Voglio formaggio, but...

Have you ever tried going a week without dairy products in a country like Italy?  I have never had more trouble trying to figure out what to eat.  Why was I cutting out dairy products?  Simple:  the consumption of dairy products helps with mucus production, and I had a cold (My four years of Music paid off in more ways than one!).  My mucus production did not need any boosting.  As a result, the meals I could eat when I had solo mealtime were cut down to about 1/4 of what they would normally be.  I think the family noticed, because last Sunday the mother made sure to let me know that I was welcome to anything in the house, because she didn’t think I was eating enough.

My Italian is slowly but surely improving.  I think it helps that I bought un nuovo quaderno strictly for my Italian class, and I have been organizing my notes from my previous quaderno into this one in a way that makes sense for me.  Though after Tuesday’s class, I’ve gone from feeling competent to feeling like I’ll be playing catch up for the next seven weeks.  Why?  They split the class into two parts, so there is now one advanced group and one beginning group.  Don’t ask me how this happened, but I got shuffled into the advanced group.  I could understand most of what was being said; my vocabulary, though, is still extremely limited.  Even with the help of the dictionary, I sometimes don’t know exactly how to express what I want to say.  As a result of my unprecedented move, I have homework  I get to study up on both the passato prossimo and imperfetto.  Luckily the passato prossimo is somewhat similar to the French passé composé, which will end up both helping and messing with my mind ( “J’ai travaillé... no, crap... ho lavorato...”  Yeah, that’ll be me).

Thursday I did one of the best things I could:  I bought an Italian cookbook.  It should help me for when I get back to the states.  I know I owe at least 5 people an authentic Italian meal (though, if you’re wanting handmade pasta, you’re going to have to provide me with a pasta roller), so having a reference guide that discusses how to make all these various dishes--the book has pictures of each dish, and they look fantastic--will help a lot.  The entire book is in Italian, though, so I’ve been poring over it and the little dictionary I found in the basement of the house and writing notes so I can concentrate on the cooking (though, if I use my Italian often enough with this book, then maybe it won’t go away! ^^).  As I was scanning the recipes I realized that I want to come back to Italy sometime in the future to take an Italian cooking class, because how awesome would that be?  I also want to do the same thing in France and Greece if the opportunity arises.  So I made the decision to incorporate coming back to Italy for a cooking class as a reward for maintaining another goal I’m working on while I’m here.  The trick is to not get wrapped up in the rewards and focus on achieving the goal first.  See?  I’m learning...

The weather changed from being sunny and kind of warm (mid 50s to low 60s F max) to being overcast and down pouring rain on Friday.  Yes, I know, just like home.  This made me think of an interesting problem:  how do Italians dry their clothes in the winter?  From what I’ve seen during my first six weeks, most Italian families do not own a conventional dryer like we do in the States; instead, they just hang their clothes out to dry.  This presents an entertaining but very real problem for me:  see, I was frugal and only brought about 13 days’ worth of clothes, and I’ve had at least 3 shirts go missing, not to mention the fact that most of my socks are in the process of dying (I need to invest in house shoes so bad...).  I didn’t think anything of the hanging clothes out to dry when I arrived, but mostly because it was September and still incredibly warm.  What with the fact that there is currently snow visible on the mountains near the house, though, this has become a real question.  I’m starting to think that the radiators are still around for this express purpose, but with my luck I’d end up setting my clothes on fire...

Saturday I met up with one of the other au pairs in Turin for a drink.  We went to the English pub on via Vittorio Emanuel II, then she took me over to via Po to wander around.  Turin at night is gorgeous!!!  For those who didn't know, Turin was the capital of Italy before Rome, and there's a lot of beautiful buildings and statues that can be seen both during the day and at night.  The buildings lit up at night, though, made me think I was in a fairy tale and should have been wearing a ball gown.  I’m making the executive decision that on November 10th I’m going to spend the entire Saturday in Turin going to all the museums I can.  I’ll make sure I get the camera and take pictures, and I’ll try my best to get--and write--some postcards.  If you want a postcard from Italy, either email me or message me privately on whichever social networking site you see this update from with your address, and I’ll do my best to send you one.

