The Obsession with Exact Change

 

You know how if you make a purchase at a store and it totals, say, $6.57, you can give the cashier a $20 bill, get your change, then leave with your goods and be done with it?  Well it’s not like that here. If you purchase something for €6.57 and you pay with a €20 bill, they will ask you for €1.57 so they can give you back €15  in bills; no coins. Or you can just give them 33¢ and they’ll give you back a €10 bill and two €2 coins, but they strongly prefer bills to coins. So strongly, in fact, that they become really annoyed if you don’t have exact change. Yesterday I bought a nutcracker and a loose-leaf tea filer at a kitchen store on Via Merulana and it totaled €7.39. I gave the cashier a €20 bill and she wanted €2.40 in coins so she could give me back €15 and 1¢. Also, if you have a pile of coins in your hand that you’re sorting through, the cashier will reach over and help him/herself to the required amount.  True story. It happened to me yesterday.  But what if I had wanted those coins for a quick metro ticket transaction? Or a gelato at Fatamorgana? I don’t get it. I know bills are much more manageable and lighter than coins, but if I wanted to have my bag weighed down by 5¢, 20¢, 50¢, €1 and €2 coins–and every other coin under the sun, for that matter–that’s my business, right? I just don’t understand what all of this exact-change fuss is about.

I’m not quite sure from where this obsession with exact change stems, but it can be incredibly overwhelming,…especially at a place like Elite where it’s self-service bagging. What under normal circumstances would be a simple purchasing process requires one to implement a strategic, chess-like prowess to master it efficiently. You’re racing against time to find the exact change and if you don’t have it, you get a look of disappointment that really stings….you feel like you’re a failure.  Then, once you’re done counting the coins, you have to hustle to bag everything in a timely manner because they need the space for the following customer’s purchases.  I usually never have more than a few items, perhaps some milk, cereal, a box of tea, yogurt and maybe a package of Garofalo spaghetti, but the art of bagging is just that, an art in its own right. You can’t just “throw” everything in….you have to place the items neatly so that they fit comfortably with no corners or sharp edges that dig into your side or swipe a passerby during the walk home. I breath a sigh of relief every time I see a few people ahead of me in line because then I know I don’t have to fumble around…it allows me ample time to have my wallet, coins and “bagging tote” unfolded and ready to go.

It’s a little less intimidating at a pizzeria, café or gelateria as no bagging is required, but this exact-change practice is common everywhere you go, and the thing is that I don’t know if I’ll ever fully understand the rhyme and reason behind it. Case in point: I went to Castroni to buy coffee (200 kilo of Bar Castroni ground for a moka) which usually comes out to around €3.20. I proudly had my €5  bill and a 20¢ coin ready to go. The smiling cashier hands the 20¢ coin back to me and tells me it won’t work because she doesn’t have €2 coins. She couldn’t give me two €1 coins?  I just don’t understand.

The moral of the story: what I have learned from all of this ado is to keep all of my coins in one place, and always, always make sure my coin purse is zipped all the way shut to avoid coin spillage, a mishap which could keep me at the register–as well as at the receiving end of an disdainful, impatient gaze–way longer than necessary as I dig to the bottom depths of my bag searching for that damn 13¢.

 

An Italian Volcanic Wine

Wines from the Vino Roma Tasting on August 2nd. Six wines are usually tasted, but since there were special guests in the house, Hande had a 7th one up her sleeve!

As I’ve been settling into my new Roman expat life , Italian wines grow increasingly more enticing each and everyday.  I can’t really explain why, but a proclivity is luring me towards anything and everything to do with Italian wines so I’ve just been rolling with the punches without really questioning or trying to make much sense out of it.

A couple of weeks ago, I learned from some vacationing relatives that my grandfather used to make “beautiful wines” at home and a cousin told me she remembers vividly having eaten some of the best salumi she ever had when she was five-years-old…salumi made by my grandfather.  With this in mind, I couldn’t help but wonder if my Italian wine inclination was something more, perhaps something in my blood or my genes that subconsciously tied into my longing to connect with my heritage and also with my grandfather, whom I never met.

