Ten

It was a beautiful morning at the end of the summer, with just the barest hints of fall beginning to flicker into the air. The sky was blue with those puffy white clouds like in a child's drawing, and the air was still warm, though you could tell autumn would be on its way in a few weeks.

I was in art class, gamely attempting to carve a flower shape out of a small square of copper sheeting with a wooden tool. I am (and was) terrifically awful at most artistic things, but was soldiering on anyway, chatting with the three other people in my Tuesday morning class, probably faintly worried about my "advanced placement" history class (this was a Big Deal in sophomore year of high school), but generally enjoying a relatively peaceful morning.

It was, really, the kind of morning that you picture when you get nostalgic about your childhood. Filled with back-to-school feelings and those oh-so-typically high school concerns. Will I pass that history test? Will I ever be good at the multiple choice? Geometry is a nice surprise, but what if my writing isn't good enough for the AP? Blue sky, and the smell of new notebooks, and the feel of concentrating exclusively, in that way that you can when you're a child but is so much more elusive as an adult, on what is happening under your carefully focused hands. Because we were children then, for all that we felt so grown-up in our second year of high school, with our skirts trimmed higher and shirts defiantly un-tucked.

It was a lovely morning. And then the loudspeaker came on, and it wasn't.

A casa

I'm deliberately leaving the title open to interpretation. I've just returned to Reggio: am I back home, or back from home? It's increasingly difficult to tell. This is kind of a satisfying sensation, in that I can be all 'yeah, I've made a foreign country feel like home!' but on the other hand, does not particularly bode well for eventually leaving here and going... home. Other home. Gli stati uniti. Whatever.

(Deadline for said return to the States has been set for July 2012. If I am showing no signs of packing up and heading out by then, I give you full permission to take action and intervene.)

Whoever you may be. Um... or not.

Anyway.

So, the highlights of this summer started off with a couple of days in London with a little side trip to Oxford, all of which were delightful. First time in the UK = complete success.

Next, four weeks at home (NJ home) with the parents and the brother, working in ye daycare of olde (olde meaning two years ago). This time, little little people - ages 2-12 months. Adorable! This meant spending my days rocking other people's children to sleep, aiming very small amounts of food into very small mouths, and strapping very small people into very small diapers. I suppose it depends what sort of person you are, but I always find it delightful. Think about it: paid to sit in a rocking chair with a warm little blob gurgling and smiling in your lap. Win! Also, very ego-boosting: you will rarely get smiled at so enthusiastically as when you rescue an infant from their crib, post-nap, and also I am declaring myself the Nap Whisperer. I will sell my secrets to tired parents for a goodly sum. (NB My secrets do not involve drugs of any kind, don't worry.)

Other notable things from time in NJ:

1. Ethnic food is delicious and I don't understand why Italy can't just get some. I'm willing to travel to Bologna for it, but I'd rather not trek all the way to Milan. Can someone make this happen please? In particular, Indian, Mexican and Thai. Thanks!

2. Borders has gone/is going out of business. Epic fail, America. This is a tragedy of such proportions that I am unable to speak about it, eloquently or otherwise, except to say that I have spent so many excellent hours in Borders' stores all over the place that I do not know how I will fill my time when I return to the US permanently.

3. Apparently you can now order food in movie theaters. No, seriously. You push a little button and a person comes to take your order, and then they bring you food. You put the food on the little table next to you, which is conveniently housing your very own bottle of ketchup. That way, you can spend your time squirting ketchup on your food instead of watching the movie, and thus promote both obesity and the creation of sub-par films at the same time! Another fail there, I'm afraid, America. Sigh.

4. This list is a bit depressing, so I will move on to the rest of the summer now without adding to it...

Next stop: south of France for some quality time with the mother. Highlights include the beach at Argeles (where a complex system of ratings including water clarity and fineness vs. prickliness of sand was devised in order to select beaches to return to in the future), the old walled city of Carcassonne (amaaazing!), and a brief trip into Spain to check out the beach there, and the fact that they speak Catalan. Did you know that if you speak French and Spanish you can just about read Catalan? Excellent discovery.

