Auguri

I wanted to write one more post as a type of reflection before going home for Christmas. I'm heading to Milan tonight [Tuesday night] to stay with Abby and then I am flying out Wednesday morning direct to Newark. So if you are getting this by email, I am probably already on the plane! Part of me feels like I need something to show for the first three months I have been here, as it is about as long as I studied abroad in Parma and that felt like it was a "complete" trip. I think it is natural though, that I only just now feel settled and adjusted to Brescia. In Parma, everything was planned and organized for us, so why would that be a hard adjustment? This stay instead is just me on my own. I am happy to be returning home for Christmas, but also happy to be coming back in January relaxed and ready to experience the rest of Brescia and Italy in the new year.

This weekend, I finally got together with my Italian friend! In the middle of October I joined a gym and over one of the first weeks, I made a friend at a Pilates class. Valentina goes to the University of Brescia but goes home on the weeks to her town on Lake Idro. We usually do Pilates together on Thursdays and then chat while we use the Elliptical machines. On Saturday, she took me to her hometown for a special "block party/celebration" called "Cortili di Idro." In the center of the city, various neighbors and people in the town had stands with typical food and sweets of the area. There was a special guest performance at the church and Christmas carols sung throughout the "Cortili." We drank vin brulee or the hot, sweetened wine that I found also in Germany and Bolzano to keep us warm. When Valentina introduced me to some friends and neighbors as her friend from America, some people tried to speak English with me. I naturally spoke back in Italian and one couple said that my accent is very good and it's hard to tell that I'm American. At least, they can tell I have an accent but it's not in any way limiting. That was nice to hear.

Valentina and I in front of one of the hand-made Nativity scenes

It's hard to tell how much my Italian has improved. I will say that I speak fluently all day to day and simple sentences. I understand everything - which is the first step, no? You must keep hearing a word or expression to fully understand its usage before being able to use it yourself. Because I am at such an advanced stage, the new words and expressions I am learning don't come up very often! It takes a while to find myself in another context where I will use the new things that I am learning. This is why it's important for me to keep listening to and reading Italian while I am here. It will be a long process to continue to improve.

Last year, a friend re-posted a part of Nick Kristof's New York Times article "Teach for the World" that caught my interest:

"Here’s a one-word language test to measure whether someone really knows a foreign country and culture: What’s the word for doorknob? People who have studied a language in a classroom rarely know the answer. But those who have been embedded in a country know. America would be a wiser country if we had more people who knew how to translate “doorknob.” I would bet that those people who know how to say doorknob in Farsi almost invariably oppose a military strike on Iran."
(Just so you don’t drop my column to get a dictionary: pomo de la puerta in some forms of Spanish; poignée de porte in French; and dash gireh ye dar in Farsi.)

I remember thinking that it was a strange word to choose. Why doorknob? At the same time, I immediately looked online and found that the Italian for "doorknob" is "pomello della porta" only to forget it before arriving in Brescia. I really  learned this word about a month ago or two months after living in Brescia. We open the door, we shut the door, we lock the door; when would you actually use the word doorknob? I was telling my roommates about a dream of mine. I had gotten out of bed and was trying to open "the door" in my sleep. I was sleepwalking, but still only in my room. I kept feeling around for the "handle" or "doorknob" of the door and when I felt the handle of my window, different from that of my door, I realized I was in my room and dreaming and the cold air from outside my window woke me up. I asked my roommates the word for handle [maniglia] or doorknob because I was explaining that the shape of the handle on my window is different from that on my door and that is how I realized where I was. Should I be considered fluent now because I finally had a reason to learn the word "doorknob"? I have lived in Italy a couple of times now and I only just learned it. Although maybe that's the point. A dictionary would tell me that a doorknob is "pomello della porta" which translates directly to "knob of the door." Because I have lived here, I know that I would instead only say "pomello" to describe a knob [which is round] like that which turns the oven on and off. I would only use "pomello" if the handle to the door was actually circular, which in fact they are not in Italy. Instead, I would use "maniglia" for the handle of a drawer, a window or a door. Maybe after understanding this situation, you would say - wow, well said Kristof. Look at how much thinking and cultural knowledge I had to use to actually translate "doorknob" correctly. Mainly because, a doorknob as opposed to a handle, does not actually exist in Italy.

Buone Feste e Auguri a Tutti!

