Author Archives: Sue

About Sue

Hi! I'm Sue. I moved to Italy in 2013. I started my www.lemarchescape.com blog in 2012 during the "preparation phase" and it covers my transition moving from the hectic rat race life-style of London to the substantially more tranquil Sarnano in the beautiful Le Marche region in Italy. Now I'm here I'm working on my lifetime dream of becoming an artist. Check out my blog: www.apaintingoccasionally.WordPress.com to see pics!

The Week of Terror, Teaching and Truffles…

Posted on October 20, 2013 by Sue

Ciao a tutti!,

I need to vent!!!! This week has been traumatic.

Driving

I think this will be a regular feature. So – there I am, going at the speed limit which is already too fast for the little winding hilly road with poor visibility that I’m on and I start going up a bit of a hill. The cars behind are attached to my bumper so when my little Granmobile starts inevitably slowing down a bit because it’s a hill, I can’t even change gear because in the time that my foot needs to come off the accelerator to change gear, I will have created a pile-up behind me. As a result, I end up going up even slower up this hill than if they’d have just given me a modicum of space in the first place. There are hills EVERYWHERE so I suppose a way around it is to spend the entire time in 3^rd gear but poor little Granmobile, it just wants an easy life.

The thing is – these crazies mean that I end up having to drive like a crazy myself. If I don’t, they’ll crash into me. I used to think “well, it’s their lookout if they’re driving too close to me” but I really don’t want someone to crash into me!!! I still have things I want to do in life! I’m not ready to die!!!!!!!!!!! So I end up going faster than I would like to be going just to try and escape the crazies. BUT THEY RACE AFTER ME. It’s harassment!!! Whatever dad says, I’m not Niki Lauda.

And the other day, I was going along a road, at the speed limit (it’s not like going through a town in the UK at 30mph which feels positively walking speed, the speed limits here are genuinely fast), and I was driving a reasonable distance from the car in front but keeping the same speed as them and some fruitcake behind me decided to overtake on a road where you’re not allowed to overtake, WITH CARS COMING THE OTHER WAY and AROUND A CORNER. Risking HIS life, MY life, and the people on the other side. CRAZIES!!!

AND AND AND, to get to Auchan, my favourite shop that is tantalisingly close but scary as hell to get to, requires joining a road at speed that has no more than a 3 meter slip way and you can’t see the cars coming because there’s a grassy verge. It’s like Russian Roulette but with a much higher chance of dying. I’ve found an alternative route – nobody else takes it. It’s pretty. I can switch the engine off and coast all the way down for 10 minutes to get down from Camerano. Anyway, face your fears and all – I will overcome this. I’m forcing myself to drive every day. If you don’t hear from me again, well, it’s been great. And just in case, I would like my body to be stuffed with potpourri and left sitting on my balcony looking out at the view (if it’s not completely mangled with my steering wheel that is).

I’ve bought my tea set back from the UK. I have a soothing cup of tea afterward my driving experiences and it makes it takes some of the nightmares away.

Teaching

The next source of terror is that I have to teach a 4yr old. It didn’t happen Friday thank goodness. It’s happening Tuesday. The woman who’d organised it had told me that I should look up how to teach toddlers. So I did, and I have printed a WEALTH of material – flashcards, lesson plans, activities, games etc.

Forearmed is forewarned (“Uomo avvisato mezzo salvato” – a man who is warned is half saved). I felt better after that. I’ve bought plastic wallets and folder dividers and everything. I look like a professional. And then when I told the woman I’d got some ideas, she said that the child’s mother wants her kid to learn English “naturally” and that I shouldn’t use any of them. I have to just play with this child. FOR AN HOUR! A TODDLER! I can barely keep myself entertained, let alone another person. I’d have been alright with a lesson plan. I can’t ad-lib for an entire hour. If I could swap back to an hour of my old job presenting NHS projects to 100’s of people, I would.

And continuing on the scary theme – I had to phone the toddler’s mother to organise the lesson. She speaks a bit of English but the conversation was in Italian. I wish phones could have subtitles. Someone should invent that. I think I only caught half of the conversation. Still, hopefully it’s the half that’s important. It would be a shame if it was “don’t feed the toddler nuts because he has a terrible life threatening nut allergy” and I come bearing nutty treats. I’d have to find another job.

Wine & Truffles

I went to the Lacrime and Tartufo festival a Morro D’alba on Saturday with Il Polemico.

Lacrime is a type of grape used for wine – they use it a lot around that area. And Tartufo is truffles, not the nice chocolate ones, but the lumpy, nasty looking and overpowering smelling funghi. We saw truffles that were 400 Euros each. 400 EUROS!!! I’m going to be a truffle hunter when I grown up. Anyway, that was a good festival and I met some nice new people and there was a cool sort of open air club at the end of the evening.

Morro D’alba is a cute little village with a walled walk that goes around it that has a sort of craft type market.

It’s nice to wander around and we went into a museum as well – showed how things were done in the old days from an agricultural point of view and also from a weaving point of view. Interesting!

Connecting to the world at large

I’ve still not had any luck with wifi. I’ve caned my mobile data on my phone. I have to loiter around the school (the school has wifi). Good job the students are all mature otherwise I’d feel like a paedophile.

Residency

So I know you’re all waiting with baited breath as to my residency. My codice fiscale is wrong. Let me tell you why – it’s because it’s just my first and last name and not my NEVER USED second name. The conversation went like this (imagine one half of the conversation being in pigeon Italian):

Comune Lady: “You have to change your codice fiscale – the code is not the same as the one that it should be because you should be Sue Maverick Windsor (name changed)” (The code is created by using some algorithm that involves my name and some other stuff).
Sue: “Nobody calls me Sue Maverick Windsor. Why don’t you just put Sue Windsor into your whatsitmijig and then the code will be the same” (whatsitmijig doesn’t translate well in Italian).
Comune Lady: “But it says here on this form that your name is Sue Maverick Windsor”
Sue: “But, you know, we wrote the form together remember? Let’s just cross it out eh?”.
Comune Lady: “But it says in your passport that you’re Sue Maverick Windsor”.
Sue: “But NOBODY USES IT. I’m still the same person. Don’t YOU have a middle name that you don’t use?”
Comune Lady: <empty stare>
Sue: “Do you have a middle name?”
Comune Lady: “Yes, but nobody uses it”
Sue: “WELL THERE YOU GO THEN”.
Comune Lady: “But it’s on your passport”.
Sue: <Knocks head against plastic barrier. Understands completely why they feel they need to have a barrier> “Ok. Fine. If I change my codice fiscal, you know it will take another year?”
Comune Lady: “That’s fine. Whenever”.
Sue: “Fine. FINE.”

Tomorrow, I intend to go to the Agenzia Entrata to correct this codice fiscal issue. I imagine it will be closed.

What’s a bit odd?

This week – dialects and accents. I’ve learnt a bit of dialect J Instead of “Andiamo a mangiare qualcosa” (let’s go and eat something) in Jesi (local town), you say something that sounds like “Anamo a manya qualco”. And I learnt some interesting gestures that did not appear in the gestures section of my “learn Italian” book (because they are a bit rude). It’s really a sign language in its own right! Napolitans (people from Naples) apparently have a dialect that even regular Italians can’t understand. And people don’t seem to like their accent. I haven’t been able to distinguish that they sound even remotely different from anyone else which goes to show how terrible my Italian still is! But what it is, is that I CAN tell that there’s a difference – I just thought the people I’d heard happened to have a weird lisp but that’s their accent apparently e.g. rather than saying ospedale (for hospital), they say oschpedale. So perhaps there’s hope for me yet.

Right, I’ve written too much but I feel better now. It’s very therapeutic this blog writing malarkey!

Hope you’re all well.

Categories: Uncategorized | Tags: Driving in Italy, Lacrime, Morro D'alba, Tartufo, teaching as a foreign language, TEFL, Truffles | 10 Comments

Home, Roadtrips and Jobs…

Posted on October 17, 2013 by Sue

Ciao all!

So I’m back in Italy! The last 3 weeks has been a bit full on with family and friend visits so I’ve had no time to write. Here’s a rundown of the last couple of weeks:

Return to the UK: Did it feel like coming “home”? Well it felt like coming back to somewhere I know and there’s a definite comfort in that. It was odd being able to eavesdrop on people’s conversations and understand them for a change! London doesn’t feel like home at all to me now – it moves at such a fast pace that unless you live and breathe it, you just get left behind. Back at the parents always feels like home so no change there. It was really good to see friends and family again – it’s just a shame I didn’t get to see as many people as I’d hoped or spend much time with anyone.

