Let Them Eat Pizza!

      I am sick of Italian food. There. I said it. And I'll add something else. I miss the variety of NY, where going out to dinner means choosing a restaurant based on the ethnic cuisine one happens to be in the mood for. Got a craving for Ethiopian food? Thai? Mexican? Indian? Raw? Fancy nouveau American? For every random craving there are at least ten potential restaurants within walking distance from wherever you are... including Italian. (Don't actually look up that statistic.)

      As I write this I can already hear the public outcry and the indignation, reminding me that I live in arguably one of the best food countries in the world. And my response to all of you is this: I don't care. When I go out to dinner I can already predict what most of the dishes on the menu will be, and I'm talking antipasto, primo, AND dessert. (I don't eat meat so I ignore the secondo, but I'm still pretty sure it wouldn't impress me with any surprises.) As I scan a menu it's possible that I may find one thing that's a little “different” and I'll probably order it even if the ingredients aren't things I'd normally be drawn to. Ex: trofiette with radicchio pesto... I don't even really like radicchio that much, but at least this dish was making an effort.

      I'll tell you what I miss. I miss being able to order something like a warm beet salad with roasted fennel and walnuts on a bed of arugula drizzled with a raspberry citrus vinaigrette. I miss butternut squash soup and truffled mashed potatoes. I miss the food of trendy NYC restaurants where the chefs treat their menus like an expressive form of art, playfully combining unexpected ingredients to create surprising new flavors. I miss veggie burgers on multi grain bread with sweet potato fries and fresh field greens. I miss crunchy vegetables! (Sorry folks, but I gotta bust a bubble here. Italians do not know how to cook vegetables without turning them into baby food.)

      Sigh.

      I have to admit that even I would never have predicted this predicament. I mean people come to Italy looking forward to the food that they will eat. Thousands of diets are suspended here and thousands more are begun upon departure. And yet I am totally uninspired by the idea of going out to dinner.

      My gastronomic crisis hit a peak several days ago when I was out and about in Rome at lunch time. Lunch-on-the-go is possibly the most variety-less meal that exists in Italy and, unfortunately, this is a meal that I have to deal with at least two or three times a week. The choices are basically pizza, a sandwich, or an arancino (large fried rice-ball stuffed with something or other). Pizza is usually the easiest, but no matter how many different types of toppings I try, it's still pizza. The vegetarian sandwiches tend to be rather flavorless. And I'm sorry, but large fried rice-balls just don't feel like the healthiest and most well-rounded choice. But this selection is what I was faced with yet again on Tuesday.

      As I weighed my options and determined that I didn't want any of those things, my mind focused and I saw clearly what it was I craved. A big, hearty salad. That's it. So simple and yet so unattainable. And as I looked at the pizzas and golden brown fried surfaces laid out before me my focused mind began to panic and despair.

      “What do you want?” my husband asked me as he was making his decision.

      “A salad.”

      Silence.

      “I want a salad. That's what I want. I don't want anything here. I need a salad bar,” I replied in an increasingly whiny and desperate tone.

      “This isn't NY.”

      Oh God. How true that was. I thought about my last job in NY. Right across the street was a deli with a huge create-your-own-salad counter. My eyes glazed over as I began to mentally toss mixed baby greens with shredded carrots, parmesan, kidney beans, walnuts, cherry tomatoes, cucumbers, and a balsamic vinaigrette. Or if I didn't want salad they had about five different choices of hearty, delicious soups. Or I could build a complex vegetarian sandwich of cheese and avocado and lettuce and tomato on pumpernickel toast. And oh, the options at the food court on the lower concourse of Grand Central! The more I let my mind wander the more I wanted to cry.

      Meanwhile my husband just rolled his eyes at me.

      “You know what you're like? You're like those Italians that we make fun of who travel to other countries and still want pasta two times a day.”

      This was the wrong thing to say.

      “It's one thing to be away from home for two weeks and not be willing to taste new things! It's another to live somewhere for three years and miss something!! I can't even look at another slice of pizza!!! All I want is a healthy lunch!!!!”

      I believe the “discussion” ended more or less there.

      But now that I have had some time to mull things over, I actually think that there is a direct correlation between the lack of variety on the menus in Italy and the Italian tourists that can't go a day without pasta. What I am coming to understand is that the majority of Italians want familiar food, whether they are in Time's Square or Piazza Navona. So a restaurant owner in Italy can't stray too far from the classics because he knows that that's what people are expecting when they open the menu. A random dish with a twist might make an appearance, but for the most part if he wants to stay in business he's gotta give the people what they want. So in Rome there will always be bruschetta al pomodoro, fiori di zucca, prosciutto e melone, bucatini all'amatriciana, tonnarelli cacio e pepe, pasta alla carbonara, spaghetti al pomodoro e basilico, panna cotta, tiramisu, etc. etc. (Are you hungry yet?) Yes there are some variations, but there is little element of surprise.

      I'll concede (because my husband is reading over my shoulder and sputtering all over me) that this is not unique to Italy and to Italian restaurants. Chinese menus, Japanese menus, Indian menus, Mexican menus, etc., even diner menus, are all pretty predictable once you get the jist. (Maybe French and Spanish menus too but I'm not familiar enough with those cuisines to feel comfortable adding them to the list.) So this sort of leads me back to my first point. I don't care, or even really notice, if each restaurant serves the same dishes as its counterparts when I can whimsically choose a different ethnic cuisine for each meal. I'm spoiled. I'll admit it. It turns out that while Italians are spoiled by their pasta, I am spoiled by the variety I was once accustomed to!  

