Homeward Bound

Today is our last day here in Italy as residents. Tomorrow we begin our long journey home, which will end about 48 hours from now, in Missoula, Montana.

One of the joys of living in an unfamiliar country is the newness of it all: the differences in clothes, language, customs, and food make life vibrant and exciting while living abroad. Perhaps being forced to embrace--or at least live with--difference is reason enough to pack one's bag for a year.  Still, we weren't quite expecting it all. The differences of life in Italy versus the life in America are vast, and I can say with certainly that while Italy isn't la doce vita for anyone but tourists, it is a wonderful country and we all will miss it, in different ways.  What was once strange and new is now custom and expected. We became a bit Italian this year--some more, some less--but Italian Brauns. Brauni?

This year, that took so long in planning, that was so arduous and so joyful, is almost over. Our year abroad is nearly complete. While sad, I am, thankfully, ready to come home. With my new Italian shoes.

Hope to see you all soon.

XXO

Daphne

But who's counting?

A month ago or so I stopped noticing I was living in Italy. Things have become routine here: the exceptionally-sweet breakfasts, the morning Vespa noise as I walk the kids to school, the need to buzz around town half the morning for errands, the weekend travels to new places.  No more do I wake up and feel like shouting, "I am living in Italy! I can't believe it!"  While my [lack of] language skill prevents me from feeling fully integrated into Italian life, I feel as though I have a good handle on [Northern] Italian culture and norms. I understand Italy not as a lover -- not new and fresh and perfect everywhere -- but as a real love.  That is, I appreciate the wonderful while being realistic about the not-so.

The new phase of Italian love brought a thick fog of home sickness. Where I did not miss home too much before, I suddenly was ready to go back. Now.  When a kind woman whose kids go our girls' school asked if we were going to leave in June and then come back in September to Mantova, I said a little too forcefully, "Oh No. Noooooooooo. No. Yeah, no. We are just going home. Yeah. NO. [Long pause, slight smile.] It has been great, though...."
That night I went home and counted the days until June 15.

The rest of the month has been this way, me trying to live in the moment here while still feeling the pull of back home. As my eldest daughter said, "I think I am ready to miss Italy."

Then, today, out of the blue, a gem. A little town found just 30 minutes from here. With a huge fortress as you enter the town and an imposing and beautiful castle in the distance, bright poppies in bloom in the fields around the main square, and a clean river cutting through town, we six were lost again in the beauty of Italy as we explored. Then, we found a lunch placed filled with boisterous, happy, toasting [and cheering] Italians, and ordered [and of course ate] our pheasant with pasta, roasted rabbit, Russian salad and more. After lunch, as we walked thought the old streets and ogled at the marvelous villas, I was hit again by how much I love this country, and felt glad that we still have some days left.

But not too many.

Spring

The winters in Montana are long and bleak. They are also tricky: sometime around the end of February when you need spring weather to come, the temperatures heat for a day or two, and everyone runs around in flip flops and T-shirts: two days later, snow blows in and shoos the sun away, and winter or a very cold spring will remain until at least mid-April. So, when the temperature got warmer in Mantova -- warm enough to change to our lighter jackets-- a month ago, I waited for the second freeze, the next winter, to come. Instead, every week since has brought warmer days and more sun.  Today, finally, I could only embrace it: the restaurants have moved their tables outside and the stores have changed their clothes offerings to those with light fabrics and colors.  Even the produce has changed: red tomatoes, bright green asparagus, dark black plums, and "fruit of the forest" are offered by the green grocers.  Spring has arrived in Italy.

I am so struck by how warm and beautiful it is, I proclaim my delight to everyone.
"It is so nice today! So hot!" [To my favorite green grocer] His response: Yes.
"Can't you believe this weather! Fabulous!!" [To my Italian acquaintance] Her response: Yes.
"Beautiful day today! Is this normal? Is this STAYING?" [To an elderly man at the park] His response: Yes.

I often feel this way here: just not quite "in the know" of what is generally known.

