It had been hard to think what to write this week. Up until yesterday afternoon essentially everything was the same, I was working 2 jobs part time and learning how to teach online. A small amount of structure for my time and Al was keeping himself busy with cooking. However, the 1st school called me to confirm it was going into temporary shut down, something that is inexplicably being referred to as “furlough” in the UK. I will get 80% of my contracted hours under the Italian insurance scheme, which is 7 hours a week. The 2nd job is only for 3 hours on a Tuesday and is due to finish at the end of April. There is no news yet on what is happening with exams so I don’t know if there will be any invigilation work. To be honest I was expecting it, I thought the 1st school might have been in trouble before the virus and now we aren’t going to be attracting new students. It’s disappointing, but we know we are not alone in facing work uncertainty at the moment.
Al cooked a Lemon drizzle cake to replace the chocolate cake we finished yesterday (see main picture with strawberries and tea). I don’t have any human weighing scales so I can’t confirm how much weight I might be putting on, but I know that I put half an inch back on my waist. We are still watching movies and TV series and although we have not started Tiger King yet, I feel it’s only a matter of time. We are reading books and listening to music. I subscribed to London Review of Books on a half price deal, just before this started and so I am building a mammoth book list for when this is over as well as loading my Kindle. We both have “at home” workout routines. We take it in turns to go to the shop and do bin runs as we’re not supposed to go out together. The weather has been sunny and cold this week. The sun cream turned up yesterday, hopefully the warm weather will follow.
Gnocchi with sausage ragu and parmesan
Chicken (puff pastry) pie
Capelletti with parmesan cream
Food in the time of Corona Virus
The Future
I think it is probably natural to be looking to the future at the moment. It is difficult when we don’t know when this situation will end or how it will be brought to a conclusion. It’s hard to imagine that there will be a day when we are all let loose to return to our previous patterns of behaviour and scoot gleefully across the world again. Presumably restrictions of some sort or another will still be in place for some time to come and will depend on the downward trajectory of infection rates in various locations. The rate of new cases here has slowed but not yet started to come down. Our initial lockdown end date was today but this was extended to 14th April, although I can’t see this ending before May.
However, I am entertaining myself by planning for something that I have decided to reclaim from the Brexit mess and that is “Liberation day” – when we are all able to move freely again and the Covid-19 virus is no longer posing an immediate threat to lives. I would contribute to hear some Big Ben bongs on that day, I can tell you. I’m saving up my last hair dye and deciding which of Bologna’s many fabulous restaurants and bars will be graced with my post quarantine presence first. I cordially invite you to join me in this and repurposing Liberation Day into a day of inclusive global celebration!
Smoothie and daily crossword
Social distancing in the Supermarket queue Bologna style
New daily realities
A little help from my friends
Something that I hope we will take forward once this is all over is this spirit of community and helping each other out. I have witnessed this firsthand here in Italy and I am gratified to see examples from the UK such as the overwhelming response to the UK Government volunteer request. We watched the Frank Turner benefit for The Joiners last night and hope to watch the one for The Railway Inn in Winchester next week. There are so many people performing or working on -line, which is great to see and be part of (even if it’s just in the audience). It had become all to easy to think that we lived in a selfish time when people were only looking out for themselves, but I think the response to this situation demonstrates more what is best about people. There are plenty of us that, when the chips are down, get together (not literally in these circumstances) and work out new solutions and ways of supporting each other and staying positive. My social media might be a bubble but its one filled with beautiful people doing awe inspiring things and helping each other. Many people and businesses are suffering right now, but if we all continue to do what we can and work together as a community we can help ensure as many as possible keep going. We are amazing when we work together.
Al and I on the way to the shop, before the one person rule
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.
If I had written this piece last week it would be completely different. I was into the start of the second week of Skype only lessons with the school closed. Al had just been advised that the place where his restaurant is located would be closing for evenings. This was a move as related to falling demand as to public safely as people had stopped going out as much. Corona Virus was largely to the north of us in the mountains and ski resort areas. We had taken advantage of more free time by visiting a few sites we hadn’t got round to like the walk to San Luca (to be told in a future posting), finding groups of school kids excited at the unexpected holidays pretty much everywhere we went. Museums and galleries were closed so there was nothing but views to admire.
