Luna Mezz'o Mare

Later this month we are departing on a Mediterranean cruise. We will be visiting 3 new places in Italy: Cinque Terre, Sorrento, and Taormina, Sicily. First cruise ever; first visit to southern Italy. To get in the mood, I've been downloading Italian music to my cool new phone, and this is my ringtone. I'm madly in love w/Patrizio and his Harry Connick good looks. And for those of you who don't understand the Sicilian dialect, it's just as well. The lyrics are delightfully crude. If you must know, just Google...


Buy the mp3 here and you can make your own ringtone with the Ringdroid app:

Il mio nuovo Kindle

I just got my new Kindle. Now there will be no more rushing to download reading material at the airport. It has 3-G AND Wi-Fi. Everywhere I've been in Italy has Wi-Fi. I also invested in the European power cord.

Now the only problem is that Rob & I will be fighting over who gets the new Kindle and who is stuck with the old one. Yes! We are a two-Kindle family.

Scriverò ogni giorno

I vowed to use this blog as a daily journal of my February 2010 trip to Todi, among other things (comments on books to read, places to go, my photos, my other trips to Italy, etc.). I did not keep that vow. I now hereby pledge to write something every day. I have several posts in draft, many photos to publish and explain, books and web sites to recommend. They'll never be published if I don't start somewhere. I hereby start.

Perché Italia? parte seconda

Okay here's my crazy new theory on my passion for Italy. I've mentioned that my provenance is essentially all British Isles; not a drop of Mediterranean blood in evidence. But remember your English history: at one time a large part of Britain was a part of the Roman Empire. I'm thinking that somewhere back in my pedigree was a homesick Roman soldier, and my nostalgia was passed down in his blood. I'll let you know when I've gotten the results of my genealogical DNA tests.

Okay

There is no K in the Italian alphabet. (No J, W, X or Y, either). But one of the most common words out of the Italian mouth is Okay. And in keeping with the amazingly consistent Italian rules of pronunciation, each vowel sound is articulated, so Okay has roughly 3 syllables. (And, by the way, Ciao! if pronounced correctly, has two.) Unlike the French, the Italians are fairly happy to adopt English words. I'm typing on il mio computer, posting su l'Internet. The William Safire of Italy is Beppe Severgnini(Ciao! America, La Bella Figura). He believes in seeking, where reasonable, to use Italian words when speaking Italian. But, even he is not doctrinaire: regarding computer he says: combattenderlo si rischia di fare una figura da francesi: fighting it, one risks making a Frenchman of oneself.

Indimenticabile

One sees variations of these flyers all over Italy commemorating the passing of a loved one, announcing the memorial mass. This one grabbed me by the heart. It says that the holy mass will be celebrated on February 24 on the occasion of the twenty-seventh anniversary of the departure of the unforgettable  [indimenticabile] Anna Maria Biscarini. I only hope that someone will find me indimenticabile 27 years after I'm gone.

Update:

upon my return to Todi in February 2011, I found  Anna Maria Biscarini ancora indimenticabile (still unforgettable) after twenty-eight years.

Sono confetti? no, sono coriandoli

One would think confetti a perfectly good Italian word. If you know your Latin/English/Italian, it is a perfectly good plural past participle of the same root as confection. And that's a hint to the subject of this post. Confetti = confections, commonly served at weddings, e.g. Jordan Almonds. What you see above is a picture of small shreds of gaily colored paper left on the pavement after the Carnevale celebrations of this past weekend in Todi. In Italian, they are known, not as confetti, but as coriandoli, which is the same word as coriander, or cilantro for those of you of a gastronomic or botanical bent.

La Vita è Bella

It was a surreal experience. Yesterday afternoon I watched Life is Beautiful with Roberto Benigni. In Italian, with Italian subtitles. I had never seen it. Now I have. The only other 2 people in the room were a Japanese girl and my Italian teacher. The only person missing was a nice German. or maybe someone French...

Che cos'è?