Proof that the UK has nice sunsets (sometimes I forget!) This was taken at Gunwharf in Portsmouth…

Job: I have two! Possibly three. A couple of people that I met at the Rosso Conero Wine Festival last month have said they’d like me to teach with them. The first one seems to be a language school at Ancona – I will be teaching kids aged 6 – 12 years (26 of them at a time) at 3 local state schools for a wage so small that I’ve decided to consider it voluntary work to maintain my self-respect. I might have to pay tax. In which case, I think it will be the opposite of having a salary. I don’t have any experience with children – it’s going to be interesting. That job starts in November. The second job is doing some private English lessons but through someone else that seems to be contracting me out – my first lesson will be with a 4 year old possibly tomorrow. Do they even speak at that age? The third job will hopefully be doing some teaching with the school here. That still needs to be finalised.

I’m dedicating today to brainstorming lesson plans – hopefully with a few lesson plans up my sleeve, I’ll feel marginally less terrified. So far it takes me about a day to prepare a 1 hour lesson and I’ll be doing 10 hours + a week so I’m slightly concerned. If I was a full time teacher, I’d most certainly have a nervous breakdown.

Car acquisition: I do like my little car. It makes me feel like a grown up. However, I feel like I could have brought a brand new Mercedes and it still work out cheaper 😉 For people doing the same thing as me – I would not advocate buying a UK car and driving it back – it’s a terrible faff with the insurance, and with breakdown cover etc and it’s reasonably expensive in petrol and hotels (though if you consider it a mini holiday, then it’s not so bad). I’ll be doing that every year to get MOT and tax sorted for it. Having said that, there is still no alternative in terms of being able to buy one here so despite Everything (see below), I would still have done it. As background to Everything – the trip was planned with…let’s call him Sergio (he is very anti-blog!) who’s my Italian friend who lives in London and who kindly agreed to help me get the car back. The trip was due to take 4 days in total and take us through France, Switzerland and Italy. So that’s the background.

“Everything” can be summarised as follows:

– The Granmobile smelt musty so in an effort to freshen it up before the Big Italy Trip, I drove around with the windows wide open. On closing the window after the first Freshen Up Mission, the window fell back into the door. It turns out Fiat Panda’s, my model at least, are known for windows that fall back into the car. I managed to get it back up but it stopped working from then on. Road tolls are rife in Europe and you pay them/collect tickets from the left hand side of the car. This is annoying if you’re driving on the right. With a working window there’s at least hope that you could reach through and get it. There was a day to spare before heading up to London so I got it booked into the local garage and they managed to do a quick fix on it. I’ve no doubt it will fall down again soon – it has an unnerving click.

– Midway through Switzerland the car came to a spluttering halt half way up a hill on a motorway. We stopped on the hard shoulder and we were overwhelmed with smoke. Poor Granmobile. I hoped that it might go away so we had lunch up on a nearby grassy bit and waited for the smoke to disperse. It did not go away and a few minutes later a very nice breakdown man stopped and confirmed the clutch (la frizione – my knowledge of Italian bits of cars that can go wrong has substantially increased) was gone. I phoned my breakdown insurance people who were going to send someone out to us but meanwhile, the Nice Breakdown Man towed us to a safer spot.

Nice Breakdown Man towing us to a safer spot

He left us by a cafe and garage to await my breakdown insurance lot and then reappeared 1 minute later to say that it turns out that he’s the guy that is supposed to be helping us anyway. He towed us to the local Fiat garage (shut because it was Sunday) and took us to a local hotel (Sergio was stuffed in the boot with the tools because there wasn’t space. That was amusing).

Reception at Hotel La Perla in San Antonio (Switzerland)

This breakdown cost: £240 in hotel bills, £650 in clutch replacement bills, £120 in getting-ripped-off-at-the-local-restaurant bills, £60 in not-being-able-to-get-to-the-next-hotel-that-we’d-booked-and-paid-for bills, £150 to buy-another-plane-ticket-for-Sergio-who-was-due-to-return-back-the-following-day-and-now-couldn’t-get-to-the-airport bills and then another £100 to buy-ANOTHER-plane-ticket-because-we-were-in-a-mad-panic-to-get-out-of-the-hotel-room-and-actually-rebooked-it-for-a-weeks-time-rather-than-the-following-day-by-mistake bills and £20 taxi-to-drive-2-minutes-up-the-road-bills. I’ve decided Switzerland is the worst place to breakdown in the world in terms of expense. I’ll be able to recover a bit of the hotel bill I think from the insurance folk hopefully. On the other hand, look at how incredibly pretty Switzerland is…

Pretty pretty pretty….

– Driving on the other side of the road with a steering wheel on the other side is a doddle. Nobody should worry about that. Toll booths will be annoying – I’ll have to get out of the car – I don’t think I’m going to be able to reach through without inelegantly getting stuck on the hand brake. Having said that, I’m going to avoid them now that I’m here. Sometimes it’s difficult to overtake because you can’t see easily what’s coming in the other direction but to be honest, there’s no need to ever overtake anyone it Italy because they all drive like drunk, psychotic formula one drivers. If you’re a rational human being with a healthy respect for life and death, the opportunity to overtake here simply doesn’t arise. I shouldn’t make such blanket statements of course. I know there’s one or two of them that are safe. It’s actually been fascinating to see – in France, Germany and Switzerland the driving was very good – people keep at a reasonable distance from the cars in front and it’s all very ordered. Then about 1 mile from the Italian border, the roads are overtaken by maniacs (this doubles up as my “What’s a bit odd” bit for this week). It’s a mystery to me how as a nation, they’ve managed to avoid becoming extinct. They drive up within a centimetre of your bumper at speed, they flash their lights, they yell (I should add, I’ve only had so far experienced the light flashing and yelling at a distance looking at some other poor person), they overtake when they’re not allowed, they drive like the speed of light regardless of whether it’s night, raining, foggy etc., they swerve in and out of cars and lanes apart from when there’s nobody else on the road and then they stay only in the middle and fast lane (poor slow lane). The roads are badly marked – in fact, sometimes there’s no marks at all. They’re pot-holed. Signage is poor. In summary, I really dislike driving in this country!

So that was the car trouble but in general it was a good trip back! Our route took us to:

– Calais (France): The IBIS Budget Hotel is nigh impossible to get into at night. It’s like an Anneka Rice challenge. We went into Calais for a quick look around the next day – it’s got a nice park, a pretty cathedral, and some freaky public toilets that automatically wash down everything, including the walls and ceilings after you’ve gone to the loo. French people aren’t THAT bad eh?

Cathedral in Calais. There wasn’t a lot to Calais – they did have a fabulous shop in the commercial center with loads of nice ornaments and things. I have a permanent wooden lizard on my wall now courtesy of that shop – I’ve called Maximus. I’ll have to take a picture of him for the next blog. Cute.

– Saint Dizier (France): We stayed at a lovely hotel called Balledins which was alas, in the middle of an industrial estate. There was a good Italian restaurant opposite the hotel. We didn’t have time to look around unfortunately and left early the next day.

Balledins – I think my favourite of the hotels although it would have been better with a bath tub. Why are hotels eradicating bath tubs these days?!

Restaurant next to the hotel. We went to the restaurant with the bright sign. I can’t remember what it was but I recommend it! I don’t think I’m being unreasonable to say that French people as a general rule, have no concept of vegetarianism. It’s annoying. However, they had a lovely veggie pasta so I was happy.

– Prattelm (Switzerland): We stayed in an IBIS Budget Hotel again – they look the same! It’s like a prison cell but with a double bed and a TV. Having said that – it’s perfectly fine and did the job. We got there in the afternoon and headed to a spa we’d heard good things about called Aquabasilia. My tips for Aquabasilia are:

Don’t spend an hour being disappointed that you have no swimming costume and can’t go into the water park with all the water flumes – if you go into the spa section there’s a large section of the complex that is both inside and outside and everyone’s naked and there’s LOADS to do in there. Lots of saunas and steam rooms, weird rooms with hot stone seats, jacuzzis, swimming pools with various jets of water and a lot of it is outside with a lovely cedar wood fire making everything smell nice and alpine-y.
Don’t bother with the Hammam (Turkish steam room experience) – it was nice but they already have steam rooms in the spa bit of the complex.
Get the 4 hour ticket at least – 2 hours isn’t enough.

– San Antonio / Breakdown Place (Switzerland): We stayed in Hotel La Perla. I have very mixed feelings about San Antonio! It’s expensive but nice. We went for dinner in a local restaurant – extortionate. In fact, we made 3 visits to the cashpoint just to be able to cover the cost of the dinner. They have the same set up that Italy have with a lot of their restaurants – no menu so you just ask what there is and they make it up and give it to you. In Italy it’s quite an endearingly flexible way of eating what you want and excellent value usually. In Switzerland, it’s a way of extorting money from innocent breakdown victims. When we walked in, the entire restaurant stopped their conversations and gave us a “you don’t come from ‘round here” stare. But by the end of the night, we were having “free” rounds with the owners and the local mayor and on mobile number exchanging terms with a couple of them so that was nice.

