Another step forward

Life over the past two months - at least in terms of its convenience quotient - has indeed taken leaps and bounds forward. First, we got a fixed phone. Then, we got the internet. Both have saved hours of to-ing and fro-ing in the car to internet points and phone centers, eliminated a not insignificant number of euros in cost, and a schedule that no longer requires planning around phone calls and emails. As one might imagine, this has simplified our lives and reduced the stress index accordingly.

But that's not all. Our most recent addition to our growing new millenium acquisitions in this old world domain has no less of a daily impact than these other two giant steps for mankind.

Solar panels.

As a previous blog might have alluded to, our infrastructure plans somehow forgot to include an alternative to our fireplace (camino) for our hot water needs. Most people in this neck of the woods use gas. How this happened is another story; suffice it to say that it belongs in the same category as the Bermuda triangle and the wreck of the Mary Deare.

Anyway, our fire-for-hot-shower system meant that every time we wanted to indulge in a spot of personal hygiene, we'd have to light a fire. Not a problem when it's chillsome outside, but a real pain in the ass when it's shorts and T-shirt weather. Given the current law of diminishing vestiture that goes with the advent of spring, lighting a fire was becoming something of a bind, if not downright humiliating to my common sense. Hence the solar panels.

It would be something of an understatement to simply say blandly that life has changed since they've gone in. These days, every time I want a shower, I can just go and take one. It's hard to explain to anyone that's never been in such a position, but it's positively a revelation - no going to collect kindling and wood (more than a simple task if it's been raining), getting the fire going, and then waiting at least half-an-hour for the fire to heat the water enough to take the plunge. Since we invested in the best solar panel system (Paradigma from Germany), we can simply step in, and within minutes be smiling under a cloud of steam. Even when it rained for 3 days and we never saw the sun in that time, the system's insulated boiler held sufficient water at a hot enough temperature to have a bone-warming doccia.

Another benefit is that it's going to help in the winter when we're using the fire for hot water and heating - the partially-warmed water from the solar panel boiler is routed to the camino reservoir, giving a head-start in the heating-up process.

Plus, of course, if leaves us virtually free of any gas obligations. our stove currently uses about 6 euros a month in gas, while others who heat their homes and hot water can spend 400 euros a month in winter, and maybe a third of that in summer.

It's a learning process, this living in Italy thing, often a challenge, and always an exercise in patience, but we'll get there in the end. I mean, how can I feel anything but good when we're not only saving money with solar panels (in the long run, obviously), but we're also doing our tiny little bit for the environment.

Phone update

In the excitement of several other landmark developments (at least from our humble, provincial perspective) in the last month, it somehow escaped the blog’s attention that a fixed phone line was installed at our house. After a long, frustrating, and fruitless relationship with Telecomm Italia – much of it chronicled here – they finally turned up and spent all of 10 minutes to (re-)connect our long-standing, plain-for-all-to-see, existing phone line. Apparently we’re going to have to fork over some €400 for their questionable effort.

Since the complex flip-switch just over a month ago, service has, I’m happy to say, been uninterrupted. We were able to sign up – stunningly without a hitch – for a long-distance plan that allows unlimited calling to Europe and North America for a mere €10 a month.

For my South African calls, I’ve signed up for a third-party, call-another-number-first service. They advertised calls to SA for €0.02 per minute, a charge which I’ve yet to see – so far, costs have been in the €0.03-5 per minute range.

Attempted comparisons with Telecom Italia tariffs to South Africa have been fraught with puzzlement and self-doubt – their website gives a creative, neatly-compartmented, and entirely incomprehensible formula which my dull brain calculates to a monumental €0.30 for every 5.5 seconds (or €3.27 per minute). Notwithstanding TI’s likely higher charges given their sparsely-populated competitive realm, it surely has to be cheaper than this. So I’m sure I’m not reading something right, an outcome I’d wager is not beyond the essence of their intent. Whatever the actual tariff – and it wouldn’t surprise me if it changed from minute to minute – I’m pretty sure it’s more than €0.05 per minute.

Consequently, I’m not about to complain. To anyone. After all, I have a working phone, one that rings, and one that gets dial tone consistently. Better to let sleeping dogs lie I reckon, lest waking them rouses a spirit of curiosity in some telecomm bureaucrat or technician that would in all likelihood weave an “unravellable” bundle of telephonic events that would render us paying for something that we don’t have, and sharing a line with our neighbours just like our friends in Paterno do.

It’s already a little peculiar to many of the locals here that our number has a San Severino Marche prefix, a town some 50km distant.

Needless to say, our telephonic adventures have other dimensions – the telephone itself, for example. Our attempts to buy one (a) without a cord and with a built-in charger, and (b) with an answering machine have so far proved as fruitless as my attempts to understand TI’s tariff structure. Italians have not embraced the answering machine culture, and they rarely (if ever) leave or listen to messages on either fixed or cell phones. Consequently there’s not much of a market for built-in answering machines, and so I suppose we shouldn’t blame the sales clerk in the store (that only sells telephone stuff) for telling us there was an answering machine when there isn’t. Or, for that matter, for selling us a cordless phone which requires its "special" rechargeable batteries to be replaced when they finally expire.

In truth, we only have ourselves to blame for not doing all the double-and-triple checks before leaving the store, or asking the questions that we didn’t know or think to ask. (In truth, I’ve managed to stay out of this particular mire myself, leaving it to Maria in the interests of keeping my blood pressure at acceptable levels.)

All of this, however, matters naught, given - as I said before - that I have a working phone, one that rings, and one that gets dial tone consistently ... even if I trip over the cord when I walk into my office.

Another Italian hospital experience

If you’ve never seen a dislocated wrist, I’d suggest not volunteering to go look at one if you’re ever given the option. I had the misfortune of seeing one on my own son last weekend at his football match. It doesn’t take much to dislocate a 12-year-old’s wrist, it seems. Upon his fourth or fifth tumble of the game, one that seemed more innocuous than the others, he leapt to his feet yelping in pain, and clutching his arm. Parents, coaches and players clustered around him immediately, each gasping as they arrived – his wrist was bent at an improbable angle, and his hand was standing grotesquely atop a hill of skin and flesh that rose steeply from his forearm. I was horrified, a reaction that manifested itself in stark silence and a firm grip on his shoulders.

