thisweekinitaly.com

Revision of Earlier Items

Earlier I wrote that Italian men don’t wear shorts. Then I wrote later that
when it became very hot, they do wear shorts. My ultimate conclusion is
that Americans, Germans, and many other groups of men will put on shorts
as soon as it is comfortable to wear them. Italians put on shorts when
it is uncomfortable not to wear them.

Going to a Fair

I went to a fair in a nearby town. There was a tent where people could
eat Pizza. The pizzas were made to order in a temporary oven. It took about
90 minutes from the time you got in line to order to the time you ate the
pizza. I think in the USA, they would have used frozen (or other form of
pre-prepared pizza) pizzas for such an operation to increase the speed of
serving them.
The Italians are much less likely to sacrifice quality to obtain speed.
Nobody seemed upset at the wait.

I’ve mentioned that all the less valuable aspects of American culture seem
to migrate to Italy. At the fair I saw a Tupperware booth. This caused me
to ask if there were also Amway salespersons in Italy. The answer was yes.
(My apologies to any readers who sell Tupperware or Amway, but these
products
are not my idea of the acme of American culture.)

Grocery Delivery

In the old days in the USA grocery stores delivered to the house. I know
this
practice continues with some upper level grocery (high priced) stores in
fancy suburbs; maybe it also preservers in some small towns. I saw the
clerk from the grocery store in my neighborhood delivering some bags in
my apartment building. This is probably one of the ways this store competes
with the large supermarkets.

Movies in the Summer

Pistoia has two outdoor movie locations in the summer. Some people complain
about the street noise. Others complain about the mosquitoes, but they
are absent with the drought this year. The reason for these two sites is
that the indoor theatres close for the summer — none are air conditioned.
In the 1930s in the USA the first establishments to be air conditioned were
movie theatres and restaurants. They realized that this increased business
in the summer. People would watch a film in which they had little interest
just to get out of the heat. This idea has not caught on in Italy.

Women’s Liberation in Italy

A woman friend of mine is thinking of selling her house in a nearby town
and buying an apartment in Pistoia. She went to the bank to see about a
loan. She owns her current house and has a full-time job. Still the loan
officer was reluctant to approve the loan because, as he said “you are a
single woman.” A loan officer in the USA might think this; he would never
say it for fear of a lawsuit. I am not an expert on the laws protecting
women’s rights in Italy, but this is still a more Masculine society than the
the USA.

Fireworks

I went to see the Fireworks that preceded the Festival honoring St. Jacopo
(St. James), the patron saint of Pistoia. I’ve seen many fireworks
displays.
They tend to be fairly similar. So I was surprised to see types of
fireworks
I had never seen in the USA and a mode of shooting them off that differed
from the USA. It was the best display I had ever seen. As always, if
it something that can be done with style and flair, the Italians excel at
it.

The Six Romanian Brothers

One of the groups who do begging on the train are young men who hand out
a piece of paper (that looks like the 4000th Xerox copy) which says that
the young man is one of 6 brothers from Romania who have no jobs, no place
to live, etc. I’ve maybe seen 8 of these 6 brothers. Regular train riders
have probably seen many more of the 6. I doubt that they are even Romanians
(probably Albanians), but they must have deduced that Italians are more
favorably inclined toward Romanians. I doubt that many people actually
believe the story on the piece of paper even if they contribute. The piece
of paper satisfies the custom in Italy of beggars presenting a short story
of woe.

The Giostra Dell’ Orso

This big event took place Friday night. There are two targets in the shape
of a bear. Two horsemen ride in opposite directions around the town piazza
toward a target. The first one to the target wins. There are 4 teams
of horsemen representing the four districts of the city. There are 18 times
that two horsemen compete.

Four hundred years ago at such an event, the horsemen and the horses were
all local. Now the horses may be local, but there are jockeys who go to
this event and similar medieval events involving horses throughout Italy.
The most famous of these events is the Palio in Siena which is a horse
race around the Campo in Siena. Medieval customs endure, but now in a
professional format that is aimed at tourists as much as the local populace.

The Heat

They say this is an usually hot summer, with June and July like August
usually is. (It was also said to be an unusually wet fall and winter.) My
apartment is fine, but I do note that it seems to take longer to cool down
at night here than in Gettysburg. I think this is because of all the stone
streets and buildings –there is little grass and trees in town. I assume
the pavement and buildings absorb heat during the day and then radiate this
heat after the sun becomes less intense.

