If you don’t recognise the above as a quote from Monty Python’s Life of Brian, then that’s a film that you need to add to your watch list.
Learning the Lingo
When I was trying to learn other languages at school the teachers would say “what’s the past participle” or “conjugate the verb to go” or talk about the position of the “subject” and the “object” of a sentence. I didn’t know what those things were in English never mind in whatever language I was struggling to learn. Education might not have been the same everywhere but I maintain that British students of the 70’s and 80’s are more likely to recognise “Kumbaya” from the opening strums on an acoustic guitar than they are to have been taught what a participle was in English.
Grammar is useful to help you understand how the new language structure is different, but this does necessitate knowing what it is in your language first. In many ways this remains the biggest struggle I have learning Italian. I sit there and have to try to summon the Italian grammar rules. Is this a passive sentence? Am I giving my opinion? These require the use of different tenses or rules. If I am in a real life situation this is compounded because I need to answer quickly.
On top of the grammar and structural issues there is also problems of vocabulary. There are some words which look and sound similar to English words but which have completely different uses and/ or meanings. These are called “false friends”. Then there are verbs that can be translated as roughly the same meaning but are used in different ways. For example, Italians use their verb to make (fare) for things where we use to do or to go. When you want to translate some things from “do” or “go”, you need to use “make” e.g. I make food shopping, not I do the food shopping etc. You need to bear in mind these differences when answering simple questions like “What are you doing this weekend?”
I know that I just need to remember that learning a language is hard and the results are not instantaneous, but patience is not one of my virtues. I have so much more respect now for anyone who has managed to become proficient in a language that is not their mother tongue.
“He who knows no foreign languages knows nothing of his own.”
Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
Teaching the lingo
On the flip side of learning a language I am teaching my language to others. This is a newly acquired skill and still involves quite a lot of learning itself. It means looking at English, a subject I had thought I knew well, from the perspective of the learner. I think my teaching is enhanced by the fact that I have current experience of the trials and tribulations of language learning. One benefit I have is that my students are nearly all Italian and they often make similar errors which I can backwards navigate to understand what the Italian structure or vocabulary is, which helps my Italian too!
I live in fear of my students asking me questions like “in what circumstances do I use the past perfect after the past continuous?”. First, I need to remember which they are (past tense of have, verb+ed) after (past tense of be, verb +ing) and then deduce the rule around when you might use that form. There is also the pretty tricky fact that we have so many exceptions. I don’t want to give an answer that covers the example I just thought of (I went jogging after I had studied) but not the situation the student was asking about.
However, this is nothing when compared to the student who said “Oh, I’ve forgotten, what’s the English order of adjectives again, it’s age, colour and material isn’t it?” I looked at her blankly. “You know the order you need to put the adjectives in, I can’t remember if it’s colour before material?” I was about to say that there wasn’t an order, but it immediately became apparent to me that there was and my mind was blown.
I have asked a number of people about this and not one mother tongue English speaker ever remembers being taught the order of adjectives, but we all use it without thinking. If I said to you leather, brown, old sofa you would understand what I was referring to. However, you would usually say old brown leather sofa. Don’t believe me? I dare you to consider anything in front of you now and let me know if you don’t use a specific order to describe all items e.g. blue suede shoes.
As a writer I have found both the learning and teaching experiences enlightening. They focus your mind on the way we use language, how and why we select certain words for particular sentences or specific uses. There are so many things about our language and the way we use it that I had never given a second thought to. Nothing makes you think twice about an expression you’re about to use like imagining how you will explain it to someone for whom English is not their first language.
So, what else is new?
Not much really. I couldn’t let you go without some gratuitous food shots, obviously. We are fine. We are both still healthy. We are getting better at cryptic crosswords, but not fast enough given that we are two pretty impatient people. We have been formally extended in lock down until 3rd May, but our numbers are looking more positive. There were free masks being distributed in our area on Monday so Al went out on Tuesday to get some and they had all gone. It’s not that we have a specific view in the masks vs no masks debate, it’s more that these days everyone out in the shops has a mask and we are worried that when lock down restrictions are lifted they might mandate mask wearing while out and about. Amazon.it mask delivery dates were for June. Amazon UK claims 22nd April, I’ll keep you posted.
Chargrilled and fresh vegetables on sourdough toast with mozerella
My companion on the deck
Vegetable lasagne
Gratuitous food shots plus our neighbourhood lizard
One final thought in the shape of this quote, which I found when looking for one about learning a language. This is so true and useful at this time, all language is thought shaping, especially the language you use most often.
“Change your language and you change your thoughts.”
Karl Albrecht
*feature image courtesy of: Terry Jones, Life Of Brian (1979).
When I was thinking about writing this week’s blog I was conscious that the likelihood was by the time I came to write it lockdown would be a reality for the UK too. Comparing the numbers of Corona Virus cases from Italy two weeks before the UK, it seemed a similar story was emerging. I am sorry it had to come to this, but I think it’s in everyone’s interests. Hopefully they are finding, so far, it’s ok. A great many kind people, organisations and businesses are offering services for free or on reduced rates for us to do/use while we are at home. However, as I said last week, we shouldn’t try to do too much. We are in strange days and there is a mental aspect to this as much as a physical restriction. No doubt your thoughts and feelings about being in lockdown have changed and will change. Make sure you look for and hold onto the positives of which there are many.
A change in the weather
Last week we had balmy 20 degree days. You might remember my photo of the garden, glass of wine in hand. I want to make as much use of the garden as possible at this time and I was worried for my pale blue Celtic skin so I put in an Amazon order for sun cream. The supermarket we can walk too does not have a lot of choice available as it’s not a big store. I thought getting an order would be better than travelling out to a bigger store and potentially encountering more people even if social distancing is practiced here. This week has rewarded us with a wind warning and days barely reaching the 10s so it hasn’t been garden weather, although it has been sunny. However, this morning we were greeted by snow!!! Snow and it was settling, which we were not expecting at all. A quick check of the weather forecast confirms the 20 degree days will return by Sunday, which is good because my sun cream has not arrived yet.
Winter had a last laugh
Learning new skills and being bored
This week I learned to use a new online teaching platform as well as how to set up and use groups on Skype. My lessons are spread out over the week a couple of hours, usually not more than 3, at a time. A lot of the day feels like waiting for lessons and other activities are fitted around lessons and prep. I think I pulled a muscle in my stomach doing Yoga, so I’ve been laying off that and I caution those who are planning a vigorous exercise regime during this time not to over do it. Al has been bored because he doesn’t have any work to give structure, however I will mention that tonight I will be eating a chicken pie with handmade puff pastry. The chicken filling was also several processes and days in the making. We’ve also had homemade pasta and bread this week.
Last thoughts for this post
We are a couple of weeks ahead of the UK in this weird netherworld of lockdown. There is a stoicism that says just keep going which is good and helpful but, its ok to admit this is frightening. We have never seen the like of this in our lifetimes. We have no reference data to tell us how to feel and what to do. We are in an event we have only read about in post-apocalyptic books and seen in disaster movies. By staying in and minimising our contact with others less people will die, but that’s still pretty stark. There’s a part of you that feels like this is a holiday, a part that feels like this is an inconvenience and a part of you that is terrified and it’s all correct and OK to feel. We don’t know what is going to happen, which is always true, but is scarier now because we didn’t really think this would happen. One day this week I said to Al that I had a lot of work to do but I just wanted to curl up in a ball and cry. I’m not always sleeping and I’m imagining symptoms (luckily a fever can’t be psychosomatically generated) on a consistent basis because, hey, that’s the kind of girl I am. Turns out, it’s perfectly natural. Everyone is doing it, because it’s part of a natural human reaction. Allow yourself to have these moments. It will be ok and we will get through this, but if we have the occasional tremble, or just need to pull the duvet over our heads today, so be it. Be kind to everyone, but especially yourself. We can choose what elements of this experience we hold onto and take forward and which elements of our old life we want to let go of and leave behind.
As we begin this second week in Lock down we feel that we
are getting the hang of it. Al has been making enough bread to ensure we have
some every day and has also made batches of pasta, mayonnaise and sauces to
keep us eating in style. This week Al has decided we need a lasagne as there
are another 2 weeks of lock down to go (it was announced today that this will
be extended). I continue to teach over Skype and to spend the rest of my time
reading and trying to write. We are going out every couple of days to get top
up fruit and veg or occasional meat. This is as much an exercise in getting
some exercise as it is a necessity. However, we think we will try and see if we
can get more deliveries online to limit going out further.
Here people patiently wait outside shops, a respectful metre apart, until the next customer comes out so they’re able to take their place inside. It’s hard to imagine this happening in the UK without security guards or other monitors. It seems particularly unusual when Italians are otherwise famous for their inability to queue. However, everyone understands the seriousness of the situation and there is a sense of togetherness in a crisis which maintains a calm acceptance of the present situation and the need to get through it together. This too shall pass.