Misfortune, however, often has more favourable bedfellows, it seems, and so far we’ve encountered two.

First was the hospital experience that followed. Lucky for us, one of Julius’ teammates has a nursing couple as parents – his mother was at the game, and she took immediate charge, rushing us off to the hospital where her husband works. Although he was off duty at the time, he called ahead and so the emergency receptionists were primed for our arrival, and after checking in – a matter of 30 seconds – Julius was whisked off for X-rays and thence to the orthopedic surgeons, who said he’d need an operation to put the wrist back in place and insert a few pins to stabilize it. Unfortunately for him though, he had to wait some 4 hours because of the minimum time required after his last meal before a general anesthetic can be administered – his 8am breakfast meant he couldn’t be anesthetized until 2pm, and we arrived at 10am. Even more unfortunate was the total lack of effect the painkillers had, and so he had to wait in constant pain. I felt helpless, as did the hospital staff.

All was well after the op, however, and Julius was all smiles when he came round and found himself pain-free. I spent the night in hospital with him, a rather sleepless affair as a result of the noisy (vocal and other) ablution attempts of the septuagenarian in another of the ward’s beds.

As a hospital experience, it was class A+. The only “forms” I had to deal with involved (a) supplying Julius’ name when we came in (they pulled up all his details immediately from a previous visit) and (b) signing acknowledgement that I was going to sleep the night. In the morning, we were out of there by 9am. Given my prior experiences in the US with forms and bureaucracy and insurance and ass-covering and such, it was a real breeze. And on top of it, all the doctors and nurses, being the child-loving Italians that they are, hovered around Julius as if he was the crown prince, pinching his cheeks and constantly making sure he was OK. Notwithstanding our frequent buzzing for the nursing staff, they always came promptly and with a smile.

The second positive outcome came from the outpouring of support and sympathy from Julius’ teammates, their parents, and his coaches. He received numerous visitors in the short time he was in the hospital, among them the director of the football club. He was also asked to a special presentation after the team’s last game, where he was given a football signed by all of the boys. No other awards, just one for Julius. I’ve told him the football should never be kicked around, and that it should take pride of place amongst his keepsakes, one that will trigger a warm glow every time he has cause to look at or touch it.

Needless to say, the cast on his arm is something of a status symbol amongst his schoolmates, and it has the added benefit of freeing him of the burden of homework and tests, given that it’s his writing hand (“Damn!” he said with a wry smile). Thankfully there’s only a few weeks left before the end of term, so we’re hoping there’s no loss on the learning side. It’s also given him a “handy” excuse when it comes to housework, although the other side of that coin is that he can no longer go footballing in the local village square. At least not until the pins come out and the cast comes off on June 17^th, when he will hopefully recount yet another smooth visit to the hospital in Macerata.

The Internet!!!

I’m getting all choked up as I write this, such is the magnitude of the declaration – I have the internet … at home. Those who have read previous posts on the subject (here’s one), and those who can empathize with a profession that lives and dies through its electronic relationships, will appreciate the emotional depth of the subject. It’s been a long time coming – 18 months (give or take) to put a number on it.

I can’t believe what a change it’s wrought in my life – no longer do I have to wait until 9:30 for the internet store to open, no longer do I have to schedule my day around trips to the internet store, no longer do I have to drive 10km each way to the internet store, all I have to do is walk down to my office … at any time of the day. It’s a true revelation, I feel liberated.

Rather ironically, given my rantings and ravings about the inefficiencies of life in rural Italy, it turns out that I could have had the internet all along - well over a year ago - if only I'd tried the solution I doubted for so long. There's a lesson in there somewhere, but I'm ignoring it for now.

After having reached a dead end on what I thought was the most promising avenue for the internet (Telecomm Italia, a curious choice given its gross incompetence and indolence, but indicative of the dearth of alternatives), I turned once again to the internet store that became my office for over a year. The techie there said if I could run a network cable less than 80 or 90 meters from a receiver mounted on a pole up the driveway that is in sight of their tower in San Ginesio some 6km away, I might be able to get a signal.

So, in desperation and in cautious hope, I gave it a shot, and after a couple of false starts, lo and behold, it worked! I still get goosebumps when I think of that “Local Area Connection 100 Mbps” message that popped up on my screen, followed by the strangled whoop that I simply couldn’t contain. Not only am I getting a signal from my receiver that j-u-s-t manages to peep over the hill up to San Ginesio, it’s a pretty solid one as well, matching any one of my friends who have a clear view of the tower.

Of course, it hasn’t all gone without incident or issue. First of all, I’ve mounted the receiver on one of the electrical company’s poles. I’ve no doubt that they wouldn’t take too kindly to it if they knew. I could of course ask them for permission, but I’m pretty sure what the answer would be, and even if they were marginally open to the idea, I don’t think I have the stomach for the bureaucracy and paperwork that would ensue. So I do what most Italians would do – I simply go ahead, and if they discover it (improbable given our hidden-away location out in the rustic reaches), I’ll simply plead ignorance, take it down, and erect my own pole.

But it’s not the only hurdle. The second one is a little more concerning. Turns out that the electrical pole is on one of our neighbours’ land – I thought it was on ours, but given the minuscule sketch of a plan that we got with our deed, I’m not in a position of strength to counter his claim. In any event, the difference is marginal.

However, said neighbour, who has been friendliness personified up until now, has said that he doesn’t want the network cable running over his land. Understandable, naturally. One option would be to bury it, but it’s 80 long meters from the house, entailing a lot of digging if I did it myself, or a lot of euros if I get someone else to. So I thought of running it in the air from one electrical pole to another, and thence to the house. He’s not entirely happy with this arrangement either, but it’s better than the cable interfering with his lawnmower (and consequently my work), and so this is the makeshift arrangement as it stands now.

It’s temporary not only for the above reasons, but also because I haven’t managed to find the right bracket or attachment mechanism to mount it on the electrical pole. And so it’s literally held on with wire and string, a rural Italian solution if ever I saw one.

