BUZZURRO

Yesterday I decided to go food shopping. I have written several posts about the horrors I have found in the supermarket. Here is another one: price increases.

Usually I buy tomatoes every week, but last week I did not, and our house was completely empty of them. Today I went to the store and almost cried. €1.89 a kilo, when just 2 weeks ago I paid €1.42 a kilo for the same tomatoes.
I walked over to the zucchini, which are usually very cheap, but they also had a similar high price .

What’s going on? I know that we are in December, and vegetables are not at their cheapest when it is not the season for them, but an increase of nearly .25 percent in 2 weeks? That is not normal. Something is wrong here. At least I am not the only one who noticed that there is a problem though.

Read this article filled with quotes by the Cia (”Confederazione Italiana Agricoltori”, Italian Agricultural Confederation, not the Central Intelligence Agency !)

Italy: Christmas speculations on fresh produce prices

Rome - According to recent investigations made by the Italian agricultural organization Cia, fresh produce prices have increased between 10 and 40% in just two months. “The increases are totally unjustified. It is just a Christmas speculation” the Cia says, underlining that the prices for the growers are the same they were last year, if not even less in some cases, as for the clementine price.

Read the rest of article here.

At this rate I’ll never be able to afford to eat well. I’ll have to
(shhh, I won’t write it too loudly. DIET.)

Introducing the Leaning Tower of Sioux Falls, South Dakota.

Blast can’t topple state’s tallest building
Crowd watches as demolition fails to raze South Dakota tower

SIOUX FALLS, South Dakota (AP) — Thousands of spectators gathered to watch the demolition of the city’s tallest building — but the Zip Feed Mill tower was no pushover.
The 202-foot-tall concrete structure dropped slightly, leaned a little — and stopped. Onlookers at viewing spots all over downtown groaned and gasped — with a few jokes mixed in.
“The leaning tower of Sioux Falls,” one woman said.

Read about it here.
Ha ha ha! It’s a joke mayor and friends of Pisa. Relax. It’s not trying to compete with your tower. I know you don’t like the dreaded C word (competition) and I’m just giving you a hard time.
Ha ha ha!

In short. There are many people in Italy. Many of them have dogs. They take their dogs for walks on the sidewalks. Dogs poo.
The owners don’t clean up after them. They just walk away.
Italy, like many countries, has laws that says that owners should clean up after their dog, but unlike in many other countries, this is never enforced.
I have been living in Italy almost 4 years and have never seen an owner clean up their dog’s mess, or a police officer give a ticket to a dog owner who lets their dog poop right in front of him and then walk away.
There should be rules to own a dog.
Everybody who wants to have one as a pet should read and sign some basic rules. It’s not that hard, but it is a committment. If you won’t agree to do all the rules, then you are not entitled to own a dog. Period.
I hate hearing stories about people like this jerk in Florida who buried his dog because the dog was making holes ! And I hate risking getting ill because of dog waste bacteria that is lying around the sidewalks !
Follow the rules!

12 Golden Rules for Every Dog Owner
by Ray Coleiro

1. Love your dog unquestioningly. Treat him like a friend. Never hurt, punish, beat or abandon him
2. Ensure good nutrition
3. Take an informed decision about spaying/neutering.
4. Give him good veterinary care. Half yearly check ups,vaccinations, dental check ups, and more.
5. Get him an ID and license.
6. Training is a key to a long and fulfilled life.
7. Groom him everyday or as many times as necessary. Grooming is one way of bonding with your dog.
8. Socialize your dog from day one - this will help him be comfortable around other people and animals as well as in public places.
9. Devote at least 30 minutes everyday to play with your dog.
10. Ensure that you are a lawful dog owner– obey all leash, vaccination, and noise pollution laws.
11. Always clean up after your dog - it prevents infections.
12. Exercise your dog for at least 30 minutes each day.

Italy, pay attention to rule number 11.

A porn tax, an idea often discussed but never yet implemented, is being looked at seriously again as the government’s budget package is debated in parliament. (…)
Two years ago her National Alliance party proposed a porn tax as a way of providing 100 million euros in funding for scientific and technological research. It said the extra tax was justified because it targeted a “questionable” industry.
In the end the proposal failed to garner sufficient support .
The Northern League party, one of National Alliance’s coalition allies, put forward a similar proposal a year earlier but that too was voted down. According to a report released by the Eurispes research institute earlier this year, Italy’s pornography industry now has an annual turnover of 1.1 billion euros.
That figure is said to be rising at a rate of about 10% a year, making the industry one of Italy’s most resilient, even though experts note it is still far smaller than the German or Spanish ones .

Read more about it here.
Now, I’m no fan of porn, but I don’t think it should be taxed because it is ‘questionable’ industry.
Child pornography is one thing, but if adult people want to watch an adult porn movie I don’t see what is wrong with that. To me, that is not ‘questionable’.
Too many things are taxed in Italy already. With the salaries being as low as they are and prices being as high as they are, I really don’t think there should be any new taxes at all, even on porn…

Today as I was sipping an espresso in a bar, an American accented English speaking couple walked in.
They went to the cashier and ordered ‘un caffe americano (an american coffee).

“NO!!” I wanted to scream at them, “DON’T DO IT !!! YOU WON’T GET WHAT YOU EXPECT !!”
But I said nothing. Perhaps they knew exactly what liquid substance they were ordering. It’s just not real American coffee.

Water drips through coffee grinds in an American Filter-style coffee machine. It picks up flavor as it passes. The grains of coffee are thicker to support this style of preparing coffee.
In an Italian espresso style coffee machine, water is forced though coffee grinds. In espresso coffee the coffee bean is grinded to a much finer, powder-like substance to support this style of preparing coffee.
In both methods the water used for the coffee touches the coffee grains.