      In closing I would like to say that, despite everything, I still love and respect Italian food. This week I had a little melt down. I'll get past it, though I won't go so far as to say that it won't happen again. In the mean time, if someone is looking for a business opportunity in Rome, I'm thinking that a salad bar could be right on the money. Just make sure that it serves pizza too.

*If you are the copyright holder of the photo used in this post please contact me if you wish for it to be removed.

 

Tipsy Turvy

      If pressed I would have to say that the absolute biggest cultural difference between Italy and America boils down to one thing: Americans tip, Italians don't. This may sound to some like a minor technicality, but I guarantee you it is not. This is a difference woven into our very ways of living life and seeing the world. One can learn to adapt to the other but, like trying to use a pen with your other hand, it will just never feel right.

      For about seven of the ten years I lived in NYC I waitressed on and off and on again, from lunch and dinner cruises on the Hudson to a Jewish Steakhouse in TriBeCa to a local bistro in Astoria to trendy, celebrity-spotting joints in Chelsea and the East Village. Though each place was drastically different from the next, one thing never changed: Italians rarely tipped...enough. (Before anyone gets all up in arms and offended by the singling out of Italians, I will clarify that this was generally true of all Europeans and of certain resident American ethnic groups as well. Now let it go and let me get on with my point.)

      Of these negligent tippers, I have determined that there are three varieties.

1. Those for whom “When in Rome...” has no international translation.
2. Those who try to tip but can't actually comprehend the reality that 5-10% is still a really crappy tip.
3. Those that want to be precise and therefore ask their server what the proper percentage is and still manage to get it wrong, perhaps having understood it as a joke.

Oh, many are the times that I have approached a recently vacated table with pathetic optimism only to find that my worst fears have been confirmed and that all that up-selling and bilingual banter had been in vain. I have discussed ad nauseam with my fellow servers various solutions to the problem, such as having a “tourist” button on the computer that, when pressed, would print out a self-adjusted check with 15%, 18%, and 20% tip options pre-calculated. And I admit that in extreme circumstances I have asked permission from my manager to just go ahead and add the gratuity to the check myself.

      Now let's look at the other side of the $20 bill. An American traveling in Italy will most likely over-tip because the hardest thing to digest is the fact that even leaving NOTHING is ok... Seriously. Often there's a “bread and cover charge” of a couple of euro per person itemized in the bill and that, even though it isn't a percentage of the total, is sort of like the tip. Of course no one complains if, in a show of gratitude, someone decides to leave more, but just so you know, in that case even €1/person is fine. (Because that extra little show of gratitude is fundamentally what a “tip” is supposed to be.) I've lived here for about three years and I still just can't get used to it.

      That's why this is a familiar scene that plays itself out every time we go out to dinner:

(A Roman trattoria. 10pm. The check is brought. The couple glances at it and counts out some money. Then...)

Me: How much should we leave?

Husband: We don't have to leave anything.

Me: I know, but....

Husband: A couple of euro?

(They empty their collective coins out onto the table and come up with €2 Euro.)

Me: Are you sure that's enough?

Husband: Yes.

Me: Really?

Husband: Really.

Me: ….Maybe another euro.

Husband: (sigh) Whatever you want.

      We also have an American version of this scene.

(A dimly lit NY restaurant. 10pm. The check is brought. The couple glances at it and pulls out a scientific calculator while the waiters looming in the background cast ominous candlelit shadows on the dark walls, apprehension in their eyes due to the Italian accent.)

Husband: 20%?

Me: Yes.

Husband: Before or after tax?

Me: Well, I always do after, but some people do before.

Husband: Ok, so...

Me: But we have been here for a long time.

Husband: So?

Me: Well, so our waiter couldn't turn the table....And we didn't order very much.

Husband: So?

Me: Well, so already his tip will be smaller.

Husband: So what do you want to do.

Me: Oh, just leave $25.

Husband: But that's like 35%!

Me: I know but he was really nice and he felt so bad when he spilled that wine on me. And you know he's expecting almost nothing since you're Italian. So you can prove the stereotype wrong!

Husband: (sigh) Whatever you want.

      So why is there such a discrepancy in our public displays of “gratuitous” appreciation? Well, here is the nitty gritty of the situation. Italian waiters are paid by their employers, American waiters are not. Or should I say: Italian waiters are paid by their employers, American waiters are paid by their customers. When I informed my Italian friends and family of this fact, they were more or less horrified. And when I informed my American friends and family of the equal but opposite fact, they were more or less in awe.

      While I realize that changing the tipping system in the US would probably be even harder than changing our healthcare system, I have to admit that the more I talk to people about it the more I come to see how F'ed up the whole thing really is. Because really, the salary of employees should be something that is factored into the costs of having a business. As my husband says, “Why not have a percentage on the bill that pays for rent and electricity as well in that case?” I've tried to defend it and I've tried to find reason in it...and ultimately I just can't. These conversations always end with me saying, “Look. It's just the way it is and it's not gonna change.”

      But what's really funny to me is how insecure this has made my husband when it comes to paying for anything in the US.

(A bookstore. A salesperson helps to find an item which is subsequently purchased.)

Husband: Do we have to tip him?

Me: No.

(A make-your-own-sald counter.)

Husband: There's a can for tips. Do we have to leave something?

Me: You can leave some change if you want but it's not necessary.

(Getting out of a cab.)

Husband: 20%?

