Sean in Bozen
30 July 2006

There were three of us birthday boys. Paolo's birthday is on the 25th, mine is on the 26th, and Ivan's is on the 31st (Ivan is a friend of Stefan and Paolo's who I recently met). Stefan threw a party for all three of us yesterday (Saturday). It was a surprise for Paolo, but there was no way to make it a surprise from Ivan and me.

Stefan and Paolo live in Meran, which is 30-45 minutes to the northwest of Bozen. I got a ride with Ivan, and we had a nice chat as we zipped along the Autostrada. There were eight of us at the party: Paolo, Stefan, me, Ivan, a local Italian couple, and a couple visiting from Dresden (in the former East Germany) who are also friends of Paolo and Stefan's. We had a good dinner and drink, and talked and laughed a lot, as eight gay men will do when they are joking and clowning around. I sometimes had a little trouble following the conversation, but I had fun.

Paolo invited me to go on a mountain hike with all of them today (Sunday). I was so tired by late Saturday night that it didn't sound like fun at the time, but Sunday morning I was ready to go.

I'd guess we hiked from about 11:00 until about 5:30. Much of it was more like going up an irregular staircase formed by tree roots; much of the climb was very steep. We started at around 1500m and climbed up to around 2500m. The first part was thru pine forest, but then we got above the timberline. There were sheep on the high rocky grassland whose bells made a chorus of clunky sounds.

All eight of us worked up a sweat. I did OK, up until the last little bit when we got to the peak. Then I was really getting tired and hungry, and had to make an effort to keep lifting my feet again. I had been a little worried that the thin air might be a problem, but I didn't notice the thin air until the last little bit.

It was completely worth the effort. The view from the peak was one of those things you can't describe properly. It was the sort of view you get when you're flying above the Rockies in an airplane. We could see both Bozen and Meran, and other valleys. Stefan pointed out some peaks and said they were 100 km away or more; some were up in Austria. He pointed out the peak where Ötzi (the famous bronze age ice man) was found, and a snow-covered peak which is the highest in South Tyrol.

We had a picnic up on the peak. There were lots of other climbers up there as well. I was wearing a t-shirt and cutoffs, and I got a little cool, but not really uncomfortable.

Then it was a long walk down. We went another way which wasn't as steep. When we were most of the way down, we stopped at an Alm (a little mountain guest house), and most of us had a Radler, which is lemonade mixed with beer. We walked the rest of the way down, talked some more, then split up into two cars and went home. There were four of us going back to Bozen, and then we went to where Ivan was parked, and he drove me home and dropped me off.

Ivan is a pharmacist. Growing up, he spoke German with his mother and Italian with his father. His mother and father spoke Italian to each other. There are German-language public schools and Italian-language public schools, and Ivan went to a German one. He is a native bilingual. I think his family story is not an unusual one in South Tyrol.