In Which She Climbs A Ladder

Casale Monferrato, Piedmont, Italy

Many parts of this weekend reminded me that there's hope yet for the Italian winter, that grey mornings and early nightfall need not bring my spirits down.

One was Friday night, when a fellow American friend and I went out to a nearby cafe for a post-dinner drink and dessert in honor of her 24th birthday. She ordered a nine euro cocktail and I, a huge bowl of gelato, over both of which she told me about an unfortunate encounter with a middle-aged lawyer whose office she had visited that afternoon on a classmate's tip that this man was looking for English lessons. It had started out smoothly, he appeared grandfatherly and professional, until halfway through their conversation he calmly informed her that it was a very particular kind of English he wanted to learn. You can imagine. She had been flabbergasted, she told me, and when she played dumb he added, simply, that he takes frequent "business trips" to Bangkok, and needs to work on his English so he "knows what to order." The cafe waiter probably thought she and I were crazy because we were laughing so hard. I mused that the lawyer might pay an indecent amount of money for those indecent English lessons, why not give it a go? But I think we both knew that she wouldn't go back. There might be... ahem... other expectations, in which case neither of us would want her to get involved. Yikes. Those are the adventures of another American girl in Turin.

Saturday morning I slept in late (9,00! a luxury for me, for I usually wake up at 7,35) and read my latest novel, "Loving Frank," on the sunny balcony with a big mug of tea and a little bowl of biscuits. The boys abandoned their cereal bowls of chocolatey milk at the table to watch morning cartoons in the living room, while their parents sat at the kitchen table in their pajamas with open datebooks to coordinate schedules around the upcoming week's interior remodeling. I soaked up the sunshine like a lizard and fell into early 20th century Boulder, Colorado, through the eyes of Frank Lloyd Wright's mistress, Mamah. I dinked around the house for awhile, tidied my room and checked my email, then took off for a one-hour run as the weather permitted. Exhausted my legs, came home to shower, read some more, then took the bus across town to pass the afternoon playing silly guitar and harmonica with my Italian guy who knew the ropes for the evening's event: La Notte Bianca, the White Night, which happens but once a year in Torino. Galleries, museums, and shopkeepers open their doors to the public until midnight or later, offering linened tables of Dixie cups of wine and various finger foods to the hundreds of locals and visitors out for the sparkling night of art. We met up with some friends and saw a photography exhibit, interior design ideas, a brief dance performance, heard music, a light show, film clips, paintings, one-of-a-kind garments. There was an installation called "ONEROOMHOTEL" realised by an Asian-American man who created a sort of hideaway hotel room in an empty room, a series of doors flush with the floor that opened vertically to reveal a bed, a television, a bathroom, and other familiar hotel things, all nestled under the floorboards. Another installation involved a clothesline of dirty underwear hung outside of a gallery with pens scattered among them and a simple written command: "Write something! Air your dirty laundry!" Huge candy-pink swirls on the sidewalk were a comment on the civil sanitary company's failure to clean up dog poop in a timely manner. (see photos) In every street we heard music, laughter, glasses clinking. It was awesome.

Sunday was another uncharacteristically sunny November day, which I greeted again at 09,00 with a cup of tea and my book before making my bed, airing my IKEA rug on the clothesline, and debating over what to wear to lunch in the countryside an hour's drive out of the city. There I met a ton of adorable old Italian people, all hovering comfortably around 60, as well as a handful of nearby farmers and a golden retriever named Shiva in whose honor we had the lunch. Note the photograph of the adorable old woman and the birthday cake. We had to help Shiva blow out the candles. I drank at least five different kinds of alcohol (something white and sparkling, two red wines from the very vineyard I gazed upon while I ate, a dessert wine with coffee, something strong poured over persimmons, and limoncello at the very end), ate just shy of too much food, climbed a huge unstable ladder to cut two crates of cacchi - I THINK they're persimmons - from a bug infested tree, and ended up reading about our new president in the local Italian newspaper in front of a cosy fire. Delicate, springtimey flowers are painted all over the ceiling of their den. It was a long afternoon of listening, for I still have a hard time chiming into Italian conversations about farming and other unfamiliar topics, but it was good to be out of the city. I've found that when I'm in the countryside I can see myself staying in Italy for an indefinite amount of time; it is when I'm living in and moving about another city that isn't my own (or Paris... go figure...) that I feel the Bay Area calling me back. Does that make sense? As though I could be doing this very thing in my own hometown, close to my family, whereas when I pace along rows of shrunken grapevines and squint to distinguish church from home on the hazy distant hills I feel so very far away from what is familiar that I almost don't miss it.

I'll try to rephrase later. For now, that makes the most sense. I've been jokingly invited to come work on their farm next summer, though as they have no animals I can't imagine what I'd do-- probably a lot of walking, drawing, awkward broken Italian conversation, and wine. Not bad.

There are also photos from TUESDAY NIGHT, NOVEMBER 4TH, when I stayed up all night to watch DemocracyNow's livestreamed coverage of the polls' closings, which aired from 02,00 - 07,00 in Torino. Italy is still in ecstasy over our president elect, as am I, though I fear for him, too, immensely. And some artsy shots from La Notte Bianca. Enjoy!

In Which She Awakes at Four in the Morning

... because a seasonally misinformed mosquito had stung all the parts of her body peeking out from underneath the bedcovers - hand, shoulder, neck, face - causing her fingers to swell so much that she had to run cold water over them to get her rings off. At four in the morning. Unfair. Now my eyelid is twitching from fatigue.

Here's a piece of current Italian culture of which I feel an actual part: http://www.lifeinitaly.com/news/news-detailed.asp?newsid=11316 . The boys' school is going on strike, uno sciopero (shoh-pear-OH), this Thursday, so all the working parents in the neighborhood are scrambling to make plans. One of mine will go to his grandmother while the other stays at home with the housekeeper, so I'll still have my morning free. Then we'll have pizza lunch with mom, then the old babysitter will come say goodbye because she's leaving next week for Berlin (we already have plans to go visit her around Easter, hurrah!), then we commence the normal Thursday schedule of taking the bus to bring F-- to tennis, playing on the inflatable slide, coming home to an empty house to eat dinner in three while the parents tango. While we wait in the schoolyard for the kids' release I've talked with many of the mothers about this school problem, also read about it in the newspaper, heard about it on the radio and television, and it's cool to know that this little elementary school is one of the tons of schools - up to the universities, in some cities - all over Italy joining to protest the new laws.

The weather has changed. The leaves are yellow, amber, and falling, and it's begun to rain. All of my pants are too long, and I only have one sweatshirt with a hood, so Mom, I might take you up on that Amex mini-spree that I never took! It's hard for me to get up the energy to leave the house when all this gloom makes me want to read all morning - which I could very well do, if I wanted to - but I think I balance my time fairly well between puttering around the house, and getting oot and aboot. Today I spent my bonus* on a card for ten visits to P--'s gym, which I plan to use to go to ex-ballerina Giorgia's Wednesday morning tone-up class, and just last week I found a nearby cafe that will be My Place, run by two dark-haired chicks in their late twenties whose warm smiles and cheery chatter make it fun to sit against the far corner and watch the morning rush.

