It You Don't Laugh...

I had a good chuckle to myself today while reading the online version of the Corriere della Sera in my lunch break today. Headline news was, of course, the latest in the Berlusconi saga. The Corriere della Sera is one of the more reputable newspapers and has taken an anti-Berlusconi stance on several big issues, so I was interested to read what it had to say.

Just in case you have been hiding under a stone for the past couple of months, here is a quick summary of the story so far.

Back in April, Berlusconi invited several potential candidates for the European elections to his party headquarters. Among those on his list were an actress, a daytime TV presenter, a former contender for Miss Italia, and an ex Big Brother contestant, none of whom had any political experience.

This, however, was only the beginning of the scandal. In May, Berlusconi's wife, Veronica Lario, filed for divorce, accusing him of “consorting with minors” after he attended the 18^th birthday party of Noemi Letizia, who was, he claimed, the daughter of one of his friends, and presented her with an expensive necklace. Since then, Noemi has given interviews claiming that Berlusconi is something of a grandfather figure to her and that she hopes that he will set her on the road to a successful political career. La Repubblica, however, then published an article in which Noemi's ex-boyfriend claimed that Berlusconi had got to know her after seeing photos of her in a casting book that was accidentally left on a dinner table by her agent.

All of this has been reported on in the national press, but the harshest criticisms have come from outside of Italy, where the Italian electorate's reluctance to reject Berlusconi seems less comprehensible. As a result, as the Corriere reported today, Berlusconi's foreign affairs minister has just made a speech in which he condemns the foreign press for its interest in gossip and for lacking the moral values of the Italian papers. Which might just about be believable if a) Berlusconi were not the owner of three television channels specialising in directing camera angles up women's skirts and b) if he were referring to the Daily Mirror and the Sun . It all becomes somewhat less convincing, however, when you have watched the said TV channels for about 20m minutes and when you learn that the main target of the attack is the Financial Times.

Berlusconi's own response to the situation was to say, “Mussolini had troops of Black Shirts, while I, according to the newspapers … have troops of starlets... at least it's a little better.” Well, perhaps, but is that the best that Italy can do?

Montalto and the Oltrepo Pavese

Who would have guessed that all of this was just 1 hour's drive from Milan? The Oltrepo Pavese is a wine producing region and you can stop off at numerous little production places by the side of the road and taste and buy wine. Personally, though, I'd go again just for the flowers!

At the Barber's Shop

I've always thought that if I ever decide to change careers, I would like to be a freelance interpreter. I have a friend who does this job and she has interpreted everywhere from at meetings about politics with the German chancellor to meetings about tractors in fields with two farmers. Every so often here in Milan, I find myself acting as somebody's informal interpreter and never is it more stressful than when Mr A decides that he needs a haircut.

The first time we went, he ended up more or less with a shorter version of his previous haircut, but he wasn't too impressed with his experience in a mixed salon, so this time we went to a proper barber's shop. You could tell it was a proper barber's shop because it was furnished with an ancient leather sofa, lots of wooden furniture and two of those chairs that hold you up off the ground and make you feel like a six year old again. All over the shop there were “no smoking” signs and yet the place reeked of cigarettes, and the barber himself was impressively portly and disconcertingly bald. An old man who was waiting for a shave kindly let Mr A go first, probably because he sensed the potential entertainment in the situation.

Mr A sat down in the chair and I explained what he wanted. (“Like this but shorter and take a bit more off the back.”) The barber got to work and began to chat to us about where we were from, whether we liked Italy etc. After hearing that we were British, he pointed out a wobble in Mr A's fringe and said, “The last time you had a haircut, was it in England or Italy?” When we replied that it had been in Italy, he said, “And was the hairdresser Italian or Chinese?” Despite the fact that we said that he had been Italian, the barber then insisted that he was going to give Mr A “a proper Italian haircut.”