Me: No no. Just add a few dollars.

      To be honest, I'm unable to explain who we tip and when and how much. Like Cubans who are born knowing how to salsa, it just seems to be knowledge that we Americans have in our blood. So when we go out to dinner and we see the prices on the menu, we automatically factor in tax and tip without a second thought. But in Italy what you see on the menu is what you pay, and as a result the entire dining out experience is different.

      So does the fundamental difference between our cultures really boil down to that three letter word? I don't know. Why don't you come visit me? I'll take you to this great little place I know. We'll choose a small table in the corner where we can chat and people watch for hours without the waiters caring one way or the other. If you only want pizza and a soda that's fine, no one will roll their eyes or try to convince you to order anything else. Eventually we'll have to ask for the check, because it's considered rude to rush people out by bringing it before it's requested, and at that point they may offer an espresso or limoncello on the house, just because. Then as we're getting up, if you feel like leaving an extra little something on the table as a token of appreciation be my guest, but if you don't no waiter will give you a dirty look on your way out or tell his friends what a cheap skate he waited on that day. But y'know, maybe it's not really such a big difference after all. You decide.

An American in Faleria

      I didn't know that I was American until I moved to Italy. In fact, prior to that I had probably never before even said the phrase “I'm American”. Now that may strike you as odd, but consider the fact that I grew up in a predominantly white, upper middle class town in the suburbs of New York City, and that I was born in Italy, spoke Italian, and had a mother with a very thick Italian accent. People have definitely been labeled “Italian” for far less...just take a look around New Jersey. So if ethnic classifications came up, I always said “I'm Italian” (or “I'm Jewish”, but that's material for another blog).

      To be honest, I loved this detail that set me just ever so slightly apart from my peers. It was my thing. When we'd visit family in Italy and they would refer to me as “American”, I felt robbed of an integral piece of my identity. I just did not identify with being something as boring as “American”.

      But when I moved here, I realized quickly that I could no longer get away with saying “I'm Italian”. I became The American, and little by little I have come to embrace it in almost the same way as I had embraced my previous label. And actually I feel far more exotic here as an American than I ever did in Westchester as an Italian. Of course this may have something to do with the fact that we bought a home in a small town with a population of roughly 2,000 and a median age of about 91, where most people have only ever seen an American on TV. To a good portion of these people my husband is a foreigner and he grew up one town over.

      Now almost all of the Americans that I can think of can imagine nothing more romantic and picturesque than moving to a small rural town north of Rome where I can step outside of my door and within five minutes be walking down a dirt path surrounded by a landscape of olive groves on one side, hazelnut trees on the other, and rolling hills in the distance. Up here it's just a short drive to your average, quintessential, medieval hilltop town or to natural springs where we can fill our own bottles with restaurant quality sparkling water. Our village even has it's own abandoned castle.

      But talk to my fellow Falerians, and it's like telling someone you've just moved from Paris, France to Antimony, Utah. They just think I'm crazy. Which is why I get the sense that everyone knows who I am, in a suspicious, waiting-for-me-to-make-trouble kind of way.

      I had been so used to being relatively anonymous all my life, that when I first learned of my notoriety I was taken a bit off guard. It was last Spring, shortly after we had officially moved into our new home. I was out on our front patio taking advantage of one of the first warm, sunny days to hang some laundry outside to dry. A woman that I had become friendly with stopped by to say hello as she was passing by so I had the front gate open to the street. As we stood there chatting, an elderly woman who I had never seen before walked past with her grandson. The standard “buongiornos” were exchanged before she said, “So you're the young couple that finally bought this house.” I nodded and smiled. Then she added, “You're American aren't you?” I nodded and smiled again, but inside I was thinking, “What the-?”

      When she left I turned to my neighbor in shock. “How on earth did she know that?” I asked rhetorically.

      “Oh, everyone knows everything around here. You don't think it's big news that an American moved in?” she responded with a smile and a twinkle in her eye.

      After that I started noticing the way people would stare after me wherever I walked, especially the little old ladies sitting on the sidewalk in their folding chairs or on benches gossiping with one another, whose chatter would suddenly fade as I approached and whose eyes would follow me until I turned the next corner. I started making a point of smiling and saying hello in an effort to become That Nice American Girl, but each time it was like they were seeing me for the first time and I gradually stopped.

      Instead I accepted that no matter what I did I would be The Eccentric American Neighbor. So I stopped being careful. I pet the stray cats and put food out for them regularly, I did yoga in front of my kitchen window where anybody walking by could see me, I sang at the top of my lungs, and I hung my skimpiest and most colorful underwear out to dry.

      Then one day as I was just getting out of the shower I heard someone yelling outside. At first I thought it was merely someone calling casually to a friend from a window. But then the words and the voice got to me. It was my next door neighbor, Wilma, yelling for help, and there was nothing casual about her tone. I threw on the first thing I found and with my hair still dripping wet and disheveled ran out of my front door and up the stairs to hers where she was on the landing, supporting her elderly mother who appeared to have lost her balance and slipped from her chair. Apparently she had been yelling for several minutes but no one had come until me. Together we got her mother situated back on her chair as other people finally started showing up, curious about the commotion. As each new person arrived Wilma, still frazzled, told of how she had been yelling for help and how I had come running straight from out of the shower.

      Unfortunately, it was obvious that her mother was still not well and as several people moved her indoors I went to call an ambulance. Later that day I learned that she had had a stroke.

