Second Host Family

My horrible cell phone photo of the beautiful view from my new host family's country houseDuring my stay here in Italy I am with two families. I spent one month (5 weeks, actually) with a family in Montecosaro Scalo, and yesterday I moved in with my new family in Civitanova Marche. I will be with them for the remainder of my stay here in Italy – until the 2^nd of May.

I was a little sad to leave my first family. We have become very close and I greatly enjoyed spending time with them and was comfortable in their home. My host mother reminded me a great deal of my own mother, and it made the stay in their home quite easy.

My new host family is, of course, very different – but I find I am also incredibly comfortable with them too. My first day was a little rough, though through no fault of anyone’s except perhaps my own. On my last night with my first host family we went out to eat at their neighbor’s seafood restaurant and enjoyed quite the feast. We had seafood from all over the Mediterranean and had quite a good time.

However, when I was young I was allergic to almost all seafood. A single bite of shrimp could have me sick for hours. Thankfully, as I got older, I outgrew my allergies and I slowly began – very timidly – trying all different kinds of seafood to see what I could and could not eat as I got older. Now, at 25 years of age, I can eat nearly everything – except octopus and scallops. I don’t know why, especially considering I can eat squid and all sorts of other shellfish, but octopus and scallops make me sicker than a dog.

During our seafood feast I was well aware that there was octopus on the table, and attempted to keep my distance. However, after the wine started flowing the merriment began, I must have lost track – because I had a horribly unpleasant Friday night. So, sadly, on Saturday morning when I was due to meet my new family, I wasn’t exactly at my fullest capacity for perkiness.

I managed to put on a cheery face (I hope), but all the while my stomach was roiling. It was a very long day of getting acquainted with the family and meeting some of their friends, including a dinner which included delicious food but a little too much chaos at a lovely restaurant. I felt like I was about to keel over by the time we finally made it back to the house last night.

Thankfully, this morning I was finally feeling like myself and was able to interact with the family as I normally would. I’m greatly enjoying spending time with all of them and getting to know their routines and habits. The youngest daughter is a ball of energy and totally adorable. The elder daughter is very sweet and almost fluent in English (a total Godsend). The mother and father are also super nice and accommodating. I know that the next two months with them will be great. Their house is in an amazing location – a mere 200 yards from the Adriatic Sea and only a short 2km (1.5 miles) to the center of Civitanova Marche. The area is totally beautiful.

Drive by wild asparagus foragingToday we ventured out to the family’s “country house” near Civitanova Alta. It was complete bliss. I grew up in a fairly rural area and have a total soft spot for family farms. I absolutely loved this place. They have their own garden, olive tree orchard, chickens, rabbits, and the two cutest little rustic houses/kitchens ever. It’s simplistic and rustic, but lovely. They have a mind-blowing view of Civitanova Alta and the Adriatic Sea. The awful cell-phone photo at the top of this post doesn’t even remotely do it justice.

As we were driving along the gravel road to the house, Mariella explained to me that people were all about because it was wild asparagus season. As we drove along, Angelo pointed out to me the wild asparagus plant – which looked totally foreign to me – and then stopped at one point and picked a small stem. I was completely overjoyed. I absolutely love the idea of foraging for wild foods – and wild asparagus? Yes, please! If I have even the slightest opportunity to forage for some wild asparagus while I’m here you can bet your buttons I’ll be out there as quick as can be. When I lived in California I took a class on foraging for wild mushrooms, but I haven’t tried it on my own because it’s crazy dangerous. Picking the wrong mushroom can literally kill you. But I haven’t yet heard of an asparagus that causes a horrible, painful death. Sign me up!

After that I got to meet the youngest daughter’s pet rabbit, Lola. She was unimaginably soft and totally adorable. I love rabbits – both as pets and well….you know. They’re tasty, what can I say?!

All in all, it was a lovely day. I got to spend some quality time with my new host parents and drink some lovely wines. Honestly, after drinking a shocking amount of wine today and not really feeling any effects, I’m starting to wonder if I’m turning into an Italian?! We had good conversation – and are starting to understand each other’s language more and more with each conversation.

