la dolce vita (the sweetness of doing nothing)

We closed out our Roman adventures by renting 2 cars to drive to the Tuscan countryside. Being in Europe, the cars were manual transmission. Being carefully trained in a 1992 Geo Prizm in high school, I was one of the few qualified drivers for the Fiat Punto.

After a warm-up drive around the rental car parking lot (oh, that light means the parking break has been on), I was ready for the roadway. Things were jerky but fairly uneventful. I didn't have to drive through Rome, but the winding, narrow country roads, the town piazzas (GPS says turn left, I say that's a 5-ft wide alleyway), and the washed-out, muddy ascents from our off-the-beaten-path rental home to the main road got me very acquainted with negotiating first and second gear.

In the end, everything went well with the car. We did have a slight hiccup one day when we filled the tank with regular instead of diesel fuel. A 2-hour wait for siesta to finish, a ride with an Italian tow truck driver, another 2-hour wait at a car shop in no-where Italy, and $400 later, we were back on the road.

Besides being in a car, here are other things we did in Tuscany.


Lucignano, the nearest town to our lodgings (we stayed in a villa on countryside castle grounds).


Dinner prepared by our Italian cook, Amela, who came 3 out of the 7 nights we were there.


In the Punto.


Some of the countryside.


More of the countryside. This is a small town called Cortona. It sits atop a hill, looking out over the valley. Abe and I spent an afternoon alone there, and it was one of the highlights of the trip.


Us being happy.


Us eating Gelato from Snoopy's. Nutella flavor wins again.


This is a 2-way road.


Many evenings spent by the fire playing Rook.


Abe cooking popcorn over the fire.


Lake near the villa - I couldn't get over how beautiful the clouds were. It rained every day in Tuscany, but usually cleared up in the afternoons. Considering we never woke up before 11am, that worked out pretty well for our schedules.


Kids locked out of the house while parents on day trip. Chris climbed up and through an open window.


Skyline of Florence. We only spent about 5 hours here, mostly hitting the 2 major museums to see Michaelangelo's David and a collection of some of the most famous paintings from the Italian Renaissance. Which was exactly what I wanted to do with only 5 hours in Florence.


We also managed to get some street kebabs and gelato (twice, actually. favorite flavor: half dark chocolate and half caramel).


The duomo.


I loved the colors of the buildings here. Abe and I have taken inspiration from our trip and will paint our nursery in a Tuscan palette (warm yellow walls, red-orange and sage green accents).

when in rome

I'm sure you can find most of these photos a hundred times over on the web, but here are the main attraction of Rome from my lens.

Day 1 in Rome was "Old Rome", which included the Colosseum, Palatine hill, Roman Forum, and Pantheon. We managed to see all of these in about 2 hours. I remember a lot of walking, but not much else. We also stopped by the Trevi Fountain.


The colosseum.


Doric column at the Roman forum.


Capitoline Hill, piazza designed by Michaelangelo.


Inside the Pantheon. I thought the waning sunlight looked like a jellyfish.


Lost on a street downtown while the sun was setting.


At the Trevi Fountain.


Consulting maps (we did a lot of this throughout the trip).

After getting completely lost trying to find a good restaurant for dinner, a local resident shepherded us out of the complex of apartments, onto the Campo de' Fiori, and into small, quiet, and delicious Ditirambo for a choice Italian dinner. Abe's mom was particularly fond of the Gorgonzola-pear souffle with balsamic vinegar. The carnivores in the family laughed at my choice of Calabrian eggplant meatballs, but they were one of my favorite dishes the entire trip.


Dinner.


Abe's parents enjoying souffle.

Day 2 was the Vatican, including the Vatican Museum and Sistine Chapel, St. Peter's Basilica, and Castel Sant' Angelo. Incidentally, Abe & I had watched Angels & Demons the week before, so I recognized most of the sights more from pop culture than my history books.


Photo of "The Last Judgment" in the Sistine Chapel, before we were told no photos.


Outside St. Peter's square.


In St. Peter's Basilica.


From the inside top of the dome at the basilica, looking down.


Outside at the top of the dome.


Endless winding stairs we had to climb. Surprisingly, didn't put me into preterm labor.


Brothers enjoying the view from the top of the basilica.


Circus poster and old bikes. This made me feel like we were living in a real city, not just a place for tourists.


Swapping gelatos after dinner. Nutella was by far the best.


Angel on the bridge by Castel Sant' Angelo.


Tiber river, winding through the Vatican.

