Supermarket Culture

In a foreign country, even ordinary places can be extraordinary. Fred and I have probably never been in a supermarket together in the States. Why bother? Isn’t one person’s time better spent doing something else? But in Italy, it’s like a date—”Want to go to Sigma with me???”  And the shopkeepers think we’re nuts taking pictures of cans of beans. I guess I’d think the same of someone stooping down in Stop & Shop to get a nice close-up of the Liquid Tide.

                       

                               Beans beans! Le frutti musicali!

There are large and small markets in Italy. But there are no BJs. That’s the antithesis of how Italians live. The packages are just way too big. The small supermarkets are much like our small markets, in that there’s a little of everything, not a huge assortment of choices, but fine for the daily stuff. And the large are sort of like Walmart or Target, in that they also carry housewares, pharmaceuticals and even clothing.

You put on a plastic disposable glove to pick your produce, bag it, weigh it, punch in a code, and stick the price on your bag. Even Italians sometimes forget to weigh it and have to run back. This was quite foreign to me years ago, but now I do it all the time here at my own market (sans gloves).

Most people seem to remember to bring their own bags, but if they don’t, they buy the plastic ones. Busca, Senora? Si, due, per favore.  Do you want a bag, Ma’am? Yes, please, two. You have to guess how many you’ll need because by the time she’s done ringing you up, you’re still bagging. And YOU bag, by the way. Not a supermarket employee.

                       

Check out the bags—new promotional bags every year for a euro each. Why, oh, why, do they look better suited for a New England farm stand?

In all the Italian supermarkets (in my experience), the cashiers get to sit down. Ironic, huh? In a country where it would be unheard of to use the car to pick up some things a half mile away, and where riding a bike is not done to save the earth, but just to get across town, they get to sit down on the job? I think we Americans can all use the time on our feet. 

Other striking differences are: On Saturdays, when it’s mobbed with all the Monday through Friday nine-to-fivers (well, nine-to-five does not accurately describe an Italian worker’s hours, but you get the gist), nobody’s in a hurry. You can stand in a traffic jam in an aisle while nobody cares that you’re blocked, but also nobody (but us Americans) seems to mind being blocked. They are illogically calm and unemotional at times, while flying off the handle at others. (Fred sits and draws for hours most days and hears families during riposo—that “quiet” time between 1 and 4—arguing with tones of voices, and levels of volume that would take our family months to get over. The Irish just do not let it all out that way. But that’s another blog.

                                                

                        Friskies aren’t just for cats anymore.

The other thing is there’s no check-out line for 12 items or less. Someone with one item has to ask all the people in the line if they mind if they cut. And nobody ever minds.

This part is the same: standing in line, people chat with each other, call out to someone they know, fiddle with their phones, and run back because they forgot their peaches (or fish—I can never remember the difference between pesca and pesce). 

                    

The Screen Door Slammed

              

Fred and I went for a pre-thunderstorm walk in Viterbo the other day that turned into a thunderstorm walk. We ran for refuge into a restaurant that wasn’t to open for dinner for several hours. They offered us a drink, and, not wanting to be rude, we accepted. : )

They brought us an amazing glass of very cold white wine and a great beer for Fred, and then grilled bread drizzled with olive oil and salt. It was great to be inside while the storm raged outside. BIG lightning, too. I was concerned the boys might be worried about us but I had left the phone at home so there was not much I could do. In fact, the power did go out in our apartment while we were gone. But they were fine.

There was music back in the kitchen for the cook while she (yes, a lot of the kitchen people seem to be women now) pounded the hell out of what I hope was already dead. Then the guy up front with us put Bruce Springsteen on. Thunder Road. My favorite. I have to believe it was for us.

We spent a raining day in Rome last week. The boys were on a field trip with Henry’s art history class, so Fred and I took the train down with them and spent the day not in museums or churches. Great day, once we got on the same page about exactly how one wanders and discovers unexpected things when one is not one, but two. :)  

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This is just before a huge thunder and lightning rainstorm in Montefiascone. It has rained all but three days in the last three weeks! But only for a short time. We like it.

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Seriously?

And by the way, you haven’t lived till you’ve had to buy “prodotti femminili” in Italy from a teenaged girl running a shop, in the presence of your two teenage sons. She made sure I understood the two kinds, the kind that stays outside and the kind that goes inside. She then looked at me as if I was some kind of floozyish tart for choosing the latter. For God’s sake, don’t even get me started on the ironies here…they’re topless at the beach, and then this prudishness? Spare me.

