The thing with the supermarkets

So, this is the thing about the supermarkets. They are not open on Sundays. It came to me in a vision (um. not really.) a few weeks ago. I'm sure you can guess on which day of the week I had the vision.

Because of the thing with the supermarkets, there is something that is not a good idea. You know what it is? Forgetting to go grocery shopping on Saturday. Particularly twice in a row.

Because you end up noticing, as you wipe up the crumbs from your last breakfast roll, that the combined contents of your fridge and cupboard are as follows: 1 can of green beans, half a jar of nutella, some dry pasta, butter, and 1 cup of (expired) strawberry yogurt. You vaguely wonder what you will eat for the rest of the day before wandering off to shower, read, fold the laundry you did last week, and try to convince yourself that washing the windows would be a good way to spend the morning (this last is likely to be an unsuccessful venture).

The problem comes up again towards lunchtime, when you get hungry. You host a mini-debate inside your head: stick your face back in the cupboard in the hopes that something appetizing will have materialized, or get dressed and go outside to find food. Option B will probably win out, in the end. You enjoy a pleasant walk down the stairs and up the street and smoothly negotiate the acquisition of a speck and brie piadina. This transaction even provides you with the opportunity to feel slick and superior as you order your sandwich and make all of the relevant decisions (warmed or cold; for here or wrapped to go) smoothly, without missing a beat, while next to you a tourist struggles to understand what "speck" is. (Speck, as it happens, is a bit of a mystery. It's some particular cut of ham, but which exact cut or why it's called speck is a topic that may merit a Google search.)

So you're set for the afternoon, apart from an unfortunate craving for chocolate towards four in the afternoon that's annoying but not quite strong enough for you to go all the way back downstairs and try to figure out how to procure some.

And then comes dinnertime. You still haven't procured any additional victuals, and that's how you come to be staring into your kitchen cabinets, pondering the compatibility of green beans and fusilli, which is probably something that would horrify your Italian roommates possibly into unconsciousness. Since you have no desire to shave years off the end of their lives, you are trying to convince yourself that you really do see the appeal of pasta with olive oil on it when your roommate returns from her weekend away, bearing mushrooms and offering to make risotto for the two of you.

And that's one of the reasons for which, sometimes, living in Italy is just delightful. Maybe things are more inconvenient sometimes (the washing machine that takes two and a half hours, the supermarkets whose hours only overlap with your free time once a week) but it all evens out in the end. If I lived in America, I'd have access to a faster washing machine, but I also probably wouldn't have so much free time during the weekends to begin with. And I could pick up and go to the supermarket at any time of day or night I pleased, but the likelihood of someone offering to make me mushroom risotto and engage my sorry B1 level Italian in conversation over it would be slim indeed.

The thing with the stoves

When I first began my packing list, kind of informally, in my head, I included some cookware. This was because, inspired by books and word of mouth and the bragging (and cooking samples) of previous Italian teachers, I had envisioned that I would learn to cook in Italy. The air would sort of magically seep into my pores and cooking savvy would osmose its way into my brain, thus bestowing upon me the ability to produce risotto and lasagna in bolognese sauce and things of that nature. (Come to think of it, does bolognese sauce even go on lasagna? I want to say no, for some reason...)

It turns out that those early thoughts were a bit ambitious, in more ways than one. To begin with, there was no room to bring a pot in my luggage. Ditto a set of sheets, towels, and even some winter clothes. It turns out that two suitcases and 50kg are not very much. Also, while it is very magic indeed, the air of Italy has yet to uncover what latent cooking skills I may possess in any perceivable way.

In the first apartment in which I stayed, I declined to make anything more culinarily adventurous than a mozzarella sandwich. And twice I ate a tomato. It was hot, and the cutlery wasn't mine, and it all felt very temporary. I figured I could live on take-out and no-cook items until I found a more permanent place to live.

