OK this is going to be a short one, because it’s midterms (yay!) and I have to be writing a half dozen different papers and stronzo right now. Anyways, I was reflecting on dinner tonight and thought I’d share this.
First of all, tonight at dinner we actually had a pretty significant discussion, apart from the usual dinner table talk about things I’ve done in Italy, and things I want to do, and things Anna and Claudio have done, and all of our life stories… Of course, it started that way… Anna asked what we had done in school today, which included a 2-hour lecture covering all of Italian history from 1944 to today. For those of you who have not attempted such a summary of 60 years in two hours, it’s not really possible. Anyways, I included my editorial comment that I found it all very interesting because it was so different from American history of the same time period. Claudio asked why it was different, and we ended up discussing two of (what seem to me to be) the three most important reasons: communism, Catholicism, and combat…ism. In a nutshell, Italy had the proportionally largest communist party in Europe, and in the US “communism” was practically a swear. Combat, because world war two took place IN Italy, while (for the most part) American territory was left alone.
What we spent the most time on, however, was the influence of the church. Obviously, the catholic church has a huge influence in Rome, and in all of Italy. Much moreso than in the US. Until 1870, all of Rome (and really, a much larger region around it) was actually the Papal state. Imagine a hulked-out version of the Vatican. In 1870, when Italy was united, the pope locked himself up in St. Peter’s and didn’t come out for 50 years (obviously there were a few pope changes during that time), and didn’t emerge from the Vatican until 1920-something to sign a pact with Mussolini.
Obviously this really does interest me because I keep digressing. The point of this was that Anna said that she was a “believer, but not a practicer”. Claudio immediately jumped in, saying that such a thing was not possible. There followed a 10 minute discussion (that I’m not going to try to transcribe here) of what exactly it means to be a “believer”, and whether it’s possible to be religious without following what the church says. Italians have a habit of making it very hard to get a word in edgewise when they get fired up, so I ended up just listening for a while, before mentioning that in the Protestant tradition (at least, as far as I’ve been exposed) it is much more acceptable to be a believer without doing everything the church says. Rather, I have always appreciated leaving church without feeling like I have to “do this or go to hell”. Italy, however, is catholic by culture, and as Claudio so succinctly put it, “If the church tells you to walk left, you walk left!”. There is no difference between “believers” and practicing Catholics – if you are a “believer”, than you will do exactly what the church says. (Sorry for my repetition of “believer”… the Italian word is “credente”, which literally translates as such, and my English is too rusty to think of any synonyms right now.) For me, it was another illuminating cultural difference, and it made me even gladder to not be catholic.
Anticlimactic ending: the title of this post comes from the fact that this discussion took place at the end of dinner, so we were eating fruit. It was another thing I wanted to note. Every significant meal (weekend lunches at home, usually of 4 courses, and dinners) ends with fruit. If we have something sweet (sweet apple bread last week…) it comes before the fruit. Italians, however, never eat apples the way we usually do in the states: rather, they’re always cut and peeled. Usually when we’re done with dinner, the three of us sit at the table cutting apples and peeling clementines and passing around the pieces. These are the little things that I’m going to miss when I come back home… I feel like cutting up fruit by myself won’t quite be the same. Maybe I’ll try to spread the tradition a bit…
Back to my important writing. This didn’t end up being that short. Oh well.
Here’s to midterms!
Baci,
B
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
Monday, October 19, 2009
Scambi culturali
I could have chosen a lot of titles for this one, but I thought this was the most important. Ecco un racconto of our weekend in Umbria… (It’s a long one)
We left Thursday morning, and for the first time since being in Rome, I grabbed a jacket because it was chilly. I won’t go as far as “cold”, but there was definitely a nip in the air. A welcome change from So-Hot-I’m-Always-Sweaty, and about time, given that Thursday was the 15th of October! Thursday, we went to Orvieto before our final destination at an agriturismo (bed-and-breakfast, Italian style) in the Umbrian countryside. It was a gorgeous day to be in a small medieval town, and we did a couple typical touristy things before just walking around the town, with no idea where we were or where we were going. First stop was the duomo: the most important church in the town. Then we went to a museum of art from Orvieto and the surrounding towns, some of which had been rescued from a nearby necropolis, some of which used to be in the duomo… etc. Across the street was an archaeological museum… we still haven’t decided why some of the artifacts ended up in this museum: there were pots that definitely looked Greek, but were in this Italian museum. Boh. After lunch, we just walked around the town. The views were gorgeous; Orvieto, like any medieval town, was built on a mountain, so you can see the countryside for miles around.
