Throw Kim & Annie from the train.

This weekend Annie and I visited Venice, or as the Italians decided to rename it, Venezia. It was beautiful and despite all of the water in the city, it did not rain. Apparently, it only rains in Genova.

Anyway, we've become pretty confident in several things. One of the things we do best is travel. We can purchase tickets for the bus, train, and even rent a car! No problema. So, Saturday morning we take the bus to the train station and purchase our train tickets to Venice. We are relaxing in our little train cabin with four other passengers. The train officer guy comes by and yells at Annie for having her feet up on the seat across from her. She understands and puts her feet down. Talk about being on a power trip. About 30 minutes later, the little dude returns and asks for our tickets. Everyone hands him their tickets while I'm digging in my purse for ours. I proudly hand him our ticket and he inspects it then looks at us and says something that I cannot understand at ALL. Yikes. I don't understand, I say. He speeds up his Italian, repeats what he says, sounds angry, ads more that we can't understand, and stares at us. I decide to inspect the tickets and Annie and I agree that our entire ticket is indeed right there in my hands. I mean, we've done this several times before. We are proficient at ticket buying. The four people in our car are graciously trying to help us. They speak very, very little English (about like our Italian I would say). This is the FIRST time we've been in this situation. We have no idea what's going on, no one can explain it to us, and there's a scary guy with a big mole on his face staring at us. After a few minutes, the little man leaves. Hmmm....are we safe? Are we about to be tossed from a moving train? We have no idea. We pull out the dictionary and begin talking with our cabin buddies. We finally understand what happened! We apparently only had two of our three ticket stubs. We didn't wait long enough for the last one to be printed....even though it looks complete and we've always only received two. Like I said, we're pros at this stuff now. The man comes back and says more that we don't understand. The lady in our car says that we're okay until we get to Milan (where we're switching trains), then we'll have to talk to the captain of the next train. Well, we have less than 15 minutes to switch trains and talk to the captain in a language we can barely speak. The nice lady in our cabin says she's going to Venice too and will help us. She does and the captain acts like he could care less that we're on the train. He barely even looks at our tickets and we're safe. Whhheewwww....talk about a stressful situation.

So, we arrive in Venice and left the train incident behind us. We did however, have a hotel incident. Basically, we hadn't planned to stay the night in Venice but decided last minute that we would. We had no hotel but tourist season is supposedly over. It's about 11 pm and we decide to start looking for a room. We went to at least 9 different hotels before we found the smallest hotel room ever. The front desk man gave us a break in the price and we took the room. We flipped a coin for the bed and Annie ended up on the floor. We actually slept better than either of us had in awhile...probably because we weren't in Genova.

Despite these minor and fairly entertaining events, we had a marvelous time in Venice. It is a very romantic place in every sense of the word.

Here are my pictures from Venice.

It's moving time.....

Although we thought we'd be in Genova for almost a year, things have changed.  Boy oh boy, things have changed.  At first, the charm started wearing off.  That's fine, that's normal.  You get used to what's around you, it's not as exciting.  But then our struggles started really building.  Several factors came to a clash at once:

1. When you set aside the language difference and the wonky store hours, Genova is actually a lot like DC.  Only not as pretty, and with crappy weather.

2. The public transportation system here is far from ideal, but most of the people here have to use it.  Sometimes the bus comes every 5 minutes.  Sometimes you have to wait 45 or longer.  It's often reeeeally crowded, which makes for interesting grope-avoiding tactics and missed stops because you aren't able to reach the exit in time.

3. It has rained every day for the last two and a half weeks.  Poured.  Every day.  Now, if I could sit inside with a book or a friend or a movie or whatever, I could just watch and listen to the rain with a sort of detached enjoyment.  I'd probably get cabin fever, wishing I could be seeing the sights or whatever, but it'd be somewhat tolerable.  But spending 3 hours a day commuting, often standing in the rain with a bunch of other cranky workers, it just makes me unhappy.

4. It's grey and smelly here most of the time.  When walking outside in Genova, I'm either breathing in bus fumes or smoke.  (Everyone, and I mean Everyone smokes here.  And throughout most of Italy.)  Tough to stay upbeat when you feel invaded by stink.

5. My hours at school - they're usually in the afternoon/evening.  By the time I come home, it's rush hour.  The buses are slow due to traffic, and cramped beyond belief.  The only places open at that time in the evening are restaurants, serving 2-3 hour dinners, and McDonald's.  Ew.  The grocery stores and markets are closed.

