28 June 2012

Arrivederci Lucca!



Niko enjoying one last ride 

The last days went quickly, a swiftly revolving door of packing, transportation arrangements, farewells, final trips into town and on the walls, cleaning the house, and in preparing to leave our home away from home the poignant moments outnumbered the mundane, pangs of what we knew we’d miss grew stronger, and we felt like we were finally beginning to feel our roots anchoring slightly, our connections with the people and places in Lucca deepening.


Racing down Viale Europa towards the walls. Monte Pisano in background.

The easy to get to activities never abated, either. Niko and I went out one morning and walked to the roundabout not far from our house where we could look up at a bridge where traffic usually flows down heavily in the morning. This was a Sunday, though, and a bike race was in store. The pack of five hundred cyclists glided faster and faster toward us and we almost got clipped by a couple of them who had been forced up on the sidewalk portion of the roundabout. We jumped to the grass and enjoyed the phalanx of streaming color, the gust of air, the whir of wheels without motors. 


Three of more than thirty Fiat 500s

Afterward we walked in to town through Porta Sant’Anna and saw a few dozen Fiat Cinquecento owners with their pride and joy lining up for a yearly rally around the walls.

This 'taxi' is so small Niko could almost drive it
          
              A couple of nights later we rode our bikes to Leo’s, a pizzeria in San Concordio where we’d eaten once before. While enjoying our meter long pizza and watching Italy versus Ireland in the Euro Cup a group took a table across the aisle from ours. I tried not to pay too much attention to them and, indeed, the rest of my family didn’t know who it was I was trying not to pay attention to. We concluded our meal and stood up. I had a very cool situation before me to practice some Italian and meet an icon. When would I ever have a chance like this again? I went up and excused myself for interrupting and introduced myself and family to…  Mario Cipollini! We talked for much longer than I thought we would considering he was eating dinner with a friend and his two daughters and is one of the most famous Italian cyclists ever. He was very nice and seemed interested in us, unlike the impression you might get from the press and reputation he had. Toward the end of our conversation he even said, “Too bad you’re leaving now, I would’ve asked you to help my daughters with their English.”

Saying Goodbye to Friends

We began to see people we knew more often as we went about town and both expressed amazement after going to pick up Ingrid from a friend’s house when the mom had us in and we sat down and talked with her for an hour and understood most of what she said!

Four models of English  for the Italian children: Australian, British, American and Canadian!

Some expat friends of Lauren with whom she created an English reading series for Italian children at the library joined us for a solstice/going away party at Marina di Vecchiano, a beach south of Viareggio, two nights before our flight. Most of the day’s beachgoers were headed home by the time we got there close to six. The weather was still warm but had begun to cool off, the water was wonderful and Niko gathered his courage to have me hold him as the waves crashed against us and he squealed in delight. Ingrid played with a friend and we relaxed with a tasty picnic dinner, fire, and conversation with friends as the sun set. After I dropped the family off at home around ten I made it for coffee with my photography class at the end of the final dinner at a restaurant out of town and said some more goodbyes.

Porta Santa Maria- One of many entrances to get Dentro le Mura in Lucca
I set about on a little project of filming passage through the walls and into town by way of all Doorsand passageways, hoping to eventually edit them down and piece them together to show others a bit of the everyday magic of the town’s set-up. Actually, it really was probably more of an excuse to help me say goodbye to Lucca. It did occur to me more than once that we wouldn’t have gone in and out of these amazing entrances nearly as much if we had lived in the historical center, an advantage to living Fuori le Mura we hadn’t thought of one year ago.

Ingrid officially passes Italian 4th grade and is admitted to 5th!

         It was around then, eleven or so months ago, that I started the blog and wrote how we hoped to find adventure and that “… we wanted a challenge, but we didn’t want it to be too exhausting. We wanted our kids to be appreciated and to have a reasonable chance of making friends in our new location, but we wanted them to learn about another perspective on life and on the world via a different language and culture, ones that would be within their grasp and ours.” Now, almost a year later, we look back and see we had adventure and challenge aplenty. Nikolai and Ingrid were appreciated for sure, made friends, and ended up speaking Italian much better than us.

End of year performance at Nikolai's Pre-school followed by 'Graduation' & Diploma.