Rediscovering our love of film
One of the unexpected outcomes of all this was rediscovering our love of film. Back in the early days of our relationship we spent a lot of time watching films, being early adopters of Love Film and clocking up a fair number of films per week. Love Film ate blockbusters and was eaten by Netflix in turn. While we have maintained Netflix and Amazon Prime accounts these have largely been to keep up with TV series. Al’s anti-social hours meant that the Cinema was out of the question and starting a movie at home at 11pm is not that appealing. Even on his days off he rarely had the headspace to sit through a film. Now that we are forced to be in the apartment all the time, we realise that we haven’t really watched films for about 10 years. We are enjoying reading reviews and building up a watch list as well as watching the films. While there are a couple of films that are still daunting us with their length (the Irishman is 3 hours and 40 minutes!) there will never be a better time to watch them than now.
Piazza Maggiore
Via Farini
Ring road
Quadrilatero
Jennie’s top tips
Someone asked me for some tips in case you guys all get
locked down too. I must say that I think it’s important that you do. I
genuinely believe this is the only way to minimise this virus. Here are the
tips I gave this morning plus one or two more:
Watch films, paint pictures, cook and read books. Do anything you usually don’t have time for.
Try to stick with a schedule but not your old work schedule or an unrealistic home improvement schedule
Don’t put too much pressure on yourself to achieve. This enforced free time can be used for relaxing too.
If there are local businesses you can support by buying direct from them, do it.
If you’ve had gigs or events cancelled try to wait for the reschedule instead of getting a refund. See if the band or venue has merch you can buy or a Patreon or something to keep them afloat.
Don’t be a dick, only buy what you need.
Reach out to your friends. You can’t be in each other’s company but you can still interact. If someone reaches out to you, respond.
Think creatively about how you can continue to do things you enjoy – what about logging on to a streamed gig or comedy performance? Or what about a Skype dinner party – everyone does their own cooking in their own home but with Skype on so you can talk to each other?
Stay positive. This will pass.
Don’t you wish your supermarket was stacked like mine?
The future’s so bright
The world will be different after this experience. Undoubtedly there will be another global economic downturn and many businesses will not survive. However, this has given us an opportunity to see the world, as one of my students put it “through another lens”. We see how quickly those who have jobs that facilitate, can work from home. To see how much we need and depend on the jobs that have recently been referred to by the UK Government as “low skilled”. To see how we can be our best in a crisis, turn misfortune into opportunity, working together to help each other and finding other ways to continue to operate. We can take what we learn from this period into the future and make sure we change it for the better. It is tough right now so those crowdfunding a contingency fund, offering online shopping for goods and services, turning restaurants and pubs into takeaways and any other ways you have thought of to reinvent yourself to adapt and survive I raise a glass to you. If there is anything you can do to support them, you need to get on it.
Keeping positive
Sometimes the human spirit really can surprise you in very positive and uplifting ways. Here in our uniquely Italian experience we have the 6pm music from balconies, which have been shared widely on social media; the hashtag “#iorestoacasa” (I stay at home) being used by Italians to share experiences and homemade posters in windows saying Andrà tutto bene” (Everything will be fine).
Italians love food. This might seem a bit of a “bear shits in the woods” statement but I really want to impress on you what this means on a daily basis. You can’t seem to avoid talking about food with Italians at some point. Even Italian idioms and proverbs are mostly based on eating and drinking. The greatest thing about Italy is that you can buy good food everywhere. Step into any café, bar or restaurant and you will eat something freshly prepared, simple and good. Eating out is something that happens at least once a week because it’s relatively cheap, given the quality of the food available. There are multiple butchers, grocers, fishmongers, Pasticceria (cake and pastries shops), Sfogline (handmade pasta shops), Pane (bread shops) Salumeria (cured and cooked meats and cheeses) as well as markets and various speciality food shops over and above those.
Salumeria in a small mall
Sfogline (pasta) shop at Easter
A corner café bar. Breakfast and lunch
Specialty food on every street
Italians simply wouldn’t stand for it if great produce
became so unaffordable as to be elitist, but also recognise the value (and
cost) of food produced slowly with skill, care and tradition and are willing to
pay more money for it. As Italy has retained its specialist food outlets and
market shopping culture people tend to eat seasonally and locally so food miles
are largely irrelevant. It’s hard to buy out of season here. If you want to eat
sausages from Sicily you go to Sicily. In western countries we can have a lot
of food waste because people want the premium cuts, but not the other meat that
is left once they are removed which has led to the rise of “Nose
to tail” eating. In Italy they eat most of the animals they butcher. They
have built food industries around the inventive and delicious ways they
transform the less preferred parts such as the Florentine speciality Lampredotto
(cow’s stomach sandwich) etc.
Tagliere (local meats and cheeses sliced) from Tamburini
Often people we meet are really surprised we have moved here.
People usually move away to places like the UK for work and to progress their
careers. This reversal makes them curious. When we say “for the food” they
spread their arms warmly, smiling and nodding because it’s obvious and it makes
sense to them. Even people who have initially seemed hostile melt when they
know we are interested in their food. They know they have great food. They will
start advising you on what’s best to eat, where and when. They want to know
what you have eaten already, where and what you thought.
If we have to generalise* and for reasons of space and humour we are going to, Italians are hyper regional. Everyone you meet is likely to tell you where they are from, as in which specific part they were born in as soon as tell you their name, because in Italy it’s a really important part of your identity. Tied to the regional identity is a sense of pride about whatever food that region produces for example a Neapolitan talking about pizza is an obvious one, but they will detail the dough, the mozzarella and the tomatoes. You will get the same from Florentine talking about beef steak, bread and olive oil and Bolognese talking about tortelloni, or tagliatelle or Ragu etc.
A very brief history of Italy
To put this into some context you need to remember that
Italy has only existed as a country since 1861, the same year in which “Great
Expectations” by Charles Dickens was released in book form, HMS Warrior the
first completely iron ocean going ship was launched, Abraham Lincoln became US
President and the American Civil war started (84 years after the start of the
American war of independence) and Tsar Alexandra emancipated Russian serfs. Before
this time Italy was a set of city states which occupied the same peninsula, often
at war with each other and many of which were variously occupied by foreign powers
and empires. Even in 1861 not all the city states joined immediately with some
joining after 1918 when Italy defeated Austro-Hungary in WW1. While others like
Piedmont were broken up with Nice given to France in return for their military
support. San Marino still hasn’t joined and retains its independent status.
The result is that those regional identities and traditions are very strong and many people speak the dialect of their home region with some older people only able to speak dialect and not modern Italian at all. This accentuates the things that the regions have in common as part of a communal identity; such as their dedication to their food. Much of the history of Italy that we know is centred on the History of the Roman empire, the Holy Roman Empire (dissolved 1906) and the Roman Catholic church or the powerful families such as the Medici’s who ruled city states, with the rest of what is now Italy only being included in historical reports as geographical conquests by various others. ‘Italian Unification’ (En.wikipedia.org, 2019)
Map of italy
Regionality and food
Each region has a set of speciality products because of the
unique geographical and agricultural features of that area. I’ve been told that
the Island of Sardinia, contrary to what you might imagine, does not enjoy a
coast that is particularly good for fish, except in one specific area. However,
it is quite mountainous so it’s famous for its sheep products. Apparently, Bologna
does not have olive oil because all the olive trees on the surrounding hills
were killed in an unusually prolonged spell of very cold weather a couple of
hundred years ago. The oil produced had not been great whereas the olive oil in
nearby Tuscany is so instead of replacing the olive trees they planted Sangiovese
(red) and Pignoletto (white) grape vines to create the wines which the region
is now famous for and used butter for cooking.
As well as being proud of their home regions food, Italians have
extensive knowledge about the produce from every region and understand where
the best examples of each kind of food can be found and when it is at its best,
by breed, by species and by season. They believe in the “terroir” of food. Someone
gave me the example of a Neapolitan chef making pizza at a high end place in
New York who had taken to shipping the pizza ingredients from Naples to New
York, everything from the flour and water to the tomatoes, mozzarella and herbs
in an effort to get the pizza to taste as good as it does at home. It still did
not taste right so he bought a machine to recreate the exact humidity too
because it all matters.
Bologna is in the region called Emilia Romagna, but this is comprised of two regions that have traditionally fought each other, so you hear a lot of arguments about where Emilia ends and Romagna begins depending on with which one your allegiances lie. Emilians don’t rate piadine as these are Romangnola, but swear by crescente, which to the less discerning eye are incredibly similar flat breads you fold food into. Generally, I have found that when I am recommended something as the best tomato variety for a summer salad with mozzarella and basil everyone will agree where you go to get that tomato. There is a generosity in recognising the superiority of another area’s product e.g. the Bolognese for example will all happily agree that they are rubbish at any other types of bread and recommend the bread of other regions.