I kept wondering what strange (and large!) animal scat kept appearing on the steps outside my apartment. Here is the picture. See if you can guess.

Duh! they're olives! I have an olive grove up the stairs from me. So much sexier than crabapples on the sidewalk.

Perché Italia?

Once again, Professor Obvious, why would anyone love Italy? Well, that's not really the question. Why do I love Italy and the Italian language with a mad passion? I've done my genealogy. I'm as WASP as they come (except the part that's Catholic, and that may be part of the reason).

Could my parents have accidentally switched me with an Italian bambina there on the Piazza San Marco? If you knew my parents, you know what a joke that is. It's a toss-up which one I resemble more. Forget that theory.

If you believe in past lives, maybe... I'm agnostic on the subject, but I don't like that theory either.

Here's my theory: it's not elegant or simple, but it's the best I can do. I have always loved languages. I studied French from 6th grade through high school and into college. I took Latin from 8th through 10th grades. I discovered linguistics my junior year in college, and if I could have changed my mind at that point, I would have majored in linguistics. Italian is the perfect next step for a student of French and Latin. It's extremely regular like Latin, beautiful like French, and the Italians, unlike the French, are very encouraging of any effort to speak their language.

Italy is also a great place to be a vegetarian, which I am. At least central Italy, where I have spent most of my time, is full of fabulous food that doesn't necessarily include meat. I read in La Repubblica on the way over that Italy has more vegetarians per capita than the other EU countries.

Here's the other thing: in addition to the fact that I may or may not have taken my steps on the Piazza San Marco, I spent my entire childhood sleeping in a bed over which hung the above-mentioned Venus on the Half-Shell, a fake Della Robbia wreath,

and another print, which I have just recently realized was that Botticelli Madonna del Libro. My mother was far from religious. I don't think she'd object to my calling her an atheist, but that didn't preclude her loving Italian renaissance art, and exposing her daughter to it. It was just like her to pick the painting where Mary seems to be teaching Jesus to read. Reading could have been said to be my mother's religion.

I know it sounds goofy, but there is some reason beyond Italy's obvious charms that I feel at home when I come here, and this is the best I can do for now.

Michelangelo, schmichelangelo

I love gay men as much as the next girl (a lot), but I think Michelangelo was one of those rare guys who didn't care for females in any form. Have you looked at his women? They all have man hands. Not to mention man chests with boobs pasted on. Here's my guy: Botticelli.

Look at her; look at all the women in Primavera. Look at this Madonna:

Aren't they all perfectly gorgeous? And if you look at them closely, every one of these paintings has little flowers painted on the fabrics. Art.com says this:

Florentine painter Sandro Botticelli (1444 – 1510) is regarded as epitomizing the spirit of the Italian Renaissance. Renowned as one of the greatest colorists in Florence, Botticelli became a favorite member of inner circle of the Medicis. Painting extraordinary wall frescoes in the Sistine Chapel and several monumental mythological allegories often upholding the triumph of love and reason over base instinct. Little known for centuries after his death, his work was rediscovered in the late 19th century by a group of English Pre-Raphaelites.

© Art.com

La lingua, la gente, il paese, il vino, il formaggio, il cibo...

