thisweekinitaly.com

Most Interesting Case of the Week in the Local Court

A bogus psychotherapist was on trial ( I assume for practicing without a
license). One headline quoted him as saying “never cured patients with
sex.” The headline in the other paper was “I loved my patients.” The first
headline was a bit ambiguous –did he never try to cure with sex or was
he never successful curing patients with sex?

A Different Type of Diet

I saw in a magazine “The Diet of Colors.” Each day one eats
foods essentially of one color. The colors were–white, orange, green,
red, blue, violet, yellow, and pink. Leave it to the Italians to make an
esthetic experience out of the act of dieting.

Speaking of Esthetics

I’ve met two Italians who studied English but found that they could not
(or would not) learn it because it was not a beautiful language (in their
view) to speak. Now if I didn’t have to study a language but chose to do
so for some reason, I would not be discouraged because the language sounded
less beautiful than my native tongue. Just a small example of how esthetic
factors are almost always more important in Italy.

Giving a Child the Mother’s Last Name

If you want to do this is USA, I assume you just put the mother’s last name
on the birth certificate as the child’s last name. In Italy it is not
illegal
to give a child the mother’s last name, but it is a complicated process
involving more than one government office. There was an item on the news
about a movement to simplify this process. As I’ve mentioned before, women
here keep their maiden name after marriage, but the children take the
father’s
name, and I think hyphenated last names for the children are not common.
It is still a more Masculine society than the USA.

Singers, Songs, and Regions

In the USA you have (or had) the Nashville Sound and the Motown Sound.
Very occasionally a singer may be associated with a particular city. In
Italy on the other hand songs and singers are often associated with a
particular
city. “That’s a Roman Song. “He’s a Neapolitan Singer.” As for songs,
in the past they were probably sung in the dialect of a particular area.
But the regional tradition in music (even if the songs are no longer in
dialect) is strong here just as are regional traditions in so many other
areas of life.

An Unverified Guess

If you compared the average ages in Italy and the USA at which children
(1) no longer use a pacifier, (2) no longer are transported in a stroller,
and (3) are toilet trained, I’d be willing to bet a lot of money that the
ages are noticeable higher in Italy. Nobody is in a hurry here for the
kids to grow up.

“Oscar” the Remote Control Lawnmower

Some Italians have lawns just as in USA. Generally the lawns are smaller,
although I have seen riding lawnmowers for sale. On TV I saw advertised
a remote control (robot) lawn mower. It looked to be about 3 feet long,
two feet wide, and 18 inches high. The film showed it merrily mowing the
lawn while the owner relaxed. Where does the cut grass go? It was clearly
too small to have much capacity for a grass catcher. Is there an Oscar
II who is the remote control grass raker, or do Italians just leave the
cut grass on top of the newly mowed lawn?

Italian Habits and the Italian Economy

I’ve mentioned before that the strong family tradition in Italy provided
an economic problem because jobs go to family members and friends rather
than to the most qualified person. No country is a perfect meritocracy,
but Italy is really far off the mark. A friend pointed out another problem.
Italians will move if there is no work — witness the emigration to the
USA and the shift in population from the South to the North of Italy. But
if an Italian has a decent job, he or she is very reluctant to leave the
home town (friends and family) for a better job elsewhere. This too limits
the ideal (of course, no economy is near ideal) matching of people and jobs
and also limits the career opportunities of the worker.

I have two American friends (married to Italian men) with daughters who
just graduated from high school. One daughter took a job rather than going
on to the University as the mother wished. The daughter has her local job
and local boyfriend. She is satisfied despite the greater opportunities
that a university degree would offer. The other daughter is in a dance
company
and would like to explore a career in dance ( I saw her dance in a lovely
evening
at the Roman Ampitheatre in Fiesole.) , but this requires moving to
another city for further study. Instead the daughter will probably study
a different field at the local university. The mothers have the American
attitude about what a child ought to do after high school to increase
vocational
and personal opportunities; the daughters are more Italian.

