Two nights ago Luciana and I were talking over dinner, she mentioned to me that she needed to get gas the next day.
The next day at dinner the news was on as usual, and Luciana tells me, “I tried to get gas today but I couldn’t, I got there and there wasn’t any.” I thought this was strange and asked why, “Communisti!” she replied and then pointed at the television where the news story was playing about there being no gas available in all of Italy due to a strike.
Strikes are something I’ve already gotten used to in Italy, they happen all the time, though it is mostly the buses or other modes of transportation. When something is happening politically that people disagree with, they strike. The transportation workers most directly serve the public so they are the first ones to go. This shows the government immediately where they would be without the people and it usually only happens for a half day or so and then ends, I never really hear if they are successful, or what the strike is really for, but we are usually told a week or so before, “just so you know, no trains Friday from noon to midnight.” Or something like this.
When we first got here the high school students were striking because they felt they were being treated unfairly by being forced to take certain exams or something. They organized a protest and actually did something about the causes that they disagreed with in their own lives.
This passion and involvement in political goingson astounds me. It is something I find refreshing; can you imagine American high school students taking anything into their own hands? While it is incredibly inconvenient a lot of times I think it is important to remind everyone that the things you depend on daily depend on someone else doing their job. The lack of gas yesterday was because the group of truck drivers who usually deliver the gas all over the country were striking. I asked Luciana why again and she responded “Because they’re communists,” as if that explained it, and then she added, “but they’re right.” They were working without contracts for meager wages and they realized how unfair this was—the country literally depends on them—and they showed the country just how much simply by making them go without for a day.
People couldn’t drive, taxi companies were driving until their cars were on empty, the fresh fruit and vegetables weren’t delivered to the grocery stores this morning because there were no trucks to deliver them, the gas stations saved what gas they had left for ambulances and emergency vehicles, and yet Italian life went on. And those commie drivers got the attention from the government that they wanted.
Wednesday, December 12, 2007
Wednesday, December 5, 2007
Some Christmas in Italia
The lights on Via Calzaiuoli, outside of my school.
Roasted Chestnuts. Mmmmm.
The Store windows! Fashion meets Christmas. Italian Style.
More lights.
Me at the Christmas Market at Santa Croce after my crazy Italian haircut!
Christmas Tree at the Christmas market!
Luciana
The past couple weeks I have gotten closer and closer with Luciana, my host mom. The third girl living in our house ended her program and returned to Switzerland, and with just three of us now at the table the conversations have gotten increasingly personal.
Luciana is an amazing woman, she curses every night at dinner as we watch the news, she hates politicians, and criminals and judges everyone initially on their appearance, though she is willing to change her mind if said person turns out to be a good person inside.
She told me the other day that her sister has always had to tell her, “Luciana, count to three before speaking.” She told me that she is just blunt and she never lies. And I believe her. After using a curse word she laughs and looks at us, “we only use these words in the house, right?”
Her husband died of lung cancer fifteen years ago, I think this is the same year she started hosting exchange students. It is also the year she quit smoking. Now she has two sons and three grandsons. All but the youngest grandson are smokers, and she calls them idiots for it. When Katherine and I first got here we couldn’t figure out if her husband had died or if she was divorced, over time we knew he had died. She speaks of him often and always fondly. He was a professor, he sounds brilliant, and I’m sure he was because she is too.
I think Luciana is in her eighties, though when I first got here I thought she was in her younger sixties. She doesn’t have a wrinkle on her face and she is always smiling. She says when she was younger she was beautiful, and I believe her. She says men used to follow her every time she left the house, but that back then it wasn’t a scary thing. She said her husband was one of those men. She never paid attention to them, but he figured out a way to get to know her. Even today she says men will offer her wine at restaurants or ask her out on the street, but she says, “they are all old,” and she will always love her husband.
Sunday over breakfast she told us this year has been hard. She has three friends in the hospital, two, she says, she’s sure will be going to the other world, one she’s not so sure about. Friends call her house all morning and all evening and she is out almost every day going to the movies, or going to lunch with them. She told us you reach an age where you have more dead friends than ones alive. She is never overly romantic or emotional, just honest. She looked at us and said, “but we’re all here, and you two get to go to the soccer game today!”
