Well, it's almost time for us to head home, folks. Barbara heads back to the US tomorrow (June 20; yes, tomorrow!) and I'll be back on July 6. I've also recently learned that I will be back teaching at AIS on a part-time basis. I was hoping for a part-time gig and am happy the school was able to set me up to teach 3 Econ classes. It will be a lot of fun, and give me some time to get re-immersed back in the community. Looking forward to brainstorming with some of you about how best to do that!
Wow it's hard to believe it's been two years since we dropped into this lovely country (Italia) and this charming little town (Chieri). So much to do to get ready to exfiltrate from here, but there's always time to share some moments and thoughts with all of you. I have been collecting all sorts of pictures of random "quirks" we see in the Italian way of life, hopefully you have found them as amusing/interesting as I have! Here's is Part IV of Italian quirks. Stay tuned for some travel photos next time.
Quirk 1—The Alphabet: Let's start with our abc's. I hadn't known this until Barbara discovered it in her pre-lockdown Italian classes, but the Italian language does not use the letters J, K, W, X, or Y. They certainly recognize these letters in words from other languages, but there are no originally-Italian words with these letters.
But what about Julius Caesar? He's "Giulio Cesare" around these parts. Common words that seem to require an 'x'? 'Exactly' is 'esattamente,' 'excellent' is 'eccellente.' No big deal, but picture having a last name like, uh, "Brockway." With a 'K,' 'W,' and a 'Y,' it's not an easy one to spell over here!
Ironically, in the U.S. when we make a reservation anywhere, we use the name "Brock" because it's easy to spell compared to "Padula' (Tadula? Mudulla? Puhdula?), but here, we just use 'Padula' and I have never had to spell it out or repeat it!
Quirk 2—Mystery Water Bottles: Check out these photos, do you see the random water bottles? They seem to be strung up, or placed strategically?, at the front of a lot of garages or at the entry to a courtyard. They are full of water but no one appears to ever drink from them or even touch them. We couldn't figure out why they were so prevalent. Any idea why they are there? See the end for the answer!
Quirk 3—Parking: Italian towns are notorious for being inhospitable to cars, especially to parking. With narrow streets and low roadwork budgets, most local "comuni" would just as soon have you take the train or walk, in or around town. With parking at such a premium, you'll either pay for the privilege, or in the kinder, gentler places, be subject to a time limit (it's free but you only get 30 or 60 minutes). The difference here is how do you enforce these rules? In the glove box of any car here, you'll find the handy card in the photos, it's a simple dial you put on your dashboard indicating your arrival time. Vai tranquillo (aka 'easy-peasy').
(l) Free Parking, but you only get 60 minutes...(r) Just going to nip in for a 7:45 am haircut!
Quirk 4—Wait, more Parking? Speaking of trying to make parking more efficient, check out the picture below. In the bigger cities like Torino, they have underground parking garages (in fact the famed Piazza Vittorio Veneto, one of the largest piazze in Italy, was once a nasty above ground parking lot!). To make the process of hunting for a spot more efficient, they have little lights above each spot, that are red if the spot is used and green if it's available. Wow, talk about making it faster easier to find a spot!
(l) Piazza Vittorio Veneto; (r) red light = "this spot taken;" very helpful when the lot is full
Quirk 5—The Italian flag: I want to be careful not to insult 60+ million people who are rightly very proud of their nation and their heritage, but Italians apparently don't really care about their flag. I guess it goes back to my old boy scout days, but I would never let an American flag (a) get rained on, (b) touch the ground), or (c) deteriorate. All of the above happen here regularly. I always thought that there's a way to handle a flag, but I guess the Italians are less touchy about theirs. Below are just two pictures of beat-up flags flying in public.
But who am I to judge? I have a feeling this goes along with a general cynicism about the government and maybe the lessons learned from the old Nationalist days before the Republic was created after WWII.
Quick 6—Street names: There are three kinds of names that Italians give to their streets and roads, two of which are quite common around the world: (1) Road names that describe where they go (Via Roma, Via Chieri, etc.); (2) Streets named after famous people (via Vittorio Emanuele II, Via Alessandro Volta, Via Cavour, etc.)...and here, streets named after important dates in Italian history—check these out:
(Clockwise from top left) One way to November 4th: National Unity and Armed Forces Day; February 11th: Lateran Treaty signed, recognizing the Vatican as an independent state; September 20: In 1870, Rome was captured ending the process of Italian reunification (the "Risorgimento"); May 24th: I have no idea, it may only be significant locally!
Thanks very much for reading; comments always welcomed...and stay tuned for some final travel stories!!
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So why the water bottles?
There are lots of stray cats wandering around Chieri (and I am sure other Italian towns)—turns out there's a theory that the water in the bottles (known colloquially as "nekoyoke," or "scare-cats")," refract sunlight which frightens away cats that are making themselves nuisances.