Buffalo Summer

Reindeer and Doggie-Woggies

2010-09-24T11:57:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I saw French couple walking their dogs. Actually, I heard them before I saw them. Little Precious I and Little Precious II were pitter-pattering, at just about the pace of their self-absorbed owners, through my guided historical tour. Only I and II had little weiner-legs suspended from their bellies, and jinglebells from their necks. My tour group oohed and awed and said how cute, but I just thought to myself: what on earth is the purpose of those damn jinglebells? Are your puppies in danger of flying off into the polar wildnerness and getting confused with Santa's flying reindeer? Do they normally pasture in Alpine meadows alongside your elderly bergher-neighbor Hansel's fondue-yielding cows? And why, in God's good name, are the bells that big? Giving Precious I and Precious II bells of that size is something along the lines of suiting Rudolph up with the Liberty Bell.

And you're going to jingle them through my tour for twenty minutes?!

Come on, man.

Apology

2009-05-30T09:12:00.000-07:00

I wasn't very nice in my latest blog posts responding to Johnny Adamic's analyses of Italian and American eating habits. Big apologies to Johnny – who is continuing in his role as “The Food Scholar” in an awesome program in Food Culture at New York University.

I’m removing my last series of posts. If anyone is really curious about lesser-known facts relating to bread, meat, or fish (or Italian or American food consumption statistics), you can let me know and I’ll fill you up with data – without the invective.

Arrogance 3, Science 0

2009-05-05T01:55:00.001-07:00

Four twenty-one-year-old Italians at the table, a big salami on the chopping board, a bag of potato chips ripped open down the center (“can’t eat just one”), an empty bottle of orange-flavored soft drink, and a bunch of beers-in-progress: that’s what I found in the kitchen when I got home last night. When the Italians started reading the ingredient list on the bottle of orange “juice” they’d just finished – “Did you know there’s only 12% orange juice in this orange juice?” – they were authentically surprised, and I couldn’t let the opportunity pass with pushing for more. A field study, you might say.

What resulted was a telling confirmation not so much of any culturally specific eating habits but rather of the pronounced deficiency in nutritional awareness (in particular) and scientific thought (in general) that I’ve come to attribute to Italians. Constantly under gastronomic fire as the American-in-residence, I admit that such certifiable examples of arrogant ignorance by my Italian counterparts provide me a certain measure of amused, self-vindicating satisfaction; at the same time, though, I’ve continued to hope, for the general good of society, health, and science, that my rather offensive characterization of Italians has been much too broad, a stumble into the trap of generalizing from the particular and battling mindless offense with mindless offense. But the more Italians I meet and the more Italian media I read, the more I’m convinced that my analysis is dead-on.

I’ve mentioned before a few examples:

· My roommate, who sustains, “It’s just a Florentine steak with a little oil. Very light!” (Actual nutritional analysis: more than 1200 calories and 80 grams of fat)

· The Italian dietetic association, whose food pyramid suggests that cookies are a more highly recommendable foodstuff than lentils, and that lard is better for you than low-fat milk

· The Italian version of Wikipedia, which sustains that wheat bran is not fit for human consumption, and that whole-grain products should be limited to no more than one per day (otherwise threatening a whole host of menacing problems, including stunting the growth of children)

The Italians at my kitchen table, however, were all University students majoring in nothing less “scientific” than physics and should imaginably have been able to sustain a discussion and an analysis based in reason, deduction, logic, and research: the scientific method, if you please. But they weren’t.

As is usual, the Italians started their part of the conversation with an attack on the eating habits of Americans as compared with Italians (which, since we’re considering the Italian capacity for scientific thought, is an argument, among its many other deficiencies, entirely irrelevant to the question at hand). When I pointed out that, in fact, Italians eat more beef, pork, and animal fat than do Americans, they didn’t consider this incriminating, in fact sustaining that this is a-ok: while American meat products likely come from the supermarket or from McDonald’s, theirs generally come from “the butcher on the corner.” This may be true – or it may not be, as several of my data hunts have turned up surprising results – but even if it is, the sourcing of animal fat doesn’t change the way it attaches to the insides of human arteries, raises cholesterol, and promotes (if not “causes”) obesity, related diseases, and cancer. A salami bought at Giuseppe the Butcher’s and a salami bought at Wegmans Supermarkets stimulate those degenerative processes with equal effectiveness. Italian Arrogance 1, Science 0.

They sustained further that “animal fat isn’t bad for you; in fact, it’s necessary.” Otherwise, for example, it’s impossible – impossible! – to get adequate quantities of iron. While I’ve seen various reputable medical accounts sustaining diets with relatively high quantities of fats, all of these have required that the fats consumed be primarily vegetable- and fish-based (and principally omega-3) fats. Never have I seen any reputable study promote the consumption of animal fats. And further, does it make sense to construct a general societal eating program based on the nutritional needs of the relatively miniscule population of anemics? Would any of them similarly propose a new wheat-free national diet to guard against possible problems for those with celiac disease? Italian Arrogance 2, Science 0.

Next argument: “We have the Mediterranean diet” paired with “We don’t have the health problems you Americans have, so we must have a good diet”. In fact, the Meditteranean diet involves very, very little meat and certainly doesn’t comprehend trans-fat filled brioches at the bar: Italians absolutely do not practice the medically celebrated diet of 1960s Cretan men. And if they haven’t matched us in public health problems of epidemic proportions, the Italians are catching up fast. According the FAO statistics, Italian children are among the most obese in the 27 European Union States, and Type II diabetes is spreading at an exponential pace. Again, it’s entirely understandable to me (though clearly not commendable) that these phenomena are underway. What’s not at all understandable is to me is why no one seems to recognize this reality. Italian Arrogance 3, Science 0.

If these are the country’s up-and-coming physicists, I’m joining the protest against the development of nuclear power plants in Italy. (“But our electrons are better than French ones! Hmphf.”)

"The Youth Center"

2009-05-02T02:37:00.000-07:00

"The Youth Center" of Stroncone, Italy

Back on the Road ... Cammino di Francesco

2009-04-15T02:47:00.000-07:00

I'm back "on the road" ... walking a part of the Cammino di San Francesco and-or the Via Francigena (albeit in the "wrong" direction). Yesterday I stayed with the friars at the Sanctuary of Fonte Colombo, and tonight I'm headed to the Franciscan sanctuary at Greccio. The friars at Fonte Colombo gave me a warm bed, a hot meal, and a scorchin' hot shower ... it was a surprise welcome and a real blessing, and only something that could have happened in Italy: the only reason I ended up there was because, Italy being Italy, they had cancelled the normally scheduled trains to Rieti .... and failed to update the electronic ticket database or even inform the train station personnel, who couldn't figure out how the train on Platform 1 could be "in departure" (as indicated by the flashing lights and public announcements) without the actual presence of a train on Platform 1. This meant I got a late start ... which meant I couldn't quite arrive at my planned destination ... and hence the surprise welcome at Fonte Colombo. GOD BLESS THE FRANCISCANS!

I'm happy to be "sul cammino" ... it suits me well!

As the "brothers" say ... Pace e Bene ...

p.s. Today I saw a man taking his dog for a walk. Well, the dog was walking. The man, big and jolly, just barely fit into the seat behind the steering wheel of his rusty old car ... to which he had attached a rusty old chain ... to which was attached the dog, trotting along behind ... That was a new one for me!

"It’s not a (green) revolution until somebody gets hurt"

2009-04-10T07:21:00.000-07:00

It’s a good thing I run, and not only because I’m going to celebrate Easter in an Italian home: it’s podcast time, and, man, are there ever some top-quality podcasts out there. They don’t provoke quite the same endorphin kick as Donna Summers, but they do send the neurons spinning.

I just listened to Thomas Friedman’s presentation (“Hot, Flat, and Crowded,” the same title as his latest book) to the London School of Economics. This will surprise a lot of people, but: I like Thomas Friedman. I hesitate to define myself as a “capitalist”, but, in fine e in fondo, I do believe in capitalism. I think competition and incentivization work better than standardization and regulation (while I also believe that policy plays an important role in regulating competition that turns ugly). I’m certain I can’t summarize Friedman’s book in two lines (especially since I haven’t read it), but two phrases from his presentation deserve repeating:

- “It’s not a revolution until somebody gets hurt”. That is: forget all this nonsense about “101 easy ways to green the planet” … and actually implement policies that actually force innovation to actually green the planet.

- “Wouldn’t it be great if Barack Obama and his wife and their two girls got on their bicycles and biked to the White House? Now that would be leadership.” I agree. That’d be awesome.

I’d love it if some of you listened to the program and shared your thoughts.

More on Meat

2009-04-07T09:42:00.001-07:00

Let’s talk a little more about meat. And about another argument I’ve made (without ever getting anyone to agree with me): that Italians in general have a very low level of nutritional-dietetic awareness. (And that this explains why the levels of childhood obesity in Europe are among the highest in Europe, and why obesity-related diseases such as diabetes are growing rapidly in Italy.)

My roommate – who I really like – provides me with an endless source of material for reflection (and, sometimes, pique) . Yesterday, she suggested that I might like eating in the University dining hall. When I said I preferred to “pack a lunch” – a behavior almost unheard of among Italian students – she asked why, and I explained that the meals served in the cafeteria were much more expensive than anything I might prepare at home, and that I find the offerings to be generally “unhealthy”. She disagreed: “I really think you should go. You can find some really good, healthy options. For example, on Wednesdays … Bistecca alla Fiorentina. It’s just the steak and a little olive oil drizzled on top. That’s it! Very light.”

Well, that is it, and, actually, that’s the point. To make sure I hadn’t misunderstood anything, I took an “ask for clarification” moment and ascertained that, in fact, I had understood perfectly: we were talking about a broiled porterhouse steak about two inches thick and twelve inches long. A little math gave me the nutritional facts on my roommate’s “light, healthy” meal (or, really, that part of her meal). If I assume the smallest possible weight (let’s say 400 grams), the leanest cut (trimmed to 0” fat, select grade), and discount the added oil – not to mention the bread, dressed salad, and Coca-Cola that almost surely accompany the meat – we’re talking about a consumption of about 1200 calories, 85 grams of fat, 32 grams of saturated fat, and 260 mg of cholesterol. And, given what I’ve seen in Italy – enormous portions of meat and fattier rather than leaner cuts – we could be understating those figures by perhaps 30%. We’ve already exceeded daily recommended limits for fat and saturated fat, we’re not so far away from those for calories and cholesterol, and we’ve considered only the meat consumed during lunch.

If this were an isolated example, it would be … an isolated example. But I’ve met with lots of similarly absurd health-related claims. Among other foods that Italians have tried to convince me are healthy: kebab (fatty pork meat served with fatty sauce), Bolognese bread (super-refined white-flour bread flavored with pig fat), Milanese-style steak (fatty beef, breaded and fried), and deep-fried vegetables.

What’s most interesting to me isn’t that Italians eat this, ah, “stuff”. It’s that everyone – Italians, Americans, Martians, everyone – maintains that Italians have better food habits than “everyone else” and most especially than Americans. It’s certainly not true in many “particular” cases, and I’d argue that’s not true even on average.

Surprise.

Back to . . . Italy!

2008-08-17T15:01:00.000-07:00

O! O! The adventures I'm having! I've been seeking out the stranger quarters, as usual, by my extraordinary but still incomprehensible "gift". I'm not sure about the roots of my gift, but I've identified several possible sources of my unusual ability to find, in any collection of people, the crazies: subconcious intention, an internal wierdo magnet, or - aha! - magic. Regardless, I am, much like the sister in the awesome photo I copied today at the National Museum of the Mountain in Torino, having one heck of a time. Getting to know the Crazies is an involved undertaking, and my internet access, following suit with the rest of my life, is often more than a bit unpredictable. Hence: You'll have to grab me with a crampon - or, now that I think more about it, a glass of wine and a piece of dark chocolate would be much more effective tools - and I'll gladly story you up. I'll have more time to color in the shadows, that way, too. For now, a children's picture book about my last few weeks:

After the chateau in theLes Audes, France, I went to work on a git (a type of rural B&B) in the Alps, still in France, still part of WWOOF. They advertised for help in their organic garden, preparing organic meals for guests, and setting up a system of solar panel. After using my fantasy-to-reality translator, which only works on location, I discovered that a better translation of this would be: washing dishes. Essentially, I just washed dishes. Hours and hours and hours of dishes. Nothing against dishes, really: in fact, it's a chore I could even say I kind of like. But I already know how to wash dishes . . . it's the organic farming and the solar panels I was hoping to learn about. Here's my valley, near Briancon, France:

Anyway, I took advantage of the situation and hiked all around the area. It was beautiful!

I also did a lot of hiking because the family had three demon-children, and I did everything I could to avoid being in the crazy house. I think flowers and mountains and walking are much nicer than demon-children. And, adding to my obsession, I discovered that a branch of the Camino de Santiago passes right by the gite doorstep! So I had to follow it . . .

Also, I'd become obsessed with doing a Via Ferrata. They're kind of like JV rock climbs: they can be really challenging, but they don't have to be. There are iron spikes and handgrips already in the rocks, and the site rents you equipment, so you can basically just show-up-and-go . . . from there, you can make it as hard or easy as you like. (You know which way I chose.) This also turned into a crazy adventure: I was exactly halfway up a 500-foot sheer rock wall when the weather suddenly changed. A storm came, a storm with hurricane-force winds and pelting sideways monsoon-like rain. I had no choice but to go down . . . or up . . . so I went up . . . ! It felt like a real adventure, anyway. Also, I dig the helmet, and am thinking about replacing my bike helmet with a Via Ferrata model:

The Crazies started to make me a little too crazy, so I bailed out of France and into Italy. I made it to Turin, where I'm staying with Silvana, an amazing woman I linked up with through Hospitality Club. She's an incredible host and even took me to Eataly (also an extraordinary place, worth checking out the website) for a Welcome-Back-to-Italy pizza:

Choose-Your-Own-Adventure

2008-08-03T10:15:00.001-07:00

So: I’m WWOOFing in France. (It’s a long story, but the short of it is: I got fired from my sweet bike job. So I decided to turn it into a positive and learn French!) I’ve spent the last few weeks on a chateau / wine estate / garden / B&B / restaurant in Le Aude, a beautiful but atrociously hot, fly-ridden part of Southern France. It’s kind of near Barcelona, Spain – that’s probably the easiest way to describe it. My “estate”, La Sabine, makes reds, whites, and roses – I like the whites the best – and they host dinner-concerts on their patio every Thursday night. I’ve been disappointed in the experience in that I haven’t really learned what I hoped to learn – about wine, about organic agricultural production, about restaurants – but I have a learned a lot of other things - about business and entrepreneurship and toilets and psychiatriac problems -, progressed with French to the point where I think it’s now fair to say that I “speak some French”, and seen an area of France that seems a little off the foreigner-beaten track.

My favorite experience so far was my hitchhiking-trekking-and-camping adventure last weekend. This was an adventure of the choose-your-own variety with a turn-to-page-X option every five minutes. It took me 14 different pick-ups to get to the Peyrepetuse Castle and back, and along the way I met, amongst others, a dealer of “strange African paintings”, a Belgian cyclist, a Brasilian musician, a stoner-cum-boat-builder, a stoner-cum-raver, and a couple of stoner-cum-Rastafarians. My most interesting ride, however, came from an 82- (“and-a-half”) year old man from the area. I could understand this guy easier than lots of other people, believe it or not, because he spoke a local dialect that seemed closer to Spanish than to French. He went on and on and on about the oak trees. There are white oaks and green oaks. Green oaks and white oaks. Look! There are some there! And there! And there! (We were driving through a forest.) The man was obsessed with oak trees.

It turns out that the man was obsessed with oak trees because oak trees have acorns, and acorns are what the wild boars eat, and this man, at the age of 82 (and-a-half) continues to hunt wild boars. In fact, last year he caught a wild boar that was 130 kg – about 280 pounds, or three mes!

This is important because it helped me to “identify” some of the “night sounds” that graced my camping-in-the-wild experience that night. I have, admittedly, no training in identifying wild boars. But I am absolutely convinced that the snorting not at all so far from my tent was – yes – a wild boar (and probably one that weighed 130 kg, too). Though I’m not usually one given over to fear, I will admit that I was terrified for most of the night, motivated to pursue an early-morning 6 AM departure, and even more motivated, at 5:55, to forget the rest of my PowerBar and skedaddle, right through the blackberry briars and garrigue scrubland, to someplace far, far away from where I had camped.

On the plus side, I saw a beautiful sunrise over Peyrepetuse Castle, hiked a good bit of the long-distance Cathard Way, soaked my feet at the gorges of Galamus, met some interesting people along the way, and at least temporarily sated my taste for adventure.

Here are a few photos.

Tim Moore Fan Club

2008-07-27T06:34:00.000-07:00

I just finished an awesome book, French Revolutions: Cycling the Tour de France. Author Tim Moore is a (purportedly) unathletic Brit who decides to cycle the Tour de France route. Being unathletic, British, and riotously sardonic, Moore naturally transforms his tour into one long misadventure. This is the same guy that walked the Camino de Santiago with an ass, and there too basically went looking for crazy things to happen. What he does is pretty amusing to begin with, but what he thinks about it (and what he thinks about in general) and how he says it are just wickedly funny. If I had to choose a writer-model, this would be the guy. Anyway, he’s too good to not tell you about. Here are a few of his lines that made me smile . . .

. . . Attracted perhaps by my attempt to encapsulate the works of Heronymous Bosch in a single sound, and perhaps by leaking ceiling, the proprietress had seen fit to enter my room at a moment which coincided unhappily with my wild, humid egress from the cubicle [shower].

. . . And though cycling might be the national sport of France, from what I saw that day strimming [weed-whacking] runs it a close second. Every garden and field buzzed with Canutean attempts to hold back the green tide, to keep the undergrowth from overgrowing. I even saw a couple of leather-faced fellers with scythes, which was pleasingly traditional. Death must be dreading the day when they upgrade him with a strimmer.

. . . I put the hammer down but it bounced back and smacked me in the teeth.