So we made it back eventually! The car is now parked outside the flat. I had never realised before but I think Camerano is the world’s centre for Fiat Pandas. There are hundreds of them. When I got in the car this morning and glanced back in the rear view mirror my heart stopped because I saw my car still in the parking space. It turns out that someone else has exactly the same model and had parked next to me. I had to reassure myself I hadn’t stolen someone else’s car.

Back to Italy – I do love Camerano so it’s really nice to be back here but it doesn’t feel like home yet. I still feel like I’m squatting. In fact, the Comune have come back to say something is wrong with my residency so I probably still am! Given the obscene amount of time I’ve spent in the Comune, that will probably feel more homely than “home” 😉 I remain obsessed with my view from my kitchen and have taken already dozens of balcony sunset shots.

Even foggy, my view from the balcony is still beautiful…

I saw the neighbours today – they seemed to be happy to see me too and have invited me over for dinner at some point. And I’ve popped into the school to say hello. I’ve got a few things lined up with people as well in the next week. November is the month for visits – my parents are out and some friends from home are too. I’ve brought a bit more of my stuff back now so it feels a bit more like “me” than before. I’ve swapped rooms back into the one I started with and my other room will be turned into a living room and I’ll have a decent TV (EXCITING!).

My new old room.

I’m absolutely mortified to report that the wifi I’ve been er, borrowing appears to have disappeared so I’m left with 2gb mobile data on my phone which I could use up in a day given my usual internet usage levels. I imagine I’ll have hoops to jump through to get my own wifi and I imagine the contracts are all a year long which I don’t want. I am distraught. I’ll have to ask the neighbour if he’ll give me the password for his if I give him some money.

So, that’s been the last three weeks or so. I feel like I could do with a holiday now!

Back to regular blogging levels now I think!

xxx

Categories: Uncategorized | Tags: Aquabasiliea, Calais, Driving in Italy, Fiat Panda, Ibis, La Perla, Prattelm, Saint Dizier, San Antonio, Switzerland | Leave a comment

Pub Club on Tour, Milan, Cinque Terre and Home!

Posted on September 28, 2013 by Sue

Ciao!!!

Well it feels like a year since the last blog update but it’s only been a couple of weeks or so. I hope you’ve all been well.

Dedications: This blog post is dedicated to Pub Club. I had a truly great weekend with them last week. I’ve never laughed so much. They were disappointed / rude about not getting a shout out in the blog last time so: many thanks to Sweet Cheeks, Hot Buns, Wet Pants and Cupcake for coming all the way to see me, several hundred miles from where I actually live 😉

From left to right: Wet Pants, Cupcake, Hot Buns, Sweet Cheeks…

So the weekend went like:

Trains: There were a lot of trains. Pub Club, in their hatred of Ryanair, decided to take the Eurostar from London to Paris and then Paris to Milan. All in all over the course of the long weekend, they spent 15+ hours on trains. My journey was relatively quick in comparison: 3 and a half hours from Ancona to Milan. Pub Club, knowing me as the font of all knowledge, asked if train tickets bought ages before a journey were cheaper than tickets bought on the same day. I checked the train website and confirmed it was the same price regardless. Pub Club ignored me and bought their tickets beforehand anyway. Imagine! Un-trusting bunch. I was hurt that they didn’t believe me. And even more hurt that when I bought my ticket on the same day, I had to pay 20 Euros extra <sigh>.

Milan Train Station – the whole station was very nice actually, inside and out. Very impressive.

Milan Part 1 (Thursday): We stayed in the Navigli region of Milan. When I tell Italian’s this they say “aw, nice” (well, not really, they say “che bello!”) but, making our way through the graffiti-ridden, desolate backstreets to the industrial unit where our apartment was, I had to keep reassuring myself that the area was just cool and “edgy” rather than dangerous.

Downstairs in the Milan apartment which was very nice…

Cinque Terre (Friday and Saturday morning): We headed out to Cinque Terre the next day. Cinque Terre consists of 5 coastal towns and is absolutely stunning. After waking up at 6am for a 3 hour train journey from Milan to Monterosso (the most northerly of the coastal towns), we got a connecting train to Riomaggiore (the most Southerly town) where we were staying, and then headed straight back out to Monterosso to make our way back to our apartment in a relaxed and leisurely fashion. There is a walk between all of the coastal towns (6 hours), or you can take the train (6 minutes).

Monterosso – the most notherly of the 5 towns…

We had intended to take the train. Hot Buns had other ideas and embarked on an evil scheme to kill us off, luring us into following him with “let’s just take a 10 minute wander to the next town, I think there’s a pub up here”. Thirty minutes later, there was no sign of a pub, only a stream of exhausted looking people coming the other way wearing full hiking gear, laden with water and open mouthed at our audacity to conduct the same hike wearing flipflops, beach wear and with no water. We were at a loss: return the way we came or plod on desperate and exhausted in the hope of salvation? We plodded on (past a sign indicating there was another 1.5hrs to go). Finally, two hours into starting our “10 minute wander to the next town via pubs”, we made it to Vernazza. We learnt a couple of important lessons that day: 1) Be prepared and 2) never listen to anything HB says. HB learnt that evil deeds do not go unpunished.

Looking back towards Monterosso. At this point we were hydrated, with un-blistered feet and blissfully unaware of the impending trek…

Vernazza – at this point, we weren’t sure whether it was a mirage or not.

Having said all that – the walk was spectacular and I highly recommend doing it. I’ll be going back there and doing the full walk and investigating the towns properly at some point. It’s very touristy though – it was almost like being back in London with the amount of English speaking people. If you go, watch out for your bag – there are pickpockets.

Milan Part 2 (Saturday afternoon and Sunday): The next day we headed back to Milan to the same apartment we were in on the first night. The trains for that stretch all seem to consist of 6 seater cabins which was cosy. Perhaps a little too cosy for the old lady sharing with us who had to endure hours of an insightful and thought-provoking game of “would you rather…” and “if you had to choose between…” (for the uninitiated, an example being “would you rather have your fingernails pulled off or two of your teeth removed?” ). Anyway, I sincerely hope our fellow carriage passenger couldn’t understand English.

We decided on a cheap night on the Saturday and had pizza and nibbles at the apartment and then attempted to go out on the town. However, there are no taxi companies in Milan that: a) answer the phone or b) don’t hang up on you if they do actually answer so we didn’t make it to the town, only the balcony which was I think probably just as / more amusing.

Sunday was cultural – we headed to the Duomo (cathedral) and had a look inside and then made our way up to the roof (7 Euros each) which has some great views of the city.

Il Duomo – from the roof

Covered mall bit where all the fancy shops are – fabulous architecture…

Alas we didn’t get much time in the main city before heading back to the apartment to pick up luggage and make our way to the airports (me included – I’m writing this from the dank, drizzly and grey UK now!). Myself and Wetpants formed an economic splinter group and went with Ryanair whilst the others went with British Airways. Ryanair were such a pleasure to fly with as ever. I lost my passport in the airport, I thought that was quite apt given my loss of the passport on the way out too. I wish I had been born in an age where my passport could be a microchip embedded in the back of my neck. Knowing me I’d probably still lose it.

I’m back in the UK now and it’s been busy! I’m sorry to the folks I’ve not had a chance to see – I’m back again at Christmas and hope to be able to see everyone I couldn’t get around to this time. I’ve got my nan’s car (bought I should add), much to her distress! It’s a Fiat – I’ve told her it’s going back “home” to its cultural heritage. She seemed to be mildly happier with that. Anyway, only one incredibly rude company will insure me to drive the car over here and in Italy. I didn’t want to go with the Rude Company. I wanted their business to fail and I wanted it to be because I didn’t go with them. But I need car insurance!!! So, I’ve had to swallow my pride and go with them. Grr.

This week will be one of sorting things out, seeing people and getting some practice driving the car. I need to plan the route back to Italy as well! Any tips welcome 🙂

Right, onwards and upwards – hope you’re all well.

xxx

Categories: Uncategorized | Tags: Ancona, Cinque Terre, Duomo, Eurostar, Milan, Pub Club, Ryanair, Trains | 1 Comment

Fire Watchers, toddler books and coming home!!!

Posted on September 15, 2013 by Sue

Ciao!!!

Come stai?

This week’s been fairly sedate – a welcome breather!

