A difference of opinion

Having dealt with an as per usual late train, the lack of air conditioning in the hot and humid summer heat, the army of travellers crowding the carriage brandishing oversized luggage (seriously how much do you need to take on holiday?) I had come to realise that this evening was probably not going to change GMs mind.  There’s one place here whose fame and reputation looms large over all else and my chum hates it.  Yes Venice, in most other places cities like Verona and Padua would very rightly be the major attraction but when you have Venice down the road all else pales in comparison.  So much has been written about Venice that I don’t feel that I can productively add anything.  The idea of a beautiful city built on water is so crazy and dreamlike that if Venice didn’t exist someone would have to invent it.  It seems to me that no one has an indifferent view of Venice – you either love or hate it, me and GM are on opposite sides of the fence.  From my first moment on the lagoon I’ve been hooked.     

When I compare the glorious Venetian past to the Venice of today I can’t help but feel a little sad at the decline of the grand city.  From being “Lord of a quarter and a half a quarter of the Roman Empire” with a population of 180,000 at its height to the Venice of today its population down to 59,500 and shamelessly pimping its past glories out for the tourist dollar.  The city is a work of art and when not overrun by visitors it’s a joy to wonder and explore.  In an almost Faustian pact the tourist is both Venice’s survival and its death.  Without the money that visitors bring the city would have no hope of keeping financially afloat (bad pun I know) but their numbers make life almost impossible for Venetians to live.  Prices have risen so much that many can no longer afford to live in the city and chose to leave, with them goes the infrastructure such as schools and hospitals needed in a functioning city.  If the population decline continues at this pace in 20 years there will be no Venetians left and the city will have become the theme park many already think it is. 

While it would be lovely for Venice to return to being a living and working city I fear it may be too late.  Why would you spend the money and put in an infrastructure to support a living population when you have the guaranteed income from tourists.  The Venetian authorities themselves do this cause no favours.  When I arrived the cities’ residents were fighting proposals to extend the capacity to accommodate yet more mega cruise liners.  The proposed changes would have seen the closure of one of the last living pieces of Venetian heritage; the Rialto markets which have been trading in their current location since 1097.  How could Venice’s politicians possibly consider such action?  A big fat load of cashola that’s how.                       

GM and I first met in Venice in the autumn of 09, he was doing a favour for a mate offering to say a hello to me and show me around.  Well after a gap of a year and a half GM again made it to Venice. Food was our mission and Venice’s only Indian restaurant.   We were on public transport as parking near Venice is, like much else in the lagoon outrageously expensive.  Stepping out from the train station in high season is not the most pleasant of experiences.  You need to keep you elbows out and your wits about you to dodge the suitcases, backpacks and lost looking people.   The city drowns in tourists thus rendering any walking pace above snail like impossible.  A carefully chosen left and we had left the crowds for the relative quiet of the ghetto.  Over the course of the evening GM regaled the many reasons why he dislikes Venice – it’s expensive, crowded, dirty, a nightmare to get to and when there to get around and so on and on and on.  A lot of what he said cannot be argued with but much as I mentioned the beauty and peace of the place at night, the sheer glory of the grand canal he was not to be budged.  Sadly the restaurant only served to confirm GMs views and for once I was in agreement the food was bad and overpriced.  On the train home to Treviso and once safely off the lagoon GM noted that the best thing that could happen to Venice is for sea levels to rise before the completion of the flood barriers – Wow, he really doesn’t like Venice.      

Of patience and bureaucracy

Moving always entails a modicum of paperwork and setting up in another country certainly does.  My chosen country being Italy I knew I was in a trying time.  Having been here for a few months now I am surprised how quickly I have gotten used to Italian bureaucracy.  When I first arrived it seemed as if you couldn’t do anything without someone asking to see your i.d.  I wouldn’t have been surprised to be asked for “documento” when entering a public toilet.  Once I had been offered a job I had to get down to the encounters with officialdom that I usually try to avoid.  