      To be clear, I am not in any way making light of this situation. It was a tragic day that luckily didn't end in further tragedy. As for my part, I don't believe that I did anything extraordinary. But let's just say that in the same way as the gossip about an American girl moving in travels fast, so does the news that that same American girl came running to the aid of her neighbor in need. Perhaps it was just my imagination, but for weeks afterwards I felt a difference in the stares that followed me. From suspicious and guarded, I felt them soften into something warmer and friendlier.

      It didn't last. Sure it boosted my public image for a moment and at least one other first responder continues to acknowledge me with a smile when we pass one another, but for the most part the town memory, especially of the older citizens, is short and has apparently defaulted back to suspicion, wariness, and general unmasked curiosity. It would probably take a great deal of personal interaction and town involvement to crack this shell and I'm certain that I do not possess that level of commitment. So I fully accept that I'll probably always be the The American.

The Frequent Flyer

      I have flown back and forth between NY and Rome roughly 30 times in my life (maybe more) and half of those trips took place within the past four years. I've also flown round-trip from Rome to Bangkok, from Rome to London, from Rome to Amsterdam, and from Rome to Cairo and one-way from Rome to Paris, from Berlin to Rome, and from Madrid to Rome. There have been other miscellaneous trips within the US, within Brazil, within India, within Malaysia, within Costa Rica, and within Thailand. I'm not bragging, I'm setting myself up as a qualified expert in air travel.

      The first flight that I remember was of the NY to Rome variety when I was six years old. My mother and I were going to visit relatives for the first time since moving to the US three years earlier. I'm sure I was more excited about being on an airplane than I was about the actual trip. Before we even taxied away from the gate my nose was smudging the plexiglass window. The flight itself is a blur but I remember my mother preparing me for take off and I remember laughing with her as I felt the weight of my body pushing back into the seat as we accelerated and then lifted off the runway. I remember being enthralled with the world growing smaller and smaller beneath me while my ears clogged, popped, and clogged again. I remember being terrified of the loud, suctiony flush of the toilet (truth be told I would probably still ask someone else to flush for me if that weren't weird) and I remember loving the compact little meal they brought us with its dishes set up like a game of Tetris. And eventually there was Italy growing larger and larger beneath me. My mother and I joined right in with the applause as we bumped onto the tarmac. (It would be years before I found out that this was a uniquely Italian thing.)

      Fast forward 26 years. I'm no longer an easy-to-please six year old. (Oh how I wish I were. It would make air travel so much more pleasant.) Flying has become routine. I do not know how many different airlines I have flown with and I have no brand loyalty. I simply enter my travel dates into Orbitz and pick whatever is cheapest with the shortest lay-over. Recently that means I've been flying mostly with Delta or Alitalia which are practically interchangeable since they're in code-share with one another. (Oh yes, I know the lingo). So I can say first hand that not only have the quality of air travel and the customer service therein gone way down hill, but that Alitalia is by far the worst of them all.

      I'm not a high maintenance cynic either. If I'm reasonably comfortable, watch a good movie, manage to sleep a little bit, and am given a moderately decent in-flight meal, I basically consider that a good flight. So when I say that Alitalia is the worst, you get the picture.

     

      Two specific flights helped to solidify this reality for me. The first was a trip from Rome to visit a friend in Cairo. It wasn't a long flight so my husband and I were definitely more accepting of the cramped space, the broken TV monitors, and the overall shabby appearance of the plane than we would otherwise have been. (Please note that this was months BEFORE the economic crumble of 2009.) Then came the meal. We're vegetarian so when booking our flight we requested the vegetarian option even though it's usually disappointing. They brought us our special tray with the main dish covered in aluminum foil. Beneath the foil was boiled rice with a section of cubed carrots on one side, a section of cubed potatoes on the other, and two limp stalks of asparagus draped over the whole thing. Yum. Evidently the “vegetarian meal” is also the “vegan, gluten-free, sodium-free, every-diet-restriction-imaginable meal”. But that's what there was so we dug in. My husband began with the carrots, I began with the potatoes. The RAW potatoes. We were speechless. Not only was the whole thing without a single molecule of flavor, but one third of the dish was inedible. We did our best with the roll and cheese, the limp salad, and the bland fruit plate. (As a side note, I've never understood why the vegetarian meal on every airline always comes with a totally flavorless fruit salad made up of several pieces of unripe melon, one or two large seeded grapes, and a hemispherical slice of orange instead of the delicious looking junky thing they give to everyone else for dessert.) In the end we managed to find the episode rather amusing. Clearly someone had made a mistake in the kitchen. It can happen.

      The other flight was roughly one year (and one other Rome-NYC round trip flight not with Alitalia) later. We were flying to NY once again, this time for our wedding and with my future in-laws in tow. We happened to book our flight with Alitalia only because it fit the stringent criteria I mentioned previously. From the moment we got on the plane it wasn't looking good. The cloth head rests on our seats clearly hadn't been changed from the previous flight (evidence: several hairs), there were cookie crumbs on my husband's seat, there was some trash in one of the seat pockets in front of us, the arm rest had a jagged piece of bent plastic jutting out from its underside, the color balance of the TV monitor closest to us rendered it impossible to watch or even look at and at least half of the rest of the monitors were completely broken, a nearby exit sign dangled at a slightly askew angle, my husband's tray had difficulty remaining in the upright and secured position.... Need I go on? Yes... I need.