I’m going to say this right now, because by next week’s blog it should have already happened.  Since my first term of online classes finishes on the 30th, I’m going to take the 31st through the 3rd off and take a break from the Internet.  I’ll still write down things in my notebooks that I’ll share at my next blog, but I want to take a small computer break (and besides, all the political postings are starting to make me cry.  PLEASE VOTE!!!  I won’t endorse one candidate over the other, but you, my wonderful readers, have the chance to elect the next president.  Don’t throw this chance away!!).  This will give me a chance to go out and wander both Rivalta and Turin and play tourist for a few days.

Oh, and for the next seven days I’m only 8 hours ahead of y’all instead of my usual 9.  The rest of the world doesn’t believe it necessary to extend DST.  Have a great week, and don’t get hit by Sandy or the tsunami heading towards us!

Cinnamon, Chestnuts, and breaking public transportation

So I caught a cold on Sunday.  One of those classic  "stuffed up, miserable, want to shoot the sun out of the sky and sleep for three days with no interruptions" colds.  As I was browsing on G+ that Monday, I saw an article one of my friends posted about how honey and cinnamon can cure/help with a variety of diseases, aches, and pains.  For colds, it said to combine 1 tablespoon honey and 1 tsp cinnamon and eat it once a day for three days to get rid of the cold.  I was sold on this logic, and decided that I would go get cinnamon the next day.

Tuesday did not yield any cinnamon despite my best efforts.  I did, however, get a 500 g jar of honey (that is almost gone now on Sunday).  I went to both the supermercato and an erboristeria (yep, I'm going to teach some basic Italian as I write these. <3 ), but no luck.  I did discover, though, that despite what my host mother said, cinnamon does not translate to "chin-a-mon" (I'm writing it how she pronounced it), but to "cannella".  No wonder the erborista had a hard time helping me find any.  I went into Torino Wednesday to check Carrefour, a different chain to see if they had any, but still no luck.  I did have about 30 minutes left on my ticket, so I made my way up to where I would normally get off the tram for class and hurried over to Via San Secondo and to the erboristeria there.  She did have cannella.... Though only as sticks, and I don't yet have the vocabulary to ask for it as powdered.  So I got two cinnamon sticks (probably at least 25 cm long) for 1 euro.  I hurried my butt back to the tram and back to Rivalta, and started the regimen.

I have to admit, I can understand why they say cinnamon will help with a cold.  Taking it with honey made my sinuses open up!  The children looked at me weird, though, because they had no clue what cinnamon was...

Tuesday evening the father brought home a new car.  The children love it, and "rode" in the trunk while he parked the car in the garage.  In all honesty, I do not understand why he bought this new car.  It has the same number of seats as the last car (5, and there are 6 people when they have an au pair), and with two small children it's not going to stay clean long.  But I'm only here for three months, so my place is not to judge.  The middle child did ask the parents after dinner that night why the father hadn't bought me a car too... My host father translated after they started laughing  (all I had understood was my name).  I started laughing when they told me what was said, but that was more of the "yeah, no, I don't want a car, honey" laugh than out of actual amusement.

Thursday I went to my Italian class (I skipped on Tuesday) and afterwards went wandering around Turin with the only other English au pair remaining (the rest have stopped coming.  If I was to be in Turin longer I would understand and probably follow suit, but this class lets me do a lot of solo work and does help, so I'm getting my 15 euros worth.  Plus, with the card I was given I can go stay at the YWCA in Rome if I wanted for free!).  After we parted ways I caught the tram to head back to Caio Mario (where I get the bus to go home).  I just have to laugh because when we hit my stop for Italian class, our tram broke.  Everyone stood there for at least 10 minutes complaining (at least, I think they were complaining.  All I have to go off of is the tone of voice) about the fact that we weren't moving.  The public transportation people then made everyone disembark and spent the next ten minutes running around trying to get the tram running again.  In the meantime, 3 more trams of the same number were stuck behind us.  The conductors got the tram going finally, then left without having the passengers re-embark.  The vast majority flocked onto the next tram that stopped, but I decided to be patient and grab the tram after that.  As a result, I got to sit down.  It just made me wonder why so many people were so upset about this delay and did not want to get off the tram so that the conductors and engineers could figure out the problem.  Are people really in that big of a hurry?