Caffe americano (American coffee) as served in Italy is not drip into a filter coffee that one would get in the United States. It is instead an espresso with a bunch of plain hot water thrown on top, and then shaken for a unified consistency.

I cannot honestly say if it tastes bad. I have never had one. Just the sight of a barista making one was enough to cure me of my American coffee drinking habit. All I know is that it’s not the same.

I might be. Not only did I go the Supermarket near my house, but I went in the morning, which is, so to say, the rush hour.
Every person over age 50 for miles around seems to come to this little supermarket.

This morning I entered the supermarket. It was packed like I expected. I grabbed a basket and proceeded to look at the fresh vegetables. While my attention was focused on some green peppers, a woman who obviously wishes she were on the race course for the Formula Uno instead of at a lousy supermarket, grabs a shopping cart and running at the speed of light enters the vegetable aisle and plows right into me.
I, of course lost my balance and nearly tumbled into the vegetables.
Did she excuse herself ?
No. Of course not. I always have said that the people in Italy are rude, and everyone seems to prove me right.
After a few minutes of being hit by nice looking granny figures who also turn into wannabe racecar drivers when you put a shopping cart in their hands, I said to myself “Enough!” and decided to leave. I decided to go to the checkout area.
One thing that annoys me is the customers who place their loaded shopping cart or basket in line and then leave it behind to do more shopping.
Not to grab a few items that they see, but to return to the aisles and do a full-on shopping trip.
My thought is that if you are not ready to pay for everything and leave, don’t use the check out line as a holding station.
I don’t think I’m the only one who feels this way either. I have witnessed many arguments when people cut in line in front of these abandoned shopping carts when the owners return.
Back to my story, sure enough when I went to the line there was a basket full of food sitting on the ground with no owner in sight. I waited behind it.
All of the other lines were much, much longer and I wanted to go home. Finally as the cashier started to check the food items of the man in front of this abandoned basket I cut in front of it and put my own selected food items on the belt.
There were only 3.
3 measly items.
Just as I was done placing the third item on the belt, the owner of the abandoned food, an old man, showed up with a bunch of food stuffs in his arms.
“Can’t you see my basket ? I’m next in line!” he yelled at me.
Normally I don’t argue with old men who look like they are in their 60s, but I was mad and still hurting. I yelled back.
“YOU weren’t here! The cashier is not going to wait for YOU !” and then he shut up.
So did the man in front of me who was talking to the cashier.(at least for a few seconds which is practically the same)
Perhaps over-aggressive aggression is what you need to survive in Italy.

A commenter’s comment led me to this article. I’m not sure if it’s the one she suggested I read, but I like it a lot all the same and if it wasn’t for her suggestion I wouldn’t have even looked for it. It is very interesting; a mirror image of what I would like to say. (but the author of the article says it better, so I’ll just shamelessly copy and link it.)

A holiday in Italy can make you wish you lived there - but the reality, says Sebastian Cresswell -Turner, is that it’s a land of almost unbridled anarchy.

“How lucky you are to be living in Italy.” “That must be heaven.” “I do envy you.” If you live in Rome, as I do, you get used to comments like these. But you soon realise that the idyllic vision of Italy suffers from just one drawback: it is almost complete rubbish.

For the first few months after you move here, all is indeed perfect. The sun is warm, the people are welcoming, the language is a joy, the food is delicious, the wine is cheap, and everyone is a pleasure to look at. You congratulate yourself on your wisdom and you pity your friends who are still locked up in their grey, northern offices.

But then you begin to realise that in this new paradise you face a major problem: it is virtually impossible to earn a living.
Take Rome. To live here with a minimum of dignity (renting a small flat, eating out occasionally, but no car and no proper holidays), you need a good 3,000 euros a month pre-tax, say 1,800 euros post-tax (roughly £2,100 and £1,250 respectively).

However modest this seems, it is not what you will get. While in the Anglo-Saxon world most adults expect to be able to live independently off their salaries, in Italy most don’t. They stay with their families.

Indeed, a staggering 70 per cent of single Italian men between the ages of 25 and 29 live in subsidised comfort at home, where their meagre earnings do very nicely as pocket money. And when they do move out to the stability of marriage or cohabitation, it is generally into a flat that is provided by the family.

Read the whole article here.

Hat tip : Tiff.

This summer in Italy I received a phone call. The conversation went something like this:

Caller: “Is someone there looking for a job ?”
Me: “Yes, I am looking for a job.”
Caller: (who must have heard my foreign accent) “Are you Italian ?”
Me: “No, I am American.”
Caller: ” And how many years have you lived in Italy ?”
Me:”I have been living here for 3 years.”
Caller: “Ahhhhh, but this job requires that you speak Italian.”
Me: “But I do speak Italian,”
Caller: “OK. Bye.” And then hung up the phone.

Note: This conversation was in Italian, and even though the caller did most of the speaking, I understood her so it should be assumed that I have some ability to speak Italian, yet I was dismissed because I was not a native Italian speaker. Not even given a chance to prove myself.

Obviously I cannot speak with 100 percent clarity, because in the United States I am a native speaker, but I highly doubt that Buzzurro will suffer the same humliating experience as me if he gets a phone call from an American job recruitment agency.
Many Americans speak with accents. Just because you have one doesn’t signify that you don’t know the language enough to work in a job that requires it.
I also think that if a US recruiter were to have any doubts at all about a client’s ability to speak English he would arrange for a more comprehensive speaking interview, perhaps he would give a proficiency test.
After all, conversing on the phone is the hardest part of learning a language, and if one can do that, even if only for a few seconds, shows a knowledge of the language not worth ignoring.