Thankfully Lasagne is Bolognese
Food fight
Of course, with this much everyday passion and knowledge about food for Italians they don’t really understand that this is not usual for everyone or why we make mistakes with their food. Part of the problem for the rest of us is that our cookbooks and TV chefs have continued to provide inauthentic recipes for Anglicised or Americanised versions of dishes, but kept the Italian names or given them Italian names that they don’t deserve or suggested that they are somehow Italian when they aren’t. No one has any issues with adapting dishes, but when you have spent centuries cultivating your produce and the resulting dishes to their optimum its galling to have someone present something entirely other and say it’s the same thing. We don’t have that same kind of repeatable food culture, ours is much more of a make do and mend approach to cooking. If I can’t find what I need for the dish or don’t have what’s on the list, I will substitute it for something else. That’s fine, it makes sense, who hasn’t done that, but it’s a different dish. Bearing in mind most Italian dishes are very simple and only involve a small number of ingredients, any substitution is a significant change. Perhaps we should take more credit for our inventiveness and give our dishes new names. If we really feel the need we can always say Inspired by and then name the dish we didn’t quite make. While it’s true a rose by any other name would smell as sweet, you would be annoyed if you paid for a dozen red roses and some badly sprayed daffs turned up.
An example of this food adaptation is “Spaghetti Bolognaise”. This dish is neither Italian nor from Bologna. Italian people even tell me that it doesn’t exist. Why, I hear you ask? Firstly, it uses spaghetti, right there in the name. Spaghetti is a dried pasta from further south and does not contain egg. The Bolognese specialise in fresh egg pasta such as tagliatelle or stuffed egg pastas like tortelloni and tortellini. Everybody knows spaghetti is not from Bologna. Secondly, the sauce is not one that Italians recognise. There is a Bolognese meat sauce called Ragù. Indeed, a traditional Bolognese dish is Tagliatelle alla Ragù. Ragù is not the same as the meat sauce in most of the “Spaghetti Bolognaise” recipes you see in UK and US cookbooks and definitely not related to anything you can buy in a jar. It is often made from veal and pork rather than beef mince and is closer to a kind of stew. So even if the Bolognese sauce being referred to was Ragù, there is no way it would be served with spaghetti. There are restaurants in Bologna (and elsewhere in Italy) that cater to the tourists’ insatiable enthusiasm for an “authentic spaghetti Bolognaise” by putting it on their menus and, like the locals, we avoid those places.
“Knowledge is knowing that a tomato is a fruit; wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad.”
Miles Kington
Italians are proud of their pizza too and something which
comes up in my classes all the time is putting pineapple on pizza. They think
this is disgusting and want me to confirm if it is true that other countries do
this or not because they are not sure if it’s a kind of urban myth. There are
only a handful of truly original pizzas which includes the margherita and the
marinara. This has been extended to include other Italian products such as
salsiccia and friarelli (sausage and a kind of broccoli), the four cheese and four
seasons pizzas etc. However, they have not extended into adding any non-Italian
foods such as Pineapple. In fact, many will tell you they never have fruit on
pizza, but it is possible they don’t recognise the fig as a fruit (tomatoes not
withstanding).
At other times the pitfalls can be harder to miss for a non-native. The other day I was running a conversation class, where a small group of English language students are given a topic to discuss in English, when as usual we moved onto food. They were trying to describe something called Arrosticini to me, which in my defence they described as meat on sticks cooked over a flame, so I said innocently “Ok, like a kebab” and wrote Shish kebab on the board. There was a collective sharp intake of breath followed by some vigorous head shaking and furious declarations that these were not the same at all. One woman said to me “You must not say that again. It is not like a kebab. People will be offended”. I obviously erased the words and moved the conversation on, hoping that they were writing it off as my English ignorance about the culinary world. I know people in England can get upset about the correct content of a Cornish pasty (as well as the crimp), or whether you should put cream or jam on a scone first, but these people are few and far between, so the depth of the reaction I caused came as quite a surprise. Anyway, for the uninitiated arrosticini is meat or fish and vegetables on a skewer and then cooked over flame, which as “any fule kno” is not like a kebab at all, ok?
Arrosticini
If you would like more information on how we get Italian food wrong or how passionate they are about it there is a Facebook account for that: Italians mad at food
Artisanal food production and modern life
You only need to go to nearby places like Parma (Parma Ham and Parmesan cheese) and Modena (Balsamic vinegar) to see that tradition as well as place is a big part of the Italian attitude towards food. Often eschewing modern production methods which might increase yields but would damage quality the artisanal nature of the product is respected. It is the price required for the quality of the resulting product. Processes and recipes largely unchanged for generations. Handmade pasta is the preserve of the Nonna, with pretty much everyone telling you about their memories of their Nonna making pasta by hand for special occasions, like Christmas and Easter (something which is dying out if you are to believe www.pastagrannies.com). Pasta is made on a more commercial scale now in shops full of experienced Sfogline hand rolling, cutting and stuffing pasta to fill seasonal orders. The artisan is a figure revered in Italy and while modern life is eroding this to some extent it is still very much in evidence in all aspects of Italian life. Apparently people used to cook at home every night and then buy food at the weekend because they were busy, now they buy ready meals or eat out in the week because they are busy with work and only cook at the weekends because then they have more time.
Parmesan
Balsamic Vinegar
It is not just in terms of when they cook and who is cooking that Italians attitude to food is changing. I noted that the students in my school were very excited because a KFC had just opened. Now in Bologna this may have had a little extra frisson because Chicken is not a local speciality so it isn’t on every menu and not all of the city super markets (express supermarkets) sell whole chicken or unprocessed chicken, but it might be because these are brands they have grown up with in the cinema or on TV but didn’t have. Certainly, the McDonalds I pass by twice a day in the centre of Bologna is depressingly full. I hope they know that is not how good burgers should taste.It is not just in terms of when they cook and who is cooking that Italians attitude to food is changing. I noted that the students in my school were very excited because a KFC had just opened. Now in Bologna this may have had a little extra frisson because Chicken is not a local speciality so it isn’t on every menu and not all of the city super markets (express supermarkets) sell whole chicken or unprocessed chicken, but it might be because these are brands they have grown up with in the cinema or on TV but didn’t have. Certainly, the McDonalds I pass by twice a day in the centre of Bologna is depressingly full. I hope they know that is not how good burgers should taste.
I heard that Starbucks was going to open a branch in Bologna
and it made me sad. Italy. All of Italy, everywhere. Makes excellent coffee. An
espresso in an artisanal coffee place where you can pick your beans costs
£1.20. A perfect cappuccino £1.70. I have never had a Starbucks that was a
patch on any coffee I ever had in Italy, although to be fair my Starbucks
experience is limited to two branches. However, I was heartened when I spoke to
someone in one of my business groups and he explained that, for them, Starbucks
was not about the coffee. It was somewhere to hang out, somewhere to have a
meeting. In Italian coffee bars you go to get an espresso, drink it and leave.
Customers are rarely in the shop for longer than it takes to eat a brioche.
Starbucks would not replace Italian coffee bars but did offer something else.
Two students were completing an activity where they had to
discuss the available options on their pre-printed hand outs and decide where
to go for dinner. At the end of the activity they revealed they had picked the
fast food restaurant. I explained that with all the great produce and food in
Bologna I was surprised and disappointed. They argued that they had wanted to
go to the seafood restaurant, but fish is expensive and they were only students.
Then they pointed out that there wasn’t any other choice as there wasn’t an Italian
restaurant on the list!
Italians and new food ideas
There is a side effect from all this history and local food
pride that we had not expected but that probably was inevitable. Italians can
appear unadventurous when it comes to food. Don’t let me be misunderstood, they
will eat every single bit of the pig, tripe is a speciality of the beef region
(Firenze), meats are often cured not cooked, some fish and meat are best served
raw, etc. Italians are not squeamish about food, but they know which of their
foods go together and so the idea of trying anything outside of their, as I
already detailed, encyclopaedic knowledge of food seems unnecessary. This isn’t
to say that every family doesn’t have their own secret nonna recipe for the food
of their region, but it will be variation on process and possibly varieties
rather than key ingredients.
There are some Chinese restaurants, there is in increase in appetite for Sushi (often served by Chinese restaurants) and now Mexican too. Mexican might seem odd in this context but given that a fajita or burrito is not that dissimilar to a piadine, being that it is round flat bread with something folded into it, is not all that surprising. Aside from the occasional Arabic Kebab shop with the trademark Doner slowly turning behind the counter, and the usual usurping fast food chains, these are the only foreign food establishments you are likely to find with any regularity. Most of the Italians I have spoken to in Bologna have eaten in one or all of these and enjoy them however, it must be stressed that Bologna is a famously cosmopolitan University city so there is possible more appetite for opening up to new cultures and food ideas here than in other parts of Italy.
Italy is not preserved in aspic, it has not been cut off from
the rest of the world for generations, they just don’t really think of food
outside of what they are familiar with. There is a certainty that this is the
way to do it. They are really good at what they do and it leads them to produce
some of the best products in the world, but this rigidity to what can be eaten
with what and when can also seem to be its limitation. For example, there is a
three Michelin starred restaurant in Modena, called Osteria Francescana with an
Italian chef Massimo Bottura, who has also worked in the US. He had upset the
locals of Modena by changing Italian classics for example by producing a pesto
recipe that does not use pine nuts. While he is happy to celebrate and present
the fabulous food and produce of Italy, he is also not afraid to change and
challenge, which has not always earned him fans here. However, I note that his
name often comes up in class as an example of the international recognition and
acclaim for Italian food and, especially amongst the young professionals, the
restaurant is suggested as a goal for a once in a lifetime food experience.