The first thing was to get a codice fiscale.  A Google search brought up a page on how to fake the all important number and thus avoid the engagement with Italian bureaucracy.  As tempting as this was I thought it best to do things properly.  To get the number I had to go to the Agenzia delle Entrate, which in Treviso is housed in a large complex of civic buildings that look faintly ominous in a 1984 kind of way.  Finding the correct building amongst its identical siblings was surprisingly easy.  My first triumph was explaining my mission and actually having my Italian understood!  I was given a form and a number and told to wait.  Despite arriving first thing in the morning the offices were already packed with people clutching numbers in the vain hope that they would be out of here sometime soon.  I wondered if many of them had spent the night waiting for their number to be called.  Having had dealings with Italian officialdom in the past I had come prepared with a book and some snacks and happily settled down for the wait.  97 pages in and it was finally my turn.  I headed to my assigned desk to find a bureaucrat slumped in her chair looking like the will to live was ebbing away with each passing minute.  Once again I explained my purpose, handed over my form and after a few questions I found myself successfully codice fiscaled.

Seeing as that had only taken half a day I decided to open a bank account but expecting lighting to strike the same place twice was a bit ambitious.  In Italy you need a work contract to open an account and at that point I didn’t have one.  When you mention that you are going to open a bank account everyone relays horrific stories of the ineptitude and errors of the various Italian banks that I stopped asking for recommendations and just walked into one.  I was quickly ushered to a desk and a lovely lady who photocopied all my documents and filled in a surprisingly large number of online forms.  When she went to get the final forms for me to sign I was dismayed to see her return with a significant portion of Brazilian rainforest.  Looking at my face the bank clerk smiled “don’t worry these aren’t all for you.”  She then peeled two sheets of paper off the pile, handed them to a college and proceeded to get me signing.  At first I carefully read each document making sure that I wasn’t signing away the rights to my first born child or something more serious but then to get me out of there just signed away.  Bank account done!    

The Italian government requires all foreigners to register their stay if they intend to be in Italy for more than three months.  Dreading the next encounter I left it until my three month deadline was approaching before tackling this one.  Getting to the offices of the commune I pushed the button for a number P5, the screen said P1 – I’ll be out a here in no time I thought.  Forty five minutes later the screen still said P1.  I headed over to the P counter (which was empty) and informed the gentleman quietly reading that I was here to fulfil my bureaucratic obligation.  “That’s the H counter today”  I was going to suggest that perhaps a sign may have helped but seeing as I’d already interrupted his peace I feared he might stab me with his biro.  Over at the, also empty, H counter I came across the staring into space bureaucrat and said I wished to fill in the residency forms.  “Do you have a number?” 

“I have this number”

“That’s a P number this is the H counter I need an H number”

“But there’s no one here”

“I need an H number”

Making a mental note to double check if Franz Kafka was Italian, I headed over to get the required H number.  As soon as I had the all important H13 in hand my staring bureaucrat pressed his button H13 to the H counter.  There he had the by now familiar folder and relevant forms.  Once again photocopies were made of all my documentation – rental and work contracts, passport, codice fiscal and the forms filled out.  The next week I had to head out to another office outside of Treviso fill in yet more forms and have yet more copies made of my documents.  There is only a visit from the local police to check I live where I say I live and then my travels in the world of Italian bureaucracy will hopefully be over.

NB Kafka was definitely not Italian but did work for an Italian insurance company.

Reflections

This week I have been in a very reflective mood, perhaps it’s due to the approach of the three month mark or maybe the initial euphoria has settled and now I must get on with the task of living here or maybe homesickness has finally struck.  Whatever it is I’m not quite sure, most likely it’s all of the above. 

As I sit in the surprisingly high spring temperatures with the first of the summers mosquito attacks launched it’s hard to believe that that icy cold march morning of my arrival was just three months ago.  So much of the time between then and now has been a blur of looking for and starting a new job, looking for and moving into a new home and reacquainting myself with this crazy place that now things have settled it has almost come as a shock that I'm actually living here! 

There is still so much to get to grips with that sometimes I think I’ll never manage it but then I walk out of my house on a gorgeous warm sunny morning and the world feels right.  Most days I notice something peculiar, frustrating or just down right funny that I wish I could share it with my dearly missed friends in Melbourne.  As much as I am thrilling to my experiences here sometimes the everyday difficulties wear me down.  From snap transport strikes putting your Sunday plans into disarray, to having to trawl through three stores to get ingredients to cook anything more exotic than Italian food or simply the culture shock of the Italian way of doing things.  This week I have really longed to be able to walk into the Pinnacle (my local) and just have the release of a few beers, playful banter with friends and live music, another thing I’m really missing.

