Two posts in two days...

...it's a miracle!
I just had to recount the very Italian conversation I just had with my colleague, G. Obviously, this conversation took place in Italian, but I've translated it for the sake of the blog. If you know anything about the Italian character, it's sure to make you smile:

G: "I don't feel all that good. Maybe I'm going down with something"
Me: "Really? What's wrong?"
G: "Oh just a bit of nausea, headache, maybe a touch of fever"
Me: "Wow, sounds bad - I wonder why you feel like that?"
G: "It's probably because this morning was quite cold and now it's hot outside"
Me: "But you're inside"
G: "Yes but I can see through the windows that it's hot"

Sur le pont...

Despite the many everyday situations I encounter here in Italy that I claim I will ‘never get used to’, it occurred to me during this weekend in France that I no longer consider myself to be a foreigner here in Italy, and haven’t done for a while. Maybe you need to take a step back from the place you call home to realize just what it is that makes it so. Given that I now travel very rarely (work commitments being a big issue for both Luca and myself), it’s not often that I get the opportunity to take in the sights and sounds of other cultures. I don’t count going home to mum and dad’s in the UK for Christmas as it’s a bit like going to EuroDisney and claiming to have visited Paris, if you know what I mean…..
I guess I’m a homey person – I like my creature comforts, am not a fan of change, and like to be in familiar surroundings, so within half an hour of crossing the border I had already driven Luca crazy with my desperate attempts to squeeze the last of the crackly signal out of Radio Deejay, and was desperate for a cappuccino (even though I hadn’t had one for about a week in any case). Every time we chanced upon a familiar brand, I found myself saying “Ah look, there’s a Castorama / Cèlio / Zara / Trony… Just like at home!!” Most of these are probably French imports, but it made me strangely enthusiastic to chance upon places I would normally associate with Italy. Sad but true. I also made the following observations about France / the French (or at least those that reside in the Avignon area):

1. French food is elaborate, rich and complicated. All the things that don’t appeal to an Italian palate, as Luca reminded me every time we picked up a menu. Roast guinea-fowl in a cumin and cream sauce, accompanied by over-cooked spaghetti (on the same plate shock horror!!), and capsicum pepper stuffed with blue cheese, vine leaves, olives, cucumber and Moroccan spices. A nightmare for your average Italian, a stomach ache even for me…

2. The French (contrary to what I had heard) are very civilized drivers. OK, let’s not exaggerate. Maybe the French from Provence are extremely civilized drivers when compare to the Milanesi. In any case, in around 400 kilometres of French motorway, not one single car came roaring up behind me to a distance of 1.5 metres, flashing their headlights to get me to move out of the way. It took all of 2 kms over the border at Ventimiglia for the first Italian ‘testa di cazzo’ to pull this exact trick, which is something I have to tolerate on a daily basis. And I don’t even stick to the speed limit myself. Thinking about it, everyone in France seemed to drive at or under the speed limit, even on the motorway. We didn’t see a single crazy person going at 180, and I see at least 2 or 3 per day on the A7 to Milan.

3. There is nothing like the bar / cafè culture that I expected. I know we’re spoilt here with a cafè on every corner, including on a Sunday, but I was quite shocked that we ended up walking around for over an hour on Sunday morning looking for a place to get a coffee and a croissant. Maybe it’s just Avignon that falls short…boh….

4. The dress code is distinctly “I don’t think we’re in Milano anymore, Toto”. Kaftans, ponchos, ankle-length skirts coupled with flat open-toed sandals, bright-coloured jumpers, different materials thrown together, enormous fabric bags and lots of bandanas. I’m sure Parisians don’t dress like this, but I wonder if it’s just an Avignon thing, or if lots of provincial French towns are like this. Maybe I have a warped view of elegant / scruffy from years of feeling like an outcast for forgetting to put in my diamond earrings to go for milk on a Sunday morning….

5. Local councils and governing bodies in general seem to have their shit together waaaaaaaaay more than their Italian counterparts. I was shocked by the amount of cared-for communal areas, well-kept grass verges and vegetation along the roads, working fountains with no graffiti, flat pavements with no enormous holes waiting to swallow you up, and – best of all – constant, reliable signposting!

