Wilkommen a Bolzano

“Most people get home at this time.”  Read the message.  And it was true that usually if I’m awake at 4am I’m either having a very big night or lying in bed having some kind of existential crisis.  Today it was neither, I was up at 4am completely sober and getting kitted out for a trip up the mountains.  When I agreed to go to the mountains with J I hadn’t really grasped the prospect of catching a 5.30 train so I was very impressed that we both managed to get to the train station and not roll over and go back to sleep when our respective alarms sounded at 4am.  The trip was a bit of an epic first stop Mestre where there was enough time for coffee before catching our connection to Verona where we got the train for the mountains.  Three hours after setting off and we finally made it to our destination Bolzano.  

Fairytale buildings

Leaving the station I was struck by two thoughts one I was extremely glad that I had thought about the temperature and rugged up and two I wondered if we had crossed a border without realizing it.  This felt more like Germany than Italy.  All the signs were in German and cars stopped at the zebra crossing.  Our first port of call was a cafe where we listened to everyone speaking German as we ate strudel.  The architecture was a world away from the arches and loggias of Treviso.  This town was definitely more central European than Mediterranean.  Walking around the place I couldn’t shake the feeling of being in a fairy tale as retold by the brothers Grimm and half expected to turn a corner to find a gingerbread house.  

The big draw was the Christmas market that had opened the day before.  Strolling around the stalls selling glass baubles and Christmas fairies the Germanic feeling was reinforced by the band kitted out in traditional Prussian gear striking up in the main square.  By 11 we were totally down with the Germanic vibe and seeing as it felt like mid afternoon to us it was time to partake in a piping hot mug of vin brulee – or rather gluhwein and some sausage and sauerkraut. Most of my friends will attest that I am not the best person in low temperatures (in fact I’m a complete whinging pome at anything below 10 degrees) but taking a stroll in this mountain town surrounded by snow covered mountains, with a crisp air and a bright winter sun it didn’t seem so bad – lashings of warm wine probably helped.  Spending practically my whole life on islands (UK and Aus) it felt strange not crossing water to get to another culture (apologies to Wales and Scotland.)  I find the idea of borders interesting how one culture blends into another.  I wonder if the Bolzanans feel Italian or Austrian?  Or then again maybe they don’t even think about it.  

beginning to feel the Christmas spirit - or is that just the wine?

By late afternoon the early start was beginning to hit us and our energy was flagging.  I’ve always said that Christmas is a place and not a time and sitting outside a little bar, through an arch and down an alley, next to Christmas trees, with blankets on our laps and the last glasses of gluhwein warming our hands and bellies I really felt like I was there.  As the light began to fade it was time to begin the epic journey back to Italy and Treviso but I’m looking forward to a return to this Germanic part of Italy.   

Frittelle and a timely reminder

Last Wednesday I got to the end of a planned lesson with some time to spare and I was beginning to run out of ideas so I asked my group to tell me about the festival in Venice (many of the students live in Venice and had attended the morning events before work.)  I knew that the festival of the Madonna della Salute was happening as we spoke but hadn’t thought about it too much or intended to go given that it was a ‘school’ night and that I had been once before.  My students started to tell me about the festival and the one thing they kept emphasising was that the festival wasn’t simply a Venetian festival but it’s “our festival.”  As if the Venetians; having lost so much of their city (and their quality of life) to uber tourism have managed to keep this one thing for themselves, something which they are loath to give up.

The festival of the Madonna della Salute was, as my students informed me instituted in the 16^th century.  Venice had been delivered from a devastating outbreak of the Plague and in thanks built a church dedicated to the Madonna.  The church is unique in that every statue adorning the facade depicts a female saint (a fact that my students were very impressed that I knew.)  During the festival a bridge of boats is built across the Grand Canal to the church.  On the morning of the festival there is a procession from St Marks to the church for a service then throughout the day people visit the church to light a candle and then walk across the temporary bridge and make their way to St Marks. 