Lola, the pet rabbitI really enjoyed the comfortableness I had achieved with my first family. By the time I left we were communicating easily and had gotten to know each other very well. I thought I would miss that when I left – and I do – but meeting and learning about a new family is very fun. And I know that this experience will be all the better for spending time with both families.

International Women's Day (Festa della Donna)

One of the many reasons I wanted to participate in this project was to be able to view the world from another culture’s perspective. Italy isn’t particularly exotic or bizarre, but it offers enough difference to reassess my own ideas and perceptions about the world. One of the things I didn’t expect was to learn new things about my own country.

One of the most recent new things I discovered was International Women’s Day. The other night we were all eating dinner and Maria Carla, my host mom, mentioned that on Thursday she would be going out with her girlfriends for the Festa delle Donna. A fellow language tutor (her blog here) and I at first thought she just meant a girl’s night out – we have those all the time. Through more interpretation and translation, we discovered that this is a day of some significance to Italians, not a simple “girl’s night.”

The family said that the holiday remembers a group of women who were killed in a factory fire. I immediately thought of the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire of 1911 in New York City. I thought it was slightly bizarre to set aside a holiday, or at least a day of remembrance, for an event that transpired in a different country over 100 years ago – even tragic as it was.

When we were heading to school this morning, Fabio, my host dad, presented Maria Carla, Chiara, and myself with a stem of mimosas (proper name, Silver Wattle). I made a joke that I prefer my mimosa’s in a glass, and didn’t really think much more of it. At school, however, little girls and boys kept presenting every woman or girl in sight with little stems of poufy, yellow flowers and the occasional chocolate.

It was all very sweet, and the young girls in particular were surprised that I had never heard of “Women’s Day” nor did we celebrate it in the United States. We had a brief discussion in one class about the different holidays we have in the US and Italy, though we have many more in common than different.

Flowers from my studentsWhen I got home I decided that I needed to know more about this supposed “celebration of women.” I consider myself to be an at least moderately enlightened, empowered woman – how could I possibly be ignorant of something that sounds so profound as International Women’s Day?

And, apparently, incredibly ignorant I am.

International Women’s Day is recognized on the 8^th of March. It was first celebrated as National Women’s Day in the United States after its proposal by the Socialist Party of America. Inspired by the Americans, German Socialist Luise Zietz proposed an international day of recognition for women, though a specific date was not yet selected. One year later, on March 18, 1911 more than one million women in Austria, Denmark, Germany, and Switzerland marked International Women’s Day. The women used demonstrations to demand the right to vote, to decry sexual harassment, and to honor martyrs.

Lenin eventually made it a recognized holiday in the Soviet Union, but it remained a working day until 1965. On May 8, 1965 the Soviet Union declared it a national, non-working holiday “in commemoration of the outstanding merits of Soviet women in communistic construction, in the defense of their Fatherland during the Great Patriotic War, in their heroism and selflessness at the front and in the rear, and also marking the great contribution of women to strengthening friendship between peoples, and the struggle for peace.” (Source)

An International Women's Day poster from 1914 GermanySince then the holiday has largely been celebrated in socialist and communist countries. In 1949, China declared that they would henceforth mark the holiday by giving women a half-day off of work on March 8^th. In 1977 the United Nations invited it’s participating members to mark March 8^th as the UN Day for Women’s Rights and International Peace.

On March 8^th, 2011, President Barack Obama declared March Women’s History Month and called on all Americans to recognize the great women in our past who have helped to build and shape our nation (where was I last March?).

IWD has maintained a rather strong political agenda throughout much of the world. Many demonstrations on March 8^th are to call attention to the particular injustices that women face throughout the world – whether it’s discrimination, sexual violence, political disenfranchisement, or other social and physical ills.

