Day 47: Go east, young woman

    This afternoon, my hosts in Trieste drove me to the train station on the Slovenian side of the border. In the car, it dawned on me for the first time that I was far, far from home. Home has nothing to do with me now. Home is a concept whose meaning is gradually loosing footage in my mind. Right now I am on the train to Ljubljana, and within miles I'm the only thing I know anything about. The language is different. The trees are different. The fences are different. Yesterday I met a couple of Germans who were hitchhiking to South Africa. They had also hitchhiked in Mongolia, Iceland, Romania, Scandinavia, and Africa. They made me wonder whether having a "home" becomes more or less important the further you go.

    By the time I left Trieste I was finally beginning to feel at home in Italy. It is not the magnificent country that you learn about in school. Its glory is in its past. As a result, the people are afraid to move forward. Italians talk endlessly about how their country is too closed, how the people are too near-sighted, how the culture is too limited. But there is a reluctance to change. Italians are complicated, beautiful, and sad. I would go back without hesitation.

    Trieste was a lovely city. It has the atmosphere of in-betweenness. It is cornered between the mountains and the sea, between eastern and western Europe. It is sort of small, but sort of big. There are some tourists, but not many. It is decidedly Italian, but there is a significant minority of foreigners (due in part to the center of theoretical physics nearby, which attracts nerds from around the world). The architecture includes Roman ruins, baroque palaces, and modern art statues. There are areas which my host described as being "like beaches," where you can sunbathe but not swim, and where women and men have their separate zones. In Trieste everything is in between, more or less.

    I would like to tell you about the Slovenian countryside passing below me. It is a new world that I want to share with you. But I haven't yet told you about Padova and Venice, or even about Bologna. Oh, my poor reader, how I've kept you out of touch! Bologna was my favourite city in Italy. Instead of big piazzas, pompous white palaces, and gnarly oak trees, Bologna is full of archways. Orange archways. Yes, yes, I know the city is old, but I insist that it was totally 1970's. Bologna is groovin. Bologna got game. It's laid-back, it's open, it's orange. My host was, without doubt, the cook with the lowest stress levels that I will ever meet (yes Sarah and Dave, that one's for you!). Although he did tell me that he was showing me only one side of Bologna, and that there exists a whole other world of people who are all about "fashion."

    In Padova I had my first experience with one such "fashion" Italian (they use "fashion" as an adjective to describe these types of people, e.g. "He's a bit too fashion for my tastes"). At the Padova station, I was greeted in all my travel grime by a young man in smart, spotless clothes and brought to an apartment where I swear there was not a speck of dust anywhere. Coming from Bologna, all this was a bit of a shock to me. I felt as though I had suddenly been dropped into a world that I didn't want and that didn't want me. But as always, my reaction was too hasty. It turned out that my host was as strange as all the other Italians I'd met, and as such, we got along famously.

    … I'll tell you about Trieste some other time. Right now, it's all about Slovenia. It's the coolest thing in the world to walk down the street and not understand a thing on the posters and street signs. Let's get lost!

Day 39: The road out of Rome

    Ah my faithful reader, Cheesy has not forgotten about you. But as she was drifting on through Europe, real life was catching up to her. The thrill of embarking on a four-month voyage was subsiding to more practical challenges of every-day life in Europe. And in general, daily challenges are far less interesting to write about than epic voyages. Cheesy was not epic – Cheesy was cheesy.

    Rome, on the other hand, was epic. Everything was huge, gray, and ancient. But Cheesy couldn't help but feel that all the myths and monuments were a façade hiding the true character of the city. Rome was somehow more elusive than all the other towns Cheesy had visited. After ten days, Cheesy still hadn't discovered any particular neighbourhood particularly well. She had spent an evening in San Lorenzo, the student ghetto near the train station, where she played board games in a bar with other couchsurfers. She had spent two evenings in Trastevere, which is a bit like the Plateau in that you either go there because you're cool or because you want to look cool. For example, in one Trastevere bar Cheesy had had a shot called a "69" composed of chocolate, absinthe, cream, and peppercorns. But Cheesy still hadn't found a vibe that unified her memories of Rome, so she decided she'd just have to go back again one day to figure out Rome for once and for all.

    The Roman people were certainly nicer than the Fiorentini or the Torinesi. They smiled more and wore more colourful clothes. They talked less about politics and more about history. They hadn't caught on to the north Italian trend of wearing glasses the size of goggles. They looked at you in your eyes when you spoke, and actually seemed to be listening.