As I’m slowly but surely trying to decipher Italian wines, I’m starting to gravitate towards Northern Italian whites, but at a  Vino Roma wine tasting on August 2nd, I tried a Sicilian wine that my taste buds have been longing to encounter for a second time.  The desire is a little less intense than my lust for Al Pont de Ferr’s La Cipolla Rossa–-maybe it’s more along the lines of a schoolgirl crush? Regardless, I thought I’d share.

Bianco Pomice  is from a producer called Tenuta di Castellaro  on Lipari, one of the Aeolian islands, which are volcanic islands located off the coast of Sicily–a friend compared them to the “Hawaii of Sicily.” I’ll never forget sticking my nose into the glass for the first time, closing my eyes and inhaling. I smelled a volcano– or as I would expect a volcano to smell. It was ashy and smoky with salty, mineral and earthy aromas…you could almost see the stream of molten bright orange-red lava spew out of the volcano’s crater then cascade its way down the mountain before crash-landing into the saltwater ocean where it would eventually solidify, cool and form an island.  Additionally, for me, there was an ocean-air element to the aroma which recalled the seaside……I felt wind blowing in my face and I could hear tiny waves crashing on a rocky, sandy shore.  I remember the first sip, too. You could taste everything that you smelled. The acid and the salty-mineral flavor made my mouth water and I loved every second of it.

Give me a plate of spaghetti with sardines –perhaps throw in some fennel–plus a glass or two of Bianco Pomice and call it lunch. 🙂

How I Cook for one in Rome

My nifty kitchen scale

There is one staple of my former life that living without really took no getting used to at all:  the microwave oven.  At the end of the day, I don’t “need” one, but it sure would come in handy for heating up leftovers.  While I’m now just about fully comfortable with the stove top–you have to turn the gas knob, then separately light a flame to get the burner going—I’m still terrified of the oven and I avoid using it all costs. The reason?  Once again, you have to use a lighter or some kind of flame-making device to light a fire inside after the gas is turned on. My first attempt was successful, but the flame scared me so I blew it out, shut the oven, turned the gas knob off and haven’t opened it since.  Therefore I haven’t and won’t heat up anything inside it. Unless my leftovers were something for which a quick little sautee would suffice, it was either eat them cold or not at all.

The solution was pretty simple: just cook less at one time. How do I do that? With my nifty kitchen scale! I make just enough pasta for me–no more than 100 grams–and I’m good!    Anyone who knows me can vouch that I usually eat anything and everything that’s in front of me, so by measuring my portions, I eat just enough for one & therefore less overall. So, it’s thanks to my scale that I have managed to make some kind of sense out of portion control.

The metric system? Well that’s another story. I haven’t mastered that yet and like celsius,  I’m not certain that I ever will!  I’m also hoping to get over my fear of the oven soon because I would really love to make some banana bread. We’ll see.

Belated Weekend Reading: The New York Times Travel

Happy Monday all! In case you didn’t have a chance to read it, I wanted to share this lovely story that ran in yesterday’s New York Times Travel section:  Digging up Family Roots in Sicily by Russell Shorto.  The focus of the piece is pretty much what the title suggests: the writer traces his ancestral roots  back to Sicily. Pursuing something of this capacity is no small feat and, at times, I’m sure can be incredibly daunting (kind of like the fruitless Italian citizenship on which I wasted years and lots of my hard-earned money for nothing. Yes, I’m still bitter about this!).  Tracing your ancestry can be classified as one of those things that people say they want to do–myself included–but never get around to (or haven’t yet!) because life just gets in the way.  Kudos to you, Mr. Shorto!  I admire that you followed it through.

The other reason I wanted to share this is because I think it helps prove the recent point I made about how the Italians are willing to do whatever they can to help you out of the goodness of their own heart with zero expectation. Now, I won’t ruin the story if you haven’t yet read it, but there’s a kind man in Sicily from whom he receives some guidance, and this man really goes above and beyond to help.   Hope you enjoy reading it as much as I did.