* A few weekends ago, the couple for whom I work took a weekend vacation to London, and left me for three days with their boys. They called in the troops - two aunts, a grandma - but nevertheless it was scary to know that I alone was in charge of two little boys for 72 whole hours! The one to feed them, clothe them, get them to Boy Scouts and to school on time, with the right equipment, etcetera, not to mention keep them quasi-entertained, and keep them from killing each other. For these three days I received a week's extra pay, which was awesome, but I also think I cut at least sixteen months off of my life.

In these days I'm feeling lethargic, like I eat too much pasta and don't walk downtown as often as I initially did. The Italian class was too easy for me, so I'm back to square one in terms of learning to speak the language: I drop in to visit P--'s mother at her home and let her make coffee for me, secretly pretending that she is my own wizened, complaining, foreign grandmother; strike up banal conversations with other cafe dwellers, about the headlines or the weather; ask strangers for the definition of an unknown word in my Italian book (currently "Il Piccolo Principe") or newspaper, and answer the questions that naturally follow, like where I'm from and what I'm doing here. It's not a classroom, but it works.

So... my employers have offered me an incentive to stay in Torino longer than my prescribed year -- my own apartment, so I don't have to live with them, and fewer hours (only after school, no work in the mornings). At times it sounds like a manageable situation, but I keep coming back to the gut feeling that the Bay Area wants me to come back, and that I want to come back to the Bay. To my family and friends, and a chance to get reacquainted with the city I basically left in 2004. This situation is cool, and I know I'll miss living here, hearing and speaking Italian, etc, but I don't think I'm ready to actually begin a life in another country, and that's exactly what I'd be doing.

In Which She Awakes at Four in the Morning

... because a seasonally misinformed mosquito had stung all the parts of her body peeking out from underneath the bedcovers - hand, shoulder, neck, face - causing her fingers to swell so much that she had to run cold water over them to get her rings off. At four in the morning. Unfair. Now my eyelid is twitching from fatigue.

Here's a piece of current Italian culture of which I feel an actual part: http://www.lifeinitaly.com/news/news-detailed.asp?newsid=11316 . The boys' school is going on strike, uno sciopero (shoh-pear-OH), this Thursday, so all the working parents in the neighborhood are scrambling to make plans. One of mine will go to his grandmother while the other stays at home with the housekeeper, so I'll still have my morning free. Then we'll have pizza lunch with mom, then the old babysitter will come say goodbye because she's leaving next week for Berlin (we already have plans to go visit her around Easter, hurrah!), then we commence the normal Thursday schedule of taking the bus to bring F-- to tennis, playing on the inflatable slide, coming home to an empty house to eat dinner in three while the parents tango. While we wait in the schoolyard for the kids' release I've talked with many of the mothers about this school problem, also read about it in the newspaper, heard about it on the radio and television, and it's cool to know that this little elementary school is one of the tons of schools - up to the universities, in some cities - all over Italy joining to protest the new laws.

The weather has changed. The leaves are yellow, amber, and falling, and it's begun to rain. All of my pants are too long, and I only have one sweatshirt with a hood, so Mom, I might take you up on that Amex mini-spree that I never took! It's hard for me to get up the energy to leave the house when all this gloom makes me want to read all morning - which I could very well do, if I wanted to - but I think I balance my time fairly well between puttering around the house, and getting oot and aboot. Today I spent my bonus* on a card for ten visits to P--'s gym, which I plan to use to go to ex-ballerina Giorgia's Wednesday morning tone-up class, and just last week I found a nearby cafe that will be My Place, run by two dark-haired chicks in their late twenties whose warm smiles and cheery chatter make it fun to sit against the far corner and watch the morning rush.

* A few weekends ago, the couple for whom I work took a weekend vacation to London, and left me for three days with their boys. They called in the troops - two aunts, a grandma - but nevertheless it was scary to know that I alone was in charge of two little boys for 72 whole hours! The one to feed them, clothe them, get them to Boy Scouts and to school on time, with the right equipment, etcetera, not to mention keep them quasi-entertained, and keep them from killing each other. For these three days I received a week's extra pay, which was awesome, but I also think I cut at least sixteen months off of my life.

In these days I'm feeling lethargic, like I eat too much pasta and don't walk downtown as often as I initially did. The Italian class was too easy for me, so I'm back to square one in terms of learning to speak the language: I drop in to visit P--'s mother at her home and let her make coffee for me, secretly pretending that she is my own wizened, complaining, foreign grandmother; strike up banal conversations with other cafe dwellers, about the headlines or the weather; ask strangers for the definition of an unknown word in my Italian book (currently "Il Piccolo Principe") or newspaper, and answer the questions that naturally follow, like where I'm from and what I'm doing here. It's not a classroom, but it works.

So... my employers have offered me an incentive to stay in Torino longer than my prescribed year -- my own apartment, so I don't have to live with them, and fewer hours (only after school, no work in the mornings). At times it sounds like a manageable situation, but I keep coming back to the gut feeling that the Bay Area wants me to come back, and that I want to come back to the Bay. To my family and friends, and a chance to get reacquainted with the city I basically left in 2004. This situation is cool, and I know I'll miss living here, hearing and speaking Italian, etc, but I don't think I'm ready to actually begin a life in another country, and that's exactly what I'd be doing.

In Which An Old Friend Comes To Visit

Turin, Piedmont, Italy

Doug, one of my dearest friends from the first weeks of high school, came to stay in Turin for three days. Only a few days before his arrival, something big and terrible hit me square in the gut, rendering me lethargic and hopeless: homesickness, like I'd never seen before. This wasn't the nostalgia I felt at the end of high school, the sixes and sevens I felt when I studied abroad, nor the identity crisis I felt when I moved to Colorado for college. This was a pure, opaque longing for my home, for my own bed in a sunny room in Berkeley, California; for my mother's voice, my father's embrace, and familiar footsteps in the other room; for a panoramic view from Arlington Boulevard, and a 510 area code. It was the realisation that, for all my romantic desire to live abroad and meet the world, I actually do belong in the Bay Area among my family and friends. This realisation manifested itself into nausea, loss of appetite, and extreme fatigue. I cried in the shower, and at night. Being with the kids got increasingly difficult, and after two days with no sleep I thought it would never get better.

