it ranked somewhere just below the worst gas station coffee you've ever had

My apologies for taking a week off from posting! It was my first week back at school and quite busy. I'll still be posting regularly this school year though, not to worry! My new weekly features will resume shortly, but this morning I'd like to share another story from Italy, as it relates to something I encountered last week.

In Italy, these little espresso machines are everywhere. You drop in some change, make a selection, and a disposable cup drops down followed by sugar, milk, and coffee! It sounds too good to be true, but actually the quality of the espresso from these machines is very good. Since traveling requires so much energy, and I was on a small budget, I would happily buy a tiny cappuccino for 40-50 cents from these machines whenever I would come across one (train stations, hostels, you name it...even my language school had one!). A cappuccino from most bars would be around 1-2 euros, so this amounted to some good savings over the course of several weeks.

Last week--and I didn't have a camera with me, sorry!--I was running errands around campus and came across a similar machine amongst an array of typical American vending machines. I was desperate for a cup of coffee but didn't have time to go to a real coffee shop. The list of selections was amusing. I can't remember them all, but I do recall one being simply labeled, "French Vanilla," making no mention of what type of coffee was inside (maybe none?). I decided to go for the plain cappuccino so I could compare it to my Italian experience.

The price was $1, however, and I only had 50 cents in my wallet. I was about to leave when I noticed that as an alternative, I could swipe my student ID to pay. Luckily I had $1.45 left on my card from when I loaded it to make photocopies last year. I saw this as a sign of serendipity, but perhaps I was getting ahead of myself.

While waiting for the machine to finish making my drink, the first thing I noticed was the size of the cup. The machine boasted that each cappuccino was 14 ounces! I know everything in the U.S. is seen as better if it's bigger, but I was just not sold on this concept as I tried to imagine a traditional cappuccino that large. I knew that somehow it was going to be compromised, kind of like those gigantic, XL flavorless apples we have come to see as normal from the supermarket. The second thing that alarmed me was that the machine had a label on it saying to press "#" after your selection number if you would like more "lightener" in your coffee. Is lightener the same as milk, I wondered? I decided that for just this once, I didn't especially care, because I was exhausted and just really wanted some coffee!

When my coffee was done, I carefully took the cup out of the machine and gave it a taste test. First impression: yuck! It had very little flavor and did not taste anything like a cappuccino, but was more like a very watered down cup of stale hot cocoa. I considered throwing it away, but didn't see a trash can. Instead, I made my way out of the building. Still no trash can. I kept sipping on it, and the flavor improved slightly for a short period. By the time I had made it to my next destination, I had somehow managed to drink 1/3 of it. The flavor had started to worsen, though, and I was a little disgusted--it ranked somewhere just below the worst gas station coffee you've ever had. Seeing a trash can near the door, I quickly tossed it in before making my way inside and vowing to leave coffee-on-the go to the Italians from now on.

breakfast at tiffany's

Breakfast at Tiffany’s

One afternoon while traipsing around Florence, my roommate and I came across a Tiffany’s jewelry store. I remarked that although it had nothing at all to do with Italy, we should get up early one morning before class, grab a pastry, and walk over to Tiffany’s—an homage to Breakfast at Tiffany’s, of course. I don’t know where this idea came from, but it just seemed like a glamorous and snapshot-worthy thing to do, and being that we did not have class until nine in the morning, we agreed that it was completely feasible.

A few days later, we set out at seven on our little adventure. We stopped at a pastry shop near Tiffany’s, across the street from one of the more notable churches, Santa Croce. There was a long line that moved at a frantic pace while those who had just made it through gulped down tiny cappucini and pastries at nearby tall tables without chairs (because who has time to sit while they eat breakfast?).

While waiting in line, we eyed the plethora of pastries behind the glass counter and debated on what to get. When Casey, my roommate, made it to the front of the line, she described in perfect Italian the pastry she had her eye on, to the man working the counter. Casey, being fluent in Spanish already upon arriving in Italy and adept at picking up new languages quickly, was miles ahead of me when it came to speaking Italian. I stepped up next and did the best I could. I had just learned the Italian word for “same” so I thought I would just say that I would like to have the same thing she had ordered. In English, I would have just said, “I’ll have the same,” and while in hindsight I’m still not sure if that direct translation works in Italian, that is what I attempted to do. “Vorrei il sesso,” I said. He handed me the same pastry variety that Casey had gotten and rung it up on the register. For a moment I felt satisfied that the transaction had gone smoothly.