For example, I did not know that in Italy,  balloons are super scary for small children and not an appropriate toy for sharing.  Earlier this week, I bought a pack of balloons to bring to the park for Rachel, Nick, and me to play with. I blew-up a few, and noticed little kids looking in our direction.  Since Italian children are always told to share -- sharing toys is a big "do" on Italian playgrounds, this I know -- I thought I would give our balloons to some of the younger children. I first offered our big, green, balloon to a little girl.  She shook her hear and grabbed her mother's leg. "She can have this," I said, looking up to the mother while kneeling near the little girl. "Oh no," said the mother, taking her away from me "she does not like balloons." Nick and I looked at each other and shrugged. Later, a little boy of almost 2 toddled over to me, smiling a half-toothed grin at the balloon in my hand. "He can take it, " I said to his grandfather, smiling. "Oh dear, no. A balloon is much to scary for him, and he doesn't know about the loud noise it makes." At that moment, Rachel pushed the balloon into the nearby bush and it popped. The little boy jumped up and ran to his grandfather. "I guess he does now," I told Nicholas quietly. "Mom," Nick said, "just keep the balloons. I don't think anyone wants them." Right.

Of course, I have learned some of the things here that are "common knowledge." I know my children should not touch any toy EVER in a toy store. I know to weigh the fruit and vegetables and take them with a plastic mitt. I know to pay bills in a clean, white envelope. I know not to ask for things straight-on. I know to wait for the ubiquitous white receipt after every. single. transaction.

And today I know there is a springtime in Italy, it comes on March 21, and it is marvelous.
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The take away

The back area of all my pants hang loose, and the knees bag when I stand, forming a kind of second-knee that puffs out. It is not some miraculous Mediterranean lifestyle diet that has left all my clothes baggy: I will not, upon returning to America, be 10 pounds lighter and, with a dismissive wave,  give away secrets of Italian women and their lovely figures, and whisper about how Italians simply know how to eat, darling, and one just walks everywhere in Europe, dear, so who needs to exercise. For, while the exercise and eating part are  mostly true, my wine, ice cream, and pasta diet [not in that order] seems to even out the walk-everywhere cardio program, at least for me. No, my pants are baggy and ill shaped simply because I wear the same clothes every day.

The clothes are washed, of course, but due to the high cost of energy and just a general reluctance from Italians to embrace The Drier, I dry our clothes on two huge clothing racks, perpetually stretched out to their full holding capacity in the upstairs sleeping space shared by my three oldest children. Lots of people have waxed poetic to me about the fresh smell of outside hang-dried clothes, but I don't have the possibility of hanging up clothes outside from this apartment, and anyway, the air in Mantova wouldn't exactly leave a fresh scent most days. Once a week I fold over our rugs and duvets over the window banisters, and "air" them out as best as I can; I am not sure it does much, but I feel really Italian doing it, and I like feeling Italian.

Anyway, the clothes go on the rack after the curiously long two-and-a-half hour wash cycle, and they dry, like little ghosts in the form of our bodies, until stiff to the touch, about a day later. After that, almost everything requires a quick ironing to soften-up and look generally presentable.  All of this rigamarole means that, before something gets washed, it must really and truly be dirty. "Can't you wear that again? "  is an oft-repeated phrase in our house, and, to my delight, most children agree. My two middle children have been known to wear the same outfit for a whole week running, without ridicule or comment by fellow students [for the other students, too, often wear the same outfit or pants for a whole week running].  As might be imagined, perfume becomes not only welcome but almost necessary with all of these same-clothes wearing days, and even my littlest, at two and a half, has a fresh Italian made-for-toddler, organic "scent" she can use after her shower, and [of course] on her clothes.   
 
An easy solution, of course, would be to buy some new clothes; space out the washing and give some of these tired outfits a break.  I have a good case for it: in one of those seems-like-a-good-idea-at-the-time moments of packing to live in Italy for a year, I only brought three pair of pants for the year. All mid-waist, normal-filling jeans and pants, one black, that could be dressed up or down.  Having seen the heights of Italian shoes for women, I decided to fill my suitcase with  more shoes than clothes, figuring that I could certainly buy clothes in Italy, but finding a pair of shoes that I could walk around in might be a different story. As I was with so many of my certainties about living in Italy, I was wrong; it turns out there are plenty of attractive walking shoes, with rhinestones and pretty colors, sure, but comfortable none-the-less. But, finding a decent pair of jeans for under 150 Euro is a whole other matter. Recently, I ducked into Benetton for a pair of mid-priced spring pants and somehow came out with probably not flattering, robin-egg blue, very tight, low waist stretch jeans, that create a serious quandary as to what I can wear them with [and to what the heck was I thinking], every time I want to wear them.  My one-off Benetton purchase aside, I am too cheap to buy the jeans in the stores here, and too snobby to try out the Chinese-made knock-offs sold at the Thursday outdoor market. Hence, my worn out jeans.