Then Doug showed up on a night train from Milan, my tall, solid, American friend with sturdy walking boots, deep voice, square jaw, and glimmering cache of shared memories. He expected nothing more from me than a panoramic view from one of the city's highest spots (the tippy top of the Mole Antonellia/National Cinema Museum) and as many, or few, hours I could spare from my normal work schedule. We ventured into one of Torino's "Irish Pubs" (a.k.a. brewery for English-speaking tourists) for a couple of pints of beer and lots of gossip about high school friends. We hugged a lot, walked a lot, as I showed him the city I'm trying to call my own. And in the courtyard of a palace, despite the passage of more than one elderly tour group, he shouldered the weight of my heartache just long enough for me to catch my breath and muster up the strength to go on. All I needed, it seemed, was someone who knew me well to remind me that this coming here to Torino so soon after graduation wasn't necessarily a bad decision for which I should blame myself, but a hard decision. Choosing to do something difficult doesn't mean that I made a bad choice. He reminded me of some of the other hard things I've done in my life, and asked me to tell him about why I wanted to do it in the first place. Aren't I learning a lot about myself, he asked, about the Italian culture and language? Aren't I living with a family that indeed cares about me, and using skype and email to keep in touch with the ones across the world? Yes, wiping away my tears, yes, I'm doing all of that. It just feels like forever, I said, feeling small. It's just hard sometimes. And we hugged again and again until I sent him off on a train towards Florence with a little brown paper bag lunch. The day he left, I slept all night for the first time in five days. I could breathe again. Three days later marked four months, one third of a year, since I had landed in Torino, and the remaining eight that had looked so incredibly long seemed briefer.

In Which She Feels Very American

Milan, Lombardy, Italy

A couple of weeks ago I took the advice of a fellow expat and registered online as a member of "Democrats Abroad," a pretty self-explanatory sort of organisation. A few days later I received an email invitation to a dinner and conference call with U.S. House Representative Nancy Pelosi at the home of a Democrat living in Milan, and I thought that's be a sweet event to attend so I got the day off from au pairing, found a host for Friday night (coincidentally another graduate of Colorado College, 1978 - thirty years before me), and took the 90 minute train from Turin to Milan.


The dinner party was held in one of the nicest houses in the entire city, a 500-square-meter flat with high ceilings, marble floors, and four Filipino maids in grey and white uniforms. Yikes. I arrived an hour and a half too early, in boots and jeans, and was mildly alarmed to find two thin, tan, stressed PTA-mom types setting up the wine glasses... but then everyone else started arriving, namely a dashing theatre actor who reminded me of the bad hot guy from "The Devil Wears Prada" and kept replacing my glass of wine, and I felt more comfortable. The 50ish of us crowded around the laptop to listen in on Nancy Pelosi's international phone call - broadcast also to American Democrats in Bologna, Florence, Naples, and Rome - during which she urged us to continue supporting Obama and Biden, encourage other Americans to vote for members of the SENATE (or Congress? Oh, dear...) so the Democratic candidate wins by a landslide rather than a margin, and thanked us for our involvement from overseas. We do indeed have a unique perspective on this election, and as there are not just hundreds but thousands of us in Italy alone, we do have an impact on the final result. After the phone call, we mixed, mingled and milled about two long banquet tables laden with a variety of gourmet catered lasagnas, fresh bread, an exquisite salad, and who knows how many bottles of alcohol. Someone commented to me over a cigarette on the balcony that it was ironic that our Democratic meeting should take place in the home that looked most like it was owned by a Republican.


It was interesting to rub shoulders with other expatriates and to swap explanations as to why and for how long we are (or have been) in Italy. Made me think a lot about what it would be like to live here instead of the United States... no definitive answers yet.

Another event that revealed some of the finer cultural differences between Americans and Italians took place in our living room, the assembly of twin IKEA dressers for my bedroom. We'd had the parts lying about boxes for two days, awaiting an evening when A--- was available to help me put it together. Or so I thought. Wednesday night, he's home, I'm home, and I mentioned the dressers. I told them I've had much experience assembling IKEA furniture by myself, and will probably just need him to help me move it once it's done. He, however, has already called his 19-year-old nephew to come over and help us. But why do we need him?, I asked. I know how to do it. No, he shakes his head, last time it took us three hours to put a piece of furniture together. We need him.

Three turned out to be a crowd, of course, and I ended up being the one to turn this piece over in the right direction, to exchange this screw for that peg, because they seemed to have no idea what they were doing. I was surprised to find that A--'s metal toolbox contained only the barest essentials: three small screwdrivers, one somewhat odd wrench, a hammer that was more like a mallet. I thought about my dad's toolbox at home, the one I began to sift through with curious interest as early as 3 or 4 years old, exuding the smell of metal and oil, stuffed to capacity with wrenches of all sizes, drill bits, big hammers and little hammers, several pairs of pliers, wirecutters, and sprinkled with countless, mismatched pieces of hardware. This toolbox, however sounds hollow upon closure, its contents rolling around the empty space when carried. I don't think the boys know the difference between a socket wrench and an open-ended wrench like I do. I also know (from an art class, actually, go figure) that it's faster and more effective to hold a hammer low down on the handle, letting the weight of the head drive the nail, rather than holding it close to the head and keeping all the tension in your wrist; but no one else - not even the adult men - seemed familiar with that rule.

Construction experience aside, however, I found that my attempts to help were gently refused. I was allowed to hammer some tiny nails into the backboard, and press pegs into pre-drilled holes. Screwing and lifting were out of the question. At one point I stood up and put my hands on my hips, knowing for sure hat I could do this work much more quickly if I were working alone. P-- mistook my sigh of exasperation for something else, and said with great sympathy, "Good thing he's here to help [the nephew]. Mens' muscles are just stronger than ours!" I suppressed a humorless laugh. Conclusion: A girl who knows her way around a toolbox = very, very American.

Lastly, I received my absentee ballot in the mail, to my great delight! They were fascinated by the little check-boxes and bold, official headings, "President of the United States Of America" having not only two but six candidates. Who are these other people?, they wondered, and so did I... no one really cares about them, I replied, the tiniest bit ashamed that I hadn't heard of most of them. I need to read up on some of my local issues so I can make decisions about Berkeley and Alameda. For the first time in my life I'm beginning to actually feel my own nationality, and, to my great surprise, I like it.

Post Script: some excerpts from an email to a friend (because I'm pressed for time and find cutting and pasting easier than rephrasing the same ol' thangs):

"Kids: They started the academic year on Monday, so now we have a schedule. Yahoo! The littlest one has just begun school, so this week he got out at 12,30 each day, while his brother is in school until 4,30-- long days! Next week they'll both get out at 1 on Mondays and Fridays, then at 4.30 each other day. They'll also begin tennis (Fil), maybe judo (Ruggi), and maybe soccer (Ruggi), and I'll be in charge of trucking them around via bus/walking to their various activities. What a glamorous life I lead, with juice boxes and boogery tissues floating around the bottom of my purse. They've begun to settle down energywise, thank the gods above, and I think it's going to be an awesome time from here on out.

Life: Generally good. Today I had a quick walk around the city center with a 24-yr-old guy named Patrick who just moved here from Sweden and hopes to work in a ski lodge this winter. Good luck, dude. And I met two other American au pairs today, one from Colorado (!) and another from... one of the states we often forget about completely... Indiana, maybe? They're really sweet, and we're all venturing out tomorrow morning to a free Italian lesson through the visa office. If it's good, I might go to that a couple times a week. I'm also on the hunt for a dance class, but not much is offered in the mornings (my only free time). I managed to locate a salsa class that starts in October... but salsa doesn't strike me as a morning kind of dance, at least not in the same way as modern or, say, yoga... whatever. Beggars can't be choosers, right? Anywho, things are going well. I need to make more time to write for this blog site, so I can make more MOOOONNNEEEYYYYYY.