In the kitchen of the second apartment, the ironing table and clothes-hanging thing (what is that called in English?) were propped up against the fridge so that they all clanged together every time you opened it. The cupboards contained a mismatched set of dubiously clean kitchen-related items. The olive oil I bought, so proud of having a "permanent" place to stay, was stored on the floor in a corner. The microwave rested on the washing machine, which smelled of mold, dishsoap was nowhere to be found (until I bought some). And this was the abode of the Man Obsessed with the Water, who actually seemed to take offense when we asked him his opinion on using hot water for the dishes. (His suggestion was that we boil some in the kettle if we really felt it was necessary.) The final piece of this puzzle (um. not that it's really a puzzle. but whatever) is that this was where I noticed the thing about the stoves.

The thing about the stoves in Italy is that there is fire. Now, I know that on some basic level, there is also fire in electric stoves. Or, at any rate, some similar form of heat-making stuff. But here, the fire is out in the open. And sometimes it smells of gas, which is slightly less than reassuring. I examined the stove one day when I was walking through the kitchen to fetch a tomato, and noticed that it has a decidedly '70s air about it. Also the tiny bit of counter space next to it was sporting one of those trigger lighter things. Not a good sign in the least. That was the end of any thoughts of cooking in that kitchen that I had previously entertained. (I hadn't entertained many anyway, what with the dirt and lack of soap with which to remedy it.)

Thus commenced a period of four weeks during which, when I didn't eat out (by which I mean partaking of aperitivo snacks and calling them dinner), I subsisted mainly on lettuce, tomatoes, vinaigrette, bread, and nutella. And chocolate. And little snack type things. But that's a story for another day.

At the end of the four weeks, I had moved into a new apartment, complete with roommates who were closer to my age and also non-creepy. Always a plus. The apartment was all newly redone and very nice and I was very happy.

"So, do you like cooking?" asked one of my roommates on one of our first evenings together. I glanced over at her, pausing to eye the stove suspiciously. Three different pots were bubbling contentedly as flames licked around their bottoms. I didn't understand it. There was FIRE in our KITCHEN. Why was everyone being so calm about this? Anyway, though.

"Well, unfortunately I'm not very good at it. I don't know how to make much," I ventured in shaky Italian. It was a bit of an understatement, really. On a good day, I can produce scrambled eggs with minimal disturbance to those around me.

"Ah. So what's your best dish?" she inquired politely.

Hm. Toast? Grilled cheese? Something told me that neither of these would be an acceptable answer. And it would have been difficult to explain anyway, given that toast is the word Italians use for grilled cheese.

"Ratatouille," I finally said, praying that I would never be called upon to demonstrate. (I do more or less know how to make this.) The conversation segued conveniently into languages from here and I began to sigh with relief, stopping abruptly when I caught sight of the stove again. What's up with this nonsense, anyway? I wondered to myself. Someone should inform Italy that this is no longer the middle ages. Or the fifties. We have other kinds of stoves now. Ones that don't involve gas and an open flame and the potential to blow up your entire apartment building.

The stove still reminds me far too much of a bunsen burner for me to feel completely at ease when using it, but at least I can now turn it on without flinching at the little clicky sounds it makes as it tries to light, and boil my spaghetti without cowering in fear. In fact, I've even begun to appreciate how quickly it makes the water boil - quite miraculous, really. I can almost, almost see why people would own this kind of stove on purpose, availability of other kinds of stoves notwithstanding. However, this does not solve all my problems with cooking. To be revealed presently: the thing with the supermarkets.

Che bello

"Ciao, ragazze!" A man calling out from under an awning to, presumably, two or more girls that I can't see, distracts me from my contemplation of the imminent threat of drizzle (will I make it to the school before it starts to rain in earnest? will my hair be completely flattened regardless? why did I not bring my umbrella?) and reminds me where I am.

"Ciao, mio caro!" the owner of the cafe around the corner from my apartment shouts at a young-ish man across the street. His exuberance is infectious and I smile.