Only in Italy

If you have traveled abroad before, you might know that Europeans often "go on strike" or have a demonstration in the streets against some kind of policy. When I studied abroad in Paris, we saw many strikes and in fact a few of the universities in the city closed for most of the semester. Sciences Po, where I studied, added extra security so that non-Sci Po students couldn't come in and take over our lecture halls for demonstrations. In Italy, I remember not being able to rely on a bus, train or flight because transportation workers would often go on strike. Currently, the Italian government is facing many problems and many would like to see it fall. In particular, the Minister of Education has instituted many reforms affecting students in all of Italy. Within the past month, the University of Brescia was on national news because of their rowdy demonstrations against the Minister. The week before this past week, we saw the strike-fever break out in high schools.

My school: IPC Camillo Golgi

After the “bridge” at the beginning of the week, the students at Golgi organized an “occupation” of the school in conjunction with other schools in the city and region. The Saturday before the holiday, representatives of each class met to discuss the occupation with the headmaster. This occupation was not authorized by the headmaster and since the school is a public building, he could technically call the police and have the students arrested after hours. When I arrived at school on Thursday, my students told me that we wouldn't have lessons because there was an occupation. The teachers were confused because if the occupation wasn't authorized, then the students could just be kicked out. They also thought that the students might switch from an occupations to “autogestione” which basically means “self-management” or that the students would lead their own classes. Regardless, the teachers need to be in the classrooms for an autogestione because they are responsible for the students during school hours.

By the second hour on Thursday, students either were in their classrooms or occupying the school. My second hour class students were actually in their classroom ready for our lesson when a janitor/hall monitor came in to close the classroom and lock it by orders from the headmaster. She was shocked, how could we be having a lesson when there was an occupation! When we walked out we saw that the students had taken desks and made barriers in the hallways, not allowing teachers through them. On Friday, the teachers could only enter the library and administrative offices because the students were keeping them from the classrooms. Apparently fifty students slept at the school on Thursday night while the headmaster walked up and down the halls keeping watch to make sure everyone was all right. Both days, I talked to students who wanted no part in the occupation, but in the end had no choice. Like me, they left school once they saw that there were no lessons to be had or just hung around until the end of the school day. Some told me that they were frustrated with the occupation because they have exams next week and they need to study. Sure, some students were serious in using their rights to protest against the reforms but let's be honest, many just didn't want to have lessons. This was obvious when I spoke to a student on the way to school on Saturday morning.

She told me that at around 1:30 pm on Friday, a student became ill and they had to call an ambulance to bring him to the hospital. At this point, the occupation ended. I asked how he got sick and apparently he drank and smoke too much during the morning. So now, according to my student, the occupation had ended all because of this one student who got sick and ruined it for the others. She continued to tell me that they had such a fun time Friday morning before this happened because they played music over the loudspeaker and everyone was dancing and having a grand old time. Can you imagine any school in the United States allowing students to take over the school to the point of letting kids freely drink alcohol and smoke marijuana IN THE SCHOOL BUILDING? On Saturday, only about half the students came to school. Those who did already knew that they had to clean the school and put everything back in its place. Some classrooms had broken doors and lights.

My question is who is to blame? The students organized an occupation. It wasn't authorized. Yet, the headmaster allowed it to go on and did not call the police to end it. In this sense, most of the teachers agreed that the headmaster was to blame for the damage and the student getting sick. If he had authorized the occupation, then he would be supporting the protest and could regulate the students in the school. Otherwise, he should have called the police and ended it. Instead, the students ran free in the halls smoking, drinking and damaging public property. Golgi was not the only school to have an occupation during these three days. Other schools in Brescia were also occupied and I heard from another assistant in a small town outside of Milan that her school was occupied as well. Overall, the teachers told me that an occupation or an autogestione is not abnormal, but they had never seen anything so destructive as this one before. Only in Italy.

Another view of Golgi

Christkindlemarkt

Christkindlemarkt is the German for the "Mercatino di Natale" in Italian or Christmas markets in English! Not only did I hit the markets in Munich, Germany but I also made it the ones in Bolzano, Italy in the northern region of Trentino over the past two weeks. I didn't know until this trip that the "Kris Kringle" we hear in Miracle on 34th Street and in other Christmas moments comes from the Austrian and Bavarian Christkindle who is their "Christmas gift-bringer."

Munich Christmas Market!

A Christmas-y decorated drink booth

Maybe it's because of Christmas and coming home soon for break or the fact that my mind is on shopping instead of teaching, but this week is going by a bit slowly. Also, my students just got back from practically a week off of lessons. The Catholic holiday of the Immaculate Conception [on Dec 8th] is a national holiday in Italy, a day on which all schools are closed. This year, the Immaculate Conception fell on a Wednesday and my school decided to add a “ponte” or give us Monday and Tuesday off also to create a “bridge” from the weekend to the festival or holiday. Therefore, last week started with a short vacation and I'll tell you next blog how the students avoided their lessons after the holiday.

