Okay, last year, Bangkok had their riots and airplane delays both before I flew from the States, and during the week before I left. Now, volcanic ash, in euroland??
WHAT IS THIS!
Give a girl a break.
Okay, I'm sure it will all be fine. Ryanair is keeping their flights to France closed until Wednesday, and I fly on Friday, so...
just keep your fingers crossed, aye?
Monday, April 19, 2010
Tuesday, April 13, 2010
Eating my words
Sultanas? What? I am looking at a plate of raisins and nuts, wondering if what I thought were cashews are some new and foreign treat, when Laura reaches over my shoulder to pick up, yes, a raisin. “You know, sultanas.” No, I don’t, another one for the book. These Australian or English phrases the house fills up with, like having “tea” instead of dinner, calling any kind of squash a “pumpkin,” and everything being “heaps” instead of lots gives me plenty of reasons to roll my eyes at any one of them during the day. Slowly, I begin to adopt the ones I like the best. “Yeah, she’s scraggy. Oh, the sun feels heaps good today,” changing my own habits to reflect the people I like, starting to watch “telly” instead of TV, and asking Max if he’s got his “jumper” with him.
I go from altered intonation and variable names at home, to the rapid fire Spanish in town, the accent all about dropped syllables and thick, tongue to the top of your mouth “thhhhh” instead of an “s”. Spanish always seems to be emphatic, one way or another, a language where things are constantly happening and nothing waits, and people speak interrupting each other or themselves, the force of their verbs a wicked duel. It pains them to keep it down to a crawl when speaking with us, their heads nodding in time with the words as if to say “yes, yes, okay, next, you get it right? Moving on?”
When I stay with Alex in Barcelona, one born in France but grown in Spain, his accent in English is a complicated affair, so that sometimes I am a little surprised to overhear him on the telephone firing away in Spanish instead of the expected pursed lips and kissing French sounds. He’s got an Italian roommate, a girl who lets mellow music and incense leak out from underneath her door, and she becomes the first, and only, person to tell me that she loves my accent in English. Jibe adored Aviv’s French, because she talked like “a teenaged boy from the suburbs,” a delicacy completely lost to me.
These slight intricacies of the feel of words, the habits I learn, to say “bali, bali” (okay okay) in Spain or “boh” (whatever, nothing, don’t know don’t care we’ll see) in Italy, are only part of my adaptations, as I begin to make assumptions on people based on their voices during telephone calls or the arrangement of words in an email. The surprise, when I spoke to Franco on the phone for the first time, to hear that unmistakable British, crisply and quickly, and then arrive at his home to find them speaking Sicilian, the language that rhythmically rolls back and forth over itself, pastry dough that sticks to the rolling pin for a moment before settling back down on the counter, the kind that couldn’t be understood if they didn’t hold their hands in front of them, keeping time. Before I left Alex, he gave me a warning, “watch out for Italian men”, and a joke—
“How to you keep an Italian from talking?”
“Uh, I dunno. How?”
“Cut off his hands.”
I will find that true of everyone, including 3 year old girls only asking for a cookie, pleading with their hands, but not limited to Italians, as Michael flays helplessly when trying to speak Spanish. It’s a teasing point, and he starts apologizing when I begin to inch away as the movements widen.
I go from altered intonation and variable names at home, to the rapid fire Spanish in town, the accent all about dropped syllables and thick, tongue to the top of your mouth “thhhhh” instead of an “s”. Spanish always seems to be emphatic, one way or another, a language where things are constantly happening and nothing waits, and people speak interrupting each other or themselves, the force of their verbs a wicked duel. It pains them to keep it down to a crawl when speaking with us, their heads nodding in time with the words as if to say “yes, yes, okay, next, you get it right? Moving on?”
When I stay with Alex in Barcelona, one born in France but grown in Spain, his accent in English is a complicated affair, so that sometimes I am a little surprised to overhear him on the telephone firing away in Spanish instead of the expected pursed lips and kissing French sounds. He’s got an Italian roommate, a girl who lets mellow music and incense leak out from underneath her door, and she becomes the first, and only, person to tell me that she loves my accent in English. Jibe adored Aviv’s French, because she talked like “a teenaged boy from the suburbs,” a delicacy completely lost to me.