And also literarily pleasing but of primarily – ah . . . – “cultural” interest, Moore also makes me laugh with what he has to say about my adopted countrymates. If I were in sophisticated company and trying to be supremely diplomatic, I think I might respond to these comments with an “I can appreciate what you’re saying, Tim. More wine?” Actually, if I were in sophisticated company, I probably wouldn’t be discussing Tim Moore, and if I were somehow discussing Tim Moore, I’m quite certain I wouldn’t proffer these examples, but I think it would be cool if one could, in “sophisticated company,” discuss Tim Moore, as well as politics, sex, and religion. Furniture upholstery and regional weather peculiarities only take me so far. In any case:

. . . [He was sick to his stomach and uncomfortable all night:] As dawn prodded at the curtains I was still writhing and groaning like an ankle-tapped Italian footballer . . .

. . . They’ve never needed a Seventies revival in Italy: along with fare-dodging, drink-driving, and sexual molestation, littering is just another in the nation’s impressive roll-call of lingering period pastimes.

. . . Simon O’Brien had been at Nick and Jan’s place in the Pyrenees the night before the Tour passed their front door in 1997, and offered a stark warning of what can happen when you’re out there in the dark with a paintbrush, how your intended ALLEZ CHRIS can find itself evolving into an EVERTON FOOTBALL CLUB or a FUCK THE MANCS. The Italians, however, sated these unseemly urges in a more appropriately artistic manner. Their preferred icon was the erect penis, sometimes as an incidental prop in a scene depicting unpopular riders eagerly fellating or sodomising one another, but more commonly as a stand-alone icon, a vast, scarlet-frenumed, wispy-scrotumed deity solemnly spanning both sides of the carriageway.

And a final passage, which I think summarizes my current perspective perfectly, and explains why I am reasonably happy cleaning toilets for no money in France:

. . . Actually there was something else. Wheeling ZR [his bike] back out through the Holiday Inn’s automatic doors and into the misty sun I’d seen a roomful of sales-conference delegates staring bleakly into their Styrofoam cups as a bald man drew pie charts on an overhead projector; one of them turned to me as I cleated up and as our eyes met we both understood an important truth: however wretched my day might be, even if it meant going back to Belfort [254 km] and back, his was going to be far worse.

I think that says it! Rock trumps scissors, scissors trump paper, paper trumps rock, and toilets trump cubicles every time you play.

2008

2008-06-29T12:23:00.000-07:00

Two thousand eight is a great year, in my opinion: Not only is it the International Year of the Potato, it's also the International Year of Languages.

Did you know . . .

. . . That there are over 1200 varieties of potatoes cultivated in the "potato park" at the International Potato Center in the Peruvian Andes!?

. . . That, of the 6700 languages in existence, about 50% are considered "in danger of disappearing," and that, in fact, one language does disappear every two weeks?

Thus, tomorrow I am going to eat a pomme de terre and study francais. (Not to be confused with eating french fries.)

The French Villa

2008-06-28T12:55:00.000-07:00

The last month has been a blur for me. (But not for you, since I haven't written anything at all, so you're welcome for sparing you that slightly "twanged" feel I'm sure my Ashe-slant writing imposes, and sorry for not assuring you that I haven't, in fact, been kidnapped, though that's an apology you'll probably have to pass along since the kidnap-worriers are precisely the same subgroup as the non-computer-users. Anway, moving forward . . .) I finished up my last papers in Bologna. Packed up my apartment. Said goodbye-for-the-summer (isn't that a cottage song?) to everyone I knew. Flew to Salt Lake City (where they lost my bags). Did training in the Salt Lake City office of my new favorite company, Backroads (http://www.backroads.com/) - learned how to repair bikes, drive a trailer, and handle tricky customer service "challenges". I was so impressed - the training program, the trainers, and the leader-focus of the company just knocked my new bicycle-style socks (but not my new bike shorts, because they're spandex with a tight padded butt and thus remained firmly in place) off. And then, and then . . .

Went on a mock trip to Southern Utah - Bryce and Zion National Parks. This was awesome, and also holy-shite-level hot. On the awesome amazing side, it was beautiful. I slept my first night on the bank of a desert river. (Actually, as one of my co-leaders pointed out, it's not actually a desert. But it's sandy and sand-colored and cloudless and little-red-horned-guys-with-pokers hot, so I think the label is perfectly, though not scientifically - how do you like that one!? - justified, and I'm going to continue using it.) Since it was - yep - hot - I went tent-less and lay in my sleeping bag listening to the running water, peeking at the moon and the stars, and feeling impressed, even in my slumber, by the red sandstone cliff in front of me. With my training group, I made lots of fancy picnic lunches, did some public speaking exercises, went on some hikes and bike rides . . . and ate food prepared by camp chefs that you'd never in a million years guess didn't come out of a professional kitchen, enjoyed the company of my awesome co-leaders (at least most of the time - the too-many-leaders-in-one-campsite virus definitely unleashed a few strains of hyper-competitiveness), and learned a ton. It was really awesome. And then . . .

Got my summer assignment: Family Camping Trips in Southern Utah. Yep. While the Canyons were spectactularly beautiful, and I'm spectacularly in love with Backroads, I was less than thrilled with the assignment. It's all about the match, kind of like choosing a college, and looking at the three principal elements of the trips - "Family", "Camping", and "Desert" - none of them really got me going, especially since I really believed I was heading back to Italy to do trips that essentially focused on biking and gastronomy. But a miraculous intervention occurred, and . . . I write to you now from a villa in France! My scheduled changed at the last minute, and I'm now kind of an "all-Europe back-up." I'm stationed in the Leader House - although I prefer to refer to it, according to my mood, as either the "Villa" or the "Chateau" - in Provence, and I'm scheduled to do a trailer drive to the Czech Republic and to be on-call as a replacement leader for any last-minute leader injuries or the like. (And I guess they almost always use these on-call people, so - for me - that's great.)

Not bad, eh! (My two housemates right now are Canadian. I haven't yet heard any ehs flying around, though. I think it would be an interesting study to quantify eh usage per province. These guys are from Montreal.)

A picture game

2008-05-30T08:05:00.000-07:00

I went to Terra Futura in Firenze last weekend. It was a conference on "sustainability" from all different perspectives. I learned about electric cars; indulged a vegan by letting her evangelize me for a while . . . and then had a little fun asking questions she couldn't quite answer; tried almond milk; saw an awesome concert in Piazza della Signoria; and saw a great film called "Merica". There's so much I "want to tell", but I'm disciplining myself until I finish all these research projects!

So, I leave you with these pictures. First, anyone who can tell me why I took these two shots wins a prize:

And second, I think I've told you about the Italian obsession with enormous fashion handbags. This isn't the most gigantic or the most fashionable bag I've seen, but I think the carrier-plus-fashion composite score rates rather highly:

A few of my favorite things

2008-05-18T12:04:00.000-07:00

Possibly my favorite thing about living in Italy is the market. I love going to the market! In Bologna, the "Mercato delle Erbe" is a ten-minute walk from my house, it's open every day but Sunday, and they sell everything I need. The central area is filled with "beautiful" (and mostly expensive) fruit, and the side wings offer in-season produce, often local, at good prices. I'm a side-wing shopper, myself. My bread man Pietro and my vegetable man Luca take care of me.

Every day I have a delicious salad of spinach (I like the stems the best), fennel, tomatoes, and now I'm adding cucumbers. Luca tells me that the spinach season is finishing up, though, so I'm going to have to move on to another green. He's suggested chard.

Oranges are about a dollar a kilo, and I have one or two every day. The south of Italy is filled with oranges, so they're always available and always delicious. My favorites are the Sicilian tarocchi; they're red inside, and I think we call them blood oranges.

Here's another photo related to the market. It's Pietro, the Bread Man, who also plays in an African drum band. He told me about the Festival of Soup a few weeks back. I went, bringing with me, as instructed, a spoon and a cup, and I must have tasted a few dozen different soups! My favorites was a peanut soup from Bolivia.

The Movie Series Begins. I hope.

2008-05-15T12:09:00.000-07:00

I know I’ve mentioned this before, but it’s worth repeating: The Bologna Cineteca is awesome. It’s basically a movie theater that screens films in a “meaningful” way. Lots of the films are themselves “meaningful” – in the sense that they’re not Die Hard 37 – but the Cineteca also makes them more meaningful by making them into series (“Focus on Argentina”), staging lectures related to the films, and inviting the directors to present the films and field questions. Best of all, they host film festivals, and the most recent was Slow Food on Film.

One of my classmates hooked us all up with “credentials,” which let us see as many films as we wanted for free. It also gave us a lanyard with a nametag, which is almost like a membership card, and you all know by now how important membership cards are. So the credentials were great on both counts. I saw a few awesome feature-length films and a bunch of documentaries and shorts. (I’m a short fanatic, if you didn’t know.) I learned a ton – you could become a semi-expert in food just by going to the festival – and I have to say that the quality of the filmmaking really impressed me. Definitely the best film fest I’ve been to. In any case, I saw a few films that are definitely worth seeking out, and – if I can manage to follow through on the idea – I thought I’d introduce you to a few of them in the next few blog posts.

The first one is King Corn. Two guys graduate from college, discover in a hair test that they’re basically “made of corn,” and move to Iowa to farm an acre of “King Corn”. In the process, they discover all kinds of absurdities and abuses that pervade the American food system (and – really – American food). Definitely worth a look, and I’ll bet you can even find it at the library.

In other news, I made octopus for the first time tonight. I’m crazy for it, I told you, but this is the first time I’ve actually made. It comes frozen, and I bet you can find it at Wegmans if you want. If you buy it frozen, it already comes de-eyed, so you just have to plop it in a pot with a little garlic, white wine, lemon juice, and just a touch of water, and it’ll take care of itself.

So, my recommendation for tonight: A trip to Wegmans, a trip to Blockbuster, octopus, and King Corn.

Chestnuts and Cannibals, oh my!

2008-05-14T15:27:00.001-07:00

I apologize for the lag in entries. I’m up to my eyeballs in schoolwork. It’s awesome, though. I just love what I’m working on. I have five final papers due by the end of the month. I think I’ve just about finished three of them and have two more to go. Want to hear what I’ve been studying?

The first project I finished was on the chestnut. I’ve been working on that one for a while. Go ahead, try me, ask me anything about the chestnut! I now know for sure that the horse chestnut (which I tried to roast and eat the last time I came back from Europe) is definitely NOT related to the chestnut and it is definitely NOT edible! All of the real American chestnut trees got wiped out by a fungus in the first half of the last century, and – this is incredible, to me – its pathogenic spores are still floating around out there and the American chestnut still cannot grow successfully in North America. There is, thank heavens, The American Chestnut Foundation, which is doing its darnedest to bring ol’ Chester back to life. Seriously, they call the Castanea dentata “Chester” on their website.

Then I finished up a research into cannibalism. One interesting finding I had was that, in Medieval Europe, even though there weren’t practicing cannibals, per se, there were a few interesting cannibalistic “trends”. Yeah, how do you like that? Today it’s tight black pants and tomorrow it’s cannibalism. Go figure. Anyway, there were a handful of popular uprisings – the price of bread was too high, or they imposed a new tax, or whatever filled the Text-Message-to-the-Editor column in the Ye Old Town Crier of 1385 – in which the townspeople took to capturing the scapegoat politician, whacking him, sticking his head on a pole, and then eating his intestines. And then, there were some edgy docs who started prescribing human blood as a curative for all kinds of health problems. Most of the time they got the human blood from criminals who had been hanged or decapitated, and a whole chain of “mummy shops” opened up in the big cities to meet the growing demand. (I’ll bet there was a pyramid scheme/scam and everything.)

Then I had to analyze a piece of art. Most people stick with sensible genres like Last Suppers and Madonnas eating pears and things like that. Horrified by the prospect of seeming normal, I stuck with my cannibal theme and instead analyzed this picture:

Next up, I have a bibliography project I’m doing on sustainable agriculture, and – this is what I’m really excited about – my paper for “Anthropology and Food.” I talked with my prof, and he supported my idea: I’m basically going to do a “field study” regarding the differences I pick up between the food cultures of the United States and Italy. Now that gets me going!

2008-05-10T01:57:00.001-07:00

Did I tell you that I'm taking a painting class? I figured that, since I'm in Italy, I should stage my own Renaissance. I finally finished my first painting, a copy of Caravaggio's San Giovanni Battista. (Some people have argued that, because of its strong sensuality, it's not actually St. John the Baptist, but rather Isaac or even Bacchus.) Although I expect it will demand great concentration and discernment, try to tell which is the original :)

A Week of Firsts

2008-04-30T07:04:00.000-07:00

I had a bunch of “firsts” this week . . .

On Sunday I ran my first half-marathon. I liked it. Tough, though: It was, effectively, 12 km UP the mountain, and then 9 km DOWN the mountain! It was beautiful: I could see snow-capped peaks in the distance and river valleys below. I did pretty well, won some cheese, and some guy gave me a salami.

On Monday I cooked my first risotto. It’s basically rice, but – at least if you make it well – there are three things that elevate it to all-star status in my book. First, it gets a lot of flavor from whatever vegetables you use. You sauté the vegetables – lots of ‘em – at the beginning, and they create a good broth. (At least, that’s what I do. The Italians do whatever they can to make it unhealthy. Butter. Pig fat. Probably some disgusting fatty meat product if it’s on hand. Which it always is.) Second, you use arborio rice, which is very starchy and kind of disintegrates a bit when you cook it. That gives the risotto a “creamy” texture. And the third thing is that instead of putting all the water (or broth, or wine, or whatever you’re using as liquid) at once, you “give the rice only what it needs,” adding the liquid little by little and stirring regularly. On Monday I made a zucchini risotto, and I liked it so much that I made another risotto yesterday – this time with mushrooms. Next on my list: risotto with butternut squash!

And on Tuesday I gutted my first fish. Yeah, it was pretty gross. I need to wander over to Google videos to figure out what all that stuff in there was. In any case, I figured that if I’m going to be a good cook, I better start gutting fish. The experiment turned out well. After gutting the fish, I filled its belly with the top parts of a fennel stalk, a little salt, and a little lemon juice, wrapped it in foil, and put it in the oven. I’ll definitely repeat.

And, not related at all to my week of firsts, here’s a photo I shot in Piazza Maggiore. I love this pic. Check out the way Cop #2’s cap is tilted – straight out of a ‘50s TV series!

Made in Italy

2008-04-24T12:00:00.000-07:00

The Italians have good food. No question, right? But I’m getting a little tired of the “Made in the Italy” arrogance. Yesterday and today I’ve had a series of amusing moments all centered on the same theme: “In Italy, we eat well. And definitely better than you.”

Last night, I went to an Italian farmhouse for a contadino meal. It was lots of fun: they roasted meat on a grate in the fireplace, and the wine flowed freely. I knew they’d try to make me eat all kinds of fatty meats, and – all right, that’s what I expected, I wanted to sample them, and then basta! (Enough!) Really, I wanted to taste them, and a taste is all I needed. But it’s definitely not all the Italians need.

The entire meal consisted of fatty meats. First course, cured meats: Ciccioli, coppa di testa, salsiccia curata, salame. Second course, cooked meats: salsiccia mata, salsiccia fresca, pancetta, ribs, and I’m probably leaving something out. The pig is 95% useable, and, believe me – they use it. In any case, there were – I’m counting – at the very least eight different kinds of fatty meats. As I said, a bite works for me. But everyone else there, including women and children, devoured entire plates of the “appetizers,” ate a full piece of each of the cooked meats, and then asked for “seconds”! (Or would it be “ninths”?) Incredible! And disgusting, in my opinion. But, amazingly enough, and perhaps assisted by Bacchus in my noble quest for tolerance and open-mindedness, I wasn’t feeling judgmental last night. If they want to eat a diet consisting entirely of saturated fat, great, go for it. (Just as long as they don’t make me do it!)

That is, until the entire conversation turned into the usual pedagogy about how Italian food is so much superior to American food and hence Italians are so much superior to Americans. (Note the P-implies-Q causality: food is so important here that it really is a “hence.”) I figured – ho! – that, at least this time (this is a conversation that I have – or that people have on me, really, every day) they’d launch the battle on the gourmandize front. But no! In fact, we moved quickly to the health front, and the entire room agreed that the “Healthy Mediterranean Diet,” (“consisting largely of fruits, vegetables, and pasta”), shamed what Americans eat every day, which is, obviously, three meals consisting exclusively of McDonald’s hamburgers. They also said, in these exact words, “Now, you seem very thin, but all the rest of Americans are obese. Right?” I repeat: I was the only person in the room who wasn’t at least 40 pounds overweight!

No one – except for me, and I was content to amuse myself, again with Bacco’s help, by having a director’s-version conversation inside my head – seemed to note the riotous irony of the situation: A roomful of fat, slow-moving Italians devouring five pounds each of the fattiest meats you could ever find were expounding on the superior health characteristics of their diet.

That reminds me that, also yesterday, when I was at the market, the man in front of me bought two kilos of oranges. Great, good for him! Then he started to make conversation with the fruit man. “I have a ‘subscription,’” he said. “Six oranges a day. Three in the morning, and three after dinner.” I really am not being critical of this practice: six oranges a day, way to go! I just use it to illustrate the fact that nothing here is done in moderation: if you’re going to eat oranges, you’re not going to eat an orange, you’re going to eat six. And besides, from the looks of the guy, I think he also had a “subscription” to cookies.

Then today I read an article in a running magazine that included this exact phrase: “A healthy diet should include lean meats (such as Prosciutto di Parma, DOP) . . .” If prosciutto is lean, I’d really like to know what fits into the fatty category. Apparently, though, if you know where it comes from (that’s the DOP label), it’s all of sudden perfectly healthy? It’s kind of like that other theory some people have: if you bake a cake, and eat the entire thing, but in small bites right from the cake pan, and never actually take a piece on a separate plate, it’s actually the same as not eating it.

And then, also today, I heard a radio advertisement featuring a famous soccer player. “Your health is too serious to play with. That’s why I feed my team a healthy breakfast every morning: fresh milk, in-season fruit, bread, and Nutella.” If you’re not familiar with Nutella, it’s like chocolate peanut butter; its ingredients, in order of appearance, are “sugar, peanut oil, hazelnuts, cocoa, skim milk, and a bunch of chemicals.” I agree that fresh milk and fruit do constitute part of a healthy breakfast, but would anyone ever consider it ethical to advertise, say, cheesecake, as a healthy snack because you serve it with two raspberries on top?