6. My actual work hours - though I thought I could work as many hours as I wanted, often the maximum available is 1-3 hours a day.  Again, max.  The commute alone will take up 2-3 hours, plus I need an hour of prep time, which isn't paid.  It's frustrating.

So here's my day today: this morning is relaxing.  I'm cooking, doing laundry, and running errands.  I was supposed to have an hour class at 1:30, then an evening class.  However, the bus and rail workers are on strike today.  (Happens often.)  So I don't have a way to get to work!  It would take about an hour and 15 minutes to walk, but of course it's raining again.  The afternoon class is cancelled, as the students haven't been showing up all morning anyway.  I'm still supposed to come into the city's center for my evening class because, "the buses are supposed to come every once in a while to get people home from work."  Still, I don't know how I will get home from work tonight.  

Ok, enough whining, and back to topic.  Two weekends ago, Kim and I visited Assisi.  It is an incredibly beautiful, charming place.  I already knew I loved it, and Kim quickly fell in love as well.  After a long, wonderful, first day, we had a lovely dinner and a bottle of wine.  Soon we found ourselves discussing a move to Assisi.  What?  And leave our jobs?  Our homes?  Our stability?  What would we do?  Where would we live?  Are we being quitters?  Taking the easy way out?  A few phone calls and one night's sleep later, we spent another lovely, rain-free day in Assisi.  We looked at two apartments.  We discussed.  We drove back to Genova.  

After some more thinking and some more perspective, we agreed.  We're unhappy in Genova, and we're moving to Assisi.  We have an apartment, we have some plans, and we are counting down the hours until we can leave this city.

The only really sad part is that I'm leaving my roommates.  They have become good friends, and they are fantastic people.  Unfortunately, the blatant unhappiness that Genova creates for me is too powerful for me to stay.  

For those of you still reading this long, not-so-exciting post, thanks for working your way through all this negativity!  A lot of things are still up in the air (2009?), and believe it or not, there were many more factors that went into this decision than those shared above.  But the bottom line is that we're moving this weekend, we're optimistic about the next leg of our adventure, and we'll keep you posted!

More soon.....

Thank you dad!

Dear Dad,

Thank you so much for teaching me how to drive a standard. Considering that almost all cars in Italy are standards, it came in quite handy this weekend when we rented one. I remember when I was learning to drive one and I thought it was stupid. When would I ever need to know how to drive a standard? As soon as I got behind the wheel, I was very thankful. I hadn't driven one in almost four years, but it all came back to me. Apparantly I missed the "stop and go from first gear" portion of the program though. You see, I just happened to be driving when we reached a toll booth with a very long line of cars. I may or may not have killed the car five times (okay I did). I also managed to get stopped at a red light on quite a good sized hill. In order to not roll backwards, I gunned it and we smelled burnt rubber for quite awhile. I know that I learned in our very flat backyard, which never saw traffic jams, but I felt very ill-prepared. You should have seen me in second thru fifth gears though! After reaching Assisi, which is nothing but stop and go mountain driving, we switched drivers. Annie had no problem. She informed me that her father also taught her to drive a stick shift. She later told me that he had to replace the transmission when she was finished learning! Luckily, when we returned the car they didn't inspect the transmission or tires!

Taking the train from now on,

Kim

Sunday Sounds of Assisi

Nuns are mean

We're driving towards Assisi and I see this beautiful city up on top of the mountain in front of us. "Wow, look how beautiful that is!" I say to Annie. "Dude, that's where we're going" she replies. We drive up this mountain and into this ancient city. The city is an old fortress in Umbria, which is located in the middle of Italy. I don't think I can even describe all of the feelings I felt during our visit. All I can say is, this is the Italy that I came here to experience. There is no subway system. There is no McDonald's, or other signs of American culture. The roads are barely roads. Most people don’t speak English and we are forced to use our Italian. One of the things I love most about this little town is the roads. One car can barely even fit. Try throwing in some picture-taking tourists and it gets interesting. There are random stairwells and paths that I cant help but want to explore. This is Italy.

