Category Archives: Italy

Overall thoughts on Italy and things we do

It’s raining very hard and so, it’s raining …. … ….?

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There are two things that foreigners who are learning English seem to know first.

One is (are) swear words (although Italians do have a few problems pronouncing ‘sheet’ and ‘can’t’ – which invariably come out of their mouths as swear words) and the other is ‘It’s raining cats and dogs’.

And I hate it for it sounds so twee; so perfectly 1950s.

However, it has, indeed, been raining. A lot. You may have heard about the couple of disasters in Italy over the last week or so. First there were some towns in Cinque Terra – a rather spectacular area on the west coast of Italy – just up from F’s summer house and to which he has promised, repeatedly, to take me. And then, over the weekend, much of the centre of Genova got badly flooded and some people died.

Yesterday it was forecast that the river Po, that runs through the centre of Turin, was going to burst its banks.

At the moment, if you say anything about the rain (although we have some respite today), the reply is, invariably, Well, at least we’re not in Genova’.

But in case you imagine it can’t have been that bad, here is a little video. I am a bit surprised by the people who, at the beginning, are walking around and, towards the end a guy who seems to be standing in the middle of the street! However, right at the end it looks like the person in yellow is trying to push the cars back – but eventually they realise they have to run.

On the slightly bright side (so to speak) the sun is shining here. Let’s also hope it’s doing the same in Genova and Cinque Terra!

Crisis? Oh, yes, that old thing.

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Apparently, we’re fucked.

Well, on the plus side, at least the Italians (around me) seem to be talking about things. It has always seemed as if ‘the crisis’ was happening elsewhere – some other country in the world.

But, rather than the crisis, per se, the talk is about Buzz Lightyear (Mr B) and how long he can hang on for and who will take over from him.

And there’s the rub. Because, as I’ve said before, there is no one. Neither the Left nor the Right have anyone who has any real hope of pulling parties together to form a government. Buzz, at least, has enough charisma to do so.

I read this on the BBC site.

However, it’s a little strange. After all, even if it is written by an ex-pat Italian, she writes that ‘the school’s walls are covered with graffiti”. Hmmm. Yes, of course they are. And they were before the crisis. It is ‘normal’ here. In the UK, people would be up in arms and the police would go and find the culprits. Here, in Italy, graffiti is on most buildings. It’s a cultural thing.

And, in the time I have been here, I have noticed that the Italians, in exactly the same way as the Brits, complain about the money being spent (or not spent) on schools and hospitals and how the service from both is much worse than a) it used to be and b) other countries (especially in Europe). For that matter, the same is said about public transport.

Anyway, my view is that Aunt Cristina has it spot on. When explaining why Buzz keeps getting voted in, she says:

“It’s not just the pensioners, you know,” she says, jabbing at the air with her fork. “It’s a macho thing. So many Italians think he’s all man.”

That and the fact that there is no one else who could be a possible leader.

My colleague at work suggests that the President (who has all the power of our Queen in the UK) will call for a Technical Government, here. A government that will be full of economists and the like and who won’t actually ‘govern’ as such but just concentrate on the fiscal side.

But they will have a tough job ahead of them. After all (and I might have figures wrong here – but it’s something like this), there are 72,000 cars for officials in Italy compared to 195 in the UK. I think that says it all, really.

Anyway, by the time you read this, Buzz could be out of office, or Greece could have left the Euro or the world could have collapsed – or, more likely, everything will be, more or less, the same.

Speaking Italian is difficult but texting Italian on an Italian phone is even more difficult ……. it seems?????

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Takers. I hate them. OK, so hate is too strong a word. But I dislike it. I dislike it more when the person is supposed to be a friend.

FfI has just moved into a new house in my area – about 5 minutes from me. She wants me to go and see it – but not that badly, I guess.

Having texted to see if she is free I get the following reply:

2.30 my house. Call & I will give you the address,

She never calls. Always ‘doesn’t have enough credit’. But it’s not free for me either and I get a little pissed with it. So, I’ve decided I won’t call until she does next time. OK, I know it’s petty but it’s every fucking time …… call me I haven’t got any credit!

My reply was:

Text address and I will be there

Cant text in italian.phone sucks. That’s why I need you to call. One second.