And then I read another publication, a health booklet published by the Italian Association of Dietetics and Nutrition, and I found the standard “health pyramid.” But wait a minute! The health pyramid isn’t actually standard. This was the “Italian Food Pyramid,” labeled just like that. In this health pyramid, they actually include cookies in the same (recommended) category as pasta, rice, bread, and potatoes. They don’t make any distinction between whole grain and refined-grain products, probably because whole grain products don’t exist here. And, also notably, “Oils and Fats” are more highly recommendable than “Milk and Yogurt.” I can’t be the only person who thinks such a recommendation is absurd. I’m a pretty big fan of the scientific method; is laboratory science in Italy considerably different than that in the United States, or do they just not pay any attention to it? I’m going with the latter, especially since I’ve given up discussing the improbability that, for example, not drying my hair will give me a permanent neck ailment, or that not wearing a scarf will translate directly into a soar throat. In any case, I haven’t seen any studies lately that say, “You know, you should really think about eliminating skim milk from your diet. How about some lard instead? Oh, and . . . yep, here’s another problem. Doesn’t look like you’re getting enough cookies.”

I’m not saying that the Italians shouldn’t eat like crap. If that's what gets them going – and does it ever! – right on, they should go all out. But I am saying that they should look at themselves a bit more objectively, and that they should somersault right off that high horse they’re riding.

How I Became Italian

2008-04-22T14:50:00.001-07:00

Saturday I took a major step in becoming Italian: I stopped playing fair, thought only about myself, broke the rules, and got what I wanted. I ran in the middle of the street and didn’t worry that I was pissing off the car behind me. I cut in line – in major fashion – at the film festival, elbowed my way to the front, and got one of the last tickets. And, best of all, I brought a plastic bag with me to the movies and rustled it as much as I could.

In fact, I think I’m going to repeat these activities intentionally next weekend, so as to reinforce the Italianization process. It’s still not quite natural for me: I’m starting to be rude and self-important (though still not fashionable), but I still feel guilty about it. I’m thinking that if I keep up the effort, though, I’ll be able act entirely without thinking about anyone else, with entire self-absorption, and with no Catholic guilt!

Sarcasm aside – ha! had you there! It’s almost back. – I have to go back in time a little to get back to today.

The Cineteca of Bologna is an awesome institution, and it’s always doing cool film series and hosting film festivals. (It’s the best. Every city should have a Cineteca!) Right now is the Human Rights Film Festival, and I’m trying to catch as many films as I can. I think there’s something wrong about the Human Rights Film Festival being the catalyst and place of my conversion to self-centered rudeness, but there you have it.

I went to a film the other night with my friend. Naturally, there was a line a half hour long, not because there were so many people, but because, despite the prestige and international character of the event, it was taking place in Italy and therefore had to impose a disorganization, and lines. There was a single person issuing tickets, and, this is great: You needed to buy not only a ticket for the film, but also a membership card – I told you, they’re huge! – to the Cineteca, which, interestingly, doesn’t ordinarily require a membership card. But not only that! You had to choose which type of membership card you wanted, and then determine whether you qualified for one of the discounts: Student? Member of the Food Coop? Patron of UniCredit Bank? And so on. So every single person in line got to the front, squinted at a full page of 8-point pica print describing the various membership options, and, after half an hour, stumbled away with his ticket (and brand new membership card). So then everyone got into the theater, the event started half an hour late, and the director introduced the film. They started the film, and, then – fifteen minutes later – realized that – whoops! – it’s the wrong film! (How do you get fifteen minutes into a film which the director has just introduced without realizing it’s the wrong film?) Ok, it can happen. Maybe. They stopped the film, and two of the festival directors went to the front to say, “Sorry. Wrong film.” And this was great, just classic: one director did that thing where you kind of shrug your shoulders, flop your arms out to the side, cock your head, and scrunch up half of your face, and she said, “So . . . do you guys want to continue with this film, or should we change to the scheduled film?” The 200 people in the audience were (surprisingly?) not of one mind or voice, and so the other guy repeated the question. People in the audience started shouting . . . This one! That one! Then they started negotiating: “If we play the one that’s supposed to run tomorrow today, can we play the one that’s supposed to run today tomorrow?” Just imagine if you went to the Regal to see Top Gun, and the cinema people told you, “Oh, sorry. Turns out we actually played Top Gun yesterday. Today . . . let’s see . . . yep. We’ve replaced it with Brer Rabbit and the Briar Patch. Another great film!” Actually, if the equivalent holds, it would be a beautiful, stylish, 25-year-old girl or guy telling you this, and you’d probably obediently buy a (supersized) popcorn with extra butter and settle down to an evening of Disney enjoyment. But that’s not the point. I went with an Italian friend, and his analysis of the situation was right on target: “Only in Italy! I guess this could happen anywhere. You put on the wrong film. Ok, it might happen. But only in Italy would we consult the audience and say, ‘Shoot. What do you think we should do now?’”

All this is to point out several key characteristics of Italian living: Organization is always horrendous, you always need a membership card, there will always be a line, and the people around you will always look tremendous.

Back to today, finally. It was a fantastic, full of great things. That’s the thing: It’s disorganized and there’s a line – but if you can parse your way through the disorganization and work your way to the front of the line, Italy is fantastic. The first thing I did today was attend a program at the Archeological Museum about the alimentary habits of the Etruscans, which was, naturally, followed by a tasting. (Which, also naturally, involved a long line. I’m becoming very literate: I’ve learned never to go anywhere without a book.)

The lecture was awesome, but almost as impressive was the concentration of the Rude Fashionable Old Italian Ladies. It was like an RFOIL convention. If you’re at all attentive, you can spot an RFOIL ahead of time based on visual clues, but I wasn’t so attentive upon my arrival and hence had chosen a seat located in a zone of particularly high RFOIL concentration. I knew this several minutes into the lecture when my (fairly low) aural skills started to pick up on a crinkling, which soon escalated to levels you might find in, say, a plastic bag factory. (I assume they make plastic bags in a plastic bag factory? I’ve never really thought about it before.)

The RFOIL is an Italian institution, and, as I said, she’s easy to spot. She’s an over-65, but she’s made-up to seem, say, “dating age.” This always includes pointed, high-heeled shoes, a fashion scarf, lots of makeup, and – the giveaway – an enormous fashion handbag. I use the word handbag, even though I’m not from New England, because the size of this “accessory” disqualifies it on a purely philological level from inclusion in the purse category. I want to make friends with an RFOIL so I can see what on earth goes into these handbags. As best I can tell, there are just layers and layers of plastic bags. Maybe these ladies are all on their way to the recycling center.

Of course, it’s not really just plastic bags: I know there are also a few other items. A cell phone, for example, which is never turned off, and which is programmed to sound in the middle of the concert. A few other wallets. For example, one might be for cash bills, another for coins, and another for ID cards. All together, they’re kind of like a matrioska doll. This means that, if you are at the supermarket, in line – after waiting a half hour, naturally – you will arrive at the front, and the old lady one person ahead of you will take the ol’ digging-in-the-purse-for-the-exact-change routine to a whole new level. She’ll get to the front. Wait for the cashier to tell her the bill. Surpise! Time to pay! (Oh!? Now?) She’ll dig in the handbag to find the change purse. Open it up, dig around . . . oh, no! Silly me, that’s the ID card purse. Dig around in the giant black-hole handbag some more. Pull out the wallet-purse. Dig around in the wallet-purse to pull out the (even smaller) change purse. And then dig around to find eighty-seven euro-cents, exactly.

Right, so I know there’s a cell phone and a series of purses-within-purses. There is also a supply of hard candy, all packaged in a complex telescoping (like the purses) plastic wrappers. This is how you find an RFOIL in public: You listen for the plastic wrappers. If you’re worried that your sense of hearing isn’t especially keen, or that you’ll “miss the moment” while distracted: Don’t. You can’t miss it. Once unleashed, the RFOIL will dig through her purse for the entire performance. First for the cell phone (because it’s going off right now, and playing Like a Virgin). Then for the change purse. And finally for the plastic wrapper. I mean the candy. No, on second thought, I think it actually is the plastic wrapper she’s going for. Wrap. Unwrap. Wrap. Unwrap. Deposit in purse once again. Man, does she ever get a lot of use out of that wrapper. Then she’ll decide she wants another piece of hard candy, and... . Repeat. For the entire performance, no kidding. And remember: the entire handbag is padded with plastic bags! Whoo!!! Plastic!!!

In case you’re wondering, Younger people usually skip the plastic wrappers and select from the multiple choice of other disrespectful lecture/concert/cinema behaviors, the two preferred choices being (1) talking through the entire performance, to oneself, if necessary; and (2) making out, noisily, through the entire performance.

So: Great program at the archeological museum. But lots of stupid RFOILs with plastic wrappers.

Which, finally, brings me back to the film festival. I wanted to see two consecutive films, and I figured – ah! There I go again – that I’d buy both tickets at one time. Nope. Turns out that you can buy tickets beginning only 30 minutes before the performance starts. (This is to encourage lines.) So I went to see the first film, which, naturally, started, and hence also finished, 20 minutes late. I went to get the next ticket, and, not surprisingly, there was a line that was about half an hour long.

And that’s when I became Italian! I decided that the line didn’t apply to me. An every-man-for-himself fury swept over me, I furrowed my eyebrows, and began the mission to GET WHAT I WANTED. My first effort, a bit too reasonable, was to approach a theater worker and explain that, since I was participating in the festival by attending the 6:15 screening, it was hence impossible for me to get in line early to buy a ticket for the 8:30 show, and that this didn’t make any sense and would in fact discourage people from attending the lesser-known films, and that hence she should give me a ticket without making me wait in line. (This was true, and entirely reasonable, but still, I felt downright sneaky.) She agreed that my dilemma was absurd, and that they should come up with a better system, but, “I can’t do anything, this time. Sorry.” But, no problem! I didn’t let that stop me. I’m Italian now! I scanned the crowd, found a young guy, joked around a little bit, and . . . basically inserted myself into the line right there. Which was the the front.

About 200 people got left in line. I got one of the last tickets. And that’s how I became Italian.

What happened to the sausage?

2008-04-21T15:03:00.000-07:00

I'm trying my best to keep the Jack Handys coming, but I'm a little pressed for time. Wine tastings, film festivals . . . it's a busy life :) Plus I'm working on a bunch of research projects right now: one on chestnuts, one on sustainable agriculture, and one on - ! - cannibalism. They're all really interesting, and I love working on them. I can't believe I have to chance to study this stuff. (I was just about to comment about about how this probably means I'm meant for an academic career. But I don't think they allow the terms "Jack Handy," "stuff," or ":)" in the International Journal of Anthropology. So . . . I'll pocket that comment for now, I think.)

Anyway, the power of food: Here we are: Fabrizio and Paola, language exchange partners and Bolognese Bolognese; Marta and Giulia, two students who live downstairs, from Umbria, near St. Franny's haunts (whoops! academic journal foul!); Christian, lawyer, tour guide, socialite, also Bolognese; and me (create-your-own-identification). We had a fun dinner together, and talked about religion, politics, and sex.

We also ate that sausage.

I know you were wondering what happened to it.

The Parmesan cheese is still in the frig.

Eat Chestnuts!

2008-04-16T13:29:00.001-07:00

I've been using my camera more lately, and it occurred to me today that I could use it to get around one of Italy's Big Inconveniences. Here's how:

The copisterie - the copy shops - are a huge scam. I really should go out and buy an HP printer-copier-scanner and make some bucks myself. A copy is usually five euro-cents, which seems reasonable. Unless you're copying any part of a book, in which case there's a five-to-ten euro-cent per-page surcharge. I realize that it's not ethical to copy a book, but it seems to me that there's a huge difference between copying Figure 15.14 on page 233 of the book and copying the book, and that the first doesn't come anywhere near warranting a twice-the-price surcharge. (Overpriced copiers are also, for convenience, located in the libraries. From which it's quite often prohibited to borrow books.) If you want to do anything in color, it's at least a euro. And this is the winner: To scan a document into the computer: 1 euro per page. To review: Paper use: zero. Ink use: zero. Energy use: minimal. Cost: 1 euro. It's absurd. Also, you're not allowed to make your own copies. The trained copy expert must exercise his or her extraordinary skill (Paper? Check. Index finger? Check.) and make the copy for you. Which, of course, means that you must wait in line, since there's a maximum of one employee in any copy shop, and the person in front of you will want to make six copies of his doctoral thesis.

I’m doing some research now on the chestnut. It’s awesome. I joked that I was going to do my master’s thesis on the chestnut, but maybe it wasn’t a joke. It’s really interesting! Did you know that 70% of the world’s chestnut production takes place in China? Actually, I have another idea I’m fixed on for my thesis now: Something having to do with the hallucigenic use of food in traditional religions. Wouldn’t that be cool? And maybe an excuse for some hands-on research. Of the traveling type. Of the physical traveling type. :)

Here’s a quick video I took the other day. It’s Piazza Maggiore in Bologna, about five minutes from house, where they had a soccer tournament there last weekend.

Unemployment: The Upside

2008-04-13T01:02:00.000-07:00

The Italian unemployment rate is around 6%, which is much lower than I would’ve thought, for all the complaining about it that I hear. So I did a little further research, and it turns out that they’re right: the official number isn’t very telling. The 6% figure masks a rapidly growing migrant/immigrant workforce, a growth in part-time workers, a huge divide between the industrial North and the largely unemployed South, and a huge growth in fixed-term contracts (which, along with immigrant-bashing, is everyone’s favorite conversational sport). But from my outsider perspective, I’d say that Italy needs a high unemployment rate. And not for the traditional “ideal unemployment rate” reasoning. Here, there’s a different reason: Someone in every family must be available to wait in lines. “Waiting in Lines” and “Playing Bureaucracy”, is effectively, a job. Two, in fact; though developing skills in one or the other can prepare a beginner for successful careers in both.

Seriously, the amount of time you have to waste here to do anything can get really frustrating. For example, I recently learned that, for the upcoming elections, Italians must return to their home provinces to vote. Mail-in or internet balloting? Ha! Well, that’s not an entirely accurate criticism: If you are incarcerated in a province other than your own, you may vote in the province of your incarceration. If you are working in a province other than your own, or, God forbid, studying overseas, however, you must return home to vote. Seriously, I met a girl yesterday who flew back to Italy from her university in Spain so that she could cast a ballot.

If you need to make a payment to the university? Online payment? Check? Credit card? Ha! Go to the bank with a wad of cash. Wait in line.

And here’s a fun one: Want to take out a book from the library? Ho-ho. Grab a seat. If I had one wish for the Italian university system, it would be a well-functioning library system. As it lies, here’s how it works. There are maybe fifty or a hundred different university and municipal libraries, each with its own set of rules and practices. Need five books? You’ll most like likely need to visit five different libraries and Play the Game at each one. Maybe you need a special card to use a certain library; maybe not. Just to enter, you’ll need to leave your backpack in a locker outside so that you don’t steal any books. (Since the bar code scanners that seem to quite effectively work in supermarkets, department stores, and foreign libraries suddenly don’t function for Italian books???) Actually, more than that: Some libraries are more generously tolerant, but many actually prevent you from bringing books into the library. And, even better, many prevent you from taking books out of the library! How, then, does the library serve its function, you might wonder? Answer: You may sit in that library and read a book from that library.

Ah! But that assumes you were able to get the book in the first place. That’s a whole ‘nother story. To get a book, you can’t usually just go to the shelf and get the book. That job is reserved for a Library Employee. You must find the book in the catalog, fill out a paper form (electronic requests from the comfort of your home? Ha!), hand-deliver the paper form to the librarian, and wait for the next book retrieval period (often occuring on the hour). You may then pick up your book. If that library permits you to take out books, you’re still not homefree. You might not be able to take out that book, even if it says in the catalog that you can. For example, after visiting three different libraries, filling out a dozen different forms, waiting in three different lines, and spending – no kidding – about five hours on the entire endeavor, I discovered that practically none of the over 2000 Bibles in the Bologna library system can be checked out. I gave up.

Hence: If you want to vote, write a check, read a book – or god forbid do something more complicated such as legalize your immigration status – prepare thyself for hours and days of lines and bureaucracy. It’s no wonder to me that immigrants remain illegal. If my experience is any indication, it would be – no exaggeration – absolutely impossible to have a full-time job and to fulfill the bureaucratic steps for becoming legal.

So, here it is, the Economic Theory of the Day: Without at least one unemployed person in every family, a family would not be able to perform basic social, civic, and economic tasks. Hence, high(er) unemployment is, in Italy, an absolute economic necessity.

On that note, I leave you with this calming photo :)

Picture of the Day

2008-04-10T15:29:00.001-07:00

I'm whipped! Lots to report, little time to report it! In the absence of a story, here's a picture of the day. I took it while "studying" (Italians?) in Piazza Maggiore of Bologna. A presto!

The Faster You Go, The More Fat You Win!

2008-04-06T13:26:00.001-07:00

I think I told you that the “running” scenario in Italy differs quite a bit from that in the States. In case you missed those episodes, the quick summary is that running in Italy involves a team (mine is Lippo Calderara), a membership card (that’s huge!), a uniform (we’re red, yellow, and blue: I’m all set to root for the Romanians in Peking), Spandex (I invariably violate this rule), an extraordinarily complex organization (Do you want to run in the competitive race? The non-competitive race? The shorter race? The even shorter race? The walk? The children’s race? The younger children’s race?), a sexual harassment-prone landlord (perhaps that’s just my situation? But who knows, maybe it’s part of the “system.”). And . . . prizes!!!

I really like winning prizes, I dislike sexual harassment, I find the obsession with membership cards amusing, and I get a little stressed out by the complexity of the system.