And to give him his due, he did. He got out a comb that looked none too clean, combed Mr A's hair and then proceeded to give him a haircut that was very short, but perfectly done, with the hair perfectly trimmed and shaped around the ears. For a man's haircut, it took a long time. Or maybe it just felt like that because I was watching the hair get shorter and shorter, and Mr A's voice was getting quieter and quieter and I was terrified that he didn't like it and that this was somehow all my fault for not explaining properly. At the same time, however, I was carrying on a conversation with the barber about how good the food was in Puglia and all the places in Italy that we had visited. He finished the whole thing off with a cut-throat razor, repeatedly saying “ferma, ferma!” (“stay still, stay still!”), which Mr A appeared to understand without my help.

Then it was time for the moment of truth. Mr A stood up and, as the barber disappeared into the back shop, I asked Mr A, “Do you like it?” To my huge relief, he smiled, shrugged his shoulders and said, “Yes.” Then the barber reappeared and before we could pay him and leave, the old man who was watching insisted that I gave him a kiss. Not that I objected to that, because with his short, “proper Italian” haircut, Mr A looked very like a star from a very old but classic movie. And luckily, when we got home, a bit of gel brought his look back into the 21^st century and the interpreter didn't get the sack.

The City of Ham and Cheese

I have been in Italy at least once a year for the past five years of my life. I've been on a gondola in Venice and a scooter in Rome. I've eaten pizza in Naples and been cheated in Salerno. I've been to Verona and Mantua and Trento and Turin. But, until last weekend, I had never been to Parma, supposedly the town with the highest standard of living in Italy, and certainly with the best ham and cheese. And anybody who has known me for any length of time knows that ham and cheese are very important to me.

In the interest of having a restful weekend, we took the train to Parma. Driving can be stressful for Mr A because he has to avoid the maniacs on the motorway and for me because I take my responsibilities of paying the road tolls, calling the other drivers morons and waving like the queen at people who stare at Mr A's British car very seriously. Taking the train was a great idea, apart from the fact that we had a very long walk in the heat to our hotel, which according to the booking website was “centrally located” but turned out to be on the wrong side of the motorway from the centre of town.

That aside, we really did have a restful weekend. On Saturday morning we had a little bit of excitement when Mr A tried to buy a pair of sunglasses from a market stall and the vendor was very persistent, following us and trying to convince Mr A while at the same time running away from the police. We had lunch on the terrace of a cafe, where I had what must be the pinnacle of ham and cheese sandwiches and Mr A had a roasted vegetable panino with parmesan cheese.

We wandered around the town for a little while before what turned out to be the long walk to the hotel. Apart from the fact that our non smoking room was equipped with two ashtrays and smelled of cigarettes, it was worth the walk. We had a lovely big room with a nice bathroom and, to Mr A's delight, a TV with one English channel. The best thing about it, though, was having breakfast on a huge terrace in 25 degree sunshine.

Everybody told us that the point of visiting Parma is really to eat, so we did. We walked back into town from the hotel and, after exploring the centre a little bit, sat down in the square under the impressive clock tower for a delicious aperitivo served in tiny dishes and watched the well-dressed world go by.

For dinner, I had filled pasta in a butter and parmesan sauce and Mr A had asparagus risotto that was also loaded with parmesan. We're going to try recreating it at home this weekend with the cheese that we bought. 

On Sunday, we managed to be a little bit cultured and visited the cathedral. All the paintings have been restored and it has a gorgeous octagonal dome with a painting of Mary's ascension on it. The work was controversial at the time because Mary, as seen from below in her billowing dress, does not look pious or dignified, but more as if she has been swept away by the wind, and today, even to someone with very little knowledge of art like me, it still stands out as different from your normal religious painting.

We had a lovely walk in the Parco Ducale, where we watched terrapins swimming around the pond and had a glass of Malvasia wine in the cafe. I'm not usually a big fan of sparkling white wine but this one had a lovely delicate flavour that matched the setting among the spring greenery perfectly.

We finished our visit to Parma with a classic regional dish: a board of ham, salami and cheese served with fresh crusty bread and a glass of local wine, then sat in the park in the sunshine. Parma is a great place because it's quite a small town where you can wander around and sit and relax without being hassled, but at the same time it has a university and seemed to have a fairly large immigrant population, so it was still quite lively and interesting to visit. 