The tourist numbers had been quick to drop and the arteries of the quadrilatero (medieval centre) were no longer so clogged as to make them impassable. In fact, one of the busiest streets, Via Pescherie Vecchie was so empty of customers I thought about stopping for lunch just because it might be the only time I could get into a restaurant here. Usually the voices around the centre of town are Italian with the occasional English, American or Chinese accent being quite striking and evidently tourist, so I hadn’t appreciated how many of those voices were Italian tourists and not locals. This became apparent by the reduction of people around. We knew the fall in visitors would have a financial impact so we decided to spend our money in shops that were likely to suffer the most.
Christmas shopping in the Quadrilatero
Early morning in the Quadrilatero in better times
Late night shopping in Via D’Azeglio
A rainy weekday in November
Usually something going on – May 19
Staying informed
We are using a mixture of media to keep abreast of what is going on from the BBC, The Local.it, La Repubblica and The Commune di Bologna (local council) as well as staying up to date with current travel advice on Gov.uk. We have been surprised by the differences in the tone of reporting that we were accessing with a lot of UK news articles on social media having overtones of panic and fear. I was amazed to see an article from Sky News and other British tabloids reporting everyone returning from Italy had to put themselves in self-quarantine. A quick check of gov.uk at the time confirmed what I thought, this advice was only if you were returning from one of the hot spots or if you had any symptoms. While we knew of the international reputation (infamy) of the British Press these events have really highlighted the stark difference between keeping people informed and acting in public interests and trying to sell copy, distract and manipulate the public agenda. Unfortunately, almost without exception the British reporting has fallen into the latter rather than the former.
Even the stories from the region published in the British
press seem to be the more hysterical ones. They do not chime with my experience
at all. Is this because people like me don’t contact the UK press to provide
comment, or because our stories are not exciting enough? I have seen quiet calm and dignity. I have
heard stories of panic buying, but I haven’t seen any for myself and the shops
here have plenty of toilet roll.
I will admit that, with hindsight, we might not have thought this as serious as we perhaps should. We continued to go to our favourite bars and restaurants, although they were quieter. We continued to meet with friends and discuss the situation. We were not feeling ill and not overly concerned as although we knew the Corona Virus would eventually come here, it was not really here yet. We were even still encouraging people to come here and have a relatively crowd free experience.
Aperitivo
What a difference a week makes
Last Thursday we were advised that the schools nationwide would be closed for 10 days, so we knew our schools would not be opening here. We knew people who had been forced to take holidays as local, small businesses began taking efforts to restrict the financial impacts. After that things moved quickly. On Saturday the Red sites or hot spots were extended to include Modena 23 miles to our North and Rimini 70 miles to our south. Although we were not in lock down, we were surrounded by areas that were. On Sunday Al went to work to be told his workplace would be closing until 3rd April. As he had the night off and it was the anniversary of our arrival in Bologna we decided to go out for dinner. We went to a restaurant on Via Pescherie Vecchie. The centre was not as lively as a typical Sunday night, but it was a little livelier than we were expecting so we felt more hopeful that this time would pass soon enough. On Monday we went to the vegetable shop and bought more food than normal because Al usually eats at work but now, we would both be having our meals at home. We focused on fruit and vegetables to ensure we ate healthily and as a boost to our immune systems. Late on Monday night we got the news that all of Italy would be put into lockdown, there were no such things as red sites anymore.
Via Pescherie Vecchie into the Quadrilatero
Via Pescherie Vecchie towards Piazza Maggiore
Empty steps at the Cathedral
Empty Piazza Maggiore
Quiet in Via D’Azeglio
The Corona Virus
I have heard many things about the Corona Virus ranging from
its no worse than Flu to it’s the end of the world. I just wanted to unpack some
of the things from either end and the middle. The flu is not like a cold. If
you think it is, then be thankful you have never had the flu. I cannot count
the colds of varying severity I’ve had but I know I have had flu twice. It is a
horrible illness and I would be happy never to have it again. Flu does kill
every year and while the happy majority manage to rest it out at home, I wouldn’t
wish it on anyone. I don’t want Corona virus anymore than I want another dose
of flu thanks very much.