In the meantime, I’m gallivanting all over the web with a carefree abandon, a smile on my face, and a new daily schedule in my life. In quintessential masculine denial, I’ll ignore the looming issues until they knock on my front door. Until then, I’m hoping my neighbour just cuts his grass under my looping network cable, and doesn’t think of suggesting to the electrical company come and check up on their poles in rural Regnano …

All things come to those who wait …

Well, perhaps not all things, but some things, at least.

Totally within character, two of our “home renovation outfits”, should we call them, delivered on their long-outstanding promises. In one case, it wasn’t even a full delivery, but hey, who are we to quibble – we’ll take whatever scraps we’re given, wouldn’t you?

First, the crane that has towered over our property in bored idleness since September when it was last triggered into action, was finally moved. It has taken probably half-a-dozen requests for its removal, all of which elicited the same response – next week. So we play the game – next week comes and goes, crane still there. Wait another week or so, just to make sure that “next week” didn’t mean “the week after next, or the one after that” (which it frequently does), and we call again. When’s the crane going to be moved? We need the space that it’s taking up to store stuff. Next week.

I must confess it was quite interesting watching it being dismantled and pulled away, a feat of close calculation and small margins for such a beast of a thing – 835 kg blocks sinking a 10-ton truck on its wheels, squeezing through two of the narrowest of gaps to finally get it out.

Not only have we reclaimed the land area, we’ve also got back our air space. It’s actually instilled a sense of freedom about the place, as if the crane was a towering sentinel watching over everything that happened on our little plot. In a way I feel liberated.

Not quite so cathartic with the random visit of the carpenter who showed up unannounced in the middle of the crane removal operation. It’s been some 9 months since the windows were installed, and after an initial resistance to our protestations, he caved and agreed to switch the bathroom and kitchen windows whose designs he had confused. The windows have been ready for some 4 months now. Finally he came to switch them. It took less than an hour. He also brought the window and door frames to complete the job on several of those he had installed but not framed. For some reason, this was not completed.

There’s also the question of the two doors that open into the middle of the room instead of against the wall. He agreed to switch these as well. The man he sent to do the window-swapping seemed to know nothing of these. So we’re still waiting for him to finish the job that we – in our naïve, willing, but totally un-Italian way – paid for in full some time ago.

Boy, do we have some lessons tucked away in our little home renovation satchel. I’d almost like to do this again to be able to do it better next time, both to vindicate ourselves for our sins this time around, and to do it with an overall lower average blood pressure. Fat chance of that happening anytime soon.

Oh well …

Some more Italian-South African reflections

Whenever I return to rural Italy from a distant land, I’m prompted to reflect on the peculiarities of my adopted homeland, along with those of the place I’ve just returned from. Having just spent 3 weeks in South Africa helping my parents adjust after my mother’s hip replacement surgery, I’m once again in that mode. And while I was just there some 6 months ago, bringing back a clutch of reflections from that trip, there are always nuances and new discoveries. This time was no different.

The most obvious of these is the advent in South Africa of “load shedding”, or it’s more specific form, “predictive load shedding.” If I didn’t know what the term meant (from first-hand experience), I must confess I’d be left scratching my head. Seems that the country has applied for membership in the club of those supposedly “advanced” countries who hide their problems under confusing, spin-doctored terms which bear no resemblance to their actual nature. I’ve often wondered what they try to achieve with this approach – do they really believe the public is so gullible as to be diverted by their contorted terminology?

But I digress. Turns out that “load shedding” involves shutting down of the electrical grid, rendering homes, businesses, and streets – playing havoc with the traffic systems – blacked out. “Predictive” translates as “scheduled”, an arguably preferable version to the random shutdowns that interrupt washing cycles, cooking, and livelihoods.

It seems that the warnings several years ago that the country would not be able to support its power needs in the future went unheeded, and they’re now paying the price. As is their wont, South Africans, so long used to disruption and challenge, have accepted its inevitability and inconvenience in their stride.

I wonder how Italians would deal with it. Probably similarly, actually, much as they accept the inefficiency of the postal service and Telecomm. However, unlike South Africa, where the sole provider of power, Escom, is partly owned by the government, Italy’s power supply is totally in the hands of private providers, and as such, it operates with a modicum of efficiency.

Unfortunately, the same can’t be said of its national airline, Alitalia, which recently entered bankruptcy protection proceedings, following the failure to find a suitable buyer for the beleaguered company. A sorry state of affairs, it must be said, for the country’s standard-bearing airline. There are other (mainly regional) airlines in Italy, but given the size of the country, its proximity to others nearby with their own national airlines, and its membership in the EU, these smaller companies tend to fly below the radar (sorry).

The landscape – or perhaps “airscape” – of carriers in South Africa, however, abounds with low- and full-cost carriers, sporting colourful planes and staff that typify the “rainbow” of the country’s character. One example is kulula (yes, with a lower-case “k”) – meaning “it is light” or “it is simple” – which encourages their staff to inject personality and humour into their work. “I hope you find your car where you left it” was one such kulula steward’s quip, eliciting a wry chuckle from the theft-weary passengers on board. Another is the low-cost alternative of the country’s giant, South African Airways – it’s called Mango, and its planes are bright orange, adding a welcome dash of colour to the concrete expanses that typify airports these days. So too does one of its competitors, 1Time, whose aircraft are bright red.

Inside the country’s airports, you’ll find a plentiful supply of bars to whet the whistles of its beer-loving citizens. Like Australians, Englishmen, indeed even Americans, South Africans frequently go out “for a few beers” (not only to airports). “A few” has something of a different meaning here as well, and while it’s perhaps unusual, it’s by no means without precedent to hear an unshaven, bleary-eyed, raspy-voiced fellow sitting in the sports club bar with a beer in his hand, recounting the previous night’s 25-30 beer beano.

