Nearly all my best friends (although I only have one “Best Mate”) tend to be straight females. Some are straight males. Absolutely none are gay males.
So I’m disappointed to see that Tesco seem to have pulled the chance for me to have a gay best friend of my own! :'(
Read all about it here and tell me who wouldn’t want an gay male blow-up doll? Hahahahahaha
Many people here take “half a coffee”.
They can’t drink a “whole one” as it’s too much. The machine we have means you have a capsule and, by pressing a button, YOU determine how much liquid goes into the cup. In general, this is a mouthful (this is not the UK or the USA). This is an espresso.
However, instead of just stopping the water soon after it’s started, they choose to do a normal espresso and then pour half of it into another cup (and then give it to me).
But I suppose we (from the UK and USA at least) are used to drinking a coffee rather than just having a taste of coffee, like the Italians. Still this half-coffee thing doesn’t really make sense to me.
Nor so does mustard. Not that they have mustard here. They have senape which is a vinegar flavoured, thick sauce. No hint of “hot”. Today I had some deep fried, doughnut-style-non-sweet-dough, wrapping some cheese and onion mix for lunch. And the cook, bless her, added senape. Now, mustard goes with meat and only pork (and ham) and beef at that. It doesn’t go with cheese and onion. Even if it isn’t really mustard. So I didn’t eat it.
I suppose it’s much like veal with a fish sauce. That doesn’t go either and makes me feel quite sick just to think about it!
Italians! Great food (in general) but really, really, really weird as well.
I don’t think I’ll ever be something other than a foreigner in a foreign land.
I mean, I’ll never be totally relaxed. I came to this realisation whilst driving the dogs to the pineta on Sunday morning. I reached the traffic lights and, as I sat there, waiting for the lights to turn green, it struck me again that it’s not the place I am “from”. To the right is a place that looks a little like a timber yard – except that it sells marble. To the left is what look like a run-down workshop – except that it is a place where marble is carved into headstones and statues. The weather is warm and there is not a cloud in the sky and yet it’s towards the end of September and I am dressed in shorts and a T-shirt. This is not deepest Herefordshire.
It’s not such a bad thing – it’s just that it is, in a way, a little bit frightening. I don’t know that you will understand that and I’m not sure that I do either. Still, there it is.
The night before I had been with the family. This was the close family. This was F’s Mum’s birthday dinner. So F’s Mum and Dad, his sister (with husband and niece), twin brother (and girlfriend) and him (with me). There’s no strangeness from his family towards me at all. I am accepted completely and surrounded by his family and, in some way, feel part of it.
We went to Ristorante Venanzio in the small town of Colonnata, near Carrara which is situated deep in the mountains and surrounded by the marble quarries, famous for their white marble. It’s also famous for it’s Lardo di Colonnato, which I love.
Normally, when we go to Carrara for the weekend, we arrive sometime on Friday night and, usually, we drop the dogs at home and then go to Bati Bati for a pizza. I always have the pizza with Lardo, asparagus and aubergine (egg plant to Americans). It is one of the very best pizzas I’ve ever had. And, even now, writing about it, my mouth is salivating (really)!
However, at Venanzio, we had Lardo as antipasto (along with a load of other, very nice, things) which was “to die for”. So tasty. F’s brother told me that they have a special source for it and you won’t find it for sale anywhere else, even in the small village of Colonnata. We had a selection of pasta dishes (my favourite being Lasagnetta with sausage sauce) and then, I had lamb. Unfortunately, like most of Italy, the lamb was only so-so. Not a replacement for La Brace. However, I tasted F’s rabbit with lardo. It was slices of a rolled rabbit joint with lardo and herbs filling it. It was incredible.
Service was excellent (but we were the first there). Sweet was a cake (as it was F’s Mum’s birthday) which was very nice.
It wasn’t so expensive – about €40 each, including wine (4 bottles), a glass of sweet desert wine with the cake and a digestivo. Would definitely go again, the only downside being getting there (or, rather, getting back). The only way is via a narrow switchback road from Carrara – so you really MUST NOT drink and drive!
Anyway, you should go there for the Lardo!
Sunday was a day on the beach and it was one of the best days on the beach. Now, being the end of the season, half the umbrellas have been taken away so there’s much more room and, of course, a lot less people. Now, at this time in September, you can sit in the sun all day without becoming too hot – the breeze is cooling, the sun not so fierce. And so we do.