The resurgence of International Women’s Day in the United States in the last few years draws correlations to current injustices with those of the 146 women who died in the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire in 1911. The women were garment workers in a factory, sewing blouses. They endured inhumane, degrading working conditions for extremely long hours. On March 25^th, 1911 a fire broke out. Because the factory owners had chained the doors shut to prevent women from taking breaks or leaving early, and the firefighter’s ladders were too short to reach the 8^th, 9^th, and 10^th floors of the building in which they worked, within 20 minutes all 146 women had either burned alive or thrown themselves onto the pavement below. Their ages ranged from 14 to 48 years old and most were European immigrants.

This event spurred unionization and compelled government officials to create much more strict regulations for the working conditions of factory employees.

Mimosas from FabioIn recent years International Women’s Day has had themes. In 2010 the International Committee of the Red Cross called on the world to recognize the hardships of displaced women and the particular adversities they face. In 2011 the ICRC pressed for awareness of the rape and sexual violence that still takes place against women with alarming regularity throughout the world. This year, 2012, is themed for empowering women through ending hunger and poverty.

In some countries it is still marked with political demonstrations and rallies, but here in Italy it has become more of a day to celebrate the women in your life – similar to Mother’s Day. The men present women with gifts of mimosa flowers and sometimes chocolate. Many women gather for “girls only” dinners with their friends. In the schools it appears a day where the female students just feel happy to be female and singled out for appreciation all day long. A simple, but sweet notion I can admire. Sometimes it can be hard to just be happy being female.

I am heartily surprised that I had no clue about this holiday – and in fact a bit ashamed considering it began in the United States and has apparently been in the news. Hell, I lived in Washington DC on March 8^th, 2011 and had no idea there was even a rally in town. To be fair, I likely had my nose buried in a textbook, but still.

I like this holiday though, and think there can’t really be too much recognition of the brave women who sacrificed so much before me so that I can have the rights I hold today. To look at countries like Saudi Arabia and know that women there still can’t even legally drive completely blows my mind.

So, in recognition of International Women’s Day, turn to the women in your life and say thank you. Thank you for being kind, thank you for being patient, thank you for being a strong, wonderful, amazing woman.

Florence

View from Piazzale MichelangeloOne of the benefits of the program in which I am participating is that they don’t work you to death. You work an average of 15-20 hours per week and the rest of the time is yours. I say that’s a pretty fair deal for room and board.

Right now there are several of us in the Marche region working either with schools or family. In the Montecosaro/Civitanova area alone there are at least 6 of us, varying in age from 21 to 66. Four of us decided to travel to Florence this last weekend and enjoyed some beautiful weather and amazing sightseeing.

I was the only one who had already been to Florence, albeit only for a couple of days last year. I was surprised at just how well I remembered where most of the landmarks were and was able to guide us around fairly easily (assisted by the always amazing Google Maps on my cell phone).

View of the Arno and Florence from near our hotelWe were able to hop a direct bus line from Civitanova Marche to Firenze for only €54 roundtrip (about $72). It was only about 4 ½ hour ride and we were dropped right in the heart of the city at the autobus station (next to the Santa Maria Novella train station). Some of us were on a tighter budget than others, so I booked one of the least expensive rooms in the city at the Hotel Crocini.

All of the lamposts along the Arno have these feetEven better feet at Piazzale Michelangelo

 I wasn’t really sure what to expect, considering it was only about €50 per night in the historic district of Florence, but it turned out to be the perfect place to rest our heads in between sightseeing jaunts. It was only about a 1km walk from the station (½  mile), less than a block from the banks of the Arno river, two blocks from the American Embassy, and less than a 20 minute walk to even the farthest landmarks.

American Embassy in FlorenceSpeaking of the American Embassy, it was kind of surprising. As we were walking to our hotel we noticed lots of Italian military milling about and several of the streets were blocked off. When we got to our hotel we asked the guy at the front desk if there was something going on – some kind of police action or major event – and he said no, it’s just for our embassy. No one can drive within a block of it and it’s guarded at all times. Apparently those security measures are in place for American entities all over the world.

I could wax on about how I feel about that and how long it takes for Italian guards to react to tourists with cameras, but I won’t. Suffice it to say that I think it’s weird that Italians are guarding an American institution.

