Little blue car strikes again!

"We should stop on the way back to school and put some petrol in the car," says my fellow teacher as we exit the Uber-Fancy Local Fashion Thing (UFLFT). I nod, still smiling about something hilarious one of my students said. It's nice when your Friday lunchtime three-hours-back-to-back students make you smile. Also it's nice when you finish and the sun is out and you know you only have one more lesson later today, and plenty of time to plan it, and even time for a coffee.

The other teacher is recounting something hilarious that one of her students said as we start the car and head out of the parking lot. (Her students, evidently, are hilarious, too.)

It is not until we are out of the parking lot and trundling along the main, tree-lined driveway of the UFLFT (the UFLFT is quite big) that Fellow Teacher stops mid-sentence to say "we have no petrol left." I find this to be an odd sort of statement, given that we have just established our plan to go and get some on the way back from school.

"No, I mean, really none left," she says, apparently using her mind-reading capabilities to discern my skepticism. I realize over the next few seconds that this means we will have to actually stop the car. Right here in the tree-lined driveway of the UFLFT.

Crap.

Once the poor little blue car (yeah, still the same one, thanks for asking) has ground to a halt (uh, literally), I am surprisingly efficient. I call the secretary to ask her to come and retrieve us, preferrably with some gas. I pull out a book and swiftly plan my next lesson. Conveniently, it is located right here at the UFLFT in two hours' time, so I could easily just walk back up the driveway and teach it, if I have to.

We pass the time exclaiming repeatedly how ridiculous a situation this is to be in, and imagining what our students would say if they could see us. We are happy that it is no longer lunch hour, so hopefully they are all safely ensconced in their offices, and not within view of the driveway. (Yay trees.)

When the secretary gets here, it transpires that the gas station was unwilling to sell her any gas without the proper receptacle. Like a car. Or a gas tank. Yes, well.

"Can we just leave the car there in the driveway?" we ask the man in the little guardhouse. "It's not really blocking anything much. And it's not broken or anything. It's just that we ran out of gas, you know." He looks hesitant, but we promise to come right back and he finally agrees. Probably months of rolling down our windows just enough to shout "lezioni d'Inglese!!" in his general direction, using more volume than correct pronunciation, have convinced him that we are well and truly mad.

We elect to go to the biggest gas station we can find, and are happy to discover that they do, indeed, have receptacles specially designed for idiots who have run out of gas somewhere and also do not happen to own portable gas tanks, or whatever the proper thing is to resolve such a situation. The specially designed receptacles are massive bags of thick-ish but clear plastic. This allows you to hold 5 liters of gas in your hands and also be able to see it! Fun! (Did you know that gas is a weird turquoise greenish-blue? I did not know this, but now I do! Yay!)

It's also a bit unnerving. I mean, what if it spontaneously combusts while it's sitting in your lap? I feel like I am inept enough, when it comes to cars, to cause spontaneous combustion of gas, particularly if the only thing between it and us is a plastic bag. Hm.

We arrive back at the UFLFT, having rather miraculously avoided combustion, and discover that the fun is not over yet. Now we need to maneuver 5 liters of bright bluish-greenish gas into the tank of the little blue car, all while standing in the middle of the driveway.

"What do you want to bet one of our students drives by?" I say to the other teacher. I have a knack for making it rain on a perfectly sunny day by saying things like this, and, indeed, not five minutes passes before a lovely light-grey Audi rolls calmly past, bearing one of my students. He's only the head of the Technical department or something like that. You know. Whatever. He cranes his neck to look at us as he drives by, looking confused. Happily, I am on the other side of the car at this point, so to this day we reassure ourselves that he didn't recognize us.

This is good, because I am at this moment standing next to the gas tank with my arms wrapped around the bag of gas, attempting to aim it into the tank rather than spill it all over my feet. It's going reasonably well (not easy when you're wearing spindly heels - for the teaching of the fashion people, you see - but are significantly taller than the car even without heels) but it is far from graceful.

A few minutes later, we are on our way back to school with yet another ridiculous story to tell.

"Okay, so, we need to not tell our students about this, ever, okay?" we promise each other.

"Yes, definitely."

They all know within the week. Naturally. I still occasionally get teased about it. Sigh.

