Zpeak ve-ry-zlo-li

About 10 years ago, my Italian reached caveman level and stopped. For some reason, no matter how hard I try I can’t seem to get any better. OK, I occasionally pick up an interesting word or two (did you know that finocchio, which is Italian for fennel, is also slang for gay? I haven’t worked out yet whether it’s a homophobic insult or an affectionate nickname.) I understand most of what goes on around me and sometimes I can communicate some quite complicated ideas. But I’m still limited to the sort of sentences Tarzan would use: “Me Like Italy. Me Go In Milan. Me Make Fire, Fire Pretty.”

For a long time I found this really frustrating, but I recently realised there are advantages to the fact that everyone assumes you’re a moron. In other words, when you do something wrong, nobody’s very surprised or disappointed, and when you do something right – something really intelligent like remembering your door key or getting on the right train – everyone is overwhelmingly proud of you. Low expectations can be quite liberating.

For example this morning I dropped a parcel and a couple of letters off at the post office. I then mooched across the road to the tabaccheria where I was queuing for bus tickets when suddenly there was a tap on my shoulder – it was the bloke from the post office, holding out one of the cards I’d given him. I realised that in a stroke of genius I had forgotten to put the address on. In England this would have been the cue for much apologising and explanation but there was no way my language skills could stretch to it. I settled for “I regret. I forgot the address.”

I then had to grit my teeth through a friendly lecture, in which he patiently revealed that “if you don’t put an address on the envelope, it won’t get there.” But I could see he didn’t think I was a moron, just an innocent foreign babe in the dark scary woods of the international postal service. I flashed him a grateful smile, and with a friendly wave he headed back to the post office. He had the warm glowing feeling of having done a good deed – I got two seconds of humiliation in exchange for not having sent a birthday card to nowhere – everyone was a winner.

Of course I have to add a special PS – when would a London post office worker ever even cross a room to help you, let alone a whole street…

Codgerology

I love market day, it’s one of the few things about Italian country life that hasn’t changed at all since I was a kid, especially the day in Small Town 1, the only town within walking distance of where I live (internet reception: nil). It’s a market untroubled by knockoff DVDs or mobile phone accessory stalls, preferring to concentrate instead on the widest selection of tablecloths and kitchenware known to man, boxy shoulder padded blouses for elderly women, fruit, cheese, salami and agricultural machinery. And it’s here that I see one of my favourite examples of Italian wildlife: The Codger.

When he was alive, my grandfather was a codger par excellence. The moment he stepped off the plane from London, after kissing the ground and downing half a bottle of red wine that is, he’d kit himself out in the regulation codger uniform: bellywarmer trousers that would make even Simon Cowell shrink away, vest and/or shirt, braces (Nonno’s were a colourful red and green) and a trilby hat of dubious age and condition.

If you have a huge roman nose, no hair and no teeth, that helps complete the look perfectly. You then deposit yourself in the same bar you’ve been going to since 1927 with all your cronies, and proceed to argue in dialect, play cards for high steaks (or salami, or coppa, or other meat products) and gesticulate wildly at everyone around you. I have no idea what they talk about, but I think a lot of it involves the war, ogling young women and how nobody these days has any respect.

But I’ve noticed a disturbing trend recently. The old-style Codger is dying out, to be replaced by Codger v2.0. These men have no respect for their traditional heritage. They flaunt themselves in polo-shirts and designer shades pushed up onto their heads. Their trousers, instead of skimming high over the pasta-belly, skirt under it. Some of them even have the effrontery to wear denim shorts.

I propose the founding of a SNPCI – Societa Nazionale per la Preservazione del Codger Italiano. This will involve special Codger Fridays in which every man over 65 is legally obliged to wear a vest and braces, tax incentives for people to let their teeth go, and a special discount on hats. Believe me, there are weirder laws in Italy.