The agriturismo: we got there, it was pretty cold out, everyone had to pee, and we had to wait a while to actually get inside where it was warm and go to our rooms. When we finally got in, however, it was warm, cozy, and very rural-Italy feeling. Go figure. We went downstairs for dinner very shortly after arriving, got a brief speech from our host about the history of the area and why there was such an emphasis on certain grains and legumes, and then we ate. And ate. And ate and ate and ate. And drank wine. And ate some more, and then drank coffee. Everyone went to bed with a food baby; some people with food twins.
Turns out our host at the agriturismo was the same “Professore Franco” who was showing us around the area on Friday. I’m going to stop talking about how beautiful the views of the countryside were; it’s safe to assume that I could throw that in at any given point in the rest of this post. Our first stop was at a cheese factory, where we had no connections and no appointment. We just kind of walked in and talked our way into a tour, explanation of the cheesemaking process, and then a tasting of “mixed pecorino”, pecorino with pepperoncini (pepperoncini, here, are more like hot red chili peppers than the vinegary green peppers you get in a salad at the olive garden), and also pecorino with tartufi (truffles- that was my second choice for a title for this post). From there, we went to the town of Cessi, where we walked around a farm, got to hold twin lambs that were about 3 hours old (see also: pictures soon to be on facebook, I’m sure), saw a lamb that was about 2 minutes old find its feet and start walking around, find it’s mother and get licked clean, and met a giant teddy bear of a dog named Brian. We then got shown to the church in Cessi by am 82 year old priest, who explained all the frescoes in the church and played an organ from 1650 which was specially designed for processionals: it’s one of three remaining in the world. I have a video which is going up on youtube probably right after I post this. After lunch, we returned to the farm for lunch (apparently the woman who showed us around the farm was also feeding us) and ate wayyy too much food. Think, Italian-caliber dinner (twice the food of an American dinner), for lunch. 
As we were trying to leave, Pina (the woman who cooked and showed us around) grabbed Chrissy, Alix, and me (and maybe Bri? I don’t remember.) and instead of letting us return to the bus, took us to the henhouse and insisted on taking pictures of us holding a chicken and a TINY black lab puppy at the same time. I realized that I’m pretty used to holding chickens thanks to growing up around them at Non and Pop’s, but for most people, holding a chicken is a weird experience. Finally, we went to the small medieval mountain town of Visso, which was many people’s (myself included) favorite place we visited this weekend, for no concrete reason in particular other than the atmosphere. My opinion may have been slightly influenced by the hot chocolate I had after roaming the city for a little while (think brownie batter consistency, dark chocolate instead of milk chocolate, and hot).
Saturday, we went to Gubbio, and it was raining, and we walked through where they were filming a movie and it started snowing. Turns out that was fake snow that some guy was standing in a corner blowing over the piazza for the film, but it gives you an idea of the weather. Most of the time we were there was spent inside, either checking out the little shops or sitting in a bar drinking coffee and eating pastries. Not a day to be outside. It was definitely a cute little town, but not the best time to visit. (also, we were there during the siesta when most shops are closed, so we didn’t get to go in a lot of places.) When we returned, we stayed inside for long enough to warm up, then went out with another old Italian man, this time with two dogs, and looked for truffles. The dogs found about 8 truffles, which we promptly took from them in exchange for doggy treats. Seems like a good deal to me. We brought them back and gave them to the woman who was cooking dinner at the agriturismo, and so as part of dinner, we had a polenta with fresh truffles. Probably the best thing I ate while we were there.
Saturday night- the story for which this entry is named. After dinner, Bri, Julia, and I were sitting at the table, with an almost-full bottle of wine in front of us. None of us really wanted more wine, but we felt like it was a waste to just leave it, so we turned to the table next to us (actually three tables pushed together, with about 20 Italians seated around them) and offered them the wine. Their response was to ask where we were from and then insist that we push our table over to theirs and sit and drink and chat with them. Sooooo we kinda sorta gave into the peer pressure, and made friends with the Italians. Everyone was from within 20km, and they had come just for dinner, and it was basically just a group of friends, and friends of friends, and friends of friends of friends. Easily some of the friendliest people I have encountered here in Italy. They thought it would be fun to teach us an Italian drinking game, except they left out the part about the drinking, saying that we played with bicchieri vuoti (empty glasses), which was technically true. It was kind of like a game we used to play in middle school music class, passing cups around a circle to a song and a clapping rhythm. The difference was that here when you mess up, they pour wine into your glass and make you drink. (oh by the way, most of these people we were socializing with were married or engaged, and in their 30s. There were also small kids running around). That was the kind of real interaction I had been hoping for since coming here, although it definitely involved more wine than I imagined. They certainly seemed to be enjoying it, and were full of questions about life in the states, and what we thought of Italy, and what we had done here so far. It was a great way to practice the language, since the accent was a little different from the Roman accent, which forced me to really pay attention to what they were saying to understand it all. Most importantly though, it was just a lot of fun to meet a group of super friendly Italians who wanted nothing more than for us to join them at dinner and drink wine. That’s something you’ll never get by just studying a language in school.
