BUZZURRO

Why Santa Fe is so special…

A thousand grazie mille to Cyndi of Reboot: A New Life in Italy for the package of food she so kindly mailed from Italy to us in the USA.
I would have like to post a photo but one of the things she sent was chocolate.
I have mentioned before how I do not like the chocolate sold here, be it Hershey’s, Dove or Nestle. Neither does Buzzurro.
Cyndi sent us some Italian chocolate and Buzzurro and I devoured it like a pack of hungry wolves, so as they say in Italy, niente foto.
It tasted so good!!! Thanks again.
I just hope the package I sent with American foods arrives soon.

That’s the beauty of communism !
Price controls, food shortages, communism… deja vu.

(Hat tip to Sandmonkey).

In a nutshell…

Positive aspects of living in the USA:
- I earn 4 times what I was making in Italy for the same job
- if I want to quit my job and find another one, I have realistic hopes to find it (instead of Italy, where, once you find whatever permanent job, you’d better keep it until you retire)
- if we’ll want, for any reason, to leave New Mexico for another state, I have hopes to find another job soon somewhere else in the USA, see above
- people here are MUCH more civil than in Italy
- customer service is, generally speaking, much better than in Italy (see below what I write about customer service in NM)
- I do not live anymore in a country (Italy) where WHO you know is 98% the key to success
- United States has many beautiful places to see (New Mexico included)
- I don’t live anymore in a country (Italy) where a lot of left-wing people are communists, and a lot of right-wing people are bigots
- since 2006, I have again the hope that, if I want to improve, I can. I didn’t have this hope at all in Italy.

Positive aspects of living in NM:
- weather (among other things, I LOVE the lack of humidity)
- stunning landscapes and amazing skies
- laidback lifestyle
- generally speaking, low cost of life (with the exception of Santa Fe)

What I “complain” about living in the US:
- sometimes you have to struggle against your insurance to have it pay your medical expenses they HAVE to pay
- I try to keep in touch with my Italian friends, but apparently, after my move and the initial curiosity, a whole bunch of them… doesn’t seem interested in friendship anymore.
Friendship is a two-way thing, if only one gives and the other doesn’t, in the long run I will get bored and I stop calling and sending emails. To them (the whole bunch, not my few real friends), I say, cordially: go get screwed
- the “language barrier”, that, with time, and improvement effort from the two only neurons of mine, becomes more and more thin
- US chocolate sucks !! It is gross !!

What I complain about living in NM:
- they don’t have a clue on how to clean roads from snow (or they are too lazy to do it properly)
- NM’s motto is “the land of enchantment”. NM’s REAL motto is “the land of mañana”, where, with “mañana”, they mean tomorrow, the next year, maybe….
I had great expectations about the efficiency levels in the US, after experiencing bureaucracy Italian style for more than 35 years. Plus, I was spoiled by the real American efficiency after spending three months in New Jersey + New York.
So…
Italian customer service oftentimes is not courteous neither efficient.
NM customer service sometimes is not efficient, but courtesy is never missing.
Inefficiency with a smile.
So…
I don’t know where, in the United States, J.Doe and I will be in five years, maybe here in NM, maybe not.
Surely, we won’t be in Italy except as tourists.

This morning I had to go to the Post Office. Having lived in Italy for several years I have come to dread the Post Office.

I remember waiting many times for 1 hour plus to pay my bills (bills can be paid in the Post Office there) and waiting many minutes for a stamp or two only to be told that they ran out hours before (not that any postal employee would even think to make up a sign stating this fact for future customers)( and who ever heard of a Post Office without stamps anyway?) .

I remembered other Post Offices from my life’s past in the US that were usually efficient with short wait times so a visit to a Post Office and I was always comparing my Italian postal visits unfavorably. I missed the post offices in the US.
In 2006 when Buzzurro and I moved to New Jersey in the US we went to the Post Office. Say whatever bad thing you want about New Jersey, and many people do, but we never had to wait more than 10 minutes for any service there. “See” I told Buzzurro ” The Post Office doesn’t always have to be a place in your nightmares.” … Then we moved to New Mexico.