But sadly I don’t think it’s going to catch on, and I can imagine years into the future when the boys I swooned over as a teenager become Codgers v3.0. They’ll still be gathered outside the same bar, but instead of trilby hats and toothlessness, the look will be all about wrinkly celtic armband tattoos, battered birkenstocks and gadgety watches. Occasionally they’ll break into an old-time tune: sono il Firestarter, twisted Firestarter and sigh with the nostalgia of it. Meanwhile young Italian twentysomethings will file past them on the way to the trendier bar in the square, shake their heads and swear: “I’ll never end up like that.”

A scary kind of freedom

I’m sitting on the balcony at the moment, watching the last glimmer of yellow on the hillsides opposite my house, flapping my hands pointlessly at the mosquitoes and playing my favourite twilight nature game: “bird or bat?” This morning I filed my last piece of copy until I come home. And although I am sure there will be questions on that bit of copy, the intensity of scrabbling around for phone lines and internet connections and case studies stops here.

Today I wrote an email letting someone down, saying I couldn’t do work I had hoped to be able to do. I still feel a tight ping of panic in my head as I think about it. I wonder if that person will ever employ me again. I wonder if word will get around and I will get a Reputation for Unreliability. But it can’t be avoided. I’ve realised that it’s virtually impossible to freelance from here and make a profit. Reluctantly I have to let it go before it kills me and hope and pray I can get plenty of work when I come home.

So now it’s just me, the scenery and the Manuscript. And an ever dwindling purse of monies, of course. There’s no backing out now.

Quitting (actually written on Saturday)

OK, God, Universe, Supreme being or whatever, I get the message. Freelancing long term from Italy is not an option.

I had a nice, leisurely morning seeing my sister off at the station, then I mooched over to the Palazzo Farnese to use their free broadband service. It being lunchtime on a Saturday they were about to close for half day – because who wants to go and see a tourist attraction on a Saturday afternoon? So I perched on the wall next to the drawbridge with my computer and tried not to fall into the dried out moat while I caught up with some friends via Skype and sent drivelly emails. So far, so good, the technology gods were smiling on me today. I went home for lunch. I got ready in order to catch the 3.30 bus into Rivergaro to do my interview from my cousin’s office at half past four. I lumped my rucksack up to the bus stop and waited.

And waited, and waited, until my skin sizzled in the sun.

The bus stop is situated opposite the local bar an old-school cobwebby place owned by a couple and their son. They’re not bad people, I just don’t think they’re especially fond of foreigners. Or people from outside the province. Or the village. I asked the owner whether he’d seen the bus, and got a ‘no’ shrug. I asked whether he thought the bus might be late and got a ‘how should I know’ shrug. I said I’d been waiting a while and he shrugged again, and said: “Meh, it’s the weekend. Sometimes the buses don’t come.”

I took a couple of seconds to digest this catastrophe. The next bus was at five, half an hour after my interview was due. That’s of course if it turned up at all. I asked the barman if they still had a payphone and he shrugged in the direction of the interior.

After giving the greasy, tobaccoey-smelling phone a once over with a damp tissue I tried my BT chargecard. Nothing. I tried again, nothing again. I started to cry. Pathetic, but true. It just seemed like every time I tried to get things under control, something else ridiculous happened to spoil it. Like the entire universe doesn't want me to freelance from Italy, and I was sick of fighting it.

I did a quick sum and worked out that if I talked to my interviewee on the mobile my bill would end up swallowing half my fee, so called quickly, rearranged the interview for an hour’s time. Still crying a bit I walked about half a mile up the road to the next bar along and tried their payphone. It didn’t work either and now I was rancid, shiny with sweat and my eyes looked all swollen and wrinkly like a chameleon’s. The lady who runs this bar tried to help me, but nothing worked. “I need to get to Rivergaro,” I gasped. “But there’s no buses…”

Just at that moment an unfortunate maths teacher called Nicole wanders into the bar to buy a packet of cigarettes. Within a couple of moments, she’s been roped into giving me a lift. “I don’t mind,” she says. “You don’t have a dangerous face.” By then I had a gremlin’s face more than anything. But luckily neither of us was a murderer and I made it to Rivergaro without being dismembered.

