Italy Is Out There

It’s been a little longer than expected since the last blog post and this is not because there has been nothing to say. In fact, it’s the complete opposite.

It’s funny, when I first arrived I felt like my days were longer. I didn’t really know anyone and I had hours by myself just to soak up the culture and eat (all) the food, writing and blogging away until my hearts content… this has now changed.

My days are going so fast and they are so full that I struggle to find time to make a to do list, let alone blog!

But I have now carved out two hours for myself and I’m sat under a tree, on a hot sunny day, in a park I was introduced to last night. Laptop on and typing fingers limbered.

Originally I wanted to do separate blog posts for each of my new adventures but, as it is, I feel that a combination may have to do.

The school I am with is brilliant in that it is not just about learning the language, they also want you to experience the culture and see new places. Since the last blog I have been lucky enough to visit both Ferrara and Ravenna – both wonderful and heart-wrenchingly beautiful places.

Firstly, Ferrara…

It. Is. Gorgeous!

If you ever get the opportunity to go I thoroughly recommend it. You have everything from fascist architecture; imposing pastel coloured town houses with frescos and pillars at the door, to winding mazes of alleyways in the Jewish Ghetto. A wonderful Cathedral constantly in fear of earthquakes, a fortress and medieval memories scattered in between.

It was a day of walking around, mouths open and eyes wide.

The pictures don’t do it justice.

The end of the days saw us sample the traditional fare at, what claims to be the oldest Osteria in the world – the place where Copurnicus discovered the sun was indeed the center of the universe; genius sparked at the bottom of a bottle of wine.

I empathize.

Ravenna was completely different but beautiful in it’s own way. Known for its mosaics, the town had a Mediterranean vibe; a result of its Constantinople heritage.

We walked in the first of the churches and already I was impressed, but it got even better with every church we entered.

For a town with relatively few tourists in comparison to the big centers of Rome and Venice, Ravenna, I thought, hosted churches more beautiful than the Duomo’s in both Florence and Milan.

They were so intricate you felt like you were in a Romanic temple.

By far the best one was Basilica San Vitale – Oh my word it was just amazing! The dome looked 3D, the way it was painted made you just stand with your head back, gawking. I couldn’t take my eyes off it.

When I eventually tore my eyes away you looked to your left and there was the stunning Mosaic, all shiny with gold leaf and so well kept that it looked like it had been installed yesterday.

The tragedy of Ravenna is that it is a city which is slowly sinking. It was built on swampland and there are reminders everywhere. From an archway whose tip is now the only part still visible, to a goldfish filled pond in the crypt of a church (that was an interesting sight), Ravenna is going down!

It was only fitting after a day of church going that that day ended with a bottle of wine and the breaking of bread among friends – taking our own communion and giving thanks for the experience.

The last two weeks have opened my eyes to all the places I am missing out on by staying in a Bologna bubble.

Don’t get me wrong, Bologna is amazing and I am still finding new places every time I meet new people. It’s like a whole new city when you walk it with another person – they have their own routes and their own spaces that have been locked away from me when I stayed in my own Bologna box.

I am not even halfway through this incredible experience and my travel journal is already nearly out of pages – every day I am doing something new, seeing something different, meeting new people and I cannot explain how liberating it feels.

It’s like the world is mine to discover, Italy is out there (next stop – Cinque Terre).

x

A Note on the Food

Okay so this blog is meant to be about my experiences and “taking the leap to live a dream” but I really do have to take a second to talk about the food.

Bologna, and the surrounding region, Emilia Romagna, is known as “The Bread Basket” of Italy. It’s where Ragu (or Bolognese – basically a swear word here) comes from, Proscuttio di Parma, Parmesan Cheese, Balsamic Vinegar, Lasagna… literally everything you eat in the UK that you think represents Italy comes from here (except pizza – that’s from Naples).

I can’t even begin to explain just how good the food is here. I wake up every morning and head to my favouite café for brioche or homemade granola and a cappuccino (and then usually another espresso).

Lunch is usually a long affair, and really the main meal of the day for Italians, consisting of two courses or more including a pasta dish then some kind of meat or vegetable based second course. A cortorno is a side dish, usually eaten alongside your second course, followed by cheeses, fruit and, if you can fit it in, dolce (pudding basically).

Dinner tends to be lighter than lunch but, from my experience, this is still hefty resulting in me having the landmark moment the other day of having to throw away my first item of clothing because it no longer fit!

That zip was not going to close!