The Gothic Line in Italy

This was the German defense line in WWII in Tuscany. It was very difficult
for the Allies to conquer Italy in WWII. When one is in the mountains north
of Pistoia (through which the Gothic Line ran), one understand why it was
so difficult. It did not take a brilliant German general to slow down Allied
progress in Italy; I could have done it myself. I am no historian, but
it seems to me that the following is what happened. In WWII, the Russians
(quite reasonably) wanted the Allies to establish a second front in Europe
so the Germans would have to shift resources from the Russian front to
defending
Europe. The invasion of Europe by the Allies began in Italy, but the Germans
could defend Italy without shifting a lot of resources from the East. By
the time of the Normandy invasion, the Russians already had the Germans
on the run in the East–this second front came too late to be of much help
to the Russians.

Pistoia Blues

I got to experience the full three-day Pistoia Blues Festival this year;
last year I was out of town until the last night of it. First it is not
really a “Blues” festival. The biggest draw was Santana. There was the
first generation of Mississippi blues men from the Delta. Then there was the
second generation of Urban blues men. There does not seem to be a third
generation of big name performers in this genre. So the performers in
Pistoia probably could be called Rock musicians. There are really two
different audiences for this event. The music lovers who pay 30 Euro for a
ticket each night and the hippies, street people, or hippies for a few days
only who come for the Happening and are more interested in booze and drugs
than in music. They are active during the day begging on the streets. They
stay in a Festival campground just out of town. One of these died of a drug
overdose. (My friend Sam felt that this death was a reason to close the
Festival early this year.) Meanwhile, there are public toilets only in the
concert area so many of the rest of the crowd go to the bathroom in the
streets which continue to smell for weeks. Also the city does not put out
additional trash receptacles with obvious results.

The vendors at this event are all from out of town. Some sell drug
paraphernalia. Local bars and restaurants make some money. Other local
businesses lose money because local citizens shun the downtown area during
the Festival. The city spends more than it earns from this event; its major
plus for the city is name recognition throughout Italy. If this event took
place in USA, in the next election at least one candidate for Mayor would
include in his/her platform “No More Pistoia Blues.”

Why My Friend Paolo Had to Pay $960 in the Emergency Room in USA

For His Son’s Nine Stitches

Here are two replies I got to this item (1) from a trial lawyer and (2) from
a medical administrator. They show that the Italians don’t have a monopoly
on crazy bureaucratic rules.

(1) Actually there are some class action lawsuits going on right now against
the practice of hospitals…columbia presbyterian/new york hospital group
being prominent here…who gouge uninsured emergency patients. A nine
hundred dollar procedure would be charged to an insurance co. at around half
of that , if that much, and the hospital is not permitted to charge an
insured patient for the balance. That is part of the deal with the ins.
co.– the hospital accepts the insurance plus any applicable co-pay under
the terms of the insured’s policy in full.
but if you don’t have any insurance, watch out.

(2) It may be that a hospital charges the maximum to an uninsured because
they have pre-existing agreements with insurers as to what they can charge.
For example, if the sticker price is $900,
Amalgamated United Insurance may have a contract with them that pays $600,
The
International Brotherhood of Crack Dealers may have a contractual price of
$300
and Medicare may allow $500 (400 + 100 co-pay), etc, etc. The (often) poor
uninsured patient gets a bill for $900 and the hospital is legally bound to
try
to collect it in order to prove it’s not discounting (which is against the
law if not done subject to a contract). Moreover, they don’t want to
discount because if Medicare pays 55% of the full price (500/900 = ~55%) and
they only charge someone $600, Medicare may then say we will only pay $330
(55% of 600).

I recently had this point made to me by someone from UC Irvine. Their
hospital
sees auto accident trauma cases involving Disneyland tourists as a gravy
train.
They usually come from out of state and their non-California insurance
company
has to pay the full freight on a very expensive bill. On the other hand, a
MediCal (Medicaid in CA) patient who rolls over his 1987 Dodge is a
financial
loser, since the hospital is paid well below their true cost.