Italians, in contrast, drink only when they eat. When invited to a home to enjoy some local cooking, you won’t be offered a drink until the antipasti are laid out on the table and you’re starting to dig in. And while bottles and bottles of after-dinner drinks typically clutter the table in the aftermath of each monumental feast, their consumption is tempered by the fact that the stomach is full. In addition, the grappas and the like are digestivos, to help the digestion process. Unlike these other beer-thirsty countries, I’ve only ever seen one inebriated Italian in public (or in private, for that matter). They may be the world’s leading quaffers of wine, but clearly they do so responsibly.

Now if only that could be carried over to their driving ...

The expat ritual

There’s a ritual developing here in our little corner of rural Marche. It’s amongst many of the foreigners, the majority of whom are English.

It’s the monthly trip to Ikea.

I’d never had any real exposure to the Swedish furniture giant before, save for a puzzling encounter with a Swede in Washington DC, whose fervent – even over-zealous, I thought – enthusiasm for a new Ikea opening in the area made me look at her with no small degree of incredulity. I took it for a sense of national pride, or homesickness. I didn’t understand.

Now I do. It’s the consummate shopping experience, and I’m succumbed to the ritual, willingly and wittingly, even as I recognize what they’re doing to me.

They’ve thought of everything, and more, to make your trip convenient, efficient, and economic. Most people leave with more than they came for.

Now even in a consumer-oriented society such as the US, such a shopping experience would be unique, and way above the norm. But out here in Italy, where customer service – or client sensitivity as I prefer to think of it – is non-existent, a day at Ikea is positively exhilarating.

Since most people are likely familiar with the Ikea concept, there’s no point in waxing lyrical about things that everyone already knows – the handy and appealing layouts, the channeled routes through the store, the specials, the ability to mix-n-match, the self-service section, the ease of returns (generally a foreign concept to Europeans), and so on.

But since I’ve become a convert, it’s the little things that I notice every time I go there – the organic milk used in the coffee, the healthy and diverse and tasty options at the in-house restaurant, the clocks dotted throughout all set to the same time – 10 past 10. I’m not even sure why they do some of these things (e.g. the clocks), but the fact that they went to such lengths makes it impressive.

The fact that it’s staffed by Italians adds an extra flavour too. Many of these concepts are beyond their natural tendencies – this is not a criticism, it’s just how it is, take it or leave it – and so the way they perform these foreign tasks is, I’m sure, a little different from the way the Swedes would, for instance. I can’t quite put my finger on it, perhaps it’s that ever-so-slight marginal degree of imprecision in the way things are laid out, or the shirt tail hanging out just slightly, the odd price tag missing, the package that doesn’t contain everything it should. (This last misfortune happened to me on our last trip there. It was the result of a product being returned without everything inside the box, and the staff simply sticking it back on the shelves without checking. Not one of the more endearing departures from the standard Ikea behaviour, I must declare.)

These positive Ikea feelings were no more evident when, on our last trip, we also went to the furniture store next door. First, it took about half-an-hour to get someone to help us. Next, when we went back to place the order, we found out that they had made a mistake in the pricing, by some 20%! And that’s without mentioning how uninviting the layout was.

So do Italians go to Ikea? Yes indeed, by their thousands. The fact that they’re cheaper, have a greater selection, and greater diversity in how your selections can be put together, all have something to do with it. It would hardly be a reasonable business proposition to make that size investment simply for the foreigner market.

But for those foreigners (me included), it’s a getaway, a reminder of what it used to be like, a sort of trip home, as it were. Here we are, making our commitment to this country and this culture which is foreign to us, and will probably always be that way, no matter how hard we try to integrate. Somewhere inside, at varying depths for each of us, we know this, and so we need our periodic home fix as a reward for the constant effort we’re putting into our new lives.

Or maybe I'm reading way too much into it (as I am occasionally wont to do). Maybe it's simply because we're all building new homes, are busy furnishing them, and it's the most convenient shop around ...

Internet and telephone update

There are aspects of living out here in the Italian countryside that remind one daily of that very fact – that we’re living out in the countryside. It’s been 17 months since I arrived here. We still don’t have a fixed-line phone at home, let alone a snail’s-paced internet connection. Here’s a microcosm of how it affects our lives on a regular basis.

In my daily trip to the internet point (which is open daily from 9:30-1, and 3:30-8, closed Thurs afternoon), I made an attempt to buy an air ticket to South Africa for mid-March. Halfway through, I was asked for my passport number, which, of course, was at home. So instead of simply walking over to my filing cabinet to get it and continue (if I had the internet at home), I had to wait until the next day. I got all the way through the reservation the next day, only to find that my US credit card rejected the transaction, requiring me to call my bank and ask them what the problem was. But instead of reaching for the phone next to my desk, I had to go into Tolentino – 20km in the opposite direction from the internet point – to make the call, since the charges to do so from a cell phone would be prohibitive.

I duly go and do so, clear up the matter, and call back the airline to complete the reservation i.e. process the payment on my now-cleared credit card. Sorry, they can’t do it – the reason wasn’t clear, but, given my experience of how quickly and easily things get bunged up here, I accept it rather than push them to do something destructive, and ask what I need to do. Make another reservation, they say. Can I do such a thing over the phone? No, I need to do it online. So now instead of walking over to my desk and the computer, I have to drive 20km back to the internet point to make a new reservation. Only now it’s closed, and so I’ll have to wait until tomorrow.

The measure of the temperature in my writing doesn’t begin to reflect the rapidly rising heat that all of this ignited. But that’s all past now. I have my ticket, 2 days later instead of 2 hours. I’m just thankful that I was able to get the ticket at the same bargain price. So I suppose I shouldn’t complain – with each trip I was driving through the beautiful Italian countryside, notwithstanding the fact that I was doing so past homes with telephones and internet connections.

We’re now on our 4^th or 5^th application for a telephone with TelecommItalia (TI). The penultimate one was simply cancelled by TI after they were not able to determine where the telephone line on our property came from (yes, this is the very telephone institution that installed it). And then when we reapplied, they connected us with a year-old application for the house we were renting back then. Every time we speak with them, they ask why we’re changing the address of our application. They even called us twice to ask why we want the telephone at 31 Regnano instead of 27 Regnano.