Finally: a day or two in Paris to say hello to the grandmere and Paris itself, before returning to Reggio to get back to life as usual. In Reggio, it appears to still be summery, despite today's downpour. Good work, Reggio. I'm proud of you. If you could maintain these toasty temperatures for another couple of weeks, it would be very helpful in allowing me to pretend it's still summer and thus much appreciated.

Grumpy face

Reggio. Really. We need to figure something out with the heat/mosquitoes situation.

Yesterday, I finished work at 10.26. That's pm, y'all. (I am such a mess that I just said y'all. I'm not from the south. I can't even tell whether I meant it ironically or not. That is not right.) In any case, that is sad in and of itself. Then I dragged myself home, managed to make a salad (read: throw some stuff in a bowl and pour too much vinegar on it, thus making it not at all appealing). By 1am I was in bed. I considered this not too bad, because, really, a couple of hours between finishing work and getting to bed seems like a reasonable thing.

Yeah, well. You'd think.

Then I waited a very long time to fall asleep. It was hot, and there were mosquitoes and possibly also imaginary mosquitoes, and also my tummy is currently an awkward shade of sunburnt. Sad times all around.

That's how I found myself sitting at the computer at 3.30am, having decided that the thing to do to induce sleep would be to get cracking on a translation I have to do and also eat cookies.

Advice: do not try to translate contracts at 3.30 in the morning. Does not work well. Also, the cookies were perhaps not such a good idea. Back to bed circa 4.00, with a mild stomachache, trying to figure out the correct form of "please find attached" for a contract.

I think I fell asleep shortly after that (yay contracts! this is why law school and I would not have worked out at all, probably), but then it was 6.15 and I had to wake up again.

Two hours of sleep on a Tuesday morning? Not so good. My students had better be alert and fascinating this morning, or else I will probably kill them. I do not have the energy to muster anything even resembling patience.

Reggio, tonight can you please just cooperate a little? A tiny bit more air and a tiny bit less mosquito craziness? Thanks.

Al mare

A few weekends ago I went to the sea with one my Italian friends. You should try to go to the sea with Italian friends sometimes, because they have done it many times before, and are experts. They can help you find the perfect place to go to the sea, and then the perfect place to eat, to put your beach towel, to go swimming, etc. Also, they can teach you some important life lessons. For example:

1. Don't go swimming after eating. Seriously, don't let the water get you if you have food in your tummy. I still haven't ascertained exactly what would happen to you, but it's definitely bad.

We have arrived in our charming Ligurian village after a bit over two hours of driving, and have had a coffee and then wandered around, and finally chosen the island opposite as our sunbathing destination, and have therefore acquired some focaccia to eat once we are over there, and have made our way over to the island and snagged some beach chairs. It has been fun, but also we left early-ish for a Sunday morning and I didn't really eat breakfast, and now we have chairs and also focaccia. In my mind, the situation is perfect.

"Wait!" says my friend. "Don't you want to go swimming?"

"Um... sure," I say, unsure what the obstacle to that is.

"Well, then, we can't eat yet! Then we'd have to wait three hours."

Oh, right. I had heard something about that. I grew up thinking it was 30 minutes, but whatever. My friend takes pity on me.

"Are you hungry?" she asks.

"Well, a little," I say, thinking I'm about to get a reprieve, "I mean, I didn't really eat breakfast or anything."

"That's perfect, then!" exclaims she, "this is the perfect time to go swimming. Your stomach is empty. We'll eat after. It's better."

I wrap the focaccia back up.

2. The sun chair must always be facing the sun, exactly. I suppose because otherwise you will get a crooked tan. Either way, you must make this happen, even if it means getting up and shifting them around in a dance-y little circle every hour and a half or so.

3. Thou shalt not stand still in the water. Because then you'll get cold. From standing in the water. Even if the sun is beating down on your back and the water is warm like bathwater.

4. Thou shalt dry thy entire self off immediately upon exiting the water. Otherwise, the sea breeze will get you when you are still wet, and then god knows what might happen. This is particularly applicable for the back of your neck.

5. Thou shalt not let the sea breeze get you past a certain time of day, for the same reason. I suppose at that point, sea breeze becomes night air and then it attacks the back of your neck and all manner of badness happens to you.