Now, of course, it has become a sort of badge of honor, these clothes that have survived [an almost] year of Italian washing. My husband and I get near-giddy when thinking about throwing out all of our clothes from this year. We talk about never having to wear "this" outfit again, or "those" pants; how we will "not ever, for one moment, miss"  the grey sweater with odd buttons or the t-shirt stretched to tent-size. And what will we do with the room in our suitcase, without these old clothes and worn shoes?  What will we pack away to take back to Montana, in hopes of bringing back some of the magic--and there has been lots of magic, for sure--of this year here? Why, of course we will stuff our bags: we will pack pictures, cards, school notebooks and old tickets in zip-lock bags, fill up every compartment with food, wrap bottles of Italian wine in tea-towel gifts and still-O.K. kids' jackets and then push them down to make room for more.  We will pack in hopes that when we take out the cards and the crackers, the wine and the oil, the chocolate wafers and the Italian books, we will share it all and remember it right, our year here, together.

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Defining moments

Some people will tell you they are ski families. Others call themselves hockey families, or tennis families. I am sure there are violin families and foodie families. Some families define themselves based on what they are not: no-tv-families, or no-refined-sugar families.  I have envied families who decided what they were, what sport or political proclivity or eating habit an outsider could define the whole family by.  It seemed so secure, knowing you were an "X" family: it set expectations and eliminated confusion. Still, the more I tried to come up with what our family of six could be, the less I could satisfyingly settle on an answer. As much as I wanted to be the Broadway-show-tune family, some members where just not fully embracing the idea; my husband could have gone along with a home-beer-making and fly-fishing-family, but that had me concerned about social service intervention given the fact that our children are all under 11. So, we remained undefined. That is, until our weekend trip to Venice.  Last weekend, as we toured a frozen and wind-chilled Venice, it finally became clear to me: we are the off-season family.

My husband and I are contrarian in nature, which is certainly why I was drawn to law and probably he to academia: we love to argue "the other side."  We also both refuse to pay retail.  It must be some combination of these two traits that has created this strange phenomena of ours: we travel to many beautiful and special places, but rarely do we travel on-season. Sometimes, we might hit a shoulder season, but usually, off-season.  Give us a period of total quiet before a place fully opens or the period before it fully shuts down for the season, and we will be there.   Often times, it works to our advantage: we stay in places we would otherwise not be able to, for a period less than the minimum; we don't have to deal with many other tourists; we are greeted with a friendly smile, not yet exhausted, or exhausted but finally relaxed.

Usually, the activity that brings other people to the place on-season is not available, so we have to imagine what it would be like to be there, doing whatever it is you are supposed to be doing. On a cool fall day at Moonlight Basin ski resort in Montana, we imagined the great skiing trip that we could enjoy; at the Tuscan coast on a cloudy and cold December day we ran the beach fantasizing about swimming under the Tuscan sun; in Ireland we spent a fair amount of time picturing the beauty of our old rented manor if it were surrounded by the abundant flora that lay brown and dormant in the winter chill.  The unrealized expectations of these places -- the idea that at another time there is more beauty than what we were enjoying at that minute and that we can imagine it without blemish -- is satisfying. The times we have come back to a place on-season after an off-season trip have been disappointing, because there is no way to have the quiet rhythm and realistic pricing of off-season and the full bloom of on-season travel.

So, when planning our trip to Venice, a February weekend seemed like the perfect time for us -- the off-season family-- to explore. The weekend before carnevale, but long after the thick holiday crowds, the second week of February would offer low [or lower] prices and quiet streets in a town that has become as known for its hordes of tourists as its charm.

We arrived by train from Verona on Friday, and I was immediately taken by the loveliness of Venice. The streets were relatively quiet, the town empty but still alive. We walked around a bit, enjoying the small streets, the enchanting views, the [for me] top-notch modern museum. We ate at a local joint we carefully sought out before arriving, and its food and ambiance were pitch perfect. I went to bed in love with Venice and giddy with our luck. We had seen Venice as it must have been many years ago, before 12 million tourists a year descended on this string of islands.