         We’ve been in and out of the revolving door a bunch the last couple of weeks and are now back outside it for good, on the other side, and are still a bit dizzy from the spinning. We’re back home. Lucca and our year there seem suddenly so far away and I’m already getting used to English surrounding us, becoming reacquainted with our house and woods again, gearing up to move back into what was our more familiar life before we left—or will that familiar life be a different one now, even though we’re back home? In some ways, it must be. I can’t find the words or structure to sum up our year much better other than to say that knowing what we know now we would still have made the choices we made despite some rough patches along the way. This year has been a good teacher.

Just before heading off to the airport.
         
       I’d like to thank my employer for making this opportunity possible and to thank our family and friends for their support (we’ll try not to constantly talk about our time in Italy, promise, but if we forget, just remind us!). And thanks to you for reading, for sharing in this year of adventure with us. It’s been fun writing my first blog; I encourage you to try one if you haven’t. With that said, our year in Italy is now over, and so too this blog. Arrivederci a tutti! Arrivederci Lucca!


20 June 2012

A Leaning Tower, a Lunch Lost: An evening in Pisa




We have four days left in Tuscany. Time to be tourists! As our flights draw near and the weather gets hotter I find myself feeling less of a need to always speak Italian within our family while in public or always wear pants and nice looking shoes. The shorts have returned, as have the flip-flops. We’ve even been visiting stores on the main drag and buying some of the typical tourist gifts for family back home.

        
      Last night we’d planned on going to see the Torre Pendente in Pisa. It seemed to make sense, being one of the most iconic structures in the country and sprouting out of the ground only a short train ride away. There was nothing to stop us. We’d spent some time earlier in the day riding around town, saying goodbye to a friend and packing. After our friend left Niko’s energy finally ran out. Within twenty minutes he was asleep on the couch. This is not normal for the little guy; he gave up naps months ago, so we thought we should hold off on waking him. The train we’d hoped to take was to leave in twenty minutes so I finally decided to rouse our slumbering five year old, but he resisted all attempts. We could wait another half hour, but that would be the latest train we could take, so we sat tight and he indeed was chipper and ready to go see the tower when we woke him. 


I’m sure you see where this is going, so I’ll cut to the chase. He felt worse and worse as we got to the station, I carried him all the way to the tower, he complained more, then finally, to everyone’s great relief, he lost his lunch while Lauren held him and tried to get him to a trash can and I stared down onlookers in the sea of tourists who were looking in disgust at the proceedings. That was that, though, and the little guy soon recovered, running around. It wasn't looking at the Leaning Tower and getting vertigo from the tilt that caused Niko's stomach to squeeze, but whatever bug it was seemed to have had the worst with him and set him free. He asked about the pictures we'd planned to take.


         That was the big deal, after all, this most touristy of things to do, and I was excited to get some shots of us contributing to the Tower’s demise or bravely holding it up if for only a few more seconds.
 

         So we posed and re-posed, realized that it was a bit harder than it seemed to get everything in alignment, but got our photos and marveled at the beautiful grass fields and the baptistery, cathedral, and tower (it was most entertaining seeing so many people from all over the world posing in various postures with the Tower as prop, too!).


         We rode our bikes back from the train station in good spirits and got back home before eleven and all found it hard to sleep until midnight, abuzz with all of the day’s new sights and experiences. 


In three days we’ll be headed down to Rome for our flight, which takes us to Zurich then Boston. What more sabbatical adventures will there be in seventy-two hours? Perhaps I shall recount some in my last post,  which should appear before month’s end. 


