Long Delay

Oh how I wish I had a fabulous excuse for my long silence here. Something like traveling all over Italy, attending loads of local markets, or spending the days lounging by the Mediterranean (side note: we're actually on the Tyrrenhian Sea, but that's so much less interesting to type). Instead, I've been dieting. My first ever and extremely difficult. For a few days there, all I could think about was food. Have you ever watched the show Survivor? Invariably, each season, the players start talking about food, in detail. That's what I was like. I imagined sitting down with a bag of chips, pictured drinking a nice, cold glass of white wine, dreamed of eating the chocolate bar sitting on our hutch. Then I pictured the beaches here in Italy, full of women in bikinis. Now admittedly, Italian women here in the south are not as fit as what I think Americans imagine - the svelte beauty, limbs toned. But that's the media for you. Instead, Italian women aren't obsessed with covering up their body flaws - or maybe in this culture, extra pounds and stomachs curling over the tops of pants aren't considered flaws. I don't really know. Bikinis reign here, regardless of age or size. The nonnas (grandmothers) do put on full coverage bikinis, but that's about the extent of their concern.

I went to the beach last week, my first time this summer. This is a crying shame since we literally live one block from the beach, including a free beach and three pay beaches. I believe I've mentioned the beach culture before, but just to clarify, the beaches are lined with "beach clubs," places who clean the sand, have bathrooms, maybe a cafe or restaurant, and chairs/umbrellas for rent. Entry is somewhere from 3-10euros per person, with extra costs for chairs, umbrellas, and so on. Some clubs have pools, too, which is yet another cost. The pools, I have found out, are very important here because of water pollution. There is a sewage treatment plant about 20 minutes up the coast that routinely dumps sewage into the water. Our location is in a large bay, separated from the coastline by a couple of peninsulas, so my guess is that the water near our house is okay for swimming, given the water current. However, when we go to church on Sunday (our church is located on a huge stretch of beach heading up towards the plant), the beach is filled with families enjoying the day...and not a single person in the water. It's a little eery, actually. We're hoping to do some beach exploring this summer and kicked that off on the Fourth of July. More on our Fourth later, but I hope you all had a lovely holiday and that you ate lots of burgers, chips and brownies, which is what I dreamed of all day long.

Reason for Riposo

I have spent all winter hating riposo, that afternoon rest time when all the businesses close. It can begin anytime between noon-2pm and ends anytime from 3:30-6pm. Riposo has driven me batty. Everything closes - the grocer, the vet, the salumeria, the shops. Visiting small towns has been a special challenge. There have been times when we've arrived somewhere about 11am, done a slow walk to a restaurant, enjoyed a leisurely lunch, then headed off to visit the town's shops...and they're closed. So now, visiting towns for only a daytrip is more of a marathon to see it all before riposo shuts everything down.

But now, at last, I am on board with riposo. And the reason is summer. Most homes do not have air condition, so getting anything done is like swimming underwater. It is not just hot here. It is oxygen-sucking hot. I do not "glisten" in my house, I flat out sweat. The one saving grace is our rooftop, which gets somewhat of a cooling breeze.  Mornings and evenings are a wonderful, balmy temperature that makes me understand the phrase of air caressing skin. But afternoons, the battle is lost and I must retreat to higher ground. We are some of the few, lucky ones with air conditioning in our home, but they are small, electric wall units (not the window units that are more common in America). Two of our bedrooms have one; they're perfect for the small spaces and allow us to pay lots of money to the electric company in order to sleep at night. I've mentioned before the high cost of electricity being the reason for many homes not having dryers. Ditto for a/c and large, American style refrigerators. We also have one a/c unit for our living room which is open to the whole house, and I found that in the heat of the day, it's useless. Possibly because it's located right next to one of our sliding windows that has a four inch gap at the top of it where the window is undersized for the frame around it. As soon as it's not too hot to go to our garage and carry our ladder upstairs, I'm plugging that gap with a towel. But for now, it's time to lay down my battle weapons and have a little riposo.

Something I Never Expected

Back in April, Nathan and I strolled down to our local roundabout for a gelato. Our roundabout is sort of like our village's piazza, only filled with traffic. Edging the roundabout are businesses which include a newsstand, coffee bar/gelateria, pizzeria, salumeria (very small grocer), butcher, tabacchi, hair salon, and restaurant. The coffee bar has a large patio with tables, and the sidewalk of the road is edged with benches, the better to watch the traffic go by. It's surprisingly entertaining to sit on these benches and people watch the drivers. When my aunt and I did so, we saw a lady drive by with three dogs in her car, the one in the front seat had his head hanging out the window while the two in the back were sitting up very properly, both with heads turned to watch the world go by out of their respective windows. It's also fun to count how many cars go by with young children riding either in laps or just bouncing around on the backseat playing - definitely a unique sight for these American eyes. Across the street is the Metro stop and a large parking lot, empty until this month, when I found out the parking lot is not for all the trash usually heaped there, but is instead  for all the summertime beachgoers.