Coming Home

The good news in Europe is that one can take a bicycle on trains. The bad
news is that (at least in Italy and Germany) one can take a bike only on
regional trains. So to get to my son’s house in Germany from Italy, I had
to take 8 trains. The half-way point is Brennero on the Italian-Austrian
border. The train fare from Pistoia to Brennero on Italian trains is € 22.
(I paid
only € 17.50 after my senior citizen discount) The train fare from Brennero
to Amberg
on Austrian and German trains is € 55. As I’ve said before the Italian
trains are not great,
but they are a bargain.

I mentioned once before that one can buy a ticket at a machine at a discount
in a train station in Italy by merely indicating that one has a discount
card without
entering into the machine the actual number of your card. I viewed this
as a type of “honor system.” Apparently “honor” is not completely in style
because when I have presented such tickets (which indicate
on their face that it is a discount ticket) to train conductors recently,
they have asked me to show my discount card to them.

Headline This Week

“Alarm. Severe Drought Threatens Plant Nurseries. Major Damage if No Rain
in Next Two Weeks.” We have not had rain in over a month. Gettysburg,
where
I lived in USA is in the middle of an orchard area. Every year there were
headlines in the local paper that said “(Hot Weather) (Cold Weather)(Wet
Weather) (Dry Weather) Threatens Fruit Crops.” I never saw a headline that
said “Excellent Weather Promises Bumper Fruit Crop.” So the headline in the
local Pistoia paper was like being back in Gettysburg again.

No rain means no mosquitoes. Also, for some reason I don’t understand,
there
seem to be very few flies in Pistoia. I encountered many more in Germany.

Crossword Puzzles

Italians seem to like crossword puzzles and other word puzzles (such as
finding
the full words among a maze of letters). On the train it is very common
to see people with magazine style booklets of such puzzles.

Explaining a Web Site

An Italian Friend happened to find an American Web site with a name like
Party Club that was for a “Swingers” group in Florida. Some of
the members of this group were senior citizens. It was difficult to explain
to him (1) what are swingers and (2) how this phenomenon might occur even
among older Americans. Although Italians appropriate many aspects of
American
life, in this case the cultural gap was a bit too great to be easily
comprehended.

Fashion Note

Bare midriffs are certainly in style for women in Europe. Although I have
not take a ruler and actually measured the distances, it is my opinion that
in Germany one sees about 3″ of flesh below the navel while in Italy it is
not uncommon to see about 6″.

Pistoia Blues

I arrived back in Pisotia on at 10:30 on last night of the Pistoia Blues
Festival. I did not go to hear any last minute music, but I did wander
through
the streets of vendor’s stalls. It was a trip back to the 1960s. I saw
tie-dyed
shirts, head shop paraphernalia, hippie types playing bongos, etc. Maybe
these characters still appear at Rock or Blues concerts in the USA; I don’t
know.

The Organization for Foreign Citizens of Pistoia

The city of Pistoia is establishing an organization for local residents who
are not from European Community Countries. This organization will provide
a method for such persons (maybe 4% of local population) to have a say in
civic affairs. I went to the meeting that announced the establishment of
this new entity. First the City Council President read rapidly (in a
monotone) letters from local
politicians who could not be present, not short letters but 2-3 pages. Then
another officer
got up and read a 5 page statement about the background and purpose of the
new organization. There was obviously never a thought that among the
audience
were immigrants who did not speak perfect Italian. There was no attempt to
speak slowly or to explain in simple terms the ideas being presented. Here
was an idea wrapped in “good intentions” that in fact may work out well,
but presented in an insensitive way. For me it was just another example of
how difficult it is for Italy (and I think for other European Countries
also)
to understand how to go about integrating immigrants into the life of the
nation.

The Beauty of Tuscany

Bavaria was lovely. As I rode my bike around, I wondered why Germans seemed
so in love with Italy (and especially Tuscany) when parts of Germany are
very
beautiful. Then a day after I returned, I was watching a bike race in
Tuscany
on the TV. As I looked at the terrain, I realized that it was beautiful
in a different way than Germany. Maybe it is the Mediterranean light. One
can’t exactly define it, but it is a another kind of beauty.