    Despite the countless monuments and tourists, Rome paradoxically gave Cheesy the impression of being empty. Maybe it was because the buildings were so big, they dwarfed everything around them. Rome was full of wide piazzas, wide roads, and wide parks. Cheesy couldn't really tell where everyone lived. When she asked, the Romans answered the "Periferia," the neighbourhoods forming a concentric circle around the center of Rome. Indeed, Cheesy's host was in the western periphery in an area called Casalotti. It took Cheesy an hour to get to the center of Rome from Casalotti using public transportation. (Rome only had two metro lines, although it was at least twice as big as Montreal. One guy claimed that the metro only covers 30% of the city).

    Life in Rome was a mixed bag. On the down side, having an education wouldn't guarantee a job. The jobs that were available were mostly short-term or menial. Rent was nearly as high as Paris. Salaries weren't great. The bread was lousy. On the plus side, having four or five weeks of vacation per year was normal. Food prices were reasonable. The winters weren't cold. It was easy enough to make friends. A bus ticket only cost one euro. So did a cappuccino. And it was Rome!

    On the train to Bologna Cheesy was already feeling nostalgic. She felt sure she would return to Rome one day. And next time she wouldn't be sick at home for five days – she would live amongst the Romans and discover all the secret corners she knew she'd missed. But she knew she'd have to plan it better. The Romans were bombarded by couchsurfers. A couchsurfer listed as a host in Rome received an average of 9 or 10 requests every day during the down season. During the summer it was basically impossible to find a host. And Cheesy was not, by any means, going back to the hostel she'd stayed in her first night.

    Nonetheless Cheesy was looking forward to Bologna. She had been told it was a great student town and the capital of left-wing politics in Italy (however weak it may be). She had also learned that spaghetti Bolognese was an American invention that did not actually exist in Italy (neither did fettuccini alfredo). Her host was a young pastry chef new to couchsurfing. So let the good times and the pastry dough roll!

Day 29: Cheesy visits a rut

    Experienced travelers know that, when you're on the road, all things go wrong at once. First, Cheesy couldn't find a host in Rome, despite having sent out dozens of messages to dozens of people. Second, she couldn't reserve a bed online at the only hostel in Rome, because reservations had to be 48 hours in advance and Cheesy had been hoping until the last minute to find a couchsurfing host. Third, Cheesy couldn't stay an extra day with her host in Florence, because he was expecting new guests. Fourth, Cheesy found out Monday morning at 10 that she had to be gone by 11 because the housekeeper was coming.

    So all of a sudden Cheesy found herself in the train station of Florence, heading to Rome with no idea what to do once she got there. But she still felt positive, because she managed to get on a train that she knew was heading to Rome (unlike in Marseille, where she got on the train not knowing when or how to get to Torino where her next hosts were waiting for her). On the train, she got into a conversation with an Italian man sitting opposite her, who actually knew quite a bit about linguistics. But Cheesy's good humour was premature. Cheesy hadn't marked the date on her train pass yet, since on the Marseille train she only wrote the date once the ticket-man came along. And so the ticket-man on the Roman train came along. And Cheesy hadn't marked the date yet. And the ticket-man fined Cheesy €50. And so began Cheesy's descent into Rome.

    Once arrived, Cheesy took the bus to get to the hostel. In Rome, there are crosswalks on the street without any traffic lights. So the pedestrian is expected to saunter out into the highway and hope that all the cars will stop. Cheesy had to cross such a street to get to the hostel. She was cautious. She waited until a bus stopped to let her cross. So she dashed towards the yellow line in the middle of the highway. The cars on the other side of the highway hadn't seen her yet. Once she arrived at the yellow line, the first car saw her and stopped suddenly. The car behind it of course hadn't seen anything, and went flying into the car that had stopped for Cheesy. And so Cheesy's entry to the Roman youth hostel was punctuated by a major car accident. Fortunately no one was hurt, and Cheesy was able to creep away from the scene to get to the hostel.

    The hostel was €19 per night. Internet use was €3 per hour. The wireless system was down. Breakfast was not included. Laundry cost €6. The lobby was unheated. There were no locks on the doors. There was no soap in the bathrooms. And in order to go anywhere, you had to cross the damn highway again. Cheesy was not pleased. But the employees were really nice, and placed Cheesy in the same dorm as another Canadian girl who had just arrived. So there was hope for Rome.

    However, the next morning, Cheesy began her tour at the hospital. No, dear reader, Cheesy is quite fine. But (and I'm sure you'll be very interested to know), Cheesy had developed an infected ingrown hair, and it had become so swollen that Cheesy thought she might do well with a prescription of some kind (Cheesy had learned early on from her parents working in the pharmaceutical industry: when in doubt, seek drugs). Cheesy managed to get out of the hospital by about 1 p.m. and was happy to have some time to walk around. Of course, it promptly started raining. So Cheesy found a café with a wifi internet connection and settled in. She had 64 new emails, breaking her previous record of 32 in Florence. Most were just couchsurfing business, which was taking up much of Cheesy's time.