Zucca

So, the K2 in Reggio has zucca-flavored ice cream. (Zucca, by the way, means pumpkin.) I had some tonight and it tastes kind of like apricot, which is a bit odd. Pretty good, though. And very very orange.

That is all.


(You totally thought I was going to talk about tortelli, didn't you?)

Bardolino

Get ready, y'all. I'm going to make a post with *pictures*. Photographs. It's going to be so high-tech, you won't even believe it. It only took me about twenty minutes to figure out how to put that first one in. Anyway, the point is, we went to Lake Garda a few weeks ago for the festival of Bardolino (a small town on the shores of Lake Garda, which produces Bardolino wine). I am now an expert, so I can tell you that it comes in a light pink color (chiaretto) and a dark red color (I forget what it's called). I wrote that whole pedantic sentence just so I could use the word chiaretto, because I think it is cute. And there it is again. Twice in one paragraph. Score! Anyway.

Bardolino is a very quaint town. See? Quaint. Also, with palm trees.


Also, there was a stand with Sicilians selling food. It is always good when Sicilians sell food. They will give you arancini and cannoli and let you take pictures of their other very strange and wonderful things (small fruits made of marzipan! bread that is as big as me! bread with olives all stuck in it!). Yay!


Also, you can see the lake. Duh. But, no, really, it's lovely. You can walk along the side of it on this lovely wooden promenade structure thingy, and gaze out upon the loveliness of the open water with the mountains in the background. *Sighhh* So nice.


Yes. When you live in Italy, weekend trips are almost always a good idea. Because in Reggio Emilia, we have no boats and no open water for the sunsets to reflect off of. (I've never been anywhere near the Crostolo at sunset, but I'm going to go ahead and venture that it's not quite the same...)

Insomma

Hm. It is Monday morning, and I haven't planned a single lesson for this week. Ack.

However! Monday morning is a fresh start, full of possibility for teaching brilliance! (Euh, magari.) Also, I have only three classes and thus plenty of time to plan today. 'Twill be fine.

Bad thing: Rain. Always makes the walk to to work significantly less delightful. Also, mysterious sore throat this fine morning. (Special shout-out to own immune system: oy, get a grip. We don't have time for this.)

Good thing: My apartment is clean. Always a plus.

Bad thing: No clean laundry. Why do I always run out of time to do laundry?

Very bad thing: the effing Translation that Refuses to End. Hate. Why have I not finished it yet??

Speaking of busy weekends, though, biggest accomplishment of this weekend includes booking flights and accomodation for the four-day weekend at the end of the month.... in Seville! Olé! In addition to upcoming Paris trip for this weekend. Am jet-setting traveller (pfft!). Almost. Anyway, though: very good thing.

Overall, am happy to start the week. So probably I should get off my ass and get ready for work.

Embracing the nebbia

There is a time of year in Reggio, I'm starting to remember now, when the sky turns to a soft blanket of grey, like suspended fog. A damp chill creeps into the air and makes you pull your jacket more tightly around you in the evening, which begins to come earlier and earlier. At 7, it's dusky out and the streetlights reflect off the pavement, which is in various stages of wet-ness more often than not. During the week, maybe you just work through it and don't really pay much attention to it, except to think 'well, I might as well be in here listening to this guy drone on about his weekend as outside in the wet' when you happen to glance outside. During the weekend, though, it makes you slow to emerge from your bed. Maybe you get up once and then crawl back in with a book. Then you read your email wrapped in a blanket. If you didn't need to go out and get some food, it would be tempting to just stay inside all day, maybe watching movies and wishing for sunnier times.

That's where you'd be wrong, though. I know, because I've done it: spent more than one Saturday curled up on my bed with a book and some chocolate, probably bored and probably lonely. Mostly my first few months in Reggio when things were still new and occasionally overwhelming. Now I know better. The thing to do is to get out of bed, put on a few layers of warm clothes, and meet someone for a coffee out in town. Half the town is out on the streets, ambling up and down and window shopping and running into people they know. Children you've taught will wave at you and other students from days of yore (by which I mean... 2008) will stop you in the street with a big hug, and various other acquaintances will ask you if you've married an Italian yet. (Ahem, no. Though apparently this is an anomaly because it seems the only valid reason to stay in Reggio is to have married a Reggiano.)