I’m on a roll with bureaucracy at the moment. Before I can get a piece of paper to say that I live here, the Comune require proof that I do indeed live here. Who’s best equipped for this task you ask? Well let me tell you: The Fire Service. Yup. So they sent the “Vigili del Fuoco” around, literally translated as “watchers of fire” (the name doesn’t give me comfort. I think they need rebranding as “extinguishers of fire”). I must say, I was a bit disappointed. Expectations of a home visit from a uniformed fireman were dashed by a normal guy wearing jeans and a t-shirt. All went smoothly however and I look forward to receiving my piece of paper soon.

I’ve joined the library! I only went in there to ascertain that I probably wouldn’t be able to join, or at least, not join without exhaustive and unobtainable documentation. However, within a mere 15 minutes, I had a library card and 3 books. So, I’m pleased about that. Alas, I have the Italian reading age of toddler and I can’t find books at my level without them being made of card and with a touchy-feely component. I’ve gone for some early teen books instead but it’s going to take me ages. Library joining day was a success all round because I managed to locate a Snicker’s bar as well. Mmm.

I’ve been doing some painting this week – I’ll post some photo’s up of them at some point.

Thursday I did a pasta making course with the school. We’ve been positively overrun with students this week – 17 Austrian teenagers… It was the first pasta making course that the school has run. I think doing that course with teenagers that had absolutely no interest in learning how to make pasta was probably a challenge. In the end it worked out well, at least in terms of the pasta being more than edible despite my strong reservations at the beginning.

How the dough was supposed to look at this point…

How the dough actually looked at this point…

On Friday I had a dinner with the other students. Marco got his guitar out and we had a group sing-song. Apart from one song that the others didn’t know so well and then it became just a Sue sing-song and ugh, I don’t want to think about it. I keep having flashbacks. Thankfully, I couldn’t have been too horrific as Marco asked if I wanted to be in his band (there’s only one other person in it at the moment and I don’t think it’s actually technically been formed yet). I quite fancy being in a band so I’ll give it a go if it actually materialises. I hope it’s the kind of band that just practice in a garage and don’t perform anywhere.

Yesterday was supposed to be a day of walking in the Sibillini Mountains with “Il Polemico” but despite exceptional planning on my part (the mountains are a bit further away than I thought), it didn’t happen and we went to some closer mountains instead near San Quirico which turned out to be spectacular too. Italy is sadly missing walking guide books. There are maps that are absolutely no help at all and though there are some internet sites which offer some walking routes, they often leave out pesky details like where to start, where to walk and where to finish.

Pretty mountains – photo courtesy of Il Polemico.

Praying Mantis? Grazie di nuovo al Polemico.

This week some friends are coming out to see me! I say “me” loosely as they decided they wouldn’t come any further south than Milan. I don’t know whether that technically counts as a visit but I appreciate the sentiment 🙂 Anyway, I’m meeting them up there on Thursday and we’re going to spend 4 days around Milan and Cinque Terra. I can’t wait for that. And then, I’m coming home! (No reading into the use of “home” – home is wherever I hang my hat!). And then then, I’ve bought my nan’s car and I’m driving it back to Italy in October. Advice for people buying cars in the UK but using them outside the UK – bear in mind it’s difficult to get car insurance if you’re out of the country for more than 90 days. Also bear in mind that it’s probably best not to pointedly reject one of these specialist insurance companies without having any alternative option, even though they may be rude, obnoxious and should be taught a lesson. If you would like any recommendations on which companies are the rudest, which companies have the most nonsensical instant quote forms or which companies don’t reply to emails then please do get in touch.

What’s a bit odd? It turns out Italian’s play the guitar using the following chords: do, ray, mi, fa, so, la, ti, do, rather than C,D,E,F,G,A,B. I don’t think I’d ever be able to play anything without it all turning into the song from the Sound of Music – “doe, a deer, a female deer……”. I’m going to bring my guitar back from the UK and I might see if Marco will give me some refresher lessons. The other what’s a bit odd but probably says more about me… For months, I’ve been confused about how the Italian’s refer to Bologna. Bologna is a city in the Emilia-Romagna region of Italy. When I ask Italians where they’ve travelled, the conversation often goes something like: France, Germany, Ireland (curiously) and Bologna. Now, I don’t wish to belittle Bologna, I’ve heard good things about it but I just don’t think it’s up there with, you know, countries. I pulled someone up about it this week. They’ve been saying Pologne. Poland! People have been visiting Poland….All becomes clear!

Right, onwards and upwards. Naps don’t take themselves. Buona giornata!

Categories: Uncategorized | 1 Comment

Rosso Conero Festival, Working and Bureaucratic Success(ish)…

Posted on September 8, 2013 by Sue

Ciao,

Come va? Hope you’re all hunky-dory!

I’ve been waitressing this weekend for the Rosso Conero festival in Camerano. Let me tell you – waiters and waitresses should get 100x more money than people that work in offices if they have anything like the experience I had last night! I was working for Angeli di Varano, a local cantina who had teamed up with a well known chef to offer a fancy 4 course meal. I was on clearing table duty. I had to learn some new words. “Lay the table” sounds a lot like “hairdressers” in Italian. For a while, I thought we had to serve an influx of hairdressers. I’m back on again tonight as well…

Angeli di Varano restaurant / eatery at Rosso Conero before we opened…

Rosso Conero Festival runs for 3 days from Friday to Sunday. Thankfully I was only working two of the days – it’s the oddest wine festival I’ve been too. In fact, I think “wine festival” is misleading. There’s a place you can buy a glass and then there appeared to be about 3 tiny stalls where you could chose from an incredibly limited selection of wine. No free tastings! I’ve only ever been to wine / beer festivals in London where you buy / put a deposit down on a glass and then spend the entire day visiting 100’s of stalls getting free samples. A more accurate description of the event would have been “Cool art, music and other random stuff festival – oh, and you can buy a bit of alcohol if you want”.

One of the bands that were playing in Piazza Roma – they were a good laugh, very engaging!

Piazza Roma at about midnight on Friday!

Other stuff this week – I had a business discussion with Marco (from the Language School) on Monday to discuss recruiting more students from the UK and teaching English to Italians so I’m putting together some proposals this week on that front. It’s been quite good engaging the brain on things other than what shall I eat today!

Continuing on with the “working” theme, this week’s English lesson with the Italian girls was actually fun! I printed out a couple of articles from BBC news – difficult ones it turns out and got them to read them out as “newsreaders”. English is difficult to pronounce for foreigners – we don’t pronounce words as they’re written – putting on a phoney newsreader voice seems to help for some reason. And then we spent the rest of the lesson playing “Taboo”/ “Articulate” – I prepared some cards with some of the words from the articles and they had to describe the words without using the word itself or miming so the other person could guess. That was amusing. On reflection, I think including “torture” and “immune system” was harsh 🙂

I finished my Italian Exercise book – I’m on the next level up now. Woohoo! And I’ve been doing “combined pronouns” this week (which I think are probably right up there with “rocket science” in terms of difficulty) and occasionally, OCCASIONALLY, I get them right.

Oh and I’ve got some bureaucracy done! What a productive sounding blog update this is. It feels like months have past since Monday for some reason. Anyway, I managed to buy health insurance and then, THEN, I did something at the Comune. I don’t entirely know what. I think what I’ve succeeded in doing is declaring that I live in Camerano. It seems odd to need so much stuff to declare that I live here. I had to get Marco to complete a form say that he’s letting me stay in the flat and now I’m waiting for the police to come and visit to double check. Obviously there would be serious consequences indeed if they didn’t know who was living where. I mean, imagine…someone could be living somewhere and if the comune didn’t know, then it would be bad because of the er….. because of the erm….. yeah, I don’t know why. Anyway, I don’t know if declaring that I’m a resident here is the same as this “carta di residenza” mythical beast – I don’t think so because I don’t get a card. Only a letter. Which I might frame if it does actually come through.

What else? Ah my neighbour popped around with a care package of stuffed tomatoes – very tasty. There’s a festival coming up in Jesi in the next couple of weeks – I think I’m going to that with him and will be helping with his grape harvest in his field nearby too. Goodness – look at that – more productivity. I’m on form!

What’s a bit odd? I don’t know whether this one applies generally to all people or not or just me but something strange has happened. I’ve never been able to make a proper omelette before – I turns into scrambled eggs to matter what I do. However, since arriving in this country, without changing my method in the slightest, I’ve nailed omelette making! So. Disappointed with your omelettes coming out scrambled? Come to Italy!

My omelette – it looks like an omelette and everything! Spinach, tomato and cheese. Mmmm.

Right, that’s about it. Short update this week (I bet you’re all breathing a sigh of relief ;-)) – all this productivity has taken it out of me!

