A Pompei

What an amazing run we had today on Italian trains. Fast, cheap, clean, on-time and easy to negotiate even when you have 3 platforms coming off the 1.
Got into Pompei about 12.30 and found a hotel (Hotel Diana) recommended by the Lonely Planet. It has been very good as a guide to Calabria over the past week. Tania just copied the relevant pages from the book we bought earlier this year and used them.
Pompei is a tourist town though being December it's not too bad. The cathedral and the ruins themselves are stunning. The Greeks built a coliseum for Pompers before the Romans had built a bleedin' viaduct (say this in a Monty Python accent and it makes sense I think!). Easily spent several hours in the ruins and didn't see it all.

Diamante - our last Calabrian coastal town

Trained on from Tropea to another little place on the coast using the little bus-trains - they are really cheap and go everywhere. Diamante was another town with a centro-storico where we found a little hotel right on the waterfront called Hotel Stella Maris for Euro60 per night for 2 nights. Got in about 4pm and the place was packed along the promenade with people out walking and taking in the port views etc.
The centro is covered with murales from over a period of years depicitng all sorts of things including people, boats, local scenes, poems and so on - all hidden away in narrow alleys with washing hanging overhead across the alleys.
Sunday we took a walk up through a national park following a river up into the hills along a thoroughly Italian tiled walkway that went for kilometres. Ended up on top with a view over the town and with snow-capped peaks further on up ahead of us. We wandered back down some windy tracks and roads to town - all up about 3 hours on a clear winter day.
Dinner of spaghetti and pesche risotto rounded off a great day.
Off to Pompei tomorrow for a sticky at the ruins.

Around Tropea

Tropea has turned out to be a great place to slow down to the rhythm of life in Calabria. We are staying in Il Barone Residenzes in the old town at an apartment (called a 'suite in Italy'). Beautiful old stone place with very friendly owners and staff.
This part of Italy certainly goes by the siesta rule with nearly all places open 0900-1300 and then again from 1600-2000. Sure makes you slow down and fit to the rhythm of the life here. Lots of school kids here with 2 elementare scuola e 1 compresivo e 1 instruzioni intelligentia for the bigger kids. Great to see that kids are kids the world over - playing tricks on each other and generally having fun.
The coastline here is high cliffs punctuated by small beaches and some deep gorges running to the sea. The old town is built on a cliff-top some 50 metres above the sea - a railing at the end of the main street separates you from toppling over the cliff!
Food - settled into the calazione of pastry, bread rolls and coffee with fruit and yoghurt. This pretty much does you for lunch as well and then cena at about 1930 of spaghetti and house rosso to cap off the day. Also maybe a gelati at some point as well to keep the wolf from the door. We are the only foreign tourists here and there is very little English spoken by the locals which is great. Tiny lanes and alleyways through the old town with still lots of scooter and Fiat traffic though - Italians are in love with the wheeled vehicle as well as talking and texting at the same time as dodging pedonale and other cars and scooters. Kristina Keneally's hair would be blown out of its fixed position if she saw the traffic here.
Spent 3 nights here it was so nice. Off to either Pizzo or Diamante a domani.
Another thing we really like are the nibblies you get when you order an alcoholic drink during the day. We had a wine around lunchtime, which came with an antipasto plate of chips, pickled veges, crackers, olives and bruschetta. So it makes for a very cheap lunch. Food in general is delicous. Dinners are made fresh to order. Pat had sardines last night and this morning we walked to the harbour, where fishermen were selling them straight from the boat, so that was probably his last night. I've been enjoying the local pasta with a variety of sauces, (red onion, eggplant, mozzarella) washed down with the local vino.So food miles aren't huge here. But the gelatis are just SENSATIONAL! I have to limit myself to only one a day!

