BUZZURRO

Often times words in Italian do not translate into English and visa versa, especially the curse words.

Imagine going to work one day and seeing your co-worker solve a problem and saying ‘What butt !‘

You’ll likely be shown the door with a nice sexual discrimination lawsuit soon to follow in the mail.
Here is a list of some of our faves.

1. What cabbage do you want ? Sounds like you are in the vegetable aisle of a supermarket instead of mad.
2. I don’t care a saw. Do you care a hammer and nails ?
3. Don’t break my boxes ! Something you might expect an upset Federal Express employee to say
4. Pig misery. What about goldfish in those tiny fishbowls ? They look miserable too.
5. And for the terrible blasphemers… Pig God. Don’t say it in front of a church. In Italy they’ll throw you in jail, in the US they’ll throw you in a padded cell.
6. And for the really terrible blasphemers… Madonna dog. Even if you like the early songs sung by Madonna

20 years ago in Italy Halloween in Italy did not exist. Over the years it has inched its way into Italian society, but in a slightly different form.
Today many stores sell Halloween costumes, decorations and candy in little ’snack size’ bags, but Halloween is seen as more of a party theme than a holiday in itself.
If you happen to see children in costumes on the streets it is much more likely that they are going to or coming from a party rather than going door to door and trick or treating.

Happy Halloween!

A few weeks ago the sister and brother-in-law of my American friend came to Italy.
They were on a whirlwind visit to Italy.4 cities in 4 days. They live in Southern California. I lived there for 14 years. In fact, I even worked across the street from my friend’s sister for a while. (I didn’t know my friend at that time though) I wanted to meet her sister and brother-in-law, and they wanted to meet me too, but they were short on time. I did finally meet them at a restaurant in the train station for a few minutes before their train to Rome departed.

I asked my friend’s brother-in.law, ‘How do you like Italy so far?. And he responded ‘Italy is OK, but I hate the food. Every time I go into a restaurant it is always pasta, pasta, pasta. What’s with the pasta? There is just too much of it. I am so sick of it now!!’

OK, anybody who goes to Italy and is surprised to see many pasta dishes on menus of restaurants is, in my humble opinion, an Idiot (note the capital I).

The fact that the said person only reads through one half of a menu before deciding that pasta is the only food that the restaurant serves secures the fact that they are indeed an Idiot (with a capital I).

In Italy meals are divided into 2 courses, The first one is called a first course (primo piatto) This consists of pasta or rice dishes.
The second course (secondo piatto) consists of meat, usually beef or fish or poultry.
Therefore for a person to walk into a restaurant and decide that only pasta dishes are seved , that person is just not reading the entire menu. Only half.

The only restaurant that I have ever even seen that serves only pasta is in fact one that exists in California. All the restaurants in Italy, while serving a lot more pasta dishes then restaurants in the US, serve a balanced menu with many different selections.

Look and use your noodle before judging !

In the US you will often find on buildings and stores a sign that says ‘No Soliciting’ In Italy you won’t, or if you do, it won’t be enforced.

Saturday I decided to grab a sandwich at a bar. I chose one, paid, and then sat myself down at a table.
5 minutes later a solicitor, a seller of stuff I didn’t want entered the bar and proceeded to ask all the clients eating what they bought at the bars tables if they wanted to buy his expensive stuff.
They all shook their heads ‘No’ and he moved on.

Then he gets to my table. I don’t know what it is about me but ALL Non-Americans seem to be able to pick me out in a crowd as being American (what they think of as a rich tourist).
They see me as a human bank. Anyway, this life-form in the shape of a man asks me if I wanted to buy his stuff.
I said ‘No thank you’. Not leaving a supposedly rich American tourist target alone, he then proceeded to beg me for money ‘I’m hungry. I have no money. I have 3 kids. Help me.’
I felt bad for him, maybe it was true. I then saw that he had a package of 6 travel-size tissue packets with him. ‘How much are the tissues ?’ I asked, thinkining that maybe I will buy something from him after all.
‘10 Euros’ he replied.
Thinking that was a little expensive for tissues, I said ‘No thank you’.
He insisted. He put them on the table. He cut the price down to 8 Euros. Then 6. The whole time I was protesting ‘No’ ‘That’s too much’ ,’ No thank you,’, ‘No’ , and ‘Please let me eat’.
The whole time the other clients at the 2 other tables occupied were staring at the scene we were causing.
So were at least 2 of the baristi behind the counter, yet even though I PAID 2.50 for my sandwich and 1 Euro for my water, no one came to rescue me and/or throw this guy out.
Finally I got up, took my sandwich and water and walked away, leaving him, the other customers and baristi that were watching, and that bar behind.
In the United States, sign or no sign, that aggressive selling/panhandling of paying customers is simply not allowed. I am not asking that stores in Italy become like those in the US, but show some respect for paying customers. Don’t allow soliciting.