There wasn’t much of this story that I didn’t know but I had forgotten one important fact which when I was reminded meant that I simply had to go to Venice that night.  That something was frittelle.  A frittella is dough that is deep fried and then covered in a mix of lemon juice and sugar and is a delicious as it sounds.  Carnivale has its own version which comes in a ball and is only available for those few weeks of festivities in February outside of Carnivale they are flat.  I hadn’t had a frittella since the end of Carnivale and couldn't wait until February for another one so as soon as five o’clock hit I hot footed it to Venice. 

When I arrived  I could immediately see why my students had called it “our festival.”  For once Venice seemed full more with Venetians rather than tourists and students.  Whole families were out not only to visit the church but to enjoy their city.  As I made my way to the church I made small detours to some of my favourite places.  The little bars were doing a roaring trade in spritz, cicchetti, and conversation.  The evening had the chill of impending winter meaning everybody was wrapped up warm and the bars looked more inviting than ever.  The whole atmosphere of the place was different and I remembered this was how it was when I fell in love with it a few years ago.

When I got to the church the festivities were coming to an end, the whole place smelt of candle wax and all the attendants hands were covered in the same.  As the final sermons were being spoken I headed out to the street selling nuts, dried fruits and other festival delicacies and got myself the biggest frittella I could find.  Mission accomplished I headed back home – with a brief stop for a spritz with a friend.

For me Venice is now at her best, the crazy hoards are gone and the icy cold winds are yet to start.  The autumn fog makes the city look magical and walking the empty streets is a joy. In the last few weeks I've been spending increasing amounts of time in Venice and of late J has joined me for the odd night out – she’s very impressed that you can still have dinner and a few drinks in the city for 10 Euros.  Having Venice so close does mean that it becomes - if you can believe it – one of the mundane things in your life.  It’s good to have moments like these to remind me how special it is and how lucky I am to know it so well.   

Sciopero

Sciopero was a word I learnt very quickly post arrival in Italy.  It is a common occurrence here and usually results in my plans being messed around but two weeks ago the sciopero was on my side.  It was a beautiful sunny, warm autumn day and the 3 hour sciopero meant that instead of spending my morning in the industrial wasteland that I’m currently teaching in I could enjoy the glorious weather and spend my morning looking at ducks with young P and his dad. 

Sciopero is a strike and is something that occurs with frustrating regularity here – usually once a month and usually on a Monday or Friday (not that I want to read anything into the adding of a day of industrial action next to the weekend.)  Not being used to so many strikes I was never aware of them until I rocked up to the train station ready for an adventure only to have my plans thwarted.  After one too many cancelled journey I now I keep an eye and an ear out for announcements – especially as I am currently to commuting to work again. 

Unions are much stronger here than in the UK or Australia and it often seems as if everyone belongs to one.  I’m a great believer in the union movement and would never argue against the right to strike.  And I’m not going to make what would be an ill informed, superficial and ultimately pretty glib account of the situation here (hell I’ve got plenty of other things to be ill informed about) but I do wonder why this country has so many strikes. 

Having been here for a while now and seen so many strikes I wonder if a strike has entered the everyday of the Italian experience.  They seem such a normal part of life that you wouldn't even think of asking what issues people are striking over.

This strike was called to protest against austerity measures but that morning as some people gathered in the main piazza for speeches I couldn’t help noticing that the bars where unusually full of people drinking spritz.  But I’m just an observer and no way near qualified to really comment of such things. 

As I left work today I was told that I may have trouble getting into work tomorrow, when I asked why?  The reply came “didn’t anyone tell you?  There’s a strike.”  

Zero Zero Sette

 This week feeling the need for some mindless entertainment we headed to the cinema.  The new James bond adventure was our chosen film.  We would have to watch the film dubbed into Italian given that being such a small place Treviso doesn’t have an audience for English language films.  There is one cinema that often shows movies in their original language but it wouldn’t stoop to showing such commercial fare as the latest bond outing. 

I’m only now getting used to dubbing, in the UK and Australia the general practice with foreign movies is to keep the original dialogue track and add subtitles.  When I have caught a piece dubbed into English it has been so uniformly bad that I have grown up to have a rather snobby attitude to the process.  In my time here I’ve seen enough dubbed entertainment to begin to reassess my opinion.  I started watching TV as an aid to learning the language and while I tried as much as possible to watch Italian productions there is so much American television on the screens here that I invariably ended up watching some of those as well. 