They’ve told us a technician will be calling us soon. I’m not holding my breath.

The simplest solution to an internet connection is, of course, through TI’s ADSL service. A friend down the road set it up himself and it’s working wonderfully for him. But having to work through TI every time there’s an issue seems to me to be a brazen request for high blood pressure, and so I’m looking for alternatives. They’re not encouraging.

Our closest town, Colmurano, have – unlike all their surrounding villages – opted not to lay in TI’s optic fibre lines so that everyone can get broadband internet. They’ve even snubbed the approach of the local computer outfit (where I go for my daily internet fix) to erect a tower so that everyone can get wireless access. That’s because the mayor – a not insignificant position in these reaches – has struck a sweetheart deal with a company some 40km distant to upgrade the town’s computer setup for free if he goes with their broadband offering.

On paper, not bad. Only the company wants a minimum number of subscribers in order to do it, and, needless to say, the potential subscribers – being tech-novice, skeptical rural Italians – want to see evidence of a working service before they’ll subscribe. The fact that over 130 locals signed the initial petition asking for the service seems now to be irrelevant – they want ink-dried signatures.

So it’s a stalemate. I should have known not to get all hopeful when I attended the late-night meeting some 3 months ago, where, after 2-plus hours of wanton waffling, I discovered that they would start the process within the next ten months … once they had the minimum number of subscribers. Ten months???? What are they going to do, mine the ore and turn it into steel themselves? Even in this neck of the woods, that timeframe astounded me. And I know it was an optimistic estimate, as all such things around here are.

So – back to the internet point I go on a daily basis. I ask them what I can do. They say I need to be able to see one of their towers, and since I’m in a dip on the side of a hill, Colmurano is the only direct option for me. However, someway up my driveway, it is possible to see San Ginesio and its towers. What of that? It turns out that there are 2 more-expensive-than-normal options. (1) Put the receiver on a pole up the driveway, and run a network cable from the receiver to the house. Only problem is, the network cables don’t work beyond around 100m. How far would the receiver be from the house? You guessed it – 100m, or just a smidgen over that. (2) Install a set of 3 antennae – one picking up the signal from San Ginesio, one to take that signal and beam it to the house, and one on the house to pick up the signal. Needless to say, the extra two antennae are not cheap.

So we’ll probably give (1) a try first. Am I hopeful? I know I need to be – these things, like horses and other beasts upon which we are sometimes totally dependent, have an aptitude for sniffing out fear, skeptism, despair, and other negative emotions, and providing their in-built, exacerbating responses. In other words, history has now taught me that any hint in my thinking that it will not go well, and ... well, draw your own conclusions.

The other vital thing, as I’ve also learned, is to figure out all the questions to ask, and ask them. It seems to be a human law here that information is only given when requested. It could be vital, pivotal, fundamental, core – it doesn’t matter, unless you ask, ye shall not receive. It’s not malicious, or premeditated, or negative in any way, it’s just the way it is.

Our challenge, then, is to figure out all the questions that we don’t have the slightest clue we should ask. And on this score I suppose I should express some gratitude – who would have thought that out here in the rolling hills of Italy, wallowing back in the 1950’s, I’d be taken to brainstorming, lateral thinking, and open-minded blue-skying on a routine basis. I guess sooner or later (more than likely later, much later) I’ll finally figure out how to take my flash-point blood temperature and soothe it to the point that I’ll achieve the calmness that I came for in the first place. After all, everyone else around me has managed it …

Going postal

It’s my lucky day, I can’t believe it – today (February 7^th) the fourth and last of my Christmas and Julius-birthday (January 8^th) book purchases arrived. They were mailed from the US and the UK respectively on December 5^th. [English titles at bookstores in our neck of the woods are both scarce and prohibitively expensive.]

Not only was I lucky enough to have this tantalizing and uncertain wait, for 2 of them I had to pay a total of €14 custom’s duties and “postal expenses”. In each case the fee amounted to more than the value of the contents of the packages. But I know after a prior experience, when the postal clerk threatened to return my package to sender if I didn’t pay it, there’s no way around paying these spurious and extortionist “tolls”.

In truth, I’m just thrilled to get everything I ordered. Clearly our multiple begging trips to the post office, along with the considerable time spent waiting on the phone for lethargic and uninterested dispatch clerks – all of which yielded nothing more than indifferent shoulder shrugs – paid off, at least in the sense that we had done our due diligence. I believe that – this time, at least – we appeased the Italian god of the mail sufficiently for him to lift the “hide-it-in-a-dark-corner” spell from our meager packages in one of his random moods.

As for the €14 in tolls, I think I’ve found a way around it – from now on I’ll order my books from the UK (part of the free and easy EU) instead of the states. In fact, I’ve found a bookseller online who delivers FREE from the UK, and whose gross prices are comparable with those in the states. (Their net prices, after taking into account the postal tolls, anguish, enamel loss from frustrated teeth gnashing, and blood pressure medication, are vastly cheaper.) Of course this is all just theory right now, but I’m confident that my latest order of about 10 books is winging its toll-free way to me as I write.

As a result of our regular postal experiences and the effect they have on our mental health, wherever I can these days I pay the extra and ship via UPS, Fedex, or some such trackable means other than USPS (United States Postal Service). Unfortunately these options are not available for online book purchases, and so we’re left to the vagaries of the government postal services.

There’s one anecdote worth mentioning with regard to the one trackable method I won’t use – the USPS. It turns out that the tracking number the USPS uses – and which the customer innocently uses to try and find out where their phantom package is – is changed once it is received by the Italian postal authorities. No one tells you what the new number is. So when you go to the post office or call up the dispatch company, confidently brandishing your USPS tracking number, needless to say they can’t find it, and trump you with a retort that starts something like “without a tracking number …” The defeat is positively humiliating.

Worse still, if and when the package finally turns up and you explain to the postal workers what happened with the number switching, they look at you blankly as if to say, “Yes, and …?”

But I have my books, and if my next batch actually makes it here, I’ll be set with reading material for a while. Ironically, the bulk of the subject matter relates to life in and the culture of this wonderful country I’m living in. At least I’ll be able to verify their tenets and conclusions.