Luciana is an amazing woman, she curses every night at dinner as we watch the news, she hates politicians, and criminals and judges everyone initially on their appearance, though she is willing to change her mind if said person turns out to be a good person inside.
She told me the other day that her sister has always had to tell her, “Luciana, count to three before speaking.” She told me that she is just blunt and she never lies. And I believe her. After using a curse word she laughs and looks at us, “we only use these words in the house, right?”
Her husband died of lung cancer fifteen years ago, I think this is the same year she started hosting exchange students. It is also the year she quit smoking. Now she has two sons and three grandsons. All but the youngest grandson are smokers, and she calls them idiots for it. When Katherine and I first got here we couldn’t figure out if her husband had died or if she was divorced, over time we knew he had died. She speaks of him often and always fondly. He was a professor, he sounds brilliant, and I’m sure he was because she is too.
I think Luciana is in her eighties, though when I first got here I thought she was in her younger sixties. She doesn’t have a wrinkle on her face and she is always smiling. She says when she was younger she was beautiful, and I believe her. She says men used to follow her every time she left the house, but that back then it wasn’t a scary thing. She said her husband was one of those men. She never paid attention to them, but he figured out a way to get to know her. Even today she says men will offer her wine at restaurants or ask her out on the street, but she says, “they are all old,” and she will always love her husband.
Sunday over breakfast she told us this year has been hard. She has three friends in the hospital, two, she says, she’s sure will be going to the other world, one she’s not so sure about. Friends call her house all morning and all evening and she is out almost every day going to the movies, or going to lunch with them. She told us you reach an age where you have more dead friends than ones alive. She is never overly romantic or emotional, just honest. She looked at us and said, “but we’re all here, and you two get to go to the soccer game today!”
La Parrucchiera
Well it has been a while since I have written and I am trying to figure out if it is because I have been busy, or just because life is beginning to feel so normal here that I don’t feel like it is exciting enough to write about!
Looking back on the last couple weeks I have been busying myself, with midterms, making plans for winter break, going to my first Fiorentina soccer game, getting my first Italian haircut, trying to convince the Italian post office to release my package (the stories are true, they are insane), and all the while going to class, volunteering, and continuing to get to know my city better.
I can tell that my language skills here are improving because as I write this in English it seems incorrect and I want to use the Italian words for a lot of things. I am also finding myself more confident to speak to Italians. When I got my haircut I was really nervous at first to make an appointment, I picked out a salon and would walk past it day after day, too nervous to go in and say anything. Finally the day came where my hair was just too long, so I went in, and I made an appointment, and it was easy.
The morning I went in I was nervous again and kept pretty quiet for the first little while. My hairdresser however was wonderful and he came over touched my hair and said “bellissima.” Then asked “you just want it a little shorter right?” I laughed because the night before I had told my host mother I was going to the hairdresser and she just looked at me and said, “No you’re not. Your hair is beautiful and curly and people with curly hair don’t need to cut it.”
I told him what I wanted, layers, more volume, more Italian, maybe some type of bangs? He told me he could do it but he was keeping it natural and soft (which also made me laugh because the Italian word for soft is ‘morbido’ which may sound like a good thing to them, but to me, not so much).
I usually get nervous even talking to my hairdressers in America, but I decided that this was a great opportunity to practice my Italian. Saurio and I hit it off immediately, he told me that he had visited California last summer, and loved it. He said he loved Americans, they’re much more relaxed he said, I told him he had visited the right coast. We chatted and then I also chatted with the girl who styled my hair. She asked if I was Italian, I said no, and she said, I thought I heard a little accent. Which is much nicer to hear than people immediately assuming you can’t speak the language. She then told me that with my new haircut I’d find my Italian knight in shining armor. I told her I had an American boyfriend, she stopped and looked at me shocked, that must be so hard! It’s true. Italians really do take the romance thing seriously.
By the end of my time at the hairdressers Saurio told me he loved my hair, gave me the Italian goodbye kisses and made me promise to come back again and I felt a lot more confident, not just about my hair, but about my ability to do normal things in a new language and culture.