The first thing I noticed was that dubbing here is completely different to what I had experienced before – they have separate actors for each character.  Not sure if it’s a cost cutting measure but in the UK they seem to hire one male and one female actor and get them to dub every character of their gender.  Not only in Italy do they hire a full cast of actors but many actors exclusively dub one actor.  As well as that they are also very good at finding a voice to match the actor they are dubbing.  By hiring proper performers and carefully selecting voices the productions have managed to keep the spirit of the original show – you’ll be happy to know that Gordon Ramsey is still a tosser in Italian. Watching American or British shows is not such a trial and as my language skills have improved I have begun to forget that I’m watching a dubbed show.

As for Mr Bond – something that is so British being in Italian was a bit strange but it wasn’t off putting.  Despite a year in Italy I’m still no way near fluent but I could follow the action – (ok it’s not David Mamet) but the jokes came a little too fast for my Italian so I missed much of the subtlety.  Of course I would have much preferred to watch the film in the original English, as good as the Italian dubbers are it is hard to hear another voice coming out of Judy Dench’s mouth.  All in all not a bad experience and I have resolved to try to get to the cinema more often.  Oh yeah and the movie wasn’t bad either.

Rather endearingly Italian cinemas still observe the interval. 

And it's only going to get colder

 As much as I have been in denial the evidence is now irrefutable.  I’m not sure what it was exactly that led to the admission.  Was it the overnight 12 degree drop in temperature? Was it the first appearance of vin brulee in Treviso? Was it witnessing the first of the Christmas lights being installed?  Or was it having to flee Venice at siren sound to avoid the 1.4 meter high water? Whatever it was there’s no doubt about it winter is here and given the time and severity of the temperature drop it looks like it’s going to be a long and very cold one. 

I find it depressing to think of having to get through the next four months of cold wet weather.  I’m not one for winter sports – unless sitting under a blanket with a pot of tea and a good book can be classed a sport  - and at times like these I begin to think of my home in Melbourne and the fact that they are heating up for the summer.  When I talk to Trevesians about the winter months they happily inform me what a mild winter is was last year sending me into heart palpitations.  I mean I know how cold it was last year – there was a temperature gauge outside my building and for two straight weeks it didn’t get above zero and I can’t conceive of any way you could describe that as mild.

This year I’m determined not to be caught short in the warm clothes department – given that I’m now in possession of six coats (can’t believe I own six coats and it would have been seven were it not for the fact I gifted one away) this year I’m stocking up on winter woollies – hats, jumpers, socks you name it and most pressing of all a good set of gloves, I can’t believe I got through the last winter without adequate hand coverage.  The other important thing for the cause of getting Raji through the winter is a good stack of reading material for the hibernation – any recommendations?

Not that winter is all bad – there are the roast chestnuts and warm spicy wine, Christmas markets in picture postcard towns, misty mornings in Venice and warm inviting bars.  As lovely as that is I can’t pretend that I’m not waiting for the day when I can return the hated puffy yet warm coat back to its home in the forgotten part of the wardrobe (next to the clothes that don’t fit after a year in the vicinity of awesome gelato.)

Back from Brazil

No I haven’t been in Brazil but things have been a little stressful in Raji’s world of late finding myself at one point simultaneously homeless and jobless as well as having a little crisis of confidence resulted in me taking myself out of the blogosphere for a time while I got my shit together but rest assured that having sorted a few things I’m back with my little dispatches from the front line of Italian life.

Before the summer I was planning to give up my small town life and head into the bright lights of a big city.  Rome looked like the big contender – there were sniffs of jobs and share accommodation was plentiful.  As much as I love Rome on my last fact finding mission I realised that I didn’t feel it and I began to ask myself why after a year of hard work establishing myself in Treviso finally getting to the point of knowing and feeling comfortable in the place, having made great friendships am I leaving?  There was also the heartbreak that leaving Venice would bring.  I have to say that even after a year and a half countless visits and hundreds of hours in the place I’m still as in love with it as I always was (why I can’t fall in love with a place that has cheaper real estate I don’t know.)