These slight intricacies of the feel of words, the habits I learn, to say “bali, bali” (okay okay) in Spain or “boh” (whatever, nothing, don’t know don’t care we’ll see) in Italy, are only part of my adaptations, as I begin to make assumptions on people based on their voices during telephone calls or the arrangement of words in an email. The surprise, when I spoke to Franco on the phone for the first time, to hear that unmistakable British, crisply and quickly, and then arrive at his home to find them speaking Sicilian, the language that rhythmically rolls back and forth over itself, pastry dough that sticks to the rolling pin for a moment before settling back down on the counter, the kind that couldn’t be understood if they didn’t hold their hands in front of them, keeping time. Before I left Alex, he gave me a warning, “watch out for Italian men”, and a joke—
“How to you keep an Italian from talking?”
“Uh, I dunno. How?”
“Cut off his hands.”
I will find that true of everyone, including 3 year old girls only asking for a cookie, pleading with their hands, but not limited to Italians, as Michael flays helplessly when trying to speak Spanish. It’s a teasing point, and he starts apologizing when I begin to inch away as the movements widen.
Thursday, April 1, 2010
here, here is where I quite am.
A few delicious days in Rome, a few more in Lovely Lovely Firenze, where I got caught in a thunderstorm right before I left, and then an long overnight train south, to Maglie, where I met my next hosts and came here. Here, being San Senseverino, in Pollino National Park, a small village where I help out at hotel Panorama. Easter Weekend, doncha know!
In Rome, I mostly ran around seeing the sights, but also got to go with Matteo to his football match at night and sit on the side with the girls, and give somebody ELSE directions for once. Such satisfaction. I cut my days there short since Matteo had a psycology test to study for and I couldn't find another host, so instead my host in Florence ok'ed me to come a day early. Marco made awesome dinner for us every night, and we had some great conversations in his little flat which is mostly composed of stairs, a regular size split up into three levels-- the entry way, then the living\sleeping\lounging area plus bathroom, topped with a kitchen. You could see right to the dome out the window, the center of the city, and I adored it.
Now, it is nice to be back where the air is a little harsher and cleaner, and I can see mountains all around. perfecto.
ciao ciao
In Rome, I mostly ran around seeing the sights, but also got to go with Matteo to his football match at night and sit on the side with the girls, and give somebody ELSE directions for once. Such satisfaction. I cut my days there short since Matteo had a psycology test to study for and I couldn't find another host, so instead my host in Florence ok'ed me to come a day early. Marco made awesome dinner for us every night, and we had some great conversations in his little flat which is mostly composed of stairs, a regular size split up into three levels-- the entry way, then the living\sleeping\lounging area plus bathroom, topped with a kitchen. You could see right to the dome out the window, the center of the city, and I adored it.
Now, it is nice to be back where the air is a little harsher and cleaner, and I can see mountains all around. perfecto.
ciao ciao
Sunday, March 28, 2010
Friday, March 19, 2010
Saint Day
Really, I will eventually stop repeating myself and my plans and tell something of what I'm doing. the cannoli, I rolled, cut, and fried myself silly, stuffing with sweetend ricotta today and they turned out good, for the feast. We went to ribera, checked out the street scene, a beautiful alter, a young girl dressed as mary carrying a baby a top a donkey in the middle of screeching car horns and flashing cameras. Since the day is supposed to feed the poor, we sampled some of the pasta cooking in giant pots in the street and doled out to all, though we had such a feast waiting at home we didn't eat much. At home, cousin Joe and wife Natalie, baby Maya came over and we ate pasta with sardines, and bacon wrapped onion/parley on the wood fire grill, and rabbit also done on the grill, as well as wild asparagus/artichoke frittata and roasted pumpkin. We finished off by walking down teh way to the sheep, which we were going to milk and make our own ricotta, but they were too skittish of our strange scents and faces so we left to let the shepherd finish his job in peace, now that he can no longer sell to individuals or take his animals on their walk down the beach. Then, our tea, cannoli's, sweet almond clumps and another classic pastry, and settling down in front of the fire. The sun came out today, it was luscious, simply divine.
Thursday, March 18, 2010
Small satisfactions.
I bought ricotta, and made cannoli shells, and now I'm going to go to sleep. Tomorrow is the Saint Josepe (sp?) feast day, so we'll feast all right, and maybe go to a different down and check out the celebrations. Then, I am taking off on my own this weekend to go to Mt. Etna, or Giarre particularly, before leaving next Thursday for Rome and Florence, my Italian city time.
Oh, my world keeps on a-turning.
Oh, my world keeps on a-turning.
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