Italians and the future
To sum up there is a strong, embedded and enviable food
culture that honours and promotes the history, geography and skill of quality
food production and which generates an unprecedented number of unique,
fantastic products. Its value is passionately felt at all levels by Italians as
a source of regional and national pride. It’s possible that the rigidity which
has preserved these processes, skills and ideas about food could also stifle
creativity and innovation. This could be especially problematic given the
current socio-economic situation, Trump’s EU trade tariffs and the
environmental impacts of global warming on the conditions that allow some of
these products to be produced here. Each of these issues could be incredibly
damaging for the diversity and volume of production. However, it should be
remembered that Italians have been cultivating their produce in largely the
same way for centuries, despite numerous wars, the rise and fall of empires, occupations
and invasions, floods and droughts. It might be a different kind of challenge
but with passion for food being part of the Italian identity, I think they got
this.
*disclaimer: this article also includes suggestions, anecdotes and explanations repeated verbatim that may not have any bearing on reality and with which other Italians will strongly disagree.
References
‘Italian Unification’ (En.wikipedia.org, 2019) <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italian_unification#Background> accessed 29 November 2019
When thinking about what would happen work wise in Italy our assumption was that Al would easily find work as he has a trade and useable skills that are not solely reliant on language. Everyone is always desperate to get hold of good chefs because the work is hard, the hours long and anti-social, and many people don’t stay in the industry for long. Our concern was about what I would do given my skills rely almost totally on my ability to communicate, in English, and I do not have anything like the comparable level of Italian. In the event both Al and I managed to get jobs quite quickly, however both of our interview experiences were quite different.
It’s unfortunate that in an interview sometimes things can seem so black and white.
Gisele Bundchen Read more at https://www.brainyquote.com/topics/interview-quotes
Al’s interviews
Al’s first interview was at an out of town hotel which specialises in conferences and weddings. Al had been applying for jobs in Italy before we left and although we had only been in the country for three weeks we were a bit surprised to have had no responses at all. He had sent emails to many places and trekked across Bologna to personally deliver his CV to a couple of others he thought would be good to work at. This was the first response he had so although the Hotel did not look all that great, and the cooking not really his thing, he drove out to it with a great deal of concern about his level of Italian and how it would stand up in an interview.
Italian textbook
When he arrived at the Hotel and went to reception, he discovered that the person interviewing him was a manager not the chef. Not something he was used to, but it is a different country so who knows what else is different, perhaps the chef would join the meeting. The previous candidate told Al to go through and he met the manager who did not get up from her desk to greet him or shake hands. Most of the exchange was completed in Italian, but from the beginning it was clear that the manager had deep suspicions about the idea of a British Chef. Her interview style can best be described as adversarial. She wanted to know why he was in Italy and why he could not get a job in England. He told her that he could get a job in the UK but wanted to learn Italian cooking. This incensed her more. They needed a chef who could already cook not one that needed training. He told her that he was a qualified chef with 10 years of experience. She wanted to know what he could cook, for him to actually describe all the things he can cook, the ingredients used and the methods deployed. She delighted in telling him that she had eaten in Italian restaurants in England many times and they were all bad. As Al began to lose his temper and if you know him you know that this is a fairly slow burn, the Italian slipped and he spoke more English to express his anger and frustration. He left the interview confident that even if he had somehow miraculously got the job, he didn’t want it. We are still not sure why he was invited to interview in the first place, unless she wanted to see a British chef with her own eyes or just used arguing with potential candidates as a stress reliever.
Al delivering CVs to all the restaurants in FICO
So, it was with a natural increase in trepidation and concern that he set out for his second interview. He had been invited to attend the interview at FICO, which I have talked about in the Stuff and Things post. It is a “food centric theme park featuring eateries, pop-stores, demonstrations & hands-on exhibits” (Google search result for FICO, 2019). This invitation followed a weekend where he had handed out CVs at every restaurant on site. He met with the co-owner of the restaurant and discovered it was the sister restaurant of another, Michelin starred, restaurant in Rimini. The Head Chef joined them when he could, service permitting. The interview was conducted largely in Italian and about 15 minutes in Al was offered the role. English was only used when they were talking about contract specifics as it turned out the owner lived in London for a couple of years and spoke excellent English, but thought Al was doing so well in Italian that there was no need to interrupt him! The Chef at the restaurant does not speak English and the fact that he was able to do the interview in Italian helped him get the job. He has been working in an Italian kitchen where none of the Kitchen Staff speak English (the waiting staff speak good English) for 5 months now and has learned a lot in both cooking and language terms.
One of the argricultural zones at FICO
Jennie’s interviews
As I mentioned previously, when we told people we met here that I was not sure what I would do for a job, it seemed to them obvious to them that I would be an English language teacher. I have no experience of teaching, but as a native speaker with a degree the feeling seemed to be that it was natural I would do this and so I enrolled in the on-line Teaching English as a Foreign Language (TEFL) course and set about researching English schools in Bologna.
When you are trying to get a job in a new field obviously you
must tailor your CV to bring out the relevant experience and remove anything
irrelevant. I have designed and run multiple training courses and workshops and
presented on complex topics many times so I was able to draw those elements out,
as well as working with and managing teams which were located in different
countries and for whom English was not their first language. However, it was
hard for me to remove my other achievements which were hard won with some of
them leaving (metaphorical) scars. Ultimately, they would mean nothing to
someone looking for an English language teacher. Just because I had removed
them from my CV didn’t mean that they had not been achieved nor that they would
not make a reappearance on a future CV. I pacified myself that if I was able to
shoehorn one or two of them into any competency-based questions or examples in
an interview then great, but otherwise it was time to let it go.
I sent CVs to the top English language schools in Bologna and two weeks later I received a call from one of them to come in for a chat. English Language Schools are looking to assess your level of English and your ability to communicate clearly so my phone calls and interviews were in English, which is handy for me. I received the call to the second English school a week later. Both of my first interviews were at the Bologna branches of two different nationwide English Language school for adults and had a number of similarities. For both I was super careful not to make it sound as though I thought that because I had provided training and had other educational related experience, I would automatically be able to teach. They both agreed that the skills I had picked out in my CV were transferable and would be useful for me as a teacher. They thought that having me teach English at a business client’s might be the best fit. They had other people to interview so they would let me know if I was going to go onto the next phase of recruitment. Initially I thought they went quite well, but obviously both times I got back to the Air B&B I had convinced myself I had stuffed them up however, both schools invited me for a second interview.
We found time to celebrate Liberation day
There were also a few differences in the interviews at the two schools. While the first interview at the first school was over in fifteen minutes, I found the Programme manager at the second school much easier to talk to and the interview took longer but mainly because we were talking about Trump and music. The two schools also diverged in the later stages of their recruitment processes. I don’t know how regularly English speakers blow into Bologna looking for work, but certainly often enough for some healthy competition.
At the first school, during the second interview, they invited me to come back and to do an example lesson. This was the first I had heard of this kind of thing, but apparently, it is quite common in education. This does make sense but given that I had confessed to having no experience, had 2 weeks of the professional online course under my belt and had checked that the school provided both full training and lessons plans, I was a bit flummoxed. They wanted a 15 minute lesson on “anything I liked” and their staff would “play” my students. I am not a gifted actress. While I have no issue delivering training, running workshops or presenting, this is because I am an expert in what I am training or presenting. I felt that delivering a class I had made up, with no experience to two people pretending to be foreign students, was a performance. I must admit, I even curtseyed at the end glad to have survived it. I left the example lesson feeling confident with the good feedback I received, but once again by the time I had walked home I was full of “shoulda, woulda, coulda”.
I bravely managed to continue eating between interviews
For the second interview at the second school I was not alone. Another candidate called April was there and this was also her second interview. The Programme leader was quick to say his school did not do Example lessons. He would provide training on how the English language course worked and then we would discuss the next steps of recruitment. He told us that he had two roles available, but that he had more people coming in for interview. He was hoping to set up one larger training course so we could all do it together, presumably as part of the selection process. When he stepped out of the room, I introduced myself to April and we had a chat. It turned out she had done an example lesson at the first school on the same day as me but, had already been told she had not been successful. At the end of the interview April and I exchanged phone numbers so we could swap tips about the job and living in Italy generally with each other.
I don’t know if there were ever any other candidates or not, but on the scheduled training session it was only April and I. We learned all about the levels and the course material. We observed different lesson types and I was not sure when the training would end and the getting paid for our time would start. At the end of every training session there was another training session scheduled and we didn’t know if we were even going to get the job at the end of the training. Finally, when we were being told about yet another training session I just came out and asked when we would know if we had the job? It turned out we both had the job provided we successfully delivered an hour-long class, with real students, while being observed! We had a weekend to prepare and I opted to go first because my nerves did not need more time to undermine me.