It may be that NYC hospitals do jack up their prices for some patients. If
that
is the case, there are better grounds for a lawsuit against them.

My Friend Paolo’s Trip to America –Part 2

Not only did Paolo pay $960 at the Emergency Room, but when he got back to
Rome he found that his suitcase had been broken open –not by thieves but by
the Transportation Security Administration. Inside was a note that his bag
had been chosen for a random inspection and if it was broken open (because
the Agency could not otherwise open it) the Agency was not responsible for
any damages. He is contacting Continental Airlines to tell them that they
ought to warn passengers that the bags are subject to being opened so the
passengers can choose to keep the suitcase unlocked and thus avoid the lock
being broken.

Fat Folks In Italy

There was an item in the news that a girl had died after undergoing some
kind of surgery for the problem of obesity. The story said that 10% of
Italians are seriously overweight. This figure is, of course, lower than in
the USA. Somebody told me that at one time the Italians were considered the
fattest people in Europe. I can not imagine that they ever surpassed the
Germans in this regard. Many young Italians are very thin. But the Italian
diet is high in carbohydrates—the exact opposite of Atkins and similar
diets.

Popular Handbag

A popular handbag in Italy is a plain canvas bag, usually black, on which is
written, in large letters made from sequins, “Pink Bag.” (or “Rich Bag” or
“Pretty Lady Bag” –banal English phrases are common on Italian clothing).
The sequins may be for example white so that a black and white bag has the
name “Pink Bag.” Maybe this is a conceptual statement a little like
Magritte’s famous painting “This is not a pipe.” I saw one bag, however,
that had pink letters saying “Pinko Bag.” I had to explain to its owner
that whereas pink is a color, Pinko (at least in the Communist Scare days)
meant someone on the extreme left of politics, close to Communism.

Abandoning Pets

In Italy you see signs asking people not to abandon their pets. At this
time of year there is a special species of this sign. It asks people not to
abandon their dogs when the people go off for vacation. I don’t know if the
people abandon the dogs by letting them run wild for a few weeks with the
hope of finding them again upon the return from vacation or if this is an
occasion to permanently abandon the dog. Italians are generally very kind
toward the less fortunate including animals. So abandoning pets does not
seem consistent with the general Italian character. Maybe it is a bigger
problem here, or maybe it is not a bigger problem but the very fact that it
exists at all calls for a public relations campaign to end it.

Gypsies

As I’ve mentioned before you see a lot of gypsies begging in Italy. I once
read that Gypsies are the only minority for whom nobody advocates. In the
list of peoples that the Nazis exterminated in the death camps, gypsies seem
to be a footnote along with Jehovah’s Witnesses. I recently was talking to
an Italian friend about gypsies. She said that some of them work in
legitimate jobs, but they were not often hired. Do people refuse to hire
gypsies because they have a reputation for stealing, hustling, and begging
or do gypsies steal, hustle, and beg because they can’t find legitimate
work? My friend said that the gypsies have a culture that should be
respected and preserved. I said that that the world view of this culture
seems to be that there are gypsies and the others. The role of gypsies in
this view is to steal, hustle, or beg money from the others. This does not
strike me as a culture that is worth preserving in the modern world.

Tour De France

In the USA articles about the Tour might have titles such as “Armstrong
dominates Tour” or “Armstrong Outdistances Rivals” etc. In Italy it is a
little more colorful: “Armstrong a Cannibal,” “Armstrong in Outer Space,” ”
Armstrong the Ace Who Takes All the Pot” The Cannibal headline is a
reference back to the great Belgian rider Eddy Merckx who was called the
Cannibal. Today on the Tour the leaders try to win certain strategic
stages; on other days they are content to stay in the pack. Merckx, on the
other hand, tried to win every stage! The headline using the word “Ace” is
a nice pun on the two meanings of this word — highest card in a card game
and a person who is the top of his field. These two meanings are identical
in English and Italian.

