On Middle English

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Yesterday, as I chatted to my students, I discovered that they have read Beowulf and the Canterbury Tales in their usual school.  Flabbergasted doesn't really cover it.  I asked if they had read them in English and they said yes.  I realised when I got home that it could have been the modern English versions - they didn't seem to understand when I asked WHICH of the Canterbury Tales they had read - but still.  That's quite a big ask for teenagers who have trouble even with the present simple.  Italian schools are clearly hardcore. 

(This is just a short post for geeky Technorati purposes.  I'll blog properly later on.)

Woman cannot live on pasta alone

(image by Sebastian Mary on Flickr)

When I told people that I was moving to southern Italy, usually the response was something along the lines of, 'oh, the food's WONDERFUL there!' This would closely be followed by something about endless sunshine. The sunshine bit is holding up pretty well today - it's nearly 4pm on a late-November afternoon and my flatmates and I all have clothes hung out on the balcony to dry, and most of the doors and windows are open. On the food front, however, I'm a little disappointed. Yes, the pizzas are far better than even the best UK versions, and there is fresh veg aplenty. However, Italians are desperately provincial about their food. If it doesn't originate in Italy, you are unlikely to find it here. Curry spices? Not a hope. Peanut butter? Well, you can get it, but only the Skippy stuff, at hugely overinflated prices. In the UK it's very easy to evangelise about food being local (I'm a big proponent), but it's also a doddle to cheat and pop down to the local corner shop and pick up some bananas, or tomatoes in the middle of December, when you're sick of eating turnip for the third week running.

Italians are, however, exceptionally good at bottling seasonal fruits and veg. If it can be shoved in a jar with some herbs, salt and/or olive oil, it will be. Pomodori alla contadina, carciofini, acciugi (which become alici when bottled, for some reason), peperone piccante, capperi, passata - the list goes on. This is a saving grace when cooking, and means that pasta sauce can be easily spiced up with something a bit more interesting. That does bring me onto my next point, though - pasta. There are entire aisles dedicated to the stuff in the supermarket, in every possible shape and size. Doesn't really matter, though - it's still JUST PASTA. I know that Italians will evangelise about it, and say that you can only eat certain sauces with certain shapes of pasta, but ultimately it's just a starchy carb, which is a vehicle for some sort of sauce. It's dull. Variety, for me, has become eating penne rigato instead of fusilli. I long for Thai, Indian or Mexican food, and I am SO looking forward to going to England at Christmas for a proper roast meal. *drools*

Cooking here is taken very seriously. The three-hour lunch break is not just because of the heat in the summer; it's because it takes that long to cook, eat and digest a decent meal. I approve of this mentality, it must be said, and, bizarrely, am losing weight despite eating pasta twice a day. Hooray! However, there are times when the last thing you want to do is slave over a hot stove. On hungover mornings, an English fry-up is a mammoth undertaking, involving substituting pancetta for bacon and marinading cannellini beans in passata, salt and pepper, boiling water on the stove and dry-frying bread in a pan, as baked beans are impossible to buy and Italians don't do small kitchen appliances.  Finishing work at 9pm (as I do) and then having to cook a proper meal isn't much fun, either.  However, on the occasions when I just can't face it, there is always the local delicacy, taralli, to tide me over.  These are similar in texture to breadsticks, but are flavoured with stuff like peperoncini, cipolli or oregano, and are formed into little twists, looking a bit like bready kisses.  Usually combined with one of the local Salentino wines, they're known in our flat as scooby snacks, due to being impossible to put down.  Pringles have nothing on the addictiveness of these things.  Yum.