The Ponte VecchioWe were just a ten minute walk down the Arno from the Ponte Vecchio and enjoyed some divine gelato once we got there. Gelato is almost always good, as anyone who’s visited Italy would know. But in Florence, it’s just…better. I don’t know if they do something differently from other regions or if they’ve just been honing their craft longer, but it’s out-of-this-world good. I’d been looking forward to returning to one specific place for some pistachio gelato and was very happy to arrive and find it just as I remembered it.

After the Ponte Vecchio we wandered over to the Piazza della Signoria, the giant square filled with statues that flanks the Uffizi. There’s a replica of the David, as well as many other statues like Perseus holding the head of Medusa. We never did make it into the Uffizi – getting tickets was nearly impossible and the lines were hours long, but we will make it a priority next time we go back.

The UffiziPerseus and Medusa....or at least part of herAfter the Piazza della Signoria we made it over to the Basilica di Santa Croce, one of my favorite areas in the historic center of Florence. They charge to get into the church and were being rather stingy with the tickets, but I managed to sneak a few shots of the courtyard through a particularly nice wrought-iron door anyways. 

Basilica di Santa CroceFellow language tutor and I

 I also fell in love with a  woman’s watercolor paintings of Tuscany. She had set up a little display of her work in front of the basilica and I just couldn’t pass them up. I snatched a monochromatic piece for a paltry €25. Seriously. An original watercolor for around $40 US. Amazing.

We were getting pretty hungry at that point, so we stopped at a café and had dinner outside . It turned out to be a little more expensive than anyone wanted, but it was delicious so we tried not to complain too much. There’s not much you can do for bargain hunting in the historic (read: tourist-filled) sections of Florence. I had a handmade pappardelle with a wild boar ragu. Pretty tasty – though I think it might have made me sick.

Sunset on the ArnoI woke up on Friday morning with a scratchy throat. I thought it might have been from a mild bout of heartburn after spicy pizza on Thursday night, but as Friday went on it got progressively worse and worse. By the time we made it to the Basilica di Santa Croce, my voice was almost completely gone and I was coughing and hacking like a lung was going to pop out at any minute. I was determined to not let a little sickness get in the way of a good time, so I soldiered on – although I did inform my travel partners that were I to actually cough up a lung, they were obliged to keep it on ice for me.

Watercolor I bought at Basilica di Santa CroceHowever, just an hour or so after eating dinner I started experiencing some rather unpleasant gastric rumblings reminiscent of my last stay in Rome – where I got some particularly brutal food poisoning that required the care of a doctor. I decided the smart thing to do was to go back to my hotel and rest. My travel partners went exploring on their own for the rest of the evening and I crawled into bed and hoped that by Saturday morning I would once again feel human. Cue a fever, chills, and all sorts of other unpleasantness – Friday night was not kind to me.

When Saturday morning rolled around I was feeling a bit better. I managed to kick my fever and my gastro-distress, but the throat issue was still out in full force. I wasn’t willing to let it ruin my weekend or my friends’ though, so off we went to explore.

Learning my Italian gestures - very niceThe more I travel, the more I recognize the necessity of some of the more touristy features of large cities. My preferred method of parsing a new area is to very quickly bang out all of the touristy places, get the requisite photos, do the cheesy poses, and whatnot – and then spend the majority of my time just wandering around backstreets and seeing the city as the locals do. One of the easiest ways to accomplish that in a short, weekend-long visit is to utilize the hop-on, hop-off tour buses. They are cheesy and ridiculous and utterly touristy, but they are an effective means of transport around a large area filled with historical attractions and landmarks. Plus they have a little box at each seat you can plug your headphones into to get an audio guide to each landmark you see on the tour.

In Florence the sightseeing buses have two routes. One has a smaller loop that hits the majority of the landmarks and stops at each spot every thirty minutes or so on weekends, every 60 minutes during the week. You can get on or off as many times as you like within a 48-hour period. The other loop is more like a tour. It runs three times per day on weekends and has a much longer route, leaving the city at one point to venture up the hills into Fiesole. You can get on or off as you like, similar to the other route, but it’s not really meant for such. We rode the entire length of the tour-route, complete with a 30 minute break in Fiesole for a glance through the small market and a lovely cappuccino. Then we grabbed a quick lunch at a trattoria near the Mercato Centrale and hopped onto the other bus route.