Buon Weekend: Venice

Frankly, I wasn’t planning to love Venice. I went there with low expectations thinking I would want to see it for the sole purpose of checking it off my bucket list. Well I couldn’t have been more wrong.  It took my breath away–literally–the second I stepped outside of the train station and saw the bustling Grand Canal in all its glory, snaking its way around bends in either direction as it flowed alongside the colorful buildings and wooden docks that line its edges.

Venice enchants you.  Its color palette is similar to Rome in that it’s mostly warm, but Venice features a wider array of shades in the pink family while Rome’s tends to lean more towards the orange/peach side of the spectrum. (There are of course pink and other-colored buildings to be found in Rome and vice versa.)  The vibrant colors and diverse architecture–some Gothic, some Byzantine, among other styles–are off-set by the blue-green-hued, velvety canal water….you can’t see what lies beneath. The narrower waterways are smooth & silent, like a solid sheet of ice. You don’t hear the water flowing unless a boat or gondola glides through and disrupts the stillness of the shiny surface with ripples which soon disappear as the water irons itself out to settle back in to it’s pre-disrupted solid stance.  The larger, wider canals, such as the Grand Canal itself, have more of a defined current and you can hear the water splashing as the canal flows. Tiny bridge after tiny bridge–with an occasional large ponte thrown into the mix–connects tiny canal to not-so-tiny canal to tinier canal and so forth. While I haven’t travelled all over the world (yet!)–I think it’s safe to say there’s no place quite like Venice.  Sure I had heard all about Venice before visiting, had seen countless pictures and watched The Tourist, but nothing prepares you for seeing the city for the first time.

Venice is really something else.  There are no cars…people come and go by train, gondola, private boat, vaporetto or on foot. Some palazzi have little arched, water-side entranceways where people can easily park and tie up their boat, then enter. At night, there are no engines, exhaust fumes or anything aggressively invasive that could pose  a possible threat to a peaceful slumber. Save for some light footsteps, mumblings of conversations and an occasional canal splash,  Venice sleeps (or at least appears to) at the same time as its inhabitants.

It’s too hot and crazy to head there now as its walkways and bridges are most likely stuffed to the brim with slow-striding people rocking mullets and sporting fanny packs. It’s a special place and I’d like to enjoy it with as few crowds as humanly possible. I’m hoping to get back there for a long weekend  during the late fall and in addition to further exploring this mesmerizing, story-book-like city of inter-connected islands, I do hope to get to the isola of Burano to see the lace. Yes, I’d like to go to Murano too, but if I’m only going to see one island, Burano it is…I love me some lace.

Buon weekend tutti!

Ferragosto and The Italians

Desolate Roman street

I have previously tipped my hat to fellow expats who have played an integral role in my adjustment to Roman life. I am still grateful to them because they help me everyday, but now I would like to take a moment to acknowledge the Italians I have encountered so far. I thought today would be appropriate because it’s Ferragosto, a national Italian holiday that falls right smack in the middle of August, a month during which most of Italy is shut down for vacanza.

Firstly, the Italians I know work incredibly hard. They are driven, smart, ambitious and motivated with admirable work ethics. Their August vacanza is well-deserved. They’ve earned it!

I have been inundated with kindness and generosity from every single Italian with whom I have had the pleasure of interacting. Some I’ve known prior while others I’ve only just met.  As if they don’t have enough on their personal and/or professional plates, they have all said to me something along the lines of the following, “If you need anything at all, tell me. I will do whatever I can to help you.”  And they mean it. Regardless of whether or not we had only just met, they genuinely want to help me.  I had been burned a handful of times in New York on different levels–a couple of which were shocking while others, not so much–so it’s moving and humbling to experience kindness and support of this capacity here in Italy.

Now I don’t want to rustle any feathers so please know that what I’m about to say is just a generalization, but I have learned that a you-scratch-my-back-and-I’ll-scratch-yours mentality tends to prevail in the Big Apple.  To play devil’s advocate, I’m sure the reverse can be said for Italy and that there are indeed people here who live by that “what-can-this-person-do-for-me” mentality. I’ve just been lucky to not have crossed paths with any of them yet. Now, I know that everyone in New York  doesn’t perform an action for the sake of reciprocity and I know many, many people who are exceptions. Countless New Yorkers have randomly emailed me to check in, wish me luck in Italy and have said to let them know if I need anything.  And oddly enough the people from whom you think you might hear something, you don’t. But that’s life, isn’t it?