As you know, I’m hyper-competitive, so I really do like winning the prizes. Now I just have to figure out what to do with them. I really get a kick out of this: The prizes invariably consist of giant packages of the fattiest, unhealthiest foods you can find. The faster you go, the more fat you win! Here’s me, wondering what to do with two of my prizes:

That’s what's left of a salame on the left, and a huge hunk of Parmigiano Reggiano cheese on the right. I figured it out, and my excitement reached a kind of violent level in this pic:

Actually, the prizes come in handy: My friends and gastronomo-classmates love them! And I like the winning-them part :)

They Study That in the United States?

2008-04-06T04:27:00.000-07:00

I know you’ve been waiting for a language slip-up story, and finally I have one worth reporting. Not that, up till now, I’ve been communicating with such perfect clarity that I’ve been slip-up-free and people confuse me for a native Italian speaker, but I haven’t had any of those “whoops” moments that I always read about, where some poor guy accidentally tries to sell his wife for a few camels, or a foreign girl accidentally invites her professor to dinner. No, wait, actually I have done that last one . . .

Last night I had everyone laughing, though. I wanted to mention my friend who researches homeless people. In Italian, the word for a homeless person is a “senza tetto” – literally a person “without a roof.” What I actually mentioned, however, is my friend who researches people “senza tetta”: “without boobs.”

What a difference an “a” makes! Anyway, for all the flat-chested women out there (ahem), I’ve found you a researcher!

Voulez vous cou- . . . Oh. No. That’s Something Else.

2008-04-03T11:37:00.001-07:00

I’m taking a course in French right now. Not a French course, but a course in French. The professor is great: He speaks slowly, is really patient, and does a great Powerpoint. Still, I’m impressed with myself! Not because of my French ability, which ticks in at caveman level. But because I actually understand the course! My questions go something like: “What – is – difference – feculeries – and – minoteries - ?” (Yes. There's even a hesitation before the question mark.) But I’m more or less following the course. At least, I hope so: the exam is tomorrow.

I really shouldn’t be impressed. A few of my classmates haven’t really studied French either. They’re doing the same thing I am, and probably better. And I get the idea that it’s normal in Italy to have a class or two taught in English, just because it’s something that you should know if you want to go into business. Or engineering. Or academia.

Still, I think it’s really cool that we can all do this. And it makes me want to really learn French, which – along with lots of other things – is “on the list”!

Il Precario

2008-04-02T13:03:00.001-07:00

There’s a curious difference between the ways the (average) Italian and the (average) American view work. In fact, I don’t think most Americans are aware of the “work situation” in Italy. I know I didn’t have much of an idea before living here, and I obviously don’t yet fully understand it, because a newspaper headline today caught me off-guard:

“Salaries: Young People Earn 23% Less Than Those Over 40.”

Yeah? I thought. Why on earth is this being reported in the newspaper? Isn’t this “news” of the dogs-bites-man type? There seems to be a complaint, an outrage over the finding – and yet, from my vantage point, there’d be a problem if it weren’t the case.

On the same page were two other mini-articles that also illustrate a chasmically different (from American) Italian world of employment. One is something that I’ve already written about here: Striking is downright trendy. The article “Strikes on the Rise” reported that, in 2007, the hours of strikes by Italians increased by 62% from 2006 to a total of 6.3 million man-hours. With a workforce of around 25 million people, my calculation puts that at about 15 minutes per Italian worker! That seems hugely significant to me (although I don’t have any comparative statistics). The other headline, “Pay more to better employees,” presented exactly that as a promising – but, alas, probably impracticable – employment innovation.

That probably gives you a starter feel for the difference. We could really talk for days and days about the work situation in Italy – in fact, the Italian newspapers do, and rightfully so. It’s really difficult to get a “good” job in Italy, and that’s the biggest problem facing young Italians.

Which brings us to the Biggest Difference of the Day: The “precario.” What I find most interesting about this entire “issue” is that the very concept of the non-precario leaves most Americans scratching their heads. (Rightly or wrongly). Basically, the Italian job seeker is searching for a contract “a tempo indeterminato” – an “indefinite” contract. It means that, as best I can tell, barring major criminal activity (note the modifier), you have that job, and every month you get paid, and you get to keep going to said job forever and ever, until you retire. If yesterday there was demand for 100 widgets, which made the company hire 100 employees, and today the demand drops to only 10 widgets – bummer for the company, but they’ve got 100 paychecks to write. Getting such a job is THE goal of the typical Italian. Companies, instead, for obvious reasons, are keen to give contracts “a tempo determinato” – fixed-term contracts, usually lasting six months, which can then (somewhat illegally) be extended and re-created ad infinitum, essentially employing someone long-term but in a series of six-month contracts. This leaves the employee as a “precario” – literally in a “precarious” situation. The complaint is that, as a precario, you really can’t plan for the future: you can’t get a mortgage, buy a house, get married, and settle down forever and ever.

As I said, I think the most interesting thing about this entire issue is that the very concept of the problem is foreign to most Americans. I like to think that I’m pretty well-informed, but I had to keep asking my Italian friends “clarifying questions.” (And I’m going to have to ask them another one tomorrow: It a surprise that young people get paid less than those with more experience? Is it a “problem”? Is it “wrong”? Why?)

First of all, I think the desire for a fixed contract is itself an interesting comment on the Italian identity. As much as the image of the shoulder-shrugging, toss-it-to-the-wind Italian prevails, I think a more accurate analysis of the Italian personality reveals an strong push for security, stability, certainty. Adventure, planned or imposed, is “dangerous” and best avoided. (This plays out in lots of ways, not just work: for example, even a vacation is usually “safe,” organized by a tour operator, passed with a group, or spent in a vacation village.) The promise of stability is a good thing: You don’t want 500% turnover every year, and you definitely lose something cultural and familial with lots of moving around. But you also gain something, personally and nationally, through risk, chance, innovation. I’m not surprised that a push for stability exists; I’m surprised at the extent to which it’s dominant. There are really very few Italians who are eager to innovate, to go out on their own, to try something new, to take a risk. Again, you don’t want an entire workforce taking risk, but you do need some of it for a healthy economy. It’s kind of an economic application of “bio-diversity” and genetic evolution, I think: You need some risky genes to mutate the economy for the better, in a “survival of the fittest” kind of way.

Second, I’m really surprised that few people pick up on the economic disincentive of the indefinite contract. If I’m an employer, and I know that I can’t fire a lousy employee, I’m sure as heck going to be hesitant to hire anyone. So I really don’t get the double demand: “Hire more people! Create more jobs!” and “Give everyone an indeterminate contract!” The two just don’t seem to go together for me.

This “issue” is in the papers literally every day. It’s a real issue, and really problematic; but it’s also hindered by a somewhat parochial optic. (Just as my optic, for example, didn’t include this employment worldview up until a few months ago!) I obviously don’t understand “from the inside,” and my “analysis” is pretty limited. Still – it’s one of these things that I find really interesting, and I thought you might, too.

Note the Spandex

2008-03-29T15:10:00.000-07:00

I have good news, and I have bad news. The good news that I did another race today and ran fast. The bad news is that my landlord continues to be a sexual harasser.

I didn’t really want to do the race, precisely because running is now connected with my landlord, who is part of a running team, does all races in the area, and invites me to do all races in the area. His buddies on the running team want me to join, because I can win points for the team, and, I think, because it’s exotic to have a foreigner. As, uh, my studies keep me really busy, I haven’t been able to make any of the practices, and I’ve, uh, unfortunately suffered from sickness and injury lately, making it impossible for me to join in the weekend races. I figured they’d lose interest, but – well, you already know how the “I figured ….” figuring typically works out for me here.

A “Grampa Richie” was in charge of this race and called me with a personal invite. “We really want you here.” In fact, as it turned out, he’d already gone ahead and signed me up. Why? Because the Sexual Harasser-cum-Landlord told him I’d “almost certainly do it. With 99% certainty.” Say what? Apparently I have a manager now? I don’t like the idea of that, period. I’m an independent: I think alone, I live alone, I travel alone . . . and I run alone. And what’s even more worrisome is my suspicion that he’s not managing an athlete but rather someone he thinks of as his little girl toy. But “Grampa Richie” is a nice old man, and I felt bad that he’d already signed me, so I did the race. In fact, when I showed up, “Grampa Richie” had a membership card and a racing shirt waiting for me, though I did manage to refuse the Spandex shorts. (Seriously: what’s the deal with Spandex?) Which was all very nice of him, but I just feel bad all-around. It’s the classic Italian manipulation mode: Do something exceedingly generous (if pushy) for someone, and now she's “obligated.” To perform well? To join the team? To let the Landlord get some play? I’m not that serious a runner, and I don’t want to be a serious runner. (Although I do continue to enjoy running fast, and winning.) And I'm definitely not a fan of "inappropriate touching" (as it might be called in a grammar school bust) by the Landlord. And then – get this – they have the balls to tell me how to run. You should start off faster. You went too slow at the beginning. You “lost” third place by just a bit. I’m just pissed off all-around. I’ve thought about inventing a boyfriend or a lesbian lover to get me out of the mess, but I’m pretty sure such an acquisition would be followed, vendetta style, with an immediate rent increase. Shite.

On the glass-half-full side, I ran faster than I’ve ever ran before: 8 km race, 30:30, 6:08 miles. I think that's pretty cool.

An Ashe Connection?

2008-03-28T13:26:00.000-07:00

Lacking tube socks and short shorts only because of shoddy weather, I entered Tourist Mode full-swing this week: It’s la Settimana della Cultura! This is a fantastic idea . . . Well done, Italy! (USA, Buffalo: Grab a notebook.) To promote tourism by tourists in non-tourist season, and to promote tourism by “locals,” the Italian Ministry of Culture sponsors a Culture Week every spring. Not only are all museums free, but there are all kinds of special events, shows, movies, lectures, and “extraordinary openings” of, say, your local Medieval palace. Wanting to take full advantage, and lured by the promise of show about Chocolate (I do study Alimentation . . . ) I spent a full day today in Modena. (Incidentally, I recently learned that the Italian word for "tube socks" is "tubolari." Excellent word.)

There was a cool exhibit of 1850s photographs from Rome; I feel like I have a kind of special connection with Rome (maybe everyone ever enchanted by Rome does?), and it’s amazing how much the photos, from a hundred and fifty years ago, of a city I lived in for a month, made me feel “at home.”
I stumbled into a public library and found a map from when the world was still flat. And a couple of beautiful thousand-year-old illuminated books. Doesn’t it sound crazy that you can “stumble upon” these things?
And then there was the chocolate show. It wasn’t chocolate, per se. It was chocolate represented in little advertisement cards from the last hundred, two hundred years. There have been some pretty cool ads through the years . . .

But here’s the interesting possibility of the day. Modena was the seat of the Italian branch of the d’Este dynasty, which had plenty of other top dogs scattered across Europe. When I got into Ashe family history a few years ago, I remember reading a theory that the origins of the Ashe name came from French d’Este immigrants fleeing . . . something. I can’t remember, exactly: it’s jumbled against the theory of a Spanish shipwreck off the coast of Kerry (though I think was more of an ambitious explanation for being the stereotypical “Black Irish”) and the rather more probable suggestion that it had something to do with an ash tree (though, in fact, the Irish word for an ash of the tree type is fuinseog). In any case, this idea of the French d’Este connection, having hibernated in the dormant-neuron compartment of my brain for the last ten years, was re-awakened upon seeing the d’Este portraits in Modena. My first thought: That’s an Ashe forehead! Not that we have a monopoly on the “extraordinarily tall forehead plus pronounced widow’s peak” style, but, you have to admit, it is pretty distinctive. And, what do you know?! Check out these two d’Este foreheads.

I think it's conclusive. I'm writing immediately to claim my inheritance.

Pasqua 2008

2008-03-25T14:41:00.000-07:00

I had a fantastic, and fantastically unique, Easter. Italian friends from the Camino de Santiago got together: Elisa from Trieste, Matteo and Maurizio from Vicenza, and Giovanni from near Livorno. Giovanni lives in a “house with a view,” if ever there was one, in the mountain-forest overlooking the Ligurian Sea, and he played host. But he didn’t just host us: it was a full house, and full of characters! Giovanni, in fact, is a theater instructor, and lives in the forest with three of his students. They all invited friends, from all parts of Italy, and there were about 20 of us in total. And, thanks to lousy weather outside, all 20 of us spent just about all weekend in the kitchen. Some of the guys even slept there! And it was awesome.

Walter from Napoli was the Chef-in-Charge, and cooked up – oh yeah, I’ve already told you how much I love it! – an octopus that Marco (also from Napoli) brought with him. Three of the theater people put on a show for us, and I especially liked Marco #2 (who played a horse). Guillaume from France regaled the masses with tricks he learned in Circus School (really), such as walking on glass and juggling fire. Bociccio played the mandolin, Luca sang Lucio Dalla, and I laughed a lot.

Buona Pasqua a tutti voi! Happy Easter, everyone!

Talkin' Proud

2008-03-20T07:57:00.000-07:00

Part of my "duty" as a Rotary Ambassadorial Scholar is to give presentations to people here in Italy - primary the Rotary Clubs, but maybe schools and other groups, too. The idea is to share a bit about where we come from and thus promote international understanding and goodwill. I think it's all pretty cool: I like the objective, I like that I get to be a part of it, and - you know it - I like giving presentations.

Anyway, I was searching for a Buffalo logo, and I came across the "Talkin' Proud" Buffalo from the 1970s. My real discovery, though, was the associated jingle. I had no idea there was a jingle. I mean, I'd heard the "Talkin' Proud, Talkin' Proud" bit . . . but this is a full-up jingle. Maybe even more than a jingle. It's pretty impressive for its . . . its . . . kitschyness? Can that word be applied to a sound element? Check it out for yourself at Forgotten Buffalo. Since I didn't arrive on the Buffalo scene until 1980, I missed out on this firsthand . . . if you're in the same boat . . . ah, go on - give it a listen!

Lots happening in Bologna

2008-03-19T16:35:00.000-07:00

I really like Bologna. There’s so much going on! In fact, I have a few weeks off right now, and I don’t even really want to go anywhere! I’ve done a couple of cool things lately – and, naturally, a few have turned into veritable “Only Me” stories. Seriously, I don’t know if I attract these kinds of events, or if I create them, or what. In any case, I’m glad they happen while I’m around; I get a lot of entertainment mileage out of them.

This Sunday was the “Sagra del Raviolo Dolce,” The Festival of the Sweet Ravioli, in “nearby” Casalfiumanese. “Nearby,” however, understates the 30-kilometer distance from Bologna. I had written to the tourist office in Casalfiumanese saying, basically, “I don’t have a car. How do I get there?” They told me to take a train or bus to Imola, and then hop on local bus #44 to Casalfiumanese. Seemed easy enough – but, if you’re a regular reader of this blog (are there any??), you’re learning, along with me, to distrust any intuition that says “easy enough.” (I’m trying to come up with an aphorism for SEEMS . . . along the lines of You Know What Happens When You ASSUME . . . but the thing is, you don’t have any blessed idea of what will happen when something in Italy “seems easy enough”!!!) In any case, despite such distrust, I took the train to Imola, went to catch bus #44 to Casalfiumanese, and – surprise! – it actually doesn’t run on Sunday. The day of the festival. Small detail. So I turned to the nice man in the Train Station Information Window. His solution was simple:
- “Oh. Sorry. You can’t go to Casalfiumanese today. It’s Sunday.”
But I decided that I could, in fact, go to Casalfiumanese on a Sunday. I walked a thousand kilometers on the Camino de Santiago, didn’t I?! What’s ten or fifteen more to Casalfiumanese? And, what the heck? I have only a little daypack with me. Why don’t I run there? So, yep, to pull a favorite Greg Ashe term out of my hip pocket, I Hoaked it to the Casal. Where another adventure awaited me: The launching of sweet ravioli from the town’s clocktowers! Yeah, you bet, it was fantastic. The Counts of the Ravioli (there were several) mounted the three towers of the main plaza and launched two tons of sweet ravioli to the crowds below. Insane! I literally got walloped on the head by an airborne ravioli, launched from the tower behind me, while I was grasping in the air for flying ravioli inbound from the tower in front of me. Of course, there was also a competitive element to the event: a plaza full of ravioli-obsessed Italians to reckon with. I think this gave me a genuine sense of achievement: I came home with FOUR sweet ravioli. Ah, coming home. I’d had enough of that running shite. Did I tell you it rained and winded on me on the way there? So, going home, I did one of my favorite create-your-own-adventure picks: hitching. Great fun, as usual. Met a couple from Puglia, who took me to see a baby shark in a café aquarium. Classic.

Yesterday I went to a lecture on market and environmental analysis in Uzbekistan. I think it’s cool that there are events like this in Bologna, that they happen all the time, and that people actually go to them. And not just any people: interesting people. At this lecture, for example, a fight almost broke out: It was exciting! And very Italian. This old guy from Napoli just wanted to talk, so he managed to start a polemic about the Trash Problem in Napoli, waving his hands (and his cane) and looking just charming the entire time. This provoked the entire room to break into argument and shouting. Whooooo! Who knew Uzbekistan could be so entertaining!?

Today I checked out the Museum of the Risorgimento in the morning and stumbled across the Carducci library, which has all kinds of old books. Is it ever cool. It would be awesome to study in a place like that. And guess what? You can! Anyone can go in and request to look at one of these old books. And – this is another point-winner for Bologna – all the museums are free. A super policy, if you ask me. Especially since the euro now costs $1.56.

Summary Point: Bologna is an awesome, awesome city, and I am really, really happy to be here.

Straight from the Headlines, #2

2008-03-14T15:23:00.000-07:00

This is fantastic . . . "Straight from the headlines":

"Palermo: He doesn't fit in the cell; they'll have to set him free.

Too fat to enter the bathroom of his cell, and accused of belonging to a [Mafia] clan allied with Salvatore and Sandro Lo Piccolo [ironically: "the Little"]. For this reason, Salvatore Ferranti, 36 years years old and 463 pounds, will be remanded to house arrest. The decision was reached after an odyssey around all the Italian prisons: none had doors big enough to let Ferranti pass through."

I don't even think it needs a comment.

And yet - naturally - I have one: Have you ever noticed that Mobsters are necessarily obese? Just for fun, I Googled "Mafia," and on the first page of images, I found this champ:

It's not "the guy" in question - in fact, I think this arse belongs to a New Yorker - but nonetheless I'm certain it merits a place on this blog.