We bypassed the tall, chairless tables and started walking toward Tiffany’s. I replayed the situation over in my head, thinking about language school lessons about articles, such as the word the. In Italian, it’s not so simple. It can be la, il, or lo, and those are just the options for describing singular words. Il sesso. I thought it over. Yes, that was the right article. Then something dawned on me: lo stesso. Stesso is the word for same! I remembered suddenly. Then what is sesso? Have I heard that before?

I started talking it over with Casey. “Does stesso mean same in Italian?” She confirmed that it did. “Did you hear me order my pastry?” She had, and she didn’t want to tell me what I had said. “I think I said il sesso instead of lo stesso while trying to say I wanted the same pastry you had.” She confirmed that as well. I pulled out my dictionary and looked up sesso. “Casey!” I exclaimed, “Sesso means sex! I ordered the sex for breakfast!” I was mortified. I wished at the moment that I could have go back and repeat the whole thing, either correctly remembering the word for same or at least keeping my mouth shut and just gesturing toward the pastry I wanted. At least it will make for a good story later, I consoled myself. I tried to see the humor in the situation while eating my breakfast at Tiffany’s.

the purple horse

The Purple Horse

Mercato Centrale: the ongoing farmers’ market in the heart of Florence. The first floor reeked of spectacular meat delicacies like cow intestines, horse meat, and other mostly unidentifiable items, so being a vegetarian, I naturally fled this area of the market (except on days when I needed to make a stop at one of the bakeries, which was often—why had they thought to keep them on the same level as the meat? The thought of it is unpleasant!) and headed straight upstairs to the produce area.

Learning the names of my favorite fruits and vegetables in Italian quickly became one of my favorite pastimes, and I prided myself on being able to tell the vendors what I wanted to purchase without using any English. Of course, my phrases were simple, and if they were impressed that the silly American girl was using Italian and wanted to talk to me further, which sometimes did happen, I would freeze regarding what to say next. Often I could understand what they were asking or telling me, but was just unsure of a response, so I’m sure I came as a disappointment when I would just begin to shake my head and mutter my apologies or even pull out the dreaded phrase: “Non parlo Italiano.” Oh, it felt like such a failure when I had to do that! But I was trying, really I was, and as long as I had planned out exactly what I would say, and as long as they responded back exactly as I thought they would, and as long as they didn’t dare try to take the conversation any further, this silly American girl would walk away feeling on top of the world.

One day, I spied some heads of red cabbage at a produce stand in the market and knew I wanted to buy one to use in that night’s dinner. I turned with my back facing that particular stand and pulled out my pocket dictionary. I looked up the word for cabbage: cavolo. Taking a breath to prepare myself, I casually walked over to the stand. I started by saying that I wanted to buy five or six mushrooms. The vendor, who was quite friendly and was even singing and dancing about, happily obliged and tossed some funghi in a bag for me, making a little show of it.

He looked at me inquisitively as if to say, what else? I then asked for purple cabbage. It dawned on me awhile later that while the cabbage is technically purple, in the culinary world it is referred to as red. It dawned on me immediately, however, that he had no idea what I was talking about. I said it again, smiling this time, as if that would clear things up. He looked at me again with the same perplexed expression, now appearing somewhat amused. I said it a third time, pointing at the cabbage. A lightbulb went off in his head (most assuredly related to the pointing and having nothing to do with what I was saying), “Radicchio!” I learned later that this was a specific cabbage variety.

Walking away after the transaction was completed, however, I began scratching my head. Even if it were a specific type of cabbage with some fancy name, and even if I had used the wrong color, surely he would have known what I meant if I had said cabbage correctly. I turned my back again and pulled out the dictionary, glancing over the page for similar words. Cabbage, cavolo. Horse, cavallo. Is that what I said? Cavallo? I ran over the conversation in my head. I had said cavallo! And not just cavallo, but cavallo violo, or purple horse. I had a hunch they weren’t even selling horse meat of that variety on the first floor. In fact, I would have probably needed to make a trip to the Land of Oz for that kind of delicacy.

Paying for my purple horse! Photo by Casey.

pinocchio

Way back one month ago when I was in summer school, I took a week-long seminar in the art education department here at OSU with the one and only Terry Barrett. Dr. Barrett wrote the books Criticizing Art and Criticizing Photographs, as well as others. The topic of the seminar I took was Creative Art Writing. We went over many types of writing, including autobiographical/biographical creative writing, poetry, and writing creatively about visual art. The final day of class, we shared and swapped zines, which was really fun in my opinion. My zine was about tomato sandwiches.