Every time I have asked anyone here for some kind of guidance or direction–big or small–they have helped me without expectation.  In typical American fashion, I thank them profusely and ask them to let me know if they ever need anything since I then feel like I “owe them one.”  I am of course happy and willing to help someone whether or not they have done anything for me and I don’t know if it’s luck or what, but I’m grateful to have the support of like-minded, hard-working good people–both Italians and fellow expats.  Support is crucial and without it, it’s challenging to stay afloat. So on that note, thank you to everyone in the world who has supported me ever, especially during the last year!! 🙂

Buon ferragosto!

The Six Month Mark

One of the beautiful volcanic crater lakes–I think Albano–Castelli Romani, south of Rome.

I did it! I hit the six-month mark. I hope this is the first of many landmarks of my new expat life. In some ways, I feel like I’ve always been here while in other ways, I feel like I have only just arrived. It goes without saying that I miss my friends and family back at home more than I could ever articulate and wish I could move everyone here. There’s also some food that that no amount of pizza bianca and trofie al pesto suppli could make up for. I do miss going to the theater, visiting particular restaurants and once again, my friends and family, but do I miss New York itself? No. I’m where I belong now.

My nifty little blog began with some bullet points listing how my life had changed during my first month, piu’ o meno. I arrived in Rome on February 8^th and the first week did feel a bit like vacation because I stayed with a friend, then spent a few nights in Milan to attend Identita Golose before settling into my sublet on February 14^th. So, I thought to celebrate six months, I’d share some more bullet points listing changes, comments and reflections on my new expat life. Here goes…

1. I live in the country with the most UNESCO World Heritage sites: 49.
2. I’m an early riser no more. Much to my chagrin, I might add, and I’m actually working on amending this ASAP.
3. I can actually watch movies set in my favorite cities without pining to be elsewhere. I’m happy just where I am! I’m where I’m supposed to be.
4. I have mastered portion control. More on that some other time.
5. I hardly ever wear heels. 😦
6. I’m hoping to own a bike within the next couple of weeks. Yes, I’m planning to wear a helmet.
7. I think about Aunt Liz’s food everyday and still hope that I’ll be able to cook like her. Every time I cook, I think about Aunt Liz, too!
8. None of my summer clothes are black.
9. I have a newfound faith in shoe shopping.
10. I hold anything that I eat by hand with a napkin, for example, pizza, panini, cornetti, etc.
11. Although I officially made the Celsius switch on my phone, it still means nothing to me. I’m a fahrenheit girl at heart.
12. When someone tells me a destination is just 100 meters away or that an object is one meter high or 3.7 meters long, that also means nothing to me.
13. Learning Italian is still a work in progress and will be for quite some time. However, I’m proud to say that after all the classes, it’s continually picking up! I occasionally have to stop to think as I’m stringing sentences together and I must say that it drives me mad, mad, mad I tell you, when someone finishes my sentence for me. How am I supposed to learn otherwise? Unless I hit a wall and ask you for help, PLEASE BACK OFF!! Let me think and put the sentence together on my own, damn it!
14. I still haven’t figured out how to stream US TV shows. I’m missing Mad Men, True Blood and Breaking Bad, so I have lots of catching up to do and need to sort this all out before the third season of Homeland begins.
15. I’m just a three-hour train ride from Liguria, a stunningly beautiful part of the world, and I’m heading that way in early September. I can’t wait to once again swim in the sparkling blue Ligurian sea and snag me some olive oil while I’m at it. And I of course intend to indulge in plenty of pesto, anchovies and focaccia, too!
16. I grow increasingly more fond of Milan with every visit.
17. I’ve become a bit of a procrastinator, which I’m not happy about. Some things just take so long to get done here that I’ve avoided them for no reason other than dread of the wait. Like purchasing catastrophic insurance, for example. The thought of all that waiting in the dreadful post office makes me incredibly uneasy. But I’ll hopefully be checking this off my list by month’s end.
18. I don’t order in or do take-out. If I’m not dining out, I cook, which is more often than not. (See number 7: this means I think about Aunt Liz often!)
19. I stopped taking my Vitamin D supplement. There’s no way I can still be deficient since I see more than ten minutes of sunlight a day. And not just from a window–I’m actually exposed to it. The ever-increasing amount of freckles on my arms is proof!
20. I saw one of my first expat friends come and go. She’s on to bigger and better things after a few months in Rome, but I still miss her!
21. I’ve met some of my Italian family!! We’re friends now and we stay in touch! And, even better, we speak Italian together. (Number 13 on this list is NOT directed at them.)
22. I never leave the house without applying sunscreen.
23. I’ve seen one of the best films I’ve ever seen, but if I had to pick, Ieri, Oggi, Domani is still my favorite Italian movie.
24. My shifting taste in wine has rendered me increasingly more fond of Northern Italian whites. (Though I did try an Etna white a couple of weeks ago at Vino Roma that blew my mind. I’ve been thinking about it ever since.)
25. On the magazine front, I live for Italian Vogue, Italian Vanity Fair and I’m starting to get into La Cucina Italiana (the Italian version, of course!).
26. I sleep much better here.
27. I secretly dream about being a Vatican Tour Guide.
28. I still find it sickening that weddings, engagements, and babies are deemed the most noteworthy and celebratory of one’s life experiences. Don’t get me wrong, these are beautiful things and I’m beyond happy for everyone I know who has experienced them. But there are some people who never have—and perhaps never will—experience these so-called “milestones” and their accompanying traditions (some of which are borderline nervy) and that shouldn’t deem anyone less worthy of celebration.