All in all I thought Avignon was absolutely beautiful. I didn’t expect the North African influences that seem to abound, and the vast array of architectural styles that all seem to merge into one. Nor did I expect such a huge selection of restaurants of every nationality and style – it reminded me of Barcelona. Most of these things came as a surprise because Avignon is twinned with my home town of Colchester, whose architectural delights and abundance of good quality restaurants are sadly lacking. I expect twinning is based on population….
My quasi-homesickness for Italy was, strangely enough, echoed by Luca on the way back. Being an absolute typical Sicilian (stubborn, hard-headed, suspicious of all that is not familiar especially with regard to food and drink), 2 days of creamy sauces, bad coffee (he’s also in the bar / restaurant business), and my mother chatting in his ear nineteen to the dozen in a language that he struggles to comprehend, all had him chomping at the bit to get back to safe ground. As we crossed the border back into the bel paese, he breathed a sigh of relief and virtually demanded that we stop at the first Autogrill for ‘a decent cup of coffee’. My protests that decent coffee doesn’t exist in the Autogrill even if we are in Italy were met with a grunt. I was just pleased to be able to communicate with the barista without being met with a confused expression and a look which said “ ah the poor foreign girl - can’t even order a cafè au lait without getting into difficulty”. Upon reaching the bar, the girl serving took one look at me (blond, fair skin, blue eyes…) and did the usual: “Yes?” “Due caffè di cui uno ristretto grazie” I replied. “Ah, sorry, I thought you were foreign” was her response. Nope, I’m home.

Emergency!

There’s obviously not enough drama going on at the moment, what with the new house, the bank, work etc. I think we need some more. Last night, hanging out at Luca’s bar, just as they were preparing to close for the day, I hear an ear-splitting, blood-curdling scream like something from a horror film from the courtyard out the back. And then another – literally as if someone had been murdered, followed by shrieks of “AIUTO!! AIUTO!!”. Adrenaline shooting through my body, I run through the kitchen, followed closely by Luca and his colleague Paolo, to find Luca’s sister-in-law, Patrizia, clutching baby Maddalena to her, with a blood-soaked sponge pressed to Maddi’s forehead. Still screaming, she removes it to reveal a deep cut, pouring with blood and mixing with Maddi’s tears to produce a bloody puddle on the courtyard floor. I freeze, Luca grabs some paper towels, and Patrizia stands there, screeching like a murder victim. Hearing the chaos, Luca’s mum races through the kitchen (in my mind in slow motion), shrieking “NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO”, grabs the baby and hurtles out of the gate and up the road, in the direction of the nearby hospital, with Patrizia chasing alongside, wailing like a banshee and dragging three year-old Carolina behind her – also wailing. At that moment, there is a huge clap of thunder, and the skies open as if someone had turned on a tap.
The whole scene lasted no more than 5 seconds.
It took half an hour and two-and-a-half proseccos just for my heart-rate to return to normal. 45 minutes later, Luca’s mum, brother and little Carolina stroll back into the bar as if nothing had happened, Carolina stating quite matter-of-factly that “Maddi had a bobo because she wanted her Koala and slipped all on her own”. Everyone goes back to work, and I am left pale and light-headed, wondering just how they do it.
And that was Thursday.

Che scandalo!

A British TV presenter has recently come under fire for wearing 'racy and revealing' outfits on a family show which is aired on Sunday evenings in the UK. Holly Willoughby has apparently been horrifying the public by demonstrating proof that she is female by showing cleavage and wearing a backless dress. Mamma mia! I love this story - it is very English and a great antidote to the topless images we see here everyday on the lunchtime news. In what could easily be a homage to the classic Letters to the Editor section of The Times "Disgruntled from Doncaster" etc, one viewer commented in the Daily Mail:

"My husband and I have great fun trying to bet how low her top will be each week. She does struggle to keep them in, doesn't she?"

The article goes on to say:
"Others suggested Miss Willoughby's revealing wardrobe was far from suitable for Sunday night family viewing."

When I think of the lunchtime “news” programme “Studio Aperto”, and its daily reports on who’s stripping off for a raunchy calendar shoot, complete with images of the shoot itself (strictly for journalistic purposes of course!), I can’t help but smile at the “scandal” which poor Holly has brought about. I wanted to include some pictures of Italian TV presenters showing their assets, but 1) I can’t get the photo thing to work properly, and 2) the pictures that I found on the web are mostly too pornographic for my innocent little blog (seriously!). Do a google image search for Simona Ventura, Elisabetta Canalis, Ilary Blasi, or – scraping the bottom of the barrel – Le Veline, and you’ll see what I mean!

