neve nell' estate

// summer snow

On my first day in Italy, the air was full of floating blossoms that resembled gently falling snow. Today, my last day here (for now) there are little star-shaped seeds drifting down from the window sill and landing in my hair, as if to remind me that the magic of Italy is still there if you look hard enough...

...one does, however, have to look very very hard.

Oh I know I sound cynical and jaded and whiny, I have actually had fun here, have had the good fortune to meet some kind, generous, wonderful people, and have seen some very pretty places. But four months in Italy is enough to make it very hard to write a post about how kind the people are, how beautiful it all is, what magic there is floating in the air (see my attempt above) and all that guide booky stuff.

There is so much to say about this country and I am in no mood to write a proper essay, probably you are in no mood to read one. Point form to the rescue!

the bad

• The one scent that I will forever associate with Italy, is the smell of dog piss. It's everywhere, in all the streets of all the cities, wafting up from the grass.
• In every region of Italy, the Italians will tell you that the Italians from a different region are 'chiusi' ‑ close minded. They are all too close minded to consider that it might just be all of them.
• Italians don't hesitate to tell you that Italians are not helpful people. They don't help old ladies, don't stand aside for each other on trains and buses, don't help people with their luggage, generally just don't help each other at all.
• Parts of Italy (eg Napoli) resemble a third world country, in terms of the cleanliness, the chaos and the smell.
• Italy is a country where they do everything the hard way and then complain about how it should be easier.
• The only thing that makes Italy more fashionable than, say, Australia, is that they don't do muffin tops here. Everything else is pretty blah.
• The beaches are crap, the pools are crap, there is no grass anywhere, everything is hugely overpopulated (not as much in the south though).
• A sandwich is ham and cheese. While the type of ham and the type of cheese may differ, you will never find one with tomato, not to mention anything else.
• At every city I visited, there was at least one 'information booth' which was empty when it should have been open. It got to the point that an open tourist bureau was a big surprise.
• Even bus timetables allow for lunch breaks, so you can end up waiting an hour or two if you expect to be able to catch a bus at midday.
  

the amusing

• They pick songs at random to go into ads, with no idea what the lyrics mean. Who thinks that an emo broken‑heart song by Evanescence belongs in a luxury car ad? The Italians!
• There are cross walks all over the country that lead to nowhere; a brick wall, around a blind corner where speeding cars zoom past, a fence, the top of a cliff... one wonders if they are trying to increase their death rate.
• Stunning Italian women in tight pants struggle through the cobblestone streets on stilettos, it's great to watch.
• It's not rare to see an 8 year old kid being lovingly pushed around the streets in a pram.
• Every train has a gypsy who walks along the carriage depositing bits of crap for sale. You take what you want and leave the money in its place, and if you don't want anything they just collect it again a few minutes later. It's actually a good system, but sad to see how many of them there are.
  

the good and the guide‑bookey

• Every city has water fountains with potable water all over the place.
• There are castles, nuns and churches everywhere ‑ a town with 4000 inhabitants can have 18 churches.
• On Sundays, the kids and the women are always beautifully dressed.
• Italians don't tag the way we do; Italian graffiti is always romantic. "Ti amo" is everywhere. One guy scrawled the name of his ex‑girlfriend, Francesca, on the walls of train stations in several major cities. "Francesca, torna a me, ti amo, chiami mi" ‑ "come back to me, I love you, call me".
• The train service is excellent and not nearly as unreliable as people like to pretend.
• There always seems to be a festa going on when you arrive in a town around July or August. The festas are very family oriented and there is a notable lack of drunks.
• There are very few fat Italians, except for the old ladies.
• Vespas are everywhere, perfect for taking that touristy Italy shot.
  

the conclusion
An Italian friend told me that Italians won't try food that doesn't look good. First they taste with their eyes, and then with their taste buds.

This might explain how a service station I visited got away with making panini that are stuffed full of beautiful red tomato, lashings of fluffy white cheese and layers of ham and lettuce...for the first few centimetres which is all you see in the window display until you have bought it. You bite into it and realise that most of the panino is merely bread.

I can't help but suggest that my panino may be the perfect metaphor to describe Italy.

spezzata cuore

// broken heart

This is my final week in Bologna (for now) and already I am starting to miss the city! I feel as though I am still discovering the characteristics that make Bologna unique and it seems a shame to leave so soon.

It's been interesting to watch my impressions of the city change and rearrange; when I first arrived, I found myself in a large, open, empty piazza which is ugly and bare. Since then, the city has revealed herself to me layer upon layer. I've discovered that behind my favourite portico lies the most beautiful church I've ever been in, that the whole city smells of dog poo and dog pee, that there are no trees and there is no grass except around the edges of the centre. I've chosen my favourite gelateria, my favourite street, my favourite door knockers, my favourite pizza, my favourite coffee shop. I've become a regular at four different bars and made friends with three different shop keepers and two waiters. But soon, I have to leave it all behind. I will be missing the jazz festival, the summer festival, the wine festival. It was really surprising to settle so quickly into a new place and a new life, and now I have to uproot myself from it, not for the last time.