There is that great line in the film Eat Pray Love were they’re sat eating pizza and Julia Roberts gives the other girl a pep talk basically ending in the line “just buy some bigger jeans”.

I went out and bought another dress.

I can safely say that, apart from one slightly disappointing breakfast, which I think was the result of them training a new member of staff, I have not had a bad meal here.

My Achilles heel are the amazing antipasti boards they do here, filled to the brim with regional meats and cheeses, accompanied by lovely fresh bread (and usually copious amounts of wine).

They are just amazing and so much cheaper than in the UK, primarily because the produce has only come from up the road. The wine is also pretty damn cheap but the problem is it doesn’t taste cheap – cue sore head the next morning!

This wine was especially good and check the name, it couldn’t get more Italian!

A traditional street-food here is Piadina. Basically a flat-bread traditionally filled with prosciutto and a soft brie-like cheese, but there are little hole-in-the-wall shops that offer a huge variety of fillings including sweet versions – they love their Nutella here.

This particular Piadina I had was eaten at the top of a great place called San Lucca – the history lesson will come in a later post. I cannot express how good it tasted after that walk (it’s a long, steep affair) overlooking Bologna. Pretty damn good!

Another street-food here is called Tigelle. It’s this really pretty bread (note the pattern) which you fill with cream cheese and meat. I fist had it not knowing what it was – I just thought it was a novel antipasti.

It was only when I was invited out on one of my first nights by S* to have it that I realized you’re meant to make them into little sandwiches. It’s great socializing food and, again, we had one filled with Nutella (be aware – this one is very messy and not at all elegant to eat).

As you can see, there is a lot of meat, cheese and bread; it is a dieter’s nightmare (hence the new dress). I’ve tried to start cutting down now the initial novelty is over but you really cannot pass up on the opportunity to have a real Italian pizza (it's the best brain food)…

…or dinner cooked for you by your host family. That was a great experience.

There is this stereotype of Italian home meals, and a lot of us probably just suspect they have beans on toast like the rest of us but, let me tell you, trying to explain Heinz Baked Beans in very basic Italian to an Italian is really really hard – they honestly have no clue what you’re talking about and when they start to get the gist they are well and truly disgusted (and rightly so, let’s be honest!).

So this family meal – according to the mother it was “basic” she even apologized… oh my word!

We had tomato and caper pasta, sautéed greens, a homemade balsamic dressed salad, a full meat and cheese board, these awesome fried bread dumplings, fresh bread (yep – Dr. Atkins just had a heart attack) then fresh strawberries, grown by a farm they help fund, and, of course, wine. It was divine!

One of the most amazing things I’ve found about Italy is the sheer variety of pasta they have here and how each pasta is matched to a certain sauce. If you eat the wrong pasta with the wrong sauce, you may as well go and hand yourself in to the Polizia right now.

The pasta type tends to be particular to a region. Here the local dish is Tortellini con Brodo – small meat filled pasta in broth. In fairness, the word “broth” does it a disservice; it’s more like a consommé. Sprinkle it with Parmesan and get a good chunk of bread and it’s perfection.

Last but not least, a note on the coffee. The Italians LOVE their coffee and you can walk for as long as you like but you will not find a single Starbucks, Costa or Nero.

Side note: When in the UK, Italians choose Nero

A coffee if always an espresso, if you ask for a latte you just get a glass of milk (it’s caffe latte) and if you order any kind of milky version (macchiato is the exception) after 11am, you may as well walk around with a massive neon sign screaming “uncultured tourist”.

Coffee is an art here. I cant express how truly Italian I feel every time I go for a coffee, stand at the bar and state in perfectly practiced Italian “Un caffe per favore”.  You get a little glass of water (it’s not a shot of Sambuca as one of my friends once asked of a photo I posted) and you sip it, chuck your euro down and flounce out.

I say flounce because that’s what you feel like doing as an English person when you have just performed an Italian ritual.

If you so desire, you can also order a cake or biscuit to go with your (bluddy strong) coffee and, honestly, every single coffee shop, even a little grubby one in a backstreet, has better cakes, croissants (or the Bolognese called them cornetto), pastries and biscuits than Mr. Morrison and his bakery in the UK could ever hope of producing, I don’t know how they do it!

So there you have it, a little note on the food. It is incomparable to anything in the UK and I will openly admit that I am now a massive food and coffee snob – get that granulated s**t away from me, you insult me with your Nescafé and Greggs doughnut!