Sunday arvo at the Pinnie

 Having left the UK twelve years ago I have come to terms with the ache of not having loved ones near and new technology means keeping in touch is so much easier but cyber hugs are no replacement for the real thing especially Lucas and Robbie hugs.  I have been waiting for these feelings to strike and in fact am surprised they didn’t hit sooner.  I’ve travelled enough to know these times are fleeting and it is a sign of the wonderful people you have in your life that you miss them.  Being a bit of a wondering soul my nearest and dearest are scattered all over the world from Europe to Australia, China to Argentina which makes the prospect of visits very exciting.  For now I just need to let such feelings pass and then get on with the next exciting escapade or bureaucratic nightmare that Italy holds for me.    

These three months have been intense and I need to give myself a break and understand that as much as I want it to not everything will come together immediately.  Patience has never been a strong point of mine and I often get frustrated with myself at a perceived lack of progress.  Rome wasn’t built in a day and I need to lighten up and give myself the credit for what has been achieved rather than focus on what still needs to be done. 

To the best bar at the end of the world and all who drink in her - well almost all, Ted's not included.

https://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/The-Fitzroy-Pinnacle/211624392202875

NB: This post was written while listening to a particularly melancholic Tom Waits album

Rajis' Mobile Curry Service

It all started in my capacity as GMs house guest, I was looking for ways to repay the kindness and make myself feel better about taking advantage of a friend.  One morning a few days after my arrival while I was mainlining coffee GM mentioned that he had a cupboard full of Indian spices but had no idea what to do with them.   That evening GM returned to find his flat filled with the aromas of India and happily ate away.  Being of Indian lineage I am very used to people asking if I can make a curry and know I am supposed to have learnt the secrets to the art of Indian cooking from a mother steeped in its traditions but my mum although a good cook hated cooking and I only ever learnt the basics from her. 

Next on our food safari was an Indian restaurant in Mestre.  Not sure why but wherever I travel I always feel the need to check out an Indian restaurant.  I love to see how the cuisine is adapted for each nations' palate and am astounded that I am yet to visit a country without an Indian presence – my favourite so far was found in Buenos Aires- as for Mestre well it was quite good and hearing Punjabi (my parents language) spoken with a thick Venetian accent was a spin out.  Over the next few weeks we tried the world of ethnic eateries in Treviso – of which there aren't too many.  Quite a good Japanese, a pretty bad Thai and a few Chinese that range from ok to terrible, no Indian as yet.   

By now news of GM having a live in curry cook was beginning to spread and soon L was requesting in on the Indian resulting in a dinner of chole, tandoori chicken and aloo gobi.  The next time I saw the gang in Asolo my cooking was mentioned and it was suggested that perhaps they could come over to Treviso for a meal (which we have yet to do.)  When time came for me to move into my own apartment my parting gift was a curry lesson and the five kilos that GM noted he seemed to have gained during my stay. 

In my own apartment I had to think about building up my own store of spices.  This was a problem as they’re not easy to find here.  I soon came to realise how exotic my cooking is to the Italians.  I found a couple of Chinese grocery stores in Treviso and managed to get what I needed for some basic Chinese and Thai food but the Indian spices were proving a problem and you can’t find fresh chilli here for love nor money.  Then there was a little piece of luck in the form of an international food festival in Treviso.  One Saturday afternoon a bunch of us teachers from work (not sure what the collective noun for teachers is, how about a correction?) headed down.  Now the concept of “International” seemed to involve mainly Italian and central European cuisine but there was a spice stall and I stocked up on whatever I could.  In the food court I persuaded the owner of the kebab stand to sell me a jar of his Tahini – I had a hankering for hummus

The spice cupboard begins to take shape

With my new stock of spices I was keen to get cooking GM and L were all too happy to be victims of my culinary exploits.  With the recent hot humid weather I decided to move my curry making away from the north India of my mothers’ cooking and head down south where coconut and lemongrass (lemon zest in this case) add to the flavours.  I had also found a Bangladeshi store in Mestre where the genial owner saved me some precious fresh chilli.  When I mentioned I was cooking for friends he asked “Italians?” and was most delighted to find that yes I was cooking for the natives.   I’ve never made my own masala (mixed spiced) powder before but it really is easy and very satisfying.  As I roasted a mix of fenugreek, coriander, cumin, black pepper and fennel my apartment started to smell like a spice market.  The resulting masala was a world away from the Punjabi variety I’m used to cooking with. 