On the other hand, you may be surprised to learn of a few things that are completely fine:

For instance, it is considered absolutely safe to jump off of boulders into the sea, even if there appear to be other boulders lurking below the surface. Similarly, you are welcome to slide down a steep-ish slope of rocks and pebbles mixed together and occasionally splashed by water so that some weird kind of scum grows on them and they become ridiculously slippery. This is fine.

Additionally, if you want to let your elementary-school-aged children monkey around on a playground that is sandwiched between a main road and the sea while you hang out on your boat ten minutes away, that's fine too.

And, my favorite: do not worry about the sun. The sun will not hurt you. All it will do is make your skin a beautiful shade of brown. Or possibly lobster red, but whatever. No one will think anything of it if you vaguely dab on a droplet of spf 15 (good luck finding anything stronger than spf 20, by the way) and then spend the entire day roasting under the midday sun on your chaise longue, rolling over periodically so that all sides of you get done equally.

Just as long as the back of your neck isn't touched simultaneously by the evening breeze and any kind of moisture.

Above - bottom left: ridiculously slippery rocks; middle right: San Pietro in Porto Venere.

You can tell...

You can tell you've been living in Italy for a bit when...

• you have a definite opinion re the Adriatic coast vs. the Mediterranean coast and can defend it intelligibly

• you have several "regular" cafes staked out where you have a solito and the people greet you (sometimes even by name)

• the woman in the bakery feels enough confidenza with you to tell you that you should put a sweater on (in June)

• you have strong opinions on where to get the best gelato in your town

• you can not only recognize and differentiate various types of cheese, but you also have preferences as to which ones are best and when and why

• with regards to cappuccino, you've passed through the various stages of "tourist: drink it mid-afternoon, because why not" to "omg, Italians never drink it after 10am so I can't either or else people will know I'm straniera!" (pro tip: they will know anyway) and finally to "I don't give a crap who sees me drinking cappuccino and when, but now I would usually rather have normal espresso anyway..."

• you can use direct and indirect object pronouns in everyday speech without thinking about it

• similarly, most verbs. In fact, sometimes you can get whole sentences out without too much effort, and occasionally even without mistakes.

• running out of olive oil provokes a brief flutter of mild panic

• you've finally taken to salting the water before boiling your pasta in it

• you agree that over-cooking pasta is akin to sacrilege, or, at the very least, kind of gross

• people speaking dialect don't faze you anymore; in fact, you sometimes understand them

• you answer the phone of an evening and hold a coherent conversation (in Italian) with the person all while stirring stuff that you're cooking

• the thought of the frozen "Lean Cuisine" meals you used to eat in college makes you feel mildly ill

• your ability to tell people off has evolved from "angry spluttering in a mix of English and Italian" through "crappy, grammatically horrifying Italian that may or may not get your point across" and "markedly un-eloquent due to lack of grammar finesse" to finish with "able to politely but effectively tell someone where they can shove it - even by phone, and even in the context of work"

• all the other expats are British, so you've started saying things like "car park" when you mean "parking lot", and "brilliant!" has become your go-to exclamatory expression

• you don't get freaked out when suddenly everyone starts speeding around the circonvallazione beeping and screaming; you just look outside and have a glance at the flags - and indeed, Inter/Milan/Juve/whatever have won again...

• similarly, you are no longer surprised to wake up to the sound of people singing "Bella, Ciao" at a so-left-it's-borderline-communist rally in the square near your house

• speaking of hearing things from your house, you don't feel that you've woken up properly on a Sunday until you've heard the church bells reminding you what day it is

• you browse through the newspapers for fun and actually understand what's going on - both in terms of the words and the social context

• the view from your bedroom window feels like home

• you know the smell of the sun-heated cobblestones intimately, and love it

And...

• you are just as excited about the results of the referendum today as you were three years ago when Obama was elected.
Brava, Italia! Today you've made me proud to live here and happy to have witnessed this.

In montagna, part 3: the back of your neck

As part of this whole climb-frigging-mountains-in-really-clompy-shoes extravaganza, we are staying overnight in a hostel. This is an exciting experience, because I've never stayed in a hostel with a bunch of strangers before. (Well, okay, my friend is there too... but also a bunch of strangers). Despite concerns over whether or not it will be a disgusting filthy hole where I will be scared to shower, I am game. It will be exciting.

