Out of the Woods

Hello from a place that is not Milan! We’ve officially made it to the second leg of the program, and Trento is welcoming us nicely once again. The number one thing I’m looking forward to for these two weeks: thunderstorms rolling over the mountain range. The number one thing I’m dreading: grading midterms. Let’s see how that pans out.

 

Friday morning started off rather wildly, with a mad dash to get all the kids (and members of the teaching staff) out of their rooms with all of their belongings to turn in all of their keys and get on the bus. I managed to accomplish this and we left at 9:36, only six minutes later than we were supposed to. This was a huge win since I was handling all 33 of us on my own. After a stop for lunch, we got to Molveno around 2:30pm and were reunited with Professor Erspamer. I was so relieved to see him that I hugged him, which was probably alarming to him… We dropped our things in our rooms and changed into swimsuits to go take our lake jump. This is an Alpine lake, so the water temperature was around 60 degrees Fahrenheit. This is my professor’s favorite moment of the entire program, I think, especially since I am much more resilient in the cold water than any of the students ever are. I spent about an hour in the lake, and the next closest time clocked in at four minutes by one of our students. I followed this up with a long, scalding hot shower to reset my body temperature and get rid of my chills. We had dinner together that night, where I had a group of students say to me, “your hair looks so nice, is it because it’s less humid here than it was in Milan?” An interesting approach to a compliment… We wrapped up the evening with a late-night campfire by the lake, with music, chatter, and a robust sing-along to “Can’t Take My Eyes Off of You” – I love you baby!

 

Saturday morning we left the hotel at 9:30 and divided all of us among four compact Jeeps to go racing up a mountain to go hiking and learn about the Dolomite mountain communities. The Jeep drivers drove at harrowing speeds, on incredibly narrow paths, around hairpin turns. My life flashed before my eyes several times. Our hiking guide’s first question to me was “you’re a PhD student, right? Do you know Guido Guerra? His dad buys apples from us” And my answer was yes! What a small world, that in the middle of the Dolomite mountain range I would meet someone who knows one of my classmates! This guy was full of fun facts, so I liked him a lot. He taught us that the true Dolomites in the center of the range have a higher concentration of magnesium than the typical calcium-dense sedimentary rock of the other Alps, which prevents a reaction fizz when the rock is put in contact with hydrochloric acid. He whipped out a little vial of HCl and showed us – and it worked, no fizz! We saw fossils left from when the region was covered in water, and they were heart-shaped! Giulio also taught us the legend behind the red tinge of the Dolomites at dawn and dusk: King Laurino used his invisibility belt to steal a bride from her wedding and, as a gesture of his love, covered the mountains with roses. The people hunting him down, however, could tell where he was because wherever he walked, the roses were trampled. He cursed the rose garden to never be seen during the day or at night, but forgot dawn and dusk, which are neither day nor night. So, when the sun rises or sets, the Dolomite peaks are tinged red, resembling the garden of red roses! After our hikes, we went to lunch, where we taught the kids to play “morra,” a game that (inconveniently for me) includes banging fists on tables and yelling numbers at each other. Very loud. I appreciated the group that decided to play crazy eights instead.

 

After lunch, we hiked down to a regional farm, but we were a bit behind schedule. Professor Erspamer very helpfully told the students, “We’re in a rush, so now if you fall, you will be abandoned.” Once the clouds broke to let us see the mountains better, we could see snow on the peaks not much higher than where we were. The snow was slightly pink, which is apparently due to sand from the Sahara desert being blown up here by storms and affecting the color of the mountain snow. At the farm, we saw cows, chickens, pigs, bunnies, and a dog. We did a tasting of some cheeses that they make right on the farm from their fresh cow milk and then hopped in the Jeeps to descend the mountain, again at a mind-numbing speed. We had dinner back at the hotel (which included a dramatic spilling of red wine by one student who happened to be wearing white pants and a black and white sweater). I was cheered following this drama by a student watching me intently for several minutes before she declared that I looked like Botticelli’s Venus. I certainly don’t mind being compared to the mythological goddess of beauty…

 

Today is Sunday, and I started the day with breakfast and checking out of the hotel. We had lunch before departing Molveno and heading to Trento. My room is in a separate building from the students this year, and I’m delighted to have some space. We’re all situated now, and I have the evening off to do some planning for tomorrow’s philosophy section. Week four is about to begin!