Italian men and other past times...

Most of you know that I have a weakness for Italian men. Lately, however, this affection has spread to encompass the greater Mediterranean area. It’s only natural that since I study Classics, I give equal opportunity to both the Roman and Greek worlds.

There are two things that everyone keeps asking me about Italy: How is the food, and have I met any Italian men?

Foodwise, you probably won’t believe that I, EmilyUK, have lost my appetite. I know it is sort of tragic, but honestly I haven’t been that hungry. I’ve cut out coca and haven’t done much on the gelato front lines. One good bolognese or pizza does me just fine, as long as there is an espresso and cornetto in there somewhere. I’ve tried to combat scurvy (a childhood fear from reading too many sea adventures) by having fruit and vegetables as necessary. But this has only been since I ate that entire jar of Nutella with a spoon: this phenomenon may be short-lived.

One of the first things that we were told in our orientations (both the logistical and academic) was that Italian men are very aggressive and forward. Most of the girls spent the first week afraid for their lives. It was a bit of overkill if you ask me.

It IS different here but there are several reasons for it. The most important reason is the concept of La Bella Figura. You’ve probably heard of it. It means your exterior aesthetic, the part of you that you present to the world, and in the context of putting your best foot forward. As soon as you walk out of your house, you are inviting people to observe you. Both men and women will look you up and down. Little old women on the tram, taxi drivers, teenage girls...they won’t give you a thumbs up or down, but they take it all in. I’ve been told that my eyes wander when I’m in conversation with someone at a café or a venue with lots of people passing. I think I am just Italian by nature and I’m interested in la bella figura.

With that said, not only is it common for men to openly check out women, but when a group of college girls are clustered together, drunk and screaming in English, it’s like an open invitation for men to talk to them. I think you’ll agree that it’s highly likely for this to happen in the states, minus the language factor, but obviously, American girls are more conspicuous in this context. I pretty much avoid any situation where I might find myself drunk and screaming with a bunch of girls. Since arriving, I have only once had dinner with a crowd of American girls. But cooking, drinking wine, and dropping the girls at the club on my way home hardly puts me at risk.

Several girls have asked me if I’m afraid to be alone in my apartment or walking to school. To the many things of which I am afraid, these are not even related (think scurvy). In LA I am afraid neither of being in my apartment alone nor walking to school. I have found that doing what I usually do in LA works just fine. Don’t talk to people who are trying to hit on you. This will, I assume, insure that, just like in LA, I will never meet any men.

Mi dispiace!

Sorry folks but I omitted one of the most important bits about being homeless in Rome in my previous post. I have amended it to include Lady Gaga...

How to be homeless *updated*

One might think this would be easy.  But I know that being homeless takes a certain something and I generally practice my skills in major cities, not often, but when the situation permits.  The first time I tried this, I was in New York.  I was freezing cold so I wore my usual eight layers with all the hoods over my head, plus James’ overcoat.  He said I looked like I was homeless.  I stooped over, turned in one foot, let my bag slump to the ground and started shuffling about, muttering to myself.

 It rained rather hard in Rome and I forgot my umbrella so I’m sure that it would have been a good idea to go home straight away after school.  But I didn’t.  I walked up the Corso with my hair all bedraggled and my cuffs all wet.  I cursed at the men on the street who tried to sell me an umbrella for 5 Euro.  I really was shuffling at this point because my feet were wet inside my clogs and my back was sore from leaning forward and holding the weight of my bag.  It seemed the perfect opportunity.

I’m used to seeing a fair amount of homeless in both Santa Barbara, where the climate is inviting, and Los Angeles, where people often end up down on their luck.  But one usually has to travel to Europe to see people prostrating themselves on the street in front of a church, their foreheads to the ground and holding a cup in their outstretched hand.  There are lots of homeless with dogs.  But I attribute this to the shear number of dogs that roam the city and assume that the homeless men and women adopt them as companions, providing for them as best they can. 

The first few people that I saw in Rome on a regular basis were of non-traditional social standing.  There was the crippled beggar who wore a purple coat (not unlike my own) who followed me, stumbling along the cobble-stones saying, “Bella, Bella.”  I saw him three times that day.  At our last encounter, he called me “Super Bella” and that compliment was not lost on me.