Of course, by then, according to the Universal Law of Case Studies, my interviewee was out.

Every vegetarian's nightmare

The only big bugbear about food in Italy is the lack of veg. Talk all you want about althose wrinkly old ladies living forever thanks to the Mediterranean diet, but that was in the days when women got up at 5am to scrub their front steps (I still see people doing this. Or hear them at least before I turn over and go back to sleep) the days before you could buy as much meat as you wanted at the local supermarket. In those old days when meat was a treat people fantasised about eating it every day - and now our dreams have come true. So why on earth would you want vegetables when you could have another helping of dead animal?

Last night I went to my cousin’s house for a barbecue, the menu for which was as follows:

Starter: Selected salami, Coppa, prosciutto crudo, bread, two small slivers of barbecued courgette

Followed by: Sausage kebab

Followed by: A big slab of steak

Followed by: Pork kebab

Followed by: Tiramisu

Followed by: Torta Crostata (a giant jam tart with a criss-cross pastry pattern on it)

Followed by: Fruit! Phew. Am not going to die of scurvy just yet.

Not complaining though – each animal fat based dish was more delicious than the last, especially the home made tiramisu. And my cousin’s place is beautiful, set high up in the mountains between two valleys, with nothing but fields and forests in view, it was incredibly peaceful. There’s also a new ‘English pub’ in the village which is about as English as Silvio Berlusconi but I didn't mind the absence of damp beer mats and sticky mahogany tables too much.

Signing off now - off to look up heart attack statistics for Emiglia Romagna.

Feeling hot hot hot

Yesterday I filed copy while wearing a bikini. That sounds like a wonderful, glamorous thing to do, but I was wearing a bikini because it’s so hot that you can almost touch the air around you. Its so hot you could probably fry an egg on the poor little Mac, which wheezes and complains but plods loyally on.

I think I’ve slid into that classic English trap of thinking that the Mediterranean siesta is just an excuse for laziness and that if they had any gumption at all they’d just press on through like any Brit would. That was before The Days Of 39 Degrees.

I’m sending emails, semi delirious with heat, god alone knows what they say. All the sensible locals are hiding away at home or cooling themselves in air conditioned offices. I’m the only one in the café barring the waitress. She looks surprised when I order a two litre bottle of water, and even more surprised when I pour half of it over my feet to try and stay cool.

On the plus side I have fixed the air conditioning in my hire car. Apparently if you want it to work you have to actually turn it on. Go figure.

My technology trials

Ever get the feeling that someone up there is telling you not to do something? This is how I have spent the last week, instead of putting smug posts on here about how sunny it is. I'm sorry if this is boring, but writing it has been very therapeutic. Living it, however, wasn't.

Thursday - arrive!

House has no electricity

The dongle doesn’t seem to be compatible with my mac

Friday:

Go to Vodafone shop and they upload some mac-type software - yay!

Wait three hours for pay-as-you-go deal to kick in feeling very positive

When I get home, it doesn’t work.

But the electricity is back on!

Saturday:

Told the dongle would never work at my house due to crap reception

Discover it works in Town

Discover wi-fi hotspot in town

Discover cannot recharge computer at wi-fi hotspot so have to move every two hours

Find out I can sneakily plug my computer into the wall of a restaurant (under the archy bit in the picture)

And it has a wi-fi network I can secretly tap into

Although Skype doesn’t work in that spot, only in the wi-fi hotspot

Skype doesn’t always work in the wi-fi hotspot, by the way just sometimes when the wind is blowing the right way and mercury is in retrograde

And have to stay indoors with increasingly hot laptop and no A/C 

Sunday:

Whole of town closed. Can’t work

Monday:

Manage to do a Skype interview in Rivergaro (nearby small town)

Out of power so have to charge up at uncle’s house and eat enormous five course meal and try to understand his dialect.