Roman Summer Joys

Summer’s here and you know that means? Sure, Italians have worked hard all year and are preparing to pass the month of August at the beach or traveling or what not,  but that’s not the direction in which this post is headed.  The hot and busy season completely unmasks the not-so-glamorous truths of summer in the Eternal City. Here are some joys, thoughts and reflections on Roman summer life…

1)    The smell of urine infiltrates the streets, sometimes to the point where I gag.  I have since learned to walk strategically, avoiding narrow sidewalks. On the not-so-busy streets–particularly, the shady, tree-lined ones–I stay as far away from the wall as possible and sometimes just walk right smack in the middle of the street. (I move out-of-the-way for cars, bicycles, scooters, motorbikes, etc. of course.)

2)    Tiny food moths have invaded the kitchen cabinets so just about everything that they can get into is stored in the fridge, even if it’s something that doesn’t require refrigeration such as pasta. There are anti-tarme (photo above) in the food cabinets to catch them. There are probably about 10-15 per day at least that stick to the traps and this is apparently a normal part of summer here. I was considering posting a photo of one of the dead-moth-filled traps instead of the packaging, but decided to spare you from witnessing the grim truth first hand.  You’re welcome. 😉

3)    I’m covered in mosquito bites.  But as ubiquitous as the mosquitoes are here, there are even more in Milan. I didn’t think that was possible until I experienced it myself.

4)    The lack of air conditioning isn’t as bad as you would think. At least not yet. The building I’m in stays cool at night, thankfully, but I’m still planning to get a fan because the brutality of August is just around the corner.

5)    Celsius still means nothing to me but I know that 30 degrees is effin hot.  I know this is gross, but I sweat here more than I have ever sweated in my life, and I have run two marathons. My hair is in a permanent bun…I can’t even think of having it touch any part of my skin, face or neck.

6) I have completely stopped caring about things to which I would normally pay close attention. I have stopped layering clothing and I don’t care if anyone can through what I’m wearing. If I later notice that I missed a tiny patch of hair when shaving my legs, I don’t care.. It’s just too hot to give a damn about these things.

7)  I’m trying to avoid public transportation at all costs unless it’s absolutely  necessary. On the rare occasion that I do take the metro, tram or bus,  I refuse to sit for fear of leaving behind a sweat puddle in the seat.

8)    The tourists. There are just too, too many, and the sidewalks can be difficult to navigate. I have to give myself extra time to get anywhere with the expectation of sidewalk traffic putting me at least ten minutes behind.