Looking back on the last couple weeks I have been busying myself, with midterms, making plans for winter break, going to my first Fiorentina soccer game, getting my first Italian haircut, trying to convince the Italian post office to release my package (the stories are true, they are insane), and all the while going to class, volunteering, and continuing to get to know my city better.
I can tell that my language skills here are improving because as I write this in English it seems incorrect and I want to use the Italian words for a lot of things. I am also finding myself more confident to speak to Italians. When I got my haircut I was really nervous at first to make an appointment, I picked out a salon and would walk past it day after day, too nervous to go in and say anything. Finally the day came where my hair was just too long, so I went in, and I made an appointment, and it was easy.
The morning I went in I was nervous again and kept pretty quiet for the first little while. My hairdresser however was wonderful and he came over touched my hair and said “bellissima.” Then asked “you just want it a little shorter right?” I laughed because the night before I had told my host mother I was going to the hairdresser and she just looked at me and said, “No you’re not. Your hair is beautiful and curly and people with curly hair don’t need to cut it.”
I told him what I wanted, layers, more volume, more Italian, maybe some type of bangs? He told me he could do it but he was keeping it natural and soft (which also made me laugh because the Italian word for soft is ‘morbido’ which may sound like a good thing to them, but to me, not so much).
I usually get nervous even talking to my hairdressers in America, but I decided that this was a great opportunity to practice my Italian. Saurio and I hit it off immediately, he told me that he had visited California last summer, and loved it. He said he loved Americans, they’re much more relaxed he said, I told him he had visited the right coast. We chatted and then I also chatted with the girl who styled my hair. She asked if I was Italian, I said no, and she said, I thought I heard a little accent. Which is much nicer to hear than people immediately assuming you can’t speak the language. She then told me that with my new haircut I’d find my Italian knight in shining armor. I told her I had an American boyfriend, she stopped and looked at me shocked, that must be so hard! It’s true. Italians really do take the romance thing seriously.
By the end of my time at the hairdressers Saurio told me he loved my hair, gave me the Italian goodbye kisses and made me promise to come back again and I felt a lot more confident, not just about my hair, but about my ability to do normal things in a new language and culture.
Friday, November 23, 2007
The Italian boy who captured my heart
My thanksgiving was indescribable. I would never have even known it was Thanksgiving if I hadn’t been looking at the calendar and had we not had a dinner with our school. Even though I didn’t celebrate Thanksgiving in America or in any conventional way, yesterday gave me so much to be thankful for.
Each of us have been given a place to do volunteer work this year and yesterday was my first day going to Villa Lorenzi, a place where middle to high school kids from troubled families can go after school so they don’t have to go home to a bad environment or to an empty apartment. I was told I would be helping kids with their homework and playing with them, my shift said it was from 1:30-6 p.m. every Thursday, other than that I had no idea what to expect.
I took the bus about twenty minutes out of the center of Florence and found the address I was looking for—as the name describes it was a huge villa on top of a hill. I walked in the front door and introduced myself to the first person I encountered, who looked back at me completely confused, and it took a good five minutes of panicked broken Italian conversation until I finally found the right person, who immediately called someone else to sweep me away through the winding halls of V. Lorenzi. I was introduced to about ten different people on the way to the lunch room but I don’t remember any of their names, they all spoke so fast and I felt like I had forgotten every day of my two and a half years of Italian. I was finally introduced to the leader of the group I would be working with. She shook my hand and smiled “Piacere,” at the same time as herding a group of ten 11-13 year old boys into the lunch room. The smallest boy stood on tippy toes to see over the rest of the group asking loudly, “Chi è lei?!” Who is she!? The leader of the group told him to wait a minute and he could introduce himself.
We walked into the lunch room where the boys were already sitting and the same little boy was sitting at the end of a table with an empty seat next to him. “Bella! Bella! Sedi qui!” Beautiful! Sit here! He was told again that it would be more polite to introduce himself to me and ask me my name. He immediately pulled all four feet of himself up from his seat and offered me his hand, “Ciao, Mi chiamo Ivan. Come ti chiami?” Hello, my name is Ivan. What’s your name? I smiled back and said “Ciao Ivan, Mi chiamo Margherita.” Hi Ivan, I’m Margherita. “Margherita!” he screamed “Sedi qui.”