Annie’s family spent 8 months here a couple of years ago and so we were fortunate to have a contact in the town, Barbara. She was kind enough to take us around a bit. She took us to the place where Annie’s family had stayed, to her grandma’s house, to her house, and then to an olive grove owned by her friend Luigi. Luigi’s family has been making olive oil for centuries. In the old days, the olives were squeezed between two huge stones. Nowadays, they have a little machine that squeezes out the oil. This olive oil is coming from the olives being grown in his backyard. From there, they’re squeezed and bottled. It is not like in America where it was bottled a year ago, shipped somewhere, and sits on a shelf for another six months before we eat it. This comes right off the tree. Luigi’s wife toasted some fresh bread over an open oven (with fire and everything), then she put some of the oil on it and sprinkled salt on top. It was amazing. I’m a bit embarrassed to say this, but my eyes literally filled with tears when I put it in my mouth. It was one of the most amazing things I’ve ever tasted. That plus the setting we were in and the people we were with was just overwhelming. To be honest, Annie and I both teared up several times from the sheer pleasure of our environment. As I said, this is Italy.

So, why are nuns mean? Well, let me tell ya. Annie and I were so cheerful that we would say “Buon giorno” to most everyone we passed that didn’t seem like a tourist. Many of the people seemed very happy and some even shocked that we would say good day to them. They would smile and respond. It was just a great, warm feeling. In the center of the town, we were approaching two nuns and Annie, in her best Italian, says “Good morning.” Neither of them responded or really looked at her for that matter. That's right, Annie was snubbed by nuns. About 10 minutes later, the same scene is reinacted but with three nuns this time. We were both very shocked. I mean, okay, so maybe thousands of tourists are there a year and they get annoyed by being “the nuns coming out of the church” but couldn’t they smile or something? I mean, come on, you’re in Assisi…how can you do anything but smile?

Here are my pictures from Assisi.

My photos so far...

To see my photos from Napoli, click here.
For photos from Genova, taken from about two blocks from where I live, click here.

One out of three Italian policemen would vote for John McCain

People who work in Italy have to have, among other things, a codice fiscale.  It's similar to a social security number.  Employers need to register it, but you also need it for lots of other things: setting up a bank account, setting up a telephone line, buying a house, etc.  

The school where we work needs a codice fiscale from each of us.  Now, you can go online and get a fake one, sort of.  It calculates what your CF will probably be, as there is a formula to put it together.  But to do official stuff, they need to see your CF ID card.  You probably remember from reading Kim's post that she's had some major internet difficulties.  Ultimately, she learned that she can buy a wireless key to plug into the USB drive and have wireless internet wherever there's a cell phone signal.  Great!  But, the store won't sell it to her without a CF card.  

Yesterday morning we got up early.  We took the bus to the center of town and found the Ufficio delle Entrata, where they issue the CFs.  It takes us a little while to find it b/c they're doing construction ON the building, but we get in.  Wrong ufficio.  There are 5 or 6 branches, and this one doesn't issue CFs.  

OK - so this nice gentleman who speaks decent English tells us about how he was in Washington, DC, and a random woman there spoke Italian and helped him find his way around.  (Thank you, random woman!)  So he was eager to return the favor to an American, especially two from DC.  He sends us over to the right office.  (Sure, we went the wrong way a couple of times, but I will say that at least one local sent us in the absolutely wrong direction.)

We're at the right office!  We use our dictionaries to fill out the paperwork.  We have our passports.  We wait for our number to be called.  They're very nice.  But ultimately we're told, "No, is impossible."  Drat.  There's a lot of red tape here, and we don't cut the mustard at this office.  They send us to the police station, where maybe they can issue us a temporary CF or something.

So we go.  The guards at the front start debating with us about Obama vs. McCain.  (Sidebar - most Italians like Obama.  They think he'll be a great diplomat and international communicator.  Only one person so far has disagreed: one of these cops.  But they all have a pleasant demeanor about the whole thing.)  A translator takes us into a back office where we explain our problem.  They say ok - first, you need to go downstairs to declare yourselves.  The best way is to go outside, around to the right . . . of course we get lost again.  

After finally finding the right room, they give us new paperwork so we can formally declare our presence to the Italian government.  To do so, we're supposed to - on our own, outside of the police station - make copies of every page in our passport, and bring them back with the other paperwork.  Then wait in line and .... seek their approval?

"What about our codice fiscales?"  

"What?  No, you can't get that here."

"We tried the ufficio delle entrata, and they told us that maybe here...."

"No, is impossible."

Yup.

When we came back to the school and explained to our boss that we couldn't get the CFs, she said, "Oh - well, some offices won't give them out without being sticklers, but other offices don't care.  You just have to try another office.  No big deal, though.  I can just take the one you got online."

Yup.

Knowing what I knew ahead of time, I was easily able to laugh at the situation.  Italy: country of the red tape.  Welcome Annie & Kim!

