This week there are two things I've come across on the internet that have left me reflecting about our time in Italy. So if you read on, be prepared to follow a link here and there to make sense of it all.
1. Friends.
This video, by Hank Green, has made me appreciate two things about living abroad in a place where I don't speak the language. First, it's incredibly difficult to make new friends if you simply can't have those chance encounters because you speak a different language (go watch the video if that doesn't make sense). There is no way to strike up a casual conversation in the coffee shop, the grocery store, or over a beer, when every ounce of energy is spent trying to remember the vocabulary to ask for your check, pay with a credit card, or figure out where the heck you can get a beer. So making new friends is nearly impossible. That brings me to the second thing. I am incredibly lucky to work in a school with other people who DO speak English. Who invite us over for a cup of tea or wine. To chat with about the weather while waiting for my photocopies. Who we can (and do) ask for help all the time. Without those new friends, we wouldn't still be here. (I do miss my friends at home terribly, though!)
2. Smiles.
This was a rough week, for many reasons. Things have not been going well--job things, home things, paperwork things. But reading this article reminds me that I have some control over how I handle it all. And I'm doing it with a smile. I don't get a ton of sleep, but I smile when I'm teaching my classes. I try to laugh and make jokes with students and Tom. Because things do seem better when you are smiling. My favorite form of therapy lately is 15 minutes with the 10-month-old baby next door. I don't have a regular gym to visit here, but that time is my "smiling gym!"
Hopefully your week will be full of friends and smiles too!
Thursday, January 31, 2013
Wednesday, January 30, 2013
And the Answer is 10...
It takes 10 Italians to change a light bulb. I thought about it and this is how many Italians it took to get our light bulbs changed. Well, 9 Italians and 1 very persistent Italian-American (me). Our Italian friend next door told me I should learn to laugh at the silly things here in Italy. He's right. I thought I'd share this funny (true) story of getting light bulbs changed here so you can all feel the experience of living in Italy. Here goes...
Italian-American #1 (me) tries to change light bulbs. Can't reach them without a ladder, so I ask for the maintenance guys at the school to help. Italians #2 and #3, the maintenance guys, ignore requests for help (multiple requests over several weeks). Eventually Italian #4, their boss, gets involved. He ignores the requests too (more than a month has passed now). So Italian #5, the boss' boss, gets a request for help....by now I just want to borrow a ladder and do it myself. He gets the other guys to at least respond. Here's where it gets really funny...
#2 leaves light bulbs at our door (wrong bulbs, no ladder). #3 leaves ladder at our door (wrong ladder). More than 2 months pass. I decide I'm tired of having no light upstairs because its so dark and cloudy here in the winter...try to figure out how to get this done once and for all...getting kind of mad. I mean, its a light bulb for God's sake.
Italian #6, our tall Italian friend, gets involved. He walks me over to boss #4's office, he's not there (of course). We walk to Italian #7, an administrative assistant, to ask for help finding #4. #7 tracks down #4 on the phone, and he says "we aren't allowed to change light bulbs for resident tutors." Hmmm...maybe someone could have said this 3 months ago? Still, I just want a ladder to do it myself. Go with tall Italian friend #6 to find ladder and bulbs...no luck. So he comes over to see if he can reach our very high light fixtures...he can by standing on a chair (to my surprise...but he is very tall after all). So now I just need bulbs.
I go to store #1, talk to Italian #8, the store clerk, and find out they don't sell light bulbs. So I drive our rental car to store #2 where they have bulbs, but the store is closed (of course....it's 3:00 pm on a weekday and I forgot that lunch in Italy is from 12:30 - 4:30 ~ seriously). So I go to store #3, but of course its closed too. Finally, store #4 is open. I get help from Italian #9 at the store and find 2 of the 4 bulbs we need. So I try store #5, they have 1 of the remaining 2 bulbs we need...good enough! Return rental car and take the bus, driven by Italian #10, home to get help from tall Italian friend #6 to change the light bulbs.
After all this...3 of the 4 light bulbs are changed. It only took a few months, 9 Italians, and 1 very persistent Italian-American to get it done. I think if you remove the 1 persistent Italian-American from the equation you are lost in an endless loop tracking down a ladder and a light bulb.
Ciao,
Tom
Italian-American #1 (me) tries to change light bulbs. Can't reach them without a ladder, so I ask for the maintenance guys at the school to help. Italians #2 and #3, the maintenance guys, ignore requests for help (multiple requests over several weeks). Eventually Italian #4, their boss, gets involved. He ignores the requests too (more than a month has passed now). So Italian #5, the boss' boss, gets a request for help....by now I just want to borrow a ladder and do it myself. He gets the other guys to at least respond. Here's where it gets really funny...
#2 leaves light bulbs at our door (wrong bulbs, no ladder). #3 leaves ladder at our door (wrong ladder). More than 2 months pass. I decide I'm tired of having no light upstairs because its so dark and cloudy here in the winter...try to figure out how to get this done once and for all...getting kind of mad. I mean, its a light bulb for God's sake.