I came to realise that I was planning to move for no other reason than habit and let’s admit the ample distraction a move would provide from the larger things in life that I really need to start thinking about.  So after a mounted campaign by my Trevisan/Venetian friends I decided to give up the idea of a move a stick with the Veneto for a little longer but as a nod to my ever present urge to bolt I would try to find a place to live on the lagoon. 

Now I understood that renting in Venice is a very different prospect to renting in Treviso.  For the cost of my apartment in Treviso I knew I would be looking at renting a room in Venice.  What I didn’t realise was that that room would be an overpriced poky little place with broken furniture.  Given that I wasn’t prepared to share a room, share with anyone under the age of 30 and I have reasonable expectations of hygiene my search proved much harder than I had anticipated.  All friends, acquaintances and general random strangers were enlisted to the cause of finding me a home.  After a month of searching and viewing countless apartments and being truly shocked at the places people are prepared to pay to live in I had still come up with nothing (worth living in.)  As much as I dream of living in Venice living in a hole would just be depressing.  So staring imminent homelessness in the face I gave up on the Venice dream and decided to look once more in Treviso.  The upside of this being I can continue to live alone, which is more than a small consolation.

Being just two days away from being on the streets my search was a little urgent to say the least and by rights I should have taken anything I was offered be it tiny, run down, in an annoying part of town etc.  So given the precariousness of my predicament I really don’t deserve the apartment that I'm now writing from.  Just as panic was setting in I was taken to view a spacious place slap bang in the centre of Treviso.  The main square is two minutes behind it, the fish market is two minutes in front of it and disastrously for my liver it’s between five or six of our regular bars.  I instantly knew that I had to have this place (and not just simply because I really had to take a place.) Excitedly phoning J and D as I was drawing out the deposit I breathlessly told them about the size, the five floor to ceiling windows, the huge marble bathroom, the acres of wardrobe space, a dining table big enough to host ten people and excitement on excitement my very own dishwasher.  Oh and I nearly forgot there’s a centuries old fresco in the bedroom.

With all the stress of the last few weeks I've barely noticed that the summer has ended.  The temperatures are dropping, the mornings are getting misty and the boots and coats are out in force.  Treviso has erupted in mushroom stalls, radicchio is back in season and best of all the roast chestnut sellers are back.  While it’s not Venice (by a long way) I very happy in my palace of an apartment and I'm looking forward to the dinner parties I'm going to throw but I’m also aware that over the next few months I have to make some big decisions about my life, home and the general all round big picture.  At present I'm a mass of confusion and wonder if I’ll ever find an answer but I’ll keep you posted.     

Tales of two capitals

There is a novel set in London called Neverwhere. The London of neverwhere is much the same as ours but different – the Angel Islington is an angel called Islington, Baron’s court is a royal court.  The effect is to make you take a second look at something that is quite familiar.  You begin to wonder just why it is the way it is and question whether you know the place at all.  I had the same experience recently when I returned to London.  For someone used to the London of “what do you want?  There you go.  Now fuck off,”  Stepping off a plane and being offered help with directions, watching people fall over themselves to assist a new visitor trying to fathom the intricacies of the ticket machine instead of huffing disapproval and being told by a railway employee a cheaper way to navigate the London transport system was a paradigm shift, this looked like London, smelt like London but sure didn’t feel like London and yet it was – it was London in post Olympic glow and hell was it a nice place to be.  This not the first time I have experienced the Olympic effect (I was in Sydney for the 2000 games where like London pre Olympic cynicism gave way to enthusiasm, good humour and general all round helpfulness) and as cynical as I am about major corporate let’s make money fests disguised as we’re a friendly and socially conscious company there was no escaping the fact that the games had brought a lot of cheer to the city.  There was the pride in putting on a good show (and avoiding any fuck ups,) welcoming people from around the world who were intent on having a good time and the joy being able to watch amazing feats of human endeavour on your doorstep.  In these times of austerity it was good to see London getting it’s monies worth from the outlay on flags and bunting being able to use them for the Royal wedding, Golden Jubilee and the Olympics. 