(or maybe This Week in Germany)

The Italy vs. Germany Blow Up

As you probably read in the newspapers, Italian leader Berlusconi is taking
his turn of 6 months as head of the Council of the European Community. At
his opening speech a German member of the Council challenged Berlusconi as
unfit to be the Head of the Council because Berlusconi had the Italian
legislature pass a law that gave him and other legislators immunity from
legal proceedings (There has been a judicial investigation of Berlusconi
going on for years.) while they are in office. Berlusconi responded to the
German that he knew a movie director in Rome who was making a film about
Germany in WWII, and his challenger would be good for a part as a Nazi
prison guard.

To call someone a Nazi in Germany is not a minor insult. So the German
Prime Minister wanted Berlusconi to apologize which he did in a half-hearted
way. Then when things were starting to settle down, Mr. Stefanni, an
Italian state secretary of tourism, said that the Germans were arrogant,
noisy, blonds who overcrowded Italian beaches. The controversy flared
again. German Prime Minister Schroeder cancelled his planned vacation to
Italy and substituted one in Croatia. Finally Mr. Stafanni was forced to
resign, and as he resigned he said “I love Germany.”

About 35% of the visitors to Italy each year are German. Tourism is one of
the top three sources of income for Italy. Tourism in general in Italy is
down this year because: in general the European economies are not strong,
the Euro is strong against the dollar, and some people are still worried
about flying. So it is hard to imagine a government official with a post in
tourism insulting foreign tourists. Sort of like the head of tourism for
New York City going on TV to tell the world how bad the crime rate is in New
York. Probably in the end the remarks won’t have a great effect on German
tourism. In a poll in Germany this week, 81% of Germans agreed that Germans
are sometimes bad guests when they go aboard.

AN ADDENDUM FROM A FRIEND OF MINE

Bob: You left out the opening salvo. Der Spiegel had a cover with Berlusconi
on it titled The Godfather. Berluconi’s insult was subsequent to
publication. As an editorial in the Globe noted, it’s OK in Germany to call
the Italian Prime Minister a Mafioso, but it’s not OK for him to call a
German minister a Nazi.

Bike Riding in Bavaria

Bavaria is like a series of postcards. The towns are all freshly painted,
even if the building are old and quaint. The windows almost all have flower
boxes. It is very clean. One almost expects to be accosted in the street by
a German Um Pah Pah band with the musicians in Lederhosen. In the newer
areas of towns the houses are quite large. Some have fronts laws and side
garages just like typical houses in USA. To complete the illusion that one
was in the USA, I even saw a house with a red Chevy pick-up parked in front
with a Confederate flag painted on the hood. Only the Germanic
arcectural style of the houses tells you that you are not in USA.

In fact the look of Bavaria was a lot like the look of Pennsylvania, which
may explain why many Germans settled in Pennsylvania.

German Bicycle tourists

We took a popular bike touring route along 5 rivers in Bavaria. For the
most part we rode on bike paths. We saw many Germans on bicycles. They do
not wear bike clothes when riding a bike tour. Bike pants and jerseys are
only for riding a racing bike. Many are in their 50s and 60s. More than a
few are overweight, but they are clearly strong bike riders.

We stopped to swim at a lake. In the USA the more brief styles of swim
suits are generally worn by people whose bodies are slim. No so in Germany.
Almost everybody wears the very brief style of suit. If you groove on
seeing a lot of flesh, the German beach is the place to be.

Speaking English

Unlike Italians, Germans are quick to try to speak English with you. They
do their best, and it does not bother them that they are not fluent.
Despite Arnold Schwarzenegger (who is Austrian), they generally do not speak
with a heavy accent.

Churches, Museums and Libraries

On our trip we tried to stop to see churches and museums. We also checked
out libraries to see if they had Internet access (because Internet cafés
were not common at all where we were). The churches were open. They were
generally quite Baroque inside and in excellent repair. The libraries were
open about 10 hours a week, and never when we were there. In one town there
were two museums — a space museum named after a German astronaut from that
town and a museum of beekeeping. The space museum was open for 6 hours per
week; the bee one for three hours per week. There could be special tours
arranged in advance, probably mostly for school groups. Clearly these
museums were not intended to be a great draw for tourists. Tourism offices
often closed at noon. In general I was surprised at how little these
public services were open, much less than in Italy which is hardly known as
the center of customer service.

Greetings from Germany where I have come to spend the Fourth of July with my
son Christopher and then go on a one week bike tour in Bavaria with my
friend Max, a German high school student who lived with me in Gettysburg for
four months in 2002.