We also managed another move
During the lesson the Programme Director and the Centre Director observed from behind a class divider screen, which meant I couldn’t get Shakespeare’s line “…behind the arras.” out of my head through the whole thing. I had a great student and the feedback I received was very positive indeed so I went home to await my first week’s classes (5 hours the first week and rising until the end of the month). I am not going to go into the many weird vagaries of Italian contracts, partly because it is really boring and partly because I am not sure I understand. Anyway, I had it, a contract for a job in a completely new field!
Post script
On the first day of work April and I were due to be teaching at slightly different times so the Programme Director could be on hand. When I arrived he asked if I had heard from her, and I hadn’t. Apparently, she had messaged him to say she had to return to the UK immediately. I sent a message wishing her well and asking if there was anything I could do to help and have not yet had a reply. There are an infinite number of things that could have happened ranging from the mundane to the sinister and I will probably never know which. I would just like to say wherever you are out there April, I hope everything is ok?
“The greatest weapon against stress is our ability to choose one thought over another,”
William James
One of the reasons Al and I decided to make this change was because we were both suffering with stress. Al from the stress of being a Chef and partner in a business and me from working in a management role in Information Security for an American bank. Our jobs were very stressful and meant that we had different days off and usually only saw each other for about an hour at the end of the day, when we would eat and catch up. We both spent a lot of time trying to ensure the other one was ok and had what they needed to get through, supporting each other during various moments of crisis, such as when I was being bullied by my boss or when Al worked every single day for 3 months. It was hard and we were tired.
I was approaching 42 with a decision to make whether to push myself for a promotion at work that would have meant even more stress or walk away. While we still had a plan to start our own business, we were too tired and strung out to know exactly what the business would look like or where we would base it. We had a lot of ideas, but no concrete plan. It still seemed like a pipe dream, a carrot to get us past all the sticks.
Like many people Al and I always want to be the best at what we do. We work hard and put all our efforts into what we are doing and we both thrive on a certain level of stress. I know that at work being able to stay calm and rational during a stressful incident or situation and being able to pull everything together to get through it successfully is not only something that I was able to do well, but something I actually enjoyed and in professional cookery a busy service is similar, so in many ways we are our own worst enemies. However there comes a level of on-going stress and anxiety, where you do not feel in control of it and do not know if you will be able to get through it, never mind successfully and that is very damaging. At various points we have both had prolonged periods of this kind of stress.
As chronic stress heads and anxious people with a healthy dose
of imposter syndrome, we had tried many self-help solutions, with meditation,
breathing exercises and Cognitive Behavioural therapy becoming occasional but
regular parts of our lives, however we recognised that the only lasting solution
was to change our lives. What we decided to do, potentially symptomatic of the
people we are, was to quit our jobs, rent out our house and move to another
country, with another language and to see how we got on. The idea was to change
so much that we could focus on what really mattered to us and what we really
wanted.
What became apparent quite quickly is that we found other
things to stress about. On the drive through France, we stressed about keeping
to our timetable and driving on the other side of the road. When we arrived we
stressed about our broken down van. Then Al stressed about not finding a job in
the first 3 weeks we were here, we both stressed about our level of Italian. We
stressed about not being the best at language school. I stressed about how I would be able to get a
job, we stressed (and still stress) about not having an apartment. We stressed
about having to move all the time. As each stress was resolved, we found new
things stressing us out. At one point I had a panic attack about having
periodontitis because I was convinced my gums were receding. We had made real
change but we were still stressed!
The truth is, so far as I have observed, that while work and other things can put you under stress and put you in stressful situations, you can also get dependent on the stress. Dependent on the adrenaline flooding through your body when you are managing a difficult situation and then the escalation to panic when you don’t feel in control and don’t know if the outcome will be successful. When you cut off the source, if you do not deal with your own responses to stress, you can start to generate the stress yourself. It’s like your body craves the feeling of the response. You stress about things that would otherwise bounce off you. Your body is like “What happened to all my stress hormones man, I need that shit to function.” You find yourself in a cold sweat because you can’t remember the Italian word for the thing in your dream, which when you really concentrate on it, was not a real thing anyway. You have built yourself for stress. Your systems are optimised for cortisol and then you turned off the tap.
Often children stress about things and we think, ah bless them, they think they are stressed but this is not really a problem. I think this is wrong, the stress is the same, it is relative, but this is our first opportunity to teach them how to deal with it in a healthy way. I do not pretend that I have conquered my stress or that I can point you in the direction of a cure. What I can tell you is that when you take yourself out of a stressful situation you take yourself and your existing response with you. You need to think about how you can manage your stress better so that when you are in genuinely difficult situations you are more resilient and have healthier responses. As I have learned this is not as simple as removing a specific stress stimuli, although this is helpful in the short term, it is about facing your problematic responses and identifying a better way for you to respond.
When you are busy and your body has stepped up its stress response, the temptation is to put your head down and “get through it”. This often means you will not sleep properly because your thought patterns will be in cyclical phase so you constantly obsess about the same worry or comment you made or how you will deal with tomorrow etc. The lack of sleep will mean you are more likely to make mistakes or take something personally or feel like you are not doing a good job. Your brain will reward you by negative thinking about you and your situation. You are going to be found out, you don’t have the skills, you are rubbish because you are tired, you are rubbish because you’re rubbish. You will be sacked, everyone knows you are rubbish, everyone hates you. Why did you think that you would be able to do this etc.? Situations are blown out of all proportion and you are not able to think clearly and logically.
Something which is completely counterintuitive to the “head down, get through it” urge, which I think is natural and culturally persistent, is to breathe and step back. . There is a reason why all the advice is about deep breathing and walking away to get perspective. When I realised that I was essentially having a panic attack about a non-existent problem with my gums, I knew it was about my body’s cold turkey of other stress, but and I can’t emphasise this enough, it did not make any difference to how I felt. The panic was real, the feeling was real. When I looked into the mirror I saw receding gums. I had to find a way to address it that my mind would find acceptable. I tried to be rational about it and I found an English speaking dentist on line, made an appointment and he was indeed able to re-assure me. It seems simple, but it took me weeks of stress to do it, and truth be told Al phoned the dentist for me. This stress/panic cycle was ended, but I knew that it would be replaced by something else if I did not use the time now available to tackle the response to stress which I had spent years building and reinforcing with my behaviours.
Don’t get me wrong, I am in no way sorry about the decisions I have made in relation to this. I haven’t thought, well if I’m going to be stressed I might was well be stressed doing something I know well that pays better. Life is too short to be in a career you hate or working a job that you don’t like, because you are afraid to leave or scared by the uncertainty and insecurity that would bring, but changing it is only the first step. When you leave you have to take you with you, so you need to step back and really identify what the issues are for you, listen to what you need to change and be prepared to take those steps, including ones you could not have imagined when you set out.
However, the realisation that I was stressing partly because I wasn’t being stressed by work, was a revelation. When I voiced this to Al, he agreed. Our bodies were so primed for stress that they were essentially having to generate it. We were able to step back and consider our successes and what we had achieved given the gamble we had taken. Now we make an effort to regularly recap on how well we are progressing and what we have managed to achieve, as well as if there are any learning points we can take away from things that have not gone as well as we would have liked. We actually make time to stop and to discuss this with each other to prevent any build up of negative thinking and self-doubt. We take the time to be grateful about what we have. We stop and ask ourselves why we are getting emotional about things that are beyond our control and ask ourselves if they really matter.
We have started with lower level jobs and still have to remind ourselves that we are not being held responsible for the overall success of our organisations, only the parts we directly impact, but we are learning how to recognise the old responses, to step back from them and find another way. I do Yoga most days which I find really helpful after sitting cooped up at a desk with a stooped back for too many years. I also find the focus on breathing and being present very useful in helping my sub-conscious process things while my conscious mind is busy. Like many people I find meditation useful, but I struggle to fit it in everyday, although I am working on it. Although I am in a less stressful job I am building my resilience so when we are in the situation where we are ready to take on our own business, which will be very stressful, I don’t fall into the old patterns and negative behaviours which have impacted on my health and confidence.
As I said this is only my observation but if it resonates with you, I hope you will find it useful and remember it’s not ok for people or organisations to put you under stress or into stressful situations but to take heart from the knowledge that you can control your response.
“It’s not what happens to you, but how you react to it that matters.”
So far in our Italian adventure we have not been able to get
a permanent apartment. Like many other cities in Europe the rate of house
building has not kept pace with the rise in population. Although work can be
found, accommodation can be more difficult. Also like many other European
cities the supply available to rent to ordinary workers and residents has been
hit by air B&B and other holiday let websites. This means we find ourselves
in a paradox, using the available holiday apartments to rent for short periods
on a strictly no residency basis, while we search to secure a permanent
apartment from which to base ourselves. The holiday apartments are more
expensive than ordinary rentals and we can’t afford to keep staying in them
forever. Add to this the fact that we have no official residency, because we
don’t have an address. The address is an incredibly important part of your
Italian identify not least as it enables to have post delivered to you. We are
not able to have post or parcels delivered, buy a car, moped, get phone
contracts, unlimited wifi etc. Many people find renting with Air B&B favourable
because as well as the increase in rental value presumably the legislative
requirements for holiday rentals, if they are declared, are considerably less
than those required for residences, and if they are not declared, fairly non-existent.
