The Roma Problem in Italy–What’s the Solution?

My first introduction to Italy’s Roma community–
known by many as gypsies–happened late at night on the train, traveling from Lake Como back to our home. Guido and I had just settled into our seats, when a drunken man shoved a woman and child onto the train. The woman held a small violin and wore a long green skirt that swished over her feet as she walked. The dark-haired boy held an accordion that stuck out awkwardly from his skinny arms.

The man began yelling at the conductor, then crying, as the woman hurriedly ushered her son into a seat. The train conductor remained calm–I would have hated to see the result if this had happened in the fiery south of Italy–and finally let the man on the train, I’m assuming the family hadn’t paid at all. The man staggered between the rows of chairs, the scent of alcohol on his breath assaulting us as he walked past. I asked my boyfriend what was happening.

“They’re gypsies,” he said. “Roma. It’s quite common for the man to force his wife and child to perform and beg while he does nothing but get drunk–like this guy.”

I felt nervous the whole way home, but since the conductor sat a few seats in front of us, I didn’t say anything. I just listened to the man grumble and shout as his wife and child intermittently and breathed a sigh of relief when they got off the train a few stops later.

Cooking Lessons in Varenna–Best Deal in Italy

My love affair with Chef Moreno’s cooking classes began in April of this year, and I haven’t stopped thinking about it since. I had barely squeezed into Italy after a canceled flight due to the Iceland volcano, and so the whole trip had a slightly “I am one of the chosen ones” miraculous feel anyway.

A Year in Review

I was looking for the photo I wanted to use to change my header for this blog, and I suddenly found myself perusing all my photographs from the last year. It stuns me to think about where I’ve been since August 2009: I visited Costa Rica for two weeks, moved to Turkey and lived there for ten months, visited Egypt for ten days, moved to Italy in June 2010, then went back home to visit the United States in August. What a ride!

I feel so enormously blessed for all the incredible things I’ve had a chance to see, and find myself wishing that I’d been even more grateful for and curious about the places I stayed while I was there, instead of in retrospect. Yesterday I had a great conversation with my godfather, Bert. When I told him about my life in Italy and my thoughts on relocating here, he said I sounded like I was in a pretty good space with my life, that I had a healthy perspective on the situation. I answered: “Right this minute I do, anyway,” remembering my near-breakdown earlier this week. And he replied, “Well, that’s all we ever have anyway, right? This minute!”

The Marocchino–An Orgasm in a Cup

There are two kinds of people in the world, coffee drinkers and tea drinkers. I am definitely in the tea drinking camp. If you asked me to describe one of my favorite pleasures, I would say: Drinking a cup of tea–black with milk and honey in the morning and mint or rooibos in the afternoon and evening. Add a rainy day, a fantastic novel, snuggling on the couch, or chatting with friends, and I’m as happy as a Milanese woman with a new Furla purse.

The problem is, no one really drinks tea in Italy. This is the land of espresso. But it’s not like I pictured it would be: people sitting around in cafes, chatting as they savored their cappuccinos and lattes. Oh no. That’s France. In Italy, people drink coffee like they drive–friggin’ fast. A typical Italian walks into a bar during her morning break, orders an espresso, then stands at the counter and kicks the coffee back like a shot of whiskey. She’ll chat with her work friends for a few moments, finish off her brioche (croissant) then head back to work. There is no lingering.

Soup-Inspired Longing for Home

I miss my dad. This time of year my dad and I both really love cooking and planning our big family gatherings like Christmas and Thanksgiving. Now that I’m in Italy, we’ll have to plan our separate menus over the phone. Living in Italy is really wonderful, but I can’t lie–being away from my family during the holidays hurts.

One dish my dad and I love to prepare this time of year is squash soup. It was a tough decision in the past, because he and I were the only ones who really enjoyed it. Growing up, my brothers were so much younger (by six and nine years) that the flavor didn’t appeal to them. My mom wasn’t crazy about eating a sweet soup either. In her mind, soup should be savory–like the gumbo she grew up with in the south–and squash soup was a strange anomaly that rebelled against her philosophy and taste. Squash soup was right up there with tapioca, or fish eyes and glue, as she used to call it.

From the Inferno to Paradiso–or Dances with Prosciutto

Yesterday Guido and I went to the questura, which is the Italian word for “hell” (okay, it’s what they call the local police station). I’m in the process of finishing the fabulously labyrinthine process for my permesso di soggiorno, which is sort of like my green card/identity card for my next year in Italy. Anyway, we had an appointment slip for 8:16am and thought that we’d walk right up to the window at the ever so exact time printed on the paper. I mean, why else would they say 8:16am, unless that time slot was specifically for us?

Italian Granita

Guido and I went to Rome recently, and while reacquainting myself with the city I saw so many years ago as a teenager, he decided to take me to the famous Piazza Navona, sight of the Tre Fontane (The Three Fountains). I went to Piazza Novana sixteen years ago on a tour in high school, and vaguely remembered savoring a delicious gelato while sitting next to one of the Tre Fontane at night.

Well, it wasn’t night this time; it was the hottest part of the day. Guido and I were wilting in the heat, so much so that we stuck our feet in one of the fountains (like everyone else, in our defense) and ended up getting yelled at by the carabinieri (the police).

We finally managed to drag our sweaty selves to Tre Scalini, a famous gelateria, to salivate over their tasty gelati. I don’t know why, but we decided to skip their most famous dessert: divino tartufo, a heavenly chocolate concoction (wait, why did we skip it again?). Instead, we dipped our plastic spoons into an over-priced but mouth-puckeringly delicious lemon granita. Our moods improved immediately.