The Key to Opening a Locked Door

Owen told me something over the weekend that has changed my life. You know how when you put a key in a lock you never know whether to turn it clockwise or counterclockwise?  Well, if you visualize the bolt going from the door to the door frame to lock it, you can visualize which way to turn the key. For instance, if the knob is on the left side of a door, you would turn a key counter clockwise to lock it (send the bolt to the left). Conversely, you would turn the key clockwise to unlock the door (bring the bolt back out). Make sense? Does everyone already know this?? Either Owen’s a genius, or I’m just a dolt!

To Points South (Part Three)

Napoli. Wow. I took the boys so they would know that being afraid is never a good reason not to do something. (All the guidebooks had us petrified we’d be getting mugged immediately, and often.) Napoli seems, in retrospect, like it would be really fun to visit at night and/or if we had more time to find the happy places. Alas, we found no happy places.

The Pompei exhibit at the museum was closed, but oddly they didn’t tell us this even when I asked what floor it was on (?). I insisted we could not leave this city without a positive experience, so I decided to take us to Chiaia, the part of town with boutiques, hip people, cool cafés. Perfect. And we were starving, so off we went for what I thought was a two-stop trip on the Metro, but 35 minutes later we emerged from underground to find ourselves in what I’ll say was like the Needham of Naples. A total suburb miles and miles away from Chiaia; we were in Chiaiano : ( Ever determined NOT to leave defeated, we eventually found out way to Chiaia. The lunch place I had researched was closed, as were all the shops, which were, by the way, not what I call boutiques, but high-end, Rodeo Drive type stores. Louis Vuitton, etc. Grabbed some cheeseless pizza pastry things at a bar and walked the waterfront, which is amazing. They’ve made it pedestrian-only and the hotels are huge and line the water, along with hundreds of café tables and chairs in front of the hotels. Across the street, people swim in the bay! So funny to see people swimming right next to a huge city! Grabbed a cab to the station whose driver refused to take us to the station we needed to get to, instead insisting we get out and then saying to me, “Aren’t you gonna give me a tip? No American tip? No dollar?” Like an ASS, I tipped him. We came home to Pompei and got take-out pizza (Italians do this now!) which was AMAZING and watched Skyfall on cable in the air conditioning : ) Ciao Napoli.

Next morning, off to get Fred, whose flight was not due till 5 pm, so we decided to have lunch at the beach. Nice lunch. Italians at the sea on Sunday, a national pastime. Got to the airport and settled in with some English papers and coffee at a café. At 4:30, I went to check the board only to find that Fred’s flight had been cancelled. He had emailed us to go home. He’d arrive the next day at 2:00 and take the train home to Viterbo. We went home but picked him up the next day. The boys thought it would be too sad to make him take the train after that whole ordeal. Okay, NEW day, no more negativity!!!! Except one thing: I brought Fred back a little bottle of limoncello from Sorrento which I knocked off the counter and sent down the stone steps inside our apartment. Limoncello and glass flew up over our heads on the floor above, down into the basement bedroom, all over the walls….. next half hour was spent cleaning it up! So THAT is the final chapter on our five days away.

Napoli

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To Points South (Part Two)

On the train down to Sorrento, there was a saxophone player accompanied by an accordion player who, for some reason, I found totally charming. I tipped them and took a picture of them. By the time we were on the return trip I was tempted to trip them as they walked by. It’s a long hard day being a tourist….

Bought tickets for the ferry to Capri—so cool just to see SORRENTO - CAPRI on a ticket, and waited in a little park for departure. There was a little truck set up selling lemonade and they had a radio playing Michael Bublé “It’s a Beautiful Day.” The ferry to Capri was fun and relaxing and beautiful. Capri is a big giant butte (haha!) looming out of the water. We escaped from the throngs of tourists right away—funiculares are for wimps, right? Instead, we walked to the town above, which was the longest and hottest staircase on this planet. At the top, we found a charming restaurant overlooking the water, got a great table by the edge, flopped down and prepared to refuel. Our waiter whistled “Fly Me to the Moon” as we settled in. I will later realize he was, indeed, on the moon, or at least some other planet….

In Italy, the food comes when it’s ready, so half a table might be eating while the other half hasn’t gotten their food yet, but it’s all good and leisurely, so once you realize you can’t go by your usual rules of etiquette, it’s cool. The kids got their pizzas first, so I said, “Please, go right ahead. Don’t let it get cold.” But then my lunch never ever came :(  I later Googled this restaurant and found it to be rated #83 out of 84 restaurants on Capri. So, I guess it could have been worse. They acted surprised, but now I know it’s a daily thing, forgetting people’s meals….. The bill included a 5 euro water we did not order, and it did not include my wine, so I mentioned this and proposed that it’s probably a wash anyway, the wine and the water probably being about the same, but no, I got to pay 3 euros more for the trouble. 