It turns out to be kind of a field study on how Italians operate. First of all, you know those Havaianas flip-flops? I have two pairs, and have happily worn them out to do my grocery shopping and other stuff casual stuff here in Italy... or to do pretty much anything, really, in America. You should know that Italians use them as house shoes. We get into the room, and people start unpacking. I'm in the room with my friend and three other ladies and one man, and five pairs of Havaianas in various colors plop down onto the floor, one after the other. I watch them out of the corner of my eye and carefully unpack a towel to pass the time. I have packed only my (new! sexy!) hiking boots and a pair of decent-looking flip-flops for all other purposes. I have not packed another pair to use as house shoes. Oops.

We go on our hike around the distinclty non-flat island, scrabbling up what seem like kilometers and kilometers up vertically oriented rock, only to rest on another big rock that slopes gently down into nothingness. Okay, full disclosure: it actually slopes gently down into nothingness and then the sea is about three hundred meters below that. But it might as well just be nothingness. With rocks at the bottom.

Then we sit in a piazzetta and eat focaccia and drink lambrusco and listen to one of the group leaders singing in dialect. This is vastly entertaining, and if I could remember all the words to this one song, I'm pretty sure that I could swear quite crudely in Bolognese. Sadly, I can't remember the words to the song, and I'm not sure just humming the tune would have the same effect. Pity.

Next, it is time for bed. I politely let everyone else use the bathroom before me, sitting on the edge of my bed, which creaks but seems clean and contains no bugs (I checked). They all slip on their specially designated pair of flip-flops, and shuffle into the bathroom and run the water for a while and then come back out and climb into bed. I sit and listen to the guy whose singing can still be heard from the piazzetta, floating in through the open window.

Finally, after my turn, we are all ready and in bed. I am about to start wishing people a good night and get on with the business of trying to sleep, but it is a good thing that my words come out slowly because we are not actually ready for sleeping. There is one more problem to resolve.

"Ma, come facciamo per la finestra?" (What are we going to do about the window?) says one of the Italians. We all turn our eyes to the window. I can't quite tell what's wrong with it - it's open about three inches and a nice breeze is coming through it, along with that guy's singing. For a moment, I wonder if they are offended by the singing, and consider saying that he will probably stop soon. I mean, he has to get up tomorrow, too, just like the rest of us.

Again, it is a good thing I keep my mouth shut, because that is not the problem, either.

"You're right. If we leave it like that, the breeze will come in, and then... the back of your neck..." one woman trails off uncertainly and another one picks up where she left off.

"Yes, if it gets the back of your neck in the wrong way...."

"Yes. We're definitely not wearing warm enough pajamas for that," finishes off another. She's wearing long pants that look fleecy, and a sweatshirt.

All five of them look warily at the window, as if it they had caught it conspiring against them on purpose. No, seriously, though. I wish I had videotaped this scene. It's like the facial expression that people do in scary movies for kids when a door creaks open and everyone suspects a ghost or whatever will come through. Except this was an innocent window with the pleasant warmth of Liguria in mid-May on the other side.

In the end, after a few long moments of staring significantly at the window, someone does the brave thing and closes it. Then they comment for a while on how that is a good decision, and can you imagine what state we would have been in the next day if we had left it open?!

Thank goodness we dodged that one.

The next morning, it is a little grey and window out, and threatens rain.

"But will it be safe to hike?" I ask, somewhat intimidated by the big storm clouds rolling determinedly across the sky. I'm picturing those vertical-ish and gently-sloping-into-nothingness rocks from yesterday, except now slippery with rain. It is not a pretty picture. I'm clumsy to start with. I do not want to break an ankle. Or my spine. Or fall off altogether and die in the nothingness.

"Yes, of course!" says one guy heartily. "You just need some good shoes and your sticks!"

I don't have sticks.

In the end, it isn't actually that slippery. So, we climb up and up and up and up and then across those gently-sloping rocks (more of them, and still pretty much into nothingness) and it is as I am holding my breath to get across one, hoping that this will either help me balance and not fall off, or otherwise just avoid nervous breakdown, that I notice the two women in front of me are gamely trotting across the thing while hurriedly pulling their jackets on.

"Yes, now that we're sweating..." says one of them.

"Definitely. If the breeze hits the back of our necks while we're sweating..."

I don't roll my eyes, because then I would probably fall of the rock. But... really?