Floatykatja and the Deathly Tobacco

(image by Maksis on Flickr)

Learning Italian is a bit of a hit and miss affair with me.  I have neither the time nor the inclination to sit down with books and learn by rote, so I tend to pick up words and phrases from my students.  I'm therefore excellent at asking questions which start, 'che significa ...?' or 'come si dice ...?', and can also reel off a great long list of the names of foods, shops and domestic animals.  Actually holding a meaningful conversation with an adult Italian, however, I struggle with.  Alex has offered to give me informal lessons, which will be hugely useful.  However, there are limits to his knowledge, as I discovered yesterday.

Last night, for some reason, I became curious about the translation of 'fioretta'.  Fioretta al cacao is the cheapest version of chocolate-hazelnut spread that you can buy here.  A grade up is nocciola al cacao, and then at the top end of the market there is Nutella.  The word for hazelnut is 'nocciola', so nocciola al cacao is obvious in its translation.  However, the fioretta al cacao that I eat is still just as hazelnutty and chocolatey as Nutella, so why does it not claim nocciola in its name?  Alex didn't know the meaning of 'fioretta' either, so he turned to the dictionary.  First he tried the children's version, which came up, hilariously, with 'a small sacrifice' as a translation.  However, the adult dictionary came up with an even better explanation: 'an act of mortification'.  Brilliant!  Only in a Catholic country could one mortify oneself with a small chocolate sacrifice before 9am every morning.

 On a roll, we turned to one of our favourite games: translating written Italian literally.  This is usually played with the labels on bottles of wine, which may or may not account for the fact that we find it so sidesplittingly funny.  This particular bottle was an absolute gem: É un rosso potente e diplomatico, ricco di sole e sapidità; naso complessa di prugna, more, cuoio, con note che tendono al tabacco morbido.  A complex pruney nose and notes of deathly tobacco?  Genius!  I also love the fact that, despite it being potent, it is essentially tactful.  What more does one want from a €1.75 bottle of local wine than the fact that it will kick you in the head but retire discreetly afterwards?

On banking and stalkers

(image by David Muir on Flickr)

It is a little over a month after my arrival in Maglie.  I am in my classroom, planning three lessons for later in the day.  I'm not getting all that far, as I keep being interrupted by my special needs stalker, Francesco.  He latched onto me a few days previously, as I went into reception to photocopy materials, and hasn't left me alone since.  Stella, in an act which probably seemed hilarious at the time (and, to be fair, I'd probably have done much the same thing had I been in her shoes), egged him on and brought him to my classroom to ask me out for pizza.  Unfortunately, this has backfired in that he now knows where I am, and keeps coming into the classroom every five minutes to ask, 'School?  You?  Domani?  Yes?  I love you!'  Even if I weren't madly busy, this would be annoying by the second go, and it has been going on for three days now.  Arg.  How does one politely turn down someone with special needs, who is a good 10 years too young, and speaks minimal English?  It's a kicker and no mistake.  I settle for pointedly closing the door behind him as he leaves and hoping that he gets the message.

No such luck - there's a knock at the door.  Sighing and fixing a rictus grin onto my face, I turn to face him, opening my mouth ready to tell him for the eleventy-twelfth time that I'm busy, dammit.  'Fra ... - oh, hi, Oliver!'  Oliver is my boss.  We don't usually cross paths very often, so I'm a little concerned that he's come to my classroom.  I rack my brains thinking which kid has ratted on me for giving them a dressing down, but can't think of one.  'Kate, the bank have called.  Your account is ready.'  This is momentous.  Wheels were set in motion for this the day after I arrived.  This being Italy, however, nothing happens quickly.  I don't have a contract yet, either.  Che cosa.  'Can you come now and sign the forms?'  Not really - I have way too much to do - but if I want to get paid in the next couple of days, I need to get this sorted out, so I grab my keys and follow him out, mentally waving goodbye to my lunch.