Crazy adventures: Lately, none, just playing. I was "in prison" today for close to two hours, under the care of Sheriff R---, for the alleged offense of "stealing eleven cows." It was pretty rough. I got snacks, though (crackers), as well as some sunglasses (for when the sun came out in the prison), a snowglobe (for winter) (????), a cell phone (walkie talkie without batteries) "to call my mother," a mirror and a brush "to fix my hair," a pen and paper for drawing, some Scotch tape "to put my drawings up on the walls," and a blanket. Apparently prison is not unlike a two-star hotel, or elementary school."


* post-script

Speaking of American, a Smithsonian writer says of Frank Lloyd Wright, "In his unshakable optimism, messianic zeal and pragmatic resilience, Wright was quintessentially American. A central theme that pervades his architecture is a recurrent question in American culture: How do you balance the need for individual privacy with the attraction of community activity? Everyone craves periods of solitude, but in Wright's view, a human being develops fully only as a social creature."

Bought My First Pack of Cigarettes

Mom and Dad heard this one already, but it's worth sharing at the very least for its humor. My first and somewhat anticlimatic attempt at world-weariness. Accept my apologies for the melodrama.

Important to know that only a couple of hours before my frustrating phone call to vayama.com, I had closed Truman Capote's "Breakfast at Tiffany's" with the lasting impression that fear and sadness can be easily avoided with a martini buzz, the right accessories, and a rather loose (albeit vague) attitude towards men. Aubrey Hepburn's Holly, at the time, was my heroine.

Picture me nearing end of my last day of freedom before the C-- family returns from their week of vacation in Normandy, during which I stayed alone in Torino. It's early evening and the fading afternoon sunlight filters across the hardwood floors to me, barefoot at the marble-topped dining table upon which I've opened my laptop to read the email containing my international flight itinerary. I have the black cordless phone up to my ear, fingers beginning to cramp from their clutched position, and I'm thanking Jamie at Vayama for all of his help, accepting with strained civilty his scripted apologies about my situation. Long story short, I've just discovered that I paid close to 1800.00USD for what turned out to be not a round-trip but a one-way flight from SFO to Turin, Italy, and although that's considerably less than most international one-way flights nowadays it's enough money lost to make me hiss, "Shit. Shit. Shit," into the empty house. I sit for a bit like that, one foot up on the chair, the other on the floor, muttering aloud to myself, eyes going in and out of focus, until I get up and go into the kitchen to hang up the phone and realise that I need to get out of this house NOW. My frustration about losing the battle with the airline companies and third party, my impatience with telephone transactions, my anger with myself for not buying a one-way ticket at the start, underlined by an immense fear accompanying my spanking new lack of a conrete return date: all of these combined, if left to fester within me in this small space would soon leave me in no condition to receive the family back into their (my) home. Still had on the running shorts, wild hair and grubby t-shirt I had this morning. I paced the kitchen like a tense, caged animal. I had to get out.

Recalling the unshakeable composure of Capote's Holly Golightly, I thought what better way to take a furious walk than in style? It might lift my spirits to gussy up for all the strangers out there, all those unsuspecting people past whom I will boldly stride in my brisk walk down to the River Po to burn off some of these brittle, bright red feelings I have bundled up like so much tinder. I donned the black mid-thigh jersey dress from Old Navy that Mom sent me a few weeks back; slipped on my new black flats with sturdy, audible heels; cinched a little red belt around my waist, applied a generous amount of eyeliner and my new rose lipstick from Paris; angrily stuffed into a shoulder bag my wallet, mobile, an apple, journal; and then, with my chin up and unnecessarily huge sunglasses on, strode out of the apartment building onto the warm sidewalks of a European city transitioning from late afternoon to early evening. Ha-rumph! I hate you, vayama.com! Stupid United Airlines! Stupid three-month limit on my round trip ticket! Stupid lady who gave me the wrong info the first time I called!

Destination: The River Po. (When I came to this part of my story, Dad said, "No! Don't jump!") More or less fifteen minutes away from the house on foot, I figured I could steam along the oft busy Corso Vittorio Emmanuele II until the park near the River, then sit for awhile and vent into my diary like the predolescent schoolgirl I sometimes am before going home again. I walked two blocks in a blink, anxious anger settling into more of a vague mauve depression, when some mangy young "tamarro" (Italian word for the guy who drives by in a tricked out outdated sedan that once belonged to his uncle, wearing reflective aviators and blasting techno) approached me on the right, muttered something rude-sounding into my ear, grabbed a huge handful of my ass and squeezed it, HARD, before jogging away. I had just enough time to widen my eyes in serious, serious disbelief, and gasp aloud-- but, because of my dark Olsen-twin glasses, I think he registered only the lipsticked gasp, and I can hardly bear to think of the satisfaction he probably gathered from that. Ugh. What a PERV! My fury flared up anew, though this time shaded with indignation and disgust, and having no one to turn to I said to myself, You know what? That does it. I'm fed up with

being lonely,
with
sucking up my frustration!
and
impatience!
and
sadness,
with
not having any G.D. friends in Turin,
with
THIS
and
THAT, and
that other thing...

and worked myself into such a huff that I may have alarmed the poor guy who sold me my first packet of cigarettes in a convenient shop near the train station, Porta Nuova. I don't even know what kind they are, or what led me to choose the box I chose. Whatever I saw behind the counter that wasn't Marlboros (because that makes me think of the anti-smoking cowboy ads of my youth, the tan denim men toasting frothy beer mugs with body bags (Remember those?), and then I feel REALLY bad). While I've smoked a cigarette or two in my life, I've never before actually bought my own pack: a streak I was, afterward, somewhat remiss to break. The remaining seventeen now cower pathetically in the bottom corner of my handbag, ashamed of themselves for sharing my purse with the kids' juice boxes and afternoon snacks.

I digress. Basically, I was tired of being so danged healthy about my feelings and my body and everything, for taking care of myself for such a long time, being a good girl who generally does the right thing, and decided that I had experienced in this day two moments of such profound disappointment - in the travel companies that should have secured for me my passage home from this crazy job I've undertaken, and in Men (Yes. ALL of you.) for grabbing girls' butts. It's just. not. nice. So I bought some cigarettes halfway between my house and the River, eventually sat down on the lawn in Parco Valentino to write in my journal and proceeded to smoke three in a row. Also burned a couple of holes in the page, just for kicks. After ten or fifteen minutes of chain-smoking I stood up, brushed all the dead grass off my butt, noted the nasty blisters forming on my heels on account of the new shoes and not-so-leisurely stroll, and headed home. At a pedestrian stoplight I reached into my purse to light up one more, clinging stubbornly to my waning rage like the kid whose tantrum was interrupted by someone saying, "Don't smile! Don't smile!," keeps whimpering after the tears have stopped, when my hand instead brushed the apple... and Good, Rational Lauren shook an admonishing finger at wannabe Hepburn's movie character Lauren, brought the apple to her lips instead of the cigarette. When I got home I showered, hung my dress outside to dispel any odor of nicotine, and tidied up the house. Later that evening after a raucous reunion with the C-- family, I sat in the living room with the parents and told them about my cancelled plane ticket. P-- was mildly surprised at my frustration. Spreading her hands wide and lifting her eyebrows, she said, "Oh, but, Lauren. It's only MONEY." And very secretly in my head (next to the cowardly box of cigarettes nestled deep in my shoulder bag) I screamed at the top of my slightly-blackened lungs a series of ugly words in two different languages.

