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Entry 1 of 72
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1/7/2008
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Welcome to Remedello
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Now this is gonna be a long one folks... I'm gonna have to break it down for you step by step... so get a cuppa joe or a bottle of red Italian wine and join me for a recap of my winter holidays in Italy. As I flew into the Bergamo Orio al Serio airport on the 22nd of December I remember thinking, "What the dickens am I doing?!"... or something along those lines. "I speak no Italian, don't eat meat and barely know Silvia... my plans after Christmas Day are vague at best and I won't have a stable internet connection." The only thing I knew for sure was that I would spend Christmas with Silvia and had a return flight booked for the 6th of January from Rome. So Rome, on the 6th, was my destination. The filler... the two weeks worth of filler... was uncertain. Jessica was heading to Rome on the 24th and we had planned to meet on the 27th (ish) in Florence. "Who," you may ask, "is Silvia?" Silvia, to sum it up, is 100% Italian... from the NORTH thank you very much... and the first night we met, sometime in October, she made it very clear that I was to spend Christmas with her family. "Hmmm..." I had thought, "I just met you and you probably won't remember this conversation tomorrow... but what an awesome idea!" Somehow or another it all played out and I found myself with this fiesty blonde who wears Italian leather boots and name brands like Dolce & Gabana. She talks loud and fast and with her hands and says "Madonna!" alot. (By the way, today we were back in Ciudad Real and watching The Simpsons after a nice pasta lunch. It was the episode where Marge starts a pretzel business. Homer wants to help out so he makes a deal with the Italian Mafia... they destroy other businesses... Homer doesn't pay... and it ends with a battle between the Japanese Mafia and the Italian Mafia. Great! I was laughing... mainly at the horribly cast dubbed Spanish voices and the fact that an American (me) and Italian (her) were watching this particular episode of The Simpsons in Spain. But it made Silvia ask me about our, meaning American's, stereotypes of Italians and why we always wave our hands, talk about the Mafia and say "Mamma mía!". Well... many of the Italians that I met did wave their hands, did talk about the Mafia and did say "Mamma mía!" so I didn't know what to tell her. I suggested that she watch The Godfather movies.) So, when I arrived... one hour late following some set of Euro-air rules that seem to be widely accepted and commonly hated... Silvia and her friend Gian (pronounced John but with a bit of spaghetti sauce thrown in the mix) were waiting for me. It is always nice to be received when arriving from a trip. Silvia and I had really spent very little time together before this vacation so I was a bit reserved when planning all of this out. Our schedules in Ciudad Real don't really mesh that well; my hours tend to be spent working during the day and searching for my future on the Internet at night. Silvia studies during the day and goes out at night... gives me a bit of "México nostalgia" when she tells me about her adventures. Honestly, I was a bit worried about the conversation topics... spent the flight jotting down ideas on the back of my hand so as to avoid akward silences. But Silvia, true to her nature and culture, let me do little talking while filling me in on the dynamics of her small town Remedello. And I was grateful for this because otherwise Gian, who doesn't speak Spanish and his favorite phrase in English is "You and me, two stars, together forever in the sky!", would have smiled and nodded unknowingly as I used my cookie-cutter convo starters like "So is it colder here than normal?" or "Have a lot of people come back for the holidays?". A brief synopsis of the town (some of Silvia's words enhanced with my observations): there are about 3,000 people... and I am pretty sure that is divided between Remedello North and Remedello South... and they don't get along at all... stones are still thrown and fights are still picked if an outsider happens to pass across the line. (We were in the North... of course.) There is an "Old People's" Bar, a "Man's" Bar, a "Woman's" Bar, a "Kid's" Bar (what!?) and a "Young People's" Bar. (Side note- "bar" means café, restaurant, coffee shop, hang out, bakery, meeting spot and bar... in Remedello.) Silvia used to work at the Woman's Bar which appeared to me to be a café that sold graham cracker cakes, gelato (italian ice cream) and coffee drinks. The Old People's Bar was right next to the entrance to her house and she said that her father and his friends frequented the little cubby hole of a place quite often. I didn't get a chance to see the inside. We hung out at the Young People's Bar, Fuoriclasse. But first, Silvia and Gian took me to her house to drop my stuff off and meet the parents. Can I just say that I have never more believed that each of us has a twin somewhere else in the world? I know people are always talking to mom as if she were a long lost friend and confusing me with Nicole Kidman (ha!) but seriously... If Silvia's father isn't my grandfather's Italian equivalent then his homemade Limoncello must have been stronger than I thought. (Guess that would be the one difference... Signor Zavani helps himself to the wine. "It enhances the meal," he says.) Her father, from the moment I walked in, was trying to talk to me and make me understand what he was saying by any means necessary. Smiling, nodding and larger-than-normal-Italian-hand-gestures were utilized. I learned quickly that "Piano! Piano! Chi Nebbia!" wasn't the name of some musician... it means, in a mix of Italian and Brescian dialect: "Slow! Slow! There's fog!" I, stupidly, responded... in Spanish... "No, I don't play the piano... but my both of my brothers play many instruments." Much smiling and nodding followed... as Silvia tried desperatly to catch her breath from laughing so hard at our conversation. Silvia's brother, Flavio or Fabio... can't really rememer... spoke a decent amount of English so we talked some... mainly at meals if the four of them weren't fighting or flailing or watching TV. And I thought it was just in America... Her mother was quiet as a mouse and sweet as could be... and filled me full of some delicious Italian dish... didn't ask what it was, didn't care. It was far from anything Spanish and that was all that mattered. A wonderful cook we ate lunch at 1:00 every day and dinner at about 7:30... pumpkin and almond raviolli, mushroom pizza, eggplant lasagna, parmesean (not grated or powdered but a real block of cheese), frizzy water, cheesey risotto, tomato and mushroom (that her father gathered in the forest) pasta, polenta, boiled calamari (eww... yes, I ate it... and then later threw up... sorry), pesto pasta, red wine, blue cheese and yellow bell pepper pizza, mushroom risotto, fresh bread, mozzarella, mandarin oranges, pasta and homemade limoncello. I gained 5 pounds. Not joking. At the bar that first night I met the group of guys who promptly appointed themselves as my protectors and let me know if I was talking with an outsider... then asked that outsider to leave. I tried to explain to them that I, too, was an outsider and that I can speak with whomever I like. Wasn't happening... I wasn't going to get them to understand and that pride and sense of property runs a little deeper than the language barriers that we faced. Anyway... there were the typical Flavios and Fabios... so I will just mention some of the memorable names: "Il Imperatore" (the emperor), Giusi (prounounced Juicy), Bobo, Aron, Gus and Guerro. I also met Silvia's cousin Pierre, one of about 7 that I met... I don't know how many more there are but I was beginning to wonder if she shouldn't look outside of the town for her future husband. Inbreeding is easy to avoid if only you try. Anyway... Pierre. Our first conversation started off with his quoting lines from The Godfather but fell off a steep cliff and crashed burning to the ground when he said something along the lines of, "So basically I think your Democrats should stop complaining so much and I expect that, obviously, Rudi Giuliani is going to be your next president. At least if your people are smart enough to want to maintain their status in the world." End of friendship. [The rest of] everyone was wonderful and the next 5 days and nights were filled with a blend of Spanish, Italian and Breschian dialect that is similar to French but has a pinch of German in there, also. During the entire vacation English was rarely utilized... so much for the "International Language". This is just the beginning of a long and eventful tale... hold your horses... the best is yet to come. So take this pause in the action to refill your mug and relieve your bladder... a presto! xoxcr |
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