Abby, another assistant in Milan, and I decided that we wanted to do something special for the break. Since I studied abroad, I have always wanted to go to Munich, Germany to visit the "Fairytale Castle." There is a castle outside of Munich in Germany called Neuschwanstein and it is the model for the Disney's Sleeping Beauty Castle in the film and at Disneyland. Since Munich also has an annual Christmas market and winter festival we booked our flights and found a hostel!

Neuschwanstein Castle

We arrived in Munich or Monaco di Baviera as the Italians say in the morning. The moment we walked into the airport, we knew we weren't in Italy any longer. There was complete silence. Yet, the airport was full of people, they were just not talking. Silence. We walked outside of the airport and found an ice rink and a Christmas market waiting for us, yet there was an overall quiet tranquility in the air. Once we got in the metro we realized that mouths were indeed moving, but people were speaking so softly and quietly that they weren't disturbing anyone. This would never happen in Italy.

Drinking hot wine with real mugs

 The main Christmas market itself was spectacular. There were booths everywhere with all sorts of goods. Some of the highlights of Munich were decorated gingerbread cookies, nativity scenes, and incense holders that look like small nutcrackers. Lots of ornaments and Christmas goods. They also has booths with food or drink and then tables with heaters or a fire. Mainly, people drank hot wine to warm up because it was so cold out. Instead of disposable cups, you had to pay a deposit for a real mug and then when you return it you get your deposit back. If you like the mug and decide to keep it, well then you just pay for it with the deposit! At 5:30 every night, they sang Christmas carols from the balcony of the big church in the main square. 

Hofbrauhaus Beer Hall: "Birth of the Nazi Party"

On Monday, we took a walking tour of Munich and learned a lot about the Bavarian state. For one, Germany is still divided culturally in smaller states with their own biases. People from Munich do not describe themselves as German but instead as Bavarian and it is in fact the most separatist state in Germany with its own constitution [that says you can drink a liter and a half of beer at work every day and not get fired]. We toured various churches and squares and ended up at the Hofbrauhaus or the famous beer hall where Hitler had the first meeting with the Nazis making Munich the "birthplace of the Nazi Party."

The view of Hohenschwangau Castle from our hike

Finally to the castle! We decided to take a group tour to the castle in an 8-person van that left from our hostel on Tuesday. We drove on the "Romantic Road" to the castles. Neuschwanstein was built for King Ludwig II of Bavaria starting in 1869 and was never finished. Nearby and closer to the ground is Hohenschwangau Castle where Ludwig II lived as a child. You can see one from the other, but Neuschwanstein is a hike. Usually there is a bus that takes tourists to "Mary's Bridge" where you can take lovely pictures of the castle.and walk down to the castle itself in ten minutes. Otherwise, you can take a horse-drawn carriage or walk up the main path. Since it had rained and snowed the day before, the bus to Mary's Bridge was not running and you had to walk or wait in a long line to take the carriage to the castle. This wasn't too much of a problem, although you must visit the castle with a guided tour and you cannot be late for your time or you have to go back down to the bottom of the climb and get a new tour time.
 

Mary's Bridge

Danger Ahead! No trespassing

 Since we were young and old on the tour, our guide sent another girl, Abby and I up a different path so that we would hike directly to Mary's Bridge and then take the path down to the castle. He mentioned that we would have to climb over two small fences because in fact the bus wasn't running and the bridge was technically closed. Our path was dirt and rocks covered with ice and iced over snow. It was pretty steep and I felt like I was in Girl Scouts again hiking up a mountain watching where I was stepping so I wouldn't trip over anything. There were no turns on the path but without signs until we got to the bus drop off after 25 minutes and until then we weren't sure we were going the right way. I was walking so fast to make sure that we were on the right path in case we had to turn around and still get to the castle in time that I had to take off my jacket because I was so hot from walking. In the end, it was worth it. The view was spectacular. We literally got to the entrance of the castle three minutes before our tour started, but again it was worth it. 

Totally worth it!

Inside the castle itself, our tour was quick and to the point. Since Ludwig II died just 6 months after he moved into the castle, not all of the construction was finished yet. It was immediately opened to the public as a museum. From what we did see inside though, you could tell that Ludwig II was a romantic. His bedroom walls were painted with the story of Tristan and Isolde. Basically, I want this castle to be my home :)

Tristan and Isolde in Ludwig II's bedroom

The view of Mary's Bridge from the castle, yes - we were there!