We had to jump right on the ferry to Sorrento after this too-long lunch experience, so it was kind of a short visit. We’re all glad we saw Capri, but it’s just not the same beauty of Italy we see elsewhere. All the Gucci and Prada stores, and the tourists everywhere, not the traveling experience we like best.

There was a British/Italian wedding happening in Sorrento when we got back. I love love love watching these, and we usually see a handful every year. The kids find it embarrassing, though, to be anywhere near me because I take pictures, which they think is intrusive. But these newlyweds were fine with it. I mean the type of people to have a destination wedding are the type who don’t mind the spotlight too much. They pretty much had full-blown paparazzi.

The Amalfi Coast.

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Les Petits Chats

A beautiful French woman named Stephanie lives next door and she just borrowed our little table to have dinner tonight with her boyfriend on what is basically a landing outside our apartments. We’re staying in tonight, so I hope it’s not awkward. She is magnificent looking. She feeds the stray cats and last night when we came home from dinner the strays’ three kittens were on the landing. They freaked out as we started up the steps and ran, fell and rolled down, one of whom looked to be severely injured. He flopped and wriggled his way behind the plastic tarp over the entrance to the abandoned building next door. It was a horrible awful thing to see—kept me up all night, re-seeing it. I just told Stephanie about it, and she said, “Ah! Don’t worry! She is a CAAAT! We have a saying here in EETaly. CAAATs, they have the seven lives!

To Points South (Part One)

Fred had a business trip to Barcelona last week, so we drove to a town near the airport Wednesday night, had dinner on the coast, slept at an apartment in a town near the airport, and dropped him off in the morning. Fred’s a member of a group called Urban Sketchers which has a symposium every July at different places all over the world. They flew him to do a talk since Spain is the closest to Italy they have held this thing and it wasn’t a big deal to get him to it. He had a great experience. Check out his Facebook to see pics.



Anyway, our apartment was two rooms, very clean, huge, albeit in an unattractive area, nice guy named Raul Ramirez runs the place. We had dinner in Ladispoli, a seaside town popular with Italian tourists. Kind of like the Cape is to us. We had a pretty good meal in a large brightly-lit (aren’t they all?) restaurant. Uneventful in general, except for the high level of anxiety about getting there.. wrong direction on the highway…. getting late.. need to get an early start in the am. Not our best evening, but we rallied at dinner. In the morning after we dropped off Fred, the boys and I headed south to Pompei, with day trips to Sorrento, Capri and Napoli planned. Sunday, back to Fiumicino to get Fred at 4:15.



Sadly, we found that someone had hit our car the night before and smashed one headlight, one running light, and dented the hood…



We loved our Pompei B&B. Clean, centrally-located, sweet and helpful owner, Fabio. Studio 83, it’s called. When we arrived, Fabio told us to get going right away if we wanted to see the ruins. So we headed right out, going in at the first entrance we came upon, but were surprisingly not approached by people wanting to be our guide. In fact, there was not one map, or explanation in English, or any written matter whatsoever, to help guide us, so we set out and learned very, very little. Turns out there’s another entrance with all kinds of guidebooks, maps, personal guides, audio guides. Too late for us, though, because we inadvertently walked out of the park to eat and use the bathroom, and were banned from re-entering. We saw two bodies. I’m told a lot of the interesting stuff was brought to a museum in Naples, so we told ourselves we’d catch it there.



The next day we took a $20 cab ride to go less than a mile to take a $15 train ride to the Amalfi Coast. I’ll try to keep my negativity at bay, but we do get spoiled by living in an un-touristy part of the country and it really is almost hurtful, personally insulting, the way our adopted countrymen take advantage of us when we’re out of Viterbo. I feel so betrayed. The nerve of them to treat us as if we are tourists!

Pompei

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Buffet Night

Every Tuesday, there’s a buffet dinner at the school which, in order to fill the gap between Matteo leaving and Carlo getting up to speed, Henry and I offered to handle.

I think the photos will tell the story best, and it all went smoothly, so there’s not a lot to this story. It’s just that it’s hard enough to shop for 34 people, but add in the foreign culture, and it becomes less of a chore and more of a funny what-the-HELL-are-we-DOING? experience.