    

It’s not just the Olympic afterglow that’s changed the UK’s capital, London is very different to the city that I lived in for three years.  There are cosmetic differences – the city is cleaner than it used to be (thanks to an IRA ceasefire meaning we can now have public bins) and there are lots of new shiny buildings (the shard being the newest.)  The city has been gentrified – the old warehouses that 20 years ago were beginning to be developed and were as likely to house artists as city elite are now million pound apartments with fancy coffee shops and restaurants below.  Bricklane which used to be just cheap Indian restaurants, ethnic fabric and yummy Indian sweet shops as well as the cheap as chips 24 hour begel bakery has changed.  Yes there is still ridiculously affordable sub continental cuisine but now we are in a world of self conscious retro clothing stores, young designers waiting for their big break and trendy coffee shops that let’s face it can’t do coffee.  Now I don’t want to be a London (or England) basher but we need to face up to reality.  The English can boast many accomplishments – penicillin, the theory of relativity, the works of Shakespeare – but making coffee is not one of them, I’m not sure why but they just can’t do it. Over the course of my week I began to resent an addiction that lead me to pay two pound plus for a bitter hot beverage, drowned in pints of overheated yet badly frothed milk.  Coffee culture is something that’s exploded in London – you could always get a (badly made) cappuccino in Soho and the Edgeware road was the place for the super strong tar like Turkish variety but London is now packed to the gunnels with trendy coffee shops that my daggy self finds too much hard work to be in – by trendy cafes I mean the type that think it’s post modern irony to display pictures of the latest reality TV celebrity next to an artfully thumbed copy of Rimbaud.  The staff are usually well tattooed and trained to sneer at you if you order the wrong coffee before heading outside for a rollie.   

Edinburgh - check out the cloud coming in.

After a week in the sunny, friendly and not quite London London I realised that as fun as it was I couldn’t afford to be in it and headed to another of the UK’s capitals Edinburgh.  Like London Edinburgh was also full to the brim – the Edinburgh international Arts festival being in full swing.  As well as the international visitors milling around the city was full of every type of artist, writers, comedians, actors, film makers, circus performers the list goes on.  Walking down Princes Street I was asked to spare a pound by a poor dishevelled looking person, I wasn’t quite sure if he was homeless or an artist.  Edinburgh is much more a Raji kind of city (aside from the temperature) it’s small, beautiful and very atmospheric.  The people are lovely and thanks to mid century migration from Italy(I had such a head spin when a man named Gino said “what can I get for ya lassie” in the broadest of broad Scottish accents) is a place that knows how to make coffee and in contrast to where I had just left understand cafe culture comes from it evolving spontaneously rather than deciding that now it’s the alternative and cosmopolitan thing to do.  I had come to Edinburgh to catch up with S my old flatmate from Melbourne and her boyfriend H.  S and H are taking a sabbatical in the Scottish capital.  After a long overnight coach journey (I can’t afford British trains) it was a fill up for the soul to be with faces not seen in far too long a time.   Catching up on events and people from home made me very wistful for the easy conviviality of Australia and long to be with dear friends again.  S and H are both, like me, book fiends and over longs nights drinking pint cans of cheap beer we waxed lyrical over our favourite authors and books.  This was all too much for me and realising that I needed to get a bit of book time in me and spent a huge part of my time at the book festival.    

A wee dram

It’s been a while since I delved into the world of books but it’s nice to see that book audiences are the same the world over.  They’re super polite, will laugh at anything – including the lamest of jokes, during the q and a session someone will invariably stand up and start with “As a writer myself” and then proceed to ask the most irrelevant question.  As silly as it all is – I mean books by their nature are solitary endeavours to create and consume so more often than not the poor author resembles a startled bunny in the face of an audience of 100 people but it was fun to share book talk with like minded people and pick up a couple of books to see me through the next few months.

Scotland is famous for so many things – tartan, haggis, deep fried mars bars, heart disease and of course whiskey.  For my “things Scottish” indulgence it just had to be whiskey.  Sipping  a warming glass of the golden liquid in a cosy pub was the best way to warm me in the Scottish summer (I kid you not) and the best was to spend our last night together –it was just a little silly to add beer and prosecco to the occasion.  After too brief a time it was time to leave this gracious city and my dear friends.  With sore heads and promises to see each other soon it was time to say goodbye and once again make tracks.  I hope it’s not too long before I can visit the place again.