In the car, Oliver prepares me for the experience that is an Italian bank.  'Make sure your hand is warmed up - you will have to sign about a hundred forms.'  I laugh.  He looks at me.  Oh.  He means it.  I flex my fingers.  His phone rings and he gropes in the footwell for his bag.  'Pronto.'  Clearly the message about mobile phones and driving hasn't reached Italy.  The phone conversation carries on as he parks (despite myself, I'm impressed at his managing to parallel park while holding a mobile phone to one ear), gets out of the car, locks up, walks over the road to the bank, enters the doors, and for a good 10 minutes further as I stand like a lemon in the lobby.  Oliver is rarely off the phone, I have discovered in the short time that I've known him.

Entering an Italian bank is a bit like entering MI5, I imagine.  Or maybe the space shuttle.  You must ring a bell, at which point the outer door slides open.  You then step into, in effect, an airlock, and the outer door closes automatically behind you.  Only then will the inner door open and let you into the lobby.  In the lobby is a cashier, who eyes you suspiciously.  However, as I'm with Oliver, I'm allowed to pass without comment.  Phew.  We walk to the Director's office.  This, again, is very unlike English banks.   For a start, all I'm here for is to open an account - when was the last time an English bank manager dealt with such a menial task?  Also, her office door is wide open.  I suppose with such fearsome security at the front door, there's no need for her to shut herself away inside as well.

We go into her office.  She doesn't speak English and I speak minimal Italian, so Oliver is translating for the pair of us.  As predicted, my hand goes numb from signing so many documents.  It's a little unnerving signing without reading, but I have no choice.  I just have to hope that I'm not signing away my firstborn child to Berlusconi or anything like that.  Oliver explains that the bank account that I'm opening won't have any charges attached (yay), but that there are conditions attached (boo).  Firstly, if I use my card at other banks' bancomats, I will be charged for doing so after the first 30 withdrawals.  Secondly, I will be charged €2.50 for each 'movement' (Oliver's translation).  I laugh at this and mime making single steps through the bank, while totting up €2.50 for each one.  Oliver doesn't find this as funny as I do.  Oops.

I am handed my cash card and an envelope containing the PIN.  Bizarrely, the PIN envelope is part of a huge pile of such things, and the reference number for it is written by hand into a big logbook.  It may well be the same in English banks, but I've never seen it happening before.  Intriguing.  I am also given what is known as MR PIN.  Basically, it's a little gadget that auto-generates a second PIN for added security when making transactions online.  Oliver reverently mutters something about algorithms.  I look dubiously at what appears to be a more soberly-coloured Tamagotchi.  Oh, and - surprise, surprise - if I lose it, I have to pay a charge.  Whoopee.

Finally, a good 40 minutes after we entered the bank, I appear to have a bank account.  Hooray!  The bank manager and I shake hands and 'piacere' each other, and Oliver and I return to the front door, where we go through the exit airlock (separate from the entrance one).  Once we are outside, he laughs and tells me that banks are usually much more serious than that.  Blimey.  Still, at least it's all done now. Until three days later, when they phone to say that there were some forms they forgot to ask me to sign ...

The End of the World. Well, Italy.

(Image by freto78 on Flickr)

The first week of November has been beautifully sunny and warm, so it's a disappointment to wake up on Friday morning, my day off, to find that it's grey and threatening rain.  By Saturday this has turned to torrential downpour.  Alex and I spend the day sitting in our respective rooms staring out of the window and wishing the day away.  By the evening we have resorted to games of Snap and Black Queen, adding arbitrary rules to make the games slightly more challenging.  A bottle of wine is downed, as if to prove Vittorio's observation that we drink too much, and we are in bed early, feeling miserable.

It is therefore very exciting to wake up on Sunday morning to bright autumn sunshine.  There's not quite a cloudless sky, but the rain looks to be holding off today.  We consult the map to find out where we should go, although anywhere would be better than the inside of the flat.  Otranto is discussed, and dismissed, as being somewhere that we have already been.  Gallipoli is suggested, but discarded.  Our eyes travel further down the page, right to the southernmost point of Italy, where the Ionian and Adriatic seas meet: Santa Maria di Leuca.  An adventure, by George!