Around Calabria

It is not a touristy area in winter down in this part of the world but such a beautiful coastline and the train lines hug it all the way through the constant use of tunnels and viaducts. We got ripped off by a taxi driver from Reggio airport to our hotel (covered up the meter and charged a rounded figure of Euro 40) only 15 minute drive away. But hey, it was dark, crowded and us with very little Italian - after such a long day we were just happy to get somewhere. The iPhone is working really well for internet access - most places have wireless internet access (some pay like at the airports, some free like at the hotels) so we can read Australian newspapers, email and book hotels and check train times all from the hotel.
Stayed only one night in Reggio and then caught the local train system up to Tropea where we are staying 2 nights in a beautiful apartment right in the old town. The trains are like buses on tracks - single carriage diesels that run more or less to time, but mostly less! When they docome along though, they fly.
Tuesday we were in Scilla - a little village about 30 mins north of Reggio - staying in a hotel again in the old town on the beach. Southerly wind blowing a gale - but of course being a southerly in the northern hemisphere it was a warm wind. There is the obligatory castle on a hill, church bells ringing at all hours, churches everywhere - religious lot these Italians! Dinner is much later than we are used to - our usual 'dinner at 6.30' has turned into 'dinner at minimum 8.00' - we are of course starving by then. Had a seafood spaghetti with mussels and lobster last night and the house Calabrian wine - all very passable, very passable indeed.

At the castle in Scilla - windswept and interesting...

Today's (Wednesday) travel has been train waiting for much of it - trains seem to get cancelled quite regularly but no one seems to bat an eyelid - must be just par for the course.

Arrived into Tropea about 1300 and wandered down to the old town to look for a place recommended by the Lonely Planet guide book. Asked a few people and finally found it but no one around. Pulled out the trusty iPhone and Tarn pulled out her Italian phrasebook and we texted to the mobile on the door in our best Italian if there was a room for the night. Immediate response and here we are in a beautiful apartment with a terrace upstairs which overlooks the sea and the old town.

Back to Italy

It was -13 degrees when we left Riga and +14 degrees when we flew into Rome again today. Writing this at one of the airport kiosks while waiting to fly on to Reggio di Calabria. I am certainly proud to be Latvian and proud to be Australian - we live in a wonderful country people and don't forget it!
Got frisked at the airport because i set the scanner thing off in security - there was a lovely looking Italian lady and a big hulky fat Italian man doing the frisking - guess who I got?!?!?

Latvia

Well the place has changed a lot over the past 9 years since we were here in 2001. The EU funding has been put to good use restoring the beautiful Paris-style 6 storey buildings which seen no maintenance under the Soviet occupation. There is quite a bit of foreign investment especially from the Swedes & the Finns. The people still have 30% poverty in the Latgale {in the east} and further austerity measures are about to bite with an increased 23% VAT rate and reduced ability to apply for social assistance even though wage earners pay 30% social contribution insurance on top of flat 25% income tax. Unemployment is about 14% with average monthly wage of about LVL500 or about AUD$1000. I think though that they are better off than Portugal at the moment with 5% of the population living on food handouts. Very cold and snowy today and -12.

Minus 15 degrees does this...

How about some Gluhweine mixed with Riga Black Balzam? Not great really!

a Riga and surrounds

Flight to Riga was fine and taxied to Hotel Valdemars, where we stayed 9 years ago but it has been refurbished and is very nice.
Texted back and forth with Tante Solveiga who thankfully marshalled the interpreting and transport troops to meet us in Dobele today. Alfred, Vija, Ruta and Elza were wonderful and took us out to to mums house off Uzvares iela about 10km or so out of Dobele. So cold - minus 5 degrees and lots of snow but sunshine today and the house was showing its best face. The roof is ok and so are the walls. Just no doors on the two doorways and a pile of rubbish inside.

Mumäs place from 62 years ago...
Keyboard is all in Latvian and a little hard to type with so I'll leave it at that for the moment!

The whole house and nothing but the house...

Inside Dobele Castle

a Rome

Rome is so full of history that it is easy to be overwhelmed - imagine doing some gardening and finding a centurions helmet in your veggie patch! But we have taken it a bit easy and just wandered around the old Cite and dodged the crowds (even in November the place is packed!), the beggars, the touts, the scam artists. Food and drink and the way in which Italians do food and drink is exceptionally stylish. Sit down at a bar for a foot resting and a drink and get presented with drink and snack and watch the world go by.
Italian is vaguely improving though it is good that not many shopkeepers choose to speak much English as it forces you to dig deep.

Posting a letter here is a fraught with time danger as at home - wait forever in line to buy a stamp!
Footsore and well satisfied we move onto  Riga today and a bit colder Im guessing. Its been up to about 17 degrees and sunny mostly here in Rome.