The Post Offices in New Mexico made me eat my words. It is like Italy all over again (maybe not quite as bad, but close).
There are many people waiting, having taken a number and three employees working while 4 other windows remain closed. The employees might work fast, but there are never ever enough of them. Buzzurro and I joke all the time that when one needs to go to the Post Office, one should bring a book with them, and a thick one at that, but I am backtracking.

This morning I went to the Post Office. I was a little perturbed because I did not bring a book or other reading material with me. I opened the door to the Post Office, expecting a long wait like usual but to my amazement found that every single window was occupied by a working employee. It was incredible. I was in shock. I picked my number from the number machine as usual. I picked number 54 and the counter said the Post Office was serving customer number 51. A lady walked up next to me and said that she has never seen so many employees working at one time in the Post Office. “Me either” I replied and then a postal employee called my number. I went to the counter and was served. I was out of there in less than 2 minutes.
What a pleasant surprise. Hope it lasts.

A few months ago I went to a Mexican restaurant with a co-worker. “Why don’t you try the chicken mole (pronounced MOH lay) burrito. It’s good.” So, that’s what I ordered.
It wasn’t just good, it was very good. I really really truly enjoyed it. I was hooked ! Addicted !

A week later I took Buzzurro to the same restaurant. He ordered a mole burrito and became hooked as well.
For those of you who don’t know what mole is, well, mole is a Mexican sauce. There are many different kinds of mole, but in the United States when one says mole it usually refers to one type of this sauce, mole poblano. The actual word “mole” is taken from the Aztec word “molli” which means stew or sauce, but mole or mole poblano is not an Aztec dish. The Aztecs only drank cocoa. They never added it to food. It was created by the Spanish settlers in Mexico who came with the conquistadores to Mexico. They came up with a really, really good creation too !

Mole, or mole poblano blends the sweetness of chocolate or cocoa with the spicyness of chili peppers, namely poblano chili peppers. It is usally brown in color, but can be a little reddish depending on the amount of chilis used. It can be spicy or not so spicy depending on how it’s prepared.

Mole can be used in many ways. For burritos, for enchiladas, like in the picture above shows or simply poured over turkey or chicken. I usually just buy the jars of mole paste to which I add a few ingredients which are listed on the jars and add it to shredded chicken and tortillas to make burritos..

To read more about mole, and find some recipes for mole, visit this link.

This post is not written by Buzzurro, the native Italian speaker, but by J.Doe, the native English speaker.

I realized several years ago after saying to Buzzurro “Non sono fatti dei soldi!” (I’m not made of money) and seeing the ensuing confusion on his face while he responded with a loud “Huh??” that some things just cannot be translated literally. In the ensuing years in Italy I paid a lot of attention to this fact and didn’t do it again.
3 years later we moved to the US. I thought that I’d never have this problem again. How wrong I was.

A few days ago on the phone I told someone that I would “navigate the internet” She responded “huh?” and then I realized that in English the verb used referring to looking on the internet is “surf”, so I corrected myself and I said ‘I’ll surf the internet to find the website.”In Italian one would say “navigare which usually translatess as ‘to navigate, as in a boat.” but it’s also used in reference to the internet.

Yesterday in the supermarket after the cashier had a rude customer who happened to be in front of me in line and she commented on his behavior I said “Yeah, he’s not refined.” She responded with a big “huh?” and I thought again to myself “Uh oh, what did I say?” Then I figured it out. In Italian if someone is rude you can say “e’ raffinato” (not refined) referring to a person, being well-mannered. The word raffinato is literally translated into the word “refined” but in English the word “refined” usually refers to processed foods, such as refined sugar or refined flour, and not people.

I could write on and on about the gaffes I made in the English language. Who would ever think that I as a native English speaker make errors in English? As Buzzurro says, “Maybe I should teach you English.”