      Meal time! Vegetarian meals not only for us but for my mother-in-law and sister-in-law as well. Only slightly different from the Cairo flight: boiled rice, boiled carrots and peas, and the tell tale limp, mushy asparagus. We searched desperately on our trays for some butter or salt to add some small hint of flavor to what otherwise was only texture in our mouths. There was nothing but unsalted margarine, which at least added some moisture to the meal, but not flavor. So I stopped the hostess.

     “Excuse me, can we have some salt?”

      “No.” Cold stare. (Translation: I'm busy and you're wasting my time.)

      “There's no salt?

      “No.” (Translation: Stop bothering me.)

      “There's no salt anywhere on the plane ever?”

      “There's only sugar. Company policy.”

      My moment of speechless incredulity gave her the time she needed to get away. We turned back to our vegetarian delight and did our best.

      Later a snack was served. The non-vegetarian snack was a fragrant, roll-sized, meatless pizza pocket. MEATLESS. Why then, you might ask did they bring us this: a salad of limp raw shredded carrots and cabbage with what turned out to be raw cubed potatoes. Again with the RAW POTATOES. And no salad dressing to be found. Our laughter was of the incredulous sort and not actual amusement. Once is a mistake, twice is... What the hell is twice?! I stopped the hostess again even though in her eyes I had clearly become That Person.

      “Excuse me, but these are raw potatoes.”

      “Oh. Sorry.” (Translation: What do you want me to do about it?)

      “I'm really sorry but this is just inedible. Aren't there any of those pizza rolls left?”

      “I'll see what I can find.” (Translation: Pain in the ass.)

     She came back with one for each of us. At this point they were the most delicious thing we had ever tasted. Several moments later she stopped by of her own volition, looked at me with a fake little smile and said, “Is THAT edible?”

      So... thumbs down for airplane cleanliness, thumbs down for airplane maintenance, thumbs down for airplane food, and big thumbs down for customer service. A bad flight. (And, interestingly, no applause upon landing.)

      I could actually continue railing on Alitalia (don't even get me started on the rude flight attendants for our return flight), but I won't for now. Instead I will fast forward once again to several weeks ago when we were flying to NY to spend Christmas with my family. We were relieved to be booked with Alitalia only until Paris so that the long leg of our journey would be with Air France, which we had heard good things about. Unfortunately Paris was in the middle of a blizzard and closed it's airport so our flight out of Rome got canceled. After eleven or twelve hours of waiting around in the airport they finally booked us on another flight for the following day. Alitalia to Geneva and then Swiss Air to NY. Since technically the flight that had been canceled was the Alitalia flight, we were in their hands and we just knew this wasn't a good thing. They sent us on a wild goose chase to four different kiosks before booking us a hotel for the night. Then the next morning they didn't send enough airport shuttles to the hotel so were forced to pay for a cab which they might reimburse us for in a few months if, after reviewing our claim, they deem it valid. None of this surprised us.

      Anyway, one day behind schedule we arrived in Geneva. And then we boarded for our flight with Swiss Air. Until that moment I hadn't realized just how bad Alitalia really had become. Sadly, I had come to take for granted that air travel in general had gone down hill unless one could afford to shell out the big bucks for first or business class. But here the flight attendants greeted us with genuine smiles. The seats were pristine with their perfectly placed pillows and blankets. The magazines were in the seat pocket in perfect order. There were inches to spare between our knees and the seats in front of us. Our personal, seat-back TV monitors were perfectly calibrated for optimal movies-on-demand viewing pleasure. I could almost hear a distant choir singing in perfect harmony as a light shown down on me from above.

      The one worry was still the meal. What with all of the re-booking confusion we were pretty sure that our vegetarian meals hadn't been carried over to this flight. So I politely stopped one of the flight attendants to ask if there happened to be any vegetarian meals available and she said that they always have a vegetarian option. “I love them,” I said weakly to my husband.

      And the meal was actually quite good. Afterwards, in addition to the apricot tart, they brought us vanilla ice cream. And shortly before landing they came by with a basket of Swiss chocolate. Need I say more? I need not.

      Several days ago we flew home. The long leg of our journey was with Delta (not as a code-share with Alitalia thank god) and it was a decent flight, but didn't remotely compare to Swiss Air. After our lay-over, we flew to Rome with Alitalia once again. The plane was clean, pretty new and well maintained, the flight attendants were friendly. We found it frustrating and ironic that for a 1 hour flight they manage to get their act together, while a nine hour flight with them is a disaster. That was until we discovered that they had lost one of my suitcases.

      “Yeah,” I thought, when we were the only ones still looking expectantly at the now empty conveyor belt. “This feels more like it.” And internally I broke into belated, bitter applause.

Dancing With the Starlings

    It's just about winter, which means that the starlings have moved into Rome. Actually they start showing up towards the end of October, when the cold begins creeping into the countryside at night. Every evening they swoop down on the city, drawn there by the warmth that seeps out of the concrete and buildings and that puffs out of cars and buses. A rather bizarre migratory evolution if you think about it.

      I don't remember the exact first time I saw a flock of starlings in the distance, but I'm sure I did not recognize it as a flock of birds. I probably didn't really notice it at all at first. A barely visible, faint gray smudge far far away in the periwinkle sky. A wisp of smoke. A momentary cloud. But it doesn't dissipate. It hovers, suspended in place, gradually shifting shapes and becoming darker. Then lighter, then disappearing, then all at once solid black, then shimmering to light gray once more. And so on and so forth, all the while creeping closer and closer as it elongates and billows and drips only to then compact in upon itself in a liquidy dance. Another ambiguous cloud appears from nowhere, or perhaps it was there all along, and the two approach one another, then retreat, then collide and become one in a perfectly choreographed ballet. Finally it is possible to make out individual black specks and, eventually, birds.