I have decided while living here is that I want to travel slowly, taste places properly. Where other people might stay for a day, I will stay for two or three. I'll choose places to remain for a week or two, to peel back the layers the way I have in Bologna. The upside of this is that I'll save money; the downside is that I won't see so many places, but I would prefer to know fewer places better. Hopefully I won't grow to love them all the way I do Bologna, because it will break my heart!

Everybody warns you about the Italian men, but nobody mentions that you will find cities so charming that even the smell of dog pee will give you a feeling of nostalgia.

la citta e la sculoa

// the city and the school

Bologna
When I arrived in Bologna the city was filled with fairy dust. All through the air floated white cotton flowers from the nearby fields, I almost expected to see Tinkerbell flitting past. In the sun, the flowers glittered and every now and then one would find its way into my hair. It lent a very surreal air to an already surreal arrival.

Bologna is one of those cities that's easy to gloss over as a tourist, but also incredibly easy to fall in love with as a resident. Maaike (my flatmate) and I both felt at home here after only a few days!

The city is famous for a few things and has many nicknames to show it. Bologna La Grassa, La Rossa, La Dotta, La Toured. Meaning, the fat (most Italians apparently admit that the food in Bologna is the best), the red (Bologna leans a long way to the left and is the communist centre of Italy, also there are 'pace' - peace - flags everywhere), the Learned (the oldest university in the world is here) and the Tower'ed (once the rich families of Bologna showed off to each other by building towers taller than everyone else's ‑ now there are only two left and they both lean.)

There are also many porticoes in Bologna, built above the streets when the students over-filled the city and more accommodation was needed. Some are plain while others are decorated beautifully and it's possible to traverse the whole city under the 42km of porticoes. 666 of them trail up a steep hill to the Church of San Luca which presides over the city, nestled in green parklands. It's quite incredible once you know your way around, each street takes on its own personality but all the way along you feel protected and welcome.

Via Zamboni is the uiversity street and it's where the action is. Every night there's a random street party and the place is littered with students and empty bottles, which are cleaned up every morning by the street cleaner. Piazza Maggiore is the main square and it's where the whole city goes to hang. There's an old market street with the best cheese, salami, fish and sweets in Bologna. Sadly it's just around the corner from our house.

Our street is 'molto rumorosamente'‑very loud. It's Via Mascarella and is littered with bars, and excellent gelateria, and various restaurants. Yep, if you remember me when I was thin, let go of that image pronto!

The people of Bologna are everything I hoped they would be. Punks all over the place, emos, rockers (Italian rockers though which to be honest are kind of funny), lots of 'bikies' with scary looking dogs and hilariously cute little vespas. Hells Angels they are not. I saw a guy do a wheelie on his Vespa the other day and had to stifle a laugh, it just isn't the same! There are gays and lesbians all around the place, strange looking old dudes, crazy men who live in boxes and show each other all their stuff. Like 'this is my shoe, I found it over there'. And EVERYWHERE there are rose sellers. The place is open, welcoming, happy in that serious way that Italians have (smile but make sure there's nothing in your teeth).

Our walk to school each morning takes in the sights and smells of an incredibly ancient city with an incredibly young heart. On Via Mascarella, we walk past the daily 'pazzo' (crazy man), skip around a couple of Italian boys who leer at us, and check out the timetable at the cinema on the corner. We take a right, walk past our favourite little restaurant 'Osteria dell'Orsa' where we always have wonderful, simple, tasty meals. There's a high wall with gardens and we pass them, and then come into a wide pedestrian‑only street with ancient grey cobble stones and bars lining it on one side. With Yohann, I had a flaming strawberry shot kind of thing at one of them ‑ hard to describe but it involves alcohol, sugar, strawberries and fire.

Around the corner we come into the always‑hectic via Zamboni. People line the street, drinking coffee in the mornings or alcohol at night. As we walk under the porticoes of the Opera School we pass speakers that blare opera music at us, it feels like being in a movie with your own soundtrack. Passing an International bookshop, a gelateria, and the famous Due Torri (two towers) we swallow our fear and dash across the blind corner that we have seen buses and bikes speed around, and occasionally crash in! We speed up to make it past the weird section where the footpath and the street are the same thing and then with relief, we are on the street that takes us to school. We press the button, the door opens, we walk up a very large, very wide, very ancient white staircase and past many beautiful pieces of furniture to our classroom.

