My First Italian Kiss

True, this post’s title might not evoke the same lurid connotations as “My First French Kiss”, but what if I told you said Italian smooch occurred on the streets of Volterra with three raunchy, strangely-dressed men in full view of my children and wife? Does that help? Although I have no physical documentation of the act itself I promise to provide photos of the perpetrators of this surprising display of affection in just a moment.
            But first, let’s untangle this mystery a bit. One: I was kissed by strangers. Although rarely likened to a troll or circus freak show star, I don’t exactly go easily mistaken for Mel Gibson or the ilk either. Rule out blind lust. Two: There were three of them. Okay, maybe you could understand just one loony, but two, three? Three: They were men. Actually, given the brazen and public act, maybe this makes it easier to understand. By now you’ve probably solved the mystery. They were drunk! While that line of reasoning has a lot going for it, I’m afraid that you’re going to have to dig deeper. 
            Look for clues. What has been left out of the story? Are you attempting a culturally-based solution, something to do with Italians being more demonstrative with their affection, less prudish about public displays of it, or perhaps, seeing my home is in the United States, guessing a different gender-based expectation regarding affection amongst the majority than that generally understood in Minnesota or New Hampshire is at work? You’re getting closer, kind of. Let me help you with some more specific vocabulary. Swap “strangely-dressed” for “anachronistically-dressed”. Make sense? Congratulations! You’ve got it now, I’m sure!

            Indeed, we’d headed down for a couple of days to Volterra 1398 AD, the hilltop, walled town’s annual Medieval Festival. Not that just any three guys in 1398 would come over and kiss me either, but suffice it to say they had just pulled up some lady’s skirt for a look and mooed as others walked past, too. It was all part of the act (and no, they weren't that type of kisses!). If you haven't already scrolled ahead you've waited long enough. Here they are, the fine jesters themselves!

      
             On our ten minute walk to and from the Monastery where we were staying up into the festivities within old Volterra we would pass by a little museum with a big name splayed across the top of the entrance and a chair with nails sticking out of it: Il Museo della Tortura. With a long-time knee injury aggravated and sending random, electric-shock like bursts of pain into my right patellar tendon throughout the weekend, I felt no need to check it out any further. I could already relate just fine. But you know what? I didn't feel it once during the jesters' clowning and baci. So, from one publicly reserved Minnesotan/New Hampshirite to three outgoing Medieval Italian jesters, I thank you for my first Italian kiss!

Playing Outside the Walls

          The driver of the oncoming car gestured in irritation out his window, slowing almost to a stop as he neared us. Later we thought perhaps he had said, “E, ma cosa vedono qui?!” (“Hey, what do you see here!?”), but then our reply to the rush of strange sounds we heard so quickly leaving his mouth, Cosa? (“What?”) was met by our interlocutor with a sound of exasperation, a change in gesture, and a refusal to continue this exchange with us, the apparently inept American tourists. Just before the first car sped away the driver of the next, to avoid crashing into the first, (or maybe just desiring his turn) slowed down and glared at us out his open window with reprobation and incredulity, and, without uttering a word, raised both hands—temporarily not concerned that this was a narrow and steep mountain road in the woods with a turn just ahead—in a gesture that seemed to say, “What the hell are you doing, you idiots? I’ve got places to be! It’s Sunday afternoon!”

            We’d decided to go outside the walls this weekend (although we do live outside the walls we often head inside them, to the heart of Lucca, for weekend shopping, meandering, entertainment), way outside the walls, all the way to the Orecchiella Natural Park in the mountains near the border of Tuscany and Emilia-Romagna. Our Sunday started with a breathtaking train ride up the Serchio Valley to Castelnuovo di Garfagnana and then close to an hour’s bus ride to the park up and up and up, past villages, bell towers, a fortress, the even higher Alpi Apuani mountains to the west, switchbacks, with honking aplenty before every one of our numerous turns, bumper to bumper encounters with oncoming vehicles where we barely squeezed past or made the other car back up until he found the last corner—generally slightly wider than the rest of the path—to allow us to pass, on past terraced agriculture, fields, then woods, and finally squeezing up into a tiny parking lot and stepping out into the Orecchiella’s’s cool, mountain air. As one always prone to car-sickness, I’m not sure if it was breathing in that delicious oxygen or just being off the bus, but I felt my body relax immediately.

            Nikolai and Ingrid glowed with excitement as they ran around the hillside, discovering the pond, the deer and rams, the rock face of the mountains just beyond us peaking out behind the clouds. Later we ventured further afield, walking through woods and meadows with gorgeous views into the distance, an alpine garden with thousands of flowers in bloom, and then on trails that led even more off the beaten track. I felt myself relax again, even more deeply, as we were now away from most of the park visitors as well. Ah, solitude! We ventured downhill on a trail through some brush, Ingrid forging ahead with Niko close behind. So nice to not have to watch out for traffic!

            Our legs, hunger, and a four year old’s patience didn’t keep up with our enthusiasm, however, and when we found ourselves at a junction with a road: Botanical Gardens over a kilometer to the left and, possibly, a way back to the park to the right, we had to make a choice. We had a map and thought heading to the right would be quicker than retracing our steps back up the trail we’d come down. It turned out to be quite a bit longer. Tired and bellies in need of appeasement, we soon stopped for a drink from our water bottle and another doling out of hunks of the loaf of bread we’d bought at the park entrance. Would my bad knee give out before we made it back? Was this in fact the right way? We opted to stick with our decision to head up the road and I decided to get a picture of it to mark our adventure within an adventure. A picture of the road and the car coming down it would also provide a scale of comparison (as in, look at this narrow road our bus had to go up!).