13 June 2012

Italy: What I'll Miss...and Won't



As our departure draws near I’ve been imagining what I might miss about Italy once we’re back in New Hampshire. I want to be realistic, though, and also include what I probably won’t miss so much. Maybe I’ll think of very important other parts to add later, but it’s a start and it helps me as we prepare for our voyage back to our permanent home. What would you miss about the place you live now if you moved away? What wouldn’t you miss?
         I’ll miss waiting outside of Ingrid’s school at dismissal with other parents and grandparents while each class comes out and the teacher bends down to peer out into the crowd with each student until the parent is pointed out and eye contact is made, the child bounds down the steps for an embrace before handing off the backpack and asking if she can run a lap around the school with her friends before heading home. I won’t miss a school day that ends at 12:45. I’ll miss the strident church bells that ring for fifteen minutes a few times on Sunday mornings (I don’t sleep late enough for them to wake me otherwise this one might’ve gone to the other side). I won’t miss construction vehicles backing up (beep, beep, beep), the crane lifting loads, workers yelling at the site on the other side of our neighbor’s yard for the past five months. I’ll miss the warm aroma of fresh bread and pastries emanating from bakeries. I won’t miss the stench emitted by Vespas and various diesel vehicles that are everywhere. I’ll miss being able to walk five minutes to pick up some bread. I won’t miss the traffic and pollution. I’ll miss gelato, tasting it, of course, but also seeing it heaped up so beautifully at the gelatería. I won’t miss the milk from the grocery store that you can keep on a shelf for months before drinking. I’ll miss the pizza, thin, delicious, satisfying; I’ll miss the carrots and many other vegetables from the supermarket that are never waxed and almost always taste fresh; I’ll miss the pasta, the fresh home-made pasta but also the dry pasta bought in stores which is somehow better than what we buy back home and I’ll miss the locally grown and pressed fresh olive oil, of which we have consumed gallons. I’ll miss the barley and bean soup Eva helped us make. I won’t miss the relative uniformity of cuisine here (okay, I admit we’re pretty spoiled in the US with such a great variety). I’ll miss the fruit and vegetable markets. I’ll miss the walls which encircle the town center and are topped with a pedestrian road and lined by trees, sitting up there and watching everyone go by, jogging a loop around it, traveling by bike on it, walking up there on a Sunday afternoon with all of the families doing a post lunch passegiata. I won’t miss the enormous tour groups who walk in a large pack of forty or fifty up there or in town. I’ll miss the pleasantly warm and sunny weather of September and June. I won’t miss the long, gray winter with no snow, high humidity, temperatures in the 30s and 40s, and a cold house. I’ll miss using a bike as primary means of transportation, and being able to easily do so (flat terrain, everything located within two or three kilometers); I’ll miss seeing so many other people from all walks of life doing the same. I’ll miss being able to see world-class bike racing in person and to see live coverage of entire races on television. I won’t miss mismatched sound and lips on Italian TV, whether dubbed from another language or in Italian in the first place. I’ll miss the rattling of my bike as I ride over cobblestones in town and the occasional ding of bicycle bells from those hoping to prevent a collision. I’ll miss the 80 mph speed limits on the highway and the aggressive confidence I’ve learned to drive with to avoid getting plowed into. I won’t miss seeing ninety percent of the car colors only in black, gray, or white. I’ll miss riding back from photography class close to midnight in February or March, very cold but with no cars out, hardly any people, and lots of quiet. I won’t miss all of the lice problems in the schools this year and having the little buggers brought home to us and set up camp for three weeks. I’ll miss seeing the packs of cyclists out training, and the packs of cyclists out just as much to exercise their mouths as their legs. I’ll miss the narrow roads, the incredible climbs and switchbacks through olive groves and woods, the routes with fast down hills where the curves are plentiful but not always so acute that you need to slow down much for them, the anticipation of what will be around the next corner. I won’t miss all of the cigarette smoke or seeing middle school kids waiting for a train on a field trip smoking while their teachers stand right there with them. I won’t miss the bad dollar to euro exchange rate, $7.50/gallon gasoline and the high price of almost everything else. I’ll miss the Parole d’Oro a few kilometers to the south where we’ve gone for picnics where the kids have played hide and seek in the empty canals that lead down to the aqueduct. I won’t miss the much smaller body space bubble here, all of the crowding, cramped spaces and jostling in groups and frequent absence of lines. I will miss the trains and the train system. I won’t miss the strikes and the often seemingly endless waits at the train crossings. I’ll miss discovering, time after time, almost wherever we travel, towers poking out of a forest, a many centuries old church down a non-descript road, walled towns atop hills, cobblestones, laundry hanging out windows, forts and cathedrals. I’ll miss specialty food shops of all kinds and personal service, asking the local butcher if he can get a full turkey for us by Thanksgiving and waiting for two minutes while he calls someone and tells me he should be able to do it and to stop back in a few days. I won’t miss shopping at Esselunga, our primary grocery store (well, okay, maybe a bit). I’ll miss all of the events that take place in and near Lucca and how easy it is to get to them—Lucca Comics&Games, Settembre Lucchese, Desco at the Real Collegio, Italian 10k Road Race Championships, European U23 Cyclocross Championships, Procession of Santa Croce, Free Concerts, Lucca Summer Festival (music), and on and on. I will miss Italian. I’ll miss hearing preschool children speaking it, complaining about not wanting to go home from the playground or describing the best way to roll a toy car down the slide; I’ll miss hearing grade-school kids speaking it, asking their friends if they want to sleep over, describing how a game they’ve made up works; I’ll miss hearing teens speaking it, flirting in Piazza Grande, joking; I’ll miss hearing adults speaking it, arguing about politics, giving their opinion about how someone was dressed, describing which are their best vegetables that day, calling their dog over, giving directions, conversing with friends; I’ll miss older folks speaking it, chiding one another for a naïve move while playing dominoes at a bench table on the walls, complimenting a passing younger woman on her appearance, encouraging a grandchild learning to ride a bike. I’ll miss the challenge of speaking Italian. I’ll miss the sense of satisfaction when I can express myself a little more clearly than a couple of months earlier, when a store owner doesn’t screw up his face or try using rudimentary English in response to me. I won’t miss not being able to instantly and effortlessly communicate any idea. I won’t miss the lag time where I am understanding what a group I’m with is saying and then, in the time I prepare to say something, have the group’s conversation already moved on to something else (hey, to be honest it happens to me in English, too!). I won’t miss having a person I haven’t met before smile, amused, after I open my mouth and say a few words, realizing I’m not Italian (okay at first but after a year it gets kind of old). I will miss the more fluid sense of time, of meeting times and of saying goodbyes that go on and on. I will also not miss that. I will miss all of the people I’ve met, especially those from Lucca Italian School, my photography class, and the Shambala group I practiced with. I will miss writing a blog about a New Hampshire family’s year in Italy. 