Have good weeks.

xxx

Categories: Uncategorized | Tags: Camerano, Declaration of residence, Italy, Omelette, pronouns, Rosso Conero, teaching english | 3 Comments

The Big Tray Race, eating dogs and I have a JOB!

Posted on September 1, 2013 by Sue

Ciao,

I’m so proud of Camerano!!! Every, EVERY town should have a Big Tray Race, otherwise known in Camerano as “Contesa del sacro Vassoio”. So that was Thursday, our Patron Saint’s day. In fact, it was more than a Big Tray Race. There was a Wooden Block Transportation race and Tug a Large Metal Wheeled Thing competition and there were other games too but hunger took over and I went to get something to eat so I’m not sure what I missed. Anyway in summary: there were 8 teams of generally young folk from areas in Camerano – my area is called “Oak” (La Quercia). There were 4 or 5 “games” with a complex scoring system which made no sense at all. All of it was presented by Eurovision song contest style hosts. The Grande Finale was the Big Tray Race which was basically a relay race around Camerano with a large metal heavy looking tray carried by 4 people at a time. We (La Quercia) won that race but overall we came second. The team that won the whole thing were ecstatic, I don’t think they could have been more enthusiastic if they’d won the Olympics.

“Tug a Large Metal Wheeled Thing”. The team that succeeds in tugging the large metal wheeled thing over a line on that wooden platform, wins.

Wooden Block Transportation Race – In fact, I thought they were really heavy these wooden blocks; after all, it requires two guys to transport them on that metal pole, but when the race finished, an old guy picked up 3 of them and moved them back to the starting position without any noticeable problem. That seemed a much more effective means of wooden block transportation. Clearly this race wasn’t an intelligence / logic test. The guys here were the winning team. They had their own gladiator so not surprising (bearded curly haired dude at the back – he was good…)

La Quercia! My Team!!! WE WON!!!!!

This is the kiddy version of The Big Tray Race

What else? This week I’ve been walking in Monte Conero – Passo del Lupo is a very pretty and easy walk to a lovely viewpoint overlooking the coastline and you can see the mountains in the distance too. I’ve done that walk a few times now with the school but it never gets old.

Taken from a particularly perilous part of Passo del Lupo

I had another dinner with the palazzo (the other people in my block of flats). This time, rather than making too sweet biscuits, I made overcooked potato salad (well, to be honest, potato mash) which was a big hit. Nobody seemed to comment on the overcooked-ness – I think I can pretty much get away with serving up anything under the guise of it being a “Traditional English Delicacy”.

After the dinner, I headed to Piazza Roma where they had a free dance show going on courtesy of our Patron Saint again. That was really good to watch too – a good mix of traditional and modern dance.

One group of dancers… very good…

Tuesday I went to dinner at a local cantina (winery) – Angeli di Varano – and had a lovely meal there with some friends and family of Marco. The cantina mentioned there might be a job serving wine at the Rosso Conero festival next week – I’d be paid in wine. Seems alright to me. The latest cheap wine box purchase gives me a headache after one glass!

I had a new housemate this week for 4 days but I’m back on my own again now in the flat and really liking having my own space again. I think that’s it now in terms of housemates for a while – hopefully I’m on my own for a bit!

Ooo and probably the biggest news this week was I HAVE A BIT OF A JOB! Teaching 3 Italian girls English in a group lesson – in fact, not really teaching at all because their grammar is pretty good. I think it went ok – they want another lesson at least. They just want conversation practice really so if anybody has any ideas for good things to do to get shy teenage girls talking, let me know! I made a whopping 30 Euros for an hour and a half.

Post teaching treat… This was on a day where I was supposed to be eating only “500 calories”. Oops.

Il Polemico (“The Argumentative One” / my language swap buddy :-)) is back from holiday. We went for dinner yesterday and headed to see a band “Gli Amici Dello Zio Pecos” playing at the sports ground in Camerano. They’re a fab band – real characters and the lead singer was brilliant. Here’s one of their songs on Youtube (*correction! The song “Volta la carta” is Fabrizio De Andre’s song – see comment below for a link to one of their own). Il Polemico has given me some other songs to listen to now so looking forward to that (grazie!!!).

Gli Amici dello Zio Pecos

Ferragosto (the 15th August is Ferragosto but the couple of weeks after, nobody seems to go to work), has finished now and I should be able to get my health insurance. *Should* being the operative word. I will eat my hat if I actually succeed. If I get health insurance, I *should* be able to get my carta di residenza (as if… AS IF!!!).

This week’s “What’s a bit odd”: Noises and gestures! My all time favourite noise that Italian’s make is “boh” – it means “I don’t know”. It’s usually accompanied by a shoulder shrug. I could listen to “boh” all day… And they all say it. I don’t think we English people have recognised random noises like that. I use a combination of “huh” (how interesting), “pfft” (you’re being annoying), “meh” (whatever), “pah” (you’re wrong) but I don’t think they’re universal and there’s a chance I’ve just made them up. Certainly the Italian’s don’t know what I’m on about. And they don’t use the acronym “lol” (Laugh out loud) when they message, understandably, but there’s no alternative Italian equivalent – they write out the full laugh, but it’s “Ahaha” rather than “hahaha”. Who starts a laugh with a?! That just sounds like their making repeated discoveries – “Aha!” (Huh. I wonder what noise they make when they’re discovering something then…). On a separate noise related front – I can’t roll my r’s. You need to be able to roll your r’s here in Italy otherwise you sound weird. I’ve been practicing to no avail. It’s a particular problem when I say I don’t eat meat – meat being “carne” (carrrr-nay). Without rolling your r’s, it basically comes out like “cane” (ca-nay) which is a dog. Basically, I tell people that I don’t eat dogs. Which I suppose is true. I’ve found a YouTube r-rolling guidance video. I’m going on a r-rolling mission this week.

Ok, have good weeks everybody.

xxx

Categories: Uncategorized | Tags: angeli di varano, Camerano, contesa del sacro vassoio, Festa del patrone, teaching english | 9 Comments

Webs of horror, Spectacular Spectacles and Flying Lizards…

Posted on August 26, 2013 by Sue

Ciao a tutti!

Come stai (how are you?!)

I’m so pleased to be here! This week’s been great – lots of interesting things to do, lots of laughing and lots of relaxation.

I went to San Michele beach on Monday with a friend and spent most of the day there – we splashed out on umbrellas which is something I never do. The beaches here aren’t like in the UK where you can basically go wherever you want – people here own bits of beach and they set out umbrellas and sun loungers which you need to pay for. For the whole day it was 6.50 Euros. I’ve decided that’s a bargain given the reduced chance of skin cancer! I might do that more often, despite my underlying dislike of these private beaches (it just doesn’t seem right for people to be able to own such lovely bits of land!).

San Michele beach – busy even on a Monday

I went on a blackberry picking mission last week after seeing loads in the countryside the weekend before. I hadn’t wanted to look too closely because I was annoyed I’d not brought any bags. So, laden with tuperware and bags, I headed out on Wednesday. Alas, I picked about 40 – they were all small apart from the ones that were hovering over hidden ditches (it turns out), too high to reach or protected by a particularly nasty looking creepy crawly. I’m not cut out for the countryside really, particularly blackberry picking – I spend an inordinate amount of time screaming. You should have seen one of the spiders that dropped down in front of my face whilst picking blackberries. It was more like a giant crab. And look at this Web of Horror below…! I if I was an insect and got stuck in this thing, I think I’d die on the spot. If you look closely, you can see a creepy horrible leg sticking out in a creepy horrible fashion <shudder>.

And these webs are BIG too…

Can you see the creepy horrible leg?!

I’ve found a shorter round walking trip that starts from my house. My parents are going to come out in a couple of months so I’ve been trying to find a nice local parent-friendly walk.

On Thursday I went out with some friends to a Piadineria (a place where you get piadinas – the Italian filled flat breads that I tried last week) called “El Merendero” in a village/town called Marotta which is close to Senigallia. They make lovely piadinas but you can’t book. We ended up waiting an hour for a table and finally sat down to eat about 10pm, and then it took a good while to be served so by the time we actually ate, I could have eaten a horse (but that’s in the next region up…).

El Merendero is a small restaurant – not many chairs and tables but really busy – it’s got a very good reputation for piadina’s

Then we headed to a bar, “Essentia di Mare” in a village/town called Marzocca, also near Senigallia where they played latin music and there was a couple of dance floors. I had a ball! It’s the first time I’ve danced anywhere apart from my kitchen for months. One of the Italian guys we were with asked me to dance – I don’t think the poor guy expected me to be quite so inept and spend the entire time laughing. And they had these group dance sessions – they were hilarious too (for me at least). It was a lot of fun.