            We don’t know exactly what the driver’s words actually were. “What the *!$%#@ are you doing here?”, “Why the *$!@# are you taking a picture on this road when there is nothing to see?”, “This is a crazy place for the four of you to be eating bread!” are all very probable translations. Whatever it was, he probably did have something on us (hey, it wasn’t our first choice to be snacking on a strip of long, narrow and hilly pavement far from the park we’d strayed from!) Nevertheless, it felt like another reminder that there were some basic agreements of Italian civilization that we were obviously not abiding by, some cultural givens so basic that we must be either incompetent, foreigners, or both, that we must be in the wrong place, and, most definitely, were fuori le mura.

            “Outside the walls” was a blog title easily born due to truths of geography—the walls being crucial to Lucca’s layout and identity and our location outside of them being, in fact, where we now live—but also because of the obvious metaphorical corollary. Although we’d love to have some integration with the culture and people and the life they live here, we do realize we’ll always be outsiders. And part of that is definitely chosen. Fashion’s enclave within Italian culture, for example, will be an area we probably won’t throw ourselves into hoping to achieve complete native-like appearance. It’s hard to imagine Lauren donning her finest dress, five, six, or seven inch heels and putting on an hour’s worth of make-up to venture to the supermarket on her bicycle. And as for me? I pledge to stay away from the bright purple pants and yellow shirt combinations.

            There are other ways in which we might really want to blend in with the culture and people and become insiders that we know will ultimately remain elusive, successful communication coming to mind at the top of the list. Still, despite realizing that we won’t ever be mistaken for a native, that isn’t going to stop us from asking our Italian teachers for some colorful, authentic words and gestures to have at the ready for the next time arms and words are angrily flailed at us. It’s not that we want to retaliate. It’s not passive aggression necessarily or looking to start a fight. It’s deciding to play the game. Just because we’ll never actually make it “inside the walls” doesn’t mean that we won’t try. Therein lies all of the fun.

Il Bel Paese

So a sabbatical in Italy it would be (see Intro: World Map, Blindfold and Dart?). From everything we heard kids are adored in il bel paese and with two of our own this element weighed heavily in our decision. The remaining clinching factors might seem easy to add up: good food, good weather, a slowed down life, beautiful scenery, rich history and art, a musical language not impossible to learn. Who could go wrong, right?

            We had read enough on-line from expatriates from the U.S. and Britain living in Italy debunking the typical Pollyanna-like reverie of how life was lived there--said dream-like images often induced by short-term travelers to the country or readers of books describing an artist’s year in Tuscany painting, writing, or restoring that old stone farmhouse--to know that day to day life (and life with a spouse and two young children, no less) would be different from a purely traveler’s experience or an artist’s experience alone and with loads of free time, that the daily grind did exist in Italy, often fraught with noise, endless bureaucracy, high gas prices, expensive everything, difficulty finding a job, long hours at work and a plethora of other inconveniences.

            But when push came to shove we took the naysayers’ advice with a grain of salt. It wasn’t just because their advice was aimed more at those looking to move permanently to Italy and work there, but also because we had never read those popular books prominently featuring Tuscany, didn’t feel like we really shared that dream, and in fact did not want to move to Tuscany or the countryside, per se, since we get plenty of rural life already in our small New Hampshire town. We wanted to experience something a little less rural. Plus, we were on a paid sabbatical and, luckily, so luckily (yes, we are extremely grateful for this opportunity!) would not have to work for the year. And there had to be some truth to the positive associations with il bel paese, right?

            Umbria was our first choice and no, heavy research did not play a role in putting it first on our list. It was for chocolate. In addition to Perugia playing host to an annual chocolate festival attracting visitors from around the globe, Umbria’s capital city also is the permanent home to a well-respected chocolate factory! While that was enough reason for some of us, others wanted more, and there was more: “the green heart of Italy”, fairy-tale like hill towns, music festivals, a region perhaps slightly less visited than Tuscany. But Perugia ended up seeming too big for us, and while Assisi, another Umbrian gem, attracted our attention for a while it, too, failed to make the cut. Although it was smaller and seemed beautiful and peaceful in its quiet hours, Assisi was hilly, too and just seemed too over-run with tourists. Le Marche? Urbino or perhaps Ascoli Piceno? Reading others’ accounts of their time there made this less touristy region with its own breathtaking landscapes very appealing, but from afar we couldn’t get a good enough sense (mostly because of fewer Internet resources) of schooling opportunities or decide on which one town would work the best. So, despite originally thinking we wouldn’t do it--too touristy, too expensive (all of this sight-unseen of course)--we decided on Tuscany.

            Lucca, in the northern section of this region, soon made the final cut. Including around 90,000 inhabitants in all with 8,000 in the historic center, thirty-foot high Renaissance era walls encircling the old town complete with walking and cycling path on top of its four kilometer circumference, limited traffic zones within the walls, flat terrain (my bad knee is forever grateful, just remind me not to climb more than one of Lucca’s many towers in one day), bikes everywhere, plenty happening culturally, several schooling options, proximity to mountains and sea, we finally said Lucca, sì! We had found our home for the next year. Buongiorno Lucca, la Toscana, ed Italia! 

(Many thanks to all of you who have helped us with planning this year in one way or another, from suggestions of places to live to advice about applying for the Elective Residence Visa!)