I walk through a small crowd gathered outside of the library and the language washes around me in waves and spikes of lively sound. An acquaintance waves at me from his bike. I don't really see him until the last minute, but I'm still smiling to myself. Lucky, that.

"Ciao!" another teacher calls out from her bike, and another smile overlaps with the first when I see her son strapped to a seat in back of her. I love that. I know people in this city. I love that, too.

"Ciao, bellissima!" someone shouts to the woman walking in front of me. She is indeed far better dressed than I am, and her hair falls in careful blond waves that bounce across her shoulders. The thought does nothing to change my quietly gleeful mood, though.

History by exposure

"They really had no imaginations," a French teacher of mine once remarked, on the subject of street names in America. "I mean, 'first lake', 'second lake', 'third lake'... and the same in New York!" Her charming accent and dubious grammatical accuracy more or less absorbed any sting the comment might have had... and she kind of had a point, anyway.

Here in Italy, it's like in Paris (her original point of reference, if I recall correctly). Every day I walk past any number of streets, and they all have name plaques on them that go like this: "Angelo Secchi, 1818-1878, Naturalista". It's no wonder people here are so much more cultured than in America - you can get a full history lesson just by walking through town. Or perhaps they were cultured to begin with and that's why they take the time to name their streets after historical figures. I'm kind of sleepy and not really up to getting into a chicken-or-egg debate with myself right now, though, so I'll leave you with that rather less than earth-shattering observation.

All I know is that I'm waiting for someone to mention Angelo Secchi in conversation, so that I can just rifle through my mental snapshots of on-the-way-to-work and respond with, "oh, yes, the ninteenth century naturalist."

The Mop

So, when you move to a foreign country, you have to expect to spend a certain (significant) percentage of your time feeling stupid. Or at least that's what I keep telling myself. Anyway, it's especially true in the beginning, when you can't even seem to buy some apples without getting confused... and then things slowly get easier. You figure out that the lady at the checkout counter isn't mumbling some sort of secret incantation at you every time you do your groceries - she's just asking you if you want a plastic bag. At the most she's asking if you have more exact change.

Some things, though, continue to be unclear. For instance, why do they call grilled cheese sandwiches "toast"? And what do they call real toast? (The kind made out of bread. Bread that has been toasted.) And aside from those, additional confusing things tend to crop up on a pretty frequent basis. Today's Source of Confusion was the Mop. (Check it out - I'm getting all German over here with the capitalization of the nouns.)

On the weekends, I like to clean the apartment. This is partially because I am mildly compulsive and partially because Italy is very dusty. And not gentle little layers of soft dust that cloud themselves onto smooth surfaces, like pianos (not that I own a piano): this is serious dust that means business - huge clods that just sit under the furniture and grow. At an astounding rate. Italy must have a very high per capita volume of dust. Or maybe it's just this city specifically. Or maybe cities in general and not Italian ones in particular. Who knows? Come to think of it, it's probably not safe to generalize - in a country where the language varies practically from one street to the next, it's not like you can expect the behavior of stuff like dirt to be constant or anything.

Anyway. Frequent cleaning. My roommates moved in before I did, due to an issue with the hot water (the issue mainly being that our water heater was temporarily incapable of producing any), so all of the cleaning stuff belongs to them and was there when I arrived. It consisted of various liquid products with labels I couldn't read, two brooms, and The Mop. The Mop should perhaps be called 'The Mopping Contraption' because it is not just a mop - it comes with something that I can really only describe as a contraption. In fact, rather than explain it, I shall just show you a picture.

There you go. So, so far I have been getting by with just the broom and this mini little contraband vacuum cleaner I got and it's been more or less okay. But the roommates were away this weekend and I decided to take advantage of the opportunity (by which I mean the absence of potential witnesses) to try out the mop thing. I'm trying to increase my adventurous gal quotient, you see.