F talks about coming down next weekend, if the weather is good. It will be the last weekend – the beach closes at the end of September, the café is doing some sort of buffet spread on the Sunday. F suggests we might take a few hours off on Monday so we can stay down Sunday night. Let’s see how the weather is.
But, even here, on the beach, I have the same kind of feeling as I had in the car. It’s not really my place. Even if I feel relaxed and read (I finished “Bring Up The Bodies” – Hilary Mantel, which was great, btw), I almost don’t really belong.
Thank goodness for that! Berlusconi has made the equivalent of a Queen’s Speech and told us that, not only is he starting a new party but he is also going to stay in politics, for the good of Italy, whatever happens in the Senate vote.
By “whatever happens in the Senate vote”, I mean “when they kick him out of parliament for (finally) being convicted of something”.
By “the good of Italy”, I mean “for the good of Berlusconi”.
By “stay in politics”, I mean “influence said party because he has so much money and control of major media”.
By “starting a new party”, I mean “revamping the existing Berlusconi-for-everything party and making it a Berlusconi-for-everything party with a name from the past (so that will be just changing the name, then)”.
By “Queen’s Speech”, I mean “self-opinionated load of diarrhoea”.
By “Thank goodness for that”, I mean “OMG”.
It would be “I’ll be back” except, in this case it’s more of “I’m NEVER going to go away”.
Still, it always good to have something that’s stable (as in always there) in politics. And for that, you can count on him.
I don’t and can’t get upset about it.
F’s Mum has a problem with my name and it’s become a bit of a joke within the family. Even though she has been corrected a number of times, she still calls me Wendy. It makes me laugh and I thought it was only her but it seems not.
M, as I mentioned in a previous post, booked tables in the two restaurants for me. As she booked the table, in both cases, she told them that it was Andy with a “y” (ipsilon), just to be clear.
For Griffone, the table was, indeed, reserved. There was a handwritten note on the table with my name. Except it wasn’t quite my name – it was, in fact, written as Endy.
It made me smile.
On the differences between the language, Italians (those who know something of English) realise that adding “ly” to an adjective creates an adverb. So quick becomes quickly, horrible becomes horribly, etc.
Except, of course, for exceptions. One of these exceptions is “hard”, especially used in situations where you mean “a lot” – like work.
It makes me laugh to read “I was working hardly” when what they mean is “I was working hard” 
But it’s not really their fault – the rule is well and truly broken for this word.
And, of course, there are those words that we use that have more than one meaning – except that, the meanings don’t always coincide – making them, somewhat, “false friends”. If you say that someone is/seems miserable you mean (quite clearly) that they are/seem unhappy, sad, etc.
Unfortunately, miserabile, in Italian, when used to describe a person, is something like low-life or wretch. Not quite the same thing.
“It’s on the first floor,” he says.
He gives some instructions but I only listen to the first bit – “turn right out of the lift”
My room is 257. Strange that. Usually, rooms on the first floor start with a “1”. But I don’t really pay heed.
I turn left and follow the signs. I’m in a hurry. There’s a beer with my name on it. It’s Mantova. It’s what I do here.
After twisting and turning through the maze of corridors that seemed to go on forever, I see the sign for some rooms in the two-hundreds pointing up some stairs.
The room IS on the second floor after all. And now I remember him saying something about “stairs”.
I reach the second floor and see why. There are a handful of rooms on this “dead-end” floor. The only way back out is down those stairs to the first floor!
It felt like it had taken me about 20 minutes to get here.
Of course, subsequent journeys to my room were quicker – seemed quicker. But it’s always that way. When you don’t know the way the journey doubles or triples in time and distance but once you know the way, then it’s OK.
Anyway, “second floor” made me think of this. Enjoy
Suzanne Vega – Luka
F is due back from Greece today and I’m picking him up from the airport.
There’s just one problem. The flight (almost) doesn’t exist!
In fact, I had so much trouble finding any reference to it that I began to wonder if he had all the details wrong.
I knew which airport he would be flying from so, as normal, I checked, on Flightstats, the arrival airport looking for a flight from Greece. Not only wasn’t there one but there weren’t any late-arriving flights at all!
So, I try the other way, looking at the departing airport for a flight to the arrival airport. No flights to and from the airports.
Since I didn’t have the actual flight details, I texted him for them. He gave me the flight number and the departure and arrival times. I looked up the flight number on Flightstats. Maybe he had got the flight number wrong? The flight didn’t exist. I tried on the arrival airport site. The flight didn’t exist. I tried on the departure airport site. The flight didn’t exist.