Checking out the view from my new home

All throughout our trip to Munich, we saw and heard Italians everywhere! A couple of times we corrected a Bavarian's Italian pronunciation of a price, for example when the Italians heard 60 instead of 16 euro for a gift bag of cookies. While in Germany, we could not get away from Italian! Then when I got back to Italy, the next week I went to the Italian-German city of Bolzano in Trentino. One of the English teachers invited me on a school trip to see the Otzi Museum of the Iceman, a wet mummy discovered in 1991 by hikers and found to have lived 5,300 years ago. Even more, Bolzano is known for its German-style typical markets. In fact, Bolzano is a bilingual city that preserves the German minority and so all of the signs were written in German and then Italian. My shopping bags first say: Christkindlmarkt and then Mercatino di Natale. At the end of the day, the students complained that everyone spoke German and only after you spoke to them in Italian, would they reply in Italian. Go figure, I go to Germany and hear Italian and then stay in Italy and hear German!

Not that which I will find ...

Piazza Garibaldi in Parma; same as ever

After living in Italy for almost two months exactly, I finally visited Parma on the 28th of November. By train, the trip takes about two hours. By car, it is probably under an hour and a half because the train runs slowly and with many stops. Each day since I've been here, I get more and more comfortable. Yet, sometimes it still feels like I take two steps backwards for every one step forwards. Things were just easier in Parma. Maybe it was because I was in a program coordinated by BC where I could be certain of everything or maybe it was because I was surrounded by 20 other American college students with whom I could discuss cultural differences. Actually living on my own here in Brescia, there are just more obstacles. I don't have a program coordinator making sure I learn different historical facts about the city or taking me to the best place for a cioccolato caldo [hot chocolate]. I don't have a host family taking care of my apartment when things like the shutters break. Instead, I am in a completely new situation and what I came to realize is this: I am learning. I'm not supposed to already know how everything should go. I am still learning and discovering how to take care of myself and how to live.

On my train home from Verona a couple of weeks before this trip, I looked through my little red notebook where I write down the new words and phrases I learn. The first ten or so pages are from Parma and the rest continues in Brescia. In the first pages I found an Italian saying that my host mother in Parma told me once:

"Chi lascia la strada vecchia per la nuova
                 sa quel che lascia e non sa quel che trova."
"He who leaves the old street for the new
                 knows that which he leaves and not that which he will find.”

I read this saying in my little read notebook and thought, exactly. All I can say for now is that I’m learning. When we completely change our path, we are thinking about what we left behind because everything we are finding on our new path is way too new to recognize. We are used to what we know. Why not go to graduate school? I know what undergraduate college is like; I’ll just be a student for a bit longer. Instead, I don’t know what I'm looking for or finding, only what I no longer have. When I first got to Brescia, I compared everything to Parma. I knew Parma and now I am elsewhere doing something completely different.

Aldo, Anna and me in Parma

I'm not sure what I expected when I went to Parma, but naturally things changed there without me. First of all, the train station is under construction so there is a temporary station off to the side a little bit. I walked out of it into a blizzard and had no idea where I was. Is this even Parma? The station and all of the land in front of it was surrounded by fencing and construction so my whole orientation was construed. I finally found my way to the center and took the same old bus to my past host mother's house. Fabulous lunch with fresh prosciutto and salame with parmiggiano reggiano to start, then lasagna, then veal dish with salad; all with Emilia Romagna's regional wine Lambrusco. The food was almost as good as the company and after, my host mother from the summer program and the program coordinator came over with their kids to see me and join us for Anna's apple cake. For those of you who know my host father Aldo [with grown children and grandchildren himself], imagine him surrounded by four and five year olds playing Ring around the Rosy. They held hands, singing and going around in a circle and then Aldo would get close to the ground and eventually fall just in time for all of the kids to jump on top of him. Classic. 

With Elizabeth who is studying in Parma now

Caterina's two new adopted daughters from Colombia

The old Storefront

Other than seeing my host families and having a wonderful lunch from Parma, I had to go to a particular store to buy some real parmiggiano reggiano cheese. Sorelle Picchi is a store I found when I studied in Parma the first time over the summer has a counter in the front with meats and cheese and other goods and then a restaurant tucked away in the back. Some people didn't even know there was a restaurant in the back. You might recognize the name from John Grisham's Playing for Pizza which takes place in Parma. I made sure that I had enough time after sleeping over with a friend who is studying in Parma now to get there before catching my train, but yet another thing had changed! The store bought the building next door and so expanded their space so that from the street, you see the kitchen of the restaurant on the left and the store on the right. You still walk into the store to enter the restaurant but the entire place is remodeled and there is a new name: Salumeria Rosi Parmacotto for the store and then the classic Trattoria Sorelle Picchi for the restaurant. The woman behind the counter assured me that it was still the same quality, etc just with the new name and remodeling. When I left, I noticed that my bag had the new names, plus addresses. "Via Farini, 27 - Parma" and .... "283 Amsterdam Ave - New York." That's right! Apparently the store behind Sorelli Picchi now exists not only in the US of A but in NYC!