9) I grow increasingly more misanthropic with each passing day. See number 8.

 

Libro Italiano: Entra nella mia Vita

A couple of weeks ago, I finally got around to finishing  La Cucina degli Amori Impossibili by Roberto Perrone (loved it!) which meant that it was time to dig into a new Italian book, so I’ve since moved on to Entra nella mia Vita by Clara Sanchez. The familiar and haunting green cover aesthetic caught my eye, then I recognized the author’s name. I had read (& enjoyed!) her previous book–which had a similar cover design–Il Profumo delle Foglie di Limone with my Italian class in New York.  You may be thinking, “Sanchez? That doesn’t sound like an Italian surname.” It’s not…she’s Spanish and her books were translated into Italian.

Reading a book in translation seems to be a touchy subject and I’ve gotten just a wee bit of flak for it. The reason: if I’m living in Italy and learning Italian, I should read books by Italian writers. I do see that side of the argument but to play devil’s advocate, do you remember that scene in A League of their Own when Shirley is reading aloud from Mae’s racy romance novel? Evelyn asks, “Mae! What are you giving her to read?” to which Mae (played by Madonna, I’d like to note!) responds, “What difference does it make? She’s reading!”  Shirley was illiterate and learning how to read. Well, I have applied this same reasoning to reading Italian.

Learning the language is a consistently ongoing process, so if I wish to read something that wasn’t originally written in Italian, what difference does it make if I’m reading it in Italian translation? Especially if it’s a good translation that’s compatible with my language level? I’m still reading Italian, damn it! My teacher in New York chose Sanchez’s book for the class because even though it was a translation, it was well done and perfectly complemented the class’s level of Italian. The book was easy–but not too easy–and I completely understood the gist without having to go back and read things a second or third time.  I don’t believe Il Profumo delle Foglie di Limone is available in English but if you can read Italian or Spanish, I strongly recommend it. I won’t give away too much of the plot, but it takes place in Costa Blanca, a Spanish Mediterranean town, where a group of former Nazis retreated after the war and involves two protagonists: Sandra, a young, pregnant lady who is befriended by an elderly married couple and Julian, an elderly man who survived imprisonment in Mauthausen, out for revenge/justice. Yup, it’s a page-turner.

I’m only a few pages into Entra nella mia Vita, but I’m certain that reading it–even though it’s Italian in translation–will not be to my detriment.

 

Summer Sale Shoe Shopping

I love shoes, but I hate shopping for them. Why? Because I hate my feet. They’re big, slightly on the wide side and since my right foot is just a tad smaller than my left, it’s challenging to find a pair that fits perfectly. Plus–to add insult to injury–shoe stores never seem to have my size. During the last few years I have made a habit of buying my shoes solely online or at a help-yourself kind of place such as DSW because you know size availability right off the bat.  There’s none of that back and forth nonsense with the salesperson that starts with, “Let me check for your size” and continues with, “We don’t have that shoe in your size but we do have these shoes in your size.” The shoes don’t tickle your fancy at all but you try them on anyway to humor the sales person, ultimately rendering the experience an exercise in futility.

Due to my aforementioned cobblestone encounters, new shoes were in order and I figured why not take advantage of the July summer sales? I was dreading shoe shopping, but I figured why not just get it over with since it was ultimately inevitable.

A friend suggested the Camper route would be a wise way to go, so after perusing the website I went to the store on Via del Corso with the expectation of a long & arduous try-on process. I had noticed a few shoes that I liked online but shrugged and thought they probably won’t have them in stock and if they do, they certainly won’t have my size.  Well to make a long story short, I wound up with three new pairs, two of which I had admired online. I couldn’t believe it. I have never had a shoe shopping excursion unfold that easily.

Also in need of sneakers with decent walking support, I went to the Nike Town store  (conveniently located on Via del Corso as well) and found a cute pair that were 50% off. Again I thought, we’re three weeks into July now. There’s no way they’re going to have my size and color preference. But lo & behold, I was wrong again….they did! Summer shoes, check. Next up: a bicycle–secondhand of course because there’s a really good chance that it will eventually get stolen–but I promised my mom I would get catastrophic insurance first.