Charlie and I arrived in Potenza a week ago and are happily settled into our new home. We really like living in the center of the historic old city, or “Centro Storico”. It is full of narrow winding cobble-stone paved streets with lots of small cafes and restaurants which we are still discovering. The breakfast pastries are delicious, and they make the best cappuccinos. At night people arrive from the surrounding areas to walk the streets and it gets quite active, especially on weekends. The Italian people are full of life and energy! They walk in pairs and small groups with a good deal of banter, laughter, and rapid fire conversation that we don’t understand.
On week days I walk down the hill to the University where I typically get lunch with Sergio. Today we discussed active faults, marine currents, and sedimentation in and around the Messina Strait. I asked Sergio to tell me about tidal processes in the area (one of his areas of expertise), and he created a classic geologist’s “sketch on a napkin” (on a paper placemat). Messina Strait is the famous location where Homer’s Odysseus narrowly escapes the mythical monsters Scylla and Charybdis. These multi-headed man-eating creatures are believed to be depictions of whirlpools, reefs, and other hazards associated with exceptionally strong and unpredictable tidal currents in the fault-bounded narrow marine passage between the Ionian and Tyrrhenian seas.