OK congratulations for making it this far. I’d write about Sunday as well, but there’s not a WHOLE lot to say- we stopped in Assisi on our way home, which was another gorgeous little mountain town, but a bit overrun with tourists, and therefore not quite as endearing as I found Visso and Gubbio. As much as I love being in Rome, it was definitely a bit of a rude shock to return to the noise and the crowds and the traffic, after such a relaxing weekend in a beautiful setting. It was a taste of a very different part of Italia, and makes me very curious for what I’ll get on our weeklong vacation when we travel around northern Italy….
Baci!
-Brian
Friday, October 9, 2009
Culture
A quick recount of culture differences (or lack thereof) between Italy and the States:
* When we arrived, our first day of class, there were posters all over the classroom about living in a city, using public transport, how to see all of Italy, and "Living with Italians". Things I remember about it that have struck me:
-"Always keep two hands above the table." Apparently putting your hands in your lap looks like you're hiding something. Apparently both my Italian 'parents' are hiding a lot, because they always eat with their hands in their laps.
-"Keep your elbows off the table, same as you would at home". Apparently things really are more laid back here, because again, this is pretty commonplace.
-"Limit yourself to one shower a day". This one's actually true. Electricity here is super expensive, so hot water for showers adds up. As do leaving on ANY lights. at any given time, there is as little light in the house as possible, while still keeping us from walking into things.
Other things I was told, more or less from the posters:
*Italian time: people here are, in fact, very relaxed. No one is ever in a hurry for anything. Supposedly, being 5 minutes late is very commonplace because of this. However, classes here never start more than 10 seconds late, and usually a minute or two early. no fair.
*Personal Bubble: Yes, it's smaller here. Yes, it's a little off-putting at times. When it's 80 degrees out (yes, it's that hot right now) people sweat. And when someone is sweating at 4:00 in the afternoon and close talking, you KNOW that they're sweating. I'm slowly getting used to it though....
That's about all I remember for now. But, one more fun story: Yesterday, as I was going to get on the tram I take home from school, I saw two *Italians* pushing the "doors open" buttons and looking totally perplexed as to why the doors wouldn't open. And then the train pulled away from where it had been sitting. I was able to inform them that the stop was actually 100 meters ahead, and that this particular train had been turning around. Made me feel like I actually knew the city a bit... I was pretty pumped.
Off to get lunch, and then buy soccer tickets, and then run, and then head over to Via del Corso-ish...
ciao for now!
-Brian
* When we arrived, our first day of class, there were posters all over the classroom about living in a city, using public transport, how to see all of Italy, and "Living with Italians". Things I remember about it that have struck me:
-"Always keep two hands above the table." Apparently putting your hands in your lap looks like you're hiding something. Apparently both my Italian 'parents' are hiding a lot, because they always eat with their hands in their laps.
-"Keep your elbows off the table, same as you would at home". Apparently things really are more laid back here, because again, this is pretty commonplace.
-"Limit yourself to one shower a day". This one's actually true. Electricity here is super expensive, so hot water for showers adds up. As do leaving on ANY lights. at any given time, there is as little light in the house as possible, while still keeping us from walking into things.
Other things I was told, more or less from the posters:
*Italian time: people here are, in fact, very relaxed. No one is ever in a hurry for anything. Supposedly, being 5 minutes late is very commonplace because of this. However, classes here never start more than 10 seconds late, and usually a minute or two early. no fair.
*Personal Bubble: Yes, it's smaller here. Yes, it's a little off-putting at times. When it's 80 degrees out (yes, it's that hot right now) people sweat. And when someone is sweating at 4:00 in the afternoon and close talking, you KNOW that they're sweating. I'm slowly getting used to it though....