Bus Tickets

In Italy on local buses the driver does not take tickets–nobody does. At
times a conductor comes on a bus to check tickets and give out big fines to
those without them. There was letter in a national paper from a reader in
Naples. He was on a bus in Naples where three conductors entered (all at
the same door). Immediately most of the passengers fled out the other
door. The reader suggested that it would be cost effective for the bus line
to have ticket collectors on the bus–at least during rush hour. I was
talking about this with my friend Luca. He said that in Florence when he
was a university student, there were often ticket collectors on the bus.
The result — there was a brisk business in counterfeit tickets. He says
that it is hard to get Italians to obey a law they don’t want to obey. This
is true for people in many countries. It just may be that the Italians have
more laws they don’t want to obey than do folks in other nations.

Visit to Duomo at Prato

In nearby Prato they are restoring the frescoes by Filippo Lippi in one of
the chapels. I was able to take a tour in English where one goes up on the
scaffolding and sees the frescoes up close. This was a great experience!
Frescoes were painted on wet plaster that dried within one day. After it
dried, however, additional details were painted on the painting as dry
additions. It turns out that for these frescoes the dry painted additions
have largely disappeared over the centuries. So the question is whether or
not you restore these details which is possible because their outlines still
exist. The answer is “no.” At least in Prato the current theory of
restoration is to take the work as you find it and conserve it in that form.
In earlier centuries restoration processes often involved substantial
over-painting (sometimes with different colors); now this is considered to
have been a mistake. So the current restoration approach is more
conservative. The proper philosophy and techniques to restore art works is a
topic of passionate discussion in Italy.

Member of the Tour Group at Prato Duomo

In our group were two American couples who had lived in Mexico for years
after their retirement but now were trying Italy. One couple had just
arrived. The husband was one of those older man who talk constantly about
how everything is going to hell in the USA—for example, we have an
increasingly inefficient and intrusive government. One of the many reason I
don’t want to live in a retirement community is that I don’t want to listen
to his kind of talk (comparing the good old days with the present) all day
long. I didn’t bother to tell the guy that if inefficient and intrusive
government drives him crazy, Italy is not exactly the best place to settle.

Talking about the Government in Italy

Italy has a little of the “boy who cried wolf” problem. There is always a
crisis. The current government crisis (involving largely how to deal with
the budget deficit) may be more serious –I note it was even reported in
foreign newspapers. But who knows how serious it really is? Italians are
masters at forging 11th hour solutions. The hyping of the news in Italy
reminds me of the 24 hour news networks in the USA. On a day when nothing
really important happens, these networks have to make unimportant stories
sound important so people keep watching.

Local Photo Exhibits

I saw two of these. The first was of photos of Italy in the 1950s and 1960s.
I have at home a book of photos taken in the USA in the 1930s in rural
areas. The photos of the poor rural areas in the south of Italy in the 1950s
reminded me very much of photos of depression-ridden rural areas in the USA
in the 1930s.

The second exhibit was an outdoor slide show with accompanying sound. It
showed works of local photo club members. I expected to see stunning views
of the Tuscan countryside. Instead these were montages (essentially
cinematic) that were often abstract in their visual elements. They were much
more “artistic” and much less “photographic” than I expected. I have not
attended similar shows in the USA, but I expect that this show once again
illustrated the stronger emphasis upon “art” that pervades Italian life.

Under the Tuscan Sun

I saw this film in English in Florence. The photography was lovely; the
story was light but enjoyable. For me it was interesting to see how an
American film portrayed life in Italy compared to my observations. The scene
of three Italian men hassling the heroine along the street was not
realistic. A friend of mind claims that Tuscany does not have large snakes
as shown in part of this film. The Italian/English pun on “celibate” was not
totally correct. Still, I did not let these little details spoil the film
for me.

