Terzo
Terzo
November was a month of firsts – first time hanging my laundry like an Italian (I used a lot of clothespins), first carbonara (wow), first karaoke (apparently it’s popular here?) and other adventures and misadventures.
I spent most of the month largely local. A group of friends and I went to a saint’s festival in Blera, a small village nearby. We spent the day hiking the trails and seeing some Etruscan ruins. Two Italian friends grew up there and brought us to their favorite city views and belverde - the closest translation is beautiful green vista, but there isn’t an exact translation. But I love the way the word sounds—bel-verrrd-eh – it’s exactly what you’d exclaim upon seeing this view.
My friend’s father – the most Italian man I’ve ever seen, who walked up to us at the festival smoking a pipe and bearing his homemade wine—told me I spoke Italian like a child who had to repeat a grade in school. Talk about honesty. Either way, he ended up referring to me the rest of the day as Bellamericana so you win some, you lose some. My friend, Enrica and her father showed us around his home wine cellar and his mom, my friends’ Nonna, had baked us cookies you dip in wine.
More on language – I get an espresso every day after lunch with my work colleagues. One day, an older man said to us (in Italian) that he noticed us coming every day. He pointed to me and said “I know you’re American because you sound like ‘raw-rarr-rarr’, you speak like you have a muffin in your mouth.” My Spanish and Italian friends burst out laughing and explained to me that the romance languages think English sounds like we have muffins in our mouths, because English is spoken with the throat, while romance languages are spoken with the tongue. Makes complete sense to me. Sometimes when I’m chatting with my Italian tutor, she’ll introduce me to a new word, full of rolling r’s and annunciating multiple syllables in a row—and I struggle to make my lips and tongues make the sounds fluidly.
I’m settling into my new apartment. It’s very Italian – each room is tiled, with tall windows and metal blinds that you pull up and down according to the sun. We have two balconies which feels like an absolute luxury. I recently hung my sheets up with about a million clothespins, and fretted every time there was a gust of wind. I also have a coinquillina, a roommate from Albania. We’re both trying to learn Italian and we are currently in the stage where we can understand it far better than we can speak it.
The view from my bedroom window !!
I had read somewhere that the cycle of living abroad goes like this: at first, you’re enamored. You never want to leave! Everything this place does is far better than where you came from. And then you hit a wall and realize just how different it is and how different you are.
In many ways, I had just hit that wall.
Why does every trip to the post office take 45 minutes at least? You walk in, grab your ticket which comes out of the machine with a friendly *ping!* glance up at the queue board and realize there are 20 people ahead of you and it’s only 8:20. Why does the post office open at 8:20? And why do I have to take so many trips to the post office in the first place?
The WiFi cuts out in the wind, in the rain (it is always raining), when people use it, at the office, at home, when you need to file an article in two hours, etc. It starts to get old to hear “Ahh American?” nearly every time I try to speak Italian. It starts to get old when people say, “But you don’t look American.”
And then you walk by your favorite bakery in the morning – I don’t know if it has a name, it just says PANE DOLCE PANE—and they’re unloading the bread and pastries from the truck and it smells like heaven, and they say Buongiorno to you and within a few minutes, the wall melts away, and I feel like I actually live in Viterbo.
When I met with my cousin Luigi in Rome, his girlfriend, Giulia, (a Romana) said Viterbo is Italy 50 years ago. Rome, and many other cities have continued to rapidly modernize and are far more liberal, socially and politically. But Viterbo and other smaller cities are still rather conservative, Giulia said. I asked a friend who is from the area about this, and he entirely agreed. Some Viterbese haven’t taken the train to Rome ever, he said, because why would they? In his view, the area is a bit insular and could capitalize on tourism more.
some more Roma snaps…
Luigi and I at the Trevi Fountain!
And lastly, the misadventures- I unfortunately got COVID from a friend. It happens. We were both wearing masks, largely outside, and yet. Positivo! Thankfully, my symptoms were very, very mild. Half of November was spent in my bedroom, isolating. My Fulbright friend joked to me, “Do you think this is the cultural exchange that Fulbright wants us to have?”
I learned some new words to describe my symptoms- rinorrea, runny nose. I had to have many lengthy phone conversations entirely in Italian with health officals and tracers. I think I understood most of what they said, and that they understood most of what I said… but truthfully, we’ll never know…
And now! I am finally (finalmente!)… NEGATIVO!!! And, I feel very healthy and grateful to be healthy.
Off to re-explore Viterbo, spend time with friends, and get an espresso (o due?) ASAP.
And my first errand is to PosteItalia (post office) — and I am so excited.
a presto!
Olivia