Simple things I want to remember about Italy, before I forget

These are just simple notes about what I experienced in this beautiful country so far.  I want to hold on to the sights and smells as long as I can.

The towns smell of woodfire.  At first, it didnt register,as it reminded me of our trip to Thailand where they use woodfire when doing laundry (as an aside, don’t send your stuff to the laundry in the small towns of Thailand…unless you like smelling like you are smoked).  Or,maybe I simply did not notice as it was just another foreign smell.  Regardless, the smell of woodfires come and go during the day, and oddly, can be found in the city.  Even more so than in the countryside, where one might expect to find a fire.  Yet, they didn’t smell like campfire, either.  The smell was cleaner than a campfire smell, not burning paper, not burning leaves….just burning wood.  Finally, the 'ah ha' moment.  Pizza.  Pizza baked in wood ovens.   Many restaurants (at least the ones that make pizza) have a wood oven that they fire up during the day.

Yes, we have ‘wood-fired ovens’ back in the states in upscale pizzarias. They get the idea, but they do not quite get it right.  First, the wood-fired ovens are used in the pizzeria for the everyday man.  Nothing upscale or special about it, rather, they are the one that you’ll find on the corner selling pizza for 1 Euro a slice, or for the ones with all the toppings (imagine eggplant with dried red pepper and olive oil, or potato with sausage and rosemary, mushroom  with a little cheese,  artichoke and proscuitto-sometimes with cheese, or shredded zuchhini with ham, or firey pepperoni and veggies, or simple ‘margharita’ (cheese and red sauce)—just everyday Italian food).  The toppings are amazing, but the wood-fire gives a subtle but clearly smokey taste to it all.  Now I get it.

The men and women that we see on the bus or in the shops.  Italians seem to be of especially hardy stock.  Men and women, clearly into their 80s and older schlep to the food markets (you don’t see them in the grocery store) – rather the Polloteria, Carneteria, Paneteria, and Fruittiterias (chicken, meat and bread stores and the fruit/veggie stands.  They greet their friends (there is enough to choose from that I am sure you don’t have to shop at a stand run by someone you don’t like…but I imagine there are politics in where you shop that we are not aware of).  They go to the watchmaker to get their watch fixed, but to a jeweler to buy their jewelry.  Household cleaning stuff comes from a household cleaning stuff store.  It a way, maybe it IS like a giant Wallmart as all these things are found next door to eachother.  The only difference is the different shopowners live right upstairs.  All in all, these are folks who had their homes reduced to rubble in WWII.  I wish I could speak italian so I could understand what that must have been like, yet here they are buying grocieries and sitting on the bus right next to me. They have history written across the lines in their faces.  The stories they could tell.

When  you are near the markets and you see the Italians rush to line up for something…get line quickly.  We learned this when, at 4 pm folks started gathering around a shop which was locked up tight but smelled of baked bread and slightly burned sugar.   When the window was opened, people all but pushed and shoved each other to the front of the line for fresh hot pasties.  Croissants (filled with Nutella, if you like), spanufiellatias (I am half-making that word up, but they are phyllo pastries that look like perfect clam shells…ridges and all) filled with sweet fresh ricotta, and loads of other things that we did not get the opportunity to sample.  It struck me that all ages of folks lined up at the window like kids pushing to the front of the line for the ice cream truck. 

Other things…the same group of men (maybe in their 70’s) go out every morning to catch a fish in the harbor.  They row slowly around in wide circles in the hot morning sun, wearing shorts and a fedora, trailing a bit of line.  I never saw them catch anything, but I am not sure if that mattered.

The population is older here.  Italians don’t marry until their early 30’s for women and late 30’s for men.  Their 20’s are reserved for being beautiful (as they all seem to be) and living the good life.  I wish to be a 20 year old Italian.   Life gets harder once they get serious and grow up.  We chatted with a man in his mid-40’s on the 1 ½ hour train ride from Rome to Formia.  He was on his commute home from Rome and was looking forward to seeing his wife and 3 kids (ages 3 and 6 months) after a long day(3+ hours of commute, 7 hours of work).   In addition to Italian, he spoke German, French, and English.  We thought it must be a pretty specialized job to commute to Rome everyday.  Must have been a lawyer, a businessman, an investment banker, or maybe a professor at the university?  Nope, he was a waiter.  No one can afford to live closer in to the city, and working in a smaller local restaurant is not reliable as you can be fired at the whim of the owner (they are family run). 

As an aside, this guy was your typical good looking Italian (if were a man writing, I would gush about the women).  Tall, dark, and yes, handsome.  Long wavy hair, strong features, lean, tan, and muscular.  I am not sure if Code noticed…but I sure did.  Enough about that.  As many of his friends and peers, he has not travelled to the US (not too surprising…about the same as the number of Americans who travel abroad), but what surprised me was that the only other country he visited was France.  Wouldn’t you think, given the proximity, all Europeans would travel extensively?  Similarly, we met a woman in Menorca who had never been off the island (although she spoke English, Italian, and German…and she was also in her 40s.

I expected to see lush vineyards, but Rome and this area is much more arid.  Even though it is the dead summer, it really is hot here.  The cities show that they haven’t seen rain for months, things are getting sooty and tired.  I imagine that when the rains come, the dirt will wash away and refresh and the streets and infrastructure.  I wish we were here to see that, as I imagine it is beautiful.  However, in the cool narrow alleyways (that are sometimes also streets) it stays cool.  Moss, and sometimes flowers, grows on the overhead archways, which always seem cool and smell damp.  Satellite dishes perch on top of the buidings each dangling a cable to its respective TV.  Flowers bloom in window boxes adjacent to the laundry which is hung out to dry, one apartment over another.  People sit outside in the alley on their folding aluminum lawnchairs, gossiping, selling figs or tomatoes, or just waiting for their neighbor to stop by. 

It astounds me that this infrastructure, hundreds if not thousands of years old, continues to move forward first incorporating modern plumbing, electricity, telephone, cable, and internet.  In Naples, they say, they have no idea where many of the sewer pipes are…they work, and that is good enough.

Final aside is to say a quick hello to ‘Aunt Honey’ and her friends. I remember  you said she has done and seen a lot of things in your life.  If you have seen Italy, I hope this refreshes your memory as I am afraid that these are the small details that my memory will overlook once we leave.   If not, I hope you simply enjoyed what I have to share.