Dreaming In Italian

I continued my volunteer work at the Biblioteca Sala Borsa (the most beautiful library that I’ve ever seen) with a language program called Scioglilingua (“tongue twister” in Italian). I did this two afternoons a week where I had English conversations with 3 people each time who wanted to improve their English. I also participated several times in Italian conversations with Italian volunteers who helped me improve my Italian. I spoke Italian with 2 or 3 different people but my favorite was Claudio. He helped me a lot and spoke clearly. We really had a good time. One of my other conversation partners in English was a Bologna tour guide who told me about some relatively unknown places to explore.

Claudio – my Italian conversation partner

Still the Sala Borsa conversations were not enough to fill my time so I found another “job”. Liu’ is the woman at the library responsible for the Scioglilingua program and her sister works for the Comune di Bologna (the city government) in the area of promoting tourism. There are lots of tourist brochures originally written in Italian and with translations into various languages, but especially into English. However the translations were obviously not done by a native speaker. While certainly intelligible, they often sounded strange in translation because of word choices and the fact that the sentence construction is different between Italian and English. One thing that I certainly noted is that we write shorter and, at least to my mind, clearer sentences. I encountered Italian sentences that ran on for 3 or 4 lines, with a colon and a half dozen comas. By the time I got to the end I had forgotten the point of the sentence. So after a while I just pretty much rewrote the whole thing using both the translation, the original Italian, and an on-line dictionary. I also often did web searches about the subject of the brochure to clarify some points and even correct some factual errors that originated in the Italian.

Two of the brochures that I worked on

It has been a very satisfying work which I hope to continue when I next return. I work with Monica (Liu’s sister) and Margherita. They are both great to work with. I’m not sure about Margherita but Monica, like her sister, speaks almost perfect English. At the end of our last meeting Monica and Margherita gave me some gifts. Luggage tags and pins that are items for promoting Bologna and, more significantly, a bottle of very good grappa.

Mmm – grappa, as well as luggage tags and pins

On alternating weekends Karen has a Saturday trip with the school to some nearby town. This is good not only for travel but also for more exposure and practice with Italian. The first weekend of her school she went to Ravenna to see the famous byzantine mosaics. So the next weekend we decided to take a little jaunt to Padova and Venezia. Padova (Padua in English for some bizarre reason) is the seat of the 2^nd oldest university. It was founded by some malcontents that left the oldest university here in Bologna and started one in Padova. It’s a very nice town about 2/3 the size of Bologna but seems considerably smaller. It’s a little more laid back and a nice place to walk around. It’s also a 26 minute train ride from Venezia (for some equally bizarre reason called Venice in English). So rather than stay in overpriced Venezia we opted to stay in Padova.

Dinner the first night was in a very old and respected Osteria near the place that we were staying. Osteria dal Capo. It had very traditional dishes and we enjoyed it. While in general there are not a lot of tourists in Padova we were seated at a table with a German couple to my right and a Italian couple from Reggio Emilia (about 50 miles from Bologna) on my left. The menu contained a word that I couldn’t find in the dictionary and the waitress politely explained that selecting that dish would mean that I would be eating donkey. I was game but went for a traditional venetian pasta dish instead.

We stayed in an AirBnB and found a place in a very good location in the center of town at a good price. It was on the 3^rd floor without an elevator but we figured we could manage that well enough since we are on the 2^nd floor here in Bologna and would not be going up and down as often. There were a couple of little “issues” with the room. It said a private bath, which it was, except it was private while at the same time being down the hall. Fortunately the towels were large so they could serve as a robe for those times when making the trek to the bathroom was during the night or after a shower. The other thing was the old fashioned key for the lock to the room. When we first arrived I (and the lovely K) spend 10 or 15 minutes without success trying to unlock the door. I called the proprietor and they were going to send someone over soon but I then, of course, did manage to get the door open. I think that they really could use a little modernization in that area. One humorous moment was as we exited on Saturday morning on the way to breakfast and then to Venice. We had arrived at the ground floor when Karen said, “Oh, I forgot my phone!”. Being the gentleman that I am I volunteered to get the extra exercise of going back up the 3 flights of stairs and back to retrieve the phone.

Breakfast in Padova

Breakfast the next day in the same place. The stones are very picturesque but a pain to walk on.

Leaving the train station on the totally full vaporetto

traffic jam even for the gondolas

Great view from the Rialto bridge

I always love a fish market and those at the Rialto market are really great

Fish monger at the Rialto market

Small side canal with private boats

Another larger side canal

With the lovely K on one of the smaller canal bridges

Yes, the streets (calle) in Venice can be quite small

Gondola workshop – note the black one!

Another view down the canal

Don’t remember the name of this wonderful building in Padova

The huge wooden horse inside the “forgotten name” building.

So then off to a typical Italian breakfast of a pastry and cappuccino before taking the tram to the train station and then the train to Venice. Venice is undeniably beautiful. A trip in a vaporetto down the grand canal lined with spectacular palazzos is something not to be missed. Unfortunately it must be shared with hundreds of tourists packed into the boat like sardines. Even every little out of the way street was packed with tourists. Of course we were tourists as well but still, it can get pretty annoying tramping around the city and practically being trampled by the herd of camera toting people from all over the world. Add to this the full press commercialization of trinket buying opportunities absolutely everywhere (most undoubtedly made in China) and it pretty much drove me crazy. Of course I think that I drove the lovely K crazy by looking for the place with the best value for cicchetti (venetian style snack food). Maybe we’ll go back some day in November (and NOT on a weekend) or something when the tourists outnumber the residents by only 3 to 1 rather than 10 to 1 on this trip.