The odds might well be that like 80% of people (source WHO) I would not have
a bad case and that I would be able to recover at home. It’s not really me I’m
concerned about. It’s who I might come into contact with, who I might
unwittingly infect. It’s the old lady in the street who I might have exchanged pleasantries
with, it’s the shop worker who has to work so people can eat. I am more aware
than ever before of the people whose lives I touch, even if it is just in
passing. You can have this virus for up to two weeks before you develop any
symptoms. Can you remember everywhere you have been in the last fortnight?
Everyone you spoke to, everything you touched? It’s people who are coming into
contact with friends and family with asthma, with diabetes, with compromised
immune systems and any other number of health issues who would not be able to
manage an infection so nonchalantly that concern me and so we all need to take
responsibility.
We owe it to our friends, families and the wider communities
in which we live to take this seriously and make sure that we are taking the
precautions that we can. We are not able to stop the transmission of the flu
(although actually the same measures would help) but there is still time to contain
this virus and we should all make every effort to do that so that those in our
communities who are vulnerable are not put at risk by our cavalier attitudes
because we think we would be able to handle the sickness.
In Europe and the US the weather is starting to get warmer
and we can hope the increase in temperatures will help to kill off this virus
in the same way the flu is reduced in the summer months. However, we can’t know
if that’s the case and the other half of the world is in the opposite situation,
getting colder and with their flu season about to start.
Let’s all try not to panic and inflict pain and misery on others; hoarding goods we don’t need; reducing the supplies of gloves, masks, hand sanitizer, medical support and medicines from those that really need them. Let’s stop thinking only of ourselves and what the impact is, or could be, on us. Let’s demonstrate the best of humanity by washing our hands especially after we have been in public places; minimising unnecessary contact with others; minimising travel; checking in on our family, friends and neighbours and only buying what we actually need to get through this period.
Blossom in Via Degli Orefice
It’s not all doom and gloom
So here we are, in day 2 of the Italian lockdown. Food shops
are still open and people are still free to move in their towns and streets,
going to work etc. They are advised to minimise contact with other people and
of course the ubiquitous hand washing advice. We weren’t planning on going anywhere
else and we’re in the city so we don’t feel too restricted. Yesterday we went
to the butchers and I waited outside while Al ordered because they had a two
customers at a time restriction. We went to a large supermarket, where shelves
were stacked and no one appeared to be panicking. Shop staff wear masks and
gloves.
The school I work for is making plans to extend online lessons. Al is making bread and pasta. It was 19 degrees and sunny today so we had lunch in our garden while reading. I don’t know what will happen next, no one does, but I look forward to giving you an update next week.
Although I was aware of the Venice carnival, I was not aware of its connection to Lent or the fact that not only was this an Italian wide festival, but also quite a lot of the rest of Europe too. For around two weeks, certainly in Italy, there are Carnevale events culminating in a parade of some kind on Shrove Tuesday or Fat Tuesday as it is known in other places e.g. Mardi Gras in Spanish, Martedì Grosso in Italian. I had noticed carnival masks and coloured streamers going up in shops, seen signs for Carnevale as well as event specific delicacies in the Pasticceria windows. However, I was not sure what the celebration was for as it seemed too early for Easter. I asked someone who told me it was the festival before Lent. This information turned our Shrove Tuesday into the limpest of pancakes. WARNING! This is my understanding of Carnevale almost certainly containing wild inaccuracies, baseless assumptions and misunderstandings. Anyway, Carnevale is understood to be from the Italian word for meat Carne and vale which means without. This makes sense as a description for Lent or any other type of fasting. The English word Carnival is derived from this. There is something reassuringly human about that fact that around the world, in all cultures, any period of organised fast start and end with a bit of gluttony.