German Italy

Campo Tures, Italy

As we flew toward Torino over the paid tollways in our compact station wagon, I reflected again on my luck in the family/au pair matching process: not only do they love to travel and have the means to take me along, but they're slow food fanatics (an organic/hippie version of going kosher, related to how food is raised, chosen, prepared and served) so we often sit down to dinner or lunch in fabulous restaurants all over the region; their non-stop tendencies spilled over even into their vacation, with "leisure" coming to mean river rafting, riding rental bikes all over the mountainside, trekking and picnicking in the forest, sightseeing like mad; and all while treating me more like a daughter than a maid or a guest. I am fortunate to be in this situation.

We stayed ten days in a two-bedroom cabin suite in Caminata, a tiny four-block "town" near Campo Tures in the Valle d'Agosto, Dolomiti (The Dolomites, I think, in English), Italy, so close to Austria that all the signs are in German and Italian, and everyone speaks Italian with a German accent. One day we took cushy rental bikes to the nearby town of Brunico to eat polenta and drink red wine, and walk off these heavy meals along the slender central boulevard. On another, hotter day, P-- and I took the boys to a "biological pool," whose chlorine-producing algae gave the large pond a green tinge and its suspicious name, to spend the day swimming, reading, running around the lawns, and tanning on long sunchairs against a backdrop of endless forested mountains and blue sky. We also went river rafting (a thrilling, boisterous activity that made my heart ache for Colorado College), endured many a thunderstorm (during which the chapel bells tolled in order to break up the clouds), trekked and picnicked and fed handfuls of grass to housecat-sized baby goats.

I watched the opening ceremonies of the Olympics from an Olympic training center deep in the mountains, weeping into my lemon tea from sheer overwhelm at the sight of hundreds of first-world athletes dwarf the meager handfuls of third-world athletes in a parade around the stadium whose erection displaced so many Chinese. Upon my return from the bathroom where I fled to compose myself, I learned that Italian lacks a word that translates into "overwhelmed."

I spent my day off from 'working' riding my bike across sunny cornfields, writing in my journal, and reading two poorly written historical novels, one about a leper colony in Greece and the other about Leonardo da Vinci and the sisters d'Este who ruled Milan during the Renaissance.

One night after a particularly delicious open-air dinner, I ventured into the restaurant to escape the cold mountain evening to find myself at the mercy of a tableful of hearty blonde locals who spoke less Italian than they did English. They treated me to a shot of "grappa" (sweet hard liquor), a mug of scalding berry tea, and an unbroken series of long and awkward stares. I fingered the tab of my teabag nervously, smiling and glancing at the doorway for one of my boys to fetch me, and finally one of them - the shyest, I think - attempted trilingual conversation. We all laughed a lot, they took more shots, and I discovered that, although 90% couldn't say one complete sentence in English, they all knew and frequently interjected the phrases "I'm lovely" (possibly "I love you?") and "sex on the beach." Where do they learn--??

In Which She Milks a Goat and Goes on a Date

1 August 2008
Bruni, Piedmonte, Italy

Not in the same day, however. That would have been overwhelming. Chronologically the goat came first, but as there's not much to say about the date I can start there. I just wanted to make a few brief comments about Italian men: one, that their accents make them sound a little bit like movie villains when they speak English, adding a curl to our language that recalls mustache twirling and clever hijinks; two, that riding on the back of a Vespa actually is just as fun (and not as scary) as I thought it would be, but not quite as romantic since it's hard to avoid clunking helmets together every couple of blocks; and three, that I continue to laugh at myself for being a 22-year-old American girl. I never considered what it would be like to fit so snugly into that specific category, but I really do feel like a 22-year-old American girl most of the time and especially when sipping pinot grigio across the table from an intelligent European bachelor who was already deep into the depths of adolescence when I was swimming in the womb. (36. Mamma mia.) Christa, if you're reading this... not quite Motorcycle Guy, but... email me! Or skype?

So last weekend the family went to the mountains, and rather than loiter on vacant Turinese streetcorners I packed an overnight bag and took a train to Bruni (or rather, to Bra, where I was continued the journey by car) to see a friend from Colorado College who recently joined this international network called WOOF. Working On Organic Farms, I think? You basically purchase a membership, receive a contact list, and can go from farm to farm in whichever region you choose - she picked Italy - to work in exchange for room and board. Very cool. The nearby town, Murazzano, has a population of about 600 people, and the surrounding hills are breathtaking: rolling foothills of green, green, green split into stripes (vineyard), squares (veggie crops), and orchards, receding into a misty background of more hills, more hills, and then, sky. We drove up a gently winding road, past lines of tall, slender poplars, and a set of 19th century Catholic stations of the cross (frescoed statues placed along the roadside), past an abandoned church and still other trees, and a big tree that had only a week ago housed a huge beehive that Mario had harvested for the farm, and past a mangy-looking yellow lab who barked at us like strangers. I stayed for about 28 hours, from Saturday afternoon when I dropped my backpack in the upstairs hayloft-turned-bedroom to take the animals to pasture, to Sunday evening when I finished my bowl of gelato, shouted a goodbye to the deaf Signora who was also staying at the farm (long story there: overnight I made friends with a 93-year-old Genovan who walks with a cane, reads without glasses, and lived some years in Africa), and took off again for the train station. It had been only a day, but it felt like forever. I think I tapped into my ancestors or something, my universal unconsciousness or whatever that's called, because I left the countryside feeling profoundly moved. Or just profound, in general.

The details of this weekend are innumerable, and make great little stories to tell after dinner or over a leisurely tea. You have details, too, that will never make it to a letter or an email or even a phone call. We will tell these stories, don't worry.

What else? I cut my hair! Not true: a magician named Fabio with a goatee and a hair salon called "Pepe" cut my hair, and Ruggero told me that I looked like a buffalo. Wait, I think I already told you about that in my last entry. Umm... I... met two American au pairs in the park across the street, one of whom will come out with me sometime tomorrow to get a coffee in town and exchange stories. She's from Long Beach, wears a headscarf that made me think of Utah, and lived one year in Florence (!) while she was in college. I have been playing a ton of soccer with Ruggero, and one time a couple of days ago I kicked it with surprising force and hit him square on the forehead, sent him flying into the air! Miraculously he was fine, thank God, with only a scratch on his elbow, and it's only because he wasn't hurt that I now laugh every time I think about it. I'm not supposed to play soccer! Non sono sportiva!

Have to go now, to brave the summer warmth and buy some fish and fruit from the market before it gets too hot. Love, love.