Everyone here is looking for an apartment, or that’s what it
feels like. Agencies rarely have rentals in the windows because they go too
quickly. We have been told you have to call as soon as you get the notification
to your mailbox. We have personally visited multiple agencies who have never
contacted us and had nothing to show us when we were in their offices. We have
seen notices pasted to lamp posts by people also searching for apartments. We
have joined Facebook groups and watched other people posting adverts almost
identical to ours. We have told everyone that we have met that we are looking
for apartments and they have promised to let us know if they hear anything.
Some people have told us we will not be able to rent while we are on temporary
contracts, but initial temporary contracts are standard for new jobs in Italy.
Others have said we will not be able to rent without references; how will we be
able to get references when we can’t rent. Still we are searching.
In the meantime, we have lived in 3 very different air B&B in 3 beautiful parts of Bologna. The first was just outside of porta San Malmalo. It had a good-sized entrance hall, a reasonable sized double bedroom with lots of built in storage. The living space was nicely separated into kitchen dining and lounge zones. We had a set of French doors leading onto some private outdoor tiled space. It was smaller than we were used to but, in all honesty, there are only two of us and we need to be more disciplined about use of space so it was encouraging us into good (tidier) habits. The apartment was only 30 minutes walk from the centre of Bologna (as are most places). The only downside of this apartment was that there was no guaranteed parking and we were using a public car park nearby which charged by the day. However, it became apparent that a month would not be enough time to secure a permanent apartment. We could not extend the apartment we were in as they had another booking, so we looked for another air B&B. We found a place that had a 50% discount for booking for a month and we took it.
Apartment San Mamalo
The new apartment was considerably bigger than the first and this one had loads of storage. It had two large bedrooms and two bathrooms. It was on the 7th floor and offered incredible views of the city. The floors were marble everywhere except the bedrooms which were wooden parquet. The kitchen was in a separate room and there was a separate study. We were certainly living in luxury and the apartment included a garage under the apartment building. We had a balcony that could be accessed by the French doors in either the lounge or dining room areas of the open plan living space. This apartment was close to the portes of Santo Stefano or Maggiore in the Murri district, a very popular residential spot, so we had alternative walks into the city each with their own pros and cons. Maggiore, for my money, was the prettiest walk in and led directly into the main high street in Bologna. It has porticos almost the whole way along it’s length so from where we joined the road from the apartment all the way into the centre of the city. Santo Stefano has porticos from the porta into the centre and the shops were more interesting. The end of this route brought you through the square of the 7 churches or if you preferred onto the designer stores of Piazza Cavore and via Farini. We loved the area here and the walk was a similar 30 minutes in. There were more shops near to our apartment, so we were spoilt for convenience. This is a very leafy area with tree lined avenues, and it’s close to the Giardini Margherita. Sadly, as we realised that we would not be moving into a permanent home any time soon we also had to leave this apartment, knowing we would probably never live anywhere so luxurious again.
The new apartment was considerably bigger than the first and this one had loads of storage. It had two large bedrooms and two bathrooms. It was on the 7th floor and offered incredible views of the city. The floors were marble everywhere except the bedrooms which were wooden parquet. The kitchen was in a separate room and there was a separate study. We were certainly living in luxury and the apartment included a garage under the apartment building. We had a balcony that could be accessed by the French doors in either the lounge or dining room areas of the open plan living space. This apartment was close to the portes of Santo Stefano or Maggiore in the Murri district, a very popular residential spot, so we had alternative walks into the city each with their own pros and cons. Maggiore, for my money, was the prettiest walk in and led directly into the main high street in Bologna. It has porticos almost the whole way along it’s length so from where we joined the road from the apartment all the way into the centre of the city. Santo Stefano has porticos from the porta into the centre and the shops were more interesting. The end of this route brought you through the square of the 7 churches or if you preferred onto the designer stores of Piazza Cavore and via Farini. We loved the area here and the walk was a similar 30 minutes in. There were more shops near to our apartment, so we were spoilt for convenience. This is a very leafy area with tree lined avenues, and it’s close to the Giardini Margherita. Sadly, as we realised that we would not be moving into a permanent home any time soon we also had to leave this apartment, knowing we would probably never live anywhere so luxurious again.
The third and current Air B&B is in a very exclusive location. Located outside the porta Castiglione, which is between San Mamalo and San Stefano. The area is known as Colli, which means hills, and the road to San Luca (an important local site) runs up from porta Castiglione. The apartment buildings here are generally old and can be entirely private homes. I like to see how many mailbox names are listed as this indicates the number of households’ resident in the building. All the apartment buildings here are accessed by gates, usually automated. It is leafy and private. The apartment building, we are in has 7 households in the main building accessed through an imposing front door. We are down the gravel track around the back of the building in an apartment next to the garages. Many apartment buildings here include a custodian flat where the custodian’s family would live, looking after the maintenance of the building and grounds. We believe our apartment is the converted custodian flat. We have beautiful big windows and high ceilings. The owner has converted it tastefully with carefully selected antique furniture and light fittings. We have a private outside seating area and look out over the garden of the apartment building which itself looks over the tennis court of a neighbouring building. It is small so we are back to self-discipline and space management, but it is a truly beautiful apartment and location. Once again, we are 30 minutes’ walk from the centre along a new route, with new shops and sights to learn. We have been incredibly lucky and there is virtually no chance that we will be able to find or afford an apartment in any of the locations that we have stayed in so far. We have been very privileged to be able to stay in these places and have these experiences and we are just trying to relax and enjoy them while we can.
I didn’t want this blog to become a kind of diary entry and I am pretty sure no one is interested in a blow by blow account of everything that we do. For that reason I have put together a few bits and pieces of the things we have been doing and some things which I think might be of general interest.
Modena
Modena is a small town close to Bologna, which is famous for its balsamic vinegar. Proper Balsamic vinegar is nothing like the product you can buy in a supermarket or what you have had on your salad. A small bottle of properly produced balsamic vinegar will set you back at least £60 and will be used by the drop mixed with oil. What you can buy elsewhere are usually let down “ready to use” versions. The ancient process involves specific grapes fermented over a number of years with the product being transferred to smaller and smaller vessels as the ageing and reduction takes place, until the final product is available in the small glass jar with the ball base, which is unique to Modena. In our story it is also the town from which we had to hire a car when we broke down. As we knew the van was not going to be fixed until at least Monday we decided it was more cost effective to return the car, which we did not need to use during the week and was costing us a fortune in the local carpark. When we hired the car, it was late on a Friday, we had spent two hours at the side of the Italian motorway by our stricken vehicle and we just wanted to get onto Bologna, so we had not spent any time in the town. Returning the car gave us the opportunity for a little visit, although it would have to be brief as there was more rugby to watch.
Saturday morning we headed out to the car park to collect the car for the last time. As we drove to the Avis rental office, we appreciated the relative luxury of the Kuga. The inbuilt sat nav and in car charging etc. We handed the car over without pre-amble and a very minimal review of the returned condition. We consulted google maps and planned a route to the station via the centre of the town. Modena is much like other Italian towns, we have visited, a great mix of old buildings through time and modern commercial architecture. There was a flower and herb market taking place which made wandering around the streets and piazza even more delightful. Eventually we wended our way to the station, where it appeared the whole Modena orchestra was waiting to get on a train. The automated ticket machine was broken so we waited in the queue, unfortunately missing the cheaper regional train, but we did not want to wait another hour for the next regional service, so we opted to pay the extra for the Freccia Rosso. These are clean, pleasant, fast, modern trains, but they are double the price. As we have mentioned to just about everyone who asked us why we have chosen Bologna, one of the reasons it that it is a central location from where it is really easy to get to multiple other places. It has the largest station in Italy with 27 platforms in use. Florence is 35 minutes away, Milan an hour and a bit, Rimini (nearest bit of coast) 1 hour, Venice 1 and a half hours etc. You can even get a direct train to Berlin! On this occasion the train was slightly late, but we were back in Bologna within 20 minutes so plenty of time to pick up some lunch before heading to the Cluricaune for more Rugby, where Wales delighted us with yet another win, setting up the possibility of their achieving the Grand Slam, which of course, they did.
