BUZZURRO

The first part of the title is a question “Why I should be hired by the Italian Tourism Ministry ?”
Simple. I spread the word to many people that Italy is a great place to visit.
Great Italian food, really great Italian food and the scenery ain’t too bad either…
Many of those people prefer my word over the word of a travel agent because they feel it is more truthful and full of insider tips.

For example I told a couple today that when Buzzurro and I went to Venice we stayed in Mestre, which is on the mainland, and a simple 5 minute train ride away from Venice because it is much cheaper.
A travel agent working on a commission is not going to tell clients how to save money.

Why won’t it ever happen ? Simple. I’m a 40 year old menstruating woman who is married with no children.
Women of that age group are seen as old bags. Completely useless and non-productive in society.
Most jobs have maximum ages (age discrimination “a bestia” (translation-to a great extent)).

As a 40 year old, finding a job is nearly impossible and as a menstruating female who is of child bearing age and married with no children I would be seen as a walking uterus only and nobody in Italy wants to risk hiring an employee with maternity leave.

I don’t know how to explain this to our non-Italian readers.

Annamaria Franzoni, an Italian woman who has been sentenced to 16 years of prison for brutally killing her 3-year old son, will not serve a single day in jail.
In 2002, she bludgeoned multiple times her son’s head. In 2004, she was sentenced to 30 years, and today the appeal court reduced the sentence to 16 years.
I know my limits, so I know I’m not able to explain to our non-Italian readers how this was possible.

One thing I never worried about while living in the United States before I moved to Italy was getting paid by my employers my salary when I was supposed to, be it weekly paychecks or a bi-weekly direct deposit into the bank.
Sure I kept records of when I did actually work, but this was more for the accidental errors the employers might make in my paychecks rather than the intentional ones that are common in Italy.

Most of the jobs I had in Italy simply did not pay me on time.

These were legal jobs with only one being a nero or under the table.
I had to send E-mail after E-mail begging fto be paid my salary.
I had to do numerous telephone calls only to listen to the same excuses about how my information is wrong in the computer, the computers are down, the banks are slow…all reasons why I could not be paid.
There were bills to pay, and it’s not as if the bill collectors will wait not for their bills to be paid.
If I weren’t married while I was in Italy with a working husband I would probably be in jail somewhere because I couldn’t pay my bills..

How could a country even function like this, I often thought to myself.
Needless to say after my stay in Italy, when I returned to the United States I really began to appreciate the fact of timely paychecks in the US.
I remember after my first temporary job in the US I proudly said to Buzzurro: “Look! my paycheck arrived IN THE MAIL one week after I worked!”
He smiled, but my mother was in the same room and thought I was nuts for saying that.

Americans who have not lived in Italy cannot comprehend how a person can have a legal job for a relatively large employer and not get paid on time.

Yesterday I received an Email from a friend still in Italy.
After months of searching for a job in December 2006 she found one.
It was with a large department store in Italy.
She was very happy.
She liked it and got along well with the customers.
Now she isn’t so happy with it.
Why ?
She hasn’t been paid since day one of her job.
That was four months ago.
She’s been working for 4 months without any financial reimbursement.
What is the reason for an Italian employer to not pay it’s employees their salaries when they state by contract that they will ?

Are they hoping the employees will simply forget that they are owed tens or hundred of dollars ?
Are they hoping to get rich on the few cents of interest they get by not paying the salaries ?

Do they want their employees to miss time from work while they are in court doing a bankruptcy hearing ?
What is the reason ? I never understood this, and I still don’t.

When I lived in Italy I didn’t use to watch TV. That’s what was on TV on January 28th: during an interview, Italy’s premier Silvio Berlusconi said, according to Aldo Torchiaro:

• I financed Arafat with my personal money because Israel uses tanks and poor Palestinians have only stones to defend themselves

And:

• I don’t love American Republicans, I’d vote Democrat, in the USA
• I’ve always supported a social economy over a liberalist economy

I thought Forza Italia had a pro-Israel stance..

It’s done. Tomorrow we will leave Italy for the United States.
I’m nervous. J.Doe is nervous too. This is not a “vacation”, despite we filled suitcases, bought plane tickets, like for a leisure trip. We mailed many heavy boxes overseas.

When we mailed our first box, a few days ago, we found that shipping is more expensive than we expected — about 100 euros for a 5 pounds box. Then, shocked for the expensive price, decided to rethink the list of things to mail — i.e., we brought less stuff with us for saving money.
Nonetheless, the sum we finally spent was again a lot. In these cases you have to be selective, to decide what to leave behind you; what is necessary and what is not. Not a very easy task. If it is easy to pick just one of two clothes that look very similar (for instance, two black shirts or two dark pants), it’s hard to leave back stuff you’re affected to, things that remind you nice moments in the past, things that we think we cannot do without but that probably it’s useless to bring because are things easy to find and cheap to buy in the USA.

We are also carrying with us heavy suitcases. We spent part of our time weighing them more times, finding them heavier than the maximum allowed, redistributing the excess weight among the other suitcases.

You know, we knew that we are allowed to bring up to two suitcases up to 26 Kg each, and one carry-on suitcase up to 12 Kg. This lets us bring up to 128 Kg in 6 suitcases. Believe me, they’re not enough.