View from the road to Galileo's houseOur first venture off the bus was to the very famous Piazzale Michelangelo that overlooks the city. We got plenty of photos, both of the city and us goofing around. We then took a walk down the hill to see the house in which Galileo was imprisoned until his death. There were some nice views to be had along the walk, but it was longer than any of us were expecting and I wasn’t feeling so hot by this time. Thankfully we arrived at a stop for the sightseeing bus just a moment before it was scheduled to arrive, so we hopped back on to rest for a bit. 

Antique brass candle holder I bought in FiesoleI was just about down for the count because of my health issues, so I got off the bus at the stop closest to my hotel and went back to rest for a few hours. My travel partners went off sightseeing on their own and had a nice time.

Later that night two of us walked just a few dozen yards to Il Conte Mascetti, a restaurant that serves the famous Bistecca di Fiorentina – a behemoth piece of meat that makes the Flintstone’s look positively vegetarian. It’s spendy, about €45 for the two- to three-person steak, but it is so incredibly worth it. It was easily one of the best steaks I have ever had in my entire life. It was meltingly tender, cooked perfectly rare, and seasoned with those great big chunks of sale grosso everyone in Italy seems to love so much. The server was a little snooty, in my opinion, but the food was good (aside from the overwhelmingly salty side of spinach) and it was extremely close to our hotel. I’m glad we splurged on the steak – it was definitely an experience to remember. I definitely enjoy traveling with someone who appreciate the culinary side of a city – what better way to enjoy a new place than to eat the foods for which they are famous?

Sunday morning we traipsed over to the Piazza della Signoria to see if there was a chance at getting into the Uffizi – no such luck. The line was enormous. No thanks, I didn’t come to Florence to stand in line. Instead we bought some more art in the square. My friend got a piece for her parents and I bought a small, original watercolor (very different style from my other piece) as a gift for a certain someone who counts Florence as one of her all-time favorite places (she knows who she is).

Then we headed over to this little wine shop in a tiny little street near the Ponte Vecchio. One of my travel partners had been wandering around by herself the night before and stumbled across a violinist and a pianist practicing for a matinee concert the next day. They invited her back for the show, and we couldn’t pass it up.  We ended up in the tiny little shop, listening to essentially a private concerto by two very gifted musicians, and sampling some beautiful sparkling wines.

After the show my friend and I got to chatting with the two musicians and they invited us along for lunch at a local restaurant. It’s this little hole in the wall, family-style place called Trattoria Nella where we had some of the most amazing pasta I’ve ever had – in Italy or otherwise. It was a handmade tagliatelle with tartufo, or truffles. It was topped with grated grana padano, one of my favorite hard cheeses. It was….divine. There’s really no other way to say it. If you know how much I like truffles, you know how much I savored every last bite of that black truffle cream sauce.

My friend and I had a great time – sitting in an obscure, family restaurant in the backstreets of Florence filled with solely Florentines (aside from ourselves, obviously), chatting with two musicians, the proprietor of the wine shop in which the concerto was held, and some of their Italian friends. It was an amazing experience and definitely the best possible way we could have ended our stay in Florence.

We’re already planning our next trip back to see more of the countryside. Now this is the Italy I’ve been looking for.

Mozzarella in Civitanova

There are few things more quintessentially Italian than Mozzarella cheese. It is so highly appreciated and desired that much of it even maintains a Denominazione di origine controllata (DOC), or protected geographical status in English. This is similar to Roquefort or Champagne – only products produced in that area and with a specific method and ingredients can be labeled as such.

Here in Civitanova, a lovely man named Giuseppe runs one of the only places in this region that makes fresh mozzarella every day. He hails from Puglia, and spent thirty years there making cheese. One year ago he opened Le Bonta’ del Latte in Civitanova and has been gracing the residents with his divine dairy creations ever since.