One hundred fifty seven Euros later, we had sixty rolls, 18 packages of deli meats, 16 two-liter bottles of beverages (from two different types of water—gas and no gas—to peach-flavored iced tea, to orange soda to fill-you-own-empty-water-bottle-with-wine wine), melons, peaches, chips, a tablecloth on a huge roll, utensils, green olives, black olives, tomatoes, basil, condiments, and more.  The woman at the bakery counter was very patient as she loaded six types of rolls, ten of each, into three huge sacks. The guy with the number behind us was patient, too, which is not uncommon. There are a lot of lines and people just wait like they have all the time in the world, which they do seem to have if promptness is any indication. It is assumed that an arrival time of 1:00 means 1:30. No apology necessary at all. And by the way, this “patient” business does not apply to Italians when they’re driving. But the world knows this already.

An aside: one thing Italians never did, but they do now, unfortunately, is talk on the phone while driving. They got used to the whole cell phone thing way before we Americans did, and seemed to treat driving with more respect than to be distracted by a phone. And the laws were tough on violators. No longer. One-handed drivers flapping away on their phones just like Americans are common now. Total bummer because the last thing I need is for them to be distracted on top of aggressive.

But I digress. We got to the counter and bagged furiously to keep up with it all and not make the folks behind us wait, ALL of whom had only one or two items each. They don’t have those 12-items-or-less lines, I guess. I even tried to let the poor soul behind me with one box of tampons go in front of us, but the cashier would have none of that. Courtesies like this are not a thing. Just sayin!

It started to sprinkle, lightning, thunder and soon POUR, just as Henry and I pulled into the school. I got a great spot right in front. We opened all the windows in our big buffet room, which is on the second floor of the school and opens up onto a sort of patio. We even needed to turn on the lights because of how dark the sky had become. It was really cozy.

Several students came early and helped—and I mean really helped, with beautiful artful displays of sliced tomatoes, basil and mozzarella; cantaloupe, watermelon. It’s what you get when you give an art student a cutting board, a steak knife and a bunch of produce! Then Fred came with the music—a CD mix he puts together on which every song has particular meaning if you listen closely, and if you can hear it over the din of the students.

The early students patiently (sort of) waited for the on-time students before digging in, and that they did. Just a tiny bit of leftovers were doggy-bagged by a lucky few, and then on downstairs we went to hear the artist/professor talk, which was by Fred tonight.

Back home we prepared for our weekend—Fred’s flying to Barcelona to give a talk to the Urban Sketchers group at their annual conference, and the boys and I are heading down to Pompeii and the Amalfi Coast.

Ciao for now!

Photos from Week One

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The trouble with Italian women is they’re pretty.
But they know it.

Henry Lynch

Shabbat Shalom

It’s been a few days since our first hot showers, and things are busy. Friday night, we joined Darrell, Alexandra and Judy for a tour of some catacombs under our city. When we got there, the women in charge explained all the different price levels we could opt for, and we took what seemed to be the best buy for our money. One up from the basic. For five euro, we’d get not just the tour but wine and food, too. As we descended we were lead to a sort of detour, veering away from the steps leading to the tombs, into what I would describe as an EST meeting room. I knew we were doomed. An EST meeting room with little plastic thimble-sized cups for our wine, lined all the way down two long tables. We filed in and endured what was essentially an info-mercial about some wine that some guy recreated from an old recipe by Isabella dei Medici. They passed around, one at time, six small bowls of spices or nuts and had us each take a whiff. All of these went into the wine, which has medicinal attributes. We finally got to taste it and it was pretty much Manischewitz—according to Judy who has, apparently, had it. Man O Manischewitz was that stuff sweet. It would’ve been great over some vanilla gelato. But instead, we had it with our “food,” which was a cookie. 

At one point, Judy said something about the bowls of spices making her hungry, and how one bowl of stuff looked like the bones of one of her dead relatives. Fred got the giggles (first time I’ve seen this happen since 1989, seriously) and had such a terrible time stifling himself that the whole table shook. People looked around to see the cause and found him, chin on his chest, the heel of his palm on his forehead, trying his best to disappear. Then Owen got them, then Henry and I. Judy, the cause of the giggles, noticed too, and kept at it. 

In the meantime, while we’re sitting around huffing cloves, all the other suckers who paid only three euro, traipsed by our room, all the way down to the tombs…  errggghhh….

Finally, we excused ourselves and bolted down there only to find them to be completely boring. Just caves, on the walls of which were hung some amateur art, like a little show. Fred wasted no time emailing Trip Advisor when we got home to make sure no one else suffers like we did. Hah!  L’chaim, y’all! 