Car Accident

I saw a man open his driver’s side door into a traffic lane and get it
clipped by an Ape (a three wheeled utility vehicle). Now when you open your
door in this way, I assume it is your fault if it gets hit. You have an
obligation to look before you open the door. But, of course, the driver of
the car began immediately to complain loudly at the driver of the Ape. The
driver of the Ape just looked passively at him.

Medical Care in Italy and the USA

When an American friend of mine was injured in 1999 on a trip to Italy, the
local hospital treated him at no cost. I surmised that perhaps it might have
cost the hospital more time and trouble to submit a bill (which they don’t
ordinarily do in a state system) than it would have been worth. My friend
from Pistoia, Paolo, recently visited the USA with his son. His son cut his
finger and 9 stitches were required at the Emergency Room. Paolo had to pay
$960. He could not believe the cost was so high. Naturally he wished that
hospitals in the USA treated foreign tourists for free as Italy does. I
explained to him that if this accident had happened to me in the USA, the
hospital would have billed my insurance company. The insurance company might
not have paid the entire bill–it might have said that $600 was the usual
and reasonable cost for this procedure. In that case the hospital would
probably write off the additional $360 and not send me a bill. Even if it
did sent me a bill for $360, it would not pursue me if I refused to pay the
balance. But when you have somebody with (1) no insurance and (2) money to
pay the bill, the hospital gets top dollar.

Motor Scooter Licenses

For the first time drivers of motor scooters now require a license. Since
the stories in the news are all about young riders and licenses, I assume
that an automobile license is also sufficient for a scooter. Before the
effective date of the new law, there was a spate of news items about how few
young scooter drivers had passed the test and received their licenses. As
the effective date arrived I saw a headline “No tickets for failure to have
scooter license.” The answer to the problem (typically Italian)—for the
time being don’t enforce the law.

News Perspective in Italy

I discussed with my Italian friend Mirella the item I wrote last week about
how illegal drug usage is covered in the Italian media – more emphasis on
the health effects upon the drug users. She hit upon a good word to
describe the difference between Italy and the USA in viewing social problems
that also have a strong individual dimension. She said the Italians are
more “sentimental” about such stories.

The American Fourth of July Celebration in Florence

The American Consulate in Florence and some American organizations in the
city sponsored an American 4th of July Celebration. It was at a lovely
Medici Villa a bit north of Florence. Most of the entertainment was by
Italians, but there were a few very young majorettes who twirled their
batons while the Italian band played a Sousa March. They were Americans. It
reminded me that drum majorettes are really not a high point of American
culture. There appeared to be as many Italian guests as Americans at the
event. The grilled hamburgers were good.

The Choral Concert

I attended a choral concert by a group called One Accord from Richmond, VA.
In fact the group was drawn from the choir of the First Baptist Church of
Richmond. They sang quite well, but in addition to the songs, the concert
included some oral religious interludes. In one of these a choir member
gave her testimony. She spoke in Spanish (she and her husband had been
missionaries in Central America) and the announcer (I could not tell where
he now lives) who was a Central American who spoke Italian translated her
statement into Italian. If there were such a testimony in a Catholic Church
in Italy (doubtful), the person would probably say how she had drifted away
from God and stopped attending the Church in the past, but now she had
returned and her life was better. Instead the lady from Richmond told how
she had always attended church but did not find a meaningful religious life
until she forged a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. I wondered what
the Italians in the audience thought about this account – it was totally
alien to the religious tradition of Italy.

Culture in Italy

I got a copy of a brochure telling the residents of Pistoia how the town
budget is spent. In a budget of a little over 100,000 million Euro, 3.2%,
almost 4 million Euro, was spent in 2003 on cultural items. I don’t think
an American city of 90,000 (or perhaps of any population level) spends this
percentage of its budget on cultural items. Cultural opportunities abound
in Italy. On Thursday this week, I went to Florence for an event at 6 pm in
part of the Boboli Gardens, the Giardino degli Ananassi, which is a section
ordinarily closed to the public. It featured readings about 19th century
Florence by a British girl visiting the city in 1818 and madrigal songs by a
group called the Merry Maidens. Then I hurried back to Pistoia for the 9:15
presentation of Carmen in the town square. In Italy, even if the music is
the same as in the USA, the settings (the Ananassi gardens and the
impressive main piazza of Pistoia) heighten the esthetic experience here.

