I'm back in Belgium for now. I'm not sure what's happening next but tomorrow has to be a day spent working after this day lost to cleaning here in the house.
Microguagua - street power Reggae!
These guys.
I was in awe of the high-energy, joy-filled street performance of the Reggae band called Microguagua.
I bought one of their cds because I wanted their music back in Belgium.
They're brilliant. Seeing them perform live made me smile. Perhaps I caught a sense of them here but honestly, their music makes you smile.
I found them out in Via San Lorenzo, in Genova. I had to stop for some photographs.
A Foto A Day ... in Genova
I could do it, in Genova, easily ... find a photograph a day. I would have images queuing. There is so much to photograph. I loved the way these policemen were helping.
Writing from Milan Airport ...
I'm that woman sitting in the midst of those traveling to Berlin, here at the airport in Milan. There's limited seating, I'm almost sure I shouldn't confess I'm on the flight after theirs.
I arrived early. It's my way of dealing with those rumours I've heard of an unreliable Italian train system. I've never found it to be unreliable over the years but I do arrive 3-4 hours early most times. When the trip to the airport involves a two-hour train trip and 45 minutes on bus, it's just simpler to arrive early.
Genova was intense. Perhaps I should write, 'as always', but these hard metal seats are barely keeping me awake as I finally allow myself to sink into being here, with nothing more required of me except boarding the plane.
There are so many photographs from my 8 days away, so many stories but I'll keep it simple and leave you with a 'selfie' I took in a beautiful Genovese villa, one that has a fountain from the 15th century and the room you see in the mirror.
Ravioli Fatti in Casa Al “Tuccu” Di Carne, at Il Genovese, Genova.
Il Genovese, located at Via Galata 35R here in Genova, serves a Ligurian meat sauce that I simply adore.
For me, Ravioli Fatti in Casa Al “Tuccu” Di Carne captures, or perhaps represents, some of the best of my food memories so far.
There is the nostalgia for those stews my Nana used to slow- cook on her coal-fired stove in Invercargil, New Zealand - although her stews never tasted this good. Never have I tasted a meat sauce like this one.
Then there is the delicate pasta that hosts the exquisite filling I may have been known to rave about previously. There is the meat sauce, the one that spends a day cooking ... until it is so tender it simply melts in your mouth.
And that combination of ingredients I cannot name but that come together to create this dish I adore.
This was dinner tonight. Grazie mille to Il Genovese!!
And so it is ... in Genova
The intensity of these days here in Italy have been quite incredible. I have been teaching photography workshops in Genova and they have been everything ... a privilege, a challenge, so much fun, exhausting, exhilarating.
They have been about people ... about breakfasts at Douce while sitting outside in Piazza Matteotti, about the occasional aperitivo at Caffè Degli Specchi, and fresh take-away pasta, with sauces and parmesan cheese bought from the kind people at Pasta Fresca Fabio, in Via Di Canneto Il Lungo.
Tomorrow is my first 'day off' since arriving but that busy-ness hasn't been all about workshops and people, it has been about the fact I arrived in the city relaxed and happy to be back only to have that moment of horror when I realised, quite late in the day, that I had forgotten to pack the power cord for my laptop. But you know that already...
In all my years of traveling with ridiculous amounts of equipment I have Never Ever forgotten my laptop cord. Nor my phone cord (only discovered when I needed to recharge my phone yesterday). I believe I may have left them on the same chair when finishing my packing at 4.30am that morning I left. Mmmhmmm, and those comfortable walking shoes I own ... don't ask me about how my feet were on Friday but honestly, never before has so much been left behind.
I was quite stressed when I flew. That much is clear. I believe I may develop some 'behaviours' as a result of 'the forgetting'.
But that aside, I realised again how much I love working with women on their photography. I simply love it! Often they have an instinct... a good eye for composition but a way of doing it all that somehow falls outside of the rules of 'technical'. And it is this that seems to make it so much more difficult for them to own their way of seeing and capturing the world.
I should know ...
I'm so delighted with the work my clients have produced over these days. I will publish some in the weeks ahead however tonight I must sleep so as to be up and out early ... for breakfast at Douce.
Ciao from this ancient city I consider the best in all of Italy.