In Montagna, part 2: Practically Flat

The island in question, it transpires, is not flat. In fact, it is kind of hill-ish. With rocks and stuff.

Nonetheless, after a fortifying and delicious dinner of fish (fish that is both fresh and well prepared: so. good.), veggies, foccacia, and farinata, we cross over to the island on a ferry and commence climbing.

I am still busy admiring the view when I practically bump into a thigh-high rock. I look at the rock. I locate the sounds of the voices of the people in front of me. They are on top of the rock, and climbing still more rocks. In fact, there appears to be a series of such rocks. I can't even see where it ends. Right, then.

I climb the rocks too. And you know what? I almost don't dare say it, but... it's not actually so exceedingly hard. It's just hard enough that it's a nice challenge and the muscles in your thighs sometimes go "hey, we're climbing rocks!" and you definitely have to pay attention to where you're putting your feet (in the interest of not falling off the rocks in question) but it's not impossible. Win.

Also, this is the view from atop the rocks. Win and win, no?


Also, wearing a lamp on your head is like being a little car with headlights. Or having a glow-in-the-dark forehead. Or being Rudolph. Or something. It's pretty spiffy. At one point, we all sit down and turn the lights off and listen to the waves crashing on the rocks below and the seagulls calling to one another. Some of the Italians call wisecracks back to the seagulls, in that way that only Italians can. (Not that I've surveyed the whole world, but so far, no one does it quite like Italians. Or maybe it's the language that works really well for it...) Anyway, it's near-on blissful.

Back on the mainland, after descending from the island and the ferry ride home, I plop myself down on a low wall around the mini-piazza in front of the hostel where we are staying, suddenly feeling all of that scaling-of-rocks in my legs. Someone hands me a glass of prosecco and a piece of focaccia and the group leader whips out a guitar. First they sing a toast. (No, really. It was brilliant. Like in a cheesy movie about happy mandolin-wielding Italians.) Then they sing a song in Bolognese dialect. Then in Genovese (in honor of us being in Liguria, see). Then a whole slew of them in Reggiano. Apparently they are songs of the slightly-less-than-tasteful variety, because everyone is in stitches. I can't understand more than half of it, but I'm more than happy just to hang out in a rock-scaling-and-prosecco-induced haze and lesson to the tune of it.

After some time, one of the other group leaders sits down next to me.

"So, did you like it?"

Me (enthusiastically): "Yeah, definitely! That was great! And the view was so beautiful!"

Him: "Yeah, that was a pretty good climb. Definitely a good view, but I guess it usually is, if you go 180 meters off the ground, right?"

Me (having no concept of how tall 180 meters is): "Yeah, definitely." (I have a quick glance back over at the island - specifically, at the top of it. Guess that's 180 meters.)

Him: "Well, tomorrow will be even better!"

Me (casually, to belie the thought that's just occurred to me): "Yeah? So how high up will it be tomorrow?"

Him: "Oh, about 600 meters. You did great today for your first climb, by the way!"

"Mm-hm," I murmur vaguely.

I have another glance at that island, and picture those "not so hard" rocks we just climbed. Then I attempt to conceive of how high 600 meters might be, and fail.

"It'll be awesome!" he adds, slipping off the wall and bidding me good night.

I'm sure it will.

In Montagna, part one

If you ask Italians (or maybe it's just Emiliani, I'm not sure) about their weekend plans, they will frequently tell you that they're going "in montagna". I never really understood this, and I also never really understood the point of the question "do you prefer the mountains or the sea?" with regards to vacationing, because the area in America where I grew up is pretty similar to what some Italians mean when they say "mountains". (They seem to use "montagna" to refer to both actual mountains (e.g. the Dolomiti) and just kind of hilly areas (e.g. the parts of the province of Reggio near to the Appennini, where it isn't quite so flat). I grew up in a kind of hilly, forest-y area, and running around in the trees and fresh air was an every-day-after-school kind of thing, not a take-all-your-camping-stuff-up-to-the-mountains kind of thing. So I've always said "sea" in answer to the preference question, and never really gave the "montagna" or even the very possessive "nostre colline" (hills) any further thought.