Healthy Mediterranean Diet, anyone?

Why my program is the best program ever

2008-03-10T13:06:00.001-07:00

Honestly, can anyone imagine a better program? I spent this afternoon working on a presentation on herbal-based medicine, and this evening I went on a research project. By this I mean, specifically, that I went to a wine tasting. The Association of Montepulciano Wine Producers (or something like that) was having their 2008 Preview at a swanky hotel here in Bologna. I attended. For the sake of alimentary research, naturally. My primary notes:

1. Vin santo rocks.
2. Studying the History and Culture of Alimentation rocks.

That about sums it up.

If you’re wondering, though, I did actually treat it as a research project. I had a great time chatting it up with the wine producers. We talked about the presence of flavors such as cherry and blackberry, the oak barrels, how long the wine ages, the various grapes, and wine that is very “approachable” (What that means remains a mystery for me: If it's not approachable, how do you approach it?) Also the cheese was good.

And I have to go right now, because the pot on my stove is overflowing. On another alimentation note, I have discovered that boiling orange peels makes an awesome herbal tea. (Which is not actually a tea, as I have been corrected many times by Europeans, who prefer to call such non-tea teas “infusions.” But I continue to call them teas, probably because I’m testarda, stubborn.)

The National Uniform Laws

2008-03-08T12:27:00.000-08:00

I went for another run today, and had another “cultural insight.” I have a lot of “cultural insights” during my runs. I know you’ve been awaiting my commentary on this one, though, and for precisely that reason, I’d been trying my best to avoid it. But I can wait no longer . . . Live from Bologna . . . Italian Fashion!

I preface these observations by declaring that, if there’s one person on the planet who should not be making any observations at all about fashion, it’s me. (But I will comment nonetheless.) There is clearly a marked difference between Italians and Americans regarding what it takes to look good, and, probably more importantly, wanting to look good in the first place. But the difference between Italians and me is . . . well, I’m not sure it even qualifies as a difference. It’s more like a different topic altogether.

As a starter, we’ll review the two principal Italian uniforms, and the regulation regarding their use:

Men and boys: Must wear jeans of reasonable tightness. Winter coat is of utmost importance and hence governed more strictly than other accessories. It must be white, brown, or black, and must be down or imitation down. The compartments containing the down must be horizontally segmented, and the jacket should be reasonably “puffy.” It should have a hood, a faux belt, and – this is very important – a furry collar. Shoes should be trendy. Cap should be of the 1930s newsboy style. Large sunglasses (“facial” style) recommended.

Women and girls: Tight jeans for the casual look and short skirt for the classy look. Nice shirt. Obligatory scarf, ideally one of extraordinary length and complicated-issimo wrapping. Winter coat, similar to that worn by men, should be white, brown, or black, and must be down or imitation down. Compartments again must be horizontally segmented and should be reasonably “puffy.” The hood, faux belt, and furry collar obligatory for men are optional for women, but the woman’s coat must be thigh-or knee- length. The accessory of highest importance for women is footwear, and leather boots, preferably knee-high, are obligatory. Tall, skinny heels are best, but shorter heels may be considered marginally acceptable. Hats are best avoided, but, if worn, should be the feminine version of the 1930s newsboy style. Small, pointy, trendy eyeglasses are recommended, even in cases of outstanding vision, and large sunglasses (“facial” style) are, for women, obligatory.

Rules for use: All Italians between the ages of 18 and 65 must dress according the general Wardrobe Fashion Law. (Dispensations are allowable for health or age-related problems, and individual requests should be directed to the Bishop.) In the event of a violation, the Italian’s (fashionable) electronic ankle bracelet will activate upon crossing the apartment threshold, and the user should return to his or her wardrobe to remedy the violation. Upon returning to conformance with the regulation wardrobe, he or she may then leave home with no further imposition of penalties. In the event of wardrobe negligence carried into the public sphere, however, the penalty will be social ostracization, imposed on a scale escalating in accordance with the frequency and severity of the violation.

These really are the rules, and the penalties (as you can see) are stiff. I’m not kidding. (I’m searching for the governing legal document on the internet right now.) Some people have gotten so used to the rules that they begin to follow them before the age of 18 and continue to follow them after earning the age-related automatic dispensation at age 65. For example, today I saw a woman who – “I am not making this up” – was at least 85. Check that, at least 85 but really most likely edging into her mid-nineties. You know what she was wearing? Knee-lenght skirt; regulation “puffy” coat with faux belt; four-inch heels; fashionable fishnet stockings; and – this is the winner – the Italian signature, “trendy” eyeglasses. Awesome.

Anyway, this is the insight I had on my run today: I realized why all Italian runners wear a uniform. It’s not just because they belong to a team, as I’d thought before (though it remains entirely possible that they belong to the team just to get the uniform.) It’s that there’s an important exemption to the Wardrobe Uniform Law (as described above). Here it is:

Athletic Exemption: IF the user is leaving home to participate in an activity that has as its express and sole objective fitness, the user may exempt him- or herself temporarily from the general Wardrobe Uniform Law. However, he or she must then abide by “Rules of Dress for Athletic Activity” (see below), must return home within two hours and immediately return to compliance with the general Wardrobe Uniform Law, and must not combine the outing directed toward fitness with any other activity. (For example, this specifically prohibits stopping at the supermarket after running or even walking fast.) The (fashionable) lectronic ankle bracelet will be disactivated only pending compliance with the “Rules of Dress for Athletic Activity.”

“Rules of Dress for Athletic Activity”: The rule applies identically to both men and women. Users must dress in clothing that unmistakably identifies the purpose of their outing as athletic. The clear preference is given to Spandex pants and zip-up spandex shirts, both of which should be brightly colored and imitate, as closely as possible, the sponsored uniforms of professional cyclists. (Though helmets, of course, should be avoided.) It is permissible to add a single piece of non-spandex gear to the athletic wardrobe, as long as (1) it is manufactured from another expressly “athletic” material, such as Goretex, and (2) it contains a reflective stripe. (The ideal piece, therefore, is obviously a Goretex, wind-resistant vest with a reflective stripe.)

Note that this rule is applicable whether used by semi-professional athletes or by overweight old men out for a stroll: The important thing is that the user alert everyone that he is doing an athletic activity and hence merits exemption from the general Wardrobe Uniform Law! To illustrate the danger of less than full compliance, consider this cautionary example: wearing loose-fitting pants or a hooded sweatshirt is ambiguous and hence could be confused for non-athletic, unfashionable clothing; hence such clothing, and clothing that is similarly ambiguous, should be at all times avoided.

That’s what I figured out today. It makes a lot more sense, now that I know about the national law. And I’d thought that everyone just bought into appearances a little too much!

Did I tell you, though, that I inadvertently acquired two pieces of fashionable clothing?! Yeah, it shocked me, too. At the flea market, I bought (1) a pair of jeans that fit me, for two euro; and (2) a winter coat for five euro. This was because I had only two pairs of pants and a spring jacket (thanks to my Camino weight frugality), and it was snowing. Turns out that the pants are Tommy Hilfiger, and the coat is very nearly compliant with the official coat regulated by the general Wardrobe Uniform Law. If anyone is concerned, however, you can take a deep breath and relax: I have no trendy eyeglasses and continue to wear my hiking-running shoes (which have now walked about a zillion kilometers), holes and all. And I kind of like the looks of the running shoes. They’re red.

And before the internet?

2008-03-05T12:21:00.001-08:00

I've been a technology fan for quite some time (with the exception of TV, which I continue to boycott, though now not by choice: my landlord refuses to fix it). But I made an awesome discovery today: Google Scholar. If you haven't made a trip to the "Google Extras" page, I recommend a visit. Last year I got hooked on Google Desktop for finding "stuff" that I'd buried away in long-lost folders of my desktop, and now - wow! - I'm becoming a huge fan of Google Scholar and Google Books. They're awesome. You can find full-text articles from authoritative but obscure journals - and full-text versions of some recent books. Man, am I ever a fan of Google.

Let's hope Google doesn't have any major ethics problems in the next twenty years - because they just about control the world of information. If Google were to blackball someone, some country, some ideology - I think that person, place, or idea would, for all practical purposes, cease to exist. I guess that's kind of what Google does in China, right? I'd like to think that "the West" has a kind of tradition of inquiry and innovation that would prevent something like that from controlling the "informational patrimony." But I know it doesn't: Has anyone yet seen dead soldiers on TV?

Straight from the Headlines

2008-03-03T13:59:00.000-08:00

A wise, messy Swiss man once gave me a great piece of advice: Wherever you go, even if you don't know the language, you should read the local newspaper.

If you want to get a feel for what's on the mind of Italians, here you go, "straight from the headlines," from Bologna to the USA, here's a summary of what's in the Bologna newspaper these days:

- Walter Veltroni vs. Silvio Berlusconi. Elections coming up in April. Did you guys know that the Italian government "collapsed" recently? Yep. If you didn't know, you should go to the internet and try to follow this story. Man, is it ever complicated. I'm still trying to wrap my brain around it. It goes something like this: There's a (one of many) scandal with some politican being connected to the Mafia. That guy (Mastella) withdraws from the majority alliance. (He's forced to step down to avoid further controversy). That makes the majority alliance (and Prime Minister Prodi) lose the majority. That makes the government collapse. That leads to a big controversy about what to do now: Elections? Appoint a temporary government? Change the electoral law and then have elections? Anyway, they're having elections in April, and Veltroni and Berlusconi are on the campaign trail. In fact, Veltroni is coming to Bologna on Thursday night, and, just for kicks, I'm going to go see him.

- The bodies of two disappeared boys are discovered in a well. We, the curious public, get to follow every moment of police investigation and family agony.

- The "carovita" - literally, the expensive life. The high cost of living. Prices are constantly on the rise, and everyone's favorite hobby is complaining about it. One on hand, they are entirely justified. When they introduced the euro about a decade ago, the euro was worth about two thousand lire. So, the number part of everyone's salary was halved: If you made 40,000,000 lire before, you made 20,000 euro after. But! In a marketing trick that wasn't so tricky but stuck nonetheless, all the prices remained the same: A loaf of bread that cost two thousand lire before cost . . . two euro after! So for all practical purposes, everything doubled in price instantaneously and people lost half their buy buying power. And it continues to get more expensive. (And, I will add, for an American abroad, it continues to get even more expensive.) On the other hand, they don't seem to be dealing with the problem particularly effectively on an individual level. For example, another "I am not making this up" observation, this is actually a headline I read recently: "High Prices Change the Buying Habits of Italian Consumers: Less Pasta and Vegetables, More Chicken and Eggs." I thought it was just a misleading headline - maybe they were substituting, say, beans for pasta, and they were substituting chicken for, say, beef. Or something like that. But no: They actually interviewed people who substantiated that they are actually making these types of decisions. That is: Because pasta got lots more expensive than it was yesterday, people aren't eating so much of it; but because chicken isn't so much more expensive than it was yesterday, they're eating more chicken instead of the pasta. Let's review: One serving of pasta for one person: about 15 cents (instead of what, ten cents yesterday?). One serving of chicken for one person: 1 euro (instead of 95 cents yesterday?) That reminds me of a saying I heard once about the lottery: "The lotto? It's really just a tax for people who are bad at math."

- The San Remo Italian Music Festival ("Volare" . . . oh oh) is a bust this year!

- The debate over abortion. Law 192, which legalized and regulates abortion, and Ru486, the pharmocologic abortion, are hot topics, expecially given the election. It's an interesting climate: The Pope, the Church, and "the Catholics" (that is, the politicians allied with the Church) are obviously against abortion and talk a lot about it. On the other hand, I haven't heard anyone in the "general public" who's against abortion, they're all against "those crazy religious folks," and their favorite hobby is bashing the Pope. It's noticeably strange: The Pope gets a lot of play here, but no one (in the general public) seems to have much respect for him.

- Immigrant-bashing in the "Text Messages (forget letters!) to the Editor." If there were a way to measure racism and xenofobia, South Buffalo and Italy would both be in the playoffs. They both have some features that make them strong contenders for the title: Aging populations. Lack of good employment opportunities "on the homefront." Generally homogenous communities historically. I'm not sure who else would be in the playoffs, so I'm not putting any money down on the eventual champion. But should South Buffalo and Italy face each other, Italy would definitely win.

Age 15, Forever and Ever

2008-03-01T03:51:00.000-08:00

You know another thing that bothers me? Yeah, I’m in a bothered mood right now, I’ll admit it. The average emotional age of the Italian man is fifteen. As I’ve said before, I didn’t like high schoolers when I was in high school, I try to avoid high schoolers now, and I’m certainly not a fan of adults who act like they’re in high school. Which is a fairly high percentage of Italian men.

I promised to return to the story of how I’ve been confused for a prostitute more than once. Right. Upon arriving in Bologna, I put up an advertisement for a language exchange partner. I’d done the same thing in Rome and Florence with great success: I met a few great people, and really enjoyed getting to know them as we practiced Italian and English with each other. I figured the same thing would happen in Bologna. Apparently not. Well, that’s not entirely true. I have met a bunch of great people. But, God, the others!

I started to receive phone calls – the “sexy voice” phone calls.
- Hello?
- Ciaooooo . . . :0) ;) (Really, I could hear the emoticons.)
- Ciao. (Silence.) Ciao? Si?
- Yes . . . . I’m calling . . . about your ad.
- For the language exchange?
- Yessss . . . When can we . . . get together?
- You’re interested in a language exchange?

After getting a few sexy voice phone calls, I’d had it, and starting giving it to them. But two phone calls were just classic.

The first one came at seven in the morning. I answered, thinking that, if someone was calling me at seven in the morning, it must be an emergency, right? Well, an emergency of sorts, I suppose . ..

- Hello?
- Ciaoooooo ;) 
- Si?
- Yes . . . I’d like to get to get together with you . . . (This guy got right to the point. Forget the pretense about the language exchange.)
- Listen, I have no idea who you are. Could you please call back another time? (Apparently I have some semblance of politeness, and a major lack of Snappy Answerability, when I’m not yet awake.)
- No, I’m really really . . . hot . . . and I want to go out now. (Panting.) Pleeeease? (By now pleading, whining, pouting.)

Ickkkk!

The second one started off as a typical sexy voice phone call, so I told the guy to get lost and hung up the phone. Then he sent me an MMS – a video message. My phone doesn’t play videos, and hence I’d never received a video message, but the written message from the phone company said there was a way to go on the internet and retrieve it. Curiosity got the cat. Yeah, you guessed it, it was a borderline-inappropriate picture of him, in the gym, all jacked up, half naked, with the written message: “If you change your mind and want to talk more about it, send me your photo. :) :)”

God!

The latest Exhibition of Immaturity is my landlord, who keeps inviting me to do things. On one hand, he’s my landlord, and he actually has been very nice, so I don’t want to pis him off. I’ve also been running with his running team (I told you: everyone here needs a team.) On the other hand, he’s a fifty-year-old Italian male who keeps touching me inappropriately. Ick! This is probably why we have sexual harassment laws in U.S. offices. Fortunately my studies are keeping me busy and my social ineptness can be amplified on command. "Really? A Sardegnan dinner? Cool. I'll have to tell my classmate, who's going to do his internship in Sardegna! He'd love it!"

As on Sesame Street, but in a much different spirit, I leave you with today’s special word. Saturday has been brought to you buy the word:

ICK.

Playing Bureaucracy

2008-02-26T01:49:00.000-08:00

I’d made up my mind that Italian bureaucracy wasn’t going to bother me. It was going to be a learning experience, a chance to see things from another perspective, another window to a different culture. And I definitely wasn’t going to complain about it. Well: resolve broken, resolution broken! I’ve officially “had it up to here.”

I got a letter from the Immigration department fixing my appointment to “finalize” my permesso di soggiorno, the magic document that makes it legal for me to be here, in March. I put “finalize” in quotes, because I’m certain that there will be a problem and that it won’t, in fact, be final. Italian bureaucracy is kind of like Monopoly. I mean: Do you know anyone who’s ever finished a game of Monopoly? I don’t. You just leave it there, set up on a folding table on the front porch, for days and days and days, until finally fall comes and your friends go back to school, and you have to reorganize all the fake money and find the little silver shoe that somebody lost and pack it all away.

They scheduled the appointment, naturally, for Easter week. Since I’d hoped to use my Easter vacation to go trekking, I decided to see if it might be possible to change the date of the appointment. To be honest, I didn’t have high hopes that this would be possible, but I figured it’d be worthwhile to “ask the question.” Naturally, I tried calling the phone number. There are lots of phone numbers to use when playing Italian Bureacracy, but rarely anyone who actually answers the phone. Having become accustomed to this, I didn’t expect to succeed, and already had the city map in hand. I went to the Immigration headquarters and talked to a nice policeman. He talked to a colleague on the phone, handed me a slip of paper with an address, and told me to head across town to another office. “There’s a bit of a crowd, though,” he said. “Be sure to check with one of my colleagues there where you should go.”

“A bit of a crowd.” This could possibly be the biggest understatement I’ve heard in my entire time in Italy. The Immigration office was so crowded, so chaotic, so breathtakingly disorganized that it’s hard even for me to describe. Go to your mental Rolodex – not to be confused with Rolex – of images, and pull out “Moroccan street market” and “Tower of Babel.” For those who have been to South Bend, add “the ‘Backer on a football Friday,” and, for those who haven’t, substitute “your local dance club” for the “’Backer.” There were loads and loads of people, all jockeying to be at the front of the “line” – ha! there was no “line”! – and I just kind of pinballed about the throngs for a few minutes before managing to collect myself and take some kind of constructive action.

It turns out that there were two “lines” – ha! – one for carrying out immigration-related activities, and one for getting information about carrying out immigration-related activities. Theoretically, you would stand in Line 2 to find out what you needed to then do in Line 1. I wanted some information – to see if were possible to change the appointment – so I went to Line 2. I took a number (like at the deli counter, which is a great system, according to me). My number? 122. The number they were on? 19.