Anyway. My point is: don't let the grey fog of death get to you. Go out. Have a coffee or a drink or an ice cream (stranieri are allowed to have ice cream even in the dead of winter). Have a quick passeggiata and enjoy the reflection of the street lights on the pavement, because even if it doesn't smell like summer anymore, it's starting to smell like roasting chestnuts, and that's nice, too, in a different way.

Not much sense

Today I wore the Shoes That Look Good But Make Your Feet Bleed, and now my feet are bleeding. Super. Because clearly you wanted to know.

Also I am doing the Translation that Won't End and it is not ending. Boo.

On the other hand, had a delightful conversation with one of the new roommates. We shall call them Young One and Younger One because they are both mere youths. (As opposed to me, who is ancient, clearly.) Anyway, Younger One had her first day at uni today, and was regaling me with stories of hot boys from Parma or some such, and it was quite adorable. I felt all motherly and older. I feel like I should tell her to watch out for boys from Parma or something equally helpful and cautionary, but the only boys from Parma that I know are middle-aged and gentlemanly, and possessed of that hilarious partially French accent, which is all very charming, but provides no basis for issuing cautionary messages.

Then I decided to use some already-steamed veggies to make dinner. Except, by 'make dinner', I actually mean, pour olive oil and curry powder onto cold, previously-steamed veggies, and call it dinner. I figured it would make some sort of approximation of Indian-food-deliciousness. It did sort of (very vaguely) approximate the taste of Indian food, but it was only minimally delicious, and now I have a stomachache. Something tells me that perhaps that's not how you're meant to use curry powder...

Aaaanyway, back to the Translation that Won't End. Huzzah.

This entry makes pretty much no sense.

Random stuff...

Check me out, all with the posting two days in a row over here. So efficient. Well, actually, not, because what I really should be doing is showering and/or cleaning the apartment and/or planning this week's lessons, not messing around on the internet, but whatever...

The church bells are ringing (so, is it the Duomo or San Prospero? and how will I ever find out?), the sun is doing its best to shine through the haze, and there is a soft sort of warmth coming in through the window. 60-ish degrees, says google. This places us squarely in problem-territory in terms of footwear, because for me, 60 degrees is still definitely flip-flop weather. Because my flip-flops are classy and nice and why wear uncomfortable footwear (which I haven't had time to buy yet anyway) when you could just be wearing classy flip-flops? For the Reggiani, 60 degrees is coat and scarf weather. I actually saw an older lady wearing wool gloves the other day, in the middle of the afternoon. (?!) I mean, come on now, I'll give you a cardigan or even a light jacket, but... scarf? Gloves? No. Let's just all calm down a little and take note of the fact that the sun is still shining. The perma-fog has not yet set in!

The Reggiani and I will clearly never see eye to eye on this matter, though (or at least, not before I reach the age of seventy or something), and so, I will continue to wear my sandals (at least until I find time to purchase some respectable flats in which to walk) and they will continue to give me weird looks, and everyone will know that I am straniera. It's funny, though - I don't really mind anymore. I used to be all 'no, must blend in and seem Italian and not embarassingly American' but... meh.

Now I'm a straniera who can deal with most situations that come up in everyday life here, and speak decent enough Italian to follow a conversation or the news or whatever with minimal fuss, and perform her job at least moderately decently (people occasionally even tell me I'm good at it, so that's always nice). I'm not so embarassed to be a straniera anymore, because I'm one that's holding her own in the land of the native Reggiani. I'm the straniera that can tell you hilarious stories about first moving here, while smoothly ordering off the menu or paying bills at the post office. Granted, I can still tell you funny stories about stupid things that I did just this morning, but they're the type of stupid things I probably would've done at home, too. So, yay. Successful straniera.

Uh, wow. All with the introspective over here. I was totally just planning to come and remark about the weather, in the manner of my grandmother or something, and move on - not tell you all about my relative levels of self-esteem as a foreigner. Sigh. So blather-y, self. (Also in the manner of my grandmother, actually.) Now it's time to head off to work and get some stuff done, methinks. Ciao ciao!