I wanted to text back to say that the flight didn’t exist but I didn’t.
I looked up the flight number on Google. Nothing. I tried with and without spaces. Still nothing.
I found out the letters at the front of the code were for Ryanair. I tried their site. The flight didn’t exist. I tried to select the airports and find the flight. I had nearly given up.
I looked at the timetables. The timetables didn’t go through to tonight. But you can search. I tried Origin (departure airport) and Destination. There were, apparently, no flights today!
I tried the flight number without a space. Flight not found!
I tried the flight number with a space. The flight is there, at the times that F gave.
But this is the ONLY place I can find it. Flightstats doesn’t recognise it, the airports don’t recognise it and, mostly, the airline itself doesn’t recognise it! It seems very, very strange to me.
Alice. She went through it didn’t she?
Except that was a fairy story and not real.
And the reason it’s not real is that you simply can’t go through a mirror.
In the same way that if you walk inside a wardrobe and step past the clothes, you won’t enter into a wonderland which has a talking lion and a wicked witch. Instead, you will hit the back of the wardrobe. If you don’t even open the doors, you will just hit the doors.
If the door has a mirror, you can combine the two by both NOT going through the mirror and NOT entering that wonderland.
And, more than likely, you can cut your lip in the process.
Of course, we were in Carrara and I was so very tired that I thought I was at home and going straight on was the way to the bathroom.
And it was VERY dark. Although maybe I didn’t have my eyes open since I was so tired.
However, it didn’t really wake me up and I was back asleep as soon as I hit the bed. The scab on my lip has now almost gone.
So that’s OK then. But just to assure you, the Alice thing is made up and not real. As my lip testified.
Last weekend was “at the beach”. And a long weekend too as we took Monday off.
When I say “at the beach”, that wasn’t really all. The weekend was also about partying till very, very late – which we really hadn’t done all summer. Partying till late meant getting up later and, therefore, getting to the beach later – but now, as most people have already gone back to work after the 3 or 4 week summer holidays, the place was quieter and we could find parking, etc.
Friday night was a surprise party given for a mother who has recently had a kidney transplant by her son. It included all the nurses who had been looking after her during her 4 years or so of dialysis. It was lovely and included a sit-down dinner/supper. We got home at about 2.30 a.m.
Saturday night was dinner (although we all had pizza) at a restaurant in Marina di Massa (the next beach town down from Marina di Carrara), on the terrace of a restaurant which overlooked the main square. The point wasn’t dinner at all but watching a concert in the main square. It was also Notte Bianca (White Night) in Marina di Massa. Notte Bianca is when everything (more or less) stays open late into the night (or early the next morning) – it’s a little like an all-night street party. I’ve never stayed until the end so I’ve no idea if it is really “all night” or not. Anyway, there were also fireworks on the beach and the place was heaving! We had such a great position above it all. Loredana Bertè was the headlining act and she sang for almost two and a half hours! For those of you who haven’t heard of her, she was a very popular and famous Italian singer in the late 70s and 80s and was once the girlfriend of Bjorn Borg. Since then drugs and stuff have taken their toll and she’s supposed to be a little bit wacko and unpredictable but …… she gave a good concert even if I didn’t know the songs.
Anyway, here she is:
But, here again, I’m going to talk about food. Italian food, of course, but mixed with a little bit of English retrospective.
I remember, when we were kids and used to go to my grandmother and grandfather’s for Sunday lunch, that, sometimes, sweet would be fruit cocktail. Not, in those days, made by hand but out of a tin. And, in some throwback from the second World War, there was always bread and butter. Now, I also hated having fruit with bread and butter. I just didn’t get it at all. The taste and textures just did not mix.
Moving on and I remember things like chip butties (sandwiches) which many people used to love and I just couldn’t stomach. The idea of carbohydrates with a filling of carbohydrates just didn’t really mix well and the couple of times I was persuaded to try them I found myself gagging at the mix of bread and potato I was trying to force down my throat.
There were also, at one time, banana sandwiches. I had the same problem with them as fruit cocktail and bread and butter – they didn’t really compliment each other in my mind.
The only thing I could go for was jam sandwiches. Jam was, somehow, different.
Since coming to Italy I have been made aware of Nutella and, with it being a kind of spread, it is often used on bread. I’m not a big fan. It’s OK but I could live without it (although many people can’t, it seems).