An hour later and we are on the road.  Alex is chief mapreader: no mean feat, given that the map that we have is from a leaflet about local festas and has nothing so constructive as road names or numbers marked on it.  By our calculations, once we have got onto the correct road, it's pretty much straight down the peninsula.  However, road signs in Italy are nothing if not esoteric - it's as if they want to make up for the straightness of the main roads by sending you on a wild goose chase along mule trails.  If there is a turning off to the right of the main road to a certain town, rather than signing the continuing road straight on, it is signed directly left.  This throws us a couple of times, but we manage to stay on track for the most part, and the detour around the centre of Scorrano is quite pretty, really.  We chuckle about the signs at the entrance to each town: 'centro abitato'.  Well, thank you for pointing that one out.  People!  In a town!  Who'd have thought it?  We also laugh slightly grimly at the 'pericolo' signs at some of the larger intersections.  Is there an Italian crossroad that isn't dangerous?

We turn off the main road, following the signs for Leuca.  As we come over the crest of the hill, past the town sign, the sea suddenly appears directly ahead of us, and there is a waft of salty air through my open window.  The sea never fails to lift my spirits, and I can feel the misery of yesterday's rain being totally banished.  We drive slowly down the hill, taking in our surroundings.  At the bottom of the hill, at one end of the seafront promenade, is a small marina.  We park beside it and climb out of the car, pulling our coats closer at the sudden blast of sea air.  There are a few people out and about, but the feeling is mainly of an out-of-season seaside town, which is, of course, exactly what it is.  I am in heaven.  Alex and I walk to the edge of the promenade and gaze out to sea in silence.  I glance at him and see his face set in wistful contemplation - I imagine mine looks much the same.

The sun is sitting quite low in the sky and reflecting beautifully off the waves.  There are some surfers further along, in the small patch of water that breaks onto sandy beach, rather than basalt rock, and I pull my camera out to try to get some pictures.  After only a couple of shots the battery indicator starts flashing.  I hunt hurriedly for the spare battery which I always carry with me - stupidly, on this occasion I have managed to leave it at home.  I move further along the promenade, closer to the surfers, and perch myself on a low wall to get a few final shots before the battery dies completely.  The people here are different from Maglie.  They are coastal people, with long hair, salty clothes and eyes creased from looking out to sea.  They are quieter and not so prone to staring.  A surfer-type perches a little further along the wall from me, pulling one knee up to his chest and resting his chin on it as he watches the three surfboards out in the water.  My battery dies completely.  I sit, pushing the hair out of my face and licking the salt from my lips, at peace.

The sun goes behind a cloud temporarily, and I realise that I am cold.  I stand up and find Alex a little further along the promenade.  We walk in companiable silence to the far end, being joined by a dog with sand on her muzzle and a happy smile on her face.  I'm not sure who she belongs to, but for half an hour she adopts us, sitting peacefully while we watch the sea, and joyfully attempting to climb into my lap and lick my face when I perch on the wall.  We turn around to walk back, and she comes with us, trotting purposefully a little way ahead of us.  5 minutes further on she finds some new owners climbing out of a car, and we lose her.  We carry on, walking towards the lighthouse.  There is a crepe stall, which has pretty much every flavour you could wish for - so long as it is on a base of Nutella.  I am sorely tempted but decide to hold off.  There is a little girl there who is not being so abstemious.  Her father has lifted her up on the counter, and she is perched there making her selection, legs dangling in woollen tights, with wild curly hair and a cheeky grin.

We realise that the lighthouse is out of walking distance of the promenade and so return to the car.  The seafront is one way, and we are therefore temporarily driving away from the direction in which we need to be headed, but how hard can it really be to find an enormous great building with a flashing light at the top?  Apparently very.  As soon as we leave the seafront the lighthouse disappears from view and we are pushed onto a road which signs Maglie.  For a few minutes it looks as though we may have missed our chance to see the Santuaria.  Suddenly, however, we turn a corner and are back on the main road, with signs aplenty.  We have somehow done a circuit of the outskirts of the town, and are now back on track.  Hooray!