View onto the dancefloor

On Friday I went on an art course evening with an artist that has a studio in the piazza. There were three of us altogether – the teacher, me and another girl – both a similar age to me so it was a really lovely couple of hours. We headed to behind one of the local agriturismo’s where they have a stable and set up our easels there – we didn’t paint – we had blocks of clay which we worked to represent the scene in front of us. That was something new for me so I was pleased about that! Mine has split in two now – I think it dried too quickly but it was a really good experience and very relaxing to be out in the countryside doing arty stuff. I’m going to try and get an easel soon so I can head out and do a similar thing myself.

My attempt and the background – I should have taken a picture earlier on in the evening because it looks a bit gloomy here. In actual fact, it was glorious weather…

The Camerano festival has started. I’m just so impressed with our little town! They’ve been making such a lot of effort – the whole town is decorated with ribbons and fabric for this “Festa Del Patrono” which started in earnest yesterday. The opening event was in Piazza Roma (the centre of Camerano) where they had a “Spettacolo Spettacolare” – a tongue twister if ever there was one – basically, a spectacular spectacle which in this instance was a sort of parade of drummers, dancers, fire breathers, roman gods (or people dressed as them at least), kids with ribbons and pompom things. I haven’t seen so many people in one place since I’ve been here. I thought I’d treat myself to a glass of wine and on being asked if I’d like a small or a large glass, I opted for large based on in England a small glass being akin to a thimble. In fact, a large glass is a very large glass here though – a pint! I’ve never had a pint of wine before! Perhaps we’ve been missing a trick in the UK. And it was only 2 Euros. So, I found a good spot in the piazza, sipped my pint of wine and watched the spectacular spectacle, which was, well, I think, spectacular!

Eurovision Song Contest style presenters… complete with same wooden script!

Part of the procession…

Fire breathing dude…

Rumour has it, my Italian has got er, audibly better. I think this is thanks to 3 things:

I’ve acquired more Italian people to speak to. When I have something I want to say, if I’ve got an opinion on something or if I’m recounting a story, I’m a bit more fluent. If it’s just general chitchat, then I’m still useless. General chitchat should be easier surely? But it turns out that if you have something to say, you forget that you can’t speak the language and you just get on with it. Having said that, this improvement only applies during part of the day. My Italian deteriorates rapidly in the evening (even without wine!). My brain seems to have a daily best before time – it just doesn’t function in Italian after about 8pm. It’s annoying because that’s when people want to go out! I’ve never detected this phenomenon with anything else – I never found my job harder in the afternoon than the morning and I don’t *think* I was ever visibly worse!
I’ve been watching Italian films without getting distracted: “Benvenuti Presidente”, “Pazzo di me” and “Il 7 e l’8”. The last two I watched on YouTube, the first one on the list I watched on some dodgy Romanian website that gave me a virus and had Romanian sub-titles. I don’t recommend that website. But I’m pleased that YouTube has a seemingly infinite number of Italian films and other films dubbed in Italian (in fact, I watched” Enemy of the State” in Italian too – it’s less mentally exhausting if you know the film already). Alas, there aren’t often subtitles on the films on the internet but as a learner, if you go for something suitably action-y, then it’s easier to follow. In fact, of the list above, all of them were ok to understand. And it’s really helpful to watch with an Italian so you can stop (constantly) and check your understanding. I had been watching CSI but the TV is in the kitchen and it’s difficult to maintain concentration if there are housemates here and if there’s Nutella in the cupboard.
I’ve been looking up absolutely everything I don’t know how to say in Wordreference. You can’t keep looking up all the words that you come across otherwise you’d never get anything done, but you can look up the things that YOU want to say and it sinks in a bit easier because it’s more relevant to you. After the 10th time of looking it up, sometimes it sinks in. Learning stock phrases is helpful, particularly if they’re complicated constructions. I’d hoped to just be able to produce them off the cuff if I knew the logic behind them but for example, I don’t think I’ll ever be able to work out how to use Italian pronouns without sitting down with a pen and notebook for 15 minutes first. However, if you know “he told me…”, “I asked him” etc., then you can just pull them out of the bag without having to think too much. And it turns out the more you know, the easier it is to find out other things and remember new words. You don’t have to rely solely on charades!

It’s been a while since Lizard Watch – and I’ve recently discovered a new type of cutie little dark green lizard so to combine with this week’s “What’s a bit odd” – here’s a picture of Super Lizard. He looks like he flies. I don’t think he actually does. Cute, cute, cute.

I think this is my favourite lizard shot. He looks like he’s flying.

Hope you all have good weeks.

xxx

Categories: Uncategorized | Tags: Camerano, el merendero, essentia di mare, Festa del padrono, piadineria, san michele spiaggia | Leave a comment

Ferragosto, Falling stars and learning new things…

Posted on August 18, 2013 by Sue

Ciao a tutti!!!

How is everyone?! Not loads to report on this week…

Monday, I headed out with a friend to Marcelli for a drink and found a good spot in a bar right next to where there was a polish/argentianian dancing and singing (not together mind) extravaganza.

The Polish dancers. Polish dancing is not about releasing unbridled passion as opposed to….

The Argentians… Now that’s how to do it…

Then we headed down to San Michele beach in Sirolo for some star gazing. Every year around the 10^th August it’s a busy time for shooting stars (or falling stars if you’re Italian), The Italian theory is that Saint Lorenzo cries and his tears come to earth in the form of shooting stars. There have been so many that worried for the state of the sky, I investigated. I have problems enough trying to find the Plough without stars missing. Anyway, they’re not shooting stars at all. They’re shooting meteors. Phew!

I’ve been feeling rough for a few days and by Tuesday, I decided I should probably go to the doctors. I found an English speaking doctor (thankfully!) that’s a couple of minutes walk away and who seems to be nice yet credible (a rare mix). It was a bit of an odd experience. I wandered into this guy’s house and sat in his front room whilst an angry man glared at me (angry because I didn’t know that the front door made a large booming echoey slamming sound when it closed) and hoped there was a doctor behind one of the closed doors. I have now learnt the terms for a variety of symptoms, ailments and body parts in Italian “bleeding, sore, swollen, ulcers, gums, glands” etc. Apparently I have a virus of my upper respiratory tract. Alas, I think next week I’ll have to learn the terms for “BUT WHY WONT IT GO AWAY?”

I’m confused by the doctor situation here – I thought the way it worked if you were European was this: You go to the doctor, they’ll see you, they’ll want paying for the appointment and so they’ll take your European Health Insurance Card details and set about getting a reimbursement from the country where you usually live. But he didn’t take any details down and when I asked him about it, he said he’d only need them if he was giving me a prescription (he didn’t). I think that must mean he only gets paid if he gives me a prescription but then that would lend support to him giving prescriptions out willy-nilly which he didn’t. So, I think he’s a good’un.

My neighbour, the artist, popped in this week and we had a productive chat. He’s seen a few of my drawings now and has asked me to be part of an exhibition with him next year in Camerano. I’d want to do some big canvases inspired by the local area – though I’m still sorely missing a shop in Italy that sells big canvases (oh Hobbycraft, how I miss you). I still think there’s a market in portrait drawing too and I still need to get better particularly at drawing beards/stubble. Unless of course I sell a combined “wet shave / portrait drawing” experience.

Anyway, that would be for 3 months next year during Summer in what sounds like a disused building by the main piazza. He’s done an exhibition there before and made a fair bit of money he says so on the face of it, it sounds interesting (though I’d have to share the cost of hiring the place – though sounds cheap).

He also told me about his house in Cuba that I can stay for free whenever I want which is jolly nice of him……….

There’s a big event starting on the 23rd August and running until the 29th for “la contesa del sacro Vassoio di San Giovanni”. So, in the unlikely event you don’t know what that is, I’ve copied some text from the Camerano Tourist website

“The 29th August is the Patron Saint’s Day of Camerano – St. John Baptist. Every year the Contest of the Sacred Plate of St. John is held in Camerano in which the eight suburbs of the town participate with great enthusiasm. There are also food stalls, bands, pageants and shows while the day ends with the late-night lottery”.

Who knew we had 8 suburbs?! I thought we barely warranted enough space/people to be classed as a single suburb!

And after that, there’s the “Rosso Conero” 3 day wine festival on the 7^th, 8^th and 9^th September, also in the hip and happening Camerano. It’s well known in the area and sounds like the centre will be full of wine stalls where you can taste wine from the local areas and buy some if you like. I will be taking part in the tasting of the wine (and I will most certainly spend some time considering buying the wine too… all the way to the corner shop where the wine is a lot cheaper and tastes the same). Friends/family – I’ve been suggesting you all wait to visit until I eventually get a car but actually, if you come down in the next two or three weeks then I think there’s enough to keep you occupied without a car.