Blue Skies with Hot Showers Today in Italy

Roberto came yesterday (instead of Valentino) and told us he’d be back in the morning to install an electric hot water heater. And that he did. Owen is currently taking the first hot shower of the trip. Roberto was delightful. Cheerful, whistling “Killing Me Softly,” and taking several phone calls from people he called Caro (Dear) and said goodbye to like this: “Ciao…Ciao….Ciao-ciao-ciao-ciao-ciao-ciao.”

In a country where cleanliness and being well-coiffed carry a whole lot of weight, it’s been particularly hard having no means to properly bathe. Hot water. Bring it on.

Wherefore art thou, Valentino?

Ciao everyone! We arrived in Italy two days ago and are settling in. The only drawback is that we have no gas in the apartment, which means no stovetop and no showers. The landlord lives in Dublin and is appropriately beside herself with the inconvenience to us, but still can’t get the gas people to come hook it up until Monday. Today, though, she texted to say she’s decided to have an electric shower installed and that Valentino, a wonderful and reliable plumber, will be here at 12:30. Does this interfere with my schedule, she asked. Ha, what could get in the way of the promise of a hot shower after three days? Nothing. But it’s 3:00 and no sign of Valentino. 

Enough of that. Fred and Owen are at class, which started today. And Henry will go off to his class (in Art History) at 5:30.  

The apartment has great, consistent Wifi. Better than Comcast. We are blessed! Gone are the days of driving around Viterbo and pulling over when an unlocked signal pops up!  Always in the sun, those things would pop up. Never on the shady side of the street.

Speaking of weather, it’s not been hot at all. And it’s even supposed to rain today. My favorite : )

The apartment is in the oldest part of town (I’ll take and post pics), and has three levels. The two bathrooms are huge, as are the sinks. We have a TV that we found Monty Python’s The Meaning of Life on yesterday. Hilarious because it was all in Italian except for the songs—the Penis song, for example. Insane movie.

The boys’ bedroom is in a loft space that they like, accessed by a spiral staircase. We keep bashing our heads on the stairs and on the beam at the top of the stairs. Kind of a drag. Mostly Henry and I. Actually, only Henry and I. What does that say about us???

The living space consists of a kitchen area, a couch and a kitchen table against a half-wall, behind which are the stairs down to Fred’s and my bedroom. It’s big and cool, but sadly a little mildewy. Maybe it’ll air out, but for now, we’re wondering if the reason Fred’s throat keeps feeling like it’s closing up is an allergic reaction. Trying not to freak out about that.

We have no outdoor space, so the cocktail hour is in the kitchen. We might figure out an alternative, like a picnic or something.

It’s Caffeina time here, which is a week-long annual cultural festival. Very festive. Very cultural. It’s got a lot of intellectuals like book authors and talk show guys sitting on couches on stages outside discussing God knows what. My Italian is less good than it was last year, which is depressing. I’m speechless and have a deer in the headlights look half the time which makes me nuts. I hope it gets better. I can’t seem to find the words, and it happens often enough in my native language, that I don’t see much reason for optimism.

I’m trying to write like a talk or write an email, fast, easy, not over-thought, but I’m feeling a little like the Partridge family at their first concert. A little stiff and stilted.

I got the car this morning. Love that place, but sadly my favorite woman wasn’t there, and the car is dirty inside and out, and has several dents! I saw five Mini Coopers within one minute on a walk to dinner last night. That’s more than usual. Glad to see they’re doing well. 

We have stray cats living in an abandoned house next door. Three ginger-colored, and a tabby that actually might have a home. The woman who feeds them came along yesterday and pulled out several cans, emptied them onto newspapers, and gently placed the newspaper “plates” behind the plastic tarp covering the entrance to the abandoned buidling next door. Fred is not pleased. He was out there drawing yesterday with cats all around. They come up to our landing, too, because the woman in the apartment on the other side of ours has a cat bed and a bunch of bowls out there. 

Our two dinners so far have been out with the large group. Very nice students this year so far, but sometimes it’s misleading at first and the rambunctious ones act up after they get a little more comfortable. We’ll see. Our new contact here in Italy who arranges things for us ahead of time is a native. This is a first for us. He’s adorable and wears shorts (very unusual for an Italian man) and has a new girl with him every time we see him. But he says one is his sister and one is just a student at the Accademia where our students go. Another thing we’ll have to monitor!

Fred’s TA is Karen Sung, one of his favorite ex-students who’s been on this trip before. The kids love her. She’s fun.

I might post this now and go take a few shots to upload. I didn’t even proof read this…..but I just don’t feel like it, and that’s how I roll in Italy! 

Ciao!

Just another Wednesday night in Viterbo, Piazza Gesu.

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The lay of the land.