We had looked online and Bologna was holding its Carnevale dei Bambini (Carnival for children) parade on Sunday at 2.30, which was fortunate as Al had the day off. We decided to go and headed out with a plan to grab a slice of pizza or a piadina to eat while watching the parade. When we arrived, we noticed that there was a lot of confetti and streamers on the ground and we worried that we had somehow missed it. We walked up to where the parade was supposed to be and although there were loads of families with dressed up kids walking around no one seemed to be massing for an event or waiting for one or getting a good spot or any of the usual signs of imminent events happening. We walked the length of the road and at 2.15, having seen no sign of parade or parade watchers, we decided we must have made a mistake about the time and decided to get some lunch.
It can be difficult to get lunch after 2.00pm because many
restaurants close at 3 or don’t open on Sundays. I had a mild cold so I was
keen to sit down if we weren’t going to get a parade. We were close to Mercato Delle Erbe (The herb market). This usually
has vegetable stalls in the centre with cafes, shops and bars around the edge.
Because the market itself and many of the restaurants do not open on Sundays, those
that do can extend into the unused space of neighbouring restaurants for the
day.
Polpette e Crescentine is one such restaurant that doubles in size on a Sunday. It is often very busy so you might want to think about booking, which you can do through their website on this link. The staff are very friendly and the menu is available in English if you need that kind of thing. The menu also lists their suppliers and the traditional nature of the food. For the uninitiated Polpette (meatballs) and Crescentine (small roughly square bread pieces fried so they puff up and can be stuffed) are local specialities.
Affettati Miste e Crescentine
Close up of Crescentine
We ate here when we were newly arrived in Bologna and they
introduced us to the delights of Friggione a local dish of tomato and onions
that is usually served at room temperature. I’m not one for side dishes but I
will make an exception for this, it is fabulous. More recently we had our first
Crescentine here which for some reason we had not eaten before, although they
are Bolognese. We had decided to start with a selection of local cooked and
cured meats called Affettati misti (mixed
slices) and to have the Crescentine
with it. A colander of freshly fried Crescentine arrived with our meats and the idea is you break into
the puffs and fill them with bits of meat, refolding them into bite sized
pieces. They smell and taste similar to a savoury doughnut and were a delicious
accompaniment. It was a fantastic discovery and something you probably can’t
enjoy outside Bologna.
After lunch, and disappointed that we had missed the parade,
we went to an exhibition we wanted to see. This temporary exhibition is at the Bologna Museum of Modern Art (Mambo)
and was part of Bologna Art Week, which I have written about previously. It was
curated from the work of multiple international artists, but by far the stand
out piece for me was “Bonjour 2015” by Ragnar
Kjartansson. I was about to describe it and then I remembered I have the
power of photos so here it is.
“Bonjour 2015”
Yes, those are two real life people in the “set” who perform
the same set of actions on a five-minute circuit. It is both beautiful and
terrifyingly nihilistic at the same time. You are able to walk around the whole
set, so the “performers” can be seen at all times. I have to be honest I
admired their commitment to the performance although I was distracted by
wondering how many hours they performed this for.
When we left the museum, we were disappointed to see even more confetti and streamers littering the place and it became clear that we had missed the Carnevale festivities for a second time in one day! I thought I might try and catch the Fat Tuesday events before work instead but this was not to be as unfortunately, even the lavish festivities of the Venice Carnevale were cancelled due to the sudden spread into Italy of the Corona Virus. Although Venice itself had no cases, it was deemed wise to avoid mass gatherings of people. The central and regional Italian governments took a robust approach to containment with Emilia Romagna, where Bologna is situated, deciding to close all schools, museums, churches and cinemas for a week as a precaution. This meant that there was no Carnevale parade on Fat Tuesday and MamBO, along with other museums, galleries and cinemas, was closed to the public too although they have made the exhibition available on a streamed service.
As part of our ongoing mission to see more of the area surrounding Bologna whenever we can, we found ourselves on a Monday heading out in our ancient Polo to what the Bolognese call “the hills”. Probably because in my mind the hills mean softly undulating landscape, I was not prepared for the majestic sweeps, deep valleys and dramatic shapes of the Bolognese hills. It would be like calling the Peak district, the hills of Sheffield, which is an error with my understanding of the Italian word rather than undue modesty on their part. This area is part of the Apennines which separates Bologna and the north from Pisa and Florence.