This blog probably gives the impression that I spend a lot of my time in Italy sitting around eating and drinking. Often, this is true. Eating, drinking and visiting churches is what you do in Italy. In my own defence, though, I would like to point out that I weighed myself last week and I was actually 3 kilos lighter than I was when I arrived in Milan in August, so my lifestyle may sound indulgent but it appears to be doing me good. Admittedly, I haven't quite dared to step on the scales since last weekend...

Paris, je t'aime

I was in Paris the other day experiencing inverted culture shock. (Obviously, I didn't go just for that, but I thought it would be interesting to blog about.) Inverted culture shock is a term that I've invented  to describe what happens when you go to a foreign country not from your own country but from an even more foreign country and you are surprised by all the wrong things.  Inverted culture shock is when you are British, you go to Paris and you are surprised by the freezing cold weather, the cleanliness and lack of dog dirt at your feet, and the politeness and caution of the drivers. You probably have to live in Milan for a while to understand it.*

I also got into an argument with a French person and, for the first time in my life, actually won it. It happened like this.

My colleagues and I were having dinner in a somewhat posh hotel and decided to share a bottle of wine to go with our meal. The guy who ordered it said the name, pointed to it on the menu and, as we were having a bit of banter with the waiter, jokingly added "le moins cher".  The waiter brought the bottle from the cellar, showed it to us, the guy tasted it and we drank it with our meal. It was only when the bill arrived that we realised that this wine was clearly not "le moins cher". It was significantly more "cher" than the one that we had ordered. The waiter, when we pointed out the mistake said, "Yes, but that's the one that you drank." 

He disappeared into the background and we had a whispered conversation in agonies of British embarrassment. Should we say any more or just pay the money and be annoyed about it? 

It seemed that most people were inclined to shut up and pay up when the waiter came back, but something got into me and I found myself saying, "We did tell you which one we wanted quite clearly twice," to which the waiter responded, "Yes, but I showed you what you were drinking and you drank it." 

I said, "Yes, we made a mistake, but you made more of a mistake than we did," and eventually he agreed that he had made a mistake and charged us for the bottle that we had asked for.

This kind of exchange always leaves me with my heart beating a little bit faster and feeling very embarrassed. The waiter, on the other hand, was clearly unscathed. He brought us the (reduced) bill cheerfully and, when we went to collect our room keys from him later,  said jokingly and with a huge smile on his face, "Your rooms are tents in the garden. They're the cheapest ones!"

Oh to be French and to be able to argue and not care!

* Emma at Life, Lavoro and Luca claims that the French are also scruffy dressers. I wouldn't go that far. Yet.

May Day

In Italy, unlike in the UK,  an important date is an important date. Be it the liberation of their country from fascism or the immaculate conception, Italians like to celebrate anniversaries on the proper day and as a result, a public holiday can fall on any day of the week. If that happens to be a Saturday, too bad, but if it's a Tuesday or a Thursday, you're in luck, because you can take the Monday or Friday off and make a "ponte" (bridge) to the weekend. 

This year, the 1st May fell on a Friday and so tonight is the end of a lovely long weekend.  On Friday, I had some work to do at home, so I spent the day alternating between the sofa and the bedroom, laptop in tow, until 6pm, when I finally got out of my pyjamas (yes Mum, I am a little bit ashamed!) and went out for aperitivo with Mr A.  My friend was arriving from Scotland at 8.30, so we figured we could have a drink and then get the metro to the train station to meet her off the airport bus. 

Unfortunately, when we eventually wandered to the metro station, the doors were locked. No metro. So we went to the tram stop. No tram in sight. A passer-by told us that they had stopped at 8 o'clock. Italy being Italy, and May 1st being a workers' holiday, the workers were not working and public transport was not running. I later saw a poster explaining that on May 1st, all public transport would be running not the normal service and not the Saturday, Sunday or holiday service, but a special reduced version of the holiday service. They were taking the occasion seriously. (Apparently there was also a big parade in town where they were throwing glass bottles but I was still safe at home in my pyjamas at that point.)

Luckily Mr A offered to pick my friend up from the station in the car, and to be honest the lack of transport seemed perfectly reasonable to me. I did laugh, though, when I found out that almost all the shops which are normally shut on a Sunday were open today, presumably to make up for all the trading that that they missed when their workers were on holiday.