When Nutmeg Met Basil

I finally made it to Bologna, alternately known as La Citta` Rossa (“The Red City”–for its gorgeous red buildings and reputed communist leanings) and “La Grassa,” (“The Fat”- for reasons that should be obvious by the end of my Bologna series.)

Yes, in just a little more than 24 hours, my friends Marysia and Gaelle and I managed to eat and drink our way through nine different establishments in the Italian city most renowned for its food (and we stopped off in a museum just to prove we could.)  We partook of gelato, pasta, cured meats, cakes, cappucino, and cocktails among students at the University of Bologna, well-dressed Italian children and their parents, and a variety of canines.

Pictures and detailed reviews will come in the upcoming days.

Just to clarify, I want to protect the privacy of the family I’m living with, so I’m just going to call them by their first initials.  The Mom is M, the daughter (age 7) is D, the son (age 11) is F, and the dad is C.

Yesterday, M told me that during morning prayers at D’s school, she prays for me and asks God that I can stay with her family for longer.  When her English teacher heard that I am living with her, she thought to herself, “Un’opportunita` come questa, secondo te, la perdo?” (Do you think I would let an opportunity like this pass me by?) and she asked M if I might want to come in to D’s English class and prepare some lessons for her.

So this morning, I rode my bike (actually M’s bike, which she is generously letting me use whenever I wish!) into town and met with D’s English teacher.  We spoke completely in Italian, and I realized that my Italian comprehension has really come back.  It’s gotten to the point where I can’t tell the difference between Italian and English, and at one point after listening to D’s Italian teacher for about 15 minutes, I realized “She’s speaking Italian!”  Sometimes at home, when I’m with F and D, I get confused between the languages, and I can’t remember which language I’m even speaking, because they both feel the same.

Anyway, D’s English teacher explained to me that with only 2 English lessons a week, the kids haven’t learned that much English, and she suggested that I prepare lessons based on learning the months of the year or simple expressions like “My name is,” etc.  This is going to be even more fun than when I taught Italian to a group of American 5th-graders in Vermont!

Before I came back home, she took me into the classroom to meet the kids.  They were really excited to meet me and they had lots of questions for me.  I am really excited and I’m going to try to come up with some fun games for them.

It’s really cold here, and foggy most of the time.  I haven’t seen the sun in four days!  M told me that when she was a girl, there would be nights that she’d try to go out, but then just turn around because it was too foggy.  It really is like a wall of fog.

Yesterday, the family’s dog Lola had puppies, or rather, one puppy.  One was stillborn, and apparently two were reabsorbed into the dog’s bloodstream?  I had no idea that was possible.  The puppy is sooooooo cute.  It is about the size of my hand and the softest thing I’ve ever touched.  New mom Lola is very protective and content.  The kids are superexcited and decided to call her Chloe`.

Last night, they invited me to stay for dinner because it was pizza night.  I had no idea that Italians did take-out, but they do.  I am noticing that this family is much more Americanized and modernized than my host family from Florence.  They have apple computers, a dishwasher, and heated floors.  I was shocked to discover, though, that each person eating got their own pizza, and not a personal size, either.  The crust is much thinner than American pizza, but I still couldn’t finish the whole thing as the others did.

I went to be an au pair without having that much experience with kids.  All I know is that I like playing with them.

Last night was my first full-on babysitting night.  The kids’ parents went out, looking very glamorous (at least the mom did…but then, she always does), and I was in charge of cooking dinner and putting them to bed.

The seven-year-old daughter, D, is adorable.  Her mom has convinced her that I don’t understand Italian (yet the mom continues to speak to me in Italian in front of D!), and D has convinced me that I don’t speak Italian, because she doesn’t understand me if I ever speak Italian to her, which I am expressly forbidden from doing.  D doesn’t know much English other than “Yes,” and “Thank you,” so when she has to communicate with me, she usually resorts to the slow, broken speech (in Italian)  that stereotypical rude characters in movies use with deaf people or foreigners (You…make….dinner? Now? Watch…movie?…Now?)  Ironically, this is even harder for me to understand than were she to speak normally, which seems to reinforce her conviction that I don’t understand Italian.

The whole point of that conviction is that she speak English with me, and it seems to working.  She told her friend a few days ago, “Io non vado piu` alle lezioni d’inglese.  Io ce l’ho a casa l’insegnante!” I’m not going to English class in school anymore.  I have my own English teacher at home!

Last night, we made an apple pie, I taught her the lyrics to Hot n’ Cold by Katy Perry and we watched the video about 15 times (I’m not sure the didactic qualities of that song have been utilized to their full potential in English-language instruction; it’s a great way to learn basic vocabulary…hot, cold, in, out, up, down, wrong, right), we played uno, we watched a movie, and we wrote a bunch of words in the “Quaderno di Beth,” the notebook the kids made to keep track of the English words they are learning.

I have to go, because I am going out to breakfast with my host family’s niece today.  A dopo!

Italy is fantastic.

That being said, now that I am in Italy, the intense, unrelenting yearning that motivated my posts on this blog has been at last fulfilled.  And consequently, my motivation to post has been slightly diminished.

