BUZZURRO

Today I went to the supermarket by my house.
I have written numerous posts about the dangers lurking in the supermarket near my house, but I need to eat, and since I don’t drive and this supermarket is near my house, I am drawn there. Like a moth to the flame.
I entered the store in the late afternoon. I have learned over time that the majority of others do their shopping in the AM, so to avoid the crowds of shoppers, I do my shopping in the afternoon.
My timing is almost perfect; from 1:30 pm to 3pm all the employees seem to be at lunch. Only one cash register is open during this time so if there are only 20 people in the store and 7 of them want to pay for their stuff and leave, then there will be one long line of 7 people. Anything after 3:30 is usually OK.

I picked up a few items on my trip. As usual there were hardly any other customers in the store. Then I went to the front of the store where the cash registers were. Out of the 12 cash registers, only one was open, although in another one there was an employee who told everyone that he is not open.

“Oh” I thought to myself “I guess I didn’t start to do my shopping late enough.” as I got on a very long line.

It started moving. “Could this be a fast cashier?” I thought to myself in wonder. One person paid for her stuff and left. Then another. And another. Finally I could see the register,. I could almost touch the belt in front too. I was only one person away from lying my few items upon it. When, OOPS. There was a problem.

The cashier asked someone for a price check because the barcode on an item didn’t scan. At that moment the female 2 legged creature in front of me decided that she was going to go to the other cash register where the employee was still sitting but was not ringing up food.

She swung her heavy cart laden with many canned items around right into the small of my back.

Then she backed up and walked away. . (if you’re reading this you dumb cretin, I hope you choke on all that heavy food you bought ! You evil dyed-haired mutant cow !)
Without apologizing or anything. I am used to rude behavior before, I am used to being hit and scraped by these massive shopping carts, but this was PAIN. I was in agony.

I said an expletive out loud, in English, so nobody UNDERSTOOD me (which is good because it wasn’t a nice thing I said either), but they all HEARD me, whether they saw the incident or not. Not one person in line behind asked me if I was OK, or what happened or anything. I tried massaging my own back, but I still hobbled through the cashier line, hobbled out the door and hobbled home.

I am so tired of this extreme rudeness.
Well, now a few hours later the pain has subsided. I don’t even have a bruise. But I am not looking forward to going back.

THE Welsh wine industry has been left fuming after apparently being mocked by the Italian Prime Minister.
Mr Berlusconi, who’s believed not to have even tasted the Welsh wine, told reporters this week that Swedish Prime Minister Goran Persson, “was so aghast at the wines at the summit that I promised to send him some of our wines.”
But his comments have not gone down well in Wales, especially at Parva Farm Vineyard, in Tintern near Chepstow, whose Muller-Thurgau and Seyval Blanc wines were chosen to be showcased in Europe.
Colin Dudley, who runs the vineyard with his wife Judith where the wine is from said “There are some Italian wines I think taste great, but the others I’m not so keen on.But if he, (Mr Berlusconi), hasn’t even tried them he’s not really got any business criticising them.”
Read the rest of the article here.

He criticised English wines without tasting them. While one may argue with good reason that Prime Minister Berlusconi likes nothing more than to make diplomatic blunders by putting his foot in his mouth, what he was doing this time was simply using the Italian argument that ‘no food tastes better than Italian food, so why bother tasting any other type ?’ It is rather hypocritical, but they all do it.

Last year I brought an article in to my class about English food, and another about American food and they laughed and laughed and said “Italian food is the best in the world.'’ When I asked “have you tried American or English food?” They all replied “No.” and then they said “But, we’ve been to McDonalds!” as if that is typical American food. They have a lot to learn.

The advantages are often the same as the disadvantages. The natives hear your accented speech and assume rightly or wrongly that you are a complete idiot and don’t know anything.
This has worked to my disadvantage in my job search. Much more serious than any advantages, but there are some.