Slow Food Festival

a href=”http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_AouzfrheOig/TCerdxBzfKI/AAAAAAAAF2g/SonP-wNHqKY/s1600/Fruits+from+Caglio.jpg” onblur=”try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}”>Today Guido and I went to Caglio, a small town super close to the Swiss border (which explains why I had “The Sound of Music” in my head). A friend of Guido’s told him about a Slow Food festival in this little mountain village, and Guido, being the amazing boyfriend that he is, knew that we had to go.

Tucked into the foothills of the Italian alps about ninety minutes north of Milan, Caglio was the perfect location to display locally handcrafted foods from the province. (You can see a fun blog about Caglio here--but the photos are taken in winter.)

There were so many sweet things to see. First we had buckwheat polenta (recipe for that later), followed by the most amazing gelato I’ve ever had (it was some of the best Guido has ever had too, and since he’s Italian, that’s saying something). The three flavors we tried: mandorle di Noto, almonds from Noto, a Sicilian city famous for its almonds; riccota and amaretti (a type of cookie); and zucchini (!). They were all amazing, but I have to say that the ricotta and amaretti gelato was totally orgasmico.

A couple other fun things we got in the city: salami di capra, or goat salami (mostly for G); a deep amber mixed-flower honey (from the display pictured); a hard goat cheese; and best of all, the gift that keeps on giving: plants! We bought four aromatic herbs for the balcony, a pungent mint, pineapple sage (love it!), lemon balm, and rosemary. All four were grown in the mountains, and the man who cultivated them lectured us for almost half an hour (maybe more) on how to care for and use each one. I’ll never forget his shock white hair and bright blue eyes as he explained everything with so much passion.

Finally, if you’re wondering how I plan to stay slim enough to fit into my skinny jeans this fall, that’s a darn good question…

My Magical Italy Trip

My trip to Italy was partly magical just because I arrived. I kept reading about all the poor stranded people all over Europe and couldn’t believe that I’d made it, and only a day late. I felt so blessed. But it also just seemed to have this beautiful magical glow–partly because it was spring, but there was something else…something really special…

Anyway, here are some of the highlights from my trip:

• Arriving!
• Spending wonderful time with Guido, of course.
• Picking the new apartment that I’m moving into with Guido on June 20th. It’s so beautiful and wonderful! I can’t believe how blessed I am that I get to live there! I really feel so fortunate.
• Seeing the new town that Guido chose for us to live in–it’s called Monza, and it has a park that’s three times the size of Central Park, a cobbled pedestrian center, and real Italian charm. I love it! And it’s just a 15 minute train ride to Milan!
• My cooking class in the Lake Como region…the food was unbelievable, the class informative, and the city of Varenna stunning. Wow.
• I walked into a very pretty little English language school and asked if they were hiring. They promptly THANKED me for walking in the door, since they were looking to hire new staff. I had an interview later that week and was hired! What are the chances?
• Eating buffalo mozzarella pizza…it was orgasmic. No other way to describe it.
• Meeting more of Guido’s incredible friends.
• Spending the weekend in Cinque Terre and having more incredible food, lots and lots of fantastic wine, and celebrating life, beauty, and Italy.
• Knowing that I was coming back in two months to start my life with Guido!

Okay, before you gag on all my happiness, here are some pictures of my trip. Enjoy!

Jen vs. the Volcano

My trip to Italy started with a bit of a hitch…my flight was canceled due to the infamous Iceland volcano, with no promise of when it would open again. It was Saturday. I had just over one week off work, and the clerk behind the check-in desk said “We don’t know anything. Maybe you can fly on Tuesday or Wednesday?”

I hadn’t seen Guido in three months, and had been looking forward to this day so much, that when they gave me the news, I crumpled to the ground and started crying as soon as I walked away from the desk. I was totally pathetic.

Turkish Airlines put me up in a wonderful hotel for the night, where I had a lonely poolside dinner with a bunch of other solo travelers who were looking at much longer delays than I was. I trekked out to the local computer cafe and began calling Turkish Airlines and looking at my options, banking on the hope that the “squeaky wheel gets the oil” theory. At that time, the only Europe flights going out were to Bulgaria and Greece. I found out how to take a ferry to Italy from Greece, and if a flight didn’t open up for Sunday, then I was going to do it. I was desperate and up for an adventure.

Just when I was prepared to book a ferry ticket, I called Turkish Airlines again. “We have a flight to Rome tomorrow!” they said. Guido and his father helped me book a train from Rome to Milan (3 hours), just barely getting one for Sunday evening as the tickets were purchased by the second. After all the cancellations, some further travel hiccups, and seeing travelers sleeping in the Istanbul airport, I was skittish that I wouldn’t actually make it. But once our flight lifted off for Rome, I was so joyful that my cheeks hurt from grinning. I was going to make it to Italy.

On the flight, I met two girls from Croatia who were trying to get home and had no idea how they’d make it. We discussed ferry options (which I’d become a recent expert at) and talked about our trips. Another guy on the train from the airport had just flown into Rome, trying to get to Austria as soon as possible. The trains to northern Europe were booked for four days out already…who knew what happened to him.

My train finally arrived in Milan at 11pm and I rushed into Guido’s arms. As we held hands and dragged my luggage through the station, we saw people sleeping in alcoves on their luggage, trying to find any way possible to get home. The volcano had brought Europe to a halt. I couldn’t help but feel enormously blessed. I’d somehow managed to arrive.