Saturday I went with the family to what I discovered was a chestnut festival in a neighboring town.  I made the mistake of looking at what the boys were wearing and thinking that this was an occasion that I needed to dress up for.  Once again:  heels do not function well on cobbled streets, and nice pants are not a good idea when you have a three year old and a five year old boy who do not always like behaving.  I did discover that chestnuts are incredibly tasty, and that Italians believe in having one drink for the children/anyone who doesn't like alcohol, and one drink that contains alcohol in the evenings.  There was a choice of chocolate or something--that turned out to be mulled wine--being sold after dinner that night outside.  I grabbed the mulled wine thinking it was a cider.  Boy did I feel like an idiot after the first sip.  It was good, though, so I drank it anyway.

Which makes me think that maybe I should start researching/trying various red wines.... Any takers for when I get back to the States?

I'm off to go get some pictures of Rivalta while there's still some light.  Have an amazing week everyone!

(As for my tale of my adventure celebrating one month in Italy, that will come later... Hopefully.  It will be a long one, though!)

Wait, you mean I've been here a month already??

Yeah, I just realized that I left the States a month ago (it seems like forever). Though I guess that's about right, because I'm just about finished with the box of tea that the family bought me (they don't drink coffee, so I have to indulge in that vice in town). I think one of the I-5 time bubbles followed me over here...

My Italian class continues to be both a source of information, entertainment, and the occasional source of confusing my foreign languages.  On Tuesday we had about 13 people in class--not including the teacher!!  To give an idea, normally these classes are about 4-5 people not including the teacher.  About halfway through the class a French girl came in and joined our class, to the obvious delight of our teacher (she speaks better French than she does English).  For the rest of the lesson she would translate it from Italian to French, and forget about English about half the time.  My four years of French finally paid off, because I could understand what the teacher was saying as she translated the various verbs, and I could do a basic explanation in French with the other girl that I was here as an au pair (apparently she is too).  The whole hearing Italian being translated into French does not help me that much.  I have enough trouble trying to speak in Italian, because my mind tends to go to its French vocabulary first, and so hearing it in class just messes with my mind.

Tuesday I went into Turin slightly earlier than normal because I needed to replace my graphics card.  I found one that's 22 GB that was a decent price.  I made sure that it would be ok for me to borrow one of the family's cameras from time to time so I can take pictures and capture some of the beauty of Northern Italy--especially the architecture and the scenery.  So Thursday I was going to take the camera with me and wander around Turin for a bit... But no, it was incredibly overcast and drizzly, and Friday wasn't much better.  I checked the forecast for the next week, and from what I can see it should be nice.  Hopefully I can get some pictures then.

One of the times I'll take out the camera is when I head out on the nature trail.  I've taken to doing longer walks on Monday/Wednesday/Fridays because those are the days that I do not need to go into Turin for class.  Through a combination of exploring and sheer stubbornness, I have gotten these walks to be at least 8 miles round trip by keeping track of the steps I take using my pedometer.  Granted, my pedometer is not always accurate, but it's close enough that I trust it (so long as I smack it occasionally so it will count the steps.  There have been a couple incidents where I checked the number of steps it said, walked 10 steps, and only had it record 4....).  Monday I ended up climbing two hills as I ventured out trying to find the places that are listed for directions.  Coming back up the first hill I had to stop a few times, because my legs were so sore!  These walks are nice and help me relax and refocus, but I have to admit that I miss the ocean...