That's about all I remember for now. But, one more fun story: Yesterday, as I was going to get on the tram I take home from school, I saw two *Italians* pushing the "doors open" buttons and looking totally perplexed as to why the doors wouldn't open. And then the train pulled away from where it had been sitting. I was able to inform them that the stop was actually 100 meters ahead, and that this particular train had been turning around. Made me feel like I actually knew the city a bit... I was pretty pumped.
Off to get lunch, and then buy soccer tickets, and then run, and then head over to Via del Corso-ish...
ciao for now!
-Brian
Monday, October 5, 2009
chiese
(note: I wrote this on Saturday.)
I think that has been the theme of day. Churches. But first, yesterday:
School yesterday was nothing exciting… lunch was fantastic. We have figured out that the salumeria in Campo will make sandwiches. They don’t have much in the way of veggies and such, but the meats and cheeses totally make up for that. Besides, who doesn’t like pomodorri secchi (sun-dried tomatoes) and pesto? Apparently they also have melanzane (eggplant) and arugola, which I have not yet taken advantage of. Maybe Monday. =)
After school, returned home… and actually found Villa Pamphili, which is the huge park right near my house that I failed at finding a few days ago. It’s gorgeous. There’s not a track, but I can do intervals on a relatively unused path, and just approximate the distance… there are hills for hill workouts… there are people playing soccer, and gazillions of dogs, and it’s all right in the center of Rome. Fantastic. Then, because we didn’t have class today (Friday), we all met up after dinner (at 10:00 pm… and that was pretty much as soon as everyone could get to Campo after dinner) for a nighttime giro della città . We went by the Pantheon, which is REALLY cool at night… of course, I didn’t have my camera, but there may be pictures on facebook sometime. From there, a few blocks north, and one west… (I’m wondering if Mom will know where I’m going before I get there) and we went to Giolitti. Dana is convinced that Monti is better gelato, but I’m going to have to do a taste test before I believe it. That’s going to be hard to beat. AND, it’s comparatively cheap. We’ve made a pact to try every flavor before leaving Rome.
OK. Anyways. On to today and all the churches. I think I’ve mentioned in previous posts that we did a tour of the piazze of Rome as part of school, but we had only 3 hours to cover a lot of ground, and waiting for that number of buses and metros and all that walking kind of added up, and we ended up without really having time to stop and see anything. Today, Juan and I met up at Campo at 10, and took 5ish hours to do a similar tour. I went into it with no plans, and he only had two places he wanted to see, so we kind of made it up as we went along. This included walking by several different churches that neither of us had ever heard of, and with a “Boh. Andiamo” going in, seeing some amazing artwork, taking pictures, taking the time to actually see things, and moving on. We saw the Pantheon (in daylight), Castel St. Angelo, the Ara Pacis, San Pietro, had lunch at a little pizzeria complete with the house wine, and then headed over to Via del Corso to meet le ragazze, who were shopping. What else is new. By that point, we were all exhausted, so headed home, and I, for one, did a bit of reading and passed out for an hour before dinner, did a bit more reading (10 lines) and i miei genitori italiani started a movie. So I’m writing this while watching Quando Tutto Cambia, which is an American movie, (When Everything Changes? Is that a movie?) dubbed into Italian. Maybe I’ll read later tonight…. But I also have most of the day tomorrow.
Ciao for now!
Baci,
Brian
Thursday, October 1, 2009
Avventure
Several fun adventures to report on:
1) running. My first run was just around where I'm living, in the Monteverde neighborhood. I've heard from a couple other students who have run near their houses that they got a lot of funny looks... felt really awkward... etc. Kind of what I expected, since so many people have told me that no one runs here. Well, on my 6km run, I passed at least 3 other guys out running. Either Americans have taken over Monteverde and are starting a running movement, or Romans do run. I'm leaning towards the second since one of them was wearing a Roma jersey (as in, the soccer team). Boh.
Second running adventure was a bit more exciting. Chrissy and I went to do our 10x200 workout, which semi-requires a track. Chrissy thought she saw one in Villa Borghese, so we went there. Piazza di Siena was gorgeous... but the "track" was roughly cherry-sized gravel. Not even an old school cinder track. This was straight out of Giulio Cesare's day. So we tried to do the workout... cornering on that surface is anything but easy, but we got a workout. And then got a little lost on the bus trying to return al centro to take buses home.