Here we go

Well - here we are at the night before the day we go. Taking only 1x30 litre rucksack ( a waterproof BMW motorcycle one) with two trousers, a few icebreaker shirts and a spare pair of shoes. Got the paperwork elsewhere in my shoulder bag. Wearing streeeeetch trousers and a short sleeved icebreaker on the plane. Checked in online today (only allowed up to 24 hours before) for a pair of seats on a window side so only have to climb over each other to get to loo and walk around. Qantas want $80 per seat to book an exit-row seat - we gracefully declined. On the 0651 out of Springwood tomorrow - see I'm already getting used to the European 24 hour time - and have breakfast at the airport.
9 hours to Honkers and then 14 hours to Rome after a few hours break - always supposing that the Qantas planes and passengers behave. I saw HP7 on Thursday night and so of course now have to read the book to compare movie and story - a big book to carry on the trip but it should keep me occupied.
Have also got an App for the iPhone which will have me speaking like an Italian native by Tuesday (apparently!) so I'll look into that as well on the plane.
Ciao

Measuring stuff

Tania and I get talking about all sorts of things as we wander off for coffee at our local (La Montagne at Winmalee shops) and this time the topic of "measuring" stuff came up especially in relation to the NSW Higher School Certificate (HSC) but it actually relates to lots of things.

I believe that as a society we seem to value content knowledge more than we value understanding for application ie. we value 'knowing about' rather than 'understanding what and how'. I don’t think we are curious enough about things and this is possibly because there is so much choice about everything. It is beyond us to understand everything so we choose not to. But is this the reason HSC exams only test content knowledge? I don’t think so – I believe we sacrifice the gifts of significance, relevance and complexity to the gods of the easily measured.

What are the consequences of only knowing and never really understanding? What about:

·         Computers - we know about using them for some things but because we don't really understand them, we only use a fraction of their capacity or potential. When they don’t function as we expect them to, we don’t know why and most often resort to turning them off and hoping they work when we turn them on again. The IT Crowd on the ABC have got that right!

·         Phones - we use a phone and just want it to work and often don’t understand all of the choices and fine print in the plans which gouge us for more money than we really need to pay eg. when our mobile roams onto the tower of another company we are charged more for data downloads.

·         Cars – I am continually struck by the number of new cars I see broken down by the side of the road – we just want to drive them but don’t understand that we still need to check basics (tyre pressure, service intervals, water and oil levels etc) to make them continue to function

·         Testing – we set exams about content knowledge because it is easier to mark validly and reliably ie. students either know it or they don’t according to the marking criteria. But what is the purpose of the test - to gain an understanding of what the student has learnt over the duration of a course or to ask them things that can be marked in a valid and reliable fashion?

All testing is exactly the same – the test writer asks questions and expects certain answers and these answers are articulated in the ‘marking criteria’. The most valid way to do this is to ask questions that have only 1 answer – this makes it easy to give a mark out of a100 for example. That’s fine if the purpose is find out how much someone knows about something eg.

1.      2 + 2 = 4

2.      Apply Bernouilli’s formula to this situation…

3.      Write a creative essay about the setting of Hamlet…

The type of questions that lend themselves to being ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ are not really questioning for understanding and application but only really testing for pre-authorised and accepted knowledge. Even the ones that seem to be asking for a bit more than content regurgitation (question 3 above), aren’t really because they still marked by criteria which outline the content of an expected answer – hence what is right and what is wrong. What about the unexpected? Is it wrong?

Rachel Ward said once that she didn’t consider herself dumb at school (though she did poorly apparently) – its just that no one ever asked her about what she was good at. And I might add, certainly didn’t value it even had she been asked.

We hear in the media that curiosity, creativity, imagination and innovation are aspects most highly prized by business in the 21^st century. It seems to me that those aspects of a person have always been highly prized – some of the most interesting people you can talk to tend to be those that see ‘B’ while everyone else is seeing ‘A’.

I can’t see how the HSC (or NAPLAN or any other school testing exercise) helps measure curiosity, creativity, imagination or innovation. These are seemingly too hard to measure so we sacrifice them to the god of validity and the more easily measured – a test which is handwritten, paper-based, completed alone, takes 3 hours, with no feedback supplied except a moderated total  score sent in the mail some weeks later. Does this make a student more curious or creative?