In contrast to the beautiful bleakness of the seafront, the Santuaria is absolutely crawling with people.  The car park is rammed, but I spot a car about to leave.  It has a disabled sticker in the window, so I give them plenty of space to pull out.  Major mistake.  An Italian driver and his po-faced wife are nothing like so charitable, and sneak behind the car as it pulls towards me.  I make a valiant effort to barge through, but fail miserably.  The air in the car turns blue but luckily another space comes free and this time I am quicker off the mark.  Sorely tempted to key the Italians' car as I walk past, I settle for calling them unmentionable names loudly in English.  There are moments when not being understood is a real advantage.

Penny for an ex-leper?

(image from Old School Paul on Flickr)

One of the things that I really miss about the UK is Germolene. It is usually the answer to all my minor skin complaints, including (but not limited to) the many stupid injuries I inflict on myself in the garden and kitchen, and the occasional bout of eczema. It does the job, it smells fantastic and, most importantly, it's PINK. What more could one ask?

After a week or so in Italy of wearing no make-up or jewellery and feeling dreadful about myself, I decide to pull myself together and start making an effort. This includes putting on earrings before I leave the house. However, due to being a bit run-down, after only a few days I have a cracking case of contact dermatitis on my earlobes. Attractive. I search in the local shops for Germolene or, at a push, Savlon, but apparently such things don't exist here. Hydrochloric acid and razor blades freely available for children to play with on the bottom shelf of any supermarket near you, but antiseptic cream? Perish the thought! Beginning to get a bit desperate, I call into a farmacia that I haven't yet tried. On the shelves are typically overpriced homeopathic remedies and face creams, but nothing of any use to me.

After a few minutes of me looking lost, the man behind the counter approaches and asks if I need help. At least, that's what I assume he says - I actually have no idea. I apologise for not speaking Italian, and attempt to describe what I need. The word 'antiseptic' clearly isn't universal, however, and he looks mystified. I dither around for a little while longer, and then decide to try the direct approach. I pull back my hair and gesture towards my ear, while making an ouchy, disgusted face. Ah yes - that does the trick instantly.  The man recoils visibly and scurries away behind the counter to pull open a drawer filled with various medications. With a flourish, he produces a tube of cream, explaining that it is crema antibiotico. This sounds promising, and the packaging certainly looks like the right kind of thing, so I nod enthusiastically. 'Nove euro', he tells me. Gasping at the exorbitant price, I hand over the money and drop the cream into my bag.

When I arrive home I decide to check out what the cream contains, before actually putting it onto my skin and potentially making the situation worse. The name on the tube is Gentamicina, so I type this into Gearch and start reading. Imagine my surprise to discover that it is often used to treat leprosy and staph infections after surgery. I hadn't thought my dermatitis looked THAT bad, but maybe I'd been deluding myself. I'm reminded of Monty Python's Life of Brian: 'Look. I'm not saying that being a leper was a bowl of cherries. But it was a living. I mean, you try waving muscular suntanned limbs in people's faces demanding compassion. It's a bloody disaster.'  A little further investigation, however, shows that the cream I've been given is singularly low dosage. Particularly effective if the wound is weeping, apparently. Lovely. I decide to brave it, and apply the cream. Thankfully, a few days later, the dermatitis is gone.

Germolene would have done it overnight, though.

Strollers

(image by Paolo Margari on Flickr)
 
It is an Italian tradition to take an evening stroll, known as the passeggiata. It is far less about getting fresh air than seeing and being seen. This country is all about the outward appearance. Strange, then, that clothes, toiletries and make-up should be so criminally expensive, but that's another blog for another time ...