The next day brought a cold wind from Siberia and thousands of tourists preparing for Sunday's carnevale commencement. Suddenly and overnight, my sweet little Renaissance town had turned into a fraternity party, a freezing cold Marti-Gras.  By 10:00 am the streets became packed with young people dressed in masks and paint, drinking too much too early; beggars on their knees, yelling for money;  vendors hustling masks and striped Gondola shirts.  After lunch, frozen and overwhelmed, we retreated to our sweet apartment, our heads buzzing with the noise and crowds and our fingers and toes red and swollen from the cold.  "But everyone is supposed to come tomorrow night," I said to no one as I took off my littlest daughter's snowsuit. Our plan, my plan, had been thwarted by over-eager exchange students and a Sunday start date.

Sunday morning, with temperatures again below zero, we woke up early to take a little walk before heading back to Mantova. It was still cold, but bearably so, and the crowds of party-goers were still in bed.  We enjoyed, once more, the beauty of the town, the remarkable buildings and small paths. The gracefulness of the city, once at the height of power and sophistication, could once again be enjoyed.  The canals were free of all boats except those delivering or policing, the famous Venetian gondolas quiet in the wintery sea.

"It would have been fun to take a gondola ride if it weren't so cold," said one of my older girls as we looked out at the row of black, sleek boats, covered and docked.
"Next time, when you come again," I said, imagining one of my girls enjoying a semester abroad, taking a boat ride in full view of the Venice moon,  being sung to by a handsome gondolier, perhaps with a good college friend or--dare I hope--sister, by her side.
"You know," I said, "when you come by yourself. . .in early summer."


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A different cut

It has been freezing cold here, colder than normal for this time of year I am told, and the temperatures and a sick little one have kept us mostly home-bound all week. There have been cries by all of us that it is time to go home: Italian life, school, and work are now routine, and some days it seems all we do is bicker in our small apartment and contemplate new ways to eat pasta. It has been a giant homesick groan of a week, even though Montana is not offering much right now, with its own cold temps and February doldrums.

It wasn't just us: people in town seemed grumpy, too. One elderly man cut me in line at the supermarket when he saw I had a cart full of food to check-out [and two young children in tow, one coughing and clearly sick].
"I want this bread," he grumbled as he pushed in front of me and thrust his bread in front of the checker's nose.
"You first have to ask the woman you just cut in front of," replied the clerk, gesturing to me.
"Ha! No way! Let me pay for my bread."
"No! You have to ask her." The clerk was now standing her ground.
"I will not!" he shouted and then gestured to all of my food with a sideways head sweep.
"Please, go ahead," I said to the clerk, and then smiled at him sweetly, while my two-year-old made her way to the gum display, picked out all the gum with pink packaging, and put them all in our cart. I really wanted to speak better Italian at that moment, as my lack of flexibility in the language sometimes makes me seem more polite than I feel. I kept the smile on my face as I brought Rachel closer to me and fished out five or six packages of strawberry blast chewing gum from my cart while Rachel complained.

I am constantly letting people with a few things to buy cut in front of me, since I have noticed that is the custom here.  It is just that it is usually the pensioners who want to cut, with their milk and bread and a tomato [and time on their hands], while I am trying to get through the store as quickly as possible with my ticking time bomb [a two-year-old].  Since the grocers do not bag your food here, I am always in a frantic rush to at once pay, bag my food, and watch for Rachel so she doesn't run for the door, steal some candy, or worse.

Generally, though, I enjoy shopping in Mantova. So, at 3:30 this afternoon, as Michael carted Allie off to a gymnastics performance in a neighboring town, I declared to the remaining three children [and to myself] that it was TIME TO GET OUT OF THE HOUSE. I bundled the little one in her coziest winter gear, fortified the others with platitudes of my youth [getting out will do us some good] and made for downtown Mantova.

The best way to shop in Italy is to find the perfect store for your focaccia, your cured meats, your torts, your fruit, and to get to know the owners. We have been here long enough that I now have "my people." My often-frequented store owners know me, if not by name than by sight, and offer the kids special sweets and sometimes a story. The stores I frequent staff people [generally family members] who are patient with my children and tolerant of my Italian.

Today, just when hungry bellies needed it most, the fococceria owner gave the kids little pizza puffs for free. Then, as a conversation with a shop owner took a turn into verbs I did not know, the owner gave me a pass. The owner, a kind and robust middle-aged man who owns a delightful bakery and pastry shop on the corner of our street, told us about his time in New York City visiting his son who lived there.  He only knew how to say "chicken," so when he was by himself eating he had chicken every time. He got really tired of American chicken. I think he said it was too fatty.
"Don't worry about your Italian so much." he said, and with a wave called my eldest daughter beautiful and wished us a pleasant walk home.

