Hi again! This is the Folgarìa, Italy installment.

7/1/07 12:45 Verona (Canada Day)
I'm sitting on a bench in the train station, between platforms three and
four, awaiting a train to Rovereto. Lunch is Coca-Cola and dry sandwhiches
from the main station downstairs. Oh, the train is here!
13:54 Rovereto
Train station. As it turns out, the bus to Folgarìa doesn't come until
18:00, so we've got a wait. It's 33C here, which translates to 93F. That's
about normal for our trip so far. And to think I packed a windbreaker and
polar fleece...

7/2/07 8:45 Folgarìa
I'm sitting in the grass near the finish of Day 1. A couple of minutes ago,
a cow got loose and precipitated a chase up and down the hill, cowbell
ringing, as some of men tried to chase it away from the throngs of people
surrounding the finish.
This morning, we went grocery shopping in the singular, small grocery (and
more) store across town. At the meat, bread, and cheese counter, I asked for
two of the largest loaves of bread, and a half kilo (I couldn't recall the
words for any less, but this is about a pound) of Swiss cheese (Swiss
because it was the only one I recognized). We walked with our loot (these
and other groceries) back across town to the residence, Derby, at which
we're staying.
Our residence (apparently, the difference between a residence and a hotel is
that a residence dosn't provide linens, towels, soap, or housekeeping) has a
small bathroom with the usual European amenities, a bedroom for Eileen and
I, a kitchenette, which has a stove and tiny refrigerator but no oven, and a
living/dining room in which Ryan sleeps, on the fold-out bed.
We walked to the traffic circle that is our bus stop to wait for the
orienteering bus, and rode it twenty or so minutes farther into the Italian
Alps to the meet site. Upon arrival, we asked registration for pins for our
race numbers, believing that they had committed an oversight in not
including these in our race packets. It seems we were supposed to bring our
own; the nice woman went to her purse and managed to scrounge two small,
bent safety pins to complement the one Eileen had found, allowing us one
each (I later lost my number, but someone found it, so it was okay). We
thanked the registration woman and wished we had thought to brigh some of
the many safety pins we have at home.
There's still a while before my start, so I'm off to juggle and catch
grashoppers (it's almost akin to a locust plague, there are so many- they
sound like lawn sprinklers).
15:15
It's raining here. Good thing we're not camping; the streets are rivers. It
appears that weather is a touch more temperamental here in the mountains; it
was quite hot while we were running.
I had a very fun race, although at last look I was number twenty-one of
twenty-three in my category (Women 15-16). I blame this partly on my first
control (fifteen minute error just across the start line) and partly on my
overall lack of speed, particularly in comparison to my ridiculously fast
Swedish competitors. During my run, I befriended one of my competitors- from
the second control onward, we took separate route choices and met at the
control. I was sooner to the finish, but she had started much later. She
hails from Trieste, which is on the very edge of italy, almost in Slovenia
(I think that's the right country name).

7/4/07 (U.S. Independence Day)
Yesterday, we raced again, in a hillier area. I had no major mistakes, so I
got to move up in the rankings to 27 of 40 (some of whom had already
disqualified for mispunches or DNF'ing).
Back in town, I sat on the steps by the square and juggled for a while,
watching people set up for a concert. The concert toook place after the
daily award ceremony, and was by local celebrity Stefano Zarfati. The crowd
appeared sedentary, although I'm sure they enjoyed it. Ryan and I juggled on
the edges of the crowd.
Today is the designated rest day, so no race today. We were going to check
out a nearby town, bt we missed the only bus when Eileen decided we should
sleep in, so nothing really to do today.

[French keyboqard6 v. difficult to use° - ,=m qnd q=a

7/5/07 13:43
Great race todqy. I rqn hqrd; qnd hqd only minor mistqkes. For q
greenish level course, I took qn hour qnd 4 minutes. It was q lot of
fun, topped bythe fqt thqat the qnnouncercqlled out my nqme qs I rqn
in the finish. Still waiting for Ryqn qnd Eileen to finish.

Remarkable and Interesting Facts and Observqtions
-In thestore window of arond hqlf of the shops in Folgqriq 5(grqnted,
Folgariq is smqll) hqngs q smqll orienteering control.
- This event warrants use of q room in the town's centerand of its
solitqry square every evening.
-At the finish, there is q blow-up banner over the finish line and
several large speakers through which blqst loud musicqnd the
announcer's voice, cqlling out nqmes of key runners. All around,
people in their respective club uniforms sit with their other club
members in their club tents, under their club's or country's flqg.
_On our dqily walks to the start, we recieve q small warm_up mapto
show us where to go qnd to get us thinking on the map
-As Americans, our delegation here is small (I am the youngest) and
our representqtion on the winners' podium is nonexistent.
-W15-16 (mycategory) would be qn orange course in the states, but here
is more like a green (W20)
-Interesting rock feqtures are all over the map, such as cliffed-in
passages and what appear to be mine shqftsare leftovers from WWI; rock
walls and ditches were once trenches
-Rounding the back of a hill plagued with cows, bells ringing
variously; a runner can hear the drone of the announcer's voice in the
distance. These combine for a churchy effect
-Everyevening; groups of old men sit at outdoor tables, talking
animatedly. Each looks like a chqrqcter.

I'm in France now, so a bit behind on updates, but here's this!