So back to mine and Nathan's stroll...the fence edging the parking lot usually has a banner of some sort hanging from it. Sometimes it's the same banner for months - usually the soccer ones are around awhile. Then there are political ones every now and then, advertising some candidate or other. This particular evening, we were struck by a banner that I never, ever, in a million years thought I would see half a world away from the U.S.:

Best of all are the words that you can't make out with the blog photo resolution, but it says, "The South Will Rise Again." We stood across the street, staring at this banner in absolute awe. We looked up and down the street as if we'd see who raised it. We looked at the store owners standing in their doorways, as they often do, to gauge if this sort of banner was acceptable. There were no clues anywhere. But it was yet another reminder of Italy's youth as a country and as a democracy, and their culture wars as the country grows. I write so much of the ancient history and culture that surrounds me here, but even more so, the modern problems of a growing country are the backdrop of daily life.

Until 1861, Italy was ruled by city-states and/or foreign countries. So 100 years after America became a democratic country, Italy's disparate parts joined together, ruled by a monarchy, then the Facist dictatorship, and finally, almost 90 years after unification, Italy became a republic in 1946. Prior to unification, southern Italy was powerful. The people were rich, cultured, smart, and basically, they were the cool kids. The northerners were considered the peasants and the laborers. Then, unification occurred, and the decades have brought us to today, where the north is considered the land of the educated, the people who know what's best, the rich and the powerful, while the southerners are the farmers, the hillbillies, and are considered to be very lazy. Any of this sounding at all familiar to anyone? Anyone? Now I don't pay close attention to the details of the Italian political culture, but I do know there is a group who wants a divided Italy, who essentially, wants the south to rise again. But what I really found interesting is thinking about the North/South divide in many countries and on a global scale. In considering many of the European countries, they have a similar culture war. Even more interesting, I put North vs. South into Wikipedia and found a great article on the global ramifications - across the globe, the developed, First World nations are in the north while the poorer, struggling nations are in the south (with Australia and New Zealand as exceptions). And so it seems the Weepies are correct...the world really does just spin madly on.

Eating Out

Last night, we ate at a Chinese restaurant. We do see the irony in living in a country with some of the best food in the world, yet paying good money for Chinese food; however, since we arrived here, at least eight people have said some version of, “There’s a great Chinese restaurant in Arco Felice. You’ll be living near it.” Eight people! That’s one for every week we’ve lived in Italy. The kicker was when a perfect stranger who came to pick up some of our moving boxes called me back later in the day yesterday to say, “Since you just arrived here, you may not realize you have a great Chinese restaurant down the street.” Not only have people volunteered it as a great restaurant, but they use it as a landmark when trying to tell us where other places are. We decided we needed to check it out earlier rather than later, and it did not disappoint.  Food was excellent, and it was fun to see a Chinese menu arranged Italian style.

I may have already written about this, and if so, my apologies, but in Italy, meals come in courses. In medium to nicer restaurants, you order each course after finishing the first. First is your antipasti, just like an American appetizer menu. Next is primi (first) of pasta (or…if you’re at the Chinese restaurant, rice/noodles), next is secondo and is your meat and/or seafood plate. This does not come with sides. Your veggies are a separate course, which can be ordered with the secondo. If you choose a salad rather than veggies, the salad is ordered after the secondo. Next up is the best part…dolci (dessert). After all of this, the waiter brings two bottles to your table – grappa and limoncello. These are complimentary, and you sit and drink a cup or two of your digestivo. In Italian restaurants, you always pay a “coperto,” which is a cover charge for sitting down. Think of this as the tip for the busboys. It’s generally 1-2 euro per person. Meal tipping is 5-10%. 

Another little note about eating out in Italy…there are lots of “bars.” Every block has one or two. A bar in Italy is completely different. It’s the coffee shop. So it’s a completely different connotation to arrange a meeting at a bar. Some (many) have only counters as you must pay extra for a table, even in a coffee or gelato shop. You decide what you want and pay the cashier. Grab the receipt and present it to the barista, telling him/her what you want to drink and which pastry you ordered. In some very busy bars, the barista ignores you until you put your .10 tip next to your receipt. But in most cases, after drinking your coffee while standing at the bar, you can leave your little coin next to the empty cup. Coffee is not some large cup of what the Italians call “brown water,” which you sit in a Central Perk type place and sip for hours while visiting with friends. Coffee is small cups of espresso, which have less caffeine than a cup of American coffee, and you enjoy them while standing at the bar socializing or down it in a couple of drinks and head off to face the rest of your day. There are strict rules for what type of coffee to drink depending on the time of day. I follow none of them. I like my cappuccino and order it all the time, even after 11am! The horror! For those who are really interested in the health benefits of coffee and Italy’s coffee culture, this is a great blog post by another blogger here in Naples: The Espresso Break: Drink Coffee, It's Good For Your Health

Another observation on life here in Naples was brought home last night in the Chinese restaurant. It’s a small place, only about 12 tables. I’d noticed this table of three young boys who looked to be about 10 years old. After half an hour or so, I realized there was no adult with them, not even one at a nearby table. They were active and clearly having a fun time together, but were behaving appropriately for a restaurant. They sat down, ordered, were drinking their Cokes out of wine glasses, sharing food, and looked for all the world like a group of elderly men enjoying an evening out. That merging of time in which I suddenly see the same scene in the past or future happens so often here, in this place where the ancient world is such a part of modern life. Nathan said he imagined these three kids sitting around playing X-box, when one of them says, “Hey, want to go out for some Chinese,” and off they go to a nearby restaurant at 9:00pm. Age 10!