The new Restaurant and Store

After buying 8 kg of parmiggiano reggiano at Sorelli Picchi, I met Caterina's sister Betta for breakfast near the duomo. Caterina has been the long-time program coordinator for Boston College, but now that she has adopted two lovely little girls from Colombia, she has passed on her role to her sister Betta. When I admitted that teaching has been hard and that "I am continuously learning" she said that was good. If I arrived and it was completely perfect and easy, I wouldn't be able to improve. It is better than I start out with something that is a challenge and this way I can improve 100%. I think this is what makes the difference between staying on the old path or choosing a new one. The old path is comfortable and easy because you have already been there, the point of the new one is to be different and challenging. Otherwise it wouldn't be a new path. All in all, my encounter with the old has re-energized my experience with the new. And so, I continue to learn as I know that which I left and not that which I will find.

When do you feel the most American?

Sometime during our Intro to International Studies class sophomore year, we discussed national identity and how we think of our nationality as an identity or not. When someone asks you, where are you from? You might say the name of your town or the name of your city; you might say the name of your state. When would you say you’re American? Mostly, we feel the most American when we are abroad. Sure, I tell people that I’m from New York but only after I first say that I’m from the United States. We don't notice what it really means to be American until we are away from that lifestyle. Once we enter a new country, we do in fact notice the things we take for granted in the USA. Bringing me to my next point, we learn more about our own culture while we experience another. Not only do I feel more American while I'm abroad, but I understand more thoroughly our American culture when I explain it to my students and roommates.

The week of Thanksgiving, I taught my students about our "giorno di ringraziamento" similar to a month ago when I taught them about Halloween. They already knew a bit about Halloween, it's a holiday that is easily commercialized to other countries with decorations and translations of "Trick or Treat" into every language: "Dolcetto o Scherzetto" in Italian. Thanksgiving on the other hand is less commercial, it is based on our own history and since the Pilgrims didn't found a colony in Italy - there is no reason for them to celebrate it. Naturally, I could recite to my classes by heart that the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock in 1620, but other facts of the history I did not know. I didn't know that Abraham Lincoln in 1863 proclaimed the national holiday of Thanksgiving to be the fourth Thursday of November every year at the urging of the magazine editor Sarah Josepha Hale. Apparently FDR changed Thanksgiving to the third Thursday in November to create a longer Christmas shopping season but public uproar caused him to change the date back two years later. I just find that fascinating - something that I otherwise wouldn't have known about our history except that I was teaching it to foreigners.

Showing my students Norman Rockwell's 'Freedom from Want' cover of the Saturday Evening Post and pictures of the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade certainly made me feel quite homesick. Luckily, the assistant who teaches outside of Brescia but lives here in the city with a family invited me over for dinner. Her host mother made us "Italian Turkey" meaning two medium sized chickens. She made one stuffing with Speck, one with Prosciutto, and then Megan made real, mashed potatoes. Delicious.

Our "Italian Turkey"

We put it all on the table and Megan's host mother Carla served pieces of the chicken with stuffing to all of us. What do we do now? Megan and I immediately started helping ourselves to a bit of mashed potatoes, a bit of corn, a bit of zucchini and ate it all together. The Italians were completely confused. We eat everything together? You mean we're not going to eat a first course and then the second course? Carla tried to be very American and eat bits of everything together, while her son Giovanni ate his chicken first, then he took some mashed potatoes and finished those before taking vegetables. It felt very American and very un-Italian but it was just what I needed to feel like in some way, I did in fact celebrate Thanksgiving. I was naturally grateful to be invited to this home and eat some traditional Thanksgiving dishes even though in a foreign country.

When I was younger, I used to consider myself Italian. I used to say that I’m 50% Italian as if this heritage made my nationality only 50% American. As I grew up, I understood a bit more about heritage, nationality and identity. The USA as "a country of immigrants" is in fact a melting pot of various cultures. We are not all the WASPs who might have been part of the founding fathers. I think that being American is more of a lifestyle. I find comfort in the American lifestyle - this is what I know. My family has Italian traditions, other families have Irish or German traditions, but I do think that we live in a particular lifestyle. One that I certainly found comfort in replicating for Thanksgiving and am excited to appreciate again over Christmas Break!