Allow the Marching Band Plenty of Room as They Parade Through the Inter-mall Grocery Store

I mimed the use of a frying pan yesterday, in a public store.  Sound effects were used.

It was after experiencing the thrill of Italian shopping success, and I got greedy.  You see, our hotel kitchenette doesn’t contain a frying pan, and I wanted eggs for lunch, so after my morning of executing “I would like,” “please,” “thank you,” “strawberries,” “what is this?” and plenty of numbers all in Italian, supplemented by copious pointing so as to achieve the purchase of two pears, strawberries, two mystery Sicilian fruits, Jack Daniels, and a boob cake, I was perhaps a bit over confident. 

I walked by a little hole in the wall store in our little village (they’re all hole in the wall stores in our village), and recognized in the signage, amongst many things that I did not recognize, “casa” (house).  The window displayed various, well, crap, and I assumed maybe it was kind of like a dollar store – lots of various cheap crap, among which just might be a frying pan.  I could march in there, pick out a frying pan, and pay for it after deciphering the price the storekeeper would vocalize, using the Italian numbers that I’ve learned.  Yes. 

I marched into the store.  It was tiny and quite dark, almost cave-like.  The majority of the store’s crap must have been in the window, because a quick glance around the dingy, nearly bare shelves made it clear that no frying pan was to be found.  Coincidentally, no other customers could be found either.  Therefore, at the moment I’d marched through the door, the shopkeeper had jolted to his feet and was now eagerly asking me, in Italian, what I’d like to buy.  Turning on my heel and walking out was simply not an option – for one, I’d had such a successful morning of Italian shopping, I refused to taint it at the last moment by seeming rude to this man simply because I could not communicate that he did not have what I needed.  I pulled out the first phrase that every visitor learns in Italian, “Do you speak English?”  He replied in Italian, “A little,” using a phrase that I had luckily learned the day before, on Facebook of all places. 

My confidence began to melt.  In English: “Frying pan?”  I asked, full of hope.  He looked perplexed.  Me, again in English: “Cook egg?”  He squinted his eyes and appeared doubtful and quite done with our conversation.  But wait! – thanks to Rosetta Stone - I know “egg” in Italian.  Me: “Cook uovo? Pan?”  He looked like he regretted that I walked into his store and was beginning to regret that he had opened his store at all that day.  I, however, am not easily swayed.  I’d had a great morning of intercultural relations, and if I had anything to do with it, that would not stop now.  I marched over to the table where his register sat.  Smiling, I placed one palm flat on the table.  I showed him my other hand, which was curled as if holding an object.  “Uovo,”  I said of the air that I was holding up.  “Crk, crk,” I clicked as I tapped my egg-air on the table.  I ‘cracked’ my egg-air in my  ‘frying pan,’ (ahem – my other hand), and then grabbed my wrist, my ‘frying pan handle,’ with my formerly-egg cracking hand, and proceeded to hiss, “Tssssstt…!” while I jiggled my frying-pan-hand that contained egg-air by its frying-pan-handle-wrist over the burner-table.  Keep in mind, that throughout this charade, the only thing that the poor shopkeeper has for sure understood is that I've walked into his variety shop and stated, "Egg."  Yes...

The shop keeper, while appearing less regretful at the turn of his day, displayed a look that so perfectly conveyed his simultaneous amusement at my performance and wonderment as to the number of times I’d been dropped on my head as a child.

I thanked him in Italian, smiled, picked up my shreds of dignity, and left the store knowing that I gave it my best shot. 

And hey, I know numbers.  If he had vocalized his guess as to the number of my childhood head drops, we could have communicated back and forth with ease.  With this knowledge, I walked back to the hotel with my head held high.  It was a successful morning of Italian shopping.

Nespoli.  Sicilian fruit, first fruit of the season.  The skin easily peels off to reveal a tender, juicy flesh that is at the beginning of each bite citrusy but finishes with a sweet essence of nectar.

It's no coincidence that this "cassatella" cake resembles a boob.  It honors Saint Agatha, who was martyred after enduring intense torture, which included having her breasts ripped off.  The miracle was that her wounds healed overnight (she was eventually burned to death).  Kinda makes the cake less appetizing, eh?

But no cake goes uneaten on my watch, squeemish story or not.  The middle is sweetened ricotta cheese, surrounded by rum-soaked cake (and I'm talking rum-SOAKED; I was pretty much toasted when I took this picture), covered with an almond glaze and topped with a jelly candy.  As to why it's green, I do not know.

Drive It Like You Stole It - or - The Blog Entry My Parents Will Be Sorry They Read

It’s taken me eleven years to understand, but from the moment the woman at the East Tennessee DMV said menacingly, after my driver’s license test, “You barely passed,” it’s clear that I’ve been an Italian driver.

I mean, c’mon - when you’re on a route that you drive every day and you can clearly see for lengths in each direction that there’s not another car in sight, is it really necessary to stop for three full seconds at a stop sign?  I have always maintained, no.  Turns out, unlike a few cops in the US, Italians agree with me. 

