I finished my work early
today so I decided it would be a smart thing to try to catch the bus right
before the one I usually take. I wasn’t really sure what time it came, but I
was leaving an hour before the time my normal bus comes so I thought it would
be fine. While I was walking I saw a bus up a way drive up to my stop. It
stayed there for about a minute and I knew it was the bus I wanted to be on,
but I just didn’t have the energy or humility to sprint after it yelling and
waving my arms like an idiot. So I let it drive on as I casually meandered down
the road like there was no problem. I checked the bus schedule and sure enough,
the next bus wouldn’t come for an hour.
“No worries,” I thought.
“I’m okay with reading my book at that park.” There’s a park I’ve seen in
Badesse and I’ve thought before that it might be nice to read there sometime.
So I walked over. It’s a nice little park. After living in Provo where there’s
an abundance of parks, Italy seemed to be seriously lacking. I’ve found a
couple spots that have been nice, but nothing with much grass which is kind of
a bummer.
This park does have grass
though. Well, sort of. It’s mostly a collection of some type of leafy weed and
clovers. The weeds are tall and lush so the ground looks really soft and
welcoming. There are also about 5 different types of trees: evergreen, olive,
cypress and a couple generic looking trees I can’t identify. I love cypresses
and olive trees. Cypresses remind me of Van Gogh and olive trees remind me of
home, two things I love. And of course the park has some old-ish looking slides
and swing-sets on which I’ve never seen any children play. I’ve really only
seen older people sitting here on the benches talking. And now there’s me, off on
the most distant bench whittling away my spare hour while I wait for the bus.
Like I
said, I wanted to spend my time reading, but a quick look in my bag revealed I
left my book at home. Bummer, I was just starting to get into it. But that’s
okay because I’ve been wanting to write about Badesse and it seems appropriate
to do it while I’m here.
Badesse
is about a 20 minute bus ride from Siena. I don’t know how many
miles/kilometers it is and I would look it up, but I don’t have internet. (I looked it up just now in my hotel: 9 miles. It's only 9 miles away... It seems so much further.) It
seems pretty small; I think there are maybe two bus stops. When I told my host
family I work in Badesse they laughed and said there’s nothing out there except one restaurant/café. It’s true. I’ve been there. One time it was dead and
empty, the other it was a bustling social gathering.
Like my
host family said, there’s not a whole lot out here: some newer looking condos
and government looking buildings. Then there are a couple businesses. Most are
large industrial looking places, but then there are small offices like where I
work. It’s nice and centralized from what I can tell. Badesse is very green compared
to Siena. It’s in the middle of the Chianti vineyards and sloping hills. You
can see some of them around the main hub of the town and now, in the fall, they
are a deep green and burnt orange color.
There’s
a tiny garden by the bus stop where an old man rides up on his bicycle, puts on
rubber boots and prunes and waters his plants. I try not to lean on his wire fence which acts as a barrier between his
land and the communal street while I sit on a waist-high wall and wait for the
bus. There are also lizards, lots of them. They skitter around when I walk to
the bus stop and sometimes stare at me while I sit there. They scare me a
little and I’m always afraid one will crawl into my backpack and make it his
home.
Badesse
is so much quieter than Siena. You can hear birds chirping and people chatting.
The only background noise consists of cars going by or maybe someone doing yard
work. And earlier I would
see cyclists riding through the roads of the Tuscan vineyards, but I don’t see
them now that winter is coming.
I like
Badesse because it's quiet and simple and smells not like smoke. I like Siena too
and big places like Rome and Florence, but it is nice to have both worlds to
experience while I live here.