Day 3 we took things much slower, spending a sunny afternoon strolling and playing Frisbee at the Borghese Gardens. For lunch, Abe & I split off to a pizza shop (driven by hunger, the rest of the family went to the first eatery off the bus stop - Burger King). We at the Piazza del Popolo and watched a great water fight between 2 Italian teenagers. They both had water bottles that they constantly refilled at one of two public drinking fountains on the piazza (we were sitting at the corner of one). At one point an Indian tourist was trapped in between them as they faced each other, juking right and left, with full water bottles in hand. After several moments of them using her as a defensive barrier, and with her looking increasingly worried, one of them paused and said with a shrug, "It's a tragic scene". Then he dashed off to the side and the other boy followed.


Borghese Gallery, part of the gardens.


Street-side pizza.


Reading "Michaelangelo and the Pope's ceiling" at the piazza designed by Michaelangelo.


Walking home.


At the end of the day we said goodbye to Rome with a family dinner at our apartment.

(More on Tuscany and Venice to come later)

il bambino

For the last 2 weeks, the only internet access I had involved leaning out a second story window with an iphone in hand. We spent the last 14 days on a family trip to Italy with Abe's parents and brothers. 4 days in Rome, 7 days in a villa in Tuscany, and 3 days in Venice.

Photos and stories forthcoming.

For now, I'll post one photo by way of official blog announcement.


No, this isn't the result of too much pasta, or even of my extravagant birthday eateries in March. That's 6 months of Baby Genghis Gong. Due August 8. Alternate name suggestions welcome. It's a boy.

my religious upbringing

When my oldest sister went to college, she called home every Sunday evening to talk to the family. This tradition continued with my next sister and the next, and (somewhat more sporadically) with my brother. I remember feeling very grown up when I made my first college phone call home on a Sunday evening in September of 2002.

I still call my parents most Sunday nights. It's really quite fun to talk with them. Since they have no kids at home, and neither do we, I like compare our weekly stories of adventures because they are in many ways very similar. War stories from work, planning weekend getaways even when it seems like there's no open weekend in which to get away, exploring new restaurants or random midwest town festivals, having friends over for dinner and games.

Also, I've found that the course of the conversation is always unexpected. For example, last night my mom and dad were talking about a gig they had with their folk band, Good News. To get the picture, Good News is a folk/gospel group that combines 4-part vocal harmonies with guitar, mandolin, violin, banjo, and alto saxophone. My dad plays the sax.

He was pontificating last night, after their performance at a very enthusiastic Christian Cafe, that perhaps angels don't carry trumpets, but instead alto saxes. Mom and I both argued that angels were suppose to herald the gospel with a clarion call - not reedy, smooth jazz. But Dad came back and said, Yes, but doesn't it say somewhere that Jesus comes as a thief in the night?

I'm still laughing irreverently at that one. Maybe it's not as funny if you don't know my dad.

Somehow, it reminds me of a children's sunday school class I was sitting in on a few years back. The teacher was talking about Thanksgiving, and comparing each part of the Thanksgiving meal to the gospel. (Remember, these are 3-8 year olds we were dealing with.) He compared water in the glasses to Jesus, because Jesus was the living water. When the teacher asked the children what the turkey could represent, one of the kids called out, "Jesus is the living turkey!"

ways to get smarter without really trying

For the past week or so, Abe & I have been trading off watching DVD lectures of Art History and Game Theory by the Teaching Company. The Teaching Company puts out DVDs of professors lecturing on any and all topics.

We've watched several series including Egyptology (inspired by my love of Elizabeth Peters novels) and Italian History. Our success rate has been about 70% for really engaging, interesting series. And, unlike college courses, if you realize half-way through that you don't want to take the class, it's pretty easy to drop out. Or, in my case, just fall asleep on the couch.

The bonus is that our public library has tons of these DVDs, so if we keep this up we could be extremely intelligent in just a few months. Of course, we do temper the effects with old episodes of Superman.

Last night, we learned about Donatello. The professor showed Donatello's statue of Mary Magdalene and I was quite taken with it. The figure portrays an older Mary wasted by fasting and age. I think I like this sculpture because it captures the moments when our spiritual tenacity feels like it's at a breaking point - and yet, I have all assurance from her look that she hasn't and won't give up.



Also, I love the fact that I did a google image search on "Italian statue Mary Magdelene old" and instantly found what I was looking for.

what we do almost every evening

A favorite hobby in the Gong family household is playing board games. Figure 1 demonstrates the extent of this hobby.

Fig. 1


I thought briefly about giving a complete catalog of the games in here, but it sounded exhausting. Instead, I'll list the games visible in Figure 1.

Scrabble
Hail to the Chief
Carcassone
Shogun
Puzzles (2)
Pictionary
Liar's Dice
Settlers of Catan
Chronologic
Brain Storms
Laser Battle
Pork
Ticket to Ride
Acquire
Clue
Sorry!
Apples to Apples
Bohnanza
Pandemic
Backgammon
Face cards
Dominos
Taboo
Balderdash
Scattergories
Monkies in a Barrel
Boggle
Flinch
Rook

A few of my favorite games:

Dominion. We purchased this game in August 2009 and my best guess is that we have played it just under 200 times since then. Now our house rule is that we aren't allowed to play Dominion unless we've played a different game since last playing Dominion.