There are speed limit signs posted here, but they’re in kilometers per hour.  I have no instinctual guidelines for what 60 kpm feels like, and since I’m concerned about keeping a handle on the loose stick shift in our rental while navigating the unmarked roads that appear upon approach to be driveways, I don’t always have the available concentration to constantly focus on my speedometer.  But since one guy just passed me like he’s on the Talladega Motor Speedway and there’s a garbage truck ahead chugging along in first gear, I’m just going to go at a speed that feels appropriate.  And I’ve learned that no matter what speed I choose, there will always be someone (or more likely, something – ie, fruit truck, cart & donkey, or today’s obstacle – a herd of sheep) that I will need to pass, as well as a half dozen people who will pass me while driving at speeds greatly excessive to mine.

Which brings me to the subject of passing.  In the US, passing is often a passive aggressive signal: “You’re driving too damn slow/my engine is bigger than yours/I have a radar detector and you don’t.”  Passing in the US is often precluded by further passive aggressive tailgating and is occasionally, upon execution, accompanied by unfriendly hand gestures.  Here in Italy, all of that stigma is gone.  Frequent passing, on any road, anywhere, is part of the regular flow of traffic.  It simply means: “You continue to drive that speed and I’ll continue to drive this speed, and we’ll both continue on our merry little ways.”

Today on my way back to the Inn after a visit to the gym on base, I was headed uphill on a windy road that was about to straighten out.  The large truck ahead of me and my car were the only visible vehicles on the road.  Since he had just taken the last hair-pin turn in first gear and seemed in no hurry to change course for the duration of the long, straight hill, I bumped my little VW rental up to third and passed him with ease (no turn signal necessary, I’ve noticed).  Exactly at the time I was pulling in front of him back onto the right side of the road, I noticed that a cop car was waiting to pull out from the tiny driveway, errr…side road, that had been blocked from my vision by the truck.  My heart stopped.  Surely the maneuver I had just executed was against the rules??  Would this be my first run-in with Italian police??  But then….nothing happened.  The three of us – me, the large truck, and the cop, each continued on our merry little ways.  My maneuver, if not perfectly legal, was perfectly acceptable. 

After eleven years, and though I will continue to take caution in driving - only passing one vehicle at a time and probably never driving as fast as some Europeans - it’s nice to know that, for the duration of our stay here in Italy, I can finally put the menacing voice of that East Tennessee DMV instructor out of my head.

American-size Me

Before leaving America, we were told that Italians eat in small portions and multiple courses.  Fast forward to our first restaurant dinner here in Sicily, at the Spaghetti House.  (Perhaps the English name should have given us a clue.)  The menu had multiple pages: antipasto, “menu 1” (pasta), “menu 2” (meat), and salads.  We each ordered something off of each menu.  We got enough food for three days – it literally covered the four-person table that Dinosaur and I were sharing.  Where did we go wrong??

Fortunately we also got a super friendly server who spoke English (despite our desperate attempts at broken Italian), and some tips for next time: ask for “a dinner for two” – all the same courses, but smaller servings.  Who knew? 

While we were dinning, we saw our server and his friends take some sort of “bomb” shot at the bar, and, hoping to learn some secret Italian drink, asked our server what it was.  “Jager bomb!” he says, “You like??”  Neither dinosaur or I are particular fans of Jager, so we declined, but I guess our server gleaned that we were eager drinkers.  He soon called us over to the bar for his specialty shot: a layered mystery in the shot glass (clear on the bottom, red on top), a slice of lemon resting on the shot glass, a little pile of raw sugar on the lemon, liquor poured on the sugar, sugar lit on fire.  We exchanged nervous laughs with our server’s non-English speaking friends as we waited for the fire-y sugar to caramelize, then it was shot! & sugared lemon.  Yu-u-u-um!  Dinosaur and I returned to our table to attempt to eat some more of our massively oversized meal, but before long our server was calling, “Friends, you like tequila??”  Ah, a man after my own heart.  So it was “salut!” salt + tequila shot + lemon.  Hey, when in Rome…

My favorite part of dining in Europe is the not-to-be-expected-but-often-found complimentary items.  Bread and butter before the meal.  Multiple shots with our jolly server and his friends during the meal (this was a small restaurant and after a few Italian families cleared out, we were the only diners, let alone the only Americans).  Homemade cake after the meal (the white frosting had a delicious essence of powdered sugar – yum!)

Of course then, the silly Americans, loaded with bags of leftover food from our over-ordering, try to pay with a credit card.  Nope, credit card machine is broken.  We have a little cash, but come up 10 Euros short.  Earlier, looking through our phrase book during dinner, I had come across the phrase, “What if we wash the dishes?” (who would actually say that??) and thought about breaking it out, but before I could, our sweet server was assuring us, “No worries, no worries.  Next time.  You bring it next time.”  We insist that we’ll bring the money  the next day.  “No, no,” he says, “You bring it next time you come to eat.”

And we will.

View of Motta (small village where we're staying) from our balcony.  You can see the castle in the top left (it almost looks like another chimney in this picture).  We'll explore the castle soon and get more pics for you.