The look

The Italians have a reputation for being xenophobic. Having been exposed to just a small fraction of its landmass and population, I can’t really say one way or another. And I don’t know if the predomination of Fiat and Lancia and Ariston and Vulcan and other locally-made products supports it or not, just as the knee-jerk tendency to blame the Albanians for every theft that happens in this area doesn’t necessarily imply a distrust of things or persons foreign.

What I have noticed, though, is a tendency for the locals – particularly the older ones, the contadini (peasants) – to examine you rather closely when you drive by. They interrupt whatever they’re doing – bending over collecting chicory or fallen chestnuts, or gathering at the local bar for their prolonged daily chin-wag (the men, at any rate) – and stare long and hard, turning their heads to follow you and your smile, wave, serious look, or return stare as you pass them and move off into the distance.

I can’t tell if it’s a hostile, unwelcome once-over … a pained, squinting attempt with failing eyes to identify an unknown intruder … or simply an innocuous, innocent gawk of curiosity. Funny though, how it repeats itself – the fellow up the road from Anna’s house, where we stayed for 6 weeks, gave me the same examination every time I went past him on the road, which was almost daily. I always drove the same car, gave him the same smile, occasionally tried a wave, and without fail got the same response – a long, intense stare with mouth agape, as if he had stumbled across a new and virulent germ that threatened to wipe out the human race.

It’s not as if foreigners are new to this place. More recently, the English have been coming (and now settling here) for years, but the trend dates back to years with a “BC” after them – after all, the Italian peninsula has seen the Greeks, Spanish, French, Saracens, Lombards, Barbarians, and Byzantines ebb and flow through the land throughout its colourful and somewhat jerky history. These visitors I’m sure gave the locals far more to stare at and ponder than a harmless, somewhat reticent, admittedly slightly quirky South African and his family.

So why then do I still get “the stare”? Even one of our neighbours in Regnano, who I once stopped and chatted to (with some success I might add), still gives me the glare, even though I know that underneath it all he harbours a disarming smile and a friendly disposition.

I don’t know, perhaps – given their history of a constant stream of strangers treading their paths – they’re simply wondering “Who’s it this time?”, investigating with a prolonged gaze how their lives might be affected by the new aliens.

Who knows, maybe it’s a property of the atmosphere here, the water, the air, the land. But hold that thought for a moment – I just heard a car coming along the road, and I need to check out who on earth might be passing through our little hamlet …

Driver's license - the sequel

So, what happened with the driving license tests? (See here for an intro.)

The written test is taken at the department of motor vehicle offices in Piediripa near our provincial capital, Macerata, a half-hour away. I was picked up by the instructor along with three 18-year-olds, whose peer group made up the majority of exam-sitters – the remainder consisted of (a) older Italian women who’ve decided to finally take the plunge, in most cases out of pure necessity, and (b) non-EU foreigners like me who’ve become resident in Italy.

I was in the first of 4 morning sittings, starting out at the Italian version of 8:30am - 45 minutes late at 9:15am. In a typically drab, paint-peeling, last-cleaned-10-years-ago, ill-furnished government room, we used touch screens to record our answers. The stark contrast – modern technology against dilapidated building – was marked, and yet another of the typically Italian contradictions that one encounters on a daily basis.

Each student gets a different test, so you can’t peep at your neighbour’s answers. I answered with a tentative confidence, knowing full well that there could be logic-defying mines buried in the answer sheet.

When they read out the results, the first candidate of the sheet – a Mr. Ali – got 9 errors, thereby failing with honours and instilling a feeling of trepidation in the rest of us clustered around the examiner, who fumbled at the computer with a complete absence of technological prowess, welcoming every hint of distraction to draw him away from the obvious torture of having to do this.

Luckily, it seems as if I managed to dodge all the mines, and I passed. (You’re not told about the number of errors, but at this point it’s moot.)

I always thought that there was a mandatory 30-day waiting period between the written test and the practical driving test, but Andreas the instructor immediately confirmed a practical exam a week later. I did not ask any questions.

Arrangements for the day of the driving test were curiously vague, but I went along with them in a trusting but confused haze, showing up on time at 3pm at one of the junctions down on the main road near here. No Andreas, just a woman who greeted me as if she knew me.

About 45 minutes after the appointed time, a car I’d never seen with “Scuola Guida” (driving school) on it pulled up and disgorged several young 18-year-olds, including one with whom I’d taken the driving test. The woman who’d greeted me earlier beckoned me to come and get in the car, and so – somewhat bemused by it all but happy that something was at last happening – I did. The driver, who I’d never seen before, and who didn’t even acknowledge my presence, set off, my mind wondering where on earth to.

A minute later I saw Andreas the driving instructor coming in the other direction, sitting in the front passenger seat with a student driving and someone else in the back. We followed. After curving up to San Ginesio, the student got out and switched places with the familiar woman from our car … and finally I got it – the third person in Andreas’ car in front was the examiner. As I found out later, the driving schools make appointments with the department of motor vehicles, and the examiner – who could come from anywhere in the province – shows up at a location that’s convenient for all concerned. This particular woman had driven a good 40 minutes from some way up the coast to be with us.

I was last, coincidentally driving a route through Colmurano and Urbisaglia that’s as familiar to me as any I’ve driven here. I was calm and confident, but had I known what happened to the familiar woman immediately before me I would certainly not have been – she inadvertently crossed into a turning lane slightly too late, going over the solid line instead of the broken line as she did. It was the only mistake she made – failed.

Andreas and the examiner talked through the entire duration of my test, and it seemed as if the examiner wasn’t even paying attention to what I was doing. Whether she was or not ends up being somewhat immaterial, at least now it does, because she passed me, and I can now proclaim with dubious pride something that I never thought I’d say – I’m officially “an Italian driver” …

Sledding Italian style

The weather’s been quite balmy the past few days, but some remnants of snow still cling to the upper reaches of the central Apennines just ¾ of an hour away. And so yesterday, on a glorious sun-drenched morning, off we headed for the slopes to try out Julius’ two new sleds.