Al advises me that it was interesting driving, along the twisty roads, with hairpin bends, steep inclines and unexpected drops with no power steering and it certainly looked it from the passenger seat. My ears popped on one high stretch and we knew that down was the only remaining direction available. There were many beautiful small towns in valleys and on hillsides as we snaked our way through. I don’t have photos of the drive as I was too busy taking it in. You will just have to take my word for it or visit for yourself.
Porretta Terme
One of the main streets
We had set our sights on a town called Porretta Terme . As the name suggests Terme is Italian for Thermal spa and these springs have been in use since Roman times. The town is also famous for Winter sports as it is close to a couple of resorts as well as being home to an International Soul Music festival which has been running since 1987. It was a beautiful sunny day with temperatures promising to reach 15 despite it still being February.
Walking around Porretta Terme
We enjoyed ourselves wandering around the streets looking at the architecture. However, it is us, so we had timed our visit with lunch and needed to find something to eat. Monday lunchtime is not an ideal time to visit a town as many shops and businesses close for lunch and many restaurants and cafes don’t open on Mondays. However, there is always somewhere to be found and we were more than happy to stumble on Cipensoio which is the restaurant of the Helvetia Thermal Spa hotel. It looked formal and we thought twice about going in, but we read the menu outside and decided we would go for it. It rated highly on the review sites, but we had really been looking for a sandwich. We often find ourselves in restaurants having sworn we would have a light lunch on the run.
Baccala’ mantecato “Brandacujun”
Crostini al Lardo stagionato di Pata Negra
Maltagliati con scorfano, pomodorini confit e asparagi
Maccheroni al torchio con salsiccia di cinta e porcini
Our dishes from Cipensoio
Ci Penso Io is literally translated into English as “I’ll think about it”, but it widely accepted to mean “I’ll handle that” or “I’ll deal with it”, so bear this in mind if you hear it said or say it. Certainly, in this case they could handle our lunch. The food was delicious.
We had only been able to pay for two hours parking (parking requires change which, except for small brassy denominations, seems to elude us), so we had to get back on the road. It’s still early in the year so you start to lose the light at 5pm and we had another stop planned before heading for home. There is a station, Porrettana, which runs to and from Bologna, so a train trip would probably take you through some beautiful countryside on the way. Next time I’m planning on booking in for a spa treatment.
La Scola
We drove back in the direction of Bologna but turned off onto a road that climbed the side of a large hill. This road was in part single lane and we were a little disturbed to see bus stops dotted along, as there was no room for a bus to pass. The tarmac surface did not extend by more than a cars width and to the sides were rain gullys. I didn’t notice any passing places, but I would not have wanted to reverse back to one anyway, the road was steep and twisty. La Scola is listed as a historical monument, but it is a tiny village where all the buildings are from 14th and 15th Centuries and were built by master stonemasons. Its location, perched on the side of a hill, means that the beautiful buildings are set in an incredible context against the sky and surrounding hills. As it is tiny there is no parking to speak of, no facilities and I imagine that it could get pretty busy in peak tourist season. You can also get there by train and then bus from Bologna and I recommend it as somewhere to go on the way to or from somewhere else.
As Bologna is a city with a lot of galleries and art events I was pleasantly surprised to find there was a
dedicated Bologna Art Week too. It was from 17th to the 26th
January and was a collaboration between a number of organisations including the
Municipality of Bologna, MamBO (Modern Art Museum Bologna) and Arte Fiera. This
year was the 8th Art week and saw more than 57,000 pieces exhibited[1].
There were hundreds of events across a wide variety of galleries,
non-profit, artist run and unconventional spaces and included a “White night”
on January 26th. Usually, in Italian, a white night means a night
where you are not able to sleep. However, happily this “White night” is where
galleries and museums were open until midnight. This was to allow people who struggle
to get to galleries and museums during traditional opening hours a chance to go.
I think this is a great idea and I don’t know how many galleries or museums do
this, in other places, but I will definitely be keeping my eye out.
Bologna Welcome
To find out what was happening in Art Week, we turned to our
trusty friend the Bologna Welcome
site. As we had limited time when we were both free we wanted to maximise the
bang for our buck. So, rather then go to several different events in separate
locations we decided to go to one big event at Bologna Fiera, which is a massive
conference centre on the outskirts of Bologna.