But by far, my favorite recognizable character in Rome is the Lady Gaga Bag Lady.  I’m not even kidding when I say that she looks exactly what I predict Lady Gaga will look like in ten years...and I do mean ten.  The LGBL wears a colorful assortment of layers, a cap over her white-blond dreadlocks (naturally occurring on both counts), large pink glasses, and (wait for it) make up in wildly fantastic patterns across her face.  Imagine horizontal black and white stripes down the length of her nose, bright shadows on her lids and rouged cheeks not unlike Anna Piaggi on a face near enough to Anna Piaggi’s own age.  In fact, I might not have thought she was homeless except for the many bags filled with trash that she drags with her at all times.   Since I’ve seen her about five times, I think it’s safe to say she is a bag lady and if you saw her you’d think that’s where Lady Gaga is headed, too.

The dirty aspect of cities really appeals to me and I’m sure that makes no sense to most people.  I walk a lot every day and it is surprising what one sees.  I’ve seen more people shooting up in parks during daylight hours from LA to Rome than I have been worried for my safety at night.  At night, I tend to see more people walking their dogs, almost all of those dogs are Beagles.

I ‘dined’ at an Autogrill, being surprised to find on in a city.  I’ve only ever seen them on the highways in Italy as a cafeteria-style restaurant at a rest stop or gas station.  They have a buffet of uninspired dishes in large quantity and of questionable quality.  It seemed the perfect place for a homeless person to eat.  I had four plates of food and two desserts.  When I left the Autogrill, I wrapped my scarf around my ears, tried to look simultaneously forlorn and suspicious, and snarled at the man who tried to sell me an umbrella for 4 Euro.  In order to prevent people from trying to sell me an umbrella, I decided that there was probably an artful way to acquire one for just an evening.  Stealing one from an umbrella stand in a doorway would be uncouth.  Pinching one that sheltered a paper menu propped outside a restaurant would be just as tacky.  Besides, a broken one would be more ‘authentic.’  I stumbled upon a red tartan model which had lost its ability to property close.  But since I only needed it in its open capacity, I snagged it.  As I walked back in the rain to my cozy apartment and its tiny shower, I thought about all the people who were homeless by necessity or by choice but not by experiment as I had so flippantly been practicing.  When I was thirteen and in Manhattan for the first time, I remember seeing a mother and two children huddled together in the doorway of an abandoned theater.  It was late and I was just getting out of a show, formally attired and giddy from the lights and the music of ‘The Phantom of the Opera.’  I remember thinking that I probably had no grasp of reality because, at age thirteen, I had paid $80 for a ticket to see a play.  In Paris this past weekend, I saw an old man at a bus stop crying as he pissed himself.   I had that same feeling again. 

I left the umbrella near the train station where someone else could get some use out of it.  About a block from my apartment, I slowed because a cat poking around a dumpster looking for some dinner.  He skitted away as I approached and just as I was passing by, a second cat flew out of the dumpster, grazing my head in his panic.  I shrieked a string of involuntary vulgarities and the cat ran away down the street.  I stood there for a moment, next to a dumpster, my jeans were wet up to my knees, my fingers wrinkled in my soggy gloves.  I was one step close to reality.

Airports

I alluded to the ease of travel in an earlier post.  How we take for granted the ability to skip the danger of the Alps or cross the Atlantic in a matter of hours.  Instead we complain about standing in line and having to put our toilette into little plastic bags.  I am no exception. 

     At LAX, one must remove shoes, belts, empty pockets, place laptops in a bin separate from the Ziploc of liquids and walk through the metal detector with boarding card in hand.  I stood next to a man once and we were perfect strangers putting on our belts and shoes next to each other in such a close proximity but with such detachment that I felt like a hooker on my way home.  At LHR, one must go through security again.  One must have a separate bin for their carry-on luggage, even though it is self-contained.  Laptop, coat, and toilette can go together and shoes may stay on but not boots.  And one should not hold their boarding card whilst entering the metal detector. 

     Rome Fiumicino (FCO) is the main airport in Rome and quite convenient.  I flew from Rome Ciampino (CIA) on Thursday and I can't say that I'd ever like to do that again.  It isn't easy to get to and because I had to leave around 4:30 am to catch a 7:00 flight, I decided to take a cab.  Since I don't check luggage, I just run through security and walk on the plane with minimal hassle.  The Italians seemed to have it all figured out: the bins for your coat and toilette arrived via conveyor belt and it was a breeze to place your things in them and slide the bin into the machine.  There was no fumbling with stacks of bins sticking to each other or having to get out of line to find bins.  And just as I was thinking that this was the most efficient (surprising because this was Italy) way of doing things, an old woman completely bypassed the entire security line by walking around a barrier and presented herself at the front of the line, jabbering that she had forgotten something.  Security let her through and she saved herself at least ten minutes of queuing up with the rest of us.  This is Italy, after all...