We went to one of our favourite spots, summer or winter – Pintura, at close to 2,000 m, just a few km past the most popular skiing destinations in Marche, Sassotetto and Maddalena. After threading our way beyond them through roads narrowed to alleys by the Italians’ proclivity to defy parking logic, we found Pintura pleasantly busy but not overly so. The same was true for the snow on the ground – a reasonable covering with patches of brown soggy earth dotting the slopes (although “pasting” may be more apt than “dotting”).

Julius’ first run was one of discovery … that the sled was rather faster than he anticipated, and that he was unable to deal with said speed, parting company with it in rather spectacular fashion as he stumbled upon a new level of meaning to the term “out of control”. Like Julius, Maria went to the top of the steepest slope with the second sled … and discovered precisely the same thing. With my limited exposure to all sports snow-related, I tried the lower, more gentle slopes, where we remained for the rest of a very enjoyable day, returning home tired, smiling, and bruised.

Like any outing into the outdoors in Italy, it’s about more than the targeted activity … a lot more. That’s because there are Italians there, and they do things in a way that can only be described as, well, Italian. First off, it’s a rare thing to find a single family heading off to the slopes – normally at least 3 combine to bring a veritable team of fun-seekers to the arena. And “fun” is most definitely the word, mixed with a good dose of the obligatory level of extreme parental overprotection, rendering a constant stream of laughter, yelling, song, and squeals.

At the cafe near the car park, there's a constant crowd sitting on deck chairs enjoying the scene, as if they’re reclined on their beach chairs at their favourite lido on the coast – it barely raises a brain-sweat to imagine them in precisely the same pose with precisely the same sunglasses lying on a striped chair beneath a matching striped parasol smoking precisely the same brand of cigarette.

Below them, concerned mothers clamber down the slopes in their high-heeled boots after kids bobbling gently down the hill at a speed all too dramatic for them – “Frena! Frena!” (Brake! Brake!) is the most constant refrain of the day. I actually believe that their child’s speed doesn’t really make a difference at all, they simply have a biological need to call out to their offspring with some sort of concern for their safety – they’d be doing the same even if their child was playing tiddly-winks (“Watch your thumb!”).

One particular scene had me chuckling for a while, and brings a smile to my face even now. “Paolo! Vieni qui! (Come here!) Frena!” yelled mom in her city outfit as she stumbled down the slope, bent forward in her vocal exertion and endeavour not to slip and fall. 5-year-old Paolo continues down the hill, picking up speed as he passes a group of 4 teenagers arm-in-arm, singing loudly as they climb back up for their next ride down on a tarpaulin they’ve brought for the team ride. Flashing past them a few seconds later goes Paolo’s dad, loping past in his city kit in long, ungainly strides, propelled by the same built-in call of nature: “Paolo! Frena! Vieni qui!”

Paolo, who knows full well how to brake the sled, stops and allows dad to catch up. There’s a bent-over, breathless remonstration (I’m sure Paolo had a smile on his face) before the long walk back up the hill, dad pulling the sled. Halfway up they’re joined by mom, who spends the remainder of the climb bent over Paolo sharing her expert and intimate knowledge of the dangers of … what is it today? … sledding, not to mention the perilous consequences of not listening to his parents. I can’t be sure, but I might have heard Paolo humming cheerfully to himself all the way up.

Naturally, exactly the same scene plays itself out once more just 5 minutes later.

The festive season in rural Italy

This past festive season was our first in rural Italy. Instead of going elsewhere, we decided to stay in order to be able to answer the immortal question of Monty Python’s Eric Idle: “What’s it like?”

Well, I really don’t want to disappoint, but aside from the January 6^th festival of Befana (which we missed anyway), we didn’t find anything especially different, exotic, or traditional (other than of course the fact that one is in Italy amongst Italians, a rather distinct fact in and of itself). In fact, even “Babbo Natale” (Father Christmas) is inherited from the commercial English-speaking world.

Unlike some other European cultures (like the Germans) who have their main celebration on the 24^th, Italy celebrates primarily on the 25^th(like us English-speakers). It all starts with a midnight mass, a mercifully (moderately) short one, attended primarily for the post-service social mingling, before the serious eating begins at lunchtime on the 25^thand beyond.

On Christmas Day we had a delicious but non-traditional (i.e. no turkey) lunch with our Irish friends, and Maria cooked the traditional local meal on the 26^th after tapping our dyed-in-the-wool marchigiani carpenter for details of the menu. First comes tortellini in brodo, with the broth that they swim in drawn from the boiling of a capon, which is eaten as a second course. The capon – no easy feat to find one, and a weighty price tag when Maria did – was very tasty in spite of the unappetizing thought of a boiled bird. [The contadini around here routinely boil chicken, a far less appetizing prospect.]

As with my own heritage, out here Christmas is for family, while New Year’s eve is spent with friends. Locals from the area whose roots go back a good way may spend several days wading through meal after meal with various branches of their families, but they approach it uncomplainingly and without question as a duty, one that cements the family ties which penetrate deep, long and supportively throughout their entire lives.

Family ties and bonds notwithstanding, there seemed to be a palpable relief at the arrival of New Year’s eve, requiring just one last eating marathon to cap the season. “Capo anno” they call it – top (or head/source) of the year. We were invited with 3 other local families to the home of Piergiovanni and deputy mayor Ornella, our Italian friends and hiking companions.

The food lasted from about 8:30 until midnight. First came about 4 different antipasti (including a variety of local cold cuts), followed by 3 different primi piatti (pasta), and then the secondo, a traditional dish of lentils, representing money and good fortune for the following year. If there’s any room left after all that, there’s fruit, including grapes which, like the lentils, bring hopes of moolah in the year to come.

Following the countdown to the new year, we stepped outside into the brisk air to watch the fireworks all over the countryside. Being a hilly terrain, there’s no bad vantage point, and dozens of light shows were visible, including a few tame ones of our own bought with the groceries at the local supermarket. Then back we went inside to begin the games, a light-hearted indulgence of silly fun with adults and kids divided into 2 teams. When we left at 2:30 a.m. it was still going strong, and the tombola (bingo) boards – apparently a fixture at many Italian celebrations – had just been brought out.