Holy smokes. To hell with the trekking plans: I figured I’d be in line until Easter week if I wanted to change – or see about changing – the appointment. Forget that.
Which reminds me of another round of Italian Bureaucracy that left me dumbfounded. I needed to established myself as a “resident” of Bologna. This required a trip to the Anagrapher’s Office, taking the number, waiting in line, and so on and so on. When I got up to the window, I presented all my documents, carefully prepared. After a little while, the woman took my passport, consulted a colleague, and returned to inform me of the problem:
- But . . . you’re not in Italy.
- Bu . . . I . . . what????
- We have no record that you actually arrived in Italy. There’s no stamp in your passport.

So I took my passport, I found the stamp, and I passed it back to the woman.

She looked at it quizzically for a few minutes, consulted the colleague, and again returned.
- But this is a problem. See? She pointed to the stamp. It doesn’t say “Rome.” It just says "Fiumicino."
- But isn’t there only one Fiumicino Airport? The one in Rome? Hence if I arrived in Fiumicino, I must have arrived in Rome? And hence I must be in Italy?
- Yeah, I see what you’re saying – she was real nice – but it doesn’t say "Rome." This is the problem.
- Ah . . . but . . . if that’s the stamp used by the Italian Immigration office at the airport . . . ?
- I know. Odd. Hmmm.

And so, I am not an official resident of Bologna, because I haven’t actually arrived, officially, in Italy. How do you like that one?

If the United States treats its immigrants half as badly as the Italians treat theirs – and I imagine they do – I’m about ready to start welcoming illegal immigrants into my house. For me – ok, in the end, everything will work out. But can you imagine if, instead of coming from a friendly country to study for a few years, you’re fleeing poverty or persecution in a lesser-developed, possibly unfriendly country? I can’t imagine how they treat you.

Chilled out? Not a chance.

2008-02-24T03:02:00.000-08:00

I bet some of you think I've chilled out in my old age. (I turned 28 in January, which seems really old to me. Plus I'm in Italy after having finished my "career" as an engineer. It's kind of like I'm a retiree.) I myself thought that perhaps I've chilled out a bit. But we're all wrong!

I did a race this morning. This was because my landlord is also a runner, invited me to do a run with him last weekend, discovered I was reasonably fast, and told me I should do this race today. It was an important race, he said, with important prizes: The first five women would win a prosciutto! (A prosciutto is a giant fatty ham, super-tasty.) Man, I thought about that prosciutto all week. Even though I don't really eat prosciutto. A slice, maybe, but not much more than that. I just wanted to win it! My classmates would love it, too. I haven't raced in a long time - I did the Corporate Challenge in Buffalo last spring, and that's about it. But I've been running, so I figured - why not. I'll do the race.

So I did the race. It was pretty interesting also from the "interesting cultural notes" front:

Every Italian runner belongs to a team. This is mostly, as far as I can tell, for one reason: if you want to do something athletic, you have to have a uniform. It's impossible to run or bike without a fully color-coordinated spandex outfit. Fashion doesn't take a vacation at the track! And how can you have a real uniform without belonging to a team?

Membership cards are huge here. In fact, in order to "belong" to many bars, you have to buy a membership card. Or . . . want to do a painting class? Buy a membership card to the non-profit community organization first. Similarly . . . want to run in a road race? You got it. Buy a membership card. Fortunately, my landlord is in the "In Crowd" and got me one on the fast track. Which makes me mention this lesson: The key to success here is knowing the right person. (Which, really, is the essence of one of my favorite DiSarno phrases: "I got a guy." As in, "Yeah, I got a guy at the post of office. Let's give him a call and see if he can take care of that for you.") It's a great system . . . if you "got a guy."

Off the interesting cultural sidenotes variant and back to the main point. The race. The hyper-competitivity. Naturally I wanted to win a prosciutto, which meant I had to be in the top five. I did my usual strategy of slightly negative-splitting the race. I started out in about tenth or twelfth position and picked off people as they got slower and I got just a bit faster. My landlord and his buddies found me at various points in the race to tell me my position. Everyone had me pegged at #5 - which meant a prosciutto! Fatty ham for everyone! Woooooo!

But. I was actually #6. No prosciutto. Was I ever bummed out.

Here's where the hyper-competitivity comes in. I actually probably ran a great race. I felt like I was at the limit, couldn't have gone much faster. And my time was pretty good. It was 39:53 for 10K (or 6.2 miles) . . . 3:59 kilometers or 6:25 miles. And as long as I thought I was #5 (Prosciutto!) I felt like I'd run a great race! As soon as I found out I was #6, I was super-disappointed . . . But it was the same race. For the record, the top woman was at 37:05 and #5 was at 39:09. And I did win a booby prize for being first-in-category . . . which did include some other type of fatty sausage. But no prosciutto.

Bloody . . . carnivores! Or cannibals!?

2008-02-23T12:08:00.000-08:00

I'm reading a book right now, "Food, the Body, and the Self," by Deborah Lupton - though I decidedly prefer the Italian title, "L'anima nel piatto" ("The Soul on a Plate"). If you'd like to check it out, here's a link to it on Amazon. Usually I go along in my course and my readings very analytically, detached, hesitant to make any judgments without seriously considering the various arguments. I guess that's my idyllic vision of the academia I want so badly to be a part of: I picture an old professor, rocked back in his chair, hand caressing his goatee, head cocked back a bit as he wrestles with some new idea that's disrupted the security of whatever understanding he had "before." And he likes the disruption. It doesn't bother him at all - it invigorates him. He says to his student - or himself - "I'll have to think about that some more. Let's talk again tomorrow." I want to be "that guy" - well, without the goatee and all. But it's the model I'm going with (since - speaking of paradigms before and after - it's the one I come up with most naturally; probably because women hold only 11% of full professorships in the US).

And, off interesting cultural sidenotes and back to the original point: I'm reading this book, and in one part it talks about foods that we consider edible and inedible. Meats, for example. Some people are vegetarians, and they consider beef inedible. Some people live in Buffalo, and they consider dogs inedible. (Generally. I'd eat dog, though, or at least try it, if someone offered it to me.) But then the author brought up the point about eating blood, and I moved a little closer to the edge of my comfort zone. You guys are familiar with the "black pudding" in the famous Irish breakfasts, right? You know that it's basically congealed pig blood? Same deal with the famous Spanish morcilla. In fact, here's a Wikipedia page elaborating on dozens and dozens of different kinds of blood sausages; vegetarians and squirmies beware. But I was still ok with that idea. I've tried both black pudding and morcilla, and - even recognizing the fact that I'll never eat much of it for health reasons - I thought it was good. Right. But then the author mentioned something that made me say, "Eeeewwww, gross" - which isn't exactly the intellectual response I would've hoped for. What about eating human blood? Apparently an Australian chef, Gay Bilson (I confirmed it), advertised an "avant gard" blood sausage meal she'd make from her own blood. Now: she's not slaughtering anyone. No one's getting hurt. Apparently human blood and pig are almost identical (I'm taking her word for it). So - I had to ask myself - where am I drawing the line? What's the difference? What's my hang-up? (For those interested: Bilson's proposal was wholeheartedly rejected.)

I'm really curious: What do you guys think? Would you eat the human-blood sausage? If not - why not? I'm not sure I'd eat it, but I'm not sure I can come up with a good reason why not. I think that means I'd have to eat it.

More thoughts on the Sidewalk

2008-02-21T12:52:00.001-08:00

Aside from my bewilderment , I've become rather intellectually interested in the "sidewalk thing." The testing phase is over, and I've positively identified it as a national cultural trait. And, interestingly, I think I'm beginning to place into a kind of psychological context. First, a few general rules to define the "ideal case," allowing for slight varations, of course. Just like Real Gases are allowed to differ from Ideal Gases, so long as they're more-or-less the same. (I'm feeling very engineery.) Here we go:

1. Walkers will be aware exclusively of themselves.
2. Therefore they will consciously offer no concessions to other pedestrians.
3. On a subconscious level, however, they will sense other walkers . . . and they'll respond to this sensation by subconsciously veering into the other person's space or trajectory.
4. There are no concepts, even vague ones, defining right-of-way or direction-of-flow. Right side, left side, longitudinal motion, transverse motion: it's all fair play.
5. Given a choice of places to pause, the walker will always choose a place that is congested by either people or objects.
6. For walkers in groups, there's an "entropic" principle of expansion: A group never condenses but always expands, even when confronted by a constricting space.

I had a conversation a few weeks ago that helped me place these observations into a kind of psychological context. Well, rules #3 and #5 in particular; rule #6 seems contradictory, doesn't it? I'm going to have to call it a paradox for now; maybe my next run will shed some light on how it coexists with rules #1-#5.

The conversation was about TV. Italian houses typically have at least one TV in every room, sometimes more than one, and they're always on. I hadn't actually noticed this myself, but when someone in my language class pointed it out, I realized that it's absolutely true. Even given the American couch potato image, I'm giving the blue TV ribbon to the Italians. Anyway, my classmate asked - basically - "What's the deal?" The professor, I thought, gave a great answer: The Italian culture generally values "relationships" more than other cultures. People want to have company, to be accompanied, to talk, to feel, etc . . . a preference that's easily contrasted with a British culture that values a stiff upper lip or an American one that values lots of space and lots of independence.

I really liked this explanation because it concords with my own experience. In Sicily, I felt constantly bombarded by people. Unless I was sleeping or running ( - ecco! that's probably why I started both sleeping and running excessively in Sicily!) - there was Zero Chance to be alone or silent. I'm not saying that I wanted to move into a convent, but . . . it's just too much for me to be constantly engaged. How can you think?! I got up one morning very early and sat in the kitchen with a book. It was great . . . and it lasted about five minutes. The Signora had heard me rise, dragged herself out of bed, still bleary-eyed and sleepy, and got up herself to - this is the quote - "give me company." ("But the last thing I want is company!" didn't seem like quite the right thing to say . . .) In any case, there is, I think, this real need to be accompanied. Hence the TV. If you're the only one around, who can accompany you? Your pals from the game shows. Walker, Texas Ranger. Possibly the TV newscaster.

Which brings me back to the sidewalk. I think the tendencies to veer subconsciously into other people and to stop in construction bottlenecks are tendencies that satisfy precisely this need. Maybe you don't know the other person - maybe you don't even consciously know that he's there - but, in a way, when you veer into him, you're also nearing him emotionally: you're being accompanied. And maybe where you stop to have a smoke is in the middle of a construction scaffold. Not the most personable environment I can think of - but better than being alone with all that . . . space! . . . around you!

So that's my analysis. I'll admit I'm stymied as I try to fit Rule #6 into the theory. Any ideas?

Crossing the Street

2008-02-21T01:26:00.001-08:00

I heard on the tv-internet today that 70 people die in Italy every day trying to cross the street. I just caught the story in passing, so I'm thinking that I probably missed something important. (Maybe it was 70 people per year?) But here's the thing: I believe it. This reminds me that I came to a decision yesterday: I will never ski in Italy. How did I come to this decision yesterday? Yet again I was running, and yet again I was amazed at how little awareness the average Italian pedestrian has of her surroundings. Top example (just of Yesterday's Examples . . . the Universe of Examples is almost overwhelmingly dense, and certainly too difficult to survey for this morning's commentary): Space for two-and-half people across the width of the sidewalk. Little old lady walking on the right. I go to pass her on the left. I'm about a pace and half behind her, in the "passing lane," and - BAM! - a middle-aged woman approaching us, and carrying - as Dave Barry would say, "I'm not making this up" - a scooter moves from her position in the (my) right-hand lane, into the passing lane, directly parallel now with the little old lady, and entirely blocks of the sidewalk. She embraces the little old lady, mounts her scooter ACROSS the passing lane, and starts a lengthy conversation. And here's the thing: she was APPROAcHING us! So she could clearly see (unless she was blind, in which case she shouldn't be allowed on that scooter) the unfolding traffic pattern. She could've waited literally two seconds for me to pass. But no.

Moral of the story: If Italian sidewalks are this dangerous, no way I'm chancing the slopes.

Bologna: I've "arrived"!

2008-02-17T13:41:00.000-08:00

Hi everyone! I’ve been meaning to write, and meaning to write, and . . . well. It’s true that I’ve been busy: I’ve been waiting in lines for three weeks straight! I did write a few posts – which I didn’t post – and I’ll add them to the blog shortly, even if they’ll be out of order. I don’t think it matters.

The brief update is this: I’ve moved to Bologna, and I’ve started the Master in the “History and Culture of Food” here at the University of Bologna. I love the program. My classmates – there are only six of us – and professors are great, the material is really interesting, and there are a lot of “incidental benefits.” For example: all of my classmates are – this is probably pointing out the obvious – passionate foodies. We had our first feast of the program last week, when Antonia invited us to her place for an epicurean fish dinner. I’m not sure if I’ve told you, but I’m hooked on octopus. On the Camino de Santiago, the Spaniards I was walking with kept talking up this town “up ahead” – Melides, at the eastern border of Galicia – saying that it was famous for its octopus, oh-wow-is-it-amazing, can’t-wait-to-get-to-Melides-for-the-octupus. I’d never tried octopus, but it seemed fun to look forward to Melides so intently, and so I got excited about the octopus, too. We walked four or five hard days in a row to get to Melides, “to get to Melides!”, and the pulpo awaiting us was – I confirm it – amazing. Since then, and forever-after, I think, pulpo retains something of a legendary status for me. So I especially liked Antonia’s pulpo.

Anyway, I love going to the classes, I love doing the readings . . . and I love Bologna. I have a great apartment right in the center, and it’s a small enough city that you can walk – or run, if you’re an eccentric like me – everywhere. The coolest thing about Bologna is that there are porticoes extending 44 kilometers – that is, just about everywhere you go, there’s a portico. I’d read about the porticoes before arriving, but – unlike the octopus – they didn’t really captivate me until I arrived. And now, I really, really like ‘em! Have you ever seen a cloister – where the nuns and monks can walk around “outside” in their courtyard, but protected from the elements? I always thought of the cloister as a kind of covered “track” for the nuns, though I think they probably emphasized laps around the Rosary beads more than laps around my “track.” Anyway, imagine a cloister that goes around an entire city: that’s Bologna! I ran the other day on a world-record-winning route: you can go eight kilometers without ever leaving the porticoes!

On the downer side, I’ll admit that I’m discouraged by certain elements of Italian culture. I had a conversation the other day with a Spanish guy who’s been here since September, and I think he summed up what I’ve been thinking but not wanting to say or even think: When you first get here, Italy is just enchanting. Fascinating, historic, sensual, full of flavor, full of life. But after you’re here for a while, it gets . . . tiring. And not really in a good way. The things that tire you out are bureaucratic absurdities, a personality that tends way too frequently toward arrogance, and an inappropriate juvenility that is, again, far too pervasive to be incidental. These traits aren’t universal by any means, and I’m really happy to have met a lot of great people. The coordinator of my program, my professors, my classmates, my language exchange partners – they’re great. Interesting, intelligent, thoughtful. But - I hate to say it – I’ve begun to think of them as “exceptions.” I’ve tried to avoid reaching this judgment, and not least of all because I liked being wholly enchanted by Italy. But I think it’s a valid evaluation. I’ll fill you, shortly, on some of the episodes that brought me to this point. Such as, for example, how I’ve been mistaken for a prostitute. More than once.

The Analysis Begins

2008-01-23T10:26:00.000-08:00

My apologies for not updating this in so long! I'm back on the informative track now, and I'll be even more in line next week: I'm going to get my computer this weekend. By "going to get," I specifically mean that I'm flying (for ten euros) to Bilbao, where my friend Julen has been graciously safeguarding my PC. Troppo complicato, no?! Once I have my computer, I hope to fill you in (and post some photos). And there's lots to fill you in on!

For starters, I've been in Florence since the beginning of January taking a language course. It's awesome. I have class from 9-1 every weekday, and it's pretty much like you'd imagine a university language course to be. The best part, though, is that, twice a week, in the afternoons, I'm taking a course (in Italian), called "The Women of the Medici." The Medici were the "royal family," in a manner of speaking - though part of the beauty of the Renaissance was that they weren't actually royalty - of Renaissance Florence. I'm learning all about the history, art, science, politics, family feuds, assassinations, "and more" that developed here in the 1400s and 1500s. It's been really cool because, as I walk around Florence in January 2008, I can imagine Lorenzo il Magnifico, Michelango, Brunelleschi - and so on and so on - "doing their thing" 500 years ago - and in so doing creating a revolution in Western thought. It's pretty amazing when you think about it that way.

For seconds, I've reached a point where I'm no longer necessarily enchanted by Italy. Don't misunderstand! I'm thrilled to be here. But I've been here long enough now to see things from the inside, and (as I think happens with a lot of idealized places, institutions, etc), thinks are shinier from the outside. I've been really fortunate to meet a bunch of interesting young Italians - I've been doing language exchanges, and meeting people through Hospitality Club, and, as usual, letting my nose lead me into "interesting" situation, They've also really helped me to see things Italy from a different perspective. In fact it's better to say from different perspectives . . . just as I attack people for accusing all 300 million Americans of being exactly the same, it'd definitely be unfair to overgeneralize about the "Italians." However! Since the only way to make sense of things for me (still an engineer?) is to talk about "the mean," I've been slowly developing my systemic analysis of "the Italians." The psychology, the beauty, the neuroses . . . all of it. Recognizing that a mean is a mean and only that, and that every society is made up of individuals varying from the mean . . . I still think it's worthwhile to think about generalizations . . . if only to make sense of what we see and to find some kind of "ideal ground". So here goes!

I have to say that I've been disappointed by the "Italian character" I've discovered. (It's the last disclaimer, I promise! You have to believe me that I don't mean everyone. Giovanni, Giacomo, Marilina, Tiziana, Valentina, Alessandro, Enzo, and everyone else is an individual - and they're all awesome!) But in general, here are some of the things that I've noticed, in a bothersome sort of way . . . with lots more "analysis" to come . . .