WTF? I mean, seriously? You can’t text the address but you can text other messages? Are you off your fucking rocker? I mean, street name, number and bell name or number, that’s all!

Since she uses ‘I haven’t got credit’ all the time, I replied with:

Texts are free for me – calls cost. Send on fb

I got:

Not near computer; cant spell street one with this phone: Will contact you later

Sorry, but it just cannot be true. I don’t believe it and if she can’t be bothered then, frankly, neither can I. She’s a strange one, for sure. It’s gone 2.30 now. I guess I won’t be going until she contacts me …….. which won’t be any time soon LOL

A breakthrough?

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We have made some sort of breakthrough.

It’s down to Dino, really, since he looks very cuddly.

Up until last night, the most it has been is a ‘Ciao’ or ‘Salve’ (pronounced salvey = Hi).

The other night she was in the kebab shop, just round the corner from me. She looked excited to see me and the dogs. I was a bit surprised but then an ambulance came by so I was trying to keep Dino from howling, as he does. She asked what was happening and I tried to explain. But then I realised that she wasn’t pleased to see me nor was she (probably) asking what was going on but, rather, was talking to a guy in a white Mercedes cars that are supposed to be, kind of, off-road vehicles but are used for taking the kids to school, etc. I was, frankly, a little embarrassed at having thought she was pleased to see me. After all, why would she be.

However, last night, as I’m walking up to the penultimate corner of our evening walk, she saw us coming and called to Dino. He, of course, was very excited. I told him not to jump. She asked what I was saying and I explained. We chatted for a moment or two, as you do.

I keep wanting to ask her how business is. It’s a bit cheeky but I am interested. She’s tall, with legs. Not amazingly attractive but not ugly. Kind of smartly dressed, in a tarty way. Usually something to show off her legs. Like a shop window shows off the stuff that will entice you in. Which, of course, is what the long legs are for.

And I see cars stop often – inquiring about the price I suppose.

I’ve never seen it so blatant anywhere in the UK.

But, now we’re chatting. So maybe, eventually, I will get chance to find out if business is good. I don’t know why I’m so curious to know – but I am.

As I said, it’s a breakthrough, of sorts.

SHOCK! HORROR! We make the Daily Hate Mail ?????

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I was shocked.

I mean, Italy doesn’t make the Daily Hate Mail pages unless it’s for another scandal about Buzz Lightyear or because those “Lazy Italians” are meaning that the UK has to spend a fortune bailing them out as part of the Euro.

So it was nice to see this:

Towers of Trees (officially Vertical Forest)

And I go past them every day. They don’t look like they do in the picture right now but they should do and that is nice.

Although Milan does have a LOT of trees and greenery and a lot of apartment blocks do have roof gardens. It’s nowhere near as drab as you may think :-)

Is this really what we have in store for us? God, I hope not (well, at least for me).

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Everyone is different; has a different character and, most definitely, different needs.

I really don’t care if you are married, co-habiting, single (by choice) or anything else (I’m not sure if there IS anything else) – as long as you are happy and as long as (if you have a partner), I don’t want to kill your partner or partners :-)

To be honest, what you do with your life is absolutely none of my business – unless it directly affects my life – in which case it is my business. Of course, if you ask me, I may or may not (depending on whether you’re asking for a confirmation of what you think or really asking me) tell you what I think.

Luckily, for my lovely readers, this blog is about what I think (at this moment that I’m writing, of course – in two hours I could think the opposite although, in this case that’s unlikely).

From Lola’s blog, I read this article entitled “All the Single Ladies”.

The strange thing is that I was quite disturbed by it. I mean, unsettled. Basically it was saying that, given the way that society has changed and the general ratio of men to women, being a single person was now more likely.

Perhaps I was unsettled by the truth of it, for it is not a truth I want for myself.

I understand that some people say they are happier alone. Bar a very few people, I cannot believe it, I’m sorry. True, not every society works in the same way and, for sure, partly why I am happier being ‘with someone’ is that I was brought up to believe in a household where two adults live together (with or without children).

And friends are important. Good friends are irreplaceable, of course. I have many friends. Not thousands but enough for me. Being in a friendship takes work on both sides. And yet, there are friends (like Best Mate and I) who don’t need to be in contact for quite a while and just pick up the friendship where we left off. And I would do almost anything for Best Mate. She is there, even if I am having problems with my partner or even if I don’t have a partner. I love her to bits.