Strike it (not so) lucky

For the past two days, Italy has been subject to a transport strike by Road Haulage firms, whose lorries have been blocking motorways and sliproads, and causing general havoc up and down the land. The latest news is that 60% of the country's petrol stations are without fuel (a grossly-exaggerated figure if you ask me, and asking for trouble, given the increasing queues to fill up) and supermarkets are running out of fresh produce. The thing is, here in the 'bel paese', you can't walk ten metres without running into a picket line of some sort. Most of the time, no one has a clue what it's all about, or takes any particular interest other than being mildly annoyed at the inconvenience, and nothing ever seems to change, as the same sectors continue to strike year after year. Over the past 12 months, the following industries have walked out on strike for one reason or another:

- Water distributors (great start!)
- Practically every railway company in the country (no surprise there...)
- Lawyers
- The Naples office of the Ministry for Justice (!!!)
- Water purifying companies ( I haven't quite understood this one - it's something to do with making land viable for crop growth)
- Italy's largest bank
- Pharmacies (very bad)
- Hospital staff (worse)
- Surgeons (excuse me??)
- Anaethetists (say what??)
- Italy's main electricity provider
- Helicopter pilots (errrr....)
- The Environmental Health Agency
- Security firms
- Metal Workers
- The Transport Ministry
- The Post Office (lots and lots of Post Offices actually!)
- Cleaning companies
- The local police of Busto Arsizio (HA!)
- Various local authorities / town, city, provincial & regional councils
- Private medical clinics
- Telecom (no comment)
- Airlines, pilots, cabin crew - various and often. Alitalia practically every week.
- Baggage handlers (grrrrr)
- Airline safety companies (not too keen on this one)
- The Port Authority
- Local transport providers - bus, metro, tram (once a month in Milan booooo)

In 2006 there was a Catwalk Models strike. I am not kidding.

Joking aside, apart from the general disruption caused to people who are prevented from going about their everyday business, these situations can have an even more sinister effect. Doctors and hospital staff go on strike and operations have to be cancelled or postponed, putting patients lives at risk. Transport strikes prevent vital deliveries of food, water and medicines - I was reading in the Corriere that ambulances and other emergency vehicles may be left without fuel as a result of it not being delivered to fuel stations. Also, they are predicting that tens of thousands of live animals being transported by the striking truckers are likely to die from starvation / dehydration from being left in the lorries, parked on the motorway. It makes me sick, to be perfectly honest. Sadly this is one of the harsh realities of life in the 'bel paese' and there's nothing 'bel' about it.

Tree!!

It's up! The tree is up!
And not without a certain amount of effort, I have to say... The queue at IKEA was distinctly unfestive - a bit like the supermarket deli counter on a Saturday morning, only colder and with more prickly produce. Just as I arrived, some woman at the front was having a real go at an older guy for jumping ahead to pick out a nice-looking tree that had just been brought out of the lorry. When he protested that he was only choosing - not being served - she started screaming about how if he picked the tree she'd wanted when in theory she was ahead of him, then he might as well be jumping the queue completely, and that he should wait his turn to choose as well as take away.... Mamma mia.... Then a young girl next to me spotted that our receipts had numbers on them, and suggested that we implement a number system. That was fine until someone pointed out that the numbers were only sequential if you had paid at the external till, not the one inside - so that little idea didn't pan out. The guys doing the bagging and tagging were taking no notice, so in an I'm-turning-into-my-mother moment, I decided that if anyone had to sort out these bickering Italians who have no idea who's next and who isn't, it should be the English girl. "Can people not just take notice of who arrives before them and who arrives after? We're all grown adults after all...." was my contribution, at which point they all shut up and waited their turn. Brilliant!

Badge!

I work for one of Italy's most historic, influential and successful organisations. Today I discovered that as part of 'company policy' for all but senior management, if you badge in on your arrival in the morning even 1 minute late, you are automatically docked half an hour from your overtime. The same deal if you arrive a minute late from lunch. Apart from the fact that the badge culture is unacceptable in itself if you ask me - unless you're working in a chicken-stuffing factory in the 1970s - in any case, my protestations to the Human Resources department were met with "I know, it's a pain in the ass; it happens to us too...". I asked where this 'policy' comes from and who makes such decisions and all I got was a classic shrug, followed by "It's just always been this way..."
I hear from my American colleagues that us 'English / North American' employees are considered to be the 'rompi-palle' ( ball busters ) of the organisation because we always complain about little mistakes on our payslips and question things that most of the Italians just accept. GOOD!!

The land of contradictions...

