Dreaming In Italian

I’ve been back from my spring jaunt to Bologna for almost two months and have not written a blog post for what seems like ages. Other than my usual laziness I do have have something of an excuse which I’ll explain in a post before long. But right now the subject is my friend Lia.

I met Lia at the central library, the fantastic Biblioteca Salaborsa. She is a volunteer in the same way that I do. She has a conversation in her native language (madre lingua – mother tongue) which is, of course, Italian. We kind of hit it off and to my surprise she accepted an invitation to join me one evening for aperitivo. She’s too young for me, 19 years is too much of an age differential, but we enjoy each other’s company. During this last winter period we exchanged emails almost daily, an exercise which was a great learning experience for me and really improved my Italian. Since we’re both unattached we hung out together quite a bit. We went to a couple of movies at Cinema Lumiere where they show movies in the original language with subtitles. We’ve had meals at each other’s houses and met for “aperitivo” and even went to a location where there were people dancing tango – a surprisingly popular activity here. She dances, I watch. She staunchly resisted my attempts to photograph her as you can see from the photos that follow.

At a bar in centro

At another bar for aperitivo – almost got a decent photo

At a gelateria – foiled again

And again

Aha – a least I now have a profile. She REALLY likes gelato. This is her second one.

Finally, the diminutive Lea center and another good friend Liu’

Lia loves an active life. Born and raised near the Dolomiti mountains she is really a mountain girl at heart and likes to be always on the move. Her activity was curtailed some years ago (3 or 4) I think when she fell from a climbing wall in a gym in Bologna and fractured her ankle and a bone in her calf quite badly. It never completely healed properly after surgery so she had to give up running and long distance hiking – things that she really loves. So this summer she is have remedial surgery which will hopefully restore much, but not all, of the activity to her life. The cast just came off today and after another month she should be fully recovered.

A gift from Lia before I left. A doll made of napkins and kitchen towels for when I stay in Bologna. Very thoughtful and cute.

I’m looking forward to seeing her when I return in September.

Like the title of the spaghetti western by Sergio Leone that made Clint Eastwood a star, there are all of these things in Italy. While the adjectives are in a different order in the Italian title for some reason we’ll go with the English version. So I just selected some random photographs to illustrate the point. First the good.

Statue along via Saragozza where I am staying. Just an ordinary statue like many scattered around the city. The netting is to keep the pesky pigeons away.

Another statue thingie not far from the madonna. Again just everyday stuff.

Now the bad.

OMG MacDonalds in the very center of Bologna. Always crowded. I don’t know why, maybe it’s the draw of Americanness. 

I’m including Gianluca. Sort of a joke since he’s really a good friend and I enjoy his company. However he’s the only admirer of Trump that I’ve ever met here so to preserve our friendship we have an agreement to NEVER talk politics. Except of course if he changes his view  of Mr. T. Hmm. I just noticed a flaw in the photo in the area of his nose. I don’t know what happened there.

And now for the ugly.

Someone (probably an Italian) is really not too happy with their country. It does seem that everyone loves their country but hates the government.

If you’ve ever visited Italy you know that graffiti is just a fact of life. There’s no sense complaining since that’s just the way it is. At least this stuff is in a little traveled street.

Well, that’s all for today folks. Art and, yes, graffiti is everywhere in Italy so you have to take it all together just as in the title of this blog.

As I learn more and more Italian, especially through reading Italian mysteries, I’m learning a lot of ways of swearing. Some are mild, as in English and others not so much. Take something that by now seems pretty mild in English, the word “damn”. In italian that would be “porca miseria”. There are others similar that are more serious, porca putana, porca troia, and porca madona. They are something like “holy shit” or “goddamn it” with the later being the more serious and never said in polite company – well, none are really said in polite company. There’s a certain flexibility in the meaning. As an adjective, as in that damned bus is always late the word “maledetto” it the word of choice. To say that you are “incazzato” means that you’re pissed off. If you’re REALLY pissed off you’re incazzato nero”.

Of course there are the old standbys “vafanculo”, i.e. “fuck you”. Someone that is a pain in the ass is a “rompicoglioni” – literally ball buster. I remember a movie with Italian-american mafiosi when asked why one of the mobsters shot someone he said “he was busting my balls”.  Just a “coglione” is “asshole” when referring to someone disagreeable. Another frequent word is “cazzo” which has a wide variety of meanings. It can refer to the male, er, member or as an expletive simply as “shit”. If I stub my toe I’d say “cazzo!”.

Gestures I’m less sure of. The raised middle finger is becoming more widely used here as a “fuck you” gesture but the traditional one is raising you index and pinkie finger. Popular in the U.S. at rock concerts, it has an entirely different meaning here. It’s means “cornuto” or, your partner is sleeping around and is considered a pretty rude gesture.

In one book I’m reading a policeman keeps a list of different degrees of “rotture di coglioni”  – things that are a pain in the ass, examples such as having to pay a parking ticket is at level 5, while a obligatory dinner with in-laws is at level 8, etc. One of my friends, a woman, regularly uses the expression “che palle” (palle means literally balls and we’re not talking sports here) which means “that sucks”.

Below is a video that I found that goes through some of the gestures. A swipe of your fingers below your chin is one I’m quite familiar with which mean “non me ne frega” or you could add “un cazzo” at the end. It means I don’t care and with the addition it means “I don’t give a shit”.

Oh yes, one other one. “figa” depends on context. It can mean a real hottie referring to a woman or in others “pussy”.

Ah, the joys of learning another language.

Cemeteries are different in Italy in a number of ways. Certainly they are more dense, usually because they are older and also because they are smaller. Same number of people, smaller area of land = density. They also are often quite beautiful. There is a class of cemeteries called “cimiteri monumentali” monumental cemeteries. Often full of sculpture, often done by reasonably famous artists. One of the top 5 of these is the Cimitero Certosa in Bologna. It’s a bit outside the city center and was founded in 1801 at the site of what had been a monastery of the order “Certosa” which in english that would be the Carthusian order of monks which still means nothing to me but with the help of Google I found that it is an order of monks founded in France in 1084. So there.

The entrance (at least one of them)

It is certainly interesting wandering around the cemetery. I’m always astounded to the monuments to the dead. Not just gravestones but what to me seem like major works of art plunked down over the bones of the long departed.

Who knows who is buried here. I think it’s a monument for parigiani (partisans) who battled the nazis in the second world war.

Majestic cemetery

Lots of folks here. Is the statue for everyone or just a really important person?

More modest final resting niches

Now let’s see, where exactly is Great Uncle Franco?