It has worked to my advantage though when a telemarketer calls my house. I can simply say that I don’t understand Italian, and they hang up.
It has worked to my advantage when I meet Mormons or Jehovah’s Witnesses in the street, although for them it is not simply enough to say I don’t know Italian, I also have to say I don’t know English and pretend to be any other nationality where it is more likely that the language is not spoken often. (I usually say I’m Polish. No offense to Polish people, but there really aren’t many Polish Mormons or Jehhovah’s Witnesses walking around.)

Yesterday at around 5 PM my doorbell rang. At first I thought it was Buzzurro so I quickly opened the door, but to my disappointment it was not Buzzurro. It was a young man with a paper in his hand. Most of the words in the title were covered by his hand, but the one that was showing was COMUNISTA (communist).
“Ugh” I thought to myself “If he’s selling that I’m really not interested.”
Well, he wasn’t selling anything, he was giving it away. Just like a Mormon with a political touch.

He tried to give me the newspaper to read about ‘what’s going on in the world and in Italy.’ I interrupted his speech with my usual “Sorry, but I don’t speak Italian.” Thinking that he would go away, but he was a little more attuned to reality than the rest. Because if I didn’t speak Italian, how could I have understood his earlier sentences about understanding the news ?
Instead of going away he said “Not even a little Italian? Do you understand enough to read a newspaper?” and I replied “no.”
Perhaps I should have just looked at him with a blank expression on my face because he continued “Are you sure ?”
“Yes” I said.
Then he asked me if Buzzurro speaks Italian.
“A little” was my response. And then he asked me if he reads newspapers “No” I replied. And then he turned around and left. Saying “Goodbye” (in English) as he went.

Our blogging buddy Can’t Sit Still departed from Italy today bound for her new life in the US. We wish her all the best.

Ci sentiamo.

I read a study a few months ago that the majority of pedestrian fatalities in Italy occurred on the zebra crossings made for pedestrians to cross the street.

I heard many jokes after this study such as “You see? You shouldn’t cross the street on them.. It’s dangerous.”
But the reality is that most people do cross at them, so that is where the majority of the pedestrian fatalities are.
Cars do not stop to let pedestrians cross the road at the zebra crossings, and in fact often speed up when they see that there is a pedestrian wanting to cross the street, because they don’t want to have to brake and wait the 2 seconds necessary to actually allow the pedestrian to actually cross the street.

Often they will not slow down and attempt to swerve around the pedestrians if they are already in the crossing.

I have been warned not to run when you are in the middle of the street crossing and a car is coming towards you at a fast speed, because if you run the driver won’t be able to accurately judge your speed and won’t be able to swerve around you at the correct angle and might hit you.

Huh ?

The car should stop until the pedestrian safely crosses the road. The driving manual says so. It’s a case of blame the victim.

This morning I decided to go to the local market near my house. That entails crossing several streets, one of them being an unregulated crossing zone, complete with a pedestrian zebra stripe crossing.
After a few cars passed I judged a safe distance and crossed.
A car came speeding along out of nowhere, and stopped !
I was in shock !
Of course then the idiot on the scooter behind him did NOT stop and tried to pass the car on the right side, which is where I was.

I was not hit, but I felt the breeze as the driver passed me. I was not happy at the near miss.

Another of the intersections I cross is for a one way road but I have been here enough time to figure out that one way streets in Italian only mean drive ‘one way’ at a time.

I look both ways before stepping into the intersection and sure enough there are 2 scooters driving the wrong way down the road, I wait for them to pass, and then I’m safely on the other side.

“The car drivers are maniacs and don’t follow any rules of the road whatsoever”, I thought to myself for the millionth time.

Every time I cross a road that doesn’t have a traffic light to regulate the crossing I feel like I’m risking my life.
To be fair however, the pedestrians themselves aren’t much better. Yesterday I saw a lady drag her young daughter across the street when the light was red.

The oncoming car had a green light and most likely couldn’t even see the little girl who was shorter than the car was. The driver finally did see her, and stopped short.