When I was younger my aunt told me that Italian drivers were some of the worst drivers she had ever seen, especially after seeing the drivers in Germany both on and off the autobahn.  After personal experience with the Italian drivers after driving in America for 8 years, I have to agree with her.  From what I've seen it's as if the Italians don't realize or don't care that they are navigating in a giant fiberglass death trap (or less, sometimes).  I've seen motorcycles that will sneak up on the edges of the road to get to the front of the line of cars waiting at a stoplight, cars that take corners entirely too quickly to be safe (without even looking to see if the way they are turning is clear or not), cars that hit other cars while parking and don't even leave information, and cars that will blow past other cars/buses to be able to maintain the same speed, regardless of whether there is room in that lane of traffic to pass.  They are not opposed to veering into the opposing lane of traffic to pass other people.  Suffice it to say that I have yet to attempt driving in Italy (despite the fact that I have my International driving permit).  Considering the fact that I don't have an "intimate relationship with a manual transmission", I'm pretty sure I'd get into a wreck.

Italian radio makes me laugh.  The station that the family has their stereo set to plays mostly American pop (Yay WCS practice!), with one difference (besides the language) :  they don't censor the songs.  Imagine my surprise the first time I heard the latest Pink song that has the chorus discussing having a "shit day", and hearing the word "shit" come out on the radio!  I  keep having  to remember that English is not the main language...

Normally I would try to fit the entire bit of what happened in a week in my blog, but my one month "anniversary" of being in Italy needs its own separate blog post.  So y'all may luck out and get a few more posts from me over the next couple weeks than usual.  First, though, I need to go finish my papers for my online classes...

Salamanders, spiders, Dancing, Canoeing, and Practical Italian

In addition to hedgehogs, Torino has a vast population of (what I'm convinced are, anyway) salamanders.  They can be seen and heard scuttling away from humans whenever it's sunny.  I keep hearing them when I go on my walks.  It takes me a second to realize that no, I'm not going to get pounced on by a cat or a bird, it's just a salamander running away.

As most of you know, I don't like spiders.  To me, spiders belong in places I will never see them and never go, and they should never invade my house.  If they do, they forfeit their lives.  So, when I saw that there were two spiders chilling in the skylights in my room, I was prepared to do battle for control of the room.  Without a step stool or adequate weapons, though, I have a hard time reaching them.  In my time here, I have come to a treaty with i ragni:  So long as they stay in their windows and don't come down into my room, I won't attack them.  If they leave the safety zone of their skylights, though, they're fair game.  In exchange, I will do my best to herd the mosquitoes and the flies towards them so they have food.  That's right.  I'm making use of having these mini predators in my room to help get rid of the pests (I need bug spray so I won't get eaten anymore...).

Wednesday I went to an Argentine tango lesson with the other au pair who lives in Rivalta.  It was a beginning lesson, and in the 90 minutes we barely covered the "basic step" (the 8 count pattern with a leg cross for the follow).  As per usual, there were quite a few more women there than men, so I spent most of the class leading  (The other au pair and I were dance partners, and we switched roles a couple times.  With me being taller by at least 4 inches, though, it makes more sense for me to lead).  The entire class was done in open position, which was not something I was expecting.  I have to admit, this class opened my eyes to multiple things.

The teachers were a couple who looked to be in their late 40s.  They knew their stuff and understood that most of the other people in the class had never danced ballroom before or danced in general..  The first thing they covered was connection/moving from your core instead of your arms  I'm rather embarrassed to admit this, but the time we spent simply shifting our weight back and forth using our core helped me a lot.  Since I was doing this as a leader (the male teacher used the terms "leader" and "follower" to describe us, which helped me, though it may have confused the other students), I had to be aware of where my weight and my partner's weight was located, and that I needed to not rely on my arms to move my partner.

I don't know how I missed being aware of this in the past, but I did.  Doing this as a lead helped me gain this awareness.  I think I learned more in that basic lesson than I expected.  I also got the compliment that I was a good follow from the teacher.  That made me feel slightly better about things.