I've been thinking recently just how much Italy is a land of contradictions - or certainly Milan is a city of contradictions. This is a city where people take home the minimum wage, yet dress from head to toe in Dolce & Gabbana and carry genuine Louis Vuitton handbags. It is where people live in small, overcrowded apartments, yet drive brand new BMWs / Mercedes / Ducati motobikes. It is where you can spend 100 euros per person on a gourmet meal in a smart restaurant, yet find that the bathroom is a hole in the ground over which you have to squat. In Milan, people pay 4000 euros per month to live in apartments on streets where not a single one of the buildings has escaped the work of the local graffitti artist, and where the pavements are smeared with dogs' muck and discarded chewing gum. This is a land celebrated for its artisitic and musical heritage, yet your average Italian will not set foot in a theatre or concert hall from one year to the next. Here everyone spends their lives worrying about "bella figura" i.e. looking good infront of others, yet they're quite happy to cut you up at the traffic lights, slam their hand on the horn, and stick a finger up at you in the rear view mirror as they pass. Stranger still, they have low cost red wine that practically runs out of the taps yet they don't tend to get blind drunk, and the women are slim and gorgeous yet I've never seen so much food in my life. It appears we're no longer in Kansas, Toto....

Decongestant?

In the local newspaper today, it was reported that there are 800 premature deaths each year in Milan as a direct result of air pollution. The city council's latest idea to help combat the problem is the introduction of a congestion charge, along the lines of the system adopted by London, to discourage drivers from using their cars in the city centre. Whilst in principle, I like the idea and am totally in agreement that something needs to be done, in practice I ask myself how such a revolutionary plan will be executed and maintained in a city where even the most basic rules and regulations go ignored (and the ignoring goes unpunished) on a daily basis. If it takes the city administration anything up to 6 months to process a residency request, and even a year to provide a Permesso di Soggiorno, where the hell are they going to find the necessary resources to manage such a system? Plus, when the congestion charge was introduced in London, the city council spent months planning and implementing a whole new road system, adapted the traffic lights, and tripled the public transport links within the centre. It is not uncommon to wait half an hour for a bus to pass, even right in the centre of Milan, or to find that your route has been spontaneously cancelled for a reason known only to whoever did it.

Milan simply has too many cars. The city is densely populated, with the majority of its residents living vertically - in blocks of apartments whose inhabitants were never meant to have 1, 2 or even 3 cars per family. When much of modern-day Milan was constructed ( or rather re-built ) in the post-war years, who could ever have imagined that 50 years on the motorcar would have become a cultural necessity, rather than a luxury reserved for the special few? When I look at my street - cars parked on every available pavement space, the grass verge, the zebra crossing... - I wonder where it's all going to end. As a driver myself I am well aware that I am contributing to the problem - actually Luca and I both have our own cars - indispensable during the day when we both travel for work, but which I wish we could fold up and put in our pockets when we get home at night and begin the daily ritual of 5-times-round-the-block-to-find-a-damn-spot.

Perhaps the 'powers that be' could do a little more to get the worst polluters off the roads - I don't know how many times a day I find myself choking in the wake of some rusty old heap which lost its road-worthiness long ago.

Ultimately, whilst I think an initiative such as the congestion charge can work well in a city such as London, which is equipped both financially and culturally, I am not convinced that it will go down so well over here. Aside from the fact that saving the planet doesn't seem to be all that high on many people's agendas, the Italian and his car go together like horse and carriage. I can't imagine the very many young "fighetti" ("cool people") dumping their sports cars and getting the number 54 bus to the Armani Caffè on a Friday night. And when it comes to 'finding a way around the problem', Italians are world experts... We'll see.

When in Rome....

The link below takes you to an article written in 2003 for the UK's Daily Telegraph newspaper. It has recently sparked a long, heated discussion on an Expat website which I frequent - and both the article and discussion have proved very thought-provoking. First of all I have to say, I agree with much of the author's observations, and am impressed by his courage in putting such strong opinions in the public domain. Some (mainly Italian natives) have found the article to be unneccesary scathing, and whilst I am certain that everywhere in the world - not just Italy - has its lifestyle / culture / economy problems, I believe that many of the issues in this article need to be addressed. What do you think?

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/arts/main.jhtml?xml=/arts/2003/08/27/feat27.xml&sSheet=/arts/2003/08/27/ixtop.html

SKY's the limit....