The mother of course was mad that her child was almost ran over and slammed the car with her fist a few times and cursed at the driver.

It looked to me like he apologized but she gave him her middle finger as he departed anyway.

Excuse me, but she crossed when the light said not to. Shouldn’t she share some, if not all, of the blame ?
You always find such elegance on the streets of Italy. No matter what side you are on.

A few days after the execution of murderer Tookie Williams, several politicians in Graz, Austria, the birthplace of California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger discussed removing his name from a stadium there.

In 1997 the stadium’s name was changed to Schwarzenegger stadium.
They were proud of their native son.
Many Europeans, the citizens of Graz included, abhor the death penalty and call it barbaric. They were dismayed to see their local son uphold the law of the land that he now governs.
They were no longer proud of their native son.

While the officials were gathering names for a petition to actually remove the Schwarzenegger name from the stadium, Arnold beat them to the punch and sent a letter to them asking them to remove his name. In addition he told them he no longer wanted the ring of honor that was given to him by the city.

“Graz will not have problems in the future with my decisions as governor of California, because officially nothing connects us any more,” Schwarzenegger told the daily Kronen Zeitung in an interview for Tuesday’s editions.
“The death penalty is law here, and I have to uphold the law of the land and the will of the people,” Schwarzenegger was quoted as saying, adding that he still considered himself “Austrian with all my heart.”
After hearing that, Siegfried Nagl, mayor of the southern city of Graz, said he wrote Schwarzenegger pleading with him not to return a ring of honor bestowed on him by officials in his birthplace in 1999 and reassuring him that most residents still admire him.

“I hope that very soon we’ll hear you say, ‘I’ll be back,’” Nagl told the actor-turned-politician, one of Austria’s most famous sons.
It seems that when Nagl pushed and felt a force pushing back, he changed his story. Whatta wimp.
Stand by your convictions, right or wrong. (In this case wrong. Hello ? Is anybody home ? California is not a part of Austria. Austrian laws do not apply there.)

Read the rest of the article here.

Today I took a walk down a street famous among all tourists to Italy, of which there are so many during the summer months, but not so much now.
Tourists flock to this area for what they think are shopping bargains from the many vendors there, but to those who live here what is sold is not known as bargains.
As I walk down the street, in clear unbroken English I hear one man yell at me:
“Look at my scarves. Best price in Italy.” I think to myself “I highly doubt that.”
And continue walking.
A few seconds later I hear.
“Look at my purses. All genuine leather too.” And I think “At 5 Euros each ? Not only does this vendor think I’m English speaking, but stupid as well. A leather purse doesn’t cost 5 euros.”
And continue walking.
Then I hear from someone else
“Wanna buy a poster lady ?” I think “No. If I did, I would stop and look, not try to walk by.”
And then another.
“I am having a special price on scarves that are 100 percent cashmere. You won’t find one for less.” I don’t care. I’m not even looking for a scarf !
I’m not looking for anything.

Can’t a girl just walk down the street in Italy and not be harassed? Even if she is English speaking ?
Next time I’ll just take a bus.

If the situation weren’t so serious it would be almost funny.

Iran tells West to be tolerant of Holocaust views
TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s denial of the Holocaust is a matter for academic discussion and the West should be more tolerant of his views, Iran’s foreign ministry spokesman said on Sunday.
Ahmadinejad last week called the Holocaust a myth and suggested Israel be moved to Germany or Alaska, remarks that sparked international uproar and threaten diplomatic talks with Europe over Iran’s nuclear programme.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi defended the president’s remarks, which also drew a rebuke from the U.N. Security Council.
“What the president said is an academic issue. The West’s reaction shows their continued support for Zionists,” Asefi told a weekly news conference.
“Westerners are used to leading a monologue but they should learn to listen to different views,” he added.

Iran, the land with the intollerant mullahs who kill Muslims who convert to Christianity.
In this article Iran is saying the West needs to be more tolerant and to listen to different views..
I’ve heard it all.