dish is this marinated chili eggplant:

• the day after xmas we took a trip down the cilento coast, to palinuro - the best things we encountered were palm and olive trees, villages on rocky cliffs, and "natural arches":

and of course THE BEACH:

before:

unfortunately, halfway through the day the sea got a little bit aggressive with me and francesca, as can be seen from the following before and after pictures of what i shall simply refer to as the "careful or otherwise the sea will try to swallow you whole incident":

after:

• in the evening, we went to agropoli, which is amazing, with a beautiful harbor (pictures of which didn't turn out 'cause it was too dark) and the old (old!) citadel atop a hill, where we randomly ran into two different rock/folk bands - one inside a church and one outdoors in a "manger" improvised in a doorway - and had dinner in an pizzeria designed to look like a ship (my pizza was spicy and topped with fresh rucola -YUM-my!):

• our second day-long trip was north from paestum, up the amalfi coast to amalfi. it rained like crazy the whole time, but still the scenery along the road that winds high above the coast was incredible: the water, the beaches, the villages and all these terraces on the almost-vertical slope covered with super-ingenious lemon tree farms. i kept saying that i'd never seen nor imagined anything like it in my life, and that i was amazed it's not more famed and well-known. (interesting coincidence: right after we got back to germany, i got to see this movie that's out right now - an adaptation of oscar wilde's "lady windemere's fan" called "a good woman" - which was filmed precisely there). we passed by salerno and made a first stop in minori (or was it maiori?):
  

and here we visited this pastry shop where i almost found something vegan (fried eggplant in chocolate, no less), except it had some (non-necessary) egg in the ingredients; of course, the amazing looking stuff was non-vegan (why-oh-why?), so i just had chocolate-covered orange peel and coffee while others had profiteroles (i really really hated them all at this point :) ):

in amalfi the town, we initially had some trouble with a landlord and finally found this cute-cute hotel ran by two ROCKING elderly ladies, then visited the cathedral - which has lots of "eastern" influences and is just all around impressive - and then walked around in the pouring rain until we found a restaurant whose owner was quite a character - he seemed very concerned about my vegan order and afraid that without the seafood and cheese it would be too bland: very funny! but the food was great (i had bruschette and homemade pasta with zucchini and white sauce) and there was this guy with a guitar playing napolitan songs, and the one that stuck in my head was called "funiculi funicula" (oh, yeah! i love "funiculars" - they remind me of one of my favorite books, "the prodigal son" by radu tudoran - but more about this later!):


also great about amalfi were the the colorful regional "vietri" ceramics and the giant lemons:

and the fact that, apparently, after the middle of the 19th century it became a favorite destination for "artists and other misfits", and henrik ibsen wrote "a doll's house" there!

• next, we went to naples