2) Giro della citta'
Yesterday, we had one class (our lit class) and then a tour of the piazzas of Rome. Alix (our TA) broke us into groups of 3 or 4, and gave us a sheet with a list of places we were supposed to go, with everyone finishing at Piazza Cavour for gelato and then a merenda at our prof's house. Most of it went really well- I took 80 pictures, we saw a lot of the city, became a bit more familiar with the metro and bus system... and then tried to get from the bocca della verita' to Piazza Cavour. When I recounted this story to my Italian host mom, she laughed at that point. Apparently that would have been difficult even for her. It's like being back in Maine- ya can't get theyah from heyah. So... we took a bus to the Largo di Chigi, and then tried to walk to Prf.ssa Courtney's house... got a little bit lost, saw a lot of tiny streets, real genuine non-touristy Italian restaurants, and generally kept moving in the right direction thanks to Bri (oh yeah, whose idea was it to put Bri and Brian in the same group? Talk about name confusion) having two maps. We did finally find it... exhausted, having talked to a dozen different Italians to ask directions, and generally ready to sit and eat.
3) Culinary adventures
Yesterday, my Italian host dad had a work function, so he didn't eat dinner with us, and Flavio (Anna's grandson of 14 months, have I mentioned him?) was already in bed, so Anna and I had a quiet little dinner ourselves. But she doesn't eat much. So it was basically me eating, and her explaining to me what I was eating. Pasta with tongue and zucchini to start. Woah. It wasn't BAD, per se, but probably not something I'll order in a restaurant any time soon... but, it was the first time I'd eaten tongue, so I had to take my sushi mindset: don't think about what I'm actually eating, just think about flavors and texture... which unfortunately, didn't do much to save the grace of tongue.
Class is starting, so I gotta go... last day of class for the week!
Also, we're working on places to visit and things to see, so if anyone reading this has any suggestions of where I should go, please please leave a comment with your ideas!
Baci,
Brian
1) running. My first run was just around where I'm living, in the Monteverde neighborhood. I've heard from a couple other students who have run near their houses that they got a lot of funny looks... felt really awkward... etc. Kind of what I expected, since so many people have told me that no one runs here. Well, on my 6km run, I passed at least 3 other guys out running. Either Americans have taken over Monteverde and are starting a running movement, or Romans do run. I'm leaning towards the second since one of them was wearing a Roma jersey (as in, the soccer team). Boh.
Second running adventure was a bit more exciting. Chrissy and I went to do our 10x200 workout, which semi-requires a track. Chrissy thought she saw one in Villa Borghese, so we went there. Piazza di Siena was gorgeous... but the "track" was roughly cherry-sized gravel. Not even an old school cinder track. This was straight out of Giulio Cesare's day. So we tried to do the workout... cornering on that surface is anything but easy, but we got a workout. And then got a little lost on the bus trying to return al centro to take buses home.
2) Giro della citta'
Yesterday, we had one class (our lit class) and then a tour of the piazzas of Rome. Alix (our TA) broke us into groups of 3 or 4, and gave us a sheet with a list of places we were supposed to go, with everyone finishing at Piazza Cavour for gelato and then a merenda at our prof's house. Most of it went really well- I took 80 pictures, we saw a lot of the city, became a bit more familiar with the metro and bus system... and then tried to get from the bocca della verita' to Piazza Cavour. When I recounted this story to my Italian host mom, she laughed at that point. Apparently that would have been difficult even for her. It's like being back in Maine- ya can't get theyah from heyah. So... we took a bus to the Largo di Chigi, and then tried to walk to Prf.ssa Courtney's house... got a little bit lost, saw a lot of tiny streets, real genuine non-touristy Italian restaurants, and generally kept moving in the right direction thanks to Bri (oh yeah, whose idea was it to put Bri and Brian in the same group? Talk about name confusion) having two maps. We did finally find it... exhausted, having talked to a dozen different Italians to ask directions, and generally ready to sit and eat.
3) Culinary adventures
Yesterday, my Italian host dad had a work function, so he didn't eat dinner with us, and Flavio (Anna's grandson of 14 months, have I mentioned him?) was already in bed, so Anna and I had a quiet little dinner ourselves. But she doesn't eat much. So it was basically me eating, and her explaining to me what I was eating. Pasta with tongue and zucchini to start. Woah. It wasn't BAD, per se, but probably not something I'll order in a restaurant any time soon... but, it was the first time I'd eaten tongue, so I had to take my sushi mindset: don't think about what I'm actually eating, just think about flavors and texture... which unfortunately, didn't do much to save the grace of tongue.
Class is starting, so I gotta go... last day of class for the week!
Also, we're working on places to visit and things to see, so if anyone reading this has any suggestions of where I should go, please please leave a comment with your ideas!
Baci,
Brian
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