Sadly, I don't think I can continue in the class.  It costs 95 euros, and I don't know how long it runs (I would rather not leave the class in the middle and skew the numbers).  Also, with the difference in the number of male and female participants, I would most likely end up leading almost exclusively (it's weird to go from being what's considered an average height  to being one of the taller people in town!!), which--while it might help my overall dancing--is something I would prefer to do after I learn the follow's part, since that's the part I would prefer to dance.

Thursday morning our Italian teacher showed us where the coffee machine was located (since we kept yawning during previous lessons).  Now, this is not your ordinary run of the mill "brew coffee and pour a cup" coffee machine.  This thing has about 12 different choices (with the 12th being an empty cup):  4 coffee based drinks, 3 decaf coffee based drinks, lemon tea, and two different kinds of hot chocolate.  The best part?  I got the same amount of coffee from this machine that I would get from a café for .35 euro cents rather than 1.20 euro.  This means I can get my coffee fix twice a week and be saving money.  Granted, I'm also considering saving up once I get back to the states to invest in an espresso machine.  I find that I like the Italian style of coffee. =)

Now for the practical Italian lesson of the week.  If you want to get un gelato, you need to know the flavors:
Fiordilatte = vanilla
cioccolato = chocolate
caffe = coffee
menta = mint
nocciola = hazelnut
fragola = strawberry.

So far I've had all of these flavors except vanilla.  I think I gave myself away as a foreigner, though, because I ordered nocciola and fragola the other day.  The look on the woman's face as I asked for these two flavors was one of "Are you sure you want that...?"  Cono is cone, and the sizes are:  piccolo-small (1 scoop), medio-medium (2 scoops), and grande-large (3 scoops.  That's too much gelato for me!).  Know that in Italy you have to get a receipt (it shows that the shopkeeper pays their taxes), and you must take it with you when you leave the shop in case you get stopped by an inspector, who will ask to see the receipt.  If you don't have the receipt, both you and the shopkeeper get fined.  Once you get home, though, you can throw the receipt away.

Saturday one of the grandfathers took the eldest (the girl) and I out to a lake (lago piccolo) for a canoeing lesson.  Luckily the teacher there understood that I  spoke very little Italian, and she was nice enough to switch languages when directly addressing me.  She forgot my name, though, and so for the next two hours I was known as "Oregon".  It made me giggle.  The lake was situated in the mountains, and I could see houses dotting the mountainside past the little town.  We went on a perfect day, too.  It was sunny but not overly hot, and there were some clouds hanging around the mountains, but the view was still fantastic.  It made me realize that I really do need to get a memory card so I can borrow a camera and start taking pictures.

I need to get my hair trimmed, but I'm rather hesitant to get it done while I'm still learning Italian.  I can just see myself using the wrong word while asking for them to trim my bangs and end up with a crazy haircut... And it would be my fault for not knowing in the first place the correct word to use.  I'll probably end up asking one of the parents what the word is, and going in a couple weeks.

Musings on TV, Children, and Language.

So, I have to open with this:  I have now seen an episode of My Little Pony.  I'm still lost on the cult following, though.  Granted, the episode I watched was "l'intuito di Pinkie;" aka the entire thing was in Italian...

On the subject of television, though, I took away the children's TV privileges on Thursday.  I don't believe in rewarding bad ehavior, and all three children were particularly bad that afternoon.  So they didn't get to watch any cartoons that night.  When their mother informed them of their loss and why, they all proceeded to throw yet another tantrum.  It made me realize that humans have become addicted to both TV and the internet.  It's instant gratification, but it comes at a cost.

With this in mind, I have decided to treat the computer as a tool only;:  it will hold my documents and an electronic copy of every document I need, and it will mainly be used for research and development.  I'm going to work on cutting down time spent poring over social media sites, and instead do things like cultivate a garden, work on my dancing, and find a job when I get back to the States (though I will probably start looking for the third a little earlier).