Freshly roasted spices

That done I packed all I needed and headed to GMs place, my apartment being the size of a cupboard GM had suggested we eat there.  It did also mean he didn’t have to go far to get home.  To add to the endeavour I decided to give making Indian bread a go to, so while I busied myself in the kitchen GM and L got on with consuming the hummus I’d made. 

The Masala

The resulting meal was on the whole a success, second helpings were taken and while not pretty the chilli, coconut bread was tasty.  I had to amend the chilli content as I am slowly building up my guinea pigs'tolerance but there was food, much talking and laughing.  When I moved here I had thought I would learn to make all that wonderful food that Italy is rightly celebrated for but it seems it's my Asian cooking skills that are going to be improved.  In a surprising turn of fate I have discovered that I quite enjoy the process of cooking and making food for friends, I like nothing better that working away in the kitchen while expectant dinners drift in to check out the alchemy.  So Rajis’ mobile curry service is up and running and available for bookings.

Need to work on the presentation but Friday nights feast

The Big Fat Indian Wedding

By now many of the guests will be enjoying a lazy rainy day in one of a number of luxury hotels.  Shakira and the Gotan project will have packed and left, the elephants will be on their way back to wherever it was that they came from, an army of workers will be beginning the task of cleaning up and the bride and groom will be contemplating a life together.  While most of the world’s attention has been taken up with certain nuptials in the UK organisation for the real wedding of the century has been underway in Venice.  This week Venice got its own dose of Bollywood glamour and excess in the form of the wedding of Vineeta daughter of the mega rich iron tycoon Pramod Argawal.

The local papers have been breathlessly reporting the staggering stats of this event and to quickly summarise:  800+ guests, three locations, two elephants, cooks and designers, djs and photographers brought over from India, flower designers from Paris, multi Michelin starred chefs, Shakira and dancers as well as the Gotan Project and a whopping 20 million euro for the whole shebang.  Almost every luxury hotel in Venice has been requisitioned for the wedding guests.  If all that wasn’t enough to get you crying about the lack of invite the entertainment for the big day has been months in the production and involved an “entire re-enactment of imaginary cities, a 17 by 8 meter canvas meticulously painted with acrylic colours by a specialist, that reproduces a famous Canaletto view of Bacino Marciano on a huge scale, chandeliers made of flowers, amazing lighting effects and more.” – Vogue Italia.  Speaking from experience subtlety is not a concept that is too familiar to the Indians.  My invitation getting lost, I was tempted to pull out my Indian outfit and see if I could crash the gig but even in the right gear I doubted my ability to pass off as a rich Indian glamour puss.  I really wanted to go the first night celebrations where as one Indian marriage website reports "Guests will dance with a submarine on their heads to the music of Gothan Project." 

 

Once a week I teach some lessons at the Consiglio in Venice and when I arrived last Monday THE WEDDING was all anyone could talk about.  While the Consiglio had much to organise for the event there was a great deal of interest in the sheer scale and lavishness of the shindig.  As well as the impromptu Indian pronunciation lesson I had to give there was much explaining of the process of the three day affair that is an Indian wedding  - made all the more difficult as I’m no expert having only been bored through the many I was dragged to as a child. 

Of course the Venetians have had dealings with India for well over a millennia.  The early Venetian merchants traded European timber and metal in return for spices from the sub-continent.  More recently the Indian movie industry has used the lagoon for some of its fantastic song and dance numbers.  In fact to me, this wedding had echoes of the lavish spectacles that Venice was once famous for.  While it may seem jarring to have the colourful excesses of Indian fantasy in Venice on second thought it’s a perfect marriage Venice itself is a fantasy city.  As divorced of reality as the most lavish of Bollywood movies where love conquers all and the right guy and girl always get together.  Anyone who visits Venice seems to come more for the fantasy of masks and gondolas than anything based in reality.  I can’t help but ponder on the irony of spending months and who knows how much money on painting a view of the bacino when the real thing is outside, could it be that Venice has become a place that lives more in our minds so much so that the image is more real than reality? 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VRpf8kmEPnU



Sorry, Will and Kate who?


