Roberto ed Io faremo un giro a Offida!

at one this afternoon (alle uno di pomeriggo) Roberto and I will ride to Offida!

this should be great! i am so excited!!!!!!!

i.ll back track a little;
yesterday i rode to Gimigliano and Oleficio Paniche and it was frinkin rugged. i was out for an hour and 20, max heartrate was 194 (!!!) with an average pace of 14mph; and that was after doing some ass hauling around the city, motorpacing i motorini (scooters). i did about 20 miles.

the terrain is unbelievable, like i said in my previous post. the grades are unreal.
this i kind of funny; i was riding up hill for what felt like forever, and then shot down the other side of the hill (which is not entirely accurate b-c there doesnt seem to be sides or fronts or backs , they just flow in to eachother and, well its just hard to explain) and past a couple that was working their fields (farms are all over the hills) and then past a house. there were three old people on the balcony and i waved and said Ciao, and rode past.
then i started climbing, again, and rode past a pig pasture, and up some more. then the rode turned to dirt, then it turned to silt, then it stopped at a dilapititated house. when i say stopped, i mean there was nothing. not even a goat couls have found his way past that piont.
so i just turned around and went back the way i came. and as i rode past the same house with the same people on the balcony, and the same couple working in their same field, i just smiled at what they might have been thinking. what it was, i dont know but i am sure that they knew exactly where that rode went, nowhere.

so after that it was more of the same. i would go up at 7-9 mph with my heart redlining. then roast my brakes and rims into switchbacks. it was incredible!
there are a couple of one-lane bridges aruond here. so at the first one i stopped and to take a couple of photos and as clipped out, a Great Blue Heron (or its Italian cousin) flew out of the stream below. and damnit, i just could get my camera out fast enough! but the shot was still lovely.

the traffic situation here is... fun, to say the least. now as a disclaimer, i dont really know how to ride here, ie, their rules of the road like where to be in the lane. but, its generally a free-for-all. the cars give you space but will pass you whenever it suits them (b-c theyre used to bikes and scooters EVERYWHERE!). but in the next few days, i;ll learn more from riding with Roberto and (hopefully) Vince, when i figure out il mio orario (my schedule).
[side note, alot of the words i need are buried a mio cervello (my brain) but i cant seem to dig them out when i need them. but it,ll start coming together, b-c i have only been here 4 days (?)]

some other things of note, Ross;s ex-wife;s lesbian girlfriend is here. Jessica Hecht (i think that, s how you spell it) is the professor for the film-making class. i met her. she,s very willowy and looks as though she might fly away on a stiff breeze.

we had our first language class today, which was spectacular for a couple of reasons. A primo, we went down stairs to the bar (bars here are cafes, like Breaking New Grounds) and talked about important things like how to order coffees and pastries and sandwhiches. A segundo, it kick started my italian; i started to remember more things, verb tenses, as well as just hearing our teacher, Sylvia, speak to us slowly and clearly instead of blurringly fast.

but now it,s about lunch time here, so i have to go eat my weight in pasta and grapes (my groceries from yesterday) so i don,t keel over and die on Roberto,s ride.

tune in next time for more from Ascoli sponsored by Arbys.