When we arrived at the beach on the Saturday morning, one of the ladies at the café was proudly showing us the figs that she had picked from her garden that morning and gave us one each to try. They were lovely.
Although we don’t usually have lunch at the beach, F decided that he wanted a sandwich and so he went to buy one.
Now, I’m sure most of you will know of the Italian dish Melon and Parma Ham. Well, here, they also do Parma ham with figs which is just as nice and a great option if you can get really sweet figs (peel them and then drape Parma ham over them – as you would do the the melon dish).
What he came back with was focaccia with figs. He shared half with me. My initial reaction was that it didn’t taste right. I mean to say, fruit with bread (although focaccia is really a leavened pizza base)! Apparently, he had asked for fig and prosciutto – but only if the prosciutto was without fat and, quite obviously, it wasn’t.
Then I got to thinking about jam sandwiches and this was, after all, a little like a fig jam sandwich. So, after laughing about it, I had to concede that it was very nice.
Of course, these figs were very fresh, very sweet and not from a supermarket.
I think I would have preferred to have the ham as well, even with some fat, but it was very nice after all.
It should be good. Why on earth, then, was I felt left feeling uneasy? Almost to the point of being scared? It doesn’t make sense, even to me.
I’ve just spent three weeks at F’s flat in Carrara. It’s not the “perfect” house, by any means. First, he shares it with his brother (at the moment) and that means that his brother “leaves” a mess which causes stress to F (and so, to me).
Then the house has not been “done up” since it was built (more or less) – the kitchen is old (but serviceable); there is only cold water in the bathroom sink; the hot water boiler sometimes gives you hot water but, mostly, gives tepid water; the toilet has been “fixed” (since last year when we used to have to use a bucket of water to flush it) but the plumber or whoever did it didn’t clear air out of the pipes and so it makes a terrible noise (you have to leave the cold tap running in the sink until the toilet cistern is full); the garden is not really grassed as such but is full of that rough grass; etc., etc.
It’s a house (or, rather, two flats) built in the 50s, I guess. It’s not really my “style”.
But, I’m not complaining. It’s been great to go there for weekends and holidays. The dogs love it and this year even F agreed that we had a very relaxing holiday.
He wants to do it up. The old guy who lives upstairs is a sort-of relation. In any event, in his will, the flat goes to F’s brother (he who used to look like Johnny Depp but doesn’t any more). But it needs a lot of work done – new roof, the walls need to be re-done (as they’re letting in damp) and, as part of the deal, F will pay for the repairs and his brother will sign over his half of the ground floor flat to F. It just needs to be made to happen.
But F really wants this. And, the night before last when we were out with An (where I had tartare which was incredible – I will put details of the restaurant up later), F was excitedly telling her about what he wants to do with the flat. Which walls he was going to knock down, how he was going to arrange everything, how there would be room for me to do English lessons ……..
This is something (the English lessons part) that he mentions regularly. This is the good thing. Isn’t it?
Well, yes it is. It means he is thinking of our future, not just his. He’s thinking of us living there and me doing lessons as a real job (which, of course, is about the only thing I could do there).
And that’s the problem, I suppose. For one thing, I don’t really think of the future any more. I stopped doing that more or less after I left England. Now, even thinking about next year is a rarity, let alone a few years hence.
The second thing is that, although this future includes me, I don’t have any real say over how the house should be done. Oh sure, I’ve made a couple of suggestions but, as I won’t be paying for it, I don’t really feel I have any right to say much.
For example, he draws the furniture in. It’s not my furniture. I’m attached to the furniture I have. I know it’s not important and I try not to be attached to anything any more. After all they’re only “things” which are not really important (those of you who read my blog know this already), it’s experiences and friends and the dogs that are important. Things can be replaced, destroyed, etc. They have no feeling. But, you know, if I’m going to be there, in this future he’s creating, I want something of mine.
I think.
So, suddenly, I came over quite cold and scared. The future. A future with me. But without things that are part of me. All these things make me a little uneasy.
However, to lighten the post a little, at one point he is describing the “laundry room” that he will create. It will have the washing machine and some shelves. On one side it will have shoe storage (he’s a bit of a maniac about shoes – they have to be aired and they have to be stored – usually in individual boxes). On the other side, I suggested we could put the sheets, towels, etc.
“Oh no!” he exclaimed, “this is where we will put the cleaning stuff.”
I laughed and laughed. The room will be mostly cleaning products. As I pointed out, he’s the only person I know who would build a room for cleaning stuff. Bless.