    After tackling the emails, Cheesy braved the rain and managed to do some sightseeing. She stumbled across the Parthenon by accident. Not that it was hard: the Parthenon was huge. Rome was huge. In fact, with all the traffic and monuments and people, Cheesy was beginning to think that the only thing cooler than Paris was Rome. Cheesy was a city girl, no doubt. After the Parthenon, Cheesy visited the Castel Sant'Angelo. The castle was surrounded by more of the lovely Dr. Seuss trees that Cheesy had first seen in Marseille. Then Cheesy went to the Basilica San Pietro, which she did not realize was right next to the Vatican. She also didn't realize that she could actually go into the basilica without paying, so she lingered around outside for a while. She did manage to get into the crypts of the dead popes. That was nice, but not like seeing a real mummy, skin and bones, like in Torino.

    After her touristy afternoon, Cheesy returned to the hostel. She had managed to find a host, and was to wait for him there until 8 or 9 p.m. Italians have big days. They work from 9 a.m. until late into the evening, come home to have a multi-course dinner at 9 p.m., then maybe go out dancing until 2 or 3 in the morning. Maybe it's because they're always running late. In any case, Cheesy wasn't surprised when her host called to say he'd only be arriving around 9:30. Cheesy didn't mind. She was happy to be leaving the hostel and hopefully also the rut she'd gotten into since heading to Rome.

Day 28: Firenze to Roma

    Have I already been in Europe four weeks? When was my last blog post, anyway? Yikes time flies.

    Italy is slowly warming up to me, or maybe I'm slowly warming up to it. Maybe it's because I understand the language much better now, which means the culture and the people are more accessible. But what I'm finding out is strange. The Italians seem displeased with their country. My second host in Turin spoke to me for five days straight about the horror of Italian politics and the shame of a culture based entirely on soccer, coffee, and fashion. My host in Florence told me that work is hard to find, earnings are low relative to cost of living, work conditions are deplorable, and rent is high. He told me that the Florentines aren't so nice. In Turin, my hosts told me the Turinese aren't so nice. Everyone seems to think that all the nice people are in the south. But the further south I travel, the further south I have to go to find people who describe their city as friendly. So maybe I'll have to go right to the southern tip of Sicily to find the elusive friendly people of Italy…

    Not that my hosts haven't been nice. But Italians are surprisingly serious. I've met only two people who had an easy smile – one was from Sardinia, the other from Napoli – both of course from the "far south." Italians seem to age quickly, too. Thirty years somehow seems a lot older here than in Canada. I have yet to meet the bubbly and flirtatious stereotype.

    So why do Italians stay in Italy if they're tired of living here? At first (in my well-established naivety), I thought it must the charm of Italy sucking people in like magnets. But when I asked my hosts, the replies were curious. Italians are lazy. Italians are xenophobic. Italians are too attached to family and friends. One person even told me (please don't be offended, dear reader) that Italians are f**ed up. And after telling me this they admit that they have no real proof for characterizing Italians this way. So my impression is that Italians are a people of strange convictions and even stranger inclinations. Their actions don't match their beliefs and their beliefs don't match reality.

    I'm heading to Rome now, where I'm sure I'll be told that Romans aren't nice, and I should go further south. Actually I've had a lot of trouble finding hosts in Rome. Tonight I'm hoping there will be room at the hostel. Also, I got fined €50 for not having put the date on my Eurail pass before getting on the train. So my entry into Rome is starting out rough. Nonetheless, the countryside between Florence and Rome is absolutely gorgeous. I also asked my hosts to tell me something good about Italy (for God's sake). The first host had no answer. The second said, "the weather." Ha, ha. Well it's true – the sun is out and it's warm today. Although it rained for my first three days in Florence, and my first five days in Torino. So basically after two weeks, I'm still unable to attribute a single quality to Italy with any certainty. Oh wait, they eat a LOT!

    I suppose I should say something about Florence. Here goes: it is FULL of Americans. Everywhere, everywhere, everywhere. Honestly it's so bad that I was embarrassed to be an English-speaker in Florence. And it's full of college Americans. (No offense intended to Americans reading this, if there are any). So the streets fill up with twenty-year-old ditzes and jocks taking advantage of the sixteen-year-old drinking permission in Italy. And we're in the down season now. My advice: do not, under any circumstances, go to Florence in the summer.