 

Vanity thy name is Raji

When I was mulling over the crazy idea of heading to Italy for a time there was much weighing of the pros and cons.  It would be an adventure, setting up in a new country and meeting new people would be exciting and being in Europe would mean I could indulge my desire to see new countries without the thirty hour transit but could I leave dear friends, a great city with all its wonders?  And could I give up the most rewarding and longest lasting relationship I’ve ever had with a male, could I leave Jay, my hairdresser?

Jay is the proprietor of Chainsaw Massacre and is the greatest hairdresser in the world.  Over the years I’ve seen Jay’s dogs grow up and old and my hair has gone from the long and flowing to the short pixie crop that I have been favouring for the last few years.  When getting your haircut you are putting your trust entirely in another person (not one of my strong points) and if you find a hairdresser who no matter what always makes you look good you keep hold of them.  Over the years we’ve gotten to know each other and now I don’t need to say anything to Jay I just sit in the chair and let him work his magic knowing the result will be amazing. 

Since setting up in Treviso I’ve always known the day would come when I would have to face up to the fact that I need a haircut.  Well this week and ten weeks after my last visit to Jay I looked in the mirror and knew that my hair looked terrible.  Now getting your haircut by a new hairdresser is already a traumatic enough experience how the hell was I going to do it with someone whose language I don’t speak?  When your hair is as short as mine there is no room to hide, a bad haircut is a bad haircut and it takes a lot time and humiliation to get over it.  I even, for a crazy moment, considered a return to long tresses. 

First up I asked if anyone could recommend me a hairdresser.  After much thought one of the girls at work mentioned she had been to someone in Treviso five years ago to trim an inch off her long hair – not the kind of recommendation I was after.  T another British teacher at school told me of an English speaking hairdresser working in the centre of Treviso and off I went on the hopeless task of trying to locate this guy.  After a fruitless search I resorted to walking into any salon I could find and asking how much a haircut would be, as much as I needed the cut I was not prepared (and cannot afford) to pay the 60 Euro most places where quoting.  Tired and painfully aware that I had bad hair I was on my way home when I stopped into one last salon there the young man said a haircut would be 20 euro plus 3 for washing, no appointment necessary just stop by.  Now this kind of rock up and get a cut normally signals alarm but the price was affordable and my current look awful so what the hell. 

As he washed my hair I fought the urge to flee the scene, how could I let anyone else near my hair with a blade and how was I going to tell him what to do?  Oh if I had the money I’d fly Jay over here.  After the wash (no head massage or cuppa) came the question “what would you like?”  I wanted to say I’d like my hairdresser who knows me and who I can trust but considering that would have been really unhelpful managed to say I want it blunt, textured and chipped into.  Now he gave every impression of understanding me hairdressing terms seem universal, and even said he understood but then he uttered the fateful words: “If you don’t mind I have an idea.”  We proceeded to haggle over my hair with him uttering words like wispy, body and movement in the end I put my foot down; my hair much like me is to be short and blunt.  As he set to work my young hairdresser was painfully aware of the fact that I was watching his every movement and every snip.  After an hour in the chair the cut was done and both of us exhausted.  I noted that he hadn’t entirely given up on his ideas but was too tired to get him to fix the asymmetric fringe he’d given me.  Having paid and left I couldn’t believe how harrowing I found the experience.  As far as the cut goes I’m not sure what I think about it yet.  It’s not the same but I’m learning to live with it.  It’s much better than before and infinitely better than the long haired alternative. 

The Cut

Digs

My time as GMs house guest was getting close to a month and while he is too polite a person to actually utter the words, when are you leaving?  I sensed a panic in his eyes and a rising fear that he would never get rid of this Indo/Anglo/Aussie who had so completely invaded his life, home and taken control of his kitchen – not that there was ever a complaint about coming home to find a curry bubbling away on the stove.