     CDG in Paris is generally considered to be the worst airport in the world.  I've had bad experiences there, Jessie has, and so did the gentleman who was killed a few years ago when part of the terminal happened to collapse.  I pretty much try and avoid it.  Orly is a convenient airport but I decided to try Beauvais because it was about €50 cheaper.  If I am traveling to a place I know rather well like NY or Rome, I will generally just hop on public transport.  But if it's Boston or London, or in this case Paris by way of Beauvais, I will take a cab on arrival and will know enough by the time I leave so I can take the Metro on the return.  The price of a ride from Beauvais to Paris via taxi is not set as it is in many places.  It cost more than I am willing to mention.  I take that back, it cost €162 or about $250.  By the time I arrived in Paris, I was completely sick from not only the hour and forty-five minutes in stop-and-go traffic but also because I didn't have any money for a fun birthday present.  I met Shelley in the tea room of our hotel and said, "The Eiffel Tower is so boring." 

     I was not completely defeated by travel though.  Or at least not yet.  On the way home on the RER from the Maison Objet gift show at Parc l'Esposition, the train car was so packed that I could smell the shampoo of the woman in front of me and I could put my hand in her pocket (which I did just to see if she would notice) but there wasn't anything in it.  But the train car didn't move.  At least not for about a half an hour.  And then it stopped again.  There was a suspicious package at Gare du Nord so while security was busy blowing it up, I was busy standing in standing-room only convincing myself that I am not claustrophobic (I'm not but it felt like it).  Also, that I was not in the freezing cold for three days in the train car to Auschwitz.  Shelley wanted to sing 'Yellow Submarine' but I wanted to throw up. 

      I get motion sickness, known as mal de transport in France, and so I had to get some tablets from the pharmacy for the bus ride back to Beauvais.  I was not about to spring another couple of hundred on a cab.  I took the metro to the outskirts of Paris near La Defense and stood in line in front of a window that said 'closed.'  There were about 200 people waiting around trying to figure out what to do.  €14 got me a ticket to Beauvais where one must remove scarves before going through the metal detector but not not shoes or boots.  There are no real gates at Beauvais but just one big room where everyone sits on the floor.  There are four doors (which are the gates) and the gate name is announced only once boarding has begun.  There is a mad dash and a frenzy to line up at the door.  Then about halfway through boarding, the gate/door switches just to make it fair for all the people who missed the first mad dash.  If you don't get trampled in the second mad dash, you wait outside where it is 30 degrees to get on the plane.  Once on the plane, you can use your cell phone for talking or texting.  Flying Ryanair is fun that way.  But be prepared to pay €3 for water.  

   
    

Tom Cruise and La trasformazione del paesaggio alle porte di Roma

    It never fails that Tom Cruise is always a subject of conversation in Italian class.   The Professoressa always bases an exercise around him.  This particular exercise utilized comparative forms, such as two subjects or one subject and two adjectives.  "Is Tom Cruise younger than George Clooney?"  "Is Tom Cruise more handsome or more popular."  It has made me realize that Tom Cruise and McDonald's are the lowest common denominators of American culture.
    Tonight I attended a lecture with my neighbor, Signora Odoni, on the Archaeology of Campo Marzio.  It was, of course, in Italian.  Academic Italian is not conversational Italian just as Academic English is not what people speak on 'Jersey Shore.'  So I understood about 3 percent of it.  One might think that a lecture beginning at 9:00 pm, which also happened to be in a foreign language, would make a person fall asleep.  The visuals were fairly good and the aerial images of sites with which I was familiar, as well as maps, and I LOVE ancient maps, would have kept me from slumberland alone, but a most amusing thing happened. 
    The speaker, a professor from Rome's 'La Sapienza' University had a pleasing voice and was quite presentable.  About ten minutes into the lecture, he seemed to develop a debilitating stutter.  At first, I thought he was stifling a sneeze.  He turned his head slightly and covered his nose with his knuckle.  But then it happened again...and again.  He broke into a full-on stutter. 
    This might not have stuck me so severely if I had not watched 'A Fish Called Wanda' a mere ten days ago.  And just like Michael Palin's character, Ken, in fact exactly like Ken, this man was standing in front of 350 people and struggling to say, "C-c-c-ampidoglio." 
    Italians are very helpful.  I know from past experiences that if you were to ask an Italian on the street for directions, the man with perfectly polished shoes or the little old woman in black would take you by the arm, point out several unmistakable landmarks, speak so quickly that their words cannot possibly be understood, ask you if you live in Hollywood and know Tom Cruise, stop another Italian to confirm that via Della Croce is still located just off the Corso, and send you on your way with a kiss on each cheek. 
    The audience of the lecture was just as amiable.  When the professor would come to a particularly long pause whilst trying to form a word, the audience would gently feed him a prompt, "Agrippa," they would say in a loud whisper, or "Tevere." 
    I've heard lots of people say that if they are in a situation that could be comical, they could not make eye contact with a friend without breaking into laughter.   Jess and I can't be in the same room in such situations.  I expect that it will have been the only time I was glad that she is not here with me.