I can't figure it out, though. I mean, presumably you put water and cleaning goo in the big bucket-y part, right? And then the smaller cup-with-rectangular-holes part is probably for wringing the thing out... right? And then it keeps that water separate from the other water... which is where my understanding of the thing ends. Because, from what I understand, you dip it in the big part to get it wet (clean water), wring it out (clean water), wipe the floor (dirty mop), dip it back into the big part (now dirty water), wring it out (still clean-ish water)... so apparently you're collecting the clean-ish water in the little trapped part? Why? Or am I doing it completely wrong? See, these are the things they ought to teach you in college. It should be a part of the Italian culture class. That and how to text message your friends, because essay-writing language is all well and good until you just want to ask someone if they're up for pizza.

Anyway, Italy, in terms of the cleaning situation, there's room for improvement. I have trouble dealing with the total lack of vacuum cleaners in the average household. The bucket contraption is too difficult for idiot foreigners like me to figure out. And then mops in general? Not a fan. It's good for getting large areas of floor space wet and picking up moderate amounts of the (un-vacuumed) dust, but not for scrubbing. The reddish stain (tomato sauce?) is still on my kitchen floor. You fail, mop. I prefer my swiffer thingie with the cool spray button, eco-unfriendly though it may be. Sadly it is in New Jersey and I am here.

It's okay, though. In terms of food, you are still my number one, Italy. And in terms of atmosphere. Or at least pretty high on the charts. So I'll just shove the dust under the bed, push a chair over the stain, go out for an espresso and call it all very quaint.

(Now I have a blog that's about mops and socks. Lovely.)

The saga of the blue car

This the story of how I befriended the blue car (the school car that we use to get to off-site lessons).

The first time I went to Nearby Village to teach, another teacher drove, so my first encounter with the blue car went fairly smoothly:

“I’ll just drive this time,” she says, “and you can just pay close attention.”

“Sounds good!” I respond brightly, eyeing the clock nervously. We have 26 minutes to reach our destination, after which I have to keep three ten year olds entertained for an hour and fifteen minutes using printouts of clothes, stick figures, and the odd pet-related clipart image. I glance at the indicator lights to determine in which general direction she is going upon leaving the school (left) and then set to cutting out the clothes probably about as accurately as the average four-year-old would.

Innumerable roundabouts later, we arrive in the village and from there undertake a complex series of one-way streets to arrive at our destination, where we park across the street from where we actually want to go. Just to make everything as clear and simple as possible.

My second encounter with the blue car took place entirely within the context of a parking lot, so that was also relatively painless:

“That’s great!” enthuses Other Teacher in what I recognize to be her teaching voice. The one she uses on the five-year-olds. Fabulous. Having been around the edge of the parking lot twice and apparently impressed her with my ability to not kill anyone, I park the car (more or less in line with the parking space) and smile politely.

“Now, you just have to remember to always put it in neutral when you get in – otherwise it won’t start – and you should be fine!” Yes. Splendid.

It was the third time I lowered myself into The World’s Midgiest Blue Car that things got a little unfortunate:
All right, then, Self, I think bracingly, the gear thingie is in neutral, which means that the car can turn on. Good, good. Car turns on. Splendid. Gear into reverse. So far, so good. Here we hit our first snag. Car will not budge. Shit. Car is broken. Can I possibly have broken the car just by shifting the gear thing?

Oh. Never mind. The car is not broken. Hand brake. It is merely a question of removing the handbrake. Yes. Good. Okay. Car pings alarmingly as gear shifts into reverse again, but there’s no time to worry about that. Hopefully there is gas in it, because I don’t even know where to look to find out, and just now I’m far too busy coming up on the first roundabout to conduct any sort of investigation.

Second snag. Or first major calamity. It depends on how you look at it. Either way, the point is that the road I was meant to take is blocked off. Well, I’ll just go straight and turn right at the next roundabout. Probably I’ll eventually end up somewhere in the right direction, no?