You have to admit, it is less attractive to write about your favorite country than it is to live in it and embrace it in each moment.

Also, I’m not sure what to say.  Because there is so much to say.  And, at the same time, so little that needs to be said at all.

Being back has been an overwhelming emotional experience filled with only highs and no lows.

Here’s a few photos of my journey so far:

My mom and I at the airport in Rochester, NY

It is just as I remembered it. I am here, outside of Florence, staying with my host family from 2008 for a few days before I travel onward to Parma.

Since being here for the past 2 days, I have done the following: eat, sleep, drink espresso made for me by my host dad, drink wine, try to talk in Italian, listened to my host family talking in Italian and understood 75%, learned a few new words, cuddled with my host family’s cat, and played with my host family’s grandchildren.

The whole experience felt like a dream from the moment that I left my house on Monday morning, and that feeling only intensified once I arrived at the Frankfurt airport, when I got my passport stamped by a gruff German customs official (no worries, I melted her enough to get a smile out of her!), sprayed myself with ten different perfumes and ogled ten varieties of Milka chocolates in a German duty-free shop (one could spend an entire day in that airport just shopping!), and then realized I really didn’t want to miss my flight to Florence and hustled over the gate.

I really wanted to see a bunch of Italians lingering at the gate, but my fellow travellers were more international…a group of American backpackers, a few Germans, a few businessmen, a multi-generational Asian family, and just 3 teenage Italian boys travelling together.

But when I got off of the plane in Florence and emerged into the sunshine, I could barely stop myself from jumping up and down on the tarmac. And as I waited 15 minutes for my baggage to be unloaded onto the carousel, I thought “Yes! I am in Italy!”

I really am.

Piazza della Repubblica, Jan 2009, Florence

Today is the day I’ve been waiting to blog about since forever.

Well, maybe not today exactly…since my day today had me out of bed at 4am and on a flight to Chicago by 7:30 am, where I arrived just in time to wait six hours until my next flight.  I’m leaving for Frankfurt at 2:30 and arriving tomorrow morning at 6:00 am. Then I have a short flight to Florence and after just about 24 hours of travel, I will be back in the country that has lived persistently in my dreams for the past two years.

Bucatini al Pomodoro in San Gimignano, Tuscany

It was January 31, 2009 when I boarded my flight back to the states from Florence. As I said goodbye to my host dad, and watched him sink down the escalator waving goodbye to me, I felt a sharp pain in my chest and knew that it was my heart breaking. I sat down in a chair and cried at the airport.  Those tears were not tears of misery or anger. They were tears of love and the heartbreak of losing a place I loved so strongly that I carried its food, its values, and its landscape around with me in my heart for years….and probably will for the rest of my life.  They were tears of longing, and I spent the plane ride home crying all the way.

When I got back to the States, I was very excited to see my parents. I had missed them a lot, especially during the holidays, which I had wanted to spend with my host family in order to experience a true Italian Christmas and New Year and Epiphany.

But I had to deal with a lot of culture shock. According to Middlebury’s Study Abroad office, this is called “reverse culture shock” and in my case was far more severe than anything I experienced when I first arrived in Italy.

I missed the food and the passion Italians have for it (ditto for wine and coffee.)  I missed living with my host family and participating in their family life, especially on Sundays, when the whole extended family ate lunch together and I spent most of the day playing with grandkids rather than pretending to study in my room. I missed the collective mentality, the contentment and embrace of one’s position in life that is sorely lacking in general American culture–and I felt the lack edpecially at Middlebury.

Students would frequently say “I have so much work.” If you asked someone how he was doing (except for seniors, who mostly had realized that there is life outside the Ivory Tower), he would likely say “I have so much work to do tonight/this weekend/for the rest of the semester.” And then perhaps go on to detail every assignment, exam, and absurdly large reading that HAD to get done before discussion on Friday.

Don’t ever expect to hear something like that from an Italian student. Work (lavoro) is paid, and schoolwork (studiare) takes a rightly low ranking on the general priority list. It’s definitely behind family, friends, living well, maintaining your health and beauty, and of course eating well (https://whennutmegmetbasil.com/2010/12/01/mangiare-bene/).

It struck me upon my return just what about Italy had meant so much to me: What you have to do is not who you are, nor is it an accurate response to the question “How are you?” Italians know this, it seemed to me, and most Americans missed the memo.

He is purring as loud as I’ve ever heard…

And why am I posting this?  I have to finish packing!

The countodown is over!  I’m leaving for Italy tomorrow!  I hope to be updating the blog from my phone en route and I’ll be posting photos and my reaction as soon as I touch down.

Here’s one of my favorite Italian-American songs to start the new year.

When we listened to this song with my Italian host dad, he hear the lyrics, “Shake it like a Giovanno,” and asked us, “What’s a gee-ah-vanna?”  He couldn’t understand the Italian name Giovanno (more accurately pronounced ‘Jo-VA-no’) through Clooney’s thick American accent.

There’s only one day left to go on my countdown.  Hard to believe it’s been almost two years since I departed Italy in tears.  And in just two days, I’ll be returning all smiles.

Oh, and happy 2011, everyone.  Hope your new year is filled with adventures!