At the end of last year we decided to get Bologna Welcome
cards. This is a card provided by the Bologna Welcome centre and with it you
can access many galleries, exhibitions and attractions either for free or at a
discount. We bought annual cards but they also do short term cards for tourists
and visitors. Check out their site for full details (link above). We were
expecting to get a discount at Bologna Fiera, but on the day we were ushered
through for free just by flashing the cards.
Arte Fiera
We drove to the exhibition because we knew it was on the other side of town, but when we arrived we discovered there was a free shuttle bus from the centre, which we should have researched better. However, we arrived at the venue in time for a spot of lunch at the Eataly pop up and then went into the exhibition. There were two enormous halls hosting this exhibition so to begin with we were a little overwhelmed and unsure where to start. Both halls had exhibition spaces organised by Gallery with a sign to indicate the gallery name and location. There was a mixture of Italian and International galleries. I will shush now and let the art do the talking. As usual terrible photos by me, good ones “borrowed” from Al.
Gallery spaces and labels
Can you spot the egg
Some highlights from our visit
To get more info and photos check out their site Arte Fiera
Art Week Bologna 2021
It looks like its all systems go for the 9th
Bologna Art week in 2021 and I would recommend checking it out if your visit coincides
with Art Week or if you are lucky enough to plan your trips around art events.
[1] ‘ART CITY Bologna 2020 –
Bologna Agenda Cultura’ (Agenda.comune.bologna.it, 2020) <http://agenda.comune.bologna.it/cultura/artcity>
accessed 21 February 2020
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?
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.
After our arrival late on Friday we had to go back to Campogalliano on Saturday to retrieve the remainder of our possessions. Once the van was emptied, we thanked Massimo, wished him luck for the repairs and headed back to Bologna. We parked up at the air B&B again and ran in and out with our belongings.
Our bedroom
The living space
Al’s domain
Our outside space
When we returned to the car park, we found it was full and backed up the road with entry on a one in one out system. We drove around and found some on street parking nearby. This had all taken longer than we had anticipated so we walked into town to grab some lunch in the centre and then headed for the Irish pub so we could watch 6 nations rugby. We found a good table at the Cluricaune, which was advertising that it was showing the rugby, but it was currently showing English premier league football and we were not sure if the Rugby would be put on after. A group of annoying English people came in and sat at a table nearby. From their ever so audible conversation they clearly lived and worked in Bologna. To be fair only one of them was really annoying but she was loud and ignorant and seemed to think we all wanted to know. We anxiously looked around as it was only 5 minutes to the start of the six nations match but the TV was still showing football. We were relieved when the barman changed the channel, but he didn’t turn the volume up. We heard Rugby pre-amble coming from another part of the bar and on investigating we were delighted to discover in the next section that a projector screen had been pulled down and the room was full of rugby fans. We managed to get a space at a table but we felt frustrated that when we arrived this had not been set up so we had sat by another screen, however, now we knew this was the place to be. The atmosphere was great, we couldn’t hear the annoying English girl anymore and we were rewarded with a win.
Good result for Wales!
It has occurred to me that I have not really explained what Bologna is like. One of the names by which Bologna is known is “the red one”. This is for two reasons, the first is because it was communist until quite recently in an otherwise conservative right-wing region, the other is because the local building materials give the old buildings a red colour. It is known for its many miles of porticos which line most of the streets. Bologna, like many other Italian towns, used to have a canal network through the centre and many of the roads cover the old canals. It is presumable that some of the upper stories were originally built to “overhang” the canals, being extended and supported by pillars once the canals were built over, but we have also been told that there used to be a building tax that covered everything built at street level, which meant that people built bigger at the second floor and then just had supports built on the street below. There are probably a lot of reasons, but the result is pavements protected from the worst of the weather and with various levels of ornate support structures for most of the centre of town.