Now, in the United States I’m not a huge fan of mozzarella, especially the fresh kind. It’s kind of a flavorless lump that adds nothing of value to most dishes. I’d much rather use a nice tallegio or fontina to top a pizza than the bland junk that passes as fresh mozzarella at home.

Knottini just a few minutes after completionHere in Italy, however, it is an art – and one best served fresh. Very fresh. Made that day or it’s not worth eating fresh. And, as I found out last Saturday, eating it a few minutes after it is made will inspire heart palpitations and declarations of undying love for the region of Puglia and it’s cheesemakers.

Mozzarella, like most things worth eating and appreciating, is rather simple to make. In fact, it’s one of the easiest cheeses for novices to attempt at home, right after ricotta. What it requires for greatness, however, is a high-level of quality of its main ingredient – milk – and a few decades of experience doesn’t hurt either.

After arranging it the prior week, we arrived at the shop around 8:30 am to watch Giuseppe work his alchemy. He had already worked long enough to create the separation of curds and whey and was carefully stretching and manipulating the curds into a silky, creamy mass. Much of the transformation occurs with quick changes in temperature of water. Moving it from one bath to another shocks the curds, then Giuseppe caringly stirs the mixture with his hands, then with the handle of a large wooden paddle, and then works it over the paddle itself.

After he gets it to the precise consistency he desires, he forms it into a large number of different shapes. He takes small pieces and ties them into a granny knot to make knottini. Or he’ll smooth and squeeze the cheese into great big balls, or tiny little bocconcini. He braids some, then stretches even more into great big strips, perfect for making straciatella, the creamy, stringy, probably-literally-heart-stopping-goodness that is a combination of cheese and heavy cream.

Braids and knottini

Stretching for straciatella

Mozzarella elephantI think we all would agree that our favorite was the mozzarella elefante he shaped for us. Seriously. Cheese animals. This guy is amazing.

The process is simple enough, but watching Giuseppe work his craft was truly amazing. He takes pride in his craft and it shows – the mozzarella he offered us just moments after it was finished was one of the best foods I have ever eaten in my entire life. Watching him methodically manipulate the cheese from a craggy mess into a silky smooth, perfectly salted mozzarella was cathartic in its own way. I truly felt honored to be invited into his store and to watch him work.

Giuseppe makes the mozzarellaI eat the mozzarellaIn fact, when I move to my next host family in two weeks or so, I’ll be close enough to pop over whenever I want. And Giuseppe, amazing person that he is, invited me to start in the early morning with him to actually help make the cheese with him. Mozzarella might be a fairly simple cheese to make, but learning from a true Italian artisan? Talk about an experience worth more than gold.

Nelle ultime 24 ore ...

List of awesome things that happened in the last 24 hours:

• Partied in an Italian nightclub
• Got free drinks all night long
• Woke up without a hangover (almost)
• Watched a man with 30 years of experience make mozzarella by hand in his shop
• Got to eat said mozzarella 2 minutes after completion
• Got to buy said mozzarella for dinner
• Got all sorts of other amazing goodness for a feast from Puglia compliments of my host mom, Maria Carla
• Was invited to return to the shop to actually make the mozzarella with the  owner and craftsman at a future date
• Enjoyed beautiful, sunny weather while walking around the weekly mercado in Civitanova
• Found a great cardigan, hat, and scarf for only €12 total at said market
• Took an amazing nap and woke up fully rested, not groggy
• Had a delicious feast composed almost entirely of foods from the region of Puglia
• Spoke equally in Italian and English at dinner with my host family and fellow language tutors
• Found out my mother-in-law received my degree in the mail today
• Toasted the final part of my graduation with friends and new members of family with an AMAZING bottle of Spumante compliments of Fabio
• Getting ready to go to sleep so that we can go eat lunch tomorrow with Fabio’s awesome parents.

I’m seriously loving Italy. The only bad part is that I miss my husband like crazy. But, it only makes it that much sweeter when I finally get to see him again.

 So here’s to an amazing day. Buonanotte!