The only thing I miss in Bologna is trees‑it's a city of buildings, porticoes and bricks. Very little greenery, only two parks at the edge of the city walls, and a large park overlooking the city which is about a 30 minute bus ride away.

The city is beautiful, I wish I could bring you all here to see it!

Cultura Italiana
This is the name of my school. It's close to the main square, in a huge building owned by one of Bologna's most pretigious families.

Italian is fun to learn, which is lucky, because for an english speaker it's also bloody hard! Many words are similar but the verbs come with about twenty thousand variations each, depending on whether it's you, me, them, us, rformal or informal and THEN whether it's the past, the present, how many people are involved, oh the list goes on. Constructing a simple sentence takes a lot of effort and time! However, I'm able to understand most of what is said, at least enough to get an idea of what's happening. I can communicate with shop keepers realtively easily and find my way around without too much hassle. I'm really enjoying the lessons and both of our teachers are great.

In the morning, we have a grammar lesson from 9‑11, then at 11.20 our very expressive, very Sicillian teacher comes to give us our 'practical' speaking lesson. We make up bizarre stories about photos of people, talk about our weekends and so on. I don't think I will make much progress in four weeks, but maybe after I've been in Italy for a few months I'll return to the school and do some more lessons. It's really a fantastic experience, so well organised and so much fun.

I love the way a new language slowly opens itself to you, revealing secrets and little familiarities, until suddenly it feels strange to think that one you didn't understand a word of it. My English is suffering though, because I am the only native English speaker here, and because the more Italian I speak, the more I start to speak English as though it's a direct translation from Italian. It won't be long before I am asking Maaike "Did you have seen the my shoes red?"

I find it really interesting to notice how speaking an unfamiliar language changes one's personality. We have all commented to each other that we feel somehow restrained. It's impossible to be funny, often it's hard to elaborate on a story. We frequently find ourselves responding with enthusiasm to someone's story and saying "Si! Si! Quando io...er....ahhh... um...si." Often your responses stop at "yeah I agree". On Mercoledi Italiano - Italian Wednesdays - when Maaike and I try to communicate only in Italian, we both reach the end of the day feeling like we are someone less ourself, a little restricted and relieved to switch back to a more familiar language.

I also use my hands a lot more, to describe whatever word I am trying to find. We are all fast becoming very good actors!

I'm writing all these new posts at the same time so it's hard to conclude them neatly. Scusate! (Excuse me).

abbiamo fatto qualcosa

// we've done things

In spite of my lack of news, I have actually been doing stuff! I won't even try to fill you in on all of it, but instead I thought I'd scribble a few snapshots of some of the experiences I've had since arriving in Bologna.

Rimini aint no Rotto
Before school begins, a trip to Rimini. Feeling a little lonely at this point, not many social types in the dodgy little hostel I'm in. Rimini is what we all pray Rottnest will never become. Beaches so covered with games, playgrounds, chairs, volleyball courts that there is barely any space for the people. The tiny town is virtually ignored by the tourists, the beaches like a goiter on it´s side attract all the people. Lifeless, strangled by too many tourists and not enough culture. Still, not a bad day, interesting to see the place. Best thing about Rimini; an ice‑cream served inside a little pineapple.

Too much whiskey.
A Thursday, meeting some people for pizza. Yohann, Maaike, Bettina, Zoe, Andreas, Lucia. Afterwards nobody wants to go out but Yohann and I so we wander to Via Zamboni, the Northbridge of Bologna. Yohann's flatmate Giordano meets us there and we down a few beers before running into some Swiss girls who are off to the 'shot shot bar' for 1euro shots. We arrange to meet them at another bar and when they arrive the sweet shy girls have become hilarious crazy entertainers.

We all head off to an underground (literally) bar/club that plays half decent rock. I order a scotch, which in Australia would be a few millilitres in the bottom of a glass, but in Italy I discover it's half a (plastic) glass of really decent whiskey. So, from this point forward how much more detail are you expecting exactly...? There was dancing, lots of photos, fairly certain there was some vodka and red bull. Yohann kindly walked me home, we're pretty sure we traversed most of the city in the process given that our map‑reading skills were somewhat non‑existent. The next day I learned that one of the Swiss girls stumbled her way home on her own and has a big semi‑circle injury on her forehead to show for it. Quite a fun evening, like being 18 again.

Scaling the due torri.
Bologna was once full of towers, evidence of the social rivalry of various powerful and rich families. Quite literally a measuring contest; my tower is bigger than your tower. Today, there are only a few left and of those, two are famous. The whole town plan converges on these towers, five main streets span out from them.