Bologna has a number of gates or “porte” which used to provide access to the old city and prevent marauders from attacking. One of the questions you get asked is if you are staying inside the gates or outside. Our apartment was just outside the gate of San Mamalo. Bologna has one of the oldest universities in the world so there are many campus buildings and hoards of students kicking around all the time. When we first arrived, it was graduation season, so we kept seeing groups of students with one of their number with a literal laurel wreath on their head (the graduation season is called “Festival of laurels”).
Porta(l) Maggiore
We spent Sunday settling in and unpacking. Al set up the stereo, speakers and printer. We unpacked our suitcases and toiletries and ventured out to local shops to get basic food and drink. There is a fresh homemade pasta shop at the end of our road, but we did not have the confidence in our language skills to brave it. We had signed up to an intensive language course for the next week and we wanted to get settled in and have an early night ready for that.
Monday morning saw us struggling to get up. We had put our own bedding on the bed to make the environment more familiar, but we had difficulty acclimatising. We ensured we left early enough to get a coffee in Aroma before our 9am start at Madre Lingua school. Usually we like to have their speciality coffees but today we needed the pure coffee fix. We arrived at the school, paid the balance for our courses and bought a text book. Several teachers came and introduced themselves, in Italian. (Boring factual bit – language is measured by 6 levels, A1 – complete beginner, A2 – Beginner, B1 – Intermediate, B2 – advanced intermediate (can understand a news story), C1 – fluent speaker, C2 – Native speaker). We had been sent and completed an online test before we set off and told we would be tested again when we arrived. We were pleased to discover that we were not to be tested again, we were going in to a B1 class as we expected and in line with our level of reading and writing. However, being fully immersed in a class where only Italian is spoken and where all the other students have been learning at the school for at least one or two weeks, it quickly became clear our listening and speaking skills left a lot to be desired.
Our class consisted of two retired teachers from Germany, two Brazilian students, an American student who seemed to have lost all trace of her accent, an American man whose wife was an Evangelical missionary in the more advanced class with their daughter and a priest from Benin, who was working for the local diocese. We found the actual assignments ok and once we managed to work out what we were being asked to do, knew the grammar, but we struggled to understand what we were being asked or to respond to questions. The others were better at listening and speaking but had less grasp of the grammar.
Our school days were laid out as 2 hours of grammar, followed by a coffee break (organised in a local coffee shop by the teachers and with the idea of the school all socialising together in Italian), followed by 1 hour of conversation. For most of the school that was the end of the day, however as we were booked in for the intensive course, we had only 30 minutes for lunch followed by 2 hours of conversation class. This group was for all the people doing the intensive course, so it was mixed ability, but this meant us, one of the Brazilian students, the American student and an American woman from the advanced class whose grasp of Italian was good but who seemed to be completely unaware of her heavy New York accent. There was no trace of an attempt to say any of the Italian words in an Italian accent. She used the word “Cellulare” which is an Italian name for a mobile phone, but when she said it, I thought it was two separate words “Cellu-laaarrray”.
While in school we kept being asked if we had struggled to
get an apartment and this had led to many discussions about how hard it was to
find somewhere. This alarmed us a little as we had not thought about whether
this might be an issue and while we were in an air B&B for the month our
plan had been to get an apartment after that. We decided that we had better start
looking sooner rather than later although we didn’t have jobs yet.
We were completely exhausted after our first day so we went to the nearby Mercato di Mezzo to get a drink and do our homework, but we ended up eating our dinner out too as we couldn’t decide what to buy. The Mezzo is an old market building, off the Piazza Maggiore (main square). It is an indoor food stall complex with a central bank of chairs and tables. You can go to the beer stand to get beer, the pizza stand to get pizza and the sit at a table and eat. There is seating upstairs and some of the stands have additional seating for their customers. It is good if you all want to eat and drink different things and still sit together. It also has a bread stand, a cheese stand and a butchers so you can get your shopping in too. We ate at a restaurant in one of the nearby lanes, where we both had the lasagne, a regional dish for Bologna. We went home and suffered from a night of broken dreams and Italian words spinning around our heads.