Tandem (language) dates
We have retained our weekly Italian lesson with our usual Italian teacher over Skype to help us settle in. In our first lesson after we had been to school for the initial week, we were keen to show her how much we had improved as well as to discuss our concerns about what we were struggling with, namely listening and speaking. Elena had a great suggestion which was to see if there was a Facebook group for what she called “tandem” meet ups. This is where someone who wants to learn a language meets up with someone who wants to learn their language. The idea is that it is conversation in two languages so you can both improve as well as being social. We had never heard of this and were pleased to discover that there was indeed a Bologna tandem Facebook group, so Al put a message up. We were completely taken aback by how many people wanted to meet up and speak Italian/English with us. We had so many responses that Al spent a whole day composing Italian replies to each one. Within a day we had meetings set up on most available evenings and weekend days for two weeks starting from the first meeting scheduled for the following Saturday. As we were still fairly new to the city, we allowed the tandem partner to choose the meet up location. This way we get to see places that locals like and go to and improve our list of places to go to. We had already noticed that we were starting to go to the same places because we knew where they were and how they worked.
Our first Tandem, it is fair to say, did not go well. We felt very nervous as we had no idea what to expect. We worried about what to wear as if we were actually going on a date. We met the person who will remain nameless, because I have forgotten her name, at the feet of the two towers, a famous landmark in the centre of Bologna. She did not seem to have a plan for where to go but she just started walking and talking. It was hard to hear and speak while walking along busy city streets and when we asked her to suggest somewhere to go, she picked somewhere on the other side of the city near to our Air B&B. She could not hide her extreme disappointment that we were not American. She had an obsession for Americans and America and had put on her Facebook profile that she was from San Francisco, but she was born and bred Bolognese. She told us later she found our English accents very hard to understand and was critical of our Italian. We found her very impatient and unwilling to listen to what we were saying before talking again so she often misunderstood what we were saying in either language. When we made our excuses to leave it turned out she needed to walk back into the city too and so walked with us, it was quite awkward. She told us she was an Italian teacher for immigrant school children which made her slightly condescending manner make more sense and I felt quite sorry for them. She told us she would be able to help us a lot as we were like those children. As we left her, we said we would be in touch and as soon as we left her we agreed that we would not. We had two weeks of meetings to come and we began to think we had possibly made an error.
Our second meeting was much better. We met Myriam at Caffe Zamboni where we were going to have Aperitivo. The food was plentiful and included hot food trays as well as cold. Myriam was very interesting, she translates and adapts the vocal scripts for television and films in English. Obviously, her English is excellent, but she wants to keep her speaking practice going which is why she was looking for a tandem with English speakers. We spoke mainly in English and broken Italian. She was very patient and helpful. The meeting felt relaxed and social. At the end we were happy to meet with her again. Our following Tandem meetings have been similarly successful and all the other people that we have met we are planning to meet again, although we have not met with everyone who replied to the message yet!
Talking Italian (Robert De Niro is not waiting)
While I was glued to my laptop for the last two weeks of work in the old career with JP Morgan, Al was using MO bikes to tear around the city trying to get us “legal”.
This started with something called the Codici Fiscali which is the Italian equivalent of the National Insurance number. You need this for just about everything, but luckily it is listed as one of the easier Italian bureaucratic hurdles to overcome. MO bikes, as you might have guessed, are city based rental bikes like the Boris bikes or other local equivalents. While the van was still in the garage, they were invaluable to Al for getting to the various far flung civic offices he needed to visit. His trip to the out of town office to get his Codici was difficult and he struggled to pull his Italian together. He was interrogated by a rude civil servant about why he was in Italy and why he couldn’t get a job in his own country, once Al managed to explain that he was able to get a job in England, but he wanted to learn Italian cooking the atmosphere thawed considerably. Italians generally and Bolognese in particular, love their food. The next day Al was able to go and collect the van so when I went to get my Codici we were able to go in that and the office was less busy, the receptionist told me which bits of the form to fill in and the civil servant was lovely, he even made a little Brexit joke.
Al was desperately trying to get us on a more permanent footing with the original 29th March Brexit deadline looming over us. We had been given the idea that we needed a permesso di soggiorno, which could be submitted to the Post office for processing. The form required could also be picked up from the post office, however not all branches had them and the branch that did would not let Al have two. Eventually after much blood, sweat and Mo biking Al managed to score two forms and we set about completing them. We needed to copy the Codici, bank records to show we could support ourselves and every page of the passport. Al went to submit his first as I was still working and you needed to present some of the documents in person as well as provide copies. After a lengthy discussion with the woman at the post office he was able to submit this and he was provided with an appointment at the Immigration office. When we went together in my lunch break the post office would not accept mine because as we are EU citizens, we don’t need the permesso. They understood our Brexit concerns and apologised that Al’s application had been accepted but insisted I could not submit an application. They directed us to the civic office in the city centre for a different form. The next day we went there and were directed to the Immigration office, we went there and spoke to a lovely policeman who told us not to worry, we didn’t need anything right now, we were EU citizens we had the right to stay and if a no deal Brexit did happen, something would be arranged. We went home a little confused and despondent. On speaking with our Internations EU friends we discovered what we needed was residency. Residency is granted by the local council where you live, but in order to get this we needed an address, so the hunt for an apartment was stepped up. Luckily about this time the Brexit deadline was extended to 12th April, giving us a little more time, which has now morphed into sometime before October 20th.
The bank provided Al’s next language challenge. He had
researched on line and identified that there was a non-residents account which
foreigners could get, however the bank agent Al spoke to originally didn’t know
how to open it, so she made an appointment for him to come back. It took two
hours for them to go through all the paper work, but he walked away with
account details and a cash machine card.
Getting an Italian mobile proved to be the least difficult
of all Al’s herculean tasks. He was able to get a basic contract fairly cheaply
and they were not bothered about an address. Al bought a really old phone (8
years vintage) from the Bologna branch of CEX and we have had much hilarity
remembering a time before touch screens when all sites look like text messages
and you had to use the scroll bar to navigate the, limited, options and there
are no apps. However, it has meant we can put an Italian phone number on our
CVs and documents rather than our UK ones, although we are terrified of someone
calling us because our Italian listening and speaking skills are not great.
Santa Stefano
Internations
Internations is an online ex-pat community, they have branches in 432 cities worldwide where people who have relocated to an area can meet each other and locals. They provide online guides and help with the issues new arrivals might face. The Bologna branch is quite active and has at least one social event per month at different venues in the city. When we went to the first meeting we prepared as best we could, learning some sentences to describe ourselves and why were in Bologna in Italian as best we could. Luckily there were a number of English-speaking people there and at this initial meeting we mostly spoke English. Some of the people at the meeting had been in Italy for decades and others for only a few years. The ability to speak Italian varied a great deal with the English speakers, some were fluent, and others had less Italian than us, which gave us a degree of comfort about our language skills. We were speaking to an American who teaches English as a foreign language and he thought I would not have any problems getting a job as an English teacher. This became a theme at many of our meetings, indeed at the next meeting an Italian asked me why I wasn’t an English teacher, I explained that I had not completed the qualification, but she thought my degree would be enough, so the next day I enrolled on the online course and started applying for jobs.
Basic membership is free but does not give you full access
to the site so we decided that Al would take the subscription membership and I
would stay with basic. It means I pay more when we go to events and I don’t
have the same access to messages and to invite others into my network, but
otherwise I can usually see events and accept invitations. Event fees usually
include your first drink and a buffet, but you need to be quick with the food
as it soon goes. One of the Italians we met told us that she looks up the
nearest branch when she goes abroad on holiday and if they are having an event
while she is visiting, she goes along to get local top tips. There is a Southampton branch if you
want to check it out. It’s been so useful for us I am going to upgrade my
membership.
These events are definitely helping us to get settled in a set up a new network as we have met many interesting people from all over the world that live here. People are interested in our story, our desire to make such a big change and are really supportive. We are getting a core set of friends we meet up with at the events and then go onto other venues with. Everyone sympathises with the apartment situation and give us what advice and contacts they can, but the cold fact is it is hard.
Where we have been visiting
Giardini Margherita
We paid our first visit to the Giardini Margherita on the Sunday before I had to return to work (alright working from home). For Southampton residents the Giardini is like a slightly smaller version of the common with a cafés and bars scattered across it, a basketball court and there is also a beautiful set of buildings converted to artists working space with a restaurant and bar. The park is surrounded by some of the loveliest old apartment buildings in Bologna
MAMbo
Mambo is the name of the Modern Art Museum of Bologna. Each city has a regional code which you need on all official documentation and for Bologna it is BO in the same way that Southampton uses the SO post code as an identifier. This gallery has art from 1945 to the present. We only visited the permanent collection as the temporary exhibitions cost extra. We also ate brunch in the Gallery restaurant before we went it, this was our first experience of a brunch buffet and we nearly managed the whole thing in Italian but let ourselves down when we were not sure where to pay.