(Abe and brothers playing Dominion)


Ticket to Ride. When our cousins brought this game to a family reunion several years ago, I had dreams all night long about building trains from Zurich to Palermo.

Rook. I still look back fondly on the summer of 2005, when Abe & I stayed with a family in Virginia for the summer and the father and 11-year-old daughter would routinely stay up until 1am playing.

Scrabble. I can only play a few times a year, because I agonize over trying to triple-score on my Zs and get at least 1 bingo each game.

Pork. Unfortunately, other people can't purchase this game because it is a game Abe made up. It's basically high-intensity reverse Taboo with a political spin. It also involves dressing up as the secret service.

(Photos from an actual Pork game)

$123 to celebrate 26

Ann Arbor is a great place for birthday deals. In past years, I've taken advantage by picking up my 1/2 dozen free bagels and maybe catching a half price meal downtown.

This year, however, was different.

My birthday fell on a Monday, and I had the day off of work with no particular plans whatsoever.

And so, in full efficiency mode, I visited the Ann Arbor Wiki Birthday page, selected a few of the many options, plotted establishments out on a map color-coded by day/time, signed up for any prerequisite mailing lists, and let the celebration begin.

The planning is necessary because venues either offer you a deal on your birthday date only, or offer coupons good for a week or two surrounding your birthday. To take full advantage, it helps to have a timeline of places to visit throughout your birthday week. I'm sure you'll catch the vision in the following travelogue.

(Check out the custom map here)

Date: Friday, March 19
Deal: Birthday festivities begin with a free large specialty pizza from Aubree's (technically not an Ann Arbor deal - they're in Ypsilanti).
Cost: $3 (tip)
Savings: $18.00



(It was barely warm enough to eat outside that night!)

Date: Friday, March 19
Deal: Free creation at Cold Stone Creamery
Cost: none
Savings: $3



Date: Saturday, March 20
Deal: Free burrito from Moe's Southwestern Grill
Cost: none
Savings: $8


(This incredibly scary photo is to prove that I was sick the week leading up to my birthday - hello, red puffy eyes.)

Date: Monday, March 22

Deal: Free breakfast/lunch at Northside Grill. They were very nice and let Abe & I split 2 entrees but take the more expensive one as the free one.
Cost: $9.50
Savings: $8


Deal: 1/2 dozen bagels from Zingerman's Deli
Cost: none
Savings: $6 (?)


Deal: 12-pack of long party candles from the Found Gallery (I selected a sherbet orange candle color)
Cost: none
Savings: $3

Deal: Cupcake from Cake Nouveau
Cost: none
Savings: $2.50


Deal: 1/2 dozen bagels from Zingerman's Bakehouse
Cost: none
Savings: $6 (?)

Deal: Gelatto from Zingerman's Creamery
Cost: none
Savings: $2.50 (?)


Deal: Cookie from Great Harvest. When I asked for the cookie, the manager said he'd had a lot of people coming in about free birthday cookies and had no idea how it got started (not by him). I told him it was listed on the birthday wiki and he said he was happy to give me the deal.
Cost: none
Savings: $1.50

Deal: Scoop of ice cream from Ben & Jerry's
Cost: none
Savings: $2.50


Deal: 1/2 off a meal at the Real Seafood Company, plus a free dessert
Cost: $25.15
Savings: $25


Date: Wednesday, March 24
Deal: $10 coupon from Grizzly Peak, plus a pint glass and free dessert. For lunch, my co-workers took me and another girl who had a birthday the day before out to Grizzly Peak. They don't give you a deal on your check, but do give you the coupon, glass, and dessert.
Cost: none (to me)
Savings: $16

Date: Thursday, March 25
Deal: Free bowl of noodles at Noodles & Co. (They give you a bowl of noodles plus soup! It was enough for Abe & I to split for lunch.)
Cost: none
Savings: $8

Date: Friday, March 26
Deal: Free meal at BDs Mongolian Grill
Cost: $16.77 (tip, plus Abe's meal)
Savings: $13

(I took several photos in this series. Abe is straining to the see the basketball game on the TV behind him. TVs in restaurants are like black holes - he doesn't even watch basketball...)

TOTAL DEALS 15
TOTAL COST: $54.42
TOTAL SAVINGS: $123
(note: if you take out the Real Seafood Company - our big splurge - the cost goes to $29.27 and the savings to $98)

Thank you, Ann Arbor, for a very happy birthday. And don't worry local businesses - I will probably never actually do this again.