Dreaming In Italian

Sometimes you just get lucky. This happened a year or two ago when I just happened upon the Tour D’Italia (the most important bicycle race in Italy) going through town. So if I hadn’t decided at just the right time to go out and buy a few groceries and I hadn’t decided to stop at the little fish market to buy a fish I might have missed out on the whole thing. As I was exiting the fish market and ready to cross  Saragozza and head up the hill to where I live there suddenly appeared a cop on a motorcycle cruising along with his light flashing. Then came a few cyclists and I thought, “ah, another race”. But then they started coming. An amazing collection of WWII military vehicles, mostly American. I was so stunned that I didn’t even think to reach into my pocket and take out the cell phone to snap some photos until I had already missed the 3 tanks and one half-track. But there were lots of vehicles remaining. All full of Italians pretending to be Americans (mostly) with some English, Scots and Canadians. Bringing up the rear were even a few Germans (not too popular with the crowd).

Of course I knew that today was Liberation Day, the day which commemorates the end of WWII in Italy. A couple of Italian friends say that they find it ironic that this is a national holiday. “What other country celebrates the day when they lost a war?” they say. This is not necessarily a widely held opinion. After all, Germany had essentially occupied all of Italy by 1943. Mussolini had been fired and imprisoned by King Vittorio Emmanuel III (yes they still had a king). A couple of months later he was freed by the Nazis and set up the Italian Socialist Republic in Northern Italy that lasted for 19 months until the end of hostilities in Italy although most of the military action and control was by the Nazis. So to my mind, and that of many Italians, it is in fact Liberation Day.

But now the photos.

Looks British to me

Definitely an American half-track

Happy crowd aboard a personnel carrier

Even an amphibious vehicle

Not sure who these guys are but interesting car

WACS (Womens Army Corp) and nurses are represented

I dunno – look like Germans to me. There were a bunch of American motorcycles too.

One very gung-ho American

Clearly a Scotsman

And more of the British

Still a long line to go

Who are these guys and what is that vehicle? Cute, huh?

Bringing up the rear – the Germans

I hope that you enjoyed the parade!

First there is Vittorio. I met him the first time I came to Bologna and this is my 6^th visit. I can almost always find him at around 2:00 PM  seated in front of the “Irish” pub not far from the twin towers along via Zamboni. I have joked with him that he must have a bedroom inside since he seems to live there and that they are crafting a statue of him seated outside with a beer in hand and a cigarette in his mouth.

With Vittorio

But that’s only the start of the story. On almost every Saturday night Vittorio and his crowd of friends, many of whom I know a bit by now, gather in front of the pub at about 8:30 and start thinking of going out to dinner. It takes a while to determine the number – a few telephone calls. “Okay, are you coming? How about Massimo (a name I made up to protect the innocent)? This goes on for maybe half an hour. So then, “Okay there are 14 of us, let’s find a place to reserve a table.”. What! Saturday night, calling at 9:30 to reserve a table for 14?!. Well, it always works out and someplace is found. We troupe over there, some arriving separately and start dinner at, oh maybe 10:30. So typically we are the last to leave at 12:30 or 1:00 in the morning with waitstaff relieved to see us go.

Outside the pub arranging the dinner

So that’s the background. It’s not unusual that several of the diners take a cigarette break somewhere through the meal. Since it’s a lot noisier inside and hard for me to hear and talk to people I go outside as well. So I was out there with a group when the excitement began. Ah, but wait, first I have to tell you about Carlo il Texano.

Carlo il Texano and me

At least that’s what I call him because he has such an appearance of a Texan. He’s kind of a big lanky guy with that kind of texan walk. All he needs is a pair of cowboy boots and a ten gallon hat. It also turns out that he has a hair-trigger temper. So we are hanging around outside and some young guy – maybe 25 at the most is walking along and comes up close to Carlo and says something. Carlo absolutely exploded, pushed the guy HARD and then chased after him yelling “Che cazzo voi!”, “what the fuck do you want”. I was worried that Carlo (who is a lot bigger and fairly robust) was going to beat the kid up. So as Carlo was chasing after that “kid” other guys in our group were chasing after Carlo to restrain him. So finally we persuaded the “kid”, who was either in an altered state of consciousness or stupid, to exit the scene before he got pounded by Carlo. So no damage done other than Carlo getting his shirt ripped a bit.