FICO (Eataly World)
Fico means fig in Italian, but it is also the name of the Eataly world food park. Eataly is an Italian produce chain that specialises in finding and selling excellent examples of regional sustainably produced foods at prices for everyone. They seek to retain the link between the produce, the production process and the producers (Italian agri-food biodiversity). FICO is the physical manifestation of its desire to keep these concepts together in the mind of the consumer. It’s hard to explain what FICO is, but it has a sort of derogatory nickname of the Disneyland of food, which does mostly cover it. It is on the outskirts of Bologna and includes livestock and agricultural zones on the outside and produce zones on the inside. At the entrance you can hire tricycles that have large food baskets on the front and back or you can just get a trolley. Entrance to the park is free and when you go in, there are large signs to show what each produce zone is and they have production areas or “factories” with glass walls and schedules of activity so you can watch pasta being made, the production processes for mortadella, Parma ham and parmesan etc. You can also attend courses and workshops if you pre-book. Each zone has one or two restaurants or outlets where you can get samples or buy taster sets or full meals. There are also shelves of produce available to buy. While you pay for the ready to eat food at each outlet, produce is bought from the giant store at the end of the complex. So, like all other modern museums and spectacles you exit via the gift shop, although in this case it is a massive Italian produce store, but don’t worry you can buy branded merchandise too.
Apples
Say cheese
Where we’ve been eating
Mercato Delle Erbe
This is an indoor food market with stalls selling fruit and vegetables and even real balsamic vinegar in the middle and then more permanent stalls/shops around the interior walls with fresh pasta makers, cheese shops, butchers. There are two sort of wings coming from the main market area, these both contain food and drink outlets, restaurants and seating, it’s a great place to eat and relax with friends as well as to pick up some food to take home. The area around the market is buzzing with restaurants and bars in the evening.
Tamburini
Bolognaise speciality: lasagne
I have included information on Tamburini before, but now we have also discovered the delights of their self-service restaurant inside. You have to walk through the delicatessen to get to it, then get yourself a tray. You slide your tray along counters where there are salads and other first course goodies, fridges with water and bottles of beer, past the wine on tap (a spina) which is available in quarter, half or full litre carafes, to the hot food counter where you can choose from the options available, which will always include the bolognese specialities; lasagne and tagliatelle a ragu, but there will be other options to, on to the deserts and then to a till to pay, before finding a table to sit at. It reminds me of the old cafés in Bhs stores but about 1000x better. The staff are well used to tourists, but it can still be a little daunting.
Caffe Zamboni
Already referenced above in our Tandem dates section, but a
great place for a large quantity of aperitivo/aperacena at a relatively low
cost. It is also in a great central location in a lively area of Bologna.
Up early with the hotel breakfast, we planned not to stop for lunch as we wanted to be in Bologna for 2pm. We went straight onto the toll roads, heading inland to the Tuscan countryside where it was gratifyingly less mountainous so no bridges or tunnels. We decided to have a quick break in Parma as we were making good time. We stretched our legs and enjoyed a drink sitting outside a restaurant in a little piazza not far from the Cathedral. The car park in Parma was a little way from the centre and so by the time we returned we were worried we would arrive in Bologna later than we intended. I sent a text the Air B&B owner in Bologna to say we expected to arrive at about 2.30. They replied with the instructions we needed to get the key, so it did not matter what time we arrived, which turned out to be very fortunate.
Parma
At a few minutes after two, just after joining the road to Bologna, we noticed a strange noise coming from the engine, followed almost immediately by a flapping sound. Al took the next available turn and we struggled off that Motorway onto another one losing power and issuing an increasing amount of smoke. We managed to make it onto the hatchings just after the junction before coming to a stop.
Uh oh! Yes, that’s diesel sprayed up into the hood, and everywhere else
We got out of the smoking car and were able to pop the hood, but not before I noticed that the engine bay around the catch was coated in something oily. I had been able to smell the diesel from inside the van. Al took the emergency pack and placed the break down triangle behind the van. I looked at the fuel explosion under the bonnet. It was still smoking slightly. We called the AA Euro recovery number and stepped over the barrier onto a grassy slope away from the traffic noise and fumes. The only buildings near us were some apparently abandoned farm buildings. Our phones batteries were half full and we had a small bottle of water. It was hot and the traffic was racing past at speed.
The AA said that the recovery vehicle would take between 1 and 2 hours to get to us. We were trying to see the brighter picture and hoped there was still a chance the engine could be repaired at the roadside and we could be on our way. A police car stopped to see what was happening and after hearing our pidgin Italian explanation they were satisfied and moved on. After a while a highways worker also stopped to see what we were doing. He looked under the bonnet and if we still had any hope, his expression put the dampeners on it. As he was leaving we heard a whistle from the slow traffic in the lane travelling in the other direction, it was our recovery truck. Once the driver managed to get off at the next junction and return to us he took a quick look at the engine. “Bad problem” he said. Without any further pre-amble he started getting the van ready to go onto his truck. Within 5 minutes we were on our way to Campogalliano, sitting up in the truck cab.
“Let me embrace thee, sour adversity, for wise men say it is the wisest course”
William Shakespeare
At the GMC garage we met the owner Massimo who spoke little English. We communicated with hand gestures, google translate, a smattering of French and Massimo patiently speaking very slowly. He explained that he thought the van could be fixed, possibly, but would not be able to look at it until Monday. We explained that the van was really full, that it contained our whole house. He valiantly took to the phone to find us a van to hire immediately and we checked the internet to see where the nearest car hire place was. He couldn’t get us a hire van and offered to rent us his own car. We had managed to get onto Avis in Moderna and booked a car online. The staff at GMC ordered us a taxi to Modena as we explained our plan to come back from Modena in the hire car and take what we could from the van, then to return on Saturday morning to get the rest. They were open until 7 that night so although it would be tight it was possible and they opened 8 until 12 the following morning. It was all agreed and our taxi arrived.
While in the taxi the AA called to check that the recovery had happened and confirmed to Al that the taxi and hire car would be covered, which was a relief. At Avis we were talked into upgrading to a Ford Kuga, especially as it was an automatic (no having to change gear with the “wrong” hand), and managed to get the whole thing done in about 5 minutes. We returned to Campogalliano and grabbed whatever we could fit into the car before finally setting off for Bologna. We drove past the spot where we had been stood forlornly alongside our smoking van only 4 hours earlier.
In Bologna our Air B&B had no onsite parking but we just pulled up out front, got the key from the key safe, and started unloading. The apartment was beautiful, and on the 1st floor, with lots of windows and an outside space. We piled everything in and took the car to the nearby carpark the Air B&B owners had recommended. We went straight from the car park into the centre of Bologna for something to eat as we were starving. We walked around the Piazza Maggiore reminding ourselves where things were from our last visit and ended up in the old market lanes. It was very busy because it was Friday night and we walked around a bit before feeling brave enough to approach a restaurant. We finally picked a place and wanted to eat outside (all the bars on this road have patio heaters outside) so we spoke to the waiter and took a table, sitting on high stools around a barrel. I looked up and saw that we were at Tamburini, the same place we had our first meal on our first visit.
Out of focus meats and cheeses
After everything we were finally here in Bologna, sitting at a restaurant, eating meats and cheeses followed by pasta and drinking good wine, while the people of Bologna went about their usual weekend activities, with families filling the streets and enjoying the evening. It was 10pm and the city was buzzing. We had made it, we were in our new home.
The morning view from the balcony in Bordighera was a real treat and we were able to see through the trees and houses down to the sea. We had not realised how close we were. The garden was filled with fruit laden citrus trees. We headed out on the coast road in the direction of La Spezia. We had thought we would stop for lunch in Genoa but the timings did not seem to work out and as we drove past the outskirts, of what is an undoubtedly industrial city, we did not see anything condusive to taking a break and enjoying the view.
View from our balcony
The coast road did not follow close enough for us to see Portafina except in outline. During the dash across the country we had used many toll roads and I had a very lovely bruise on the underside of my left arm from leaning on the rolled down window, stretching out of the passenger window to pick up tickets or insert the payment card. The journey around the coast had avoided the tolls and offered us fabulous scenery but was adding considerable time and physicality to our drive. We drove through Rappelo and then, after a quick calculation of how long it would take on the coast road vs the toll roads, we decided to go for the toll roads to save 2 hours and Al’s aching shoulders. The toll roads here, while less winding than the coast road, are either long tunnels down into and up out of mountains or they are valley spanning bridges. The views were fantastic, but you were afraid to take your eyes off the road. The barriers in some places seemed very insubstantial and there were large stretches of road works that meant traffic in both directions was running in the same tunnel or area of bridge at 110km with little to separate them but the lane markers.
We arrived in La Spezia, another town about which we knew nothing, as the sun was beginning to set. Our last coastal stop before heading in land. The hotel NH La Spezia was central and the most expensive of the trip. Our room was great and although it did not have a balcony it did have an enormous picture window over the harbour. As we were on the 6th floor and not overlooked we left the curtains open so we could wake up with natural light.
We went on our nightly sojourn for food and found a lovely bar called Odioilvino which did excellent aperitivo. We stayed there for a few drinks before going for dinner which meant that we were already quite full when we left.
Aperitivo
We ended up in an Irish themed pub, which had a massive restaurant on the corner showing sports and a really intimidating old man style more traditional pub to the side. It is worth noting that we have found at least one Irish pub in every single place we have stopped in both France and Italy. The restaurant was noisy but it was getting late so we ate there before retiring to the hotel to prepare for our final day of driving and our arrival in Bologna.