      For some reason, I think this is a good time to post clips from Missione Vaticano: Parts One and Two from Mission Impossible III.  I expect it is because of how nice all the Italians are after Tom Cruise uses the diversion of the overheated truck. 

               

This is Rome...

{image via bugbog.com}

     A few people were asking me why I don’t mind the 40 minutes it takes to walk home every night...honestly, if you saw this every night, you’d be happy to do so.  I came on this trip for many reasons, but I think mostly because I wanted to see what it would be like to live here. Since I’m not independently wealthy (yet), channeling the experience through school made the most sense. I suppose I could say it is also because I’m a Classics major and studying Rome is what I do on a regular basis. In actuality, the Classics major came after my obsession with the Roman world.

     I’ve begun my Italian classes and since I haven’t studied Italian since 2005, there is much that I have forgotten. My vocab is pretty strong even if I’ve entirely lost anything besides the present tense. Studying Latin has come in handy and not just because much of the Italian language comes directly from the Latin; studying Latin taught me the basics of etymology. I don’t take to languages naturally, the way most musicians do. But I hope that once I have three solid years of both ancient Latin and Greek, I’ll be able to decipher most words by a peeling-the-onion approach...and I mean most English words.

     I don’t know why, but it always takes me about a week to figure out how to shower here. One would think that it would be like riding a bike and that my body would recall the process as soon as I was presented with a hand spray hanging in the corner, a shower basin the exact dimensions of a turkey pan, and a curtain that was probably once a bed sheet. But it always takes me a few failed attempts, a few cold, soggy episodes, and rather a lot of towels to wipe up the floor. Finally, tonight I had a satisfactory experience. I first sprayed down the wall and got the curtain to stick so there wouldn’t be water all over the floor. I carefully placed my feet so as not to occlude the drain, as the basin can overflow in exactly 14 seconds, but to be able to position my body so far forward that I would not strike the mixer with my elbow and upset what was seemingly the perfect setting. I do have plenty of hot water but no consistency. That is to say, it has never run out of hot water but merely runs back and forth from hot to cold. But the mixer still has to be on the right setting so that when it runs back to hot, one doesn’t scald oneself. Tonight was grand because I didn’t move hardly at all and that means that the shower curtain, which almost reaches the lip of the shower pan, didn’t shift, exposing the floor to the torrent.

     It has been mostly overcast and even a bit dribbly while I’ve been here. But every few days, it will be sparklingly clear, at least for a few hours. On those clear days, every cat and dog in the city will come out in the morning to catch some sun and look charming. I know if Jessie were here, she would (like every old Italian Mamma who is hunched over in her black dress, black sweater, black sneakers, and black apron) keep a bit of pasta in her pocket for the kitties. It’s a good thing I’ve been bit by dogs so many times because now I don’t fawn over animals the way I used to. I’ve snapped a few photos of the cats to use to bait Jessie to visit and spoken to them but they only respond to Italian, and I haven’t much in the way of conversazione per gatti...yet. But with when the animals come out, the streets are suddenly covered with shit. And I don’t just mean with little dishes of spaghetti and kibble...literally, the streets are covered in shit. It reminds me that I am going to Paris on Thursday.

The Pantheon

Mother says that the only sure way to get my attention is to stand on a chair and yell, “CAKE!” 

Shelley, my good friend/former roommate/boss at Pierre’s, says that if she wants to get me to look at something, she just has to say that it is Italian. 

So one might think that an Italian cake would be one of my favorite past times (Panettone or tiramisu, perhaps).  But in reality, my favorite Italian hobby is gelato.  This makes sense if you know about my Santa Barbara obsession with McConnell’s ice cream and homemade ice cream sandwiches. 