07 June 2012

Lucca Italian School




After a week or so of unpacking, sweating in the sweltering July heat and nightly upper 90% humidity, rushing from long line to long line in post office, police station, and tobacco shop for a wide array of forms, stamps, and permissions in an attempt to make our beyond ninety day stay legal (we had a week to do it), trying hard to form intelligible questions for and understand answers from the officials we encountered along the way, wondering why everyone seemed to be staring at us, confused as to why we kept blowing a fuse in the house, not sure why we didn’t see more kids around playing, hoping to get beyond ‘cave man’ language, we realized it was time to look for help. We found Lucca Italian School (LIS), located outside the walls and just a five minute bike ride away.
   
The best way to cut Italian pizzas. One of many skills learned at LIS!

    All four of us sat at a table in one of their bright, cheery classrooms with Angelo and Eva, two of the three (the other being Daniela) founders of the school. They sympathetically (it was obvious we weren’t the first confused beginners they’d dealt with) explained what they offered, making full use of gestures and drawing when needed (and yes, they also speak English but only use it when absolutely, absolutely necessary). We decided Lauren would begin the next week.

Eva demonstrating beautiful dough-rolling form
    Eva made Lauren feel immediately welcome with abundant smiles, laughter, and warm-hearted teasing. After each daily four hour session Lauren would come home energized, motivated to study, and full of stories about her day. While I could appreciate this a bit second-hand, I really began to approve of her lessons after she came home from an evening cooking class with Eva and the next day proceeded to make a most delicious dinner of home-made ravioli stuffed with ricotta and spinach, lemon chicken in such a savory and sweet, succulent sauce that I was tempted to simply drink it, and a cool and refreshing panna cotta.

Federica
    Ingrid would be starting fourth grade at the local elementary school before too long and, well, there was this little problem. She didn’t speak Italian. Enter LIS. Federica, a recent college graduate, came to our house a couple of times a week for a month or two and began to give Ingrid a base so that at least she felt she knew some Italian. Perhaps even more important, however, was that Ingrid had met someone who was patient, liked to have fun during her lessons, and helped to boost her confidence so that, when she did begin school, although a very, very nerve-racking day, it was not one of sheer terror!

    Lauren and I rotated weeks so that one could do classes while the other watched the kids. In all each of us ended up doing five to six weeks at LIS  between July and early October (I’ve also done a one hour private conversation class every week or two since December). My fellow students ranged in age from fourteen on up into their seventies and came primarily from all over Europe, the United States, and Japan. Class size was always small, between four and eight typically, allowing for plenty of individual attention and a good sense of camaraderie amongst the group and teacher.

Marina
    Marina taught me first. I soon seemed to detect a slightly different rhythm to her speech and indeed quickly found out that she was a proud Napolitana! How exciting! We didn’t end up making it to Southern Italy, but Marina brought a piece of it to us. Her smile was contagious and her patience and understanding of our trouble with the language genuine and never-ending (and she cooks a mean pasta casserole). Grazie di tutto Marina! Sei bravissima!