Italian #6, our tall Italian friend, gets involved. He walks me over to boss #4's office, he's not there (of course). We walk to Italian #7, an administrative assistant, to ask for help finding #4. #7 tracks down #4 on the phone, and he says "we aren't allowed to change light bulbs for resident tutors." Hmmm...maybe someone could have said this 3 months ago? Still, I just want a ladder to do it myself. Go with tall Italian friend #6 to find ladder and bulbs...no luck. So he comes over to see if he can reach our very high light fixtures...he can by standing on a chair (to my surprise...but he is very tall after all). So now I just need bulbs.
I go to store #1, talk to Italian #8, the store clerk, and find out they don't sell light bulbs. So I drive our rental car to store #2 where they have bulbs, but the store is closed (of course....it's 3:00 pm on a weekday and I forgot that lunch in Italy is from 12:30 - 4:30 ~ seriously). So I go to store #3, but of course its closed too. Finally, store #4 is open. I get help from Italian #9 at the store and find 2 of the 4 bulbs we need. So I try store #5, they have 1 of the remaining 2 bulbs we need...good enough! Return rental car and take the bus, driven by Italian #10, home to get help from tall Italian friend #6 to change the light bulbs.
After all this...3 of the 4 light bulbs are changed. It only took a few months, 9 Italians, and 1 very persistent Italian-American to get it done. I think if you remove the 1 persistent Italian-American from the equation you are lost in an endless loop tracking down a ladder and a light bulb.
Ciao,
Tom
Tuesday, January 29, 2013
Changed our light bulbs!!
So after less than three months I was able to change our light bulbs yesterday. Yippie! That's pretty fast by Italian time.
Four lights, four different types of bulbs (of course), three in fixtures on high ceilings, one out of reach on the stairs. All done without a ladder because getting a ladder is not a simple task. I did it with help from our very tall neighbor....seriously. Not quite sure how Italians change light bulbs. Maybe they always get help from tall neighbors? But then again, I'm not quite sure how a lot of things work in Italy. There must be an Italian light bulb joke out there that goes something like this: "How many Italians does it take to change a light bulb?" Hmmm...
Four lights, four different types of bulbs (of course), three in fixtures on high ceilings, one out of reach on the stairs. All done without a ladder because getting a ladder is not a simple task. I did it with help from our very tall neighbor....seriously. Not quite sure how Italians change light bulbs. Maybe they always get help from tall neighbors? But then again, I'm not quite sure how a lot of things work in Italy. There must be an Italian light bulb joke out there that goes something like this: "How many Italians does it take to change a light bulb?" Hmmm...
Wednesday, January 23, 2013
Back to (our new) normal
We both have been neglecting the blog lately.
I don't know Tom's exact reason (he has only been back for a week/busy with work/still jet-lagged are all possibilities) but I think for me it's because the adventure part has kind of worn off.
We have adjusted to life here. We know that things that take no time at home take weeks here but will, eventually, get done. I've been trying to change a lightbulb since November. Seriously. Now I need to change four of them, but you don't want to hear about the school's maintenance staff, or Tom's frustration with not being allowed to just fix things ourselves. I'm used to my job, and we've invested a bit more time and money into making our apartment feel like home. Trips to Ikea hardly count as adventure, though.
I did try to go skiing once, on a scheduled cross country ski trip with 24 students, only to ski around a loop track made on a golf course because there was no real snow. The students were almost all beginners and had a blast; I was bored after the fifth time around the short loop and ended up reading a book. Adventure? Not so much.
This week things have begun to pick up. The kids are acting up at school (curfew violations, plagiarism issues, and drinking) and Tom found a drunk on the cliffs today (I'll let him tell you about his first experience with Italian police). There is supposed to be snow in the mountains now, so when we try to ski again it should be a bit more interesting.
No news from us is good news, but as the days get a bit longer and we get closer to spring, we plan to get out of the house more. Pictures and interesting stories will follow!
I don't know Tom's exact reason (he has only been back for a week/busy with work/still jet-lagged are all possibilities) but I think for me it's because the adventure part has kind of worn off.
We have adjusted to life here. We know that things that take no time at home take weeks here but will, eventually, get done. I've been trying to change a lightbulb since November. Seriously. Now I need to change four of them, but you don't want to hear about the school's maintenance staff, or Tom's frustration with not being allowed to just fix things ourselves. I'm used to my job, and we've invested a bit more time and money into making our apartment feel like home. Trips to Ikea hardly count as adventure, though.
I did try to go skiing once, on a scheduled cross country ski trip with 24 students, only to ski around a loop track made on a golf course because there was no real snow. The students were almost all beginners and had a blast; I was bored after the fifth time around the short loop and ended up reading a book. Adventure? Not so much.
This week things have begun to pick up. The kids are acting up at school (curfew violations, plagiarism issues, and drinking) and Tom found a drunk on the cliffs today (I'll let him tell you about his first experience with Italian police). There is supposed to be snow in the mountains now, so when we try to ski again it should be a bit more interesting.
No news from us is good news, but as the days get a bit longer and we get closer to spring, we plan to get out of the house more. Pictures and interesting stories will follow!
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