Get to Piacenza to discover Skype not working

Go to buy a mobile phone and find that the shop is closed for the rest of August

Discover that the Wi-Fi hotspot will have limited opening hours all next week due to national holiday.

The signal is still there 24/7

But would have to sit in a courtyard with my laptop on my knees.

Back to restaurant, with no Skype.

Discover last bus home is around 7pm, therefore no possibility of working late.

Discover this after I have missed it.

Tuesday:

Find rather nice café near the hotspot where wi-fi works

Skype still doesn’t work

Then when I attach the dongle and stay in the same spot, it does. I think I have found a civilised new home.

But then café owner puts on very loud Christina Aguilera medley while I am doing an interview

And two ice teas cost me eight euros

And she won’t let me plug my computer in to charge.

I leave my new home, too embarrassed to charge computer up in restaurant for a second time that day and go home

Go back to Rivergaro, computer out of power, in tears of desperation. Phone cousin to ask for help but she’s going to the opera.

Back home I walk to Travo (only small town within walking distance) sit on church steps and check reception. Niente.

Decide to hire car to have the working late in Piacenza option

Wednesday:

Manage to do successful interview in wi-fi hotspot

Out of battery power – back to restaurant

Pick car up at 3pm and drive out to Rivergaro

Work in Rivergaro café. Skype sometimes working sometimes not. Very loud Stock Aitken and Waterman music. No aircon. Battery runs down at 6pm.

Cousin offers use of her office until Monday as it’s closed for the holidays

Manage to get Skype working at 10pm in a random car park long enough to interview someone in NYC 

Thursday:

Arrive in office. Air conditioning! Internet connection on creaky PC! Water cooler! Toilet that isn’t a hole in the floor! Electricity!

Skype doesn’t work and need to do lots of interviews today

Remember have BT Chargecard number from old address. Start using that instead via cousin’s landline.

Emails start inexplicably failing to send

Can’t get hold of interviewee – v frustrating as can’t just leave her a message to call me. Have abandoned Skype number as total waste of time and money

Slowly interviews and copy pieced together and start to see light at end of tunnel

Friday:

Office! Luxury! Joy!

Then BT chargecard stops working

Ring four different helplines and nobody seems to know what’s happening

Get through to lovely David Monk on BT chargecard helpline, man with sense of humour and also just sense. Find out I’ve run out of credit because I have spent more than £60 on the chargecard in 24 hours at 50p a minute.

Get more money put on chargecard – no choice really unless I want to sit in a sun-beaten car park for two hours at a time

Skype starts working! I make the most of it by talking manically on the phone to everyone I can get hold of.

Finally it’s the weekend – and I think I have just enough info available to start writing on the balcony without having to go online or phone people.

I’m thinking of taking a bit of time off when this is done…

 

 

Time to go

The flat is quiet on my second to last morning here. Upstairs in the living room my sister is fast asleep on the inflatable air mattress, surrounded by boxed-up bits of my life. It took two carloads for me to move in here. Now, six months later, I've had to buy 25 boxes and hire a van.

There are four plastic sacks full of clothes, a huge box of beauty products I never use and an entire bag stuffed to the brim with coathangers. Just hangers, nothing else. I just seem to accumulate crap as I roll through life.

Next to my bed is the one bag that isn't going into storage, the one I'm taking with me to Italy. It's not big enough. It makes me feel wobbly not having my things around me, I keep panicking and shoving more stuff in, as if the more I have the more I'll be able to control the next eight weeks.

It's funny how everyone's reacted to the idea of me going to Italy to think about life, work, relationship breakups etc. My friends are really excited, predicting some kind of chick-lit coming-of-age romance with a totally unsuitable Italian man. Some people think I'm doing the wrong thing, abandoning my life when it's in a crisis. Interestingly my mum is supportive, even though it means I won't see her for a couple of months.

I know it's the right thing to do, though. If it doesn't work I can always come back, having tried. My whole adult life I've always known where I'm going to be this time next week, next month and next year. And for the first time I have no idea. So let's just see where it takes me.