Thursday was Ferragosto. Ferragosto marks the date that Mary was “assumed” into heaven and so the Italians like to mark this occasion by going to church, to the beach. I went to a new beach called Misano in the next region up (Emilia Romagna) with a new group of people. Going out with a group of Italian people always fills me with mixed emotions: Hooray – I’m going out with a new group of people! 🙂 And boo – I’ve no idea what they’re saying 😦 This time though, it was alright – I could pretty much keep up with the conversation. Having said that, I do have a habit of filling in the gaps with random flights of fancy that bear no resemblance to what they’ve actually said and not realising. So though I think I coped alright, perhaps their impending trip to the moon to buy a snow leopard wasn’t an accurate interpretation.

The beach was lovely – sandy and wide with actual beds to sleep on (though there’s nothing that could convince me to actually touch them let alone lie on one).

Beds! On the BEACH!!!

I learnt a few new things that day too:

1) I learnt that there are breathalyser tests in pubs there (see exhibit A below). Alcohol in Italy is called “Alcool” which I think glamorizes it…

Exhibit A: Breathalyser machine in the bar/ restaurant where we were. Great idea – if you get caught drink driving, you lose your license for 3+ months.

2) I learnt how prostitution worked in the old days (see exhibit B, thanks to Catherine for the photography)

Apparently this is a real sign (as in actually used!). So, prices go up from a er, quickie, "twice", 20 minutes, half an hour, a full hour and two hours. I'm a little confused by the "doppia" - two times. I don't think it makes good business sense. I've thought about it - if I were a guy and wanted a couple of hours, I would just pay for a "Doppia" and string things out.

Exhibit B: Apparently this is a real sign (as in actually used!). So, prices go up from a er, quickie, “twice”, 20 minutes, half an hour, a full hour and two hours. I’m a little confused by the “doppia” – two times. I don’t think it makes good business sense. I’ve thought about it – if I were a guy and wanted a couple of hours, I would just pay for a “Doppia” and string things out…

3) I learnt how to play beach tennis. I use the term “learnt” loosely. I’ll never understand tennis. Why don’t the numbers go up properly? Stupid game (we lost).

Exhibit C: Picture of the beach tennis…….

4) I had my first piadina which is an Italian delicacy but which tastes exactly the same as an Indian bread that I can’t remember the name of. Anyway, delicious and I had mine as a sort of “toastie” with tomato and mozzarella.

Exhibit D: Tasty tasty tasty

So let me tell you about my health insurance quest. Italians – you may want to look away now. I hold my hands up – at times I *may* have given the impression that Italians are a bit workshy (admittedly this would have more weight coming from someone who had a job) what with their daily 4 – 5 hour supermarket lunch break closures, Sunday closures, random other day of the week closures and I-don’t-really-want-to-work-today unplanned closures. But Ferragosto really is something to behold – EVERYTHING IS SHUT! For at least two weeks!

So, I just want to take some time out to summarise my varied thoughts and feelings about Italy: The countryside looks like it’s been painted by a grand master, the sea is like a warm crystal clear bath of splendor, the villages are stunningly picturesque whilst being bathed in history and architectural delights, the wildlife never ceases to amaze me with its sheer variety, the food is heavenly (particularly the tomatoes)… but I just can’t hide it under layers of sarcasm any longer: HOW DOES THIS COUNTRY FUNCTION?! I just want to buy health insurance! There are about 30 (a slight exaggeration maybe) insurance companies in the centre of Camerano – every single one is closed until the beginning of September. It is INSANE. I.N.S.A.N.E. And, and, and…no, I’m going to stop. Launching into a string of suggestions about how the country I think I’m illegally squatting in, might improve their economy is rude. However, I shall be providing a short private thesis on this for my therapist.

I did actually make it to an insurance company in fact, a few minutes before they closed down. In short, I need health insurance to get the carta di residenza (which I need for a whole bunch of other things). But (deep breaths) it turns out I need a carta di residenza to get health insurance. I have no words…

Yesterday I went for a long walk in Monte Conero national park. Since my first walk here I’ve been determined to try and find a round trip as so far, my walks have been characterised by me walking for hours in one direction in the hope of finding a convincing looking return path, giving up and walking hours back the same way. But yesterday I found a circular path (still 5 hours!). My next task will be to try and find a circular path without a couple of kilometers teetering on the side of a busy road. The walk was lovely all the same – the countryside has completely changed in the last month or so: wheat fields have been ploughed, the sunflower fields are all dried up, the blackberries are out and I have never ever seen so many butterflies! Beautiful!

The white specs aren’t your eyes going…there’s a million butterflies in this photo…

For this week’s “what’s a bit odd” – see all of the above.

Not much else to report. I have new housemates – a family. I don’t think I can have made a very good impression – they lock their bedroom doors when they leave the apartment! I can’t believe they don’t trust me! (Thank goodness I made copies of their keys).

Right, onwards and upwards. Have a lovely week all!

xxx

Categories: Uncategorized | Tags: Camerano, Ferragosto, Health Insurance, Misano, Monte Conero, Piadina, Rosso Conero | 2 Comments

Fun, embarrassment and appeal to train station designers…

Posted on August 12, 2013 by Sue

Ciao!!!

How is everyone? I’ve had another fun week this week with nothing much in the way of productivity. I’ll be remedying that this coming week in terms of productivity. I hope one day to combine the two: Productivity and Fun 🙂

Sunday I headed to an organ concert at a church in San Germano, a tiny little village walk-able from Camerano. The problem with organ concerns in churches is that the organs are generally hidden (or at least the organist is). I left after half an hour, deciding that if I wanted to listen to organ music, I should just buy a CD and listen to it somewhere that wasn’t life-sappingly hot. But it was nice to see another little village and if it wasn’t so hot, I would have stayed.

Everyone is misleadingly looking at the front of the church here. The organ was behind everyone above the door and you couldn’t see it!

We went on a boat trip on Tuesday from Numana (one of the close coastal villages) and I finally got to see one of the beaches that I’ve been keen to visit for a while – Spiaggia dei Gabbiani (Seagull beach basically). You can only get there by boat – we didn’t actually end up going to that one, but just went past it and hopped off at another beach, Le Due Sorelle which is also only reachable by boat (There’s a path but you’re not allowed to use it – admittedly it does look a bit perilous) so it was great to finally get to that beach too. The only photo I took didn’t seem to take so I’ve got no proof!

I had one of my top rated embarrassing moments on Wednesday at Cinema Sotto Le Stelle in Camerano – I put my phone on silent like a good cinema go-er and forgot about it. Halfway through, my phone starts blaring out music at top volume. It’s my alarm, not the phone so that’s why putting it on silent didn’t work. There were a few disapproving grunts and tuts in the audience. Embarrassing, but not the end of the world. I go to turn it off. Does it turn off? Nope it doesn’t. I’d swapped the battery before the film and for my phone, that means I have a Fort Knox style pin entry system before I can get into the phone. Everyone is now looking around with incredulous looks on their faces. Very embarrassing. I’ll turn the whole phone off I think. Does the whole phone turn off? Nope, it doesn’t. Ok. Ok. Fine. I’ll take the battery out then. Can I get the back off the phone? Something that I’ve been doing for a year without any problems? No, no I can’t. By that point, the grunts of disapprovals had turned into sporadic giggles. I decided that I’d just have to leave the cinema and throw my phone into the path of a passing car, so I hot footed it out over people’s laps. As I jumped over the last person’s legs to the door, I was flooded with a sense of relief – the trauma was almost over. Or that’s what I thought until the previously sleeping barky dog (WHO BRINGS DOGS TO THE CINEMA!) that appeared to be guarding the door launched into a tirade of barks, much louder than my phone, subsequent scream of terror and the cinema put together. I’m going to buy a disguise for when I go out in Camerano next.

I met my Couch-surfing pen pal Italian buddy last week. Headed to San Michele beach the first time (where he got a 41 Euro parking fine) and then Senigallia (where I was 4 / 5 hours late and actually never arrived in Senigallia at all – see below!) and then a couple of days later, he gave me a whistle-stop tour around Jesi kicking off with a lovely lunch at Vintora, a restaurant in his home village of San Marcello (near Jesi). After lunch, we headed to Morra D’alba and Jesi as well as a 5 minute left-hand-drive car driving lesson before my train came (where I’m pleased to report that nothing bad happened). I still vaguely remember how to drive, the problem will be keeping to the correct side of the road.

Had a lovely lunch at this restaurant – great food…

Una bella vista in San Marcello – the portaloo sets it off nicely I think 🙂

Morro D’alba – there’s a cute little walk that goes around the main bit of the paese – this photo was taken from there.