      I can describe it this way because I have now seen the show so many times that I can actually sing along. But there is nothing like the first time. I really don't want to spoil it for you, but, like I said, the first thing that comes to mind is NOT a flock of birds. Instead, if you're anything like me, the experienced panicker within will see, in that first discoloration of the sky, the escaped byproduct of a nuclear reaction gone wrong and be frozen in place waiting for the distant scream of sirens. When those don't come and when the “cloud” has solidified into a more defined celestial entity than radioactive mist could ever be, the next most logical solution is of course a giant, carnivorous, alien amoeba. (Admittedly still not the most comforting thought, but at least a physical predator can be destroyed while nuclear fall out tends to be more of a long term problem.) Then, just when you fear that the amoeba must have strategically mesmerized you into non-action, you begin to see that what you are looking at is actually a swarm of millions of smaller creatures. A biblical quantity of smaller creatures in fact. LOCUSTS!!! It's clearly the end of the world. A mere split second before panic fully grips your heart you manage to focus on just one of the small dots and, with an enormous rush of relief, see a bird. (Though I'm not sure why millions of birds behaving this way shouldn't be equally alarming.)

      The first fall that I knew my husband the phenomenon of the starlings was still relatively new to me. So one evening he took me to Piazza Cavour, one of their most concentrated spots. We sat on the marble steps of Palazzo di Giustizia and watched as the starlings twirled and swirled in the sky above the piazza. As they began flirting with the tree tops it started to rain. Just the very beginning of a light drizzle, a couple of drops every few seconds.

      “Ohhhhh. It's raining and I left my umbrella at home,” I half-whined, still gazing up and feeling a fresh drop land near my upper lip.

      “It's not raining.”

      “Yes it is. Listen.” There was an obvious irregular pitter patter all around us.

      “I don't feel anything...And there's not a cloud in the sky.”

      “Well then where is it com-- OH NO!!!”

      Oh yes. Poop. Lots and lots of poop. Thank goodness starling poop is not the quintessential big, white, slimy bird poop that we are all familiar with. Even so, according to Italian superstition, I had probably just become the luckiest girl in the world. My husband remained miraculously unsullied, but for the rest of the evening we kept discovering new spots where they had “gotten” me.

      So that is the downside of what is otherwise a type of visual poetry. Every year hundreds of these flocks of birds spread themselves out over the city before roosting for the night. The same flocks return to the same roosts night after night. Even year to year there is only minimal variation. People who live and work in those areas know which sidewalks to avoid, know to bring an umbrella, and know when a parking spot is just too good to be true.

      It's now my third winter living in/near Rome and there are times when I still find myself awed by the sight of a billowing cloud of starlings. If we're in the area, my husband and I like to stop on Ponte Garibaldi, near Isola Tiberina, as they circle above the trees. Gradually they start to fill the limbs, though it always seems that there can't possibly be room for all of them. In the end somehow they do all find their place, becoming black foliage in the otherwise sparse winter branches. Below them, on the street, the sound of millions of birds calling to one another as they settle in for the night is a primal high pitched drone in which each single bird's voice is completely dissolved in the chaos. I know I'm not the only one who finds the whole scene captivating since we're never alone on that bridge.

      One day I may stop noticing them as I do now. The starlings may become as much a part of my winter routine as snow flurries were to me in New York. But I will always hope and imagine that each night there is someone in Rome who is seeing it all for the first time.

In Translation Lost

      I was lucky enough to be brought up bilingual, a gift that, if I choose to have children, I intend to pass on. Of course this was something that I took for granted, not realizing how lucky I was at the time. In fact, years passed in which I spoke no Italian, not because I refuted the language, but because.... I just didn't. My mother would speak to me in Italian and I would respond in English, something which my friends found hilarious until they got used to our bizarre one-sided conversations. So, for me, hearing and understanding Italian is as second nature as hearing and understanding English. Case in point: once on a transatlantic flight to NYC before we were married, my husband changed the language channel on my ear phones for the in-flight movie I was watching without my realizing it. It took a not-insignificant portion of the following scene for me to catch on to the prank, and then it was only because I noticed that the actors' voices were no longer synchronized with their lips. He had a good laugh at that one.

      So moving to Italy really wasn't a challenge for me in terms of communication, though I admit that I was a bit rusty at first. That being said, if you come here as a tourist, speaking not a lick of Italian and hoping to get by on only that small bit of high school Spanish that you remember, you'll be fine. Almost everyone speaks at least a little bit of English and they are more than happy to have someone to use it on. And that's okay. If you need to ask someone how to get to the Trevi Fountain or on what track your train leaves from, then you're really more interested in the information that they are giving you than you are in the grammatical correctness of it all. And hell, the accent mixed with the enthusiastic confusion of word order and verb tenses is really pretty adorable when you come right down to it. So I pass no judgment on the average Italian pedestrian. I pass judgment on the signs. Which leads me to main point.

      Why are there so many badly translated signs in Italy? This is a question that I ask myself repeatedly and that I continue to find inexplicable. Each time I go through a similar thought process: “Really? That's what you came up with? There was NO ONE around who could double check that for you? Not one single native English speaker that you could run that by in a country full of American and UK ex-pats?.....(sigh).” I know that if you've been here you've seen some of these signs that I'm referring to. You probably chuckled to yourself and took a picture.