On Saturday night we ate at a very nice place in Padova, Trattoria San Pietro. More elegant and better food than Dal Capo at almost the same price. I was fortunate to call for reservations when I did in the late afternoon because we got the last available table. The next day we returned to Bologna and while taking the bus back to the apartment found that everything the bus service that we needed to get home was disrupted by a religious procession (taking the picture of the Madona back to San Luca). Sometimes things just don’t go as planned but we survived.

I mentioned our apartment in a previous post. It’s interesting in all kinds of ways to be living in a building the was built before any european/americans lived in what is now the USA. The building where we live was built in 1550. The one in front is newer, having been build in only 1600. Of course a lot as changed over the years but in Italy they seem to always do their best to maintain the character and history of the building. So we are on the 2^nd floor (3^rd floor in the U.S.) and top floor. It is what is called a “mansarda” which is to say it is just under the roof of the building and as such it has a ceiling that is slanted.

We’re at via santo stefano 66

The location of the apartment is just about ideal. It is in a great neighborhood just about midway between the center of town (Piazza Maggiore) and the school where the lovely K is taking Italian lessons. It faces the cortille (courtyard) rather than the street so it’s very quiet. We wake up to birds singing in the tree just about every morning.

the little terrace

The roof and ceiling has obviously been rebuild; perhaps several times over the last 465 years. Still the rough hewn large wooden beams appear to be the original ones. I’m not sure of what the plumbing situation was so long ago but imagine that it was minimal at best. But now there are two bathrooms, and a kitchen complete with dishwasher, washing machine and microwave (the latter I rarely use). And now a bunch of photos.

halway looking back toward the front door to the building

The entry way

The breakfast area, kitchen and bath beyond the entry

stove, dishwasher, oven, microwave and washing machine

exposed beams and fireplace in living/dining room

dining/living room table

second bedroom

desk in the second bedroom

up the stairs to the master bedroom

the master bedroom

hanging strands serve as a curtain for the “armadio” – clothes closet

Up the stairs from the master bedroom to the second bathroom

The troublesome hotspot

It has wifi provided by a “hotspot” the connects to the cellular network and provides wifi connections for my computer, our iPads and phones. It works pretty well with occasional need to reset the hotspot device and inexplicable excessive data use. We are supposed to have 3 gigabytes available for the month but after 2 weeks it has run out. Antonella (the proprietor) is coming by today to take the hotspot to the provider to understand why it’s consuming so much data. I can’t imagine that we’re going through so much data so fast.

An interesting side note. There is a little courtyard inside the front door and gate where people park bicycles. There is a sign on the wall that says it is absolutely forbidden to park a motorcycle or any motorized vehicle there. Just beside the sign is a Moto Guzzi complete with cobwebs which is a sure sign that it has been there for a long time.

Sign that says that it is absolutely prohibited to park motorcycle or motorized anything

motorcycle parked in the little courtyard

Such is Italy.

I haven’t written a blog post in an embarassing long time so I have a few  quick items. Some time ago, coming home late from the center of the city I saw a girl on a bus. She’s was pretty and young and at first I hardly took notice. Then I noticed her Doc Marten type of boots (laces untied of course) and paid a bit more attention. She was really stylish in a subtle way and then her profile struck me as something right out of a renaissance painting.

Rennaissance girl

Next up, the preparations for May Day in Piazza Maggiore. It’s the Labor Day holiday here as in pretty much the rest of Europe. Of course we Americans think of a labor day as associated with some kind of socialist/communist international conspiracy so we of course have a labor day on a different day of the year. Still, it’s a big day here with not too much of political overtones – strangely enough similar to our own holiday.

May Day preparation in Piazza Maggiore

There are, however protests. This one was on about May 5^th to protest changes to the educational system in Italy recently enacted by the current government. I know little about the changes and whether they are good or bad but there were a lot of people out concerned about diminished educational offerings or quality. Of course this filled Piazza Maggiore and Piazza Nettuno – where such things happen in Bologna.

Demonstration in Piazza Nettuno and Piazza Maggiore

I haven’t written about our apartment here in Bologna. It’s on the second and top floor of a building in a nice area. The building was built in about 1550 so it deserves a post all by itself so that will be coming up soon. In any case this is the view of the tree and adjacent roof from our little terrace.

View from the terrace

There are frequently changing exhibits on the main floor of Biblioteca Sala Borsa. The current one that just opened is about food in all kinds of forms. One of the installations is this creatively set table.

Table setting in the Biblioteca

And last but not least…. Unlike the autobahn in Germany where there are parts of the highway with no speed limit, there is a speed limit on the autostrada in Italy – 130 Km/hour (about 80 mph). Of course if you have a fast car and you think that you can just outrun the police, think again. I saw this Lamborghini painted as a police car on display today in Piazza Maggiore (where else).

Really fast police car.

Of course I doubt that they actually bought and use this rocket for police work but it does draw a bit of a crowd as you might imagine.