"You look like a man."

25 July 2008
Torino, Italy

For those of you who also tend to compile Soundtracks For Life (I know my dad is one of those people), nota bene: Marvin's Gaye's "Heard It Through the Grapevine" is the perfect tempo for strutting home along sunny city streets with big sunglasses, a new haircut, slim waistline and empty wallet. I would know. I just did it!

Mood was crushed, however, when the housekeeper Giovanna looked up from her work in the kitchen and gasped, "No! Why (in Italian) have you cut all your hair?" I laughed and said, "Preferisco cosi. I prefer it this way," to which she replied, "Sembra uno uomo. You look like a man." And I laughed again, only slightly and secretly offended. I don't care, I like it, and an elderly woman in Fabio's salon told me that I had the face for it. "Sara belissima cortissimi. It will be beautiful short." Thank you, I told her, thank you a thousand times. She's the only one who said it would be a good cut; everyone I live with has warned me against it. My parents say that the Italian men will have preferred me with long hair. But who's doing it for the Italian men? Not me. All it took was the one little old lady, a stranger, to make me feel good about what I've wanted all along. Pictures are coming soon...

I Found True Love...

Madrid, Spain

...and her name is Christa P Whitney.


I spent a whirlwind 30 hours in Madrid this weekend (visiting my best friend from high school, for those of you who don't know her, in the last week of her junior year abroad), getting in at 8pm Friday night and leaving at 9am Monday morning. But boy, was it worth it! Saw a concert, ate churros for breakfast, danced until 7 in the morning with a silly pair of Spanish firemen, napped next to and swam in her pool, visited two museums, bought a painted fan at Europe's largest open market, split a bottle of rose lambrusco over a three-hour dinner out in the town... and these are just the highlights.


What mattered more were the lowlights, the short and long conversations that strained to fill a year's worth of our lives spent half a world away from each other; the meditative silences - never awkward, although we often are - that shade in the bold outlines of our friendship. Sunday midnight found us sitting cross-legged on a strip of grassy lawn beside the palace to listen to a couple of young musicians accompany a slight, dark-haired male soprano as he sang impressive arias like "Ave Maria" for a smattering of night owls and lovers gathered in a sloppy semicircle, seeming one cohesive audience but existing in completely different worlds. She and I both noticed his rainbow wristband and powder pink fitted t-shirt, and I wished there that Turin had a gay district. I laid my head in her lap while she took a phone call, and as she stroked my hair I marvelled at her ability to express her feelings in another language (something I've yet to achieve, being somewhat limited to simplicities like "happy," "sad," and "bored" because I haven't yet learned the Italian words for "preoccupied," "relieved," or "melancholy"), and felt hot tears well up in my eyes out of love and gratitude for her. She missed my college graduation, next spring I will miss hers, and both of us apologize over and over again for the absent places at these landmark occasions though each of us knows that the other really means it when she says that it doesn't matter, that she understands why she can't be there. "You're in EUROPE! Of course I wouldn't ask you to come back just for that." But I would if you asked me, we both say silently. I would do anything for you.

She leaves Spain on Saturday. It was important for me to see her at the end of her year in Europe and at the beginning of mine, for I saw in her sorrow at saying goodbye how short one year really is, and just how much I might gain from this time in Turin. My two little boys called my cell phone when I got off the bus from the Milan airport, asking me if everything was okay and when they would get to see me. Was I alright? Would I be home when they got back from camp? And later, when I lifted the familiar red and white checkered tablecloth into the air to settle it over their dinner table on the terrace - when I almost broke a lamp in a living room pillowfight with the youngest, laughing the whole time - when I walked home from the Turin bus stop with new eyes that had seen my other self (my anima gemella, my twin soul, my half orange) living her own life in a foreign city, no longer a visitor but a European, I knew that this was my new home.

One year will be easy-peezy!

Paradise Exists Just South of Sicily

Lampedusa, Sicily, Italy



This week was incredible, one of the best vacations I've ever had. Our daily activities consisted mostly of lounging in the shade, going to the beach, reading, sketching, taking outdoor showers to escape the heat and ogling all the hot Sicilian waiters from behind my big sunglasses. One of them reminded me a lot of Matt Houser, tall and lanky and tan, and we exchanged significant looks all week, heehee! The kids thought it was pretty funny to act out every time we went to his cafe for gelato, using too many napkins and asking for extra spoons or cones or whatnot, generally trying to get his attention, and so I spent more of my time blushing and giggling and apologising.

Before I go on, I have to share one anecdote from back home in Turin yesterday, the Sunday after we returned from Lampedusa, a long sunny Sunday of big yawns, naps, of laundry and grocery shopping and a visit to Nonna (Grandma). I hope this makes you laugh as much as it makes me laugh: I went with Patrizia to get groceries from this fancy schmancy place called "Eataly" (clever Italians), sort of like the Italian version of Whole Foods but more like the Gourmet Grotto on Shattuck, if you're from the Bay, where you can get all kinds of local produce, overpriced condiments, gourmet meats and cheese, etc. Anyway, upon entering the beverage section I saw a large aisle display for a smashing new energy drink in a slim white can with silver writing. Very hot. But I gasped aloud when I saw it, and Patrizia must have misinterpreted what I meant as 'oh my god' as 'These look so cool!' because she waved her hand and said, "Oh, I already bought some for the house." I quickly corrected her, told her that the name of this brand was a very rude word in English. She said she had no clue. I told her, and she laughed, and the photo is four cans of that very beverage sitting in our unassuming little refrigerator! An hour later at lunch I told A, the dad, what had happened, and the 10-year-old understood just enough of our conversation to ask, "Cosa ha succeso? Cosa vuol dire? What happened? What does it mean?," and his mom looked me in the eye and said to him, "It's kind of like caca (Italian for poop)." Not quite, but good enough for him. He then proceeded to prance around the house barking out the two slang words he knew in English: "Awesome pussy, awesome pussy," to my dismay! I couldn't help but just laugh out loud at the hilarity of this situation, because all the while the parents and their niece sat at the table trying to work out the correct pronunciation, "Poozy?" - "No, Alberto, it's more like puh-see. Pussie." - "No zia (auntie), zio (uncle), it's PUSSY!" And I was bright red, practically crying with mirth and embarrassment, and wished someone was laughing with me. Absolutely hilarious.

Okay, on with the update. Each day was a totally different adventure, but here goes a brief overview.