Ten minutes later, it appears that this was not true. I execute a u-turn at the next roundabout, and am stuck in traffic for another five minutes, which I put to moderately good use perusing the detour signs lined up along the road. I say ‘moderately’ because at the next roundabout after that, I promptly take the wrong exit and go driving off in the wrong direction. Another five minutes later, I capitulate and make the first of many phone calls to the receptionist.

“Hi, are you having trouble finding it?” she answers, clearly prepared for my call. Someone must’ve told her I’m not particularly bright.

“Um, yes, well, the thing is…” I begin, wondering how to explain that I’m not yet a mile away from my starting point despite the fact that I left twenty minutes ago.

“Don’t worry about it,” she says reassuringly. I raise my eyebrows. “Remember – just turn left when you see the green supermarket.”

It takes several tries to explain that I am, in fact, still practically in view of her office desk, but once that has gotten across, she points me back in the right direction and I hang up.

Okay, then. I’ll just be twenty minutes late and they’ll just have to get over it – it’s the first time I’m driving out there, after all. I screw up my courage and squint my eyes, and dutifully follow all the signs for Nearby Village. Until, finally, I come to the fateful roundabout where Nearby Village was no longer an option. (NB I have since realized that this means you should follow the little bulls-eye looking signs that say “centro”, but I’d only been in Italy about a month at this point… and I’m not particularly quick.) '

I go around the circle twice, doubtless incurring the wrath of all my fellow travelers. I am on the third time around when I call the secretary again.

“Francesca, should I go towards Parma or Milan?”

“What? Where are you?”

Good question.

“Um… I’m not sure. (If I knew, I probably wouldn’t be calling you, now, would I?) Close, though, I think. I’m in a roundabout, you know, and –"

“No, don’t worry about it – just turn left when you see the green supermarket. Do you see it? Is it green?”

“No – no supermarkets. Rotonda. I’m in a rotonda. Parma or Milan?”

“Hm,” she murmurs contemplatively as I wedge the phone in under my chin and steer myself around the circle for the fourth time, glancing absently in the various mirrors. A car accident at the age of 22 in the countryside of northern Italy on my way to teach a lesson about farm animals was not really how I had envisioned dying. (Not that I have actually envisioned dying, but anyway.) “Well, it really depends which side of Nearby Village you’re on,” she continues, clearly still thinking. “You’re sure there’s no green supermarket?”

A full hour and a half after leaving, I arrive in the appropriate one-way street in Nearby Village. The mother of one of the children I am coming to teach has been alerted to my directional problems and hurries to meet me at the door, looking concerned and offering me a restorative cup of tea. She is a nice person.

Her daughter’s friend and classmate, a cute ten-year-old, pushes past her and looks at me with wide eyes.

“Ciao, Cri!” he greets me, “ma, ti sei persa?”

Indeed.

To be continued. (Oh, yes: there's more.)

Tales from the cold marble floor

So, when I moved here, my boss came with me to look at apartments. She brought along a somewhat misleading idea of what a "nice" apartment is (or has different priorities than I do) and thusly I ended up being convinced that this apartment, which possesses a very nice view, is old-fashioned in a vaguely quaint kind of way (vaguely because by old I mean from the '70s, not the 1700s) and is quite large (if a bit empty). So I took the room. Because I figured, 'whatever, I'll just stay in my massive bedroom and ignore the roommate, so who cares if he's kind of odd?' Yeah, bad strategy. Because sometimes you have to pee or make yourself a salad or something. So staying locked in your room is not so feasible. And the roommate was quite bizarre. As a result of this, I only stayed here for a month, and have since been living in a much nicer place. 

Still, I enjoy looking back upon the strangeness of that apartment, where the floor was always freezing and the kitchen was always gross.  

Exhibit A: (Scene: approximately ten minutes into our first conversation, the first day I moved in.) 