So that became the great topic of conversation displacing the previous great topic of Davide getting seriously drunk at a birthday party in Parma, having his wallet stolen and calling his girlfriend at 4:00 to come rescue him.

Outside the Indian restaurant at 1:00 AM

Usually guys who are smokers might put a cigarette behind their ear. Carlo with abundant chest hair has another solution.

Some people put a spare cigarette behind their ear.

Ah the fun just never stops here in Bologna.

This word means “tongue twister” in english and perhaps there’s some subtle difference in meaning for the volunteer work that I do at the library (Biblioteca Sala Borsa). Since I come to Italy two months at a time in each spring and fall (if I can manage it) I need something to do with my time other than be just a tourist which, after all, gets pretty boring after a while. So this is the second spring where I have been a volunteer in this program. Two afternoons a week (Tuesday and Thursday) I go to this beautiful library where I have conversations with one person at a time, in English, an hour per person for 3 hours. I noted that they now have expanded the program to two tables this year and am told that one can reserve a space only every other week. It must have become quite popular.

Two tables at Scioglilingua this year

Last week was the first week of this activity. I remember best last Thursday when I had conversations with a young woman from the Ukraine, a guy from Argentina and an Italian. All spoke reasonable English although I have had instances where someone spoke very little English and I had to exercise my Italian as well. I met my friend Gianluca there last year when he came by for an hour.

This year I’m also participating in the program in Italian. It’s in some ways better than having conversations with friends because I receive more corrections and therefore learn more during the hour than in 3 or 4 hours with friends.

As an aside, I also went to an event in Giardini Margherita – a really great park just outside the walls with a group from a Facebook page “Tandem language learning in Bologna”. It was an interesting outing. Most people that I met when I arrived spoke English and I’d say about 60 percent were Italians. I did however meet people from China, the U.S., England, Brazil and Iran. Unfortunately we migrated from the meeting place near the entrance to a grassy area where we all sat on the grass. This makes it pretty difficult to engage in conversation with very many people because it’s difficult to get up and move around. So I had interesting conversations with two Iranians and a Brazilian seated nearby. All spoke very good English but little Italian. They were all classmates studying for masters degrees at the University of Bologna and all classes were given in English. I asked the Iranians what they thought of the proposed nuclear deal. They said that they hoped that it would go through but I was surprised that they said that lifting of sanctions would have little effect on most of the population. Only the elites would really benefit. They also said that it would certainly be tricky since the Grand Ayatollah (and supreme leader) still holds most of the power in the country.

Tandem outing – I’m in there somewhere

More later.

My friend Gianluca invited me to go with him to the country on last Saturday. The outlook was that it would rain a lot the next day and I was a little dubious about the proposition. He said that it will be raining less in the mountains. Sunny, he said. So I met him at the train station at 8:30 to take the train to San Benedeto val di Sambro, near the border between Emiglia-Romagna and Tuscana, about a 45 minute trip. His sister Analisa met us at the station with her two girls, Dascia and Serena. We went to the little town (Lagaro) near where they lived to do a little shopping and a tour of the town that took about 3 minutes – it’s really that small. Oh, yes, about that rain. It was really pouring down in Bologna and in the mountains? – it was really pouring down! I told Gianluca that I could never trust him again – tongue in cheek of course.

Bar Sport in “downtown” Lagaro

Next we went to the house where they lived in the country. At their house I met the dog Tequila which barked at me whenever I showed my face and Raul her husband. They have a fair amount of acreage with geese, peacocks (!), chickens, a horse, a hamster and, of course the barking dog. Later I also met Raul’s mother who lives in an apartment downstairs and Raul’s sister Barbara who came by to give a haircut to Gianluca. They prepared a lunch. Raul prepared pasta carbonara and gave almost everyone a portion large enough to live on for two days. Being the guest I ate it all even though it was a bit much. Then we had some veal in an italian style, pounded thin then breaded and fried. Everything was indeed delicious. With the rain we were a bit constrained but after a while I got a little twitchy just hanging around inside the house so we went for a walk. I had bought a nice big umbrella in Bologna and it really paid off; I hardly even got my shoes wet in the downpour. I saw the horse only from a distance since she was reluctant to come out of her stable in the rain. While there Gianluca offered me a little something to smoke to let’s say, change my perspective. I accepted the offer. I didn’t know how well I’d be able to speak Italian in that frame of mind but perhaps I could speak the language better.