      The way I see it, there are three tiers to the category of bad translations. The first (and the least excusable) tier is that which includes mass produced public transportation signs and tourist info signs. In other words, there is money behind these signs and there are people out there in the world whom one can pay to do a professional translation. Instead I have a vision of someone in an office who's job is the opposite of doing a translation, but who has falsely bragged about his impeccable English for so many years that when it comes to actually translating something, it is a matter of pride that he do it himself... and that he ask no assistance... and that he save the company the meager amount that it would cost to translate a sentence fragment such as “in emergency case”. True, these particular signs do still manage to get the meaning across and maybe, just maybe, do have something charming about them, but still. Shouldn't it also be a matter of self respect? (Actually, now that I think about it maybe the whole thing is staged to make it seem as though the entire country is oozing “sexy, charming, Italian accent” from its pores. Something to think about it.)

      The second tier of bad translations, which just make me shake my head in wonder, are the restaurant menu translations. A few examples: Not everyone knows what “pajata” (peye-YAHT-ah) is and most people I know would be quite dismayed to order and eat it by accident. The difference between “seasonal” and “seasoned” is significant. “Aubergine” and “rocket” are not the most common ways to say “eggplant” and “arugula”. “Forest fruits” are “mixed berries”. Etc, etc. And then there are those that just literally translate the name of the dish, probably using a free online translator. “Linguine al pesto” becomes “linguine pesto to”. Seriously. (There are really far too many examples to list here. Please look at the photos at the end of this post.) To be quite frank, I used to avoid restaurants that translated their menu at all because I assumed that they were probably catering to the tourist crowd and sacrificing quality in the process. Nowadays that is no longer the case since tourists are everywhere. So, given the circumstances, I have taken to using a new method of selection. If the translations on the menu are too good (or if there are too many different languages), then it's too touristy and I don't go there. Come to think of it, perhaps I should actually be grateful to these translations for helping me to weed out the tourist traps. (Or perhaps this too is a well thought out ploy to convince us of the unadulterated authenticity of the cuisine. Something else to think about.)

      The third and final tier doesn't really have a defining characteristic beyond the very home-made, do-it-yourself format of the material, and for this reason I feel no frustration but only a tender sort of affection, as I would feel for a small child showing me a scribbly drawing and telling me that it's a castle. In these instances a small business may have typed something up, printed it out, and taped it to the window or wall of their shop/restaurant. It's something intended to be helpful or instructional, but it never will be because it is completely incomprehensible. Probably someone with absolutely no understanding of how languages work wrote something out in Italian and then looked up each word in a dictionary, disregarding the proper placement of nouns, verbs, and participles and not accounting for the fact that certain words have multiple meanings. On more than one occasion I have considered offering my translation services to them (for a free dinner?), but have decided that it could be misconstrued as invasive and condescending. Besides, I like to think that there is a hidden camera recording people as they try to decipher these signs and that someone somewhere is getting a good laugh.

      Now I do realize that not everyone has the good fortune of being brought up bilingual and that perhaps I'm being overly critical. Maybe I should try to embrace each poorly constructed phrase as a symbol of one culture reaching out to another in order to be understood. Maybe we would all find it boring if suddenly all of the signs were thoroughly proof read. After all, even something as little as a clumsily written sign becomes a small stroke of color in the larger painting of one's trip. But while I may make the effort to accept it, unless it turns out that these errors are actually part of an elaborate national ruse intended to help establish the ambience for one's vacation, I will continue to be baffled. Or should I say, “I will continue to being perplexed.”

And now just a few example from a menu so you see that I'm really not making this stuff up.

Bruschetta Olive's cream






Bruschetta Artichoke's cream

Ricotta and Spinach Ravioli to the Sage

Linguine to the rock-cliff

Linguine to the seabass

Fettucine with porky mushrooms

A Tragic Thing Happened On the Way to the Forum

 

     I love when friends and family come to visit me, especially if it's their first time (or one of their first times) in Rome. I love planning out a walking tour of the historic center, connecting the touristy dots with crooked lines drawn through narrow streets and past trickling fountains, through tunnels formed by clothes drying on the line between buildings, crossing chaotic streets with a leap of faith and veering off the path for a tasty detour. Best of all is watching as that dreamy cinematic image of Rome melts into reality before their eyes.

     I've put a lot of thought into my walking tour and I'm really quite proud of it. I know which churches have works by Bernini, Michaelangelo, and Da Vinci. I've figured out how to time it so that we come upon pizza and ice cream at just the right moment. I build the suspense so that when we turn a corner the Pantheon comes into view in the most spectacular way. I can incorporate a bit of optional shopping upon request and of course I casually unveil several panoramic views. Most importantly of all, I know what's free...or so I thought.

     Recently my cousin came to visit me. It was her first time in Rome and she only had about two days. The way I see it, if you only have two days, you save the expensive and time consuming museums for a future trip and just try to see and absorb as much of the city as possible. That being said, one of the standard stops on my tour is obviously the area of the Colosseum and the Roman Forum, and on Day 2 that was to be our first destination.

     As we exited the metro stop the Colosseum occupied nearly all of our field of vision. It's one of those sights that never ceases to dazzle. Even I took a moment to appreciate its colossus-ness again for the first time, the massive structure oozing its history out onto the modern streets, taxis and buses wizzing by in the background, herds of tour groups following the beacon of the closed umbrella held by their leader, costumed gladiators posing for pictures for €10, and overpriced souvenir stands tempting the unexperienced traveler with their “tchotchkas”. It's all part of the spectacle.