Sheep grazing down the hill from the Inn's parking lot.

I never saw anyone else in the US with this Target shirt, but come half-way across the globe, and suddenly Amy (another Navy wife) and I are both wearing green skull shirts and lace-less Chucks.

Fat Cat always drank from our toilets in the US, but European toilets just have a liiiiittle bit of water in the very bottom that he can't reach.  Solution?  Fill up the bidet!

Arrivederci America!

Big, ugly sobs.  Big, loud, ugly, audible sobs.  The kind where my snot is sticking to Chris’ shoulder and he’s having to give passers-by the “She’ll be ok” nod as they stare in horror.  Did someone just die?  Or perhaps an appendage has been wrenched from my body?  No.  We’re at the airport and we just gave our fat cat to TSA to travel to Italy with us in the cargo area of the plane.  Yes, my big, loud, ugly, audible sobs are in sympathy for a cat.

And so our journey begins…

I’ll go ahead and skip to the end to let you know that the fat cat made it across the pond in one live fat piece.  A little shaken, perhaps, but otherwise no worse for the wear.  Surely due to the karma that my incessant worrying produced.

We humans made it across the water alright as well, only after a surprise 9-hour layover at JFK allowed us (with the fat cat) to check into a hotel and get some rest and freshening up.  Then, at 1:05am eastern time, we departed from America.

Because the plane was 7 hours late getting to JFK, most of the would-be passengers had found other options, so the flight was practically empty.  I delighted in scoring an entire row of 4 seats all to myself.  I folded up all the armrests,  stuffed 3 airline pillows into a sweatshirt, spread 2 airline blankets on me, shoved in wax earplugs, popped 2 Tylenol PMs, strapped on my eye mask, and was OUT.  Six hours later, I woke up to a breakfast of espresso and Milano cookies and soon after, we landed in Rome.  Not too shabby.

Our 3-hour layover in the Rome airport was spent wandering the endless terminals, shopping for converters (great success), and attempting to purchase our first meal in Italian (mild success).  I enjoyed my first gelato (single scoop of dark chocolate in a waffle cone – delicious success!).

On the Alitalia Airlines flight to from Rome to Catania, I discovered what will most likely be a reoccurring theme: Familiarity Italian.  I at first took great pride in ordering water and cookies from the flight attendant all in Italian (me: “Acqua per favore.”  Her: “Biscotti, something in Italian, something in Italian?”  Me: hmm…I know ‘biscotti’ is a cookie; I like cookies, “Biscotti, grazie.”  Score.)  I did a little mental happy dance at not having to revert to English like the woman two rows in front of me.  But then I started to wonder what my other food options were.  Don’t get me wrong, the biscotti was scrumptious.  But would I have been more satisfied with something else?  And I usually order water on airplanes anyway, but since the words for water and orange juice are the only Italian beverage vocabulary words in my current repertoire, those were my only options.  See? – Familiarity Italian.  Not that that’s a bad thing.  I’m happy just to be using Italian at all.  But I see a lot of water (acqua), orange juice (succo d’arancia), espresso (espresso), cookies (biscotti), getalo (gelato), and croissants (cornettos) in my future.  Again, yum, not necessarily a bad thing.  Familiarity Italian is safe, but also not as exciting as my plan for the near future: Saying Yes to, and Ordering by Pointing at, Unknown Italian.  Stay tuned.

Fat cat and I at JFK

Gelato! in the Rome airport

Fat cat explores the balcony at our hotel in Catania.

Such Great Heights

Last year, I gave Dinosaur a gift certificate for a hot air balloon ride.  That was in June.  Here in April, we finally got around to using it.  Thanks, Balloons Over Virginia!  

Check out some pics:

how you say...?

     We're 15 days away from the move, and there's a lull in the craziness (for now) - I've decided to put my nose back to the Rosetta Stone.  We also dug out an Italian textbook from college.

     Useful epiphany from RS:  I caught on to the conjugation of colors in relation to objects - "automobile rossa" (red car - feminine), "uccello rosso" (red bird - masculine), "capelli rossi" (red hair - plural)
     Favorite new phrase learned from college textbook: "Come si dice...?" (How do you say...?)
     Language frustration of the day:  I cannot roll my R's.  Advice is welcome.  The male Rosetta Stone voice seems to know of and garner amusement from my frustration - he extends his perfectly rolled r's in "correndo" (run) way longer than one would deem necessary.

I walked to the post office today to pick up a change of address form, priding myself in forgoing the car to do an errand - how very European.  However, upon arrival at home, I promptly shut all the windows and cranked up the AC.  Intriguing as it is, attempting to put myself in the Italian mindset, I have 15 more days to be selectively European, and I plan to enjoy them.  Now where's the peanut butter?

Welcome!

A semi-permanent move to another continent seemed like an appropriately momentous occasion for me to enter the blogosphere. 
Stop by for [hopefully] regular updates as Dinosaur and I prepare for and embark on our European adventure.

Arrivederci for now!