1. "Look both ways before acting." I'll start with something really simple. Italians are really rude on the street, and I think it comes from this: They are entirely unconcerned with everyone else. I expect this from the cars: it's part of the car culture, and it kind of works, in a "market economy of the road" of sorts. I'm really aggressive and disorderly, but so are you, and so we have to kind of be both competetitors and collaborators to make the road work. Ok, I kind of get that. But amongst pedestrians? Italians will walk seventeen people across the sidewalk. Will NEVER yield some room to someone walking in the other direction. Won't look before making a move - Why bother? I realized that what bothers me isn't so much that it's difficult to navigate Italian sidewalks. It's that there's this attitude that "I'm the only person that matters." Why should I care if I inconvenience someone else? I thought about it this way. It's a good rule of thumb to "look both ways before crossing the street." But more philosophically, it's a good rule of thumb to "look both ways before acting" - to think, at least on a rudimentary, superficial level, whether your actions will affect anyone else, and, if so, if you should therefore modify them to avoid unnecessary negative effects and generally promote harmonious coexistence. But an Italian doesn't do that. Hmmm, I think I'll go over here to the left. BAM! GO! Don't bother looking to see if there's a person there. Hmmm, I think I want to go to the cash register and ask the salesperson a queston. BAM! GO! Don't worry about it if there's already someone there, and already talking to the salesperson. Push your way to the front, push him out of the way and ask your question. See someone coming in the other direction? Don't worry about it. Find a construction bottleneck, stop directly in the middle of it, light a cigarette, and think for a while. It would take so little effort for someone to share the sidewalk. It wouldn't "cost" them anything - but they won't do it. So, obviously this has been bothering me for some time, but on a rather vague level. But something happened the other day that made me literally stop and think about it. I was running along the street, and, accustomed to the self-centered street behavior of Italians, I was in full juke-and-jive dodgeball mode. And then - someone sensed me coming from behind and, shock of all shocks, moved to one side of the sidewalk to let me easily pass on the other side. And I realized: This was the first time this has happened to me in Florence. The first time! Incredible, isn't it!? But here's the kicker. The man who let me pass? He was a blind man. He had the cane and the glasses and everything. The only Florentine with any awareness of anyone else was a blind man.

And with that . . . I'll leave the next piece of the "analysis" until the next time . !

Natale in Sicilia

2007-12-22T03:24:00.000-08:00

Ciao a tutti!

This will probably be the last time I post before Christmas, and I just want to say: Buon Natale, Merry Christmas to everyone!

I'm in Palermo right now, and Cristina, Gabriele, "and Friends" have taken GREAT care of me here!! Especially in the kitchen - we've been eating like champs :)

I'm sorry - I don't have much time to elaborate but I'll give you a little picture of my "Christmas in Sicily" so far. Sunshine. Fresh fish from the outdoor market. Cassata. Exchanging "Auguri" (Good wishes) with friends before Christmas with panettone e spumante. Overwhelming welcome and generosity. Fantastic!

Today I'm heading to Mussomelli to spend Christmas with the Bellanca family, and looking forward to it.

So Merry Christmas to all! Until the next time,

Leah

Fresh OJ

2007-12-18T00:48:00.000-08:00

Two big pieces of news . . .

The first . . . I'm in! Yesterday, December 17th, was Selection Day for my program at the University of Bologna (The Master in the History and Culture of Food). I had my interview over the phone with the director - and I'll admit, I was sweating a little. But he was extremely nice, I could tell he made a special effort to speak clearly so as not to make me work too hard with the language, and - this is key - it turned out to be less worrisome than I thought, because they didn't reach the maximum number of people in the program. The bottom line: "I'M IN!"

And second - I am staying with Alessandro and his family in Joppolo, Calabria, and they are awesome! I've been eating like a champ and - good thing they're good for you! - eating about twenty fresh, delicious, juicy oranges every day! Great family, great food, great coast . . .

A presto.

New Photos : Vacanza Romana

2007-12-14T02:33:00.000-08:00

Hello everyone! I've put together a few pictures from my Vacanza Romana . . . there are also a few pictures from France and the end of the Camino de Santiago (Spain) mixed in. No captions, and you might have to tilt your head sideways every once in a while - it's the best I've got for you right now :) Enjoy, and Merry Christmas! Also feel free to forward the link to anyone I've "missed" who might be interested.

http://www.kodakgallery.com/ShareLandingSignin.jsp?Uc=18rl5z5e.3k5yzb76&Uy=mz0iil&Upost_signin=Slideshow.jsp%3Fmode%3Dfromshare&Ux=0

Sciopero!

2007-12-14T00:55:00.000-08:00

Without making this into a judgment rather than an observation, I think many of you guys will find it interesting to learn a little about strikes (scioperi) in Italy. Strikes are a bit of a different affair here: they're announced ahead of time, they happen all the time, they usually have some wiggle room and work-arounds, and they seem to get resolved reasonably quickly. Since I've been in Italy (which is about three weeks), here are some of the groups that have gone on strike:

Taxi drivers

Transportation workers, including metro, bus, rail, and airport workers

State doctors

Truck drivers (maybe you've seen this in the news? It's caused major problems not only for travel but for food prices and gas availability)

. . . and the one I think would "hurt" the most, quite literally . . .

anesthesiologists.

I hope they decided to reschedule the surgeries for another day . . .

Fast Food Nation

2007-12-13T01:05:00.000-08:00

To prepare for my interview on "Alimentation" (which is on Monday, the 17th, if you happen to, say, make a trip to the grotto that day . . . ), I just read Fast Food Nation. If you've never read it, and if you ever eat at McDonalds, or if you ever eat anything that you didn't grow in your back yard, I recommend a trip a to the library. Perhaps the most memorable line from the book went something like this: "You're better off eating a carrot that you dropped in your toilet than one you dropped in your kitchen sink." Some scientists studied the toxic matter found in "average" American kitchens and those found in the average American toilet and found that the kitchens were worse than the toilets. This is mostly because of the - literal - shit that comes with a good portion of the meat you buy at the store. So - I think the lesson is: Grow tomatoes in your back yard and go out and kill a deer!

It is a worthwhile read, though, and I recommend it. I'll also comment that it's grossed me out because I seem to continue finding myself in living situations that are just filthy. I can't understand how people live like this. If you don't have any choice - if you don't have any water, if you don't have a house - then ok, the problem the lies elsewhere. But if you have a house, running water, and a market down the street that sells things like ashtrays (not used in my house: They use the toilet instead, which, along with other hygeine fouls, perhaps discounts the idea of eating a carrot out of the toilet), dish soap, towels . . . why not just wash your plates??? It just seems so easy to me.

Right, back to the topic of food. And here's a happy comment, and an invitation for you to participate in the blog! I had my first Roman pizza the other day: super-thin, slightly crunchy crust, the pizza as big as a plate - super! I went with Giovanni, one of my language exchange buddies, and we talked about Pizza: Roman-style vs. Naples-style, the Sicilian variation on the Naples style, and foccaccia as an ever thicker style that really shouldn't qualify as pizza but as another breed of food (oops, "alimentation"!) altogether. His conclusion: Our thick pizzas in the USA really aren't true pizzas; they're more of a pizza-fied foccaccia, super-sized becaused everything in the USA is super-sized :) . I said I'd like to get some photos for his expert consultation. So here's the debate: "American Pizza: Is it really pizza?" Here's what I'm thinking. Can you guys take some photos of different pizzas - Pino's Sicilian, Just Pizza, LaNova, ChickNPizza Works, whatever you have . . . and we'll post them here for "expert analysis"? I think Giovanni has volunteered to be the panel's expert :)

Thanks, everyone! Let the Pizza debate begin!

What we can learn from Little Old Italian Ladies

2007-12-10T11:10:00.000-08:00

This week, a potluck.

To start, "Things we can learn from Little Old Italian Ladies":

The last may be first and the first may be last, but if you don't push and shove a little, you might not get in at all. This lesson came in handy for me the other day: I was waiting for the bus, and, when it arrived, my inclination was to wait in line patiently, mount the stairs when it was my turn, and so on. But everyone else starting pushing to be the first one to the front, so - it's my competitive side, I couldn't help it - I did, too. And it's a good thing: At one point, the driver got tired of waiting for people to get on and closed the doors and kept on driving.

I heard the Irish didn't have such a great season this year. Did the offensive line have any trouble? If so, I have the answer! Forget 330-pound supermen. They need to send some recruiters to Rome. Get two little old Italian ladies, give one of them a wheeley-cart and the other an umbrella, and they'll create an absolutely impenetrable ten-yard pocket. The best spin moves and linebacker blitz won't do a think. And if you take away the umbrella and instead give the second lady a yappy-dog on an extend-a-leash, I guarantee she makes All-American. Except that she's Italian, of course.

Next up, I've discovered what could become the latest, greatest, workout craze! Not exactly. I think it'll live and die with me, but I think it's great. I decided I didn't really want to "work out" : Get up early, put on the special clothes, run, shower, and then get on to the "rest of the day." Nah. But I realized that Rome is pretty big, and I want to see "all" of it. Why not run everywhere? So I've been a runner-tourist. I just wear my normal clothes and go wherever I want. It's awesome, because I've been able to experience lots more of Rome than I expected - thanks to taking the "fun way," so to speak, plenty of times. Of course, this only works if you are willing to commit at least one major fashion foul: You can't wear fancy shoes.

And, finally, speaking of fashion, I've possibly purchased something fashionable! It's a coat, it seems to be the same coat that everyone else is wearing, it covers up my traveler'clothes (except for the shoes), and I bought it for five euros. And - it's strange, what Italy can do! - I've even considered buying reasonably fashionable shoes.

Notes from Rome

2007-12-06T00:37:00.000-08:00

. . . Overheard near the Pantheon, from a little boy being pushed in a stroller, as he rounded the corner and the Pantheon came into view: "Oooh, stop! I wanna play here for a while°! Me too, little buddy!

. . . To be included on the growing list of people who should be fined for major infractions of courtesy and common sense: those who approach a zone clearly occupied by someone else (me), and toss breadcrumbs to the pigeons. On the plus side, if getting pooped on by a pigeon is lucky, how lucky must I be to have been pooped on in St. Peter's Square! Whooo!

. . . Again, I have to reiterate, how do you dog-lovers handle it? Specifically, by "it" I mean the slobber and stench and destruction. Are all dogs this disgusting? If I had a choice between living in the same room as a dog (or at least a dog like the one I'm now living with) and living in the same room as a smoker, I would definitely choose the smoker. And if that option weren't available, I think I would take up smoking myself. Smoke: the carcinogenic potpourri!

. . . Favorite study spaces: (1) St. Peter's Piazza, (2) the Roman Forum. Isn't it awesome, that I can grab my books and "take care of business" in places like that!?

Happy St. Nicholas Day! Be sure to check your shoes for candy (but after checking for pigeon poop and dog droppings)!

The Bad

2007-12-02T12:36:00.000-08:00

At the risk of offending a good portion of you - well, what risk? You're probably wondering where the real Leah has gone - I have to reiterate that I hate dogs. I can't understand why people have them. They're filthy. And they wreak havoc. So this is what happened.

I mentioned that the family whose room I rent is really strange. That's not a problem, as I've accustomed myself to strangeness. In fact I fear that I sometimes seek it. But they have two evil dogs, which, sensing, knowing that I detest their slobber and filth, wait for me to open the door. Really, they wait. I can hear them panting and scratching, and, when I have to use the bathroom, I try to "hold it" until they're gone. But the other day, I had to go. I tried my squeeze-out-the-door approach (and it's a good thing I'm skinny), but they burst into the room and attacked everything. It was caos - in italiano, un casino. They tore paints, shirt, jacket, sleeping bag. Slobbered all over my food. Peed on the bed.

So do people just live with this? The stench, the pee, the torn clothes, the hassle? As if there were any question about about my stance on man's best friend: I hereby declare that dogs can go to the devil.

Things that don't happen at home

2007-11-30T11:40:00.000-08:00

I've had some really cool experiences here in Rome, and I keep thinking to myself . . . "now that doesn't happen at home."

. . . I stumbled upon a Baroque music concert in Sant'Augostino Church. It was amazing. I was sitting in an eight-hundred-year-old church, listening to great music, and looking at a Raphael fresco and a Caravaggio painting. Definitely not anything that's ever happened during one of my rambles along, say, Abbott Road.

(By the way, I mention that I went to a "Baroque" music concert, but . . . I'm not yet cultured enough to really know what Baroque music is. Hopefully by the end of my European tenure, I will be. I'm pretty sure I could recognize Baroque architecture, but . . . Baroque music??? I mean, I could tell it wasn't Marilyn Manson, and I'm confident I could distinguish it from the the Neapolitan folk music, but not a whole lot more than that . . . This deficit could, of course, also have something to do with my musical handicap. Rather than waiting for me to blossom in cultural and musical awareness . . . Are there any music scholars out out there? Maybe you can tell us about Baroque music? Just use the comments section . . . )

. . . Last Saturday, I was walking around "my neighborhood," and there were all these guys in red. All cardinals, just wandering around. It seemed like there was a "cardinal convention" of some kind, and they just got let out for lunch. Here a cardinal, there a cardinal, everywhere a cardinal, and they all seemed to be more or less independently searching for somewhere to grab a good slice of pizza. Turns out it was a big day, "promotion day," so to speak: The pope had just named a bunch of cardinals!

. . . And speaking of the pope, I went to see him on Wednesday during his public "audience," and I'm going to see him again tomorrow to Saint Peter's for the first Mass of Advent. I was in Saint Peter's today, and they were setting up "for the pope" - it seemed like a big deal.

. . . And I've met loads of people doing language exchanges. Two of them are, in fact, engineers . . . trying to get out of engineering. Oh - Wait - this was a list of things that don't happen at home . . . ,)

My New Apartment

2007-11-26T13:21:00.000-08:00

You guys aren't going to believe the apartment I found! It's two steps from the Vatican ... without exaggerating, it's maybe a seven-minute walk to Piazza San Pietro. Also - and this importantissimo - I found a spectacular gelateria nearby, hidden alongside the back walls of the Vatican. This is my new routine (which I have faithfully carried ... um, every night since moving into the new apartment): Buy gelato. Walk to St. Peter's. Sit in the piazza, marvelling at St Peter's, listening to the fountains and the chiming of the clock, and - eating my fantastic gelato. I've also determined that this is the cheapest way to eat in Rome. It's a rather expensive city, but if I eat bread and fruit all day, I figure I can get a significant portio of my daily energy needs directly via gelato.

So I've been pretty successful with the various missions I came to Rome with. I made friends with the woman in the post office, and she helped me out, and I got all my paperwork in for the permesso di soggiorno - the legal document that had me sweating. It's the permit that allows me to stay in Italy, and it's complicated because it's one of those things that - basically, if you follow everything to the letter - you need the permesso to get the university acceptance and the university acceptance to get the permesso. So I'm glad to have that taken care of, or at least step one.

I found this awesome apartment.

I found a language exchange partner, and got in touch with a few Italians that I know. Lela and I got together on Saturday, and I'm hoping to get together with the others before heading to Bologna.

I bought some Italian books and I've been studying hard. Tonight I went to a Primo Levi reading at some cultural center. I think it's going pretty well.

And I've been touristing like a champ! It's a good thing I trained for Rome by doing the Camino de Santiago, because I think I walk about 20 kilometers a day. Really. And it's the best. I could walk around Rome forever.

Everything's not perfect. There was a mean guy at the market this morning who almost had a heart attack because I wanted to know the price of the lettuce, a creepy Italian guy asked for the time and then invited me to bed, and there are two pit bulls (or something like that) with fangs in the apartment where I'm staying. But - I'm trying to learn from my "host culture" a bit and chill.

So that's that. Rome is spectacular. I think I could live here. I might even be able to go to a cubicle if I could walk through the old Roman streets to get there. Hmmm. Maybe. Still not sure about that one. I'll have to think about that.

Roman Holiday

2007-11-23T23:36:00.000-08:00

Hello! Very sorry for the delay in entries, but my internet time has been pretty focused: I've had a lot to do! The quick version is this ...
I went to the language school in France ...
The French train workers went on strike ...
It was super-challenging, but I managed to get to Annecy, via train (one of the few that was working), buses, and hitchiking. Annecy was beautiful, between the mountains and a beautiful lake. Beautiful ... but cold.
I met a guy on a bus who was from Geneva. He invited me to stay with him in Geneva for a few days, so I did. Geneva was great! But again ... cold. I am a coldweather refugee.
... So, I bought a ticket to Rome. Here I am! I am thrilled to be here. I ditched the idea of a language school, because i feel like i can do a better job studying on my own. BUt I figured > why not do it in Rome!? So here I am ... I'm searching for a room, and I think I found one. I'll have to let you know. It's a few blocks from the Vatican.
More updates to come . . . but the bottom line is: I'm in Rome, and I'm really happy to be here!

French School Dropout

2007-11-07T08:34:00.000-08:00

Well, not yet. But I came close today. Here's the story.

I'm here in Antibes, studying with the "CIA Antibes" language school. Shall I call this the Internet Court of Justice? It's officially NOT recommended!

I opted for the "budget" residence - I figured, i'm pretty "rustic," pretty simple, right? And I figured i could put up with a handful of party boys and girls if i needed to. (after all - Greg, you've given me at least a little training in that, right?)

Right. But what i didn't bargain for was the absolute filth of this place. Picture the physical setting when i arrived...

-Bathroom: Toilet seat broken. Sink non-functional. No toilet paper ("until at least tomorrow").
-Kitchen: Dirty dishes, with all their leftover crap, piled above faucet level in the sink. Crumbs and sauce and god knows what else all over the place. Mold growing in the "common food."
-Bedroom: More food, naturally, occupying (definitely "beyond the height of the cubicle", too) every inch of desk space.

Add to the visual:

The stench! You can imagine, i'm sure, with the help of the visual aids.

The chatter of - could the company possibly be worse? - English prep school girls. Try to imagine a cross of English snobbery, disgusting privelege, and Valley Girl sensibility. (And a curious mix of all those accents and intonations, too.) Actual snippets of the conversation polluting the aural environment of the residence : (in English, of course; the Valley-Brits don't seem especially motivated to learn French, considering that they're in the same level I'm in, and I've studied for literally a train ride, and they've studied in France for three months)

- "Daddy promised to buy me a piglet for Christmas. I'm going to call it "Pony". Then I'll have a horse named "Piglet" and a pig named "Pony"; huh!"

- "And then i have to fly to Argentina. In economy; in economy! It's going to be horrible; i've never flown in economy before;"

So ... i've been spending a lot of time not there. Which isn't a problem at all: I go to the beach!