Improving Italian TV

As I have mentioned Italian TV is full of people selling goods with what we
call “infomercials” (extended commercials) in the USA. Two of the most
common products (often being sold on more than one channel at the same time)
are the Chair of Well Being and what I call the EKG machine. The first is
the reclining lounge chair with vibrator (heater?) and who know what other
features. The second is a machine with which you connect electrodes to your
body, and it causes the muscles to twitch where the electrodes are
connected. This is to give you a firm, hard, body without the bother of
exercising. Now if the government would just give everyone over 50 a Chair
of Well Being and one of these firm and hard machines to everyone under 30,
there would be much time freed on Italian TV for other programming. I’m
wise enough to know that in fact there would just be other products hawked
to replace these two, but it is nice to dream.

Translations

I have mentioned that English translations in Italy are rarely 100%
accurate. The other day I watched on a music channel an interesting story
about an overweight American girl who gets in shape and pursues her dream to
make the cheerleading squad at her high school. As is very rare in Italy, it
was in English with Italian subtitles. I did like the translation of “Melba
Toast” (which was part of her diet) as “Malibu Toast.”

Private Universities

Italy has some private universities. They are few in number and they tend
to have a restricted curriculum, often in Economics, Law, and Business. But
they are of a high level and quite prestigious. At least at one of these
tuition is based upon the income tax return of the parents. This is really
the same as in USA in that at private universities in USA, the financial aid
package (if any) is based upon income of parents. The cost to the student
is also higher in that most Italians who go to the university attend the
public university closest to them and live at home. But at these private
universities most of the students come from other cities and have to find a
place to live in the city where the university is located. Public
universities also have tuition, but it is very low by American standards.
So it is a real financial sacrifice to attend a private university.

Pistoia Blues

Pistoia has two big tourist events in the summer. One is Giostra del Orso
– which is some kind of joust with a bear done in Medieval pageantry. The
other is the Pistoia Blues Festival, this year July 11-13. I will miss it
while I am on my bike trip. Here are the names of the performers that I at
least recognize: Jethro Tull, Boz Scaggs, Johnny Winter, Dr. Feelgood, Otis
Taylor, and Ike Turner. Performers whose names mean nothing to me, but who
may be well known to the rest of the world include: Lucky Peterson, Sue
Foley, Nick Becattini, Robert Plant, Eric Bibb, Bill Whyman’s Rhythm Kings,
Mick Taylor, Kenny Neal & Bill Branch, Eric Sardinas, Brain Auger’s Oblivion
Express, Ten Years After, Tolo Martin, Carvin Jones, W.I.N.D., Morblus Blues
Band, and Andrea–Twin Dragons.

The performances are held in main plaza. If you don’ want to buy a ticket,
you just stand, or bring a chair, to a street close to the plaza, and you
can hear it all for free.

Italian Trees

Wood is not used for construction in Italy (except in the north where there
are German style houses with wood balconies). Italy is heavily wooded. But
around Pistoia at least, the forest are full of tall spindly trees that are
not useful as a source of lumber. No arguments here about the lumber
industry versus environmentalists.

Computer Scam

Until the national legislature passed a law outlawing it, there was a
rampant computer scam in Italy. When you connected to certain web sites
while surfing the web, the web site automatically connected you to a phone
number for which the per minute charge was extremely high. In Italy almost
all computer access to Internet is over phone lines. Well if this happened
in the USA and you noticed the strange high charge on your phone bill, you
could call the phone company and get it removed. In Italy you had to file a
form first with the police and then file a form (probably verifying that the
police form was filed first) with the phone company. A good example of how
things are different in Italy where the phrase “the customer is always
right” hasn’t quite taken hold.

Abandoned Bicycles

In the USA I was on the Board of Directors of Pedals for Progress, an
organization that collects unwanted bicycles in the USA and sends them to be
distributed in the Third World where a bicycle is a treasured (and often too
expensive) form of transportation. I see many abandoned bicycles chained to
poles and fences in Italy. I am also sure that there are many bicycles in
the basements or garages of Italian houses that are no longer used. In the
1990s, when the Albanian immigration Pistoia, suddenly bicycles began to
be stolen at a greater rate. Now it would have been better if some agency
had collected unwanted bikes and distributed them to the new immigrants at
little or no cost. It would have helped the immigrants; it would have
helped the local citizens by cutting the theft rate. But that kind of
proactive, private initiative thinking is not common in Italy.