The “Downside” of Culture in Italy

My friend Sam tells me that if one complains in Italy about everyday
inefficiencies such as the train system or the postal system, one is told
that these are minor issues. What is important is that Italy is a country of
great beauty, great culture, and great history. (I should say that for the
most part things like the train system and the postal system do work in
Italy, but they do not work at as high a level as in other modern western
industrial countries.) Sometimes in politics there are inherent conflicts
between different social goals—you can’t maximize all the desirable goals.
But I don’t see how an emphasis on culture necessarily means that one has to
tolerate (as a by-product) low quality public services. As far as I can
tell this is not a matter of money – the postal system and the train system
are not starved for money because too much is being spent on culture. It is
more a matter of the lack of a “service” mentality among government workers.

Italian Politics

I search for ways to explain Italian politics (the little of them that I
understand) in ways that make sense to Americans. Here is my latest
formulation. In Italy there is a wide-spread belief that the government is
too inefficient and too corrupt to deal effectively with social problems –
sort of like the view of many right wing Republicans. At the same time there
is the wide-spread belief that it is the obligation of the government to
pass laws to solve these problems –sort of like the view of many left wing
Democrats. In short the perspectives that in the USA are at the opposite
ends of the political spectrum exist simultaneously in the minds of many
Italians.

Nursery School and Homes for Elderly Citizens

My friend Romano told me about an article he read by an English woman
comparing nursery school in Italy and Great Britain, She concluded that the
system in Italy was far superior in terms of programs, accessibility, and
even the food served to the children (no surprise here). In Italy the
statement “nothing is too good for the children” is more true than in the
USA.

Also older people seem well cared for here, but my friend Luca says that
people have to keep the old people at home because Italy does not have many
retirement facilities with full services that are common in the USA. Private
senior citizen centers, he says, are only for the very rich in Italy. Of
course, we have a little of the “chicken and the egg” problem in considering
this issue. Do people in Italy keep the old folks in their home because
their are not good services outside the homes, or does the government not
bother to provide good services outside the home because it knows that the
families will provide these services?

Making a Few Corrections

“Speak Up” is a magazine printed for Italians studying English. The
articles in English have footnotes in Italian explaining difficult
vocabulary words. Recently a lady friend brought me a copy. As we read an
article comparing the political systems in Italy, USA, Great Britain, and
Australia, I had to make the first correction. The article said that the
winner in the American presidential election is the candidate getting the
most votes. This lead to the difficult task of explaining the Electoral
College in Italian. Another article was on the theme “where is your best
chance to find a rich mate in the USA.” The article said that San Francisco
has the greatest percentage of wealthy single men. While not disputing this
fact, I told my lady friend that if she knew a woman who wanted to go to
America to find a rich husband, San Francisco might not be the best place to
go hunting.

Once Again Becoming Integrated into the Life of Italy

I mentioned a few weeks ago that I got my first spam message in Italian over
the Internet. Now I have had my first visit in Italy by a Jehovah’s
Witness. I think he looked at the names of the people in my apartment
building and rang my bell because I did not have an Italian name. My guess
is that groups like the Jehovah’s Witnesses probably make a special effort
to recruit immigrants who are not part of the Italian Catholic tradition.

Correction

Last week I wrote about Spumoni ice cream. I stated my memory, which was
incorrect, of the components of this mix. I remembered a green ice cream and
thought it was mint. Two gourmet readers wrote to correct me. One noted
“Spumoni in most US restaurants is chocolate, strawberry, pistachio, and
vanilla. No mint.” A friend tells me that Spumoni was popular in Italy 10
years ago but now it is found mostly at the gelateria at the seashore.