On Tuesday we had our classes and went through our homework. We had not received a call about the van, so Al sent an email to Massimo asking for an update. Al and I spent the week with one or both of us completely unable to understand what was going on in class. On Tuesday I was more on the ball, On Wednesday it was Al etc. We had signed up to a visit to a local Enoteca (wine shop) after classes, poor us, but we were really exhausted. The visit to the Enoteca was good as we were a small group with no Italian teachers, so the Italian only rule was quickly thrown out the window. We met someone from the WI we could talk about Brexit with and an amazing woman of 23 who had lived in 5 countries and spoke about 7 languages. It is difficult to understate how the on-going non-movement and lack of clarity on Brexit was punctuating our experience and exacerbating our fears for the future but more to come on the Brexit effect in future posts. The Enoteca was one we had stumbled on by accident in our last visit. They sell only biological wines. These differ from organic wines as the whole process must meet certain standards as opposed to solely organic grapes being used. The Proprietor told us about each glass of wine while she was pouring them and brought us what they call “tagliere”. This means slices of meats and cheeses. You get them everywhere here, served on slate or wood boards. Mortadella, Parma ham, parmesan and pecorino are all local products. Parma (for the ham and cheese) is nearby (where we stopped for a break just before the van broke down). This area is a centre for pork and pork products. Each cured meat being made in traditional ways from various parts of the animal.
On Wednesday we heard from the AA that Massimo thought that the van was saveable and needed a part, so they asked us to approve the quote. It was around £400 so we were quite relieved and agreed. After school we went to the herb market to get our dinner and returned home with our purchases. 5pm is quite early for Italians to be around about and looking for food as they generally take a longer lunch and work later so we went home to refresh ourselves and do homework before heading back into town looking for Aperitivo. We found a place that was recommended and although it served great wine, we were disappointed to be served “only” crisps and nuts as complimentary snacks instead of the finger foods synonymous with the Aperitivo experience we were looking for. We knew at this point that we were going to need more Italian schooling, so over drinks we agreed to sign up for an extra week. Unfortunately, I was committed to two more weeks at work so we would not be able to attend more classes until April.
Thursday morning brought us to another coffee shop near the school. For those not acquainted with Italian coffee bars, these are usually fairly small with counters and high stools. Coffee is served in a tiny cup and most Italians drink them at the “bar” served with a small glass or water, sometimes fizzy. These shops often sell a range of “brioche” which is a classic Italian breakfast, these consist of croissants with sugar sticky outsides and cream of pistachio, almond, chocolate or custard inside, or fruit jam for the health conscious or there are a multitude of cakes. Terzi sells incredible coffee in exquisite tiny cups, with a tempting range of breakfast pastries. In a beautiful counterpoint to Starbucks which failed to find a foothold here, genuine coffee professionals sell you beautifully made coffee in real cups to drink in for 1 euro 10 cents and this is a high-end retailer. We were beyond exhausted by this point so burned the coffee off in no time. After class we went to a pub to do our homework before heading home to make ourselves some dinner.
It was finally Friday and we decided to treat ourselves to dinner out. The AA had called again to say that the part would arrive today or on Monday, but we had not heard anymore so we knew we were not going to be going to collect the van today. We finished at 4 and even after we completed our homework it was too early in the Italian evening for dinner. We didn’t want to walk back to our apartment and come out again, although in hindsight we should have, so we lingered about looking for Aperitivo. We were a little demoralised by our school week. We knew we had improved but it had been unbelievably hard. We felt self-conscious going into bars and restaurants. As I wrote when we made our victorious arrival against the odds, Bologna is alive in the evening and especially at weekends. Every restaurant was heaving with people and we felt like outsiders. We were exhausted and could not think clearly or decide what we wanted to eat. We ended up choosing at random and had a good meal, it is still Bologna, but felt a little disappointed that we were not in the swing of things yet.
Something that we had been vaguely aware of about ourselves was becoming more apparent: we are not very patient. We are not patient with ourselves, we are not patient about how long it takes to learn a language, not patient about how long it takes to learn the ropes, not patient about how long it takes to find an apartment or jobs etc. However, one of the reasons we chose Italy and Bologna was for a different pace of life here, for a different attitude to time. Patience is something that we have come here to learn, and it won’t be quick, and it won’t be immediate, and we will find it hard at times, but we will learn.
“Have patience with all things, but, first of all with yourself”