So, I climbed the towers the other day, in spite of the fact that you're not supposed to scale the tower until you have graduated ‑ bad luck or something. I figure I graduated from TAFE so that counts, I'll be safe. There are a LOT of steps, not sure how many but it's definitely well into the hundreds. The wooden steps were pericoloso (seriously I have just forgotten the word for dangerous... Perilous?) because they were so thin, old, worn smooth by centuries of feet traversing up and down. There was a lot of puffing from all quarters and many grazies and pregos to the people who stood aside for others to pass.

At the top I was met with the Bologna I have grown to love through photos and postcards. A stunning view over the city, now-familiar buildings, my school, the main Piazza, across to San Luca church on top of the hill. I lingered for a while before heading back down, back past the puffing tourists (I am fitter than I thought!) and around, around, around the little tower.

Lucca
Seriously, if you're single and wish you weren't, don't visit me in Italy. It's the worst country in the world for a not happily single person to be. As I write this (on the little keyboard I bought for my phone, v technological, me), I'm sitting on the city walls of Lucca, where I am surrounded by no less than seven kissing couples! People kiss everywhere in this place. I flashed a smile of approval at a couple of kids who ran up here with little fireworks and set them off near people who were getting a bit too hot. Ok, so I'm bitter, but it was pretty funny to see them jump!

Lucca is a pretty little town totally destroyed by the scourge of tourism. American accents and backpacks abound in this town, with people loudly complaining when it turns out that what they ordered was actually chicken and not fish. Today there were antique markets everywhere. I was a little bit in heaven and a little bit in hell, I love to look but I hate not being able to buy.

Lucca is surrounded by grassy city walls, high above the green plain surrounding the old town on one side, and the treeless streets on the other. Mountains are visible in all directions (like the couples) and there is a distant hum of traffic from the streets surrounding the old town.

There are churches here, San This and San That. I went into a couple of them but there were too many people wandering around with their cameras out, ignoring the 'vietato' (forbidden) signs indicating that photography is decidedly not cool. I learned one of two interesting things by following a tour group around but forgot everything an hour later, so I can't share it with you.

I'm unsure about Lucca, it was worth seeing and it was a pretty day, but the townspeople don't like tourists (don't blame them) so after a place like Bologna (few tourists, people are always happy to help) it felt unfriendly. The grass factor was definitely a bonus though, the Italian cities I've visited so far have all been treeless, so it was nice to be reminded on nature. Oh, and the train ride there was stunning.

Worth a visit but not a long stay.

Food
Can't come to Italy and not talk about food!

My favourite hangout in Bologna is a little restaurant called "Osteria dell'Orsa" and it's conveniently close to my house, and also cheap. They do an amazing pasta dish with asparagus. It has a casual air, lots of students, kind of like hanging out in someone's backyard.

Being as multicultural as we are at my school (there is only one other Australian, most people are Swiss or Japanese), we have had a few nights at each other's houses cooking our national foods. It's great for me because kangaroos and emus aren't exactly easy to find in the shops here, so I get away with just bringing the wine.

I've had a dinner cooked by a Japanese girl and a French boy; rabbit, cheese, spaghetti with rongoli (seafood) and strawberries with mascarpone. Another meal was cooked by Swiss and Japanese; various dishes that I can't spell or pronounce but all delicious.

In general, the food is of course fantastic and the prices are acceptable. But, you really have to love Italian food to visit Italy. You can't be vegetarian (well, you can try). In recent years more and more 'ristoranti etnici' - ethnic restaurants - have appeared, but the main fare is still pizza, pasta, ham and cheese. No complaints from me but we'll see how long it takes before I need to buy bigger pants! Honestly, I realise people go on for ages about Italian food but I think I've just about covered it. It's great, but not exactly varied. Why stray from perfection!

Giordano, paper plane hero.
In a future post you'll hear about the people here. One of them is Giordano, the flatmate of one of the guys at my school. He's Italian, from Rome, and hilarious, much like having your own personal clown in tow. Last weekend, he kindly drove a group of us to the beach at Ravenna.

Italian beaches when compared to Australian beaches are at best ok, at worst really really crap. Ravenna is not bad, you can't see through the water but the sand is ok. We staked our claim and lay in the sun (here the sun is just warm and cosy, not sizzling like at home), I swam for a bit, and then we had a paper plane competition when I started folding my table napkin at lunch. Giordano won and ran around in great excitement. We played volleyball (I sucked) and hung out for a while before traipsing through the beach party crowd (ala the Cott on a Sunday) and heading home, exhausted.

So far...
So far, I've met some really fun people, am managing to pick up some Italian, and have very few moments to myself. I've missed lots of things out, like our picnic at San Luca (a church above the city, you climb uphill under 666 porticoes to get there), our Monday meals with the school, the aperitivi (each evening Italian bars serve tapas for as long as you keep drinking) and my little fling with a french boy (over now but lots of fun). The decision to learn Italian for a month was definitely a good one!