How I Became an Expert in the French Telecommunications Industry

2007-11-06T05:59:00.000-08:00

Some of you have heard my stories about the - ah - "directness" - of Italian men (and increasing proportionally with age. which i guess makes sense - i suppose they are running out of time.) In any case, as though the French knew these stories and needed to defend their "romantic" reputqtion in the face of such strong international competition, on my very first day, two old french dudes tried out their moves.

The first dude classifies definitely as a "dude", at least in his mind; About 45, long blond hair in a ponytail, denim shorts. Approaches me on the beach and initiates conversation; entirely undeterred by my caveman french; finally asks if he might "accompany" me here on the beach. My response? Well .... uh, uh ... not to be rude, but, well of course you can sit anywhere you want, but i have to read, uh .... all this. "All this," however, constituted the contractual offerings for a host of cell phone carriers here in France.

And ... that's how i became an expert in the french telecom industry.

The second "dude" might have been a bit beyond official the "dude" stage, but he wins points for trying: Age, 79.

Barcelona

2007-11-01T06:52:00.000-07:00

My short stay in Barcelona has been super! Among the highlights . . .

- I´m staying in the apartment of Xavi, a friend I met on the Camino de Santiago. It´s in the neighborhood called Barceloneta, and I can´t be more than fifty paces from the beach. I went for a run on the beach this morning - November 1st! - and saw all the surfers and beach bums out there. (I am, or would like to be, one of them!) What hospitality, huh?

- Yesterday was the Castanyada. I went to the home of Luis, another friend I met on the Camino, and his mother prepared the three key ingredients of the Feast of the Chestnut: Roasted chestnuts, roasted sweet potatoes, and a Catalan Castanyada dessert called panellets - made with a dough of potatoes, sweet potatoes, sugar, egg, and pine nuts. MMMMMM. Good thing I´m a food scholar, so I can say that with authority. In fact, I´m going to say it again: MMMMMMMmmmMMM!

- And I went to Montserrat. Another important pilgrimage center, though I was a bit monastery-d out, so - Catholic guilt begone - I skipped seeing the Black Virgin, which, I suppose, is the entire purpose of going to Montserrat. Well, I didn´t skip it, really; I just kind of ran out of time. (Partial dispensation? Reduction in pennance?) Instead - apparently I´m not quite tired out enough - I went for an awesome hike to the top of the Montserrat peaks. Google Montserrat to check out some pictures - it´s pretty spectacular, with a monastery "nestled" (obligatory travel writing word, I believe) in the pointy needle-rocks of the Monserrat (serrated mountain, maybe?) range.

I leave tomorrow for France. Au revoir!

One final walk

2007-10-29T02:42:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I walked from Finisterre to Muxia. It was beautiful. We had to "ford a river" - as in the Oregon Trail - and cross a beach. We took the "fun way," as the Ashe family would say . . . which involved following the coast rather than the marked trail . . . and which probably made it a 40 km day. Now I´m definitely ready to stop. It´s been beautiful, exhilirating, and . . . exhausting.

I did a quick mileage total yesterday, and it looks like the official total from St Jean Pied de Port in France to Muxia on the Atlantic is about 900-and-something kilometers. If I add in a few kilometers for getting lost, searching for open food shops on Sundays, and turismo, I think I cap 1000!

Tomorrow: To Barcelona. (By plane.)

Camino de Santiago Photos

2007-10-26T03:50:00.000-07:00

Here is the link ( I think) to the photo album I created on Kodak photos. There are no labels or ordering yet - sorry - but maybe you can imagine. (It´s more fun that way, anyway, isn´t it?)

http://www.kodakgallery.com/ShareLandingSignin.jsp?Uc=18rl5z5e.bzir58sy&Uy=-il3hh&Upost_signin=Slideshow.jsp%3Fmode%3Dfromshare&Ux=0&UV=783889227040_310187172306

I also sent the link by email to a bunch of people, so if this link doesn´t work, and you didn´t get an email, ask me or someone else who knows me to forward the link.

The End of the Road

2007-10-26T03:15:00.000-07:00

I´m here in Finisterre, and I feel really good about it. I´m not sure exactly what I was looking for in the Camino, but I´m pretty sure I got "it." It was a great way to change directions - not easy by any means, but then - as usual - that´s what makes it special :) I think I´ve reached my physical limits, and in a good way. Even though the Camino gives you lots of time to think, it also exhausts you in a way that kind of strips everything to its most elemental. When I arrived in Finisterre, I was pretty much at the base of the Maslow pyramid, "driven" mostly by the need to eat and sleep. But that felt good . . . and a few days later, it feels really good.

Besides the crazies and the hippies, everyone on the Camino is an amateur philosopher, so I´ll try to refrain from too much of that and instead pass along a few "randoms" . . .

Official Scents of the Camino: wild fennel, sweaty German men
Official Fruits of the Camino: wild blackberries, figs, and chestnuts
Official Sounds of the Camino: strong winds, the snoring of sweaty German men
Official Author of the Camino: Paolo Coehlo
Best Meals of the Camino: Cocido maragato in Astorga, pulpo in Melides, "fiesta de Luis" in Finisterre
Favorite region: Galicia
Favorite cities: Leon, Santiago
Best items in my pack: earplugs, swiss army knife
Why I loved the Camino: time and space to "be", time and space to think, beautiful landscapes, interesting people, interesting conversations, awesome shared meals, intensity, fatigue, and a window to the "reality" of everything outside "real life".

(Whoops - a bit of amateur philosophy snuck in there at the end. Sorry.) Hasta pronto.

Santiago & Finisterre

2007-10-24T00:34:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone!

I have lots to say, but only three minutes . . . Hence:

I´ve arrived in Santiago!
I´ve arrived in Finisterre, and saw the ocean. It´s amazing. I can´t believe I´ve walked across the entire country.
Next I´m headed to Barcelona for the Festival of the Chestnut (I´ve decided: I´m going to do my master´s thesis on the chestnut), and then to France to parler frances.

I promise elaboration and photos soon!

Locos

2007-10-10T07:49:00.000-07:00

One "interesting" thing about the Camino de Santiago is the "interesting" collection of people you meet. I´ve met lots of people on my wavelength, lots from - ahem - other wavelengths, and possibly other realities, and a good handful of crazies. Among the more interesting people of recent encounter:
- A man named Tomas who is convinced he is the last Templar. He´s crazy, but sane enough to live just this side of hospitalization. He lives on the top of a mountain and runs a refuge. (Yep, people stay there. I´d stay there. They say that what it lacks in facilities - such as beds, water, or toilets - it makes up for in "character.") He dresses up like a Templar, does a "prayer for peace" while hitting his special bell with his special sword, and talks about how the Apocalypse is coming this November.
- A Lithuanian family, traveling the Camino with a stroller for their 18-month-old, a few cartons of fifty-cent wine, and a little supply of hash. Dad has conspiracy theories about 9/11, and Mom identifies herself as a witch.
- A man named Ferron who instructed me today on the "energy centers" upon which all Catholic churches were secretly built. We walked around a 12th-century church with his two metal sticks, which - obviously - help to find things such as underground rivers, solar energy nets, and faults in the earth´s plates. Priests know where to stand to open up the energy from these natural resources.
See? It really is interesting, this Camino.

Alimentation

2007-10-05T12:39:00.000-07:00

As a future scholar of "Alimentation," I think I´ll share with you a bit of my gastronomic "research." I think yoú´ll be impressed! I´ve tried:
- Morcilla. I´m pretty sure this is similar to what the Irish call black pudding and the English call blood sausauge. It´s something that would ordinarily gross me out, but I´ve been trying to do what the Romans do. It is awesome. I stumbled upon a tasting of morcilla, freshly made, off the sizzler, spicy with onions and hot peppers, and man - was it good! One of my Spanish friends said, ¨"See, this alone is reason enough to live in Spain!" This led to a discussion about how exactly morcilla is made. I figured there was blood in it, or it was cow´s meat ALSO with blood, or something like that; but it turns out that it is really just the blood. It can´t be, I said: it´s more or less solid, right? Congealed blood. Congealed. Obviously. And it´s really tasty.
- Mollejos. At least that´s what I think it´s called. And I can´t actually translate it properly, because my dictionary - which I have faithfully carried for hundreds of kilometers while I discarded soap for the sake of a lighter pack - doesn´t issue a translation. As best our conversions could elicit, it seems to be cow thyroid. One of my fellow pilgrims said it was the best dinner he´s ever had. I had to eat some bread and tea afterwards to make the taste go away.
- Cecina. Like jamon (cured pig´s leg or ham), but from a cow. Super-good, especially when eaten as part of the ¨Festival of Tapas¨"!
- "Feos". In addition to my "one rest day every week" rule, I´ve added another rule to my list: "Pasteleria, cada dia." Pastry shop, every day! I discovered "feos" (uglies) in Leon, and they were awesome. A cookie made almost entirely out of almonds.
I think I could go on and on . . . !

Nearing Halfway

2007-09-27T12:54:00.000-07:00

I'm nearing the halfway point of the Camino! This really surprises me, since I wasn't even sure if I'd make it 100 km. I'm not sure I'm nearing the halfway-point of the non-physical journey, though I'm definitely going somewhere.

Today I took a rest day in Castrojeriz, pretty much right in the center of northern Spain. I climbed to the town castle - imagine, if you could just regularly climb to the "town castle"! - and read my book to the sun rising over the valley village. The other day I ended up walking at night, as there wasn't any space in the pilgrim albergues (refuges) for several towns. It turned out to be awesome: there was a full moon, there were all the colors of the "magic light" that come with dusk, it was windy, and I had good company. I love that I'm outside so much: so much of my experience becomes a kind of walking meditation. Even when nothing profound happens, when I don't think anything, I "experience" so much more than I can when I'm inside: there's something important that I get out of feeling the wind sting my face, hearing my shoes crunch the path I'm walking, seeing that "magic light" every day at sunrise and sunset.

I haven't been well-connected to the internet, so I probably won't have any photos for you until I'm finished. Everything is going really nicely, though. Hasta luego.

Caminando, Caminando

2007-09-19T04:30:00.000-07:00

I'm well into the Camino rhythm.

(Also, sorry for the lack of literary quality here . . . speed, Spanish keyboards, and, uh . . . not really caring . . . are rather impeding the quality of prose. Throw in little hand-waving, bewilderment, and some cumin, and then maybe you can kind of imagine a real Leah Ashe story. If you don´t have those ingredients easily accessible, i guess you´ll have to settle for a second-rate piece of writing. i'd add the imagination if i were you.)

Right, so I´m well into the Camino rhythm. I stay every night with other pilgrims at alguergues or refuges. Tonight I´m staying at one in Logrono. I´m taking a rest day so that I can go see a bullfight. I eat cows, so I figured that I might as well at least check out cow-torture sport. Also, the matadors look pretty good.

In a few minutes, I'm going back to the albuergue to cook the midday meal with the hospitalero-priest. Tomorrow should be another walking day. I'm surprised how quickly I´ve acclimated. I did 20 km yesterday and it felt like nothing. I did a 33-km mountain-climbing day a few days ago; that felt like something, let me tell you, but it also felt really satisfying. I´m pretty sure it wouldn´t be on Dr Snyder´s list of recommended activities, but then, i think, neither would be surfing, skiing, or traversing concrete surfaces without a helmet. I´m liking it, and I´m feeling good.

Until next time!

100 Kilometers

2007-09-14T22:41:00.000-07:00

The Camino de Santiago is . . . (Mrs. Schwert?) phenomenal! Amazing. Incredible. I can´t believe I´ve only five days into it. I´ll apologize right off the bat: I´ve been more inspired to enjoy the beautiful walking, companionship, history, and scenery than I have to seek out an internet connection, so I have been and likely will continue to be pretty out of touch. (And I kind of like that.)

I started in St. Jean Pied de Port, France, and have made it just Pamplona to Puente la Reina, Spain, where two of the old routes to Santiago come together. I´ve crossed the Pyrenees and the Alto de Perdon (though not on my nears, nor barefoot). My pack weighs more than I thought it would (nearly 20 pounds with food and water and sleeping bag), but the buenas rollas (good vibes) are also more inspiring than I thought they would be. I´ve been traveling with an awesome group: Two Spaniards, a German, an Italian, a German, and me, and cooking every night in the pilgrim refuge with a big group. It was my turn last night, and we made a guisado, a stew straight from the Leah Ashe kitchen!

I´ll rest today in Puente la Reina - and then we´ll see.

Buen Camino :)

More to come.

Beach Tour

2007-09-10T00:05:00.000-07:00

"I missed the train to Lourdes, so I went surfing instead."

Ever heard that before? When the credit card machine at the train station rejected my credit card transaction and I missed the train, I figured that was my sign: Tomatelo tranquilo, take it easy. So, I did what any Crystal Beach Bum would: I went to the beach. It's Biarritz in southern France, and it turns out that it's one of the surf centers of Europe. I was walking along the beach, ran into a surf school, and signed up for a class. It was totally rad, dude! I totally want to become a surfer girl. Can someone find out where the phrase "Hang ten" comes from?

Today I start the Camino in St. Jean Pied de Port, France. I like it already, and I haven't even taken a step in the direction of Santiago. All part of the Camino, I think.

And - Mark - France is awesome!

Character Preview

2007-08-25T19:50:00.000-07:00

If you followed my last trip, you know I ran into my share of “characters.” And I’m glad I did. I like it that way. (What would Crystal Beach be without the Thong Man?) I hope I run into lots more this time around.

But I guess I didn’t need to travel to ferret out the characters; I just needed to get away from my cubicle. I’ve met a few good ones in the past few weeks. So, although I haven’t hit the road yet, I think we could all use a good “character warm-up” . . .

Preview #1:

To start off, we have Dr. Tahid, who I think counts – Geeta, hope you don’t mind the plagiarism :) – as one of the “Indian doctor friends.”

Since I’m leaving, my car had to go, too. I put an ad in the paper, and both Mary Jo Altobello (wearing a napoletano charm and coming from Niagara Falls, naturally) and Dr. Tahid (from New Delhi, just starting his residency at Mercy hospital down the street) called me the next day. Mary Jo liked the car and bought it right away; the catch is that we won’t make the actual trade-off until September 2nd, which does leave a little bit of a risk for both of us. So I let Dr. Tahid know that the car was sold, but that, if he’d like, I’d be happy to keep his number and give him a call if the deal fell through. He asked to come over and test the drive “anyway,” – and I said sure, why not. Why not, indeed . . .

So, Dr. Tahid came to test drive my just-sold car. He started down Salem Street, came literally inches from sideswiping all the parked cars on the right side of the street, and came to a complete stop . . . a good fifteen feet before the stop sign. Now, the Salem-onto-Abbott turn can be a bit difficult because the parked cars on Abbott block the view of oncoming traffic. So you have to inch your way up – peak – inch – peak – anyone coming? – No? No? – Ok, go! That’s what you have to do. What Dr. Tahid did, instead, was gun the car, from his complete stop fifteen feet before the stop sign, directly into a right turn. Do not pass go, do not look both ways at the intersection, do not collect your “my child is safe driver of the month at Franklinville Driver Ed” sticker. Fortunately there was no oncoming traffic, and we reached Abbott safely. All that, and we’d made it about fifty feet from my house.

So I thought it might be wise to stick to the side streets. I directed Dr. Tahid to turn right on Athol, which he did. Like this: He came to a complete stop in the middle of Abbott Road, veered out to the left into oncoming traffic, and finally maneuvered the car to the right and onto Athol, whence we nearly sideswiped all the cars on Athol. Now, had Dr. Tahid been on the Orchard Park Little League Royals, and had he been trying to stretch a single into a double, and – most importantly – had he not been DRIVING MY CAR!!! – this would have been great form, a perfect banana turn. As it was, however, it was NOT great form, and it was making me, ah, “a bit nervous.” (You know that line in “Speed,” which I’m embarrassed to admit having watched, where the nerdy guy on the bus has to “translate” from Keanu Reeves, fiddling with a bomb underneath the bus, to the bus driver? And he translates one phrase as “Uh . . . . Oh darn!” You can similarly translate here for “a bit nervous.”)

So, trying to be as polite as I could, I asked Dr. Tahid, “You, ah . . .you do have your license, right?”

“Oh yes,” he assured me. “In fact, I just got it,” he added, as though this were an entirely uninteresting sidenote.

“Today.”

He smiled. I smiled (somewhat less enthusiastically). We drove right home.

Preview #2:

I also had to sell my bike rack. Some guy named John bought it, and he must have called me fifteen times to clarify precisely when he was coming to my house to pick it up. His last phone call came from my neighbor’s driveway, where he was parked, having confused the number 27 with the number 25.

So we went to my basement, I showed him how the bike rack worked, that was that, and we were ready to go. You’d think it would have been easy from there, right? Nope.

John picked up the bike rack – well, actually he more thrust it toward the ceiling. KAZAM! (Imagine you’re in a 1950s Batman cartoon – the sound effects are worthwhile.) Right into the heating duct! Whoa. What was that?! Better look around . . . BAM! Right into the concrete pillar! Whoa, again! Now what was that?! Better turn around and have another look . . . WHAMMO! Right into a pile of boxes. I kept looking around for Curly and Moe.

Anyway, John was a nice guy. We had a few more encounters with basement impediments but eventually made it outside. I couldn’t believe this guy was going to drive home, much less hop on his bicycle when he got there. I hope he wears a helmet. And I hope Dr. Tahid isn’t motoring around his neighborhood.

View My Travel Map

2007-08-21T07:05:00.000-07:00

I just figured out how Google My Maps works - it's awesome, and you should definitely give it a try yourself! I made up a map of my planned travels. You can see where I'm heading, and - if I manage to keep on top of it - where I've been and where I am now. By clicking on each destination marker, you can see the photos, videos, and links I've posted. The preliminary pictures are ones I've found on the internet - though I wouldn't have posted them if I didn't think they were good. (Especially the video of the Camino de Santiago that I posted in St. Jean Pied de Port - that's awesome, check it out for sure!) I hope to post my own photos and videos as I go along. I'll also put a link to this map in the sidebar, but here it is, straight away: Leah's Travel Map