And so began the hunt for digs of my own.  Having spent the last few years in shared accommodation with some successful and a few disastrous experiences I was hoping Trevisan rents would be affordable enough for me to live alone.  Having experienced the nightmare of the Melbourne rental market I was also hoping the process would not involve rental auctions or 200 people turning up to a viewing. 

Treviso itself is a small walled medieval city (really the size of a large town) with a sprawl of housing that has developed outside.  So there are two types of real estate – dentro o fuori la mura (inside or outside the walls.)  All of my new friends live outside the walls and indeed none of them know anyone who lives inside, naturally inside was where I began my search. 

While real estate agents the world over are a breed of humanity to themselves the Italian variety have their own peculiar distinctions.  In Melbourne you would be hard pressed to find an agent spending more than two minutes with you between selling another unit at eighty grand above the list price in Italy an agent will quiz you on your life story before even checking what they have available.  There’s no advertised viewing or even collecting a key and going to have a look yourself.  Here you have to make an appointment with the agent to view the property.  My first was a lovely if a little dark apartment near the cathedral, when I mentioned that the rent was more than I wanted to pay the agent, who had often visited India and had an adopted Indian grandchild (did I mention life stories?) without a blink of an eye asked me how much I wanted to pay and said he would see if he could get the price lowered for me – well, not in Kansas now!  The next day I spent the afternoon with another real estate agent who was charming until she got behind the wheel of a car when all the swearing and gesturing I have come to expect came out.  With her I saw another three apartments all of which were affordable and beautifully fitted out.  Lastly I saw a tiny little studio apartment in a modest little palazzo slap bang in the centre of Treviso.  While it has cupboard like proportions it felt right.  It also helped that it was the cheapest place I was offered (even before I got them to lower the price) and with all bills included.  The agent was cut from the same real estate agent cloth they use the world over – in fact I wondered if the material of his pin stripe suit is actually called real estate agent stripe.  His hair was slicked back and on his wrist was a perfectly ghastly watch that served to show money does not buy you taste

My modest little home

Having decided on the place next was the drama of the contract.  Being used to the whole one month rent in advance and one month as deposit I was a little taken aback with the Italian two  (and often three) months deposit.  In addition there is a fee of another month’s rent payable to the real estate agent for, from what I could gather, putting an A4 sign in the window and showing you the apartment.  Finally there is the fee for registering the contract.  I am rapidly coming to terms with the fact that when Italy hits you with these little surprises all you can do is shrug your shoulders and get on with it.  There was also the small issue of me not actually having a work contract yet (I had glossed over this little fact) but as ever in Italy as in most places the fronting up with the cold hard cash is a facilitator.  So all I had to do was sign my name on the contract and the place was mine for the next year.  This was when I freaked.  Generally I see myself as a little commitment phobic and for the last five years have not managed to commit to anything other than the keeping of a regular dentist appointment and here I was committing myself to a year in one flat in one town/city in one country.  My heart pounded and my hand shook a little.  When it was all over the agent taking pity on me suggested I may like a drink and perhaps we adjourn to the nearest bar.  So there it was in just three days I had found my apartment and signed the contract, I could move in on Monday. 

I returned to give GM the bad news that his home, couch and bachelor life will be returning to normal – he was nice enough to not jump and whoop for joy (actually I don’t think he’s the type to whoop.)  Now I have no idea of the intricacies of location in Treviso and when I told GM I was moving to San Leonardo he was struck dumb. 

“Do you know where you’re moving to?” he asked

“Yeah course I do, I have seen the apartment”  

“No, do you understand where you are living?” well obviously I didn’t but it seems I have found myself in the most exclusive part of Treviso (if a place that takes 20 minutes to walk end from end can have an exclusive area.)  So my friends can hardly believe that not only am I living inside the walls but I am living in the Treviso equivalent of 90210.  Me, I just liked the little understated building with canals running either side.  When GM drove me to my new residence he couldn’t believe it “I’ve always wondered who lives here” was his comment and now he knows. 

So I am happily ensconced in my little cupboard in the “city.”  GM took me for a shopping trip to IKEA to get all I needed to kit out my little place and it is becoming a home.  In the morning it’s filled with light and the gentle background noise of the running water from the canals is soothing, until you wake in the night needing to pee.  While sound proofing is not the best and I can only really entertain one person at a time it feels safe and perfectly right for now.

                                                                   This mornings view