Selfie with Dascia

When I first heard Dascia’s name I asked her jokingly if she were russian. No, but the name is. Raul told me that when he did his service in the army a friend of his had a wife (or sister?) named Dascia and they liked the name and gave it to their first born. She’s now 12 (and 1/2 she added) takes english in school but was too timid to speak it. She also takes french and said that she didn’t speak that at all well either.

And with Serena

No such story with Serena who is 11. Both cute and lively kids.

We hung around the house for a little while and then Raul offered to take us somewhere more interesting to pass a little time so we went to a bar in a little town not far away. On the way we passed through a really tiny town. About as small as one can be to merit a name and a sign that shows that you are entering the town and another with a red slash that indicates that you are exiting the town. I joked with Giancarlo that it was a “one ciao town”. That is if you say ciao in the drawn out way that they announce a goal in soccer you could say both hello and goodbye with a single word. Of course you must know that “ciao” (like “aloha” in Hawaiian) has the meaning of both hello and goodbye. I thought it was funny but then in a certain state of mind a lot of things seem funny. Anyway, the bar was quite a scene. It’s like I’ve so often read the bar is such an important part of Italian life. People go there to have coffee, a drink of anything from beer to whisky, play cards, even gamble a little in some places. It’s a center of social life, especially in smaller towns. That was certainly the case there. We hung out there for awhile and Raul knew pretty much everyone that came in. He was born there and like most small towns everyone knows everyone else. I found it really interesting. Then we went to another bar that had a little (and I mean little) aperitivo buffet. Fewer people came there but again Raul knew everyone.

We managed to kill enough time to make it feasible to go to dinner. We wanted to go a little early so that we could have an unhurried dinner and still be able to catch the return train at 9:40 back to Bologna. Giancarlo had promised me a really good meal in a local restaurant that was much cheaper than any equivalent in Bologna. So Raul dropped us off at the restaurant and went back to the house to get Analisa and the girls. We were later joined by a couple of friends of Giancarlo who live in Bologna but have an inherited house in the area. So we had a nice dinner. I was not disappointed. I had pappardella con cinghiale (broad fresh pasta with wild boar), Serena had tortelloni (well, big tortellini) with, I think, a light tomato sauce and all of the others had pizza. Of course there was a liter of red wine and also water and Raul, Gianluca and I had a grappa at the end of the meal. I tasted a little pizza as well as one of the tortelloni and it was all good. The total for me (others paid for the wine and water) came to 11 euros. Quite a bargain compared to Bologna.

The gang at the restaurant

From the left in back: Gianluca, Barbara, Analisa, Raul (a man of few words but a nice guy), strange dude who’s Barbara’s boyfriend. And of course in front, Dascia and Serena.

Knowing that the train as at 9:40, at 9:10 I said to Giancarlo that we really need to start thinking about leaving before long. He said, not to worry, the station is only 5 minutes away. As the minutes ticked away I started to worry a bit since the following train is an hour later. So finally at 9:20 I said, “look, we need to pay the bill, I want to take a photo, we need to drive to the station and buy the tickets, so let’s go!”. So we did all of the above and Analisa drove even faster than usual and we go to the station with 3 minutes to spare. Gianluca was buying tickets from the machine as they were announcing the incoming train and the ticket machine gave a message something like “that function is not available” when he pressed the final button to buy the selected tickets! Eeek! So we got on the train and found the conductor. He said you have to pay extra if you pay on the train but Gianluca explained the situation using the usual italian wiles and we paid the standard fare and collapsed into nearby seat – both of us were pretty exhausted from the day.

I arrived back at Bologna at 10:30 and just missed the bus that takes me to my neighborhood and had to wait half an hour. Arriving home at 11:30 I happily fell into bed and slept until 10:30 the next morning. I guess I’m finally done with the jet lag.

All in all it was an exceptional day and experience for me. I struggled a bit with the local accent but spoke a lot in italian since nobody other than Gianluca speaks much english. I learned a useful phrase from Gianluca which I really like: “a chi se ne frega” which is like “who cares” or maybe even “who gives a damn” – the tone of voice matters.

Alla prossima (until next time)