It is Friday night, at the end of my second or third week in Italy, and a friend of Alex's arrives at the flat, suggesting we go to a local festa. Annoyingly, he is drop-dead gorgeous - I say annoyingly because I have no make-up on, and am red-faced and sweaty after having been cooking all afternoon. I beat a hasty retreat to my room and put some slap on, hoping that I'm not being too obvious. Not that it would matter if I were - this is Italy after all. They don't do subtlety. I return to the sitting room with a smile. Andiamo? We troop downstairs and into Giovanni's car. He speaks minimal English, so Alex is in interpreter mode for the evening, which is quite hard on him, but we manage to work it out. Indeed, there is one point when Giovanni is talking about 'gamberetti' and I have to translate the word for Alex. Hehehe. I may be a failure at the language of lurve, but by god I know how to speak foodie.

There is some banter in the car as to whether we should really go to this festa. Giovanni shrugs and says it will probably be boring. Alex and I are just happy not to be either teaching or sitting in the flat, knackered. There is a moment of indecision and then Giovanni swings the car around dramatically - we go to Lecce! This is exciting. Alex relates a story to Giovanni of me driving there pointlessly the day before. I hadn't realised that, unlike Maglie, it's actually quite a big town. I managed to get there OK in the car, but then couldn't find anywhere to park. I am quite pleased to find that they think me brave for attempting it, rather than being a bit of an idiot for not succeeding. Clearly even Italians think that their driving is nightmarish! Going with someone who knows where they are going is therefore a FAR better idea, and I acquiesce happily to this plan.

We arrive in Lecce and immediately get snarled up in traffic. Light by London standards, but still not inconsiderable. I gaze out of the window at the hundreds of people walking about - this is passegiata time. Most of the people walking around are young - under 40. There are families with pushchairs, teenagers, men and women, all dressed to impress and keeping a close eye on everyone else. They all look very much the same. With the worrying over outward appearances comes conformity. They are all beautifully turned out, but individuality seems not to be a concept that is embraced here.

We park up and walk along the street to the main square. The sheer number of people in the street is amazing. Even so, I stand out in my blue boyfriend jeans. Even the plainest jeans here are dark, fitted and feature at least a diamante pattern on the back pocket. I feel dowdy up against the Italians. This thought doesn't occupy me for long, however, as Giovanni, Alex and I start a conversation about cameras. We are all keen photographers, although from the sound of it Giovanni is in a slightly different league to Alex and me. He waxes lyrical about his new SLR and gently teases Alex about his Samsung compact. My Canon comes in for some slightly surprised approval - yes, machismo is alive and well here. Still, at least from Giovanni it's done in a friendly fashion.

Suddenly, conversation is cut short as we round a corner into a large piazza. "Sant'Oronzo!" cries Giovanni, as he gestures dramatically towards the column in the centre of the square, which features said Saint. We go to take a closer look, and come across a Roman amphitheatre right next to it. This place is brilliant! Giovanni is fairly laissez-faire about the amphitheatre, which is clearly part of an archaeological excavation. Most of it is still hidden underneath the piazza in which we're standing, but there's a good quarter of it on show. I hang excitedly over the edge of the bridge, looking at the way the amphitheatre has been designed with areas for the animals underneath the seating for the crowds. Fantastic stuff.

Noticing my excitement at the architecture, Giovanni leads on, and I begin to understand his nonchalance. This is but the tip of the iceberg. Every corner we round seems to have an ornate baroque building or statue, each more impressive than the last. Not for nothing is Lecce known as the Florence of the South. This despite Lecce being an older city. Ah well - we are but peasants down here, after all ...

We wander happily for an hour or so. Somewhat ridiculously, we end up in an Irish pub - it seems they get everywhere. It's a little different to the Irish pubs in England, though, as it is crammed full of teenagers. So far, so similar. However, these teenagers are drinking coke, eating the most delicious-looking pizzas and chatting at full volume. Apparently not so similar as it would first appear.