The other boys I’m afraid where more typical middle school boys, afraid to look me in the eyes, and mumbled their names to their plates of pasta when I asked for them. Ivan kept me occupied throughout the meal however, first asking me for my hand so he could show me a handshake, then asking me if I could understand what he was saying, since I was slow to respond to his extremely fast words. Finally Ivan tugged on my sleeve and asked “Margherita, hai un fidanzato?” Do you have a boyfriend? “Sì,” I responded, “Ho un fidanzato.” Yes, I have a boyfriend. “E come si chiamo?” And what’s his name? “Si chiamo Sean.” (Keep in mind that it is pretty much impossible to pronounce Sean in Italian) “Sean?” he repeated, “hmmmm…oh sì! Penso di Conoscere lui dalla televisione!” Hmmm..Oh yes! I think I know him from tv! After a few moments Ivan tugged my sleeve again, “Quanti anni ha il tuo fidanzato?” How old is your boyfriend? “Lui ha venti anni.” He’s twenty. “Venti anni! Ma ho solo dieci anni!” Twenty! But I’m only ten years old! “Mi dispiace Ivan, ma anch’io ho venti anni.” I’m sorry Ivan, but I’m 20 too. Ivan looked a bit sad for a few minutes, but it seems as though he wasn’t too upset by the ten year age difference after all, or intimidated by Sean as competition, because it didn’t stop him from kissing me on the cheek at the end of lunch and then asking me to hold hands with him for the rest of the day.
After my lunchtime romance we all put our jackets on and went outside to play a game of calcio. They had already asked me the most important question, if I knew how to play soccer, and when I told them I had played for a long time I was recruited to even out a three on three game, (though I think they were still dubious of my ability, and after not having touched a soccer ball in almost 3 years now, so was I). When I finally was passed the ball and took a shot, the boys cried “Mamma mia!” “Che forza Margherita!” And after the game they all asked if I would play on their team next time. It was hard to tell through a language, culture, and age barrier whether they were poking fun at me or genuinely impressed, but either way they seemed to warm up to me after the game.
I was assigned to help Alessio with his English homework, during study time. And I quickly discovered how difficult it is to explain grammar rules that I barely know in a foreign language, then we moved onto math. I was blown away by the speed that Alessio could do algebra in his head, and I enjoyed listening to him rattle off numbers in Italian as he added, subtracted, multiplied, and divided. Each of the boys needed individual attention and Alessio was off in another room every fifteen seconds he didn’t have a set task in front of him.
Finally, after a few rounds of Uno with the boys after homework, and an afternoon snack, we were back out on the soccer field when it was time for me to leave. “Ok,” I said, “Devo partire.” Mohammed, one of the boys on my soccer team, looked at the other adult outside with us and laughed. “Devo partire?” he mocked me. The man urged him to tell me the right way to say it instead of laughing. Mohammed looked at me, “Devo andare via.”
“Grazie,” I said my cheeks burning, because of course I messed up one of the only things I had said out loud all day, “Devo andare via. Ci vediamo ragazzi.” Thank you. I have to go. I’ll see you later boys. When I arrived twenty minutes late to my Thanksgiving dinner at my director’s house I felt as if I had just had the longest day of my life, but when she asked how it had gone at Villa Lorenzi I could only smile and say “Bellino.”
Each of us have been given a place to do volunteer work this year and yesterday was my first day going to Villa Lorenzi, a place where middle to high school kids from troubled families can go after school so they don’t have to go home to a bad environment or to an empty apartment. I was told I would be helping kids with their homework and playing with them, my shift said it was from 1:30-6 p.m. every Thursday, other than that I had no idea what to expect.
