the cast of characters

Tomorrow we take the train to Pisa, pick up our rental car, and the following day we drive to our next home in Tuscany. So today is our last full day in old Passignano sul Trasimeno. We've been here so long even the guy at Cafe Centrale asked us yesterday how long we've been here. 7 weeks was our answer. 7 weeks! I think we're leaving at just the right time. We've been here long enough to actually meet all our neighbors and have small conversations with them, but not so long that we've annoyed them or become part of the gossip (as far as we can tell).

Our neighbors:
Next door is Neno, a 91 year old guy who is in great shape, says that he prefers women 33 and under, and makes sure to point out that all his equipment is still working. He provides plenty of laughter for the other neighbors, but it's pretty clear Neno's not joking. He has a cute little dog named Lucky. His daughter, who looks about 27, and his granddaughter, who is about 3 are in town for the summer. The granddaughter, Alice, has one of those cute little voices that sound like she's a muppet. Unfortunately she is often in a bad mood, making for a squealing muppet.

Below us is Nina, who is a sweet woman of about 60 (? it's hard to tell ages because everyone here smokes) who agrees with statements by repeating "ah" emphatically three times, "ah, ah, ah." After a week or two everyone else starts picking up on this verbal tick, so the conversations are sprinkled with "ah,ah,ah." Her daughter and granddaughter are currently visiting.

For a few weeks Gina, Nina's sister was also with her. Gina was funny and it was clear the neighborhood loved her. Gina gave us tiramisu and then patted my tummy and said this was to help me gain weight. She must not have noticed our daily visits down to the gelato store.

Elsa is 85 and lives just down the street. She has a lovely little garden at the top of the switchback stairs. On any journey into town, if you use those stairs, she's usually sitting in her garden and chats at you, not so much with you.

Haluk is a Turkish guy who has lived in Passignano every summer for almost 40 years. He's married to an antisocial Japanese woman who rarely leaves the house, so Haluk is usually wandering up to our corner for conversation.

Lionora is a 6 year old Albanian girl who loves Haluk and plays well with Alice. She likes to correct my poor Italian, and is quite frustrated that I don't speak it better yet. She told me to get a book.

Each night this group gathers below our windows to enjoy the evening and chit chat (minus Elsa, she's usually in bed by then). John, of course, is the golden boy when we walk past this nightly group to leave or enter our house. His Italian is quite good, and he's funny, so all the neighbors love him. We hear them talking about two other neighbors of ours:

Evangeline, a retired Italian professor from UC Berkely, who owns the building between ours and the castle. She gave us a tour of the apartments she rents in her building (which were really nice and had good views of the lake), including her apartment up in the attic, which had hidden balconies tucked into the roof. She told us this was where she sunbathed nude. John was pretty disturbed by this visual. The neighbors all call her Principessa, or princess, which seems rather fitting.

Then there's Andrea (recently changed her name to Elisabetta), the American who lives down near Elsa. She's an attractive woman in her late 40's who is a bit crazy. When she first moved in, our landlady Anne, being quite nice, told her that if she ever ran into trouble and needed anything, she could call her. Kind of an American helping another American sorta thing. One night Andrea calls her around 6:00 and says she needs $50, can she borrow it from Anne? It turns out Andrea wanted it for a tattoo. Anne was pretty annoyed and refused her the money. Anne had also gotten a bit annoyed at that point because Andrea enjoyed discussing her sexual exploits about which Anne didn't want to hear. Anyway, the neighbors all think she's a prostitute. John and I just think she's a bit crazy.

Phew, in 7 weeks you can gather a lot of information on your neighbors. Can you imagine if we lived here full time? This is small town living. I'm going to miss looking at the lake. I'm going to miss our comfort level with the town. But I'm ready to escape the rumor mill before we get sucked into it!