• I love the language. I've taken 3 years of Latin, 8 years of French, and I've studied Italian, mostly on my own, off and on for the last 35 years. Especially for those of us who know French or Latin, the Italian language is a delight. So much of it is familiar, yet much is different. A lot of the vocabulary is obvious (ovvio). The rules of spelling, grammar, pronunciation are so regular, it's easy to get started. The present tense of verbs is useful for the near past and the near future, so you can get by for a long time without learning any other verb forms. At the advanced level, verbs are incredibly challenging, which is also a lot of fun for those of us who want to take the trouble. And the Italians compliment you and encourage you for even the lamest attempt to speak their language, unlike certain of their European neighbors to the west who shall go nameless.
• I love the people. I know it is close to a patronizing stereotype, but the Italians I have encountered, with few exceptions, are friendly, welcoming, kind. They understand that tourism is one of the most important sectors of their economy, and if they have any complicated feelings about Americans, they don't show them. I haven't once had to fall back on No, sono canadese.
• OMG. The countryside is just as beautiful as you think it is. Just look at our photos!
• I've told my friend Eric, who is a genuine oenophile and expert: I get it that many other nations produce wine that is often better (and sometimes cheaper) than Italian wine. But no other country's wine reminds me of being in Italy. I rest my case.
• When I was a kid, my parents and I went through several years of relative poverty, when my father was unsuccessfully trying to start a business. As soon as he returned to a regular income, the first luxury in which my mother indulged was imported cheese. I've been a cheese-aholic ever since. Even objective observers will concede that Italian cheese is the best in the world (come on, Eric). My cheese book says, and I agree, that the world's greatest cheese is Parmigiano Reggiano. And this from a country that also produces Mozzarella di Bufala and Pecorino Toscano.
• The food. No need to say much, except that I am a vegetarian, and no other country, except maybe India, produces such a variety of delicious vegetarian food. In the U.S. even Italian cooks often add animal broth to vegetable soup. Here, it is rare that a soup (or any other dish) that appears to be vegetarian has gratuitous meat added. They take the time for insaporire, to let the vegetables release their own flavors.

These are a few of the reasons I'm an Italophile.

La prossima volta che andrò in Italia...

The title of this post is in the future tense because I had every good intention of publishing it before returning to Italy, but I didn't quite get it done. So, eccomi in Italia. What am I doing here? The Italian language school La Lingua, La Vita in Todi, Umbria, made me an offerta invernale I couldn't refuse. Their winter special, good until the end of February 2010, offers four weeks of Italian instruction (mornings 5 days a week) plus lodging for only €1200. Not per week, for the whole four weeks. As I've told friends, if it weren't for the pesky mortgage payment, it would be less expensive to be here than to stay home. At the Euro to Dollar exchange rate when I paid my tuition, that was about $1800. The Euro has been dropping since, so now it would be even less. That's the bad news, but the good news is: I will eat (and do touristy things) on the reduced Euro.

The same day I saw that offer, I got an email from US Airways that I would lose my 90,000 frequent flyer miles if I didn't do something by the end of February. As my friend Deb would say, the planets aligned. I was able to cash in 70,000 miles on a round-trip Envoy (First) Class ticket to Rome.

There are several other factors that contibuted to my taking this adventure, and I'll post about them at some point. In the meantime, the occasion of this blog is my return to Italy for the 6th (or seventh, if you count the infant steps on San Marco) time. The purpose of the blog is for me to have a place to record thoughts, recollections, photos, etc., from all those trips, and a diary of this trip, and to explore why I am so madly in love with Italy (other than the obvious). If you care to join me, I'd love to have you along for the trip. If not, no hard feelings. This is primarily an exercise in self-indulgence.

La prima volta che sono andata in Italia...

Rob and I have been to Italy five times, but the first time I went to Italy was as an infant with my parents.

I was born in Istanbul (conceived on the Île Saint Louis in Paris, but that's another blog...), so I lived in Europe before I ever lived in the US. Because my parents were both Americans, I was born an American citizen and I have the beautiful birth certificate with a red ribbon and US State Department seal to prove it (eat your heart out, Mr. President).

When my parents and I left Turkey to come home, they wanted to make the most of the trip, so we spent a month traveling across Greece and Italy, a month in Paris, and a month in London, before taking the Queen Elizabeth I across the Atlantic and settling in the DC area.

The Italian portion of our trip started with a slow boat from Greece, landing in Bari at the Achilles tendon of Italy, and taking trains through Italy and ultimately through the Sempione (Simplon) pass to Paris.

Family mythology has me taking my first steps on the Piazza San Marco in Venezia (Venice) and kicking the pigeons. Of course I don't remember -- I was +/- 13 months old -- but that was the first time I went to Italy.