We stayed in a six-bed suite at a beautiful one-story bed and breakfast with outdoor showers, a huge tiled patio and tons of plastic lounge furniture scattered among a maze of low walls and tropical flower bushes separating suites. All week we drove a 40-year-old rental "car" without windows, doors or seatbelts, a sort of Indiana Jones type safari vehicle that braved many a pothole on our daily ventures to and from this or that beach. We ate out nearly every night because no one felt like cooking or doing dishes, the fresh-fresh-freshest seafood I've had!, and drank lots of shaken coffees (better than any frappucino). One morning we passed a couple of hours dolphin-watching from a small motorboat with a very attractive young member of the Italian Coast Guard named Francesco, a little bit short for me (said P afterward) but extremely smart and capable, with unusually well-kept nails and a heart-stopping smile that we only saw at the very end of the trip. Another day we saw the Italian coast guard intercept a boatful of illegal immigrants (clandestini, in Italian) from Africa. Lampedusa is the first port from Tunisia, and I guess they see lots of refugees come in all year. We spent countless hours on the beach, swimming and tanning and reading and napping and sand castling in turns, slathering on SPF 50 and exfoliating with soft stones. On Friday we passed the day on a private boat excursion around the entire island; there's more about this in my photo album, accompanying a picture of our crusty sea captain Pino. It was during this boat trip that I found the sweetest happiness and most profound sense of freedom I've ever experienced, and vowed that sometime during this life I'll live on a boat. I fell in love with the economy of boat living, of being physically unable to bring anything along that you can't strap down or tuck in somewhere, yet having at all times everything you need. Love it.

Every day brought a new set of experiences, and when our flight back to Turin left the ground I felt my throat catch with a longing to stay just a little longer. Not forever, of course, for I know that such a tiny place would get tiresome after more than a few months, but longer. I actually already have considered a possible return next summer, after my year in Turin is up, perhaps doing light work at a bed and breakfast with a friend of P's named Katia, and although this seems very far off I'm already considering whether or not to cancel my plane ticket home instead of trying to predict when I'll be ready to return to the States.

It's strange to be making such clear and unforgettable memories with a family that isn't my own... but I guess that's life, learning to make concrete ideas like "home" and "family" more fluid and portable. I was relieved to come home to my room in Turin this weekend, even after leaving a significant chunk of my heart in Lampedusa (with Paolo, maybe, or Francesco! just kidding), and was pleased to find a postcard from Christa, a package from Anne Marie, and a letter from dad. Everything I need is here. At the end of one month I find myself healthy, deeply tan, excited about meeting people and finding things to do, and the slightest bit anxious for the schoolyear to start so I can establish a more concrete schedule with the boys. But there's still August, with its week in the mountains, one weeks in Paris, and my one week's travel to... somewhere? I have to look into what to do in August between France and my return to Turin. I'm sure someone from CC is doing something amazing somewhere; I just have to find them!

Keep writing to me, I love updates, either in hard copy or by email. I love you all.

Una Giornata (One Day)

June 29th, 2008.

We went for a lovely little "giornata," or day journey, in the mountains today with the family and P--'s sister, to a little rustic cottage for a picnic lunch and hike. Woke up late (it's Sunday, two weeks since I arrived), ate breakfast in front of the TV with the boys, and then we packed a picnic and drove an hour out of the city. The walk was gorgeous, not too steep, and in the green, green mountains. I picked a lot of bright little wildflowers to put in my book to dry. We arrived at the 'shelter' - a picnic site - around 2.30, spread out the blankets and made little sandwiches from our various components: a huge sweet tomato, block of exquisite cheese, three kinds of prosciutto, multigrain bread, finocchio (fennel), and then apples, pears, and various cookies. We also brought a liter of fizzy water and one liter of normal water. Our packs were much lighter on the way down.

Yesterday afternoon I went out with an Italian guy who was friends with the previous au pair. He's a very sweet, slightly balding 29-year-old employee of Martini Rossi who lives with his parents and learned most of his English from watching American movies. We went to the Museo al Cinema, housed in a beautiful old building that was originally intended to be a Jewish synagogue, then out for aperitivo in the city center, and then for a walk and a drink along the River Po. We have a tentative plan to go running in the park together sometime after I return from the vacation in Lampedusa, and my visit to see Christa in Madrid.

It's so funny that everything is the same here in terms of family life. Of course, why would it be different? This week I was privy to two very important moments, the first being a dinner table discussion with the 5-yr-old about the existence of Santa Claus (Babo Natale, in Italiano), and the second taking place with the 10-yr-old in the "family planning" aisle of the supermarket...

We are all the same family!

Once I pulled back from my immediate situation and reminded myself that one year, in the Grand Scheme of Things, isn't actually that long, I found this all very exciting, and a little romantic. I'm an expatriate! Haha, my good friend John and I are planning to spend the holidays together in Croatia, so as not to celebrate Christmas and New Year's alone, or with strangers. I picture something very pathetic and hilarious like one sickly pine branch stuck in an empty bottle with some tinsel, and each of us nursing a carton of red wine with fingerless gloves on... wait, we're not homeless 20th century bohemians. Wrong visual. Anyway, I think it'll be nice to spend a couple of weeks with him in the middle of my year to tide me over until the spring.

Tomorrow begins my first real regular week, with the hours of 9am-4pm largely free for me to do what I want. I have plans to take my new book, Ian McEwan's "Saturday," to the local pool and spend a couple of hours alternating between swimming and tanning; to take advantage of the three-day guest pass to Patrizia's fitness gym, where her personal trainer, Mr. Rock, is waiting to meet me; and I have two dinner dates, one at the house with the young(er) woman who lives upstairs in the attic, I think she's 26?, and the other out at a restaurant with P--'s sister and some of her friends. Little by little, things are falling into place.

Death in Venice

Hello, all! I have seen the very bottom of the barrel, so to speak, and now it's all upwards. We went to Venice for four days, Saturday to Tuesday, and for two of those days I was out of commission with some combination of traveller's illness, dehydration and too much sun. I had a fever and couldn't keep anything down for more than 48 hours, and it's only now, Thursday, that I feel 100%. Whew. Venice was, however, as beautiful as ever. In one of his emails Keith remarked, "How many people get to say they're going BACK to Venice?" and I had to stop to be grateful once again for all the decisions I've made that led me here. As hard as everything is in terms of the boys trying my patience and draining me of all my energy, I keep it in perspective when I realize how truly fortunate I am to be employed by a family of such means, creativity, generosity, and desire to travel.

After a five hour train ride during which we picked more and more people up from Padova, Milan, and other places along the way, we arrived in Venice. It was so hot! We each had one small bag/backpack and one piece of luggage, and this we all loaded onto a private boat that was waiting when we got out of the train station. We stayed on a nearby islet called San Servolo, a tiny tiny place that was once a monastery, then a psychiatric hospital, and now hosts student programs (such as "Duke in Venice") and private groups (like the one I was with). We were altogether about 25 people, parents and children and nannies, who ate in the cafeteria, slept in the IKEA catalogue dorms, and played all day in the garden. Well, the children played while the nannies watched and the parents convened for some meetings... I'm still unsure about what they were about, but it sounded like lectures and then small-group discussions about work psychology. Interesting. Anyway, when I wasn't in bed or on the floor of the bathroom, I was out with the children, watching them play soccer and catch, getting the ball out of the tree, spraying them with mosquito repellant (the humidity in Venice brought out the worst bug bites! I have many still), and speaking with the other nannies. In Italian it's tata, so plurale = tate. Le tate dei bambini. There were many children ranging in age from 10 months to 13 years, with most falling in the middle, and they got along just fine as long as we were around to break up the occasional squabble and reapply the spray. I met two Filipinas (one from Ilocos! Holla!), and we spent some time together on the last day listening to music on Irene's mp3: I told her I liked "Bebot" by the Black Eyed Peas (bebot is Tagalog slang for a cute girl), and she had it, so we listened to it, and she played for me another song by the Filipino guy in the group... I'll have to look it up, it's a rap about his life and how he came to be in the world famous group.