I did something rather touristy yesterday.  I usually sit on the steps of the fountain with a gelato and contemplate the Pantheon.  But I’ve never been to Rome in the winter.  So instead, I paid €12 for bruschetta and bolognese with a cioccolata calda.  Hot chocolate in Italy is rather like chocolate pudding.  If one were to make chocolate pudding (cook it I mean, not the instant stuff) and if one were to pour it still hot into a mug and if one were to have zeroness of patience and not let the pudding set...basically, I’m saying that one must eat ciccolata calda with a spoon. 

Since this is a story about me, I suppose it is a surprise to no one that I ate the ciccolata calda first, before my dinner had arrived.  I had never seen the Pantheon without Jessie.  She didn’t show.  I dined, thinking about how I should like very much for it to rain so I could see water pouring in through the ceiling.  It didn’t show either. 

I asked for the bill, il conto, as one must do in Europe.  The waiter, an affable German (not sure I’ve ever had the pleasure of saying that before), told me that there was no hurry and I might as well stay a while.  He was right. 

I won’t go into an entire architectural history lesson on the Pantheon, I wrote an art final on the building several years ago, but like most of Rome’s buildings, it has a pretty rich history.  I contemplated the building for a while longer.  I told the waiter that I would like a cappuccino.  He replied, “Why not?” 

Why not, indeed...this is Rome.  Anything is possible.  

Getting to Rome

"Those of us who had not fallen asleep glanced casually down at the Alps. They lay beneath our wings like a model in a geological museum, and though it was July, many a summit was still white.  There comes over one sometimes a sense of the wonder and fantasy of this age, and, as I adjusted my chair to a more comfortable angle, I though how preposterous it was to be speeding through the sky to Rome, many of us unaware of the great barrier which awed and terrified our ancestors. While I looked down, trying in vain to identify the passes - the Mont Cenis, the St Gothard, the Great St Bernard and the Little, and the famous Brenner - a series of pictures flashed through my mind...Hannibal and his hungry elephants, Charles the Bald dying in the Mont Cenis, the Emperor Henry IV hurrying through the blizzards of January, 1077, to make peace with the Pope, while the Empress and her ladies were strapped into ex-hides and let down over the frozen slopes like bundles of hay.  'Would you like a glucose sweet or a peppermint?' asked the air hostess, as we crossed the Alps."
- HVMorton, A Traveller In Rome

Of course, I say that and I was absolutely asleep when we crossed the Alps.  But the point remains: traveling is such a different experience than it used to be. 

For example, after I wasn't able to get an upgrade to British Airways' Club World, I advanced to the BA lounge anyways.  It just so happened that my friends, Jamie and Emily Greaves, were on the London leg of my flight.  After a dramatic lie about how BA had lost my Club World status, we three were drinking gin and tonics, having a bit of lunch and a champagne toast to the expatriate lifestyle.  I breezed on and off the plane, since I almost never check luggage anymore.  Changed over in London, and arrived in Rome before dark.  There are things that I like to plan down to the last detail but for some reason, getting to my apartment from the airport is never high on that list.  I always have general idea of where I'm going, and a vague inclination of how to get there.  I boarded a train (train tickets have to be stamped BEFORE getting on the train) going in the direction of Trastevere and I surmised from the conversation between some of the passengers, that my stop was coming soon.  At the Trastevere station, I bought a tram ticket and took it (tram tickets must be stamped AFTER getting on the tram) one stop and then walked up the hill to root around for my apartment.  It was dark when I presented myself in front of 29F.  All this, and I hadn't spoken more than a sentence or two of Italian.

I tend to speak French at first, regardless of which foreign country I am located.  The trouble with that is, I don't actually speak French.  But all of my exclamations tend toward the French and it takes me a bit to get my Italian going.  My hostess, whose apartment and mine share a vestibule, is 60 and on leave from work because she is undergoing Chemotherapy.  Over a glass of red and a slice of cheese pie (HELLO), I was able to discern that Maria has lived in this flat for three years, after inheriting it from her parents.  She converted it into two apartments and seems pleased to have me occupying the studio.  She was a social worker for 35 years and the director of a school for the handicapped.  Since she has been ill, she mostly stays home and smokes cigarettes from her terrace with her cat who deigned to look at me but nothing more.  Next Tuesday, she and I are going to a lecture on the archaeological restoration of Campo Marzio. 

I've run down to the market and picked up a few groceries and what I hope is face wash.  I write this with Nutella and bread in hand.  Life is grand.