In which I blather on about a pair of shoes

So, I feel the need to write an entry (or whatever it's called) in order to commemorate my most awesome pair of shoes ever. Bear with me, here. Essentially, the reason my shoes are so super awesome is that I bought them one fine spring break (the one of my senior year) because I was starting to think about wrapping up my honors thesis (and by 'starting to think about wrapping up' I mean, 'going all "oh shit, why did I not start collecting data months and months ago??"') and then it occurred to me that I would have to defend said thesis, and then it occurred to me that I would want to be professionally dressed for the occasion in question, and that I would need snazzy heels in order to be able to do so.

So I bought these excellent professional-looking black heels that were high but not too high and pointy but not too pointy and a little uncomfortable but not excruciatingly so. Also, with a pencil skirt and some nylons? It seems there is a reason women choose to wear these things to work. It makes your legs look magically grown-up and business-like and sexy all at the same time. Definite win. And they continued to be total win through several important life events.

First, some research presentations. These involve young student-researchers making a poster about their research (which involves a night or two spent in the lab, wringing some sort of sense out of your insufficient data, and another night or two spent in the science library, obsessing over the layout and finally printing the sucker) and then standing around in front of it while people mill around, pretending to be interested in your topic of research. I wore my excellent shoes to two or three of these events, and stood in front of my poster, and even if my data analysis was total crap (or missing entirely, at some of the earlier conferences), I looked professional and my poster had photos of cute babies on it.

Then, the thesis defense. My voice did not wobble and my shirt matched my eyes (apparently) and when I forgot the age group of the children in one study I referenced, my mentor helped me out, and at the end, they told me they would give me high honors if our college awarded them, and that it was some of the most clear writing they'd ever seen from a student (you'd never know it, reading this, though), and that that was the mark of a clear mind, and that they looked forward to seeing what I did in the field. I walked all the way home in my short-sleeved eye-matching shirt and my excellent shoes, in the early spring early morning chill, and when I got home my feet were bleeding but I didn't even care.

After that, I decided to get a job in Italy. I wandered around Bologna for a few days with my CV, wearing flip-flops and carrying my excellent shoes stuffed in my purse. When I came across a language school, I'd put on the shoes and ring the bell and offer my CV to whoever was there. I also wore them on my first-ever Italian train ride from Bologna to Reggio to interview at the school where I currently still work.

Similarly, I wore them to the daycare where I worked for a few months when I was home a year ago... and was massively over-dressed, looking even snazzier than the boss and the director, with my CV all equipped with research experience and my fancy degree and all that. How to get a job instantly: apply for something for which your are massively, hideously over-qualified, but smilingly tell them it's actually what you've always wanted to do.

Then I came back to Reggio, back to teaching, and was sent to the Uber-Fancy Local Fashion Company to teach. I went wearing all black and my excellent shoes, and have not been tossed out yet (it was threatened that we wouldn't be sent there if we weren't well dressed enough). I can clearly remember my first morning there, (mentally) sweating bullets and hyperventilating just a little while waiting for the managing director of god-knows-what to show up so I could teach him English. Hoping no one would see me and be all "ew, a shoddily clad american - get her away from our fashion awesomeness". No one did, and the managing director of god-knows-what was a delightful gentleman, and to this day I have still never been thrown off the premesis. In fact, I sometimes go wearing jeans and my excellent shoes, and still look decent enough to teach at least the younger, non-manager types. My shoes have always been loyal and awesome.

Until yesterday, when I noticed that they have sort of become all stretched and loose, and one of the heels feels not to stable, and also I've been mean and haven't polished them in ages. I've had new bottoms put on the heels (you know, that rubber part that gets worn down when you stomp around in your shoes like I do?) several times, but I think this time they are unsalvageable. And since I cannot have bits falling off when I am teaching at the UFLFC (or, uh, anywhere else, really) I think it is time to retire them. Poor shoes. I feel like I should bury them or something. Perhaps I will just bury them in the back of my closet, since I am not quite ready to let them go.

I sound like a nut job. In other news, the perma-grey has returned to the sky as of this morning. You know how my one student told me once that, in Reggio, you can tell it's spring or summer when you can see individual clouds in the sky, and winter when it's just a sheet of grey? Well, it's a sheet of grey. It looks like a layer of compacted fog, ready to descend on the populace at any moment. Delightful...