The walk home was biting cold. But with bags of food made [or cut] by people I like, Rachel quiet in her stroller from the cold and the dark, Nick at my side skipping, and my eldest daughter recounting a story from her Italian history class, I felt good.
"I think we will miss it here, though, " I said to Maddy in a moment of silence as we scrunched up our noses to keep the falling snow off of our faces.
"Oh Mom," she said, turning her face to me while letting her eyes linger on a chocolate tort placed lovingly in a baker's window, "I know we will."

The rest of the walk home was quiet.

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I'll drink to that

The Italian post system is a glimpse of what the United States Postal Service will operate like in a few years, assuming that budget cuts and facility closings continue.  Poste Italiane is unapologetically slow and erratic.

Anticipating that we would miss our favorite magazine during our year abroad, for our anniversary last year I gave Michael an international subscription to the weekly New Yorker magazine to be sent to us in  Mantova.  We do get the magazine: it is just that we get it in packs of threes. In fact, when we get mail it is an exciting event, as all the mail we should have gotten over days or weeks is brought to us, [sort of] monthly, on one day. Where all our mail is kept in the interim for [give-or-take] three weeks, in transit from the U.S. to here, is hard to fathom.  We like to think that some over-worked and under-paid Italian postal worker peruses our magazine, enjoying the cartoons and Hendrik Hertzberg commentary.
"Where does the BRAUN mail go, Lorenzo?"
"Oh, just put it over there, next to my coffee. I will get it to them soon enough."

The better way for us to get news is, of course, the internet. Every morning I log on and read the first pages of The Mantova Gazette [translated], The New York Times, and The Missoulian, our local paper in Missoula.  The Missoulian is fun because sometimes you get headlines like, "The Squirrels are BACK!" [Where did they go?] Mostly, though, the news in the Missoulian is somber and sad.  Recently the paper is full of tales of rapes, closing businesses, a teacher's abduction, and drunk drivers.  Today I realized that any Mantovanian looking at my hometown paper would be fearful of our small community and wonder if the West wasn't still very, very wild.

Not that the drunk driving reports are much of a surprise. Montana has always had a drink-and-drive culture, and a top or near-to-the-top spot on highway fatalities per capita as well. Drinking and driving was even called [in a positive way] a "way of life that has been in Montana for years and years," by one of our State Senators [Rep. Alan Hail, R - Basin]. While laws have recently become stricter, Montana is still far behind Italy, which has a recent zero-tolerance policy for drunk driving. One infraction, and in some cases, you can lose your car and license permanently. Fines and a confinement of vehicles start at a lower blood-alcohol level, too: .005 compared to Montana's .008.  Not surprisingly, per capita,  Italy has fewer road fatalities due to driving under the influence than Montana.

I still can't figure out what about Italy's culture makes the relationship with alcohol so much saner here than back home. At 16, kids can drink wine and beer, and while it is not unusual to see a kid or two with a smoke and beer on our morning walk to the girls' school, it is not common, either. I have seen people under the influence on a weekend night, but frankly they seemed more drugged-out than drunk, and were clearly in the "I have a problem" section of life. Elderly people are also seen at all hours, sitting down with their friends, from morning to later afternoon, clearly drinking something alcoholic. The bar where we often pass is so filled with elderly people drinking that I cannot discern if I feel fearful of old age or eager to reach it. Does a small glass of bubbly at 9:00 am smell like a bright day or a long day ahead? These men seem happy enough, so I like to think the former.

Wine is, of course, served with everything and all celebratory meals, and hailed as a cure-all.  Red wine should be drunk if you have a stomach ache, an iron problem, a sleep disorder, and more. Michelangelo, I have read, was given wine as a baby, and up until recently wine was used as a soother for babies suffering from teething pain. Besides that, you can get a truly fabulous bottle of wine for under 10 Euros: a bottle that would cost four times that back home. More importantly, at those prices, everyone can afford delicious and special wine. I like to think that even the youngest wine drinker in Italy appreciates the quality, and savors the glass.

All of this was swirling in my mind as I walked back to our apartment after dropping off the girls at school. Covering my mouth with my scarf to filter the lingering cigarette smoke, car fumes, and smoggy air on today's cold and bright winter morning, I reminded myself: every culture has its habits and follies, its way of life. Lots of times here, it sure feels like Missoula and Mantova could learn a lot from each other.
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