FLATMATE: I don't know why the girls, they talk about their boyfriends every time. It's all they talk about, every time. Why they don't have something interesting to talk about? So when I go to the club (pronounced clehb) wiz zem, I am every time very bored. So I don't like talking wiz ziz one.

Okay, he has a point. Remind me not to mention any eventual boyfriends to him. But, um... has it escaped his notice that I'm a girl? And that he's talking with me? Albeit not about anyone's boyfriend. Still... awkward.

Exhibit B: (Scene: another conversation. Background: the man teaches English to 9 year olds in a public school. See above for an example of his spoken English. He specifically called the school where I work to try to get some native speakers to come live with him to practice on.) 

ME: Hey, do you want me to correct you when you speak?

FLATMATE: Oh, yes, yes, that's would be good.

FLATMATE (LATER IN THE CONVERSATION): blah blah blah every time. blah blah balh blah every time. blah blah blah blah di blah every time.

ME: Actually, it sounds more natural to say 'all the time'.

FLATMATE: Ah, yes. blah blah blah every time.

ME: All the time.... remember?

FLATMATE: Ah, yes. blah blah blah every time.

ME: No. All the time.

Rinse and repeat.

Exhibit C: 

FLATMATE: Crrreeese (his nickname for me - he means Chris), when I came back from Florence at 7 this morning the water heater was on.

ME: Yes, I had to leave for work by 8:30, so I woke up at 6 to turn it on.

FLATMATE: You must not leave it on all night.

ME: Yes, I know. That's why I hauled my sorry ass out of bed two whole hours early in order to have lukewarm water with which to shower.

(Okay, I didn't actually say it like that, but... so tempting. Because, really? I understand the concept of saving on electricity or gas or whatever it is that heats up the water. Even though everyone else I know around here turns the thing on before they go to bed rather than having to set two alarms, two hours apart. Which is why I follow his rules. I am not retarded and I'm not a liar. If you tell me I have to wake up "a few minutes early" - this is how he put it when I moved in, but it actually takes a solid two hours - in order to have warm water, I will do it. And if I tell you I didn't leave it on all night, I didn't. So enough with the suspicious looks, you bastard. The shower situation sucks enough as it is. PS Why don't you own a bathmat?)

Exhibit D: Locks. 

One day he locked me out (by leaving the internally locking key in the lock, from the inside, so that keys in the outside wouldn't work). I have no idea how that actually works, but, wtf? What was I supposed to have done if he hadn't heard me wrestling with the lock and come to open the door, without so much as an apology? 

One day he locked me in (by locking the thing internally and then taking the keys to bed with him). I had to call his cell phone from the living room and he stumbled out looking all cranky. Again, wtf? (And I'm not a swearing kind of girl.) No one asked you to lock the damn tenant into the apartment. (Also, why don't I have a copy of this key?) 

Additionally, he locks the living room door when he leaves. What, does he think I'm going to make off with his tv or something? (I mean, do I look strong enough to lift the tv? If so, I'm flattered.) It's not that I particularly want to go into the living room. It's just the insinuation that I can't be trusted not to make a mess that bothers me. He should have a closer look at his kitchen and then sit down and think about who's messier.

Exhibit E: Upon closer inspection, the bathroom and kitchen are both kind of grotty (an adjective I picked up from my British counterparts). And I don't really feel like cleaning them. (Usually I love cleaning things. But really only when I made the mess... i.e., I know what it's made of. When it's a kind of unidentifiable, vaguely moldy/dusty-looking business... it's less inspiring.)

Yes, that was another riveting chapter of my life. But, you know, if you read "Under the Tuscan Sun", she goes on at length about how she was canning olives, or something. Or picking olives and canning fruit, maybe. I don't remember. Granted, that's more romantic (and healthy) than trying to figure out how to swindle your landlord/flatmate out of his hot water savings, but whatever.