BUT

She is not the same as a partner – and I don’t mean for sex. After all, for sex, if I wanted to, there is a tall, leggy prostitute that hangs on the corner of the street and is there when I take the dogs out for a walk. We even say ‘hello’ now. Well, why not? Anyway, as an aside, business seems to be quite good for her. Maybe it’s one of those businesses that thrives in crisis periods?

But I digress. And, anyway, she is a woman so not really interesting to me.

So, if not for sex then what is a partner for? Why is it that I consider it essential for my life and others (including the woman who wrote the article) don’t?

But, then again, the article doesn’t say that a partner is not essential but that, given the fact that she dumped her (probable) partner some time ago, assuming that she would be getting one later and could settle down when she felt like it, and now, finding that a partner is unlikely to be found, she has, in fact, come to a realisation that ‘this is it’ and that she had better get on and enjoy what she has.

And I think that is my point.

My greatest fear is to be old and alone. Since I don’t have (and won’t have) any children, unless I have a partner, I shall be alone when I am old.

But it’s not even that, really.

After V, I thought that, given my age, I would remain alone. For those of you that have been readers for over three years, you will know this.

But I found, after a few months of being alone, that ‘being alone’ was not an acceptable life for me. I NEEDED a partner to share things with, to cuddle up with at night and, mostly, to not feel ALONE. ALONE I cannot handle. And, as you may know, I thought that I cannot be the only person in Milan who thinks this way and so I went out to find the other person who felt the same (or, more or less, the same).

And I think that’s the problem with this woman. She hasn’t come to terms with what her single life is and doesn’t want to commit. And, by not committing was thinking that when the right man happened along, they would both know and everything would be fine.

However, as I said before I started the online dating search, it’s no good waiting for Mr Right to come knocking at my door if I am stuck there night after night. No, I needed to go out and FIND him.

And I think that, in spite of her positiveness, she is, in fact, ALONE and, possibly too busy to feel LONELY – but she may well feel lonely later and that she is fully well aware of that.

Friends, of course, will be important to her but there are those times when (even when you’re with friends) you feel alone. With a partner, I don’t get this feeling. With F, I don’t feel alone anymore.

Anyway, sorry for the ramble. They are, after all, just my opinions and thoughts.

Do the work and wait ……… wait ……… for the money

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I read this, from the Independant (which I got from Twitter or Facebook or something – I’m sorry, I forget now).

Interns, from what I can understand can expect no payment for any work they do. It is supposed to be treated as ‘work experience’. The problem here is that it rarely leads to a full-time job. Instead, Interns go from one ‘unpaid job’ to another.

It will surely become a problem given the current crisis. With no hope of securing a full-time job – why bother?

Which then leads to unhappiness. Which, in turn leads to restlessness. And then, when there are enough unhappy, restless young people, something is bound to happen, isn’t it?

However, the really damning bit (for me) comes towards the end of the piece, namely:

But it seems that even people hired by the magazine cannot count on being paid. The Independent spoke to one person who was recruited this summer by Flash Art magazine without pay on a two-month trial basis. After a successful trial he continued working but was told there was no money to pay him a month later.

“Of course it’s immoral,” he said. “If they haven’t got the money to pay the staff they need, then they shouldn’t be in operation. But it’s hardly the only company doing this sort of thing.”

The Flash Art controversy followed the magazine’s recent call for new interns for eight to 10-month periods – even though using someone as an intern for more than six months is illegal in Italy.

I have known of other people who haven’t been paid – either for a very long time or at all. Worse still, if you’re on some sort of term contract. I cross my fingers that I didn’t have too much problem getting my money when I was teaching (although there was one, how should I say, ‘near miss’).

Part of the reason it’s like this is the Italian way of thinking. Mummy and Daddy can always take care of you, it seems. And, because Italians have the highest savings rate in Europe (maybe the world?), it is (I guess) assumed you have plenty of savings to tide you over.

I’m sure I would have a much stronger opinion about it if it had ever happened to me but it is wrong, isn’t it? I mean, in a civilised country within the European Union, how can this possibly be right?

It’s a sign of a wider problem. That of not really giving a shit about anyone else [that’s not either family or important to you].