I must add, however, that I haven’t lost my roots.

During a walking tour with the school yesterday, one of the gentlemen told me that, if I was ever homesick, there is a great little hotel that serves real English Breakfast Tea with English biscuits for the bargain price of 5 euro. 

Needless to say I will be paying that place a visit very soon, probably after I’ve finished this "cornetto" the sizee of my own head!

x

It's Harder Than It Looks...

Today marks two weeks since I landed in Bologna – and it feels like I’ve been here forever.

I’ve now started school (more on that in a minute), got into a little routine and I’m walking the streets like a native.

My better half came to visit last weekend, for five days, and while it was so lovely to have him here, for him it was a holiday. I loved showing him the city and he fell in love with it too, but when he left – the reality set in.

When I flew out I knew he was coming to visit. I’d only have a week to myself; to settle in, move into the place I was staying long term and start school, but then familiarity would resume when he was here to give me cuddles and hold my hand over a table in a café.

Now he’s gone, and its dawned on me that I’m here now for another 7(ish) weeks… on my own.

So, starting school – my first week was brilliant, I felt like I was learning really quickly (I was in a class on my own), I learnt verbs, I could say sentences, I (finally) learnt all the numbers and days of the week – it was going swimmingly, I’ll be fluent in no time at all.

Of course, as soon as I was put in an Italian social situation – I was f**ked.

It’s one thing saying “so-no … Emily… Ho (pronounced oh) vente….quattro… anno… uugghhh I mean anni!”, and quite another when you are faced with a someone over a coffee and they are speaking a million miles an hour with words you swear to god you’ve never heard of.

Anyone who knows me knows that I can get “quite” stressed and those social situations definitely didn’t help that. My neck gets hot, all the way up to my ears, I choke up and I literally just end up going “sorry… inglese…” and running away.

In class I feel intelligent - out of class I’m still a bumbling English tourist.

The worst moment of my trip so far came on Monday. I got moved up a class (see I told you I was doing well). I sat down with two new students, one from France and another from Spain – they both said they knew very little Italian. “Good!” I thought, we’re all on the same page.

Nope!

The class started and that was it. The tutor spoke too fast, all in Italian, the other two girls understood and replied; when I tried it was just single words interspersed with English.

He started talking about reflexive verbs and as soon as a worksheet got put in front of me I was already halfway to hyperventilation central.

The words were swimming on the page; I couldn’t make sense of it. I thought if I just kept quiet and kept my head down the class would be over soon, but no. The tutor did his job and said “you understand?” – I lost it. I couldn’t breathe. I excused myself a little too late, tears were already in my eyes and I got to the bathroom just as my first panic attack in over 6 months kicked in.

If you’ve ever had a panic attack you know that it’s a death knoll for the rest of your day. You can’t see, you can’t catch your breath, it’s like your drowning on air. You spend the rest of your day either crying, or close to tears, utterly knackered with eyes pinker than an albino bunny rabbit.

I tried to stay in the bathroom for as long as possible, and then there was a knock. I crept out, crippled by embarrassment (what must these people think of me – poor little girl, what a child!).

In reality, the owner of the school was amazing. He empathized. He had felt the same learning English almost 30 years ago, he knows how hard it is, especially when you have quit your job, put all your savings up and risked losing friends and the life you knew to move abroad and live your dream (which then turns out to be less rose tinted than planned).

He offered one-to-one lessons a few times a week just to build my confidence back up and embed what I’ve learnt, then said a new beginner class would be starting next week so I could join that.

Three weeks at beginner level – I thought I’d be fluent in 5! In the words of Pretty Woman… “Big Mistake…Huge” (and I couldn’t even go shopping on this budget)!

I felt stupid. Why can’t I learn this!? I consider myself intelligent, and yet this is like I’m 6 years old again learning my 7-times table (I struggled with 7’s).

I left school early that day (when I tried to go back into the class I had another panic attack, this time I had to be taken out doors. I went back to the flat in tears – how could I show my face in that place again. I’d been inconsolable and made an utter prat of myself!

Luckily, my other half was still here and he helped pick up the pieces of this broken little girl who had come back to him after a mere two hours apart.

Yesterday I walked back into that building and I had my first 1-2-1. I was terrified (and mortified). But it was okay. The confidence came back slightly; I’m trying to learn. I even bought a newspaper to translate, but it’s harder than it looks.

It’s not all pasta, pizza, red wine and sunshine you know (although there is a lot of that!).