Anyway, then we took the train for 6 hours home from Venice, saying goodbye to various people along the way. I finished reading Henry James' "Washington Square" and wrote a few postcards, napped, talked with my father/employer about why they prefer an American au pair over something else. He said they considered one from South Africa, and another from the UK, but that I sounded like the best fit. They want the boys to learn English, and I think they thought this was the best way, maybe a clearer accent or something? I've been told again and again that my English is so clear for the Italian ear; I think it's a combination of the Californian accent (not so complicated as deep New York or Chicago, or the South), my snobby English major annunciation, and years of speaking slowly with Grandma and Grandpa Aczon.


More later, of course. We've begun to discuss the Big Questions, like my holiday in August - what to do, then? - and when I might visit Christa - after we go to Lampedusa/Sicily in July - and whether or not I will come home for Christmas. This is a big decision, but I think when I come home I want to stay home... a short visit in the middle might make it more difficult to come back. Or maybe easier. I will consult the experts: Alana and Christine, both of whom stayed abroad for one year, but one of whom came and home for winter vacation and the other stayed in Europe. I have some time before I absolutely have to decide. Comments welcome. :-)

Ciao for now! I love you.

Mistake Turned Adventure

June 20th, 2008.

took the wrong bus
ended up at cemetery on outskirts of town
played with a ladybug
mother was sympathetic
took a taxi
fil was happy
ate ice cream
counted the stops

drew a horse statue at Piazza San Carlo
learned how to say "eyebrows"

met Elena, their last babysitter
heard about boys' previous behaviour, lindsey
had young person's perspective on Turin, and travel, and having children
(like a puppy!)
made pizza
watched "hulk"

jasmine room
need to buy a belt

Day Three in Torino

Every waking moment is spent doing not one but three things (translate-listen to parents-try to keep the boys from fighting, or try not to get lost-translate-teach English, or fight jetlag-talk slowly to patrizia-keep boys amused)! My time to really slow down and think will be in the mornings, since I have several hours off in the morning when the parents are at work and the children at school. The maid, 23, is very nice and we converse in broken Italian and broken English while she irons and I write postcards. Today we talked about how she wants to do the same thing in America that I am doing here in Turin, but she has to work first, then make plans. We also talked about boyfriends (she left someone behind in Romania, I left someone behind in Seattle), about the family (they are wonderful, she agrees) and then I retreated to my room so she could finish her work. Interesting, when I told P--- later in the afternoon that I had spoken much with Rodica, she was glad of it but added, "Not too much, I hope, because she has a lot of work to do." She comes 4 days a week, for FIVE hours each day! Dishes, ironing, laundry, cleans the bathroom and floors. Che strano.

Last night the parents invited a couple over to the apartment for dinner and to watch a high-profile soccer match between France and Italy. I think that the word for soccer, calcio, is funnily enough the same word for "calcium." Go figure. While the ladies cooked pasta and vegetables, I kept the younger boy occupied in the kitchen by taking out every single animal from his big crate of animals and laying them out on the table... and the floor, and the counter... His favorite is the lion, but he's also pretty attached to eagles. Me, I prefer the tiny cows he has - che carini! How cute! All the while F was rooted to the computer (kind of like Master Ben Nadler, no?) looking at a font website he had seen me searching the night before. He loves letters, to write, to draw, more than sports or socializing. This morning, stamattina, his mother picked up his report card from school and tonight we will see how he did. His parents expect straight As, I think; he's extremely bright, albeit moody. I haven't yet taken a photo of him, but I will soon and maybe you will agree that he looks a little like a mini-blonde Adrian Brody, with his pronounced nose and sad eyes.

Okay, time for me to venture out into the city for a couple of hours before the big test this afternoon: I pick up the boys all by myself, and keep them entertained for four hours until we meet the parents for dinner out somewhere. Whew! Cross your fingers for me!

Arriving in Turin

Hello, everyone! It took me about five full minutes with the family's housekeeper, Rodica, an Italian-speaking Romanian girl, to compose the heading correctly in italiano. I have forgotten so much since I was last here in Italy, but it's coming back slowly. Piano, piano, as they say.

I will update this as frequently and comprehensively as I can. No photos
yet, but the apartment is gorgeous! Very IKEA/Pottery Barn-esque. The family inhabits the entire top floor of this apartment building, with four bedrooms and two bathrooms, two long terraces (one on each side), a neat little kitchen, and a roomy common area where everyone sits/plays/lives when everyone comes together in the evenings. Hardwood floors, high ceilings, lots of windows. They take the elevator up and down since it's the topmost, and today I thought I would try the stairs just out of curiosity-- 120 steps to the top! Whew! My buns burned, to say the least. I'll stick to the elevator.

Yesterday I flew from SFO to Denver, Denver to Frankfurt, without hitch. The first flight was a little over two hours, very easy, and I read Jane Eyre, wrote a postcard or two. Connection was close by, so I hopped right onto the Frankfurt flight. It was hard for me to comprehend that this flight was leaving the continent, leaving my country... too tremendous for my exhausted mind. I'd stayed up way, way past my bedtime for the past two or three nights, poor judgment on my part, so I was glassy-eyed for my entire day traveling. The movie screens on the Lufthansa flight kept me up all night - I think I dozed for about two hours, but only lightly - and when I landed in Torino at 2.30pm enough adrenaline kicked in, from meeting the whole family and retrieving my (obscenely heavy) luggage, that I decided to stick it out and stay up until they went to bed. I made it through playtime, unpacking, a driving tour of downtown Torino, pizza dinner and gelato, but by the time we drove home my eyes were closing mid-sentence. Alb and Patri laughed and sent me straight to bed! Fil, 10, the older boy, knocked on my door to see if I needed anything, some water, perhaps? I said yes, he could bring me some water. Frizzante o naturale? Naturale, naturally. He returned with an entire unopened liter of water! Said, "But you can drink it all night!" Very sweet. He and his younger brother, 5, are very sweet and get along like any other young boys do - not too well when one or both is tired and cranky, but fairly well during the day, as long as Fil doesn't provoke Ruggi and Ruggi doesn't annoy Fil. I've seen worse.

Now, although it's 11.30am here, and despite my solid 11 hours of sleep last night, I need to nap. In Italian, faccio un riposino. Next time I will post photos of the apartment, and hopefully will have walked more around the city. The weather is supposed to be the most beautiful of the year, but lately has been foggy and rainy. The Italians complain, "Where is our summer?," but the overcast skies remind me of home.

Last Block Break

four friends
four days
special chocolate
white sand dunes
pinwheels from k-mart
sunsets and moonrises
open windows
babies with boobs
white wine
snowy roads

we locked the dog in the bathroom, took off our tops, and pondered graduation. not necessarily in that order.