I took the bus about twenty minutes out of the center of Florence and found the address I was looking for—as the name describes it was a huge villa on top of a hill. I walked in the front door and introduced myself to the first person I encountered, who looked back at me completely confused, and it took a good five minutes of panicked broken Italian conversation until I finally found the right person, who immediately called someone else to sweep me away through the winding halls of V. Lorenzi. I was introduced to about ten different people on the way to the lunch room but I don’t remember any of their names, they all spoke so fast and I felt like I had forgotten every day of my two and a half years of Italian. I was finally introduced to the leader of the group I would be working with. She shook my hand and smiled “Piacere,” at the same time as herding a group of ten 11-13 year old boys into the lunch room. The smallest boy stood on tippy toes to see over the rest of the group asking loudly, “Chi è lei?!” Who is she!? The leader of the group told him to wait a minute and he could introduce himself.
We walked into the lunch room where the boys were already sitting and the same little boy was sitting at the end of a table with an empty seat next to him. “Bella! Bella! Sedi qui!” Beautiful! Sit here! He was told again that it would be more polite to introduce himself to me and ask me my name. He immediately pulled all four feet of himself up from his seat and offered me his hand, “Ciao, Mi chiamo Ivan. Come ti chiami?” Hello, my name is Ivan. What’s your name? I smiled back and said “Ciao Ivan, Mi chiamo Margherita.” Hi Ivan, I’m Margherita. “Margherita!” he screamed “Sedi qui.”
The other boys I’m afraid where more typical middle school boys, afraid to look me in the eyes, and mumbled their names to their plates of pasta when I asked for them. Ivan kept me occupied throughout the meal however, first asking me for my hand so he could show me a handshake, then asking me if I could understand what he was saying, since I was slow to respond to his extremely fast words. Finally Ivan tugged on my sleeve and asked “Margherita, hai un fidanzato?” Do you have a boyfriend? “Sì,” I responded, “Ho un fidanzato.” Yes, I have a boyfriend. “E come si chiamo?” And what’s his name? “Si chiamo Sean.” (Keep in mind that it is pretty much impossible to pronounce Sean in Italian) “Sean?” he repeated, “hmmmm…oh sì! Penso di Conoscere lui dalla televisione!” Hmmm..Oh yes! I think I know him from tv! After a few moments Ivan tugged my sleeve again, “Quanti anni ha il tuo fidanzato?” How old is your boyfriend? “Lui ha venti anni.” He’s twenty. “Venti anni! Ma ho solo dieci anni!” Twenty! But I’m only ten years old! “Mi dispiace Ivan, ma anch’io ho venti anni.” I’m sorry Ivan, but I’m 20 too. Ivan looked a bit sad for a few minutes, but it seems as though he wasn’t too upset by the ten year age difference after all, or intimidated by Sean as competition, because it didn’t stop him from kissing me on the cheek at the end of lunch and then asking me to hold hands with him for the rest of the day.
After my lunchtime romance we all put our jackets on and went outside to play a game of calcio. They had already asked me the most important question, if I knew how to play soccer, and when I told them I had played for a long time I was recruited to even out a three on three game, (though I think they were still dubious of my ability, and after not having touched a soccer ball in almost 3 years now, so was I). When I finally was passed the ball and took a shot, the boys cried “Mamma mia!” “Che forza Margherita!” And after the game they all asked if I would play on their team next time. It was hard to tell through a language, culture, and age barrier whether they were poking fun at me or genuinely impressed, but either way they seemed to warm up to me after the game.
I was assigned to help Alessio with his English homework, during study time. And I quickly discovered how difficult it is to explain grammar rules that I barely know in a foreign language, then we moved onto math. I was blown away by the speed that Alessio could do algebra in his head, and I enjoyed listening to him rattle off numbers in Italian as he added, subtracted, multiplied, and divided. Each of the boys needed individual attention and Alessio was off in another room every fifteen seconds he didn’t have a set task in front of him.
Finally, after a few rounds of Uno with the boys after homework, and an afternoon snack, we were back out on the soccer field when it was time for me to leave. “Ok,” I said, “Devo partire.” Mohammed, one of the boys on my soccer team, looked at the other adult outside with us and laughed. “Devo partire?” he mocked me. The man urged him to tell me the right way to say it instead of laughing. Mohammed looked at me, “Devo andare via.”