All thoroughly enjoyable, I must say, not least because it was the kind of occasion where my patchy Italian was passable and intellectual conversation was restricted to the bare minimum (if that).

Maria and Julius left for Germany on the 1^st, and in the absence of a child in the house, Befana came and went without notice. Here, however, is the essence –

La Befana is a folklore character who visits all the children in Italy on the eve of 6 January, filling their socks with candy if they are good or a lump of coal if they are bad. She is usually portrayed as an old lady riding a broomstick through the air wearing a black shawl because she enters the children's houses through the chimney.

Her name is derived from a mispronunciation of the word "epiphany" upon which the legend is based. Apparently she turned down the 3 wise men to accompany them on their quest to find Jesus, and when she had a change of heart, she went after them but couldn't find them. And so she's still looking.

So there you have it. No snow, unfortunately, and so no white Christmas - I've never had one before, and so was hoping ... However, aside from a good dump of the stuff at the beginning of December, the snow's been restricted to the mountains. Now that Julius is back home, we shall have to take ourselves up there to enjoy the season's spoils - his Christmas and birthday presents: skiing lessons and a ride on his new sleds...

Driver's license

One of the unforeseen pleasures as a non-EU citizen residing in this wonderful country is that I have to get an Italian driver’s license. Now, having been a victim for over a year of the frenetic morass that is Italian driving, there are eminently reasonable grounds for thinking that licenses are secondary considerations, or at best “optional.” (See Italian driving for a first-hand account.)

Unfortunately, my thinking is flawed. Turns out the unsmiling carabinieri apparently take these things rather seriously, conducting spot checks on the main roads around here for licenses, registration, and insurance. Being caught without a valid license involves both a hefty fine, and even suspension of one’s license. Now it seems to me suspending a license might prove a little tricky if one doesn’t have one to begin with, but in a country that taxes potential income instead of actual earnings, anything’s possible.

I’m already driving illegally – my international license expired in September and the year’s grace from the issue of my residence was up two months ago – and so to avoid a run-in with the red-and-black caps of the stern and serious lawmen, I have to get my license. And I need to start as if I’ve never had one before, sitting a written test, and taking a practical driving test.

This is not only ignominious for a near-50 year old who’s been driving for 30 years, it’s also an exercise in supreme frustration. That’s because the sample tests that I’m studying suggest – and my driving instructor confirms – that the intent of the written test is to try and fail you.

The written test consists of 10 questions with 3 answers, each with a True-False option. Get more than 4 out of the 30 wrong, and you fail. Practicing with my book of 250 sample tests (each containing questions from the actual official tests), I routinely fail. Here’s why:

- “A holder of sub-category A1 driving license can drive up to 125-cc motorbikes with a maximum power of not more than 11kW.” Here’s the thing: I’m applying for the ‘B’ driving license, and have absolutely no intention of ever applying for an ‘A’ license, never mind sub-category ‘A1’. As for 11kW – you tell me how much power your car generates in kW.

- “Parking of vehicles or motorbikes is prohibited at or close to road signs.” What road signs – no parking? Unfortunately, “it depends” is not a valid answer.

- “When, at a junction in town, the vehicle in front does not set off when the road is clear, it is advisable not to sound your horn in order not to cause intolerance with other motorists.” True or False. Is what true or false? One almost needs a degree in logic just to wade through all the negatives. And if two “not’s” make a logical knot, what do 3 "not's" make?

- “Providing assistance to people injured in road accidents is compulsory because the law punishes hit-and-run drivers.” Huh? Is the ankle bone connected to the shin bone, or the finger? You tell me what the connection is.

- “This sign (a parking area one) indicates a parking area and may have a plate indicating times and charges.” Yes, I can see how knowing this vital bit of information would make me a responsible driver.

I should point out that thankfully the test is offered in English, a fairly recent development. The English employed, however, often requires one to read the Italian to understand it. This strikes me as being rather ironic. Some terms like the car’s “strangler” are clearly obvious (“choke” for those of the newer generation that never had to use one), but others like “having the right occupied” tend to induce something of a hazy fog in the brain, trying to imagine what it might mean. (Explanation: if your “right is occupied” you don’t have the right of way.) There are so many examples of this, the list is endless – “canalization lanes”, “central reservations”, “inverting your direction”, “lacrimation”, headlights aimed “mainly in depth”, and on and on.

I must say, though, that there seems to be a bit of tongue-in-cheek with some of them. For example:

- “Drinking alcohol affects driving because it makes driving more pleasant and less boring.” They say this is False, but I’d wager the local farmer who says Foligno is “18 Camparis from Tolentino” would contest their assertion.

Here’s one of my favourites:

- “When overtaking you must get as close as possible to the vehicle in front.” I hear that 99% of students mark this one “True”, and take it forward as the #1 rule of the road. (Once again, see Italian driving.)

Wry observation aside, however, this little parody is a microcosm of the Italian culture, at two levels.

First – Italians love to flaunt the rules, ignore them, slap them about, distort them, with a flair that is both enviable and irrational. At times they seem to take this deliberately to an absurd level, as in their driving, parking, etc. But I know it’s not deliberate, there’s actually some (questionable) reasoning behind it: if some of the rules don’t make sense, why bother working out which ones do – don’t obey any of them.

The second level of this little insight is best communicated in a simple mantra: It is how it is. Regardless of how inefficient, counterintuitive, or nonsensical “it” is (whatever “it” might be), it isn’t going to change. So shut up and get on with it. This insight is confirmed by my driving instructor: “What are you getting uptight about?” is his unspoken and underlying message when I rant at one of the mystifying translations or rules that could be my undoing in the driving test. “This is just how it is.”

I’m left wondering how, with the anal, impatient, stubborn slices of my character, I’m going to make it here. There’s a part of me that came here to get rid of those undesirable personal traits by immersing myself in a culture that, through its subtle, unmoved, and unflappable ways, will simply not put up with (or even notice) my raving.

As I'm learning, things - longstanding habits and tendencies included - change slowly.