    Still, Florence is a lovely city for walking. The streets are windy and cobblestony, there are tons of old churches, the Duomo is majestic, the river is lovely, and the gelato is goooood. The markets are big but more expensive than Torino. In general things are less clean and stuck-up in Florence than in Turin, and more charismatic. But then you hear someone squealing in an American drawl, and your shoulders sink a bit. Sigh.

    Alora perché non voglio essere una turista (i couchsurfers sono 'travelers' e non turisti), e sopratutto non voglio che la gente pensi che io sia americana, finisco questo blog in italiano. Ciao e baci a tutti!

 

    

Vi presento Torino!

Piazza San Carlo - a reflection of the grandiose architecture of Torino
Overlooking the city, brrrr
Fiume (river) Po, with kayaker, Alps, and the Mole
Silvio, my second host in Torino, filming a documentary about the darker side of Italian politics (assuming there is a lighter side)
My first hosts Piero and Eva

Day 19: Buongiorno, Italia

    I arrived safely in Torino on Thursday evening. My first hosts were Piero and his Bulgarian girlfriend Ewa. When I arrived at the apartment they were standing side by side in the doorway, smiling, the classic image of Italian hospitality. They took me to a huge restaurant / grocery store called "Eataly" (ha, ha) which specializes in local, organic, and slow food. The slow food movement started near Torino, although I honestly couldn't tell you in what way the movement is actualized around here. Not that Italians eat quickly, but it's not like there are timers on the table to make sure customers pace themselves. Anyway I ate a delicious pasta al succo di terra (tomatoes, eggplants, olives and pancetta), which I ate very slowly out of principle J

    By the way Lynda, now that I think of it, I've always made a conscious effort to spell Canadian so I don't know what you're talking about. Maybe my computer does auto-correct without me realizing?

    Anyway yesterday morning I took my first stroll through Torino, although I didn't get very far. On my way towards the city center, I happened across a huge market full of vegetables and clothes and jewelry. Of course I got promptly distracted, and then got promptly lost. It was great – that seems to be the best way to get to know a city. But Torino is laid out in a more straightforward way than Paris or Marseille. It is less frequent that a street suddenly changes names. The layout is less spiderwebby and more griddy. So it didn't take me long to get to the center, where there is a huge piazza surrounded by arcaded walkways. France didn't seem to have open squares like that. France didn't seem to have much open space at all. There are no more two-burner kitchens here, no more isolated chambres de bonne. Everything is clean, comfortable, attractive, spacious. No piles of excrement on the streets, no crowds of people anywhere, no stench of sulfur.

    But still, they call Torino a "little Paris," and with good reason. The streets are lined by trees, the buildings are stately and baroque, the skies are gray. And there's a weirdly shaped tower poking out of the middle of the city.

    Here, cafes are called "bars," and in Paris, bars are called "cafes." What's nice is that here you can sit to drink your caffe in the bar, and order a brioche (=croissant in Italy, but brioches and croissants are different things in France) if you like. But in Paris and Marseille, you don't sit to drink your coffee. You stand at the bar, or you sit and order a $15 meal with your coffee. I missed the middle-ground café in France, so I'm glad to have found it here (in the form of a "bar") (are you confused yet?).

    Yesterday evening Piero and Ewa took me to a big dinner party with a bunch of Piero's friends from work. Forgive the stereotype, but it was sooo Italian. Everyone was talking, yelling, laughing at the same time, there was tons of food (not a single fruit or vegetable in sight, all bread and cheese and pizza and pasta and coldcuts), and the wine ran out after an hour. I couldn't participate much because there were always too many conversations going at once, and within each conversation everyone was talking at the same time, andeveryonewastalkingsuperfastandsuperloudanditwasprettyoverwhelming. Fortunately there was a Russian guy who spoke English, but not Italian, so we talked a lot. And Piero was very attentive, trying to make sure I was having a good time even if I was a bit lost.

    The Italians strike me as being aloof. Their eyes are always moving, moving, moving. I have a feeling that the so-called Italian charm comes from the fact that it's rare for an Italian to sit down, look you in the eyes, talk to you, and pay attention. You're in trouble once they do. You get all high on yourself and start fluffing your feathers, because usually the Italians are running around talking to ten other people at the same time. Although I should hold my tongue - I've just met my next host, Silvio, and he seems to be a great one-on-one conversationalist. Still, the eyes are moving, moving, moving…

    Italy is not big on wifi, nor the internet in general (which is actually due to Berlusconi, so says Silvio, but that's another story), so I don't know how often I can write. It's also very difficult for me to post photos on the blog – it takes a long time, and I need a wifi connection to upload the pictures from my own laptop. So again, I'll have to redirect you to facebook. Mi spiace!