I don't even have a very specific idea of what it is that Italians do up there in the mountains. Have picnics? (Probably not - I can't imagine eating out of doors and not at a table would be considered good for digestion.) Wear fancy Moncler* jackets and sip mulled wine while watching the snow fall? Play some sort of vertically-oriented soccer? I do know that some of them go hunting, and others go mushroom picking, but surely not all of them? And not all year round? Boh. I always thought it was too stupid a question to ask anyone. (Probably this is one thing I was actually right about, come to think of it.)

It transpires that some of them go hiking. (Probably this was obvious, but since when have I ever been observant enough for the obvious?) Adorably, they call it going "camminare" (walking), as in "io cammino da quando avevo 10 anni" - I've been walking (hiking) since I was 10.

And this is how I was introduced to it. Or, should I say, to the official version. (In my backyard, hiking involved grabbing a granola bar and some water and seeing if you've got your shoes tied, and then wandering down the hill and up the other hill and trying not to get wet in the river, and if you come out the other side of the forest in a part of town you know, so much the better! If not, just come back the way you came. In retrospect, I have no idea how this was considered safe, unless the forest is actually a lot smaller than I thought and you couldn't possibly have come out wrong... hm... something to ask the parents...)

Anyway, my friend and I are sitting in a cafe in Reggio enjoying a delightful insalata di farro and catching one fine Sunday when she remembers that she had something cool to tell me. It is that she has discovered a hiking group through some other friends of hers, and that they are planning a very cool weekend trip to Portovenere to hike around the island opposite (name: Palmaria) in the moonilght and then another hike to Riomaggiore the next morning. I nod. Portovenere, the beginning of the Cinque Terre (where I have somehow never been yet) and some hiking around an island thrown in? Yes. Good plan.

"So, d'you want to do it?" she asks.

"Yeah, why not?" I say.

We go to get some more information in the hiking shop sponsoring the trip.

The man is speaking dialect, which makes things tricky, but I somehow more or less manage to grasp that we will need hiking shoes. I can't tell if he is just trying to sell us hiking shoes or if we will really need hiking shoes, but whatever. Hiking shoes are probably good to have, and also they can double as snow boots. Win. We allow him to plop us down onto benches and start putting enormous boots onto our feet. (Note to women who wish they had dainty feet: there is nothing that makes you feel like your feet are small and dainty than looking at them next to huge hiking boots. Just don't look at them once you actually have the shoes on.)

"So, is it a difficult hike, then?" I ask casually. I am standing rather precariously on a weird slanty thing which seems to be meant to pitch you forward, flat onto your face, but apparently is really meant to allow you test whether your toes touch the front of the shoes when you're going downhill. Apparently that is not favorable. I am trying to appear carefree and confident, but really I am mostly focused on not falling off the weird slanty thing.

"No, no," the man reassures us, "it'll be easy, even for beginners! The island, for one, is practically flat!" I do not notice that he has not commented on the other part of the hike. The Portovenere to Riomaggiore one. I am not very slick, clearly.

The man hands me a pair of socks that seem thick enough that you practically wouldn't even need actual shoes, and tells me that they will protect my wimpy amateur feet from blisters and moisture and rocks and god knows what else. Excellent.

"Right then, you're all set," he says (I think - he's switched back to dialect, so it's hard to be sure). "Unless... you've got some sort of light, right?" he asks us. My friend and I look at each other. I re-adjust my grip on the huge cardboard box containing my huge new hiking shoes in it.

"Well, a flashlight," she says.

"You sure you don't want a headlamp?" he asks, raising his eyebrows.

"Oh. Um..." I say graciously. It seems my brain is unable to both conceive of myself with a headlamp on and speak coherent Italian at the same time.

"Why - is it better to have a headlamp?" my friend clearly does not have similar difficulties. (I want to be a little defensive and say this might be because she is actually Italian, but really it is probably because I don't actually speak that coherently under normal circumstances anyway...)

"Well," says the man, "yeah, because then you can have both hands free."

We both nod, and say we'll take headlamps as well, and it doesn't occur to me until we're outside of the store to ask why, if the island is so flat and the hike is so easy, we would need both hands free.


*Just fyi I had to google "Moncler" to check that I was spelling it right (it seems like there would be a 't' in there, but apparently not) and the website describes them as French and the quintessence of down jackets. Quintessence is an excellent word, definitely, but.... really? The quintessence of down jackets?