Eva
         
   Besides a few conversation classes, I mostly encountered Eva in the kitchen. She is the master chef and meal planner extraordinaire of the school. Eva knows how to get it done and make it taste good. Although it takes three times as long, she even lets her students attempt to do the cooking themselves. Don’t worry, Eva won’t let you do it the wrong way. I remember my first encounter with the mezzaluna, for example. After her demonstration of its proper usage I gave it a try but Eva appeared promptly at my side and re-taught me the tried and true technique for success chopping herbs. Eva is quite the jokester, so watch out when she makes an outrageous request or comment, she may just be kidding around… or not! Eva, sentiremo la tua mancanza!

Laura
    Laura, who hails from just outside Lucca,  brought loads of energy and a fun-loving spirit to the classroom and often used interesting listening selections and movie clips brought in on her laptop. One great activity I remember was watching a staged conversation between two Italians who used only hand gestures. That in itself was entertaining, but in pairs we subsequently had to try to write out their conversation! Yes, it was difficult, but quite fun imagining what they were saying while also giving us some clues into Italian body language and expression. Laura was also a reliable source to provide current slang and certain other expressions you might want to know (just to be able to hear clearly and understand if used by others around you, of course!). Laura, sempre ci fai bella figura! Spero che tu possa andare spesso in Germania. Stammi bene!

Antonella
    After awhile I moved to Antonella’s class. Antonella has taught for many years and is a master of the language, including all of the particularities of typically Luccan speech. She also helped me figure out appropriate phrases to use in stores, not always as easy as it might first seem. It’s a good thing, too, for much of what I had been imitating and using myself turned out to be a bit on the rude side! Antonella clearly loves what she does and takes a genuine interest in her students and in making sure they’re learning as much as they can. We had so many good discussions in her classes, ranging from the more serious Amanda Knox case to one student's assertion that all Italian opera stars were ugly and the ensuing debate he had with Antonella. I stayed out of that one but enjoyed the show! Antonella is one classy lady and a fine teacher. Ti ringrazio tanto, Antonella!

Susanna
    Susanna came on board permanently after I stopped taking classes but I have come to know her a bit. I discovered her home town on a bike ride where I took a train north and then biked back through the hills. She sure has one heck of a commute, and her hometown of forty people is out-numbered many-fold by its animal residents--quite a different world from Lucca--so you know she is another highly dedicated member of the team! Sweet and laid-back, Susanna surely makes a great impact with her students. Susanna, grazie per venire a la festa e ti scriverò magari in quanto riguarda il coniglietto che regaliamo a Ingrid (tipo ‘Aiutaci!’), va bene?

Angelo
    Angelo is a most unassuming co-director of the school and chief of financial services, but don’t let his modest attitude fool you. Not only is Angelo a whiz on all questions cultural, historical, economic, linguistic—and who knows what else (he rarely lets on but speaks excellent English and German, among others, and mostly self-taught), he also plays one heck of an accordion and belts out the Italian folk songs so well that you, too, will find yourself doing your best to keep pace singing along and forget that you ‘don’t know that much Italian yet.’ In all senses of the phrase, Angelo rocks! Magari verrai alla zona italiana ‘North End’ a Boston per suonare un giorno? Grazie mille, Angelo!

Daniela
         
 Daniela, co-director herself, is the goddess mechanic, able to put all of the pieces of the Fiat together into an appealing and smoothly running whole while deftly taking care of any routine maintenance or hiccups in the motor along the way and keeping the paint waxed and shiny without the passengers ever realizing what went on behind the scenes to make their ride possible in the first place and continue to be so amazing day after day. Besides that, she’s a great teacher. Over the course of many one hour conversation classes, Daniela proved at the ready to talk about anything and to help clear up specific events I’d heard of in the news. She didn’t bat an eyelash when I would suddenly ask her a grammar, pronunciation, or vocabulary question in the middle of a conversation; she always had clear examples to help me emerge from my gobbledygook. Daniela also informed me of events, places or local characters that she knew I’d be interested in, leading to several great adventures, including our family’s favorite place to spend time together, Le Parole d’Oro. Her sense of humor and ability to put anyone at ease also help to make her an excellent personal guide to the language and culture of Italy and a great person to chat with. Daniela, complimenti di tutto, in bocca al lupo, e grazie per aver condiviso la tua conoscenza e il tuo tempo. E stato un anno indimenticabile!

Caroline and Niko know what a party's for!

    Lucca Italian School helped us in many ways, from the outings they led, pizza-making parties, singing with Angelo, advice on doctors in the area, to of course getting us up to speed so we could communicate better in Italian. Most importantly, though, they helped us to feel a part of a community, something that isn’t always so easy to find for foreigners in a foreign land. Teniamoci in contatto amici!

La festa era divertente. Arrivederci!