Love is still an international language

Happy Halloween!  Today I dressed up as . . . . a teacher.  Hah.  After my car rental success, I did a little Assisi research, then went into school to teach a couple of afternoon courses.  My first class was one thirteen-year-old girl and three nurses.  Yep - all three!  Great class.  The following class was just two people: a married couple.  Francesco and Anna have been married for 31 years, and you can tell.  Love aside, they like each other so much, but they also talk over each other, finish each other's sentences, cut each other off, etc.  From tone and body language, I could understand almost everything they said in Italian.  It was so nice to interact with them and be able to recognize the familiar communication style of a happily married couple.  *sigh*

So being a teacher is hard - duh.  The actual teaching part is pretty pleasant and not too challenging.  Of course, most of my students are adults who want to be there, so I'm lucky.  (The 4 and 7 year olds - not so easy!)  Anyway, the hardest and most time-consuming part for me is the prep work.  So kudos to all you teachers who spend so much time planning lessons, anticipating the unexpected, and making learning that much easier for the rest of us!

Off topic: there's a bilboard I see on my bus ride home every day from work.  It has an overweight man in a tight green suit with a B on it.  His name?  Captain Basilico.  That's right.  Captain Basil.  I don't know if it's an ad for basil, or some sort of comedic ad for something else, but it makes me smile every day.  Captain Basilico strikes again!

I'm connected!

Yes! I finally have the internet! After three and a half weeks, a lot of misunderstandings, many different computer stores, $180, and a lot of frustration - I'm back in business. Thank you to Max, the guy at the school where we work (for basically buying everything I needed and installing it on my computer), Julia, the girl at the computer store (for not throwing me out of the store since I was there four times), and Annie (for going with me to the store and listening to me complain). Time to skype it up people!

I rented a car!

That's right!  I rented my first car in Italy!  It ended up being much easier than I anticipated b/c I got lucky and found a Hertz just a bus ride away, plus I was able to make the arrangements online last night.  Score!  Driving back home was interesting.  I haven't driven a stick in a while, but it came back to me.  The directions, however, were not specifically followed to get back to my house.  I had to follow my questionable sense of direction, which actually came through for me today.  Found a parking spot and everything!  Parking is tight here.

Tip: When you rent a car, you need your driver's license, credit card, AND passport.  Good to know.

Other tips in general:

-If you buy a weekly/monthly/yearly bus pass in Genova, you only have to stamp it once, then just carry it with you on the bus.  Officials occasionally come through and make sure everyone has paid.  (Hasn't happened to me yet.)

-You get your codice fiscale at the ufficio (office) delle entrata.  Not all offices issue them, and some of them are sticklers, while others aren't.  Story to follow, including a police station visit. 

-When you go to McDonald's (not that we have, clearly), you have to pay for catsup.

-No stores give refunds.  If you have your receipt, you can make and exchange for something that costs the same as or more than your original purchase, but No refunds.  Ever.

-You'd better know where you're going if you take the bus in the rain, especially at night.  In the mornings, most of the buses have an electronic sign up front that says what the next stop is.  (Don't count on seeing the sign out the window - they're tiny and sometimes covered by trees.)  For some reason, they turn off these helpful electronic signs at night.  And if it's raining, all of the windows fog up, and you can't see where you are.  It gets a little risky for stop-missing.

-Fanta rocks.

More tips to come as we think of them.  It's been storming and pouring all week.  Not fun for taking the bus to work, but it makes the ocean look really wild and beautiful.  From the comfort of the shore, of course!

But back to the car rental.  It's purpose: Kim and I are driving to Assisi this weekend to see the town and visit with Barbara (who helped my family while here), her family, and Francesco and Vincenza, in whose house my family lived.  I'm so excited!  As foreign as everything has been lately (both figuratively and literally), I think it will be a comfort to return to a familiar place.  I probably won't remember my way around very well, but it's not a big city like Genova.  We'll just be there Saturday afternoon through Sunday afternoon, but hopefully we'll get some good stuff in.

We'll be staying at a hotel up in Assisi with a great view.  Barbara was kind enough to phone Francesco and Vincenza to see if we can stay at their place (wow - would have been really awesome and surreal), but their daughter is living there at the moment.  Still, as nervous as I've been about renting the car and making our way there, I'm so pumped.  The hotel is booked, the car is here, the hard stuff is done!  Kim's sense of direction is much better than mine, so with two minds in one car, hopefully we'll get there in a decent amount of time.  

I'll take pictures!