Jesi – the main square…

So let me tell you about the Senigallia ordeal on Thursday. It was the “Summer Jamboree” which I was really keen to get to so arranged to meet some friends down there. I looked at the train monitor at Ancona, I identified the train I needed and platform I needed to be on. I went to the platform. When the train came, I got on it. But then, rather than go to Senigallia (20 minutes north), the train went to Pescara (an hour and a half in the opposite direction). Why? Well, let me tell you why. Ancona station have duplicate platforms it turns out – there are two platform 1’s, 2’s and 3’s in different parts of the station. I went to Platform 3 instead of Platform 3 (?!?!), a terrible and time-consuming mistake! So, an appeal to any Train Station Designers reading this: GIVE YOUR PLATFORMS UNIQUE NUMBERS!!!!!!!!

Pescara train station – it was a fascinating evening out…

To get to Senigallia was going to take almost 4 hours from there at that time of night. I decided to give up and go back to Ancona instead (still over 2 hours) but by then there were no buses home anyway. My new Couchsurfing friend who I was supposed to be meeting in Senigallia and who’d been patiently waiting hours for me (he doesn’t want to be “in” the blog – I’ll have to come up with a pseudonym… hmm…) came to get me from the station and we went for dinner in an Agriturismo in Camerano that I didn’t even know existed (La Giuggiola) – it was a good meal and turned out to be a good night in the end. I still feel a bit guilty! I’ve never been 4 + hours late before!!!

I had a chat to Marco about potential teaching opportunities last week – he’d definitely like to set up some English courses in the winter or at least when the weather cools down a bit. I’m hoping to meet him this week to discuss.

Ah – on a bureaucratic front, I did attempt to get a bit done last week in fact – I went to an insurance company to buy health insurance – the guy couldn’t understand why I wanted it. I explained I just needed a bit of paper from him with “health insurance” at the top just for box ticking purposes at the Comune, but he insisted I should confirm what level of care I needed. So I headed to the Comune who confirmed that yes, it was just that I needed a piece of paper with health insurance at the top and they couldn’t care less what I actually had. By the time I went to report back, the insurance company had closed. Camerano is positively rife with insurance companies but they all open for something like 15 minutes on a random non published evening during the week so I haven’t yet managed to get the health insurance. BUT THIS WEEK IS THE WEEK!

This week’s what’s a bit odd:

I’ve never known people in any other country sit out in the middle of a square before quite like this…

Ciao x

Categories: Uncategorized | Tags: Camerano, Jamboree, Jesi, Morro D'alba, San Marcello, Senigallia | 4 Comments

Language Swaps, Water Park Therapy and After Eight drinks…

Posted on August 4, 2013 by Sue

Ciao a tutti!

Had a great week this week, alas not remotely productive but fun 🙂

Last Sunday there was a party downstairs in the garden for the block of flats and I had a lovely night chatting to everyone. They have a party every year and everyone brings something along – I made biscuits which they were a bit intrigued by. It doesn’t fit in with the usual “biscotti”. People seemed to like them but I think they could have been improved had I actually had scales to measure the ingredients rather than guessing!

I’ve been working my way through the language swap ad responses. I’ve got a “pen-pal” thing going on with one now – we use Microsoft word to write to each other in our non-native language and then use the track changes to correct the other’s errors and then add another letter/note. That’s been working really well actually – having someone correct your writing helps with the speaking too.

I met up with another language swapper a couple of times this week – Matteo. Thursday he came over and cooked a delicious veggie carbonara (“prima piatti”), with re-fried beans (“contorno” – basically means sides/vegetables). I’d made a salad (another “contorno”) and a lemon mousse for desert (“dolce”). My lemon mousse was unusual. Firstly, I forgot to buy lemons. Not having lemons is a definite oversight when making lemon mousse. I improvised with mint syrup instead which turns out to be the nicest thing ever (see ‘What’s a bit weird’ at the end). And secondly, the recipe required whipped double cream which seems to be something that doesn’t exist in Italy. Instead, I selected the closest sounding thing having shaken every available cream container assessing “thickness” and realised when I got home I’d bought sour cream (“panna acido”). Sour cream is officially better in fajitas than dessert (who knew?). However, I think my creation was a rip-roaring success. Weird yes, but tasty! Having said that, I suspect Matteo thought it was just weird and weird. Here’s Matteo in action (he even volunteered to be in the blog – nobody ever volunteers!).

Cooking in action…

I went to a water park called Aquafan on Friday with an Italian friend and his family. Apparently it’s the biggest in Europe (the park, not his family!). Lots of fun and incredibly interesting in terms if people watching and actually one of the most liberating places I’ve been to! Aquafan should be prescribed as a form of therapy. It emerges that I’m vain and lacking in body confidence: if I go to the beach, I’ve been working on the assumption that everyone on the beach looks around, takes note of my every lump, bump and blemish (I’m going to create an acronym – LBB) and feels a level of sickness as a result. But, at Aquafan it turns out a) everyone else has LBB’s, b) there are a lot of people that have more LBB’s than me and c) nobody cares – either about their own or other peoples! So, no more guilt inducing swimming costume wearing for me… So – feeling a bit unconfident? Find an Aquapark!!!

Aquafan…

I went to another Sotto Le Stelle Cinema night in Camerano – W.E. – Edward e Wallis. Directed by Madonna and about the scandalous relationship between Edward III and his big love, a divorcee. This one was a difficult film to follow as it had two plots running through and I’m not sure I “got” all of it but it was a lovely evening again none the less. There’s only one more, next week, which is a shame. Meanwhile, there are a couple of classical concerts in the next couple of days which I’m hoping to get to.

I met up with my new artist friend in Ancona this week too with a view to going on mass (in two at least!) to the Azienda Entrata to sort out a Tessera Sanitaria for me and to see where her Codice Fiscale and Tessera Sanitaria have got to. They told us we’d come to the wrong place (despite it being the right place a week or two back!) so we did a bit of window shopping instead and visited an art shop where she’s now got some pictures on display. Very interesting – I’ve never had any art displayed publicly so it was an enlightening experience! We both got a free calendar out of it so all in all, it was a good visit.

I’ve also been over to Mezzavalle (The Beach of Naked Men) again with the American students but I can’t believe how busy it’s got – a couple of weeks ago it was positively empty apart from the sporadic naked man. This time, it was packed (with costume cladded people I should add). I definitely preferred it before (for the remote emptiness as opposed to the naked men of course).

Mum has been researching (thanks Mum) and has come to the conclusion that I should just buy healthcare insurance on the basis that she thinks becoming a resident is mandatory after 3 months (ah my 3 month “being in Italy” anniversary will be Tuesday!). So, I’m going to buy it. I’m too de-motivated with it to fight it any longer!

I had another “care package” from home arrive this week too with a delicious chocolate assortment – thank you Jo!!! 🙂 I’ve been disappointingly less controlled about rationing this lot!

Monday, I’m heading to the Summer Jamboree event in Senigallia. I usually get annoyed at music on websites – it’s a bit invasive eh? However, the music on this website has had me dancing around the kitchen. Italian swing music is fantastic! I’ve been trying to download the songs on the website but alas, I can’t find them to buy.

What’s a bit odd? Well, I’m getting quite fed up now of plain water. I WANT SQUASH!!! I decided to try the “sciroppo” (Syrup) which is an insanely sugary, unhealthy Italian version of “squash” which is incredibly expensive and comes in stupidly small sized bottles. I used to have orange squash or something along those lines but I followed a recommendation and went for mint and let me tell you, it’s great! And versatile too – if you have it with milk, well, it’s like drinking an After Eight. Mmm….

Mmmm

Right, that’s about it for this week. Hope you’re all well!

Ciao x

P.S. Has anyone seen this bug?! It’s about an inch long with a horrible nothingness waist and a massive backside and buzzes around in an aimlessly erratic fashion. I really dislike them! WHAT ON EARTH IS IT?!?!?!

Bug Watch – Has anyone seen this bug?

Categories: Uncategorized | Tags: aquafan, biscotti, bug, Camerano, italian, language swap, menthe, sotto le stelle, summer jamboree | 1 Comment

Author Archives: Sue

About Sue

The Week of Terror, Teaching and Truffles…

Home, Roadtrips and Jobs…

Pub Club on Tour, Milan, Cinque Terre and Home!

Fire Watchers, toddler books and coming home!!!

Rosso Conero Festival, Working and Bureaucratic Success(ish)…

The Big Tray Race, eating dogs and I have a JOB!

Webs of horror, Spectacular Spectacles and Flying Lizards…

Ferragosto, Falling stars and learning new things…

Fun, embarrassment and appeal to train station designers…

Language Swaps, Water Park Therapy and After Eight drinks…

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