Now we've had all this time since the class ended to write for a final project, which is due today. It was pretty wide open to being anything we wanted that fit into any of the types of writing that we talked about in class. I decided to go with the autobiographical category and I wrote a series of short stories about encountering language barriers while studying abroad (three years ago in Italy). These are stories I have always had intentions of writing down so as not to forget them, and I finally have. For the next few days, I am going to share one story each day as well as pictures from my experience.

Welcome to my school, Istituto il David, in the heart of Florence, one of my favorite cities on earth. If anyone comes across this blog entry in a Google search about the Istituto il David, yes, you should go there, it's amazing and the people are so nice.

This was my classroom, during a break.

The view from my classroom window. And now for my story:

Pinocchio

It was my first day at the Italian language school in Florence, and I quickly learned that in my class of fifteen, there were only two other American students besides me. I was delighted by this because I had been dreaming of feeling like a true international student, and being surrounded by other Americans at all times puts a bit of a damper on that. The class lasted four hours each day, and it was completely spoken in Italian. I loved every minute of it, but would grow tired around hour three, when the morning’s espresso would begin to wear off.

The first day, around this time, we were still learning to correctly speak basic Italian introductions and were in the process of going around the room sharing bits and pieces about our home countries. I suppose I may have zoned out for a few moments, and I should stress here that when having language lessons entirely in the language that is foreign to you, it is imperative to pay close attention with ears and eyes. Visual clues are necessary when trying to make up for a lack of vocabulary and grammar. There is no zoning out if you want to keep up. It is a constant game of deciphering what is being said.

I thought for sure that on this particular go around, we were sharing things which originated in Italy but which we enjoy in our home countries. And I even thought I was particularly clever when I recalled how American children are always told again and again the story of Pinocchio, which is Italian. I decided to go with that answer when it was my turn, and when that moment arrived, I blurted out assuredly, “Pinocchio!” There, I thought. None of the answers so far have been this good. I felt proud of myself for about, oh, a millisecond, before my teacher could not help but chuckle, then asked in Italian, “In America, you eat Pinocchio?” My face turned red as I realized that the topic of discussion had not been what Italian things we have in our home countries, but rather what Italian foods we have.

I laughed aloud at myself and shook my head to let everyone know that I wasn’t really that dense, then revised my answer at lightning speed, saying the first Italian food that came to mind that surely I could not mispronounce, “Pizza!” Having given a generic albeit acceptable answer, my teacher nodded approvingly and moved on. I forced a smile to counteract the amount of embarrassment I felt. If only I had paid more attention! Didn’t you realize everyone else was talking about food!? I lectured myself silently. No, I hadn’t. I just thought everyone was talking about spaghetti because they were unimaginative. Language class is not the time to daydream, I learned in that moment.

snow and solitude

Yesterday I awoke to a blanket of unexpected snow. I think everyone was a little surprise. We don't usually get too much here, and we'd already been snowed in once this winter. I decided to spend the day indoors. I cleaned, cooked, painted, and watched my all-time favorite television show, Gilmore Girls. It was a nice pause.

A pizza from the night before. Tofu, bell pepper, canned pineapple, parsley, zucchini, and onion.

It snowed nearly all day long.

I spent a good deal of my time repainting this table. It used to be my coffee table when I was in the dorm, and it was painted orange. I repainted it mint green with acrylic paint, and will give it a clear coat of varnish as soon as I can make it to the store. It took a long time to get paint in all the small details.

An etching by my friend Alex, and my Oktomat 8-lens plastic camera.

For dinner, I made risotto. I bought risotto rice (arborio) a few weeks ago and finally tried my hand at it. It wasn't from a mix. I was proud of myself for how good it turned out! It was flavored with onion, garlic, Italian seasonings, and homemade vegetable broth. It was delicious.

I also made a salad and biscuits with vegan margarine. Here is the biscuit recipe I used. They were simple and tasty.

There is still snow out today and it's only 25 degrees, but the sun is melting it. I hope to be able to get out tomorrow. They are predicting more snow later in the week!

"grazie e arrivederci"

This time last summer, I was roadtripping to St. Louis with Corey, and getting ready to study abroad in Greece and Italy for two months. I miss traveling and all of the places I've been, especially Italy. It's very dear to me and I know I will be back there in the future, one way or another. It's destined to be true.