     We had already decided that we didn't feel like paying the ticket to go inside, and when we passed the line we knew that we had made the right decision. The line was more of an elongated blob that we glimpsed through the arcs at ground level and that continued about a quarter of the way around the interior of the structure until spilling out onto the surrounding piazza. I'd say it was at least two hours worth of line and it was only about 10:30am.

     “You used to be able to just walk in without a ticket,” I told Samantha nostalgically. Luckily it was a beautiful morning, so we didn't feel that we were missing anything as we happily strolled around the circumference and walked up a piece of Via Dei Fori Imperiali to get a view (and some pictures) from further away.

     From there my plan was to walk through the Roman Forum, exit at the end near Campidoglio, take a moment to look at Mussolini's wedding cake building at Piazza Venezia, and then head towards the Mouth of Truth and the Jewish Ghetto. But when we reached the stone path that leads to the Forum, I was confused by a large sign explaining that this was an exit only and that the entrance was around the corner. Since I had entered from that point more times than I could count, I took the sign as more of a suggestion than a rule and continued up the path. But as a few people passed us coming from the opposite direction, I started to have a bad feeling. Denial pushed me onwards.

     And then there it was. An iron fence. And to the far left a booth with a lone, one-way turnstile. All of the signs pointed to the obvious, but I needed to hear it from someone first hand. I dreadfully approached the booth, which didn't even have a speaking hole pointing in my direction.

     “Excuse me, but do we have to pay to get in?” I shouted, trying to curve my voice around the glass corner to reach the ears of the woman sitting inside.

     She didn't even look up from her magazine. “Yes.” Judging by her tone of voice, I was not the first person to ask.

     “Since when?”

     “Three years ago.”

     “I've been here within the past three years and didn't pay,” I responded indignantly, somehow illogically thinking that that would convince her of the error of her ways and that she would magically change the rule and let us in.

     “If you say so.”

      I admit that I wanted to stay there and argue about the situation, but a dialogue was clearly futile so I backed down and rejoined my cousin where she was waiting a few meters away.

      “I can't believe it! You have to pay to get in now!” I was feeling heatedly upset by the whole thing. Not only did this mean that we would only be able to see the Forum from afar and that we would have to walk the long way all around the perimeter to get back on track for my plans, but it meant that this was no longer a free stop along this and all future walking tours. Samantha was unfazed but I just couldn't let it go. I called my husband to tell him the news, expecting consolation. Instead:

      “Yeah of course. You've always had to pay.”

      “No!!! I remember distinctly bringing guests here and not paying. You have to pay for the Colosseum and for the Palatino, but the Forum was always free. Even the lady in the booth said it was free up until three years ago.”

      “I don't remember that.”

      “Argh!!!” I hung up.

      As we took the long way around, we passed the now official entrance. Another amorphous blob-line had formed at a small ticket booth and was slowly eating up hours of tourists' time. It dawned on me that, ironically, what creates the crowds is the very act of purchasing the tickets. Without the counting out of change, and the controlled entrance, one person at a time, at a specific and monitored point, the bottlenecked crowd of people would spread itself out at various points and dissolve altogether. As we walked by another growl rumbled in my throat. But there was still a full day of walking ahead of us, so I did my best to stifle my (possibly disproportionate) anger and move on.

      The next day I still hadn't been able to sleep it off. When my [Roman] mother called from NY in the afternoon I told her about this development at the Forum, expecting/hoping for the commiseration and understanding that my husband hadn't given me. But all I got was more of the same: utter conviction that it had always been this way, even 15 to 20 years ago. How could we both be so sure?! Despite the disgruntled words of the woman at the exit booth confirming that at least up until three years ago it was free, I began questioning my sanity.

      The truth was revealed in an online article that my husband found later that same day. Evidently up until 1998ish one had to pay an entrance fee to see the Roman Forum. Then from 1998 to 2008 it was opened back up to the public FOR FREE. And now, for whatever reason, they have reinstated the old policy, creating a three-way ticket with the Colosseum, the Palatino, and the Forum. So that cleared up the discrepancy in our collective memories, but didn't actually make me feel any better about the situation, even though it could ultimately mean that one day it will once again be free. (That is probably just wishful thinking.)

      In the mean time, I had realized what I was really upset about. What Roman would ever decide to spend €11 and an hour on line just to go for a walk? Not me. Not anyone I know. Which means we will probably never again be able to casually walk through the Roman Forum. What was once a lovely stroll through ancient ruins, available to anyone with some time to pass, has in one fell swoop become something that only tourists will take advantage of. Just like happened with the Colosseum years ago. And what will be next? The Pantheon? St. Peter's? Already, though you don't have to pay to get into St. Peter's, at peak hours you can wait up to three or four hours on the line to go through security. Again, unless you're a tourist or are showing a tourist around, why would you ever choose to spend your time on one of those lines? And I'm also upset for the tourists. Between St. Peter's, the Vatican and the Sistine Chapel, the Colosseum, and now the Roman Forum (not to mention numerous other museums), that's a full two or three days spent, not submerging oneself in this marvelous city, but eaten up bumping butts and stepping on heels with hundreds of other tourists as everyone shuffles several inches closer to their destination every ten minutes.

      So I'm angry. And incredulous. And demoralized. I know I'll get over it, or at least get used to it, but I'm left with the sinking feeling that, little by little, piece by piece, Rome is being taken away from the Romans.