“Grazie,” I said my cheeks burning, because of course I messed up one of the only things I had said out loud all day, “Devo andare via. Ci vediamo ragazzi.” Thank you. I have to go. I’ll see you later boys. When I arrived twenty minutes late to my Thanksgiving dinner at my director’s house I felt as if I had just had the longest day of my life, but when she asked how it had gone at Villa Lorenzi I could only smile and say “Bellino.”
Sunday, November 18, 2007
"Piano, Piano"
It has gotten incredibly cold and hearing the temperature in Celsius makes it seem even colder. Today the low was 2 degrees. The weather keeps threatening snow, though thankfully we haven’t gotten any yet, and I’ve heard it doesn’t get much colder than this which will be a welcome change from Massachusetts. On the bright side, since there is no such thing as Thanksgiving here stores have already started putting up their Christmas window displays and some of the little streets and alleys in Centro have strung lights and garlands in between the buildings. It’s beautiful and I already can’t wait to celebrate an Italian Christmas.
Last night a group of us bundled up in our layers of coats and scarves and returned to the Libreria/Café that has live music and we had some wine and listened to a group of Italians singing Indie-American songs. The place was so crowded that we sat on the floor of the loft and just watched everyone else mill about. Rachel and Sarah met a group of Southern Italians and when the café closed at midnight we all headed to a jazz club and they came along. On the way they kept repeating how incredible it was that they had found American students in Italy who actually speak Italian. Then they asked us what our honest opinions of Italians so far were. I told one of them that it was hard to tell because there seemed to be so many different types of Italians, but for sure they seem completely different from Americans. I could really tell for instance, that these people were Sicilian, as they were much more honest and open to talking to us than most Florentines would be. They seemed more genuine.
We then asked him what he thought of Americans and without even thinking he strung together five or six different words for “stupid,” both in Italian and English. Our new friend went on to explain, “You know when there is a house? And it is empty?”
Sara and I laughed and agreed, although he had to explain himself more clearly to our two Texan friends who were offended by his statement. “I know not every American is like this, I have many American friends who are incredible people, but for the major part this is the American image that I have.” He then clarified that for the most part the only respectful thing to come out of America is our art and music, “Bob Dylan, Jimi Hendrix, Frank Zappa.” Needless to say, these men were hippie Sicilian musicians who were reminiscent of the three musketeers.
In all honesty though I agreed with Davide and told him so, this is what the major part of Americans are like, and it’s sad. A little while later when the Musketeers left the jazz club for their next adventure Davide told me, “Don’t worry, it might be empty now, but you can fill it up, first a bed, then a couch, then a refrigerator. Piano piano.” One step at a time.
My only response was “Spero.” I hope.
Last night a group of us bundled up in our layers of coats and scarves and returned to the Libreria/Café that has live music and we had some wine and listened to a group of Italians singing Indie-American songs. The place was so crowded that we sat on the floor of the loft and just watched everyone else mill about. Rachel and Sarah met a group of Southern Italians and when the café closed at midnight we all headed to a jazz club and they came along. On the way they kept repeating how incredible it was that they had found American students in Italy who actually speak Italian. Then they asked us what our honest opinions of Italians so far were. I told one of them that it was hard to tell because there seemed to be so many different types of Italians, but for sure they seem completely different from Americans. I could really tell for instance, that these people were Sicilian, as they were much more honest and open to talking to us than most Florentines would be. They seemed more genuine.
We then asked him what he thought of Americans and without even thinking he strung together five or six different words for “stupid,” both in Italian and English. Our new friend went on to explain, “You know when there is a house? And it is empty?”
Sara and I laughed and agreed, although he had to explain himself more clearly to our two Texan friends who were offended by his statement. “I know not every American is like this, I have many American friends who are incredible people, but for the major part this is the American image that I have.” He then clarified that for the most part the only respectful thing to come out of America is our art and music, “Bob Dylan, Jimi Hendrix, Frank Zappa.” Needless to say, these men were hippie Sicilian musicians who were reminiscent of the three musketeers.
In all honesty though I agreed with Davide and told him so, this is what the major part of Americans are like, and it’s sad. A little while later when the Musketeers left the jazz club for their next adventure Davide told me, “Don’t worry, it might be empty now, but you can fill it up, first a bed, then a couch, then a refrigerator. Piano piano.” One step at a time.