And things that I do, as a Brit, sometimes get misconstrued by Italians. I remember somebody who got a ‘job’ through someone else. They thought it would be a really nice idea to take their new boss to lunch – if the guy were in the area. But the friend who had done the recommendation became something akin to a Tasmanian Devil and the vitriol and hatred that spat from a (normally) very nice, pleasant, Italian woman was more than a little shocking. For her it was this person ‘going behind her back’.

She now lives in the UK. I wonder how she gets on over there – where, to be honest, this kind of situation is not something to be bothered about.

We don’t all have some ulterior motive other than ‘to be nice and respectful’. Here that does not always seem to be the case. Not giving a shit about people seems to be the norm – and it does annoy me a bit.

Fashion, hair and worrying.

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“You don’t care about fashion.”

It was made as a statement. I didn’t try to correct it since, probably, it was a bit lost in translation.

It’s not true that I don’t “CARE”. It would be better to say that I’m not really too bothered about it. It doesn’t rule my life; I don’t have to have the latest things – even if I live in one of the world’s centres of fashion. But I was with people who work in fashion and, I guess, to them it seems that I don’t really care.

R (F’s friend who is up for the weekend) said that he liked my jeans. These are, probably, about 10 years old. I’m struggling to fit into them now, of course, but at least I can still fit in these. I also, last Tuesday night, got a lot of clothes that F was throwing out – to make room in his wardrobes for all the other clothes he has. That’s why R is up – to select a load of clothes for himself.

R also said that he liked my hair. I explained that I was only growing it because I didn’t know what to do with it. He said it looked really good as it was and I should keep growing it. That’s not really “fashion” either, I suppose but it explains why F has been reluctant to advise me on what to do ……… maybe. A colleague at work asked me if it was my real colour. It’s a kind of light, mousey brown. A nothing colour. But, compared to when I had it short and it was totally grey, it is completely different. I was amazed that it has gown with colour. It wasn’t what I had expected at all.

Some people seem to like my hair and they say so. Most people, I think, don’t really like it and so, say nothing. It’s not quite shoulder length but we’re getting there.

To be honest, it feels more ‘me’. Since I was about 11, I always liked long hair. And I wanted mine long. My parents weren’t so keen and it was always a bit of a fight come hair cutting time.

Maybe I am too old for this but, really, who cares. Who knows what will happen tomorrow so I might as well do what I like. And I like it long. And it’s a little bit rebellious and I like that too.

Finally, although I probably shouldn’t tell you this, especially to Gail and Lola, I have a sort of thing with my throat. And, in spite of myself, I am a bit hypochondriac – or I would be if I let myself be. I’ve had it for about three days now. Like it’s a bit swollen but in a particular place, making it a little uncomfortable. Maybe it’s a sort of cold. Of course, I keep thinking it’s cancer or something. It probably isn’t. But it’s a thought that crosses my mind knowing, as I do, that I am on borrowed time now. And, no, I won’t be going to a doctor, not least because I don’t have one and it’s too much hassle to go and get one here. It is, almost certainly, a bit of a sore throat now that the weather has changed. Everyone is having it right now. In a few days it will be gone and then I shall stop thinking about it. So, don’t worry.

But it did make me think for a moment about not being able to eat and, therefore not being able to taste. And that worried me quite a lot. See, I’ve done enough worrying about it for all of you ;-)

Some guys doing an eating tour of Italy in an Ape

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Eating is a bit of a pastime here. And so it seems only right that if you’re going to tour anywhere, with the main purpose of eating stuff, it should be in Italy.

Of course, you could do it in style or ……………….. you could do it in an Ape. This is a teeny 3-wheel, moped-engined ‘vehicle’. Of course, to do a ‘tour’ in an Ape is crazy but, amazingly, it’s being done.

I know this because of the following email. Follow them through their trip (of course, they’re only going up one side of Italy – so missing out on half of Italy’s good food :-) )

Hi,

I came across your page and thought you might be interested in writing about two brothers who are currently on a food road trip through Italy.

They will be constantly documenting their journey, so will be able to supply you with daily info/images/videos.

Please feel free to write about this journey, embed our videos/images and share it with your friends.

Please check out all the information below and contact me if you would like to know anything else.

Thanks,

Jess

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Travel Dates: 09/10/11 – 04/11/11