Is it anti-economic to bring one’s own clothes instead of buying them there ? It depends on how expensive clothes are, and how much you like those clothes on you. It’s not easy, and stressful to leave pieces of your life behind you.

Yesterday we had a farewell dinner with a couple of friends. We gave them our left food supplies. Obviously, They were only closed boxes of food.
They were two huge bags stuffed with food. It was our supply to be used in case of nuclear attack !
Obviously, it was all unexpired food. I told them: “anyway, you double check the expiry date, just in case !”
That food was A LOT. J.Doe and I have been repeating each other: let’s not make food supplies, because we are gonna move… sure, last famous words.

She is Canadian and he is Italian. I will miss them.
I am grateful to her because, in these 3 years of marriage, and of J.Doe’s life in Italy, she was J.Doe’s closest friend. I’m happy that J.Doe found this friend in our town.

I should have told them all these things yesterday night, instead of just writing them on the blog…

Today I went into a bar and asked for 2 coffees.
The cashier rang up my order and said to me, “That will be 1 Euro and 60 cents.”
I shuffled through my wallet and came up with a handful of change. There was a line behind me so I quickly counted out what looked like 1.60 and handed it to the cashier.
“Look!” she demanded. THIS isn’t 1.60!”

So of course I looked. (and so did everyone else within earshot) By mistake instead of giving her a 50 cent coin I gave her a 20 cent coin. Therefore the amount of money I actually gave to her was 1.20. OOPS!
Those familiar with Euros will know that while the 50 cent coin is bigger than the 20 cent coin, they are the same color, and in a hurried situation can easily be mistaken for each other.

I said to her. “I’m sorry.”, and handed her 3 ten cent coins.
She took the 3 coins without a word but glared at me.
I wanted to say “Truthfully lady, I wasn’t trying to rob your fine establishment of 30 cents.” But I didn’t. Perhaps if the barista already prepared the coffee and I drank it already I would have.

Honest mistakes do happen all the time.
Give the client the benefit of the doubt.
I always said customer service in Italy sucks, and every day they prove me right.
P.S. Did I mention that I used to be a regular customer?

Italy is ahead of the US in cellphone culture. It seems that everybody has one, from a young schoolchild to an older person. Many people even have 2, one for work and one for personal reasons. A few months ago I read that in Italy there are more cellphones then there are people. I wasn’t surprised.

Today I went to the dentist which is always a thrill. I needed a cleaning. While the dentist was cleaning my teeth with the drill-like thing they use, his assistant walks into the room carrying a cellphone.
She places the cellphone in between his shoulder and head and leaves the room. He then starts the conversation on the phone AT THE SAME TIME that he was drilling in my mouth.

I was hoping that he would stop and say to the caller something like “I’m busy now, can I call you back? ” but NO! He took the call while he was working!

I’ve seen busdrivers take cellphone calls with their earphones. I’ve always wondered if that was a good idea, but dentists with drills in their hands ? I don’t even have to wonder. That’s dangerous.

A lot of Italians get quite animated in conversations (even those over the phone) and speak with their hands. I was afraid of leaving the room with a jagged tongue !

As it turns out he only became animated and moved the hand that held the suction, so I was only slowly drowning instead of getting several puncture wounds in my mouth.

I couldn’t really hear most of the conversation that the dentist was having over the cellphone over the noise of the drill, but he seemed to hear the caller just fine.
It also seemed to be a personal call,with several curse words, but, in Italy that doesn’t necessarily mean a non-business call.
There is a time and place for everything. Even talking on the cellphone.

Today I looked in my notes and found my recipe for Merluzzo (a type of white fish) Mediterraneo.
Ingredienti:

• 400 gram pomodori in scatola o fresh tomatoes
• aglio-cut up
• sugo pomodoro
• black olives
• capperi
• salt

Put pomodori in scatola, l’aglio, one Tbsp of sugo pomodoro, capperi, olivi black, and sale in a pot. Cook and stir ogni tanto.
Put fish in a big padella. Cover con 150 ml white wine, put on some spices, abbassare la fiamma and cook (boil) per 10 minuti.
Poi, put pomodori mixture on fish. Cook 1 -2 minuti in piu’.

Does anybody notice a problem with this recipe ? I didn’t when I first wrote it, but now I do. It is written half in English, half in Italian.
I read once in a review for a book about bilingual children that is is normal if the child speaks in both languages at the same time for a period of time, but what about when the child is a middle aged woman ? What then ?
Am I normal ? Wierd ? Destined to never speak Italian fluently ? Destined to speak and think only in English for my entire life ?
Feeling troubled I ran over to my PC and did a quick Internet search. As it turns out, I am completely normal (at least speech-wise.)
I am just using code-switching. According to Wikipedia, code-switching is a term in linguistics referring to alternation between two or more languages, dialects, or language registers in the course of discourse between people who have more than one language in common. Sometimes the switch lasts only for a few sentences, or even for a single phrase. The switch is commonly made according to the subject of discourse, but may be for a variety of other reasons such as the mood of the speaker (for example, a person might swear only in French).
Code-switching often occurs in bilingual communities or families.
You can read the rest of the article here.
What a relief !
So, ciao and have a nice giornata.