My only response was “Spero.” I hope.
Friday, November 16, 2007
Il telegiornale
So with what we have all been seeing in the news lately that is pretty close to home (both Italy and Seattle) I thought I should write a little something. First a word about the Italian media: Luciana, my host mom (or host Nonna as she says), watches the news every night while we eat dinner. We have no choice but to watch with her. I am not against watching the news or being informed, in fact I think it is important that I stay informed about current events while I am here. However, if I had a choice I would not watch this during dinner, for many reasons.
First, the Italian news is not like American news, they don’t tell you about something terrible that happened, they tell you about something terrible that happened, show you the body, show you the blood stain the body left on the street and then show you footage of the person’s mother/father/girlfriend/sister etc. seeing the body. It is terrible and very upsetting to watch whether you understand what they are saying or not. They do it to get a rise out of people, and it works. Luciana eats half as quickly as we do because she spends all of dinnertime screaming “Bastardi!” “Creatini!” or “Idioti!” at every politician, famous person, or criminal suspect on the screen.
Second, the Italian media really likes to take stories like this one about the student killed in Perugia and cling to it as if there is nothing else going on in the world. This isn’t so different I guess from American media tactics but I feel as if they choose more personal stories to do this with, for instance a couple weeks after this happened a young man was killed in a car accident of some kind and people are now blaming the police for not acting quickly enough or something and now his face, his blog, pictures of him, his friends, his family are the only things on the tv. The newspaper even printed the sequence of events at his funeral, I don’t really understand why this one person was made such a public figure, but he has been, just like the people involved in the Perugia murder.
Though what happened in Perugia was tragic and scary I definitely don’t feel in any kind of danger. I obviously have no more of an idea than anyone else who really killed that girl, however I firmly believe lots of drugs and alcohol were involved and terrible decisions were made about the kind of company she was keeping. There are literally thousands of students who study in Italy every year and the only reason this is big news is because it is rare. I feel safe in Florence because I stay safe in Florence, I know there is crime here and I probably live in one of the worse areas (near the train station) for it, but common sense helps a lot and staying aware and with someone, especially at night makes all the difference. Luciana always asks us at dinner if we are going out that night, if we say yes she tells us, “Va bene, esca presto, ritorna presto. È meglio così.” “That’s good, leave early, come back early. It’s better that way.”
First, the Italian news is not like American news, they don’t tell you about something terrible that happened, they tell you about something terrible that happened, show you the body, show you the blood stain the body left on the street and then show you footage of the person’s mother/father/girlfriend/sister etc. seeing the body. It is terrible and very upsetting to watch whether you understand what they are saying or not. They do it to get a rise out of people, and it works. Luciana eats half as quickly as we do because she spends all of dinnertime screaming “Bastardi!” “Creatini!” or “Idioti!” at every politician, famous person, or criminal suspect on the screen.
Second, the Italian media really likes to take stories like this one about the student killed in Perugia and cling to it as if there is nothing else going on in the world. This isn’t so different I guess from American media tactics but I feel as if they choose more personal stories to do this with, for instance a couple weeks after this happened a young man was killed in a car accident of some kind and people are now blaming the police for not acting quickly enough or something and now his face, his blog, pictures of him, his friends, his family are the only things on the tv. The newspaper even printed the sequence of events at his funeral, I don’t really understand why this one person was made such a public figure, but he has been, just like the people involved in the Perugia murder.
Though what happened in Perugia was tragic and scary I definitely don’t feel in any kind of danger. I obviously have no more of an idea than anyone else who really killed that girl, however I firmly believe lots of drugs and alcohol were involved and terrible decisions were made about the kind of company she was keeping. There are literally thousands of students who study in Italy every year and the only reason this is big news is because it is rare. I feel safe in Florence because I stay safe in Florence, I know there is crime here and I probably live in one of the worse areas (near the train station) for it, but common sense helps a lot and staying aware and with someone, especially at night makes all the difference. Luciana always asks us at dinner if we are going out that night, if we say yes she tells us, “Va bene, esca presto, ritorna presto. È meglio così.” “That’s good, leave early, come back early. It’s better that way.”
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