I don’t want to sound like a tourist brochure, but, well, I will anyway.
Last month I had a student in my class who is from Naples, Italy. He told me that espresso coffee was invented there and tastes better.
‘Sure!’ I thought to myself.’ Same water as here, same machines as here, coffee beans are grown in Columbia anyway, not Naples. What is this guy trying to prove?’
Then he said ‘Pizza was invented there too. It is also better.’
‘O.K.’ I replied. Then, being the English teacher I am, changed the subject to verb tenses.

Last week I went to visit Naples, and I must say that every word that came from my students mouth are true.
The food in Naples is AWESOME.
The pizza is great, the coffee is great, the sweets are great, fried appetizers. I could go on.
If you haven’t been there yet, go. Eat. Oh, you can also visit Mt. Vesuvius or tourist stuff if you want.

OK, I have only been in Southern Italy for 3 days as compared to 3 years in Northern Italy, so I am hardly an expert on Italian social behavior, but I noticed several differences.

One was in a restaurant. We ate dinner and dessert and then paid our bill to leave, and the waiter bought (or just brought) us 2 coffees that we hadn’t paid for.
Truthfully we did leave a tip after the meal that would more than cover the price of 2 coffees, but the money we used as a tip was a tip for the service already provided, not future coffees.
In Northern Italy you get what you pay for and nothing more. A tip is a tip for what was, not what will be.
Another difference was inside a bar. I ordered a coffee. Was given a coffee. Then 2 minutes later the barista gave me a glass of what is called ‘caffe freddo’ and said ‘try this.’ For free !

Never would happen up north !
I won’t go as far to say ’service with a smile’ as often happens in the US, but it was a welcome change.
The people in Southern Italy just seem friendlier, from the clerk at the hotel to strangers who we asked for directions.

Was it false friendliness, just for getting a tip ?
Anyway, Buzzurro says, ‘Better false friendliness than true rudeness’. The Southern Italians seem to grasp this more so than their Northern counterparts.

Today I went to one of my favorite places in Italy, the supermarket (SARCASM).
I made sure that I arrived at a time when the normally packed store is nearly empty.
In fact as soon as I walked inside it was quiet and there were hardly any people around.
Unfortunately though that also included workers.
Out of 9 cash registers, only one was open, and the line of customers waiting at it was huge.
Still, not to be discouraged, I did my shopping and then 30 minutes later took my place on this mega-galactic line.
You would think that having such a long line of customers waiting for service the cashier might want to hurry up a bit, but no, this is Italy.
They don’t hurry up for anybody. The cashier felt it was her right to have a personal discussion with one of the clients.
Never mind the fact that everyone else’s frozen food was melting.
Never mind the fact that the 2 children were whining and complaining and the mother (or grandmother) could do nothing to calm them down.
Never mind the fact that the husband of the older couple behind me complained (loudly) that his feet hurt.
Next time I’ll do my shopping when the market is crazy busy with people, but at least the employees work.

No. I don’t think so.

This relates to the story of the 21 year old Joel Hinrichs, the University of Oklahoma Engineering Student who on October 1 blew himself up within 100 yards of a football stadium attended by 85,000 people.

When the story came out it was largely ignored by the MSM, or just treated like a routine suicide. It was not, however, a routine suicide. A few days before blowing himself up, Joel Hinrich tried to purchase a large amount of amonium nitrate from a store that sells fertiliser. He failed, and constructed a homemade bomb using TATP, which is often used by Palestinian suicide bombers. He did not commit suicide in his own house, he not only chose a public place, but one nearby a football stadium with a game in progress, which there are rumors, true or not, that he tried to enter but did not when the guards asked to search his bag. He also had more explosives in his room.

A lot of blog writers (for example LGF, Michelle Malkin) noted the lack of interest by the MSM, and questioned the ’suicide’. They asked ‘Was this a Jihadist terrorist bombing gone bad?’ And there were several posts on this subject.

I just read yesterday that Cathy Young accused these bloggers of’ crying wolf.’ I don’t think that is a fair judgement.

Some obvious questions arise. This is not a ‘routine suicide’, done by the more traditional methods in traditional places. If it is a suicide it is an abnormal one and the MSM and police should look into it, especially in this day and age of terrorism. It is the responsible thing to do. If his suicide was indeed a suicide I have sympathy for all his family and friends. If his suicide justso happens to be more than just a ‘routine suicide’ I have sympathy for us all. I don’t think that asking questions such as ‘Is it.’ Or it isn’t’ are wrong. The MSM should do this. If they don’t, it is up to the blogger community to.

I’ve been writing a lot of posts lately about what DOESN’T work or what I don’t like in Italy, so here is a post dedicated to one thing that I do like.. the shopping carts.

The shopping carts used in the supermarkets are bigger then they are in the US, so that can be a plus if you eat a lot, but that is not why I like them.
I like them because you have to rent them for either 1 or 2 euros in order to use them.
When you are done shopping you can put them back in the rack that they came from and get all your money back.
I like this system because too many times while in the US (where 99.9 percent of the supermarkets have free shopping carts) my parked car has been hit by loose shopping carts who get tossed about with the wind.
The majority being of course, when my car was new.
In Italy the carts are not free and everybody who uses them wants to get back their money, so no one leaves them out loose, to be at the whim of the wind.