Don't get me wrong - I don't enjoy being ill, much less missing all the "fun" I could be having in the office (ha ha) but there is one thing that eases the pain greatly, and that is Sky TV ALL DAY LONG. Or, to be precise, Fox Life, BBC Prime and Discovery Real Time. I just watched two episodes of the American series "So you think you can dance?" - I was drawn to it originally as it's hosted by the lovely Cat Deeley, who I remember fondly from the hangover-haze that was my university years, when she co-hosted the Saturday morning kids' show SM:TV Live with Ant and Dec. Ahhhhh how I miss Ant and Dec - none of their current programmes seem to have made it to BBC Prime yet, and Bruce Forsythe on Strictly Come Dancing is all very well, but just not the same. If you are not English you will probably have fallen asleep by now so I will get back to the point.

I'd love to say that I don't buy into these reality "Pop Idol" / "X Factor" / "Make a fool of yourself to entertain the masses"- style programmes, but the truth is I get easily hooked. There's something strangely addictive about watching real people's real struggles, talents, and geniune emotions.... I've even found myself welling up over a quiz show when one of the contestants picked the number 14 as he married his wife on the 14th of the month and had been married for 14 years. Sad but true. Aside from reality / talk shows, I find myself getting emotional over any TV show that reminds me of home and / or my childhood. Mary Poppins dubbed into Italian, without Dick Van Dyke's classic mid-Atlantic cockney accent is just not the same...

There is only one programme on Italian TV that I will watch and enjoy, and that is the stand-up comedy show Zelig, which is currently being shown on a Friday night at 21:00 on either Canale 5 or Italia 1 - I can't remember which. Since Luca and I have turned a bit middle-aged, and now stay at home on a Friday night as we're too tired to go out, Zelig has provided us with our end of the week entertainment and often has us rolling around clutching our stomachs in hysterics. Last week the show-stopper for me was a singer who took the p**s out of Tiziano Ferro quite spectacularly. Neither Luca nor I can stand Tiziano Ferro so it made us laugh even more. And this is the only example that you will ever see of me praising anything on Italian TV. OK, I like Le Iene too, I admit it. That's all though. This post is not going to degenerate into a rant about the dancing quiz show girls, or the amount of cleavage shown by news readers, although it easily could. Suffice to say I miss English / American TV and whilst I know it "rots your brain" ( in my mum's words ), I am appreciating this one-off all-day I'm-sick-so-I-can-do-what-I-like TV extravaganza...

Everyone's an expert...

It's Friday afternoon in the office, and everyone is in full brain-storming mode. Ideas are thrown around, methods discussed and timescales defined. The conclusion? Giant prawns gently fried in white wine and lemon juice. Yes folks, the comunal brainstorm was the result of my simple request for ideas as to what to cook for dinner.
Italians are well known for being serious foodies, yet it never fails to amaze me just how damn expert they all are when it comes to cooking, regardless of age, gender or background. One of the major contributors to the discussion is the type of young guy you see hanging out in the coolest clubs on a Saturday night, D&G sunglasses surgically attached to his head, Negroni in hand - yet you wouldn't believe the way his eyes lit up as he described the perfect way to get the best flavour out of your scampi. "Oh, and don't forget the fresh parsley!!"Damn experts they might be, but what would we do without them?!

Fight! Fight! Fight!

I am often to be found ‘hanging out’ at the bar that Luca runs with his family in the city centre. I tend to go a couple of times after work during the week, and during busy times will occupy myself by working on my laptop, catching up on emails or updating my blog. This is what I am doing right now in fact, interspersed with the odd cigarette break or chat with the locals. About two metres to my right, seated outside is a couple who are fighting like cat and dog. I can hear them through the glass and it’s getting more and more violent by the second. They’re both wearing wedding rings so I – perhaps foolishly – assumed that they were having a husband / wife disagreement. When I heard “your wife gets everything and I get nothing”, I started listening in. “You stand up for her and you never stand up for me!” “She gets the best of you and I get the leftovers!” “You never acknowledge me in public!” and so on and so forth. It’s been about half an hour now and they show no sign of letting up. This is another curious cultural oddity which I noticed fairly on in my Italian experience when, aged 16 on holiday with my parents, my dad and I began having what my mum would call a “heated debate” in the middle of an outdoor cafè (I think my skirt was too short or something!). Part of the way through I realised that no one was taking any notice as most of the people around us were making more noise than we were, whether they were arguing or not. It was then that I realised if you want to get ahead in this country, you need to make our voice heard. Whether it’s yelling out “I’m next!” when the lady at the fish counter stops taking notice of the numbered tickets and starts serving her next-door-neighbour before you, or simply getting your point across in any discussion regarding politics, football, food, religion - well anything really - in Italy you must raise your voice; the louder the better….