The Suburbs

European cities don’t have suburbs on the American model, but there is a new
section of Pistoia that looks a lot like an American suburb. While riding
through it on my bicycle with my friend Sam, he pointed out a large house
with a substantial iron gate. He noted that this is the house of the owner
of the café (located in a historic building) in Pistoia who threatened to
close the café because of lack of profits unless the city “did something.”
The city gave him a subsidy.

Music Tour

A friend visited Florence as a member of a tour group of music lovers. They
go to concerts, operas, ballet, etc. in the cities they visit. She
complained that at dinner one night they were treated to a loud selection of
“Dean Martin” style Italian-American music. I wrote in this newsletter a
long while ago that Italians seem to have an eclectic, universal love of
music. A classical music lover may well also be seen at jazz or pop music
concerts. So my guess is that the Italians thought that this group would
enjoy the Dean Martin type music over dinner. Wrong!

Italy and Irrationality

On my recent trip to Germany to see my son, I was pleased to note that the
Italians don’t have a monopoly on irrational laws. You see in Germany block
houses with the exterior unfinished. They do not have the finish coat of
concrete over the blocks. They are unattractive. I asked why they were not
completed; my son said that you don’t pay full taxes on the house when it is
not complete. You can pay at the lower rate (unfinished house) for up to 5
years. If they had this law in Italy, an Italian would have the agonizing
choice of living in an unattractive house with lower taxes or living in an
appropriately attractive house with higher taxes. Apparently this choice is
not so agonizing for many Germans.

New Cell Phone Policy

Cell phones are an item of theft in Italy. One steals a phone and then
replaces the chip in the stolen phone with your own computer phone chip.
But starting soon the chips will not be replaceable. This should alleviate
the theft problem.

Photos

There are some new photos (June 2004) on my web site www.bob.it.tt. The
captions are not posted yet, but here they are. Coop photo is the produce
dept. at the supermarket; CoopCheese is the Deli at the supermarket; Il
Tempio is the place where I attend the Friday night free concerts; Lara is
the woman who works at tourist bureau who was my translator when I came to
Pistoia to find an apartment; Paolo is the director of the tourist bureau;
and Sisters Dogliosi are they two lovely sisters who own the kitchen/dining
supply shop.

Ferrari

I saw a Ferrari car parked recently on street in Pistoia. Where can one
really “use” this car? Even though you can drive fast on Autostrade, you
can’t drive at 140 mph. Unlike the American west, there are not places in
Italy where it is flat and unpopulated so you can drive at very high speeds.
Of course, the important point is not driving the Ferrari at its top
speed; the important point is owning it.

German Train

I wrote about the time I got on the wrong train in Germany because I did not
realize that there were two different trains leaving from the same track at
the same time and going different directions. I’ve not made that mistake
again, but I discovered (without making an error this time) on my recent
trip to Germany that if you get on the “right” train, that is not
sufficient, because midway through the trip this train divides into two
trains going different ways. So you have to get on the correct section of
the right train. It’s amusing to think of the total chaos this type of
train system would cause in Italy.

Brando

The day that Marlon Brando died a friend and I watched my DVD of “A
Streetcar Named Desire.” We watched part of it with English subtitles, but
then my friend wanted to watch the rest without subtitles. This was
difficult for him. When I got home, I turned on the TV and there was this
film in Italian. I called my friend so he could watch the rest of the film
with Italian dialog and understand whatever parts he missed in English.
I’ve noticed before that when a film figure dies, Italian TV is quick to
show his or her films.

Drugs

Illegal drugs are a problem in Italy just as in USA. I see, however, very
little discussion here of the issue of “drug crimes”–crimes committed by
addicts to get the money they need. Of course, this occurs too in Italy,
but the discussion here is more about the bad health effect of drugs upon
the users. I think in Italy there is a tendency to look at social problems
more in terms of the personal problems of those involved rather than the
overall social effects.