Thursday I ended up going over my 20 euro a week limit.  I needed to replace my purse (it's bad when you keep forgetting that you have a nice hold in it where the little pocket it, and only remember when you go to put something in said little pocket) and my stolen backpack, and I knew that getting a good quality bag would cost more than 5 euros.  So after class and lunch, the other au pairs and I made our way to Garibaldi, the main shopping street in Turin.

The best way to describe Garibaldi  is a wide avenue of various shops that stretches over a mile long:  from clothing to accessories to shoes to eyeglasses to gelato shops, and everything in between.  There are people walking, people biking, funny little cars with three wheels and are apparently operated by groundskeepers (I never realized just how messy people could be!), and the occasional garbage truck (made by Fiat, of course) all sharing the same space.  Luckily they are no regular cars, otherwise I'm pretty sure there would be multiple accidents every day!

After four shops I found a wonderful replacement.  It's more of a messenger bag (like my old one) than a purse, but it suits my needs wonderfully.  When I told the woman at the counter I didn't want a bag she looked at me like I was off my rocker.  So I showed her the state of my purse.  Comprehension dawned, and was kind enough to empty out the paper inside the bag before giving it to me.  That restored a little of my faith in humanity.

Saturday it rained, which trapped everyone inside the house.  Had it not been for this, I probably would have gone warndering around, but the children need a babysitter so their parents can go out and run errands, so inside I stay.

I guess I spoke too soon when I expressed the belief that I was free of the guy from the train station.  He called me Saturday evening, and once again expressed his desire in seeing me.  From the sounds of it he wanted it to be that night, but I managed to dissuade him from both that and Sunday.  He's pushing for next weekend, though.  Before anyone asks:  no, I don't want to see him again.  It's obvious that he still wants to start a relationship with me, and this past week has shown me nmany more reasons to stay single for the next year or so.  I don't think he'll understand, because the first time I tried to explain he just brushed it away like it was nothing.  I'm hesitant to be rude/mean about things, but if it has to come down to that to get my point across, then I'll do it.  I'm not going to be a doormat, thanks.

I think that I missed something, growing up with only one older sibling.  I always got in trouble if I fought back.  So watching the three children hit and kick each other makes me jump up and put a stop to it, no matter which sibling started it. I don't know if I'm helping or hurting things by doing this, because I don't know if they're trying to determine pecking order within their ranks.

After two weeks around the children, I think I've come up with a wonderful way to help lower teen pregnancy rates.  Starting at age fourteen, every American teen should spend two hours a day volunteering at a local daycare center (preferably around snack time or nap time) with 2-5 year olds who are not their siblings.  Then they get to deal with toddlers, not the "cute little babies" that I hear some of them cooing over and wanting at such a young age.  Ever have to tell a 3 year old that no, he can't have a highly sugary snack and instead is going to have something healthy?  Yeah....

My two weeks here has also helped me realize that I don't believe I want to bear children of my own.  Instead, I think I"m going to donate my eggs to help other women/science and adopt/foster children.  There are too many children without parents who also need love, and I don't see that me upping the population by 1-4 is going to help anything.  If other women who want to have children but can't and who would benefit from my donation can be helped, then that makes me happy.  I'm going to look towards adopting children around 3-5 years old and have a foster home.  I keep thinking of the movie It Takes Two, where the Olsen twin who was the orphan made the comment of "Nobody wants to adopt a child.  It's like dogs:  everyone wants a puppy."  Then again, first I need to get a job and either a house or an apartment that would have the room needed to raise a child.

I'm finding that I keep mixing up my French and Italian words.  For example, Sunday morning I tried to tell the middle child to "Close the microwave door, please." It came out:  "Fermez la porta di microwave... Per favore." I count thre different languages in that sentence.  No wonder I'm having trouble.... While I have two "Learn Italian" books, they are both solely in Italian.  Immersion for the confusing win?