LEARNING THE LINGO

I walk to the language school, which located at the top of those cliffs that define my little cove.  Here are some highlights of my walk.  I don't know how well you can see them, but there are some feral cats playing in the fishing nets that cover "who knows what".  These cats abound in this little fishing village.

There are 61 stops from the beach level to the top of the cliff.  As you can see from these pictures, there's quite an incline, and along the way, there are a couple of spots where you can catch your breath and pray to the Virgin Mary that you make it to the top!

Stop and pray.

The last stretch.

I’ve attended five 4-hour language classes, and talk about being lost.  The classes are taught completely in Italian, and we aren’t supposed to speak English at all (but we do a bit).  When we ask, “Cosa significa (Italian word/phrase)?”,  the instructor usually does a bit of pantomime herself to try to avoid giving us the English word.  That doesn’t work all the time.  There are only 3 other people in my class—a woman from England, another from Quebec, and a young man from Austria.  They are all here for only two weeks, so I’ll be meeting new classmates often.  Here's a picture of my first group of classmates.

All the teachers and administrators are quite young, and they dress very casually.  I was surprised that the instructors wear jeans most of the time.  Here's Nuncia, who I like very much.

I’m developing a bit of an ear for the language and can pick up parts of conversations….or so I thought until I tried talking to the plumber who came to fix a leaky toilet, increase the water pressure to more than a dribble, show me how to adjust the water temperature and how to run the mini size washing machine.  He was very patient when I finally turned to the language translator on my Kindle Fire and asked him to type in what he was trying to tell me.  The other three people in my class are more advanced than I am, but I’m hanging in there.  I can put sentences together better than I can understand what others are saying.  

The acoustics in the classrooms at the school are really poor—very high ceilings and no carpet, so there’s an echo when you speak loud.  I have trouble distinguishing what the instructor is saying when she speaks loudly.  When I ask, she willing tones it down, and then I do much better.  I love the instructor who leads our conversation class, but am a bit intimidated by the one who teaches us grammar.  We had a substitute teacher for that part for the last couple of days, and I much preferred her.   From what I can gather, we can expect instructors to rotate in and out.  

A woman I met at a meet-up group in Ann Arbor (for those of you who know her, it’s Janice Pearson) and her mother have been in Sorrento for a few days on their Italian tour.  We’ve had dinner twice and I think we’ve run into each other on the streets 4 times in the last five days.  Sorrento is a small town, but even so, I thought this was pretty extraordinary and so did they.  Old Sorrento is a charming place, with narrow streets lined with a bazillion shops.  There are several piazzas in Sorrento.  Here are a couple of shots from the largest one, where you can hire a carriage for an old-fashioned tour around the city.

It amazes me that people on Vespas are allowed to drive on the narrow streets of old Sorrento.  You see people from 16 to 76 zipping around on these little motorcycles, and they don't seem to follow any particular traffic rules.  You have to be alert at all times.  I’ve seen no stop lights here.  There are pedestrian crossings at intervals, but I’m told you need to be very sure that a driver will actually stop before you put a toe out.  The graveyard is apparently populated with people who assumed that the traffic would stop for them!  The streets in the old town are made of large stones, and sidewalks of small bricks, and walking can be hazardous when you’re on the part where there are large stones (like on the steps above).  It would be easy to turn your ankle.  

In the marina where I live, there is a bell tower that marks the time on the quarter hour (most of the time).  There are people outside socializing with each other and children playing until late in the evening, and one of the restaurants has live entertainment on Thursday evenings.  (Volare, oh, oh.)  So it’s very noisy at night.  Today a feral kitten decided to camp on the landing outside my apartment, and it is meowing constantly.  I didn’t have anything to feed to it, and I couldn’t get it to come close to me, but tomorrow I’ll look for some cat food if it's still around.  It may be hungry. There’s also a baby in the apartment above me that doesn’t like to go to sleep and protests by wailing for a half hour or so most nights….not very good sound proofing here.  I was happy to learn that Italians recycle paper, plastics, and glass, but not so delighted when the recycle truck picked up a collection of glass bottles right below my apartment at 1:30 a.m. this morning.  I think living in downtown Ann Arbor for the summer was good conditioning for me—I got used to noise. 

The married couple who have been my penpals for several months will be coming to Sorrento this weekend to meet me.  I’m just delighted that they’re going to extend themselves in this way.  They don't speak English, so I'll get lots of practice in conversational Italian, including, I'm sure, the gestures that enhance Italian communication.

La vita dolce!

LIVING WITH LESS....AND OTHER ADJUSTMENTS

(Written on 9-3-2012)

Those of you who have traveled abroad know how spoiled we are in the U.S. with conveniences and luxuries.  I love my apartment but here’s what I don’t have that is pretty standard at home:  a clothes dryer, a dishwasher, a microwave, air conditioning (nor a fan), Wifi in the apartment, good knives, and counterspace.   And while there are two televisions in this apartment, there is no cable service included in my rent. 

Those of you who know me well and have put up with my griping about the small amount of kitchen counterspace I had in my condo….well, that space would seem luxurious here.  

Going to a supermarket here is a bit like going to a country grocery store in the U.S.  There are 3 or 4 central isles, a very small produce section on one side, a fresh meat/dairy section on the opposite wall, and deli meats/cheeses, and higher end butcher cuts of meat at the back.  Of course, all the product information is in Italian, so you just have to guess what some things are.  On my first trip there, I was able to find everything but butter.  Because there are so few brand choices here, it’s possible to miss a major item like butter.  I also couldn’t find Kleenex.  I did buy some on my second trip, and here, they are somewhat like our napkins.   

There is nothing here like a Walmart or Meijers.  There are specialty shops for everything.  Today, I wanted to buy hand lotion, so I stopped at a pharmacy.  I pantomimed what I wanted to one of the clerks, and she gave me body wash.  The clerk at the register must have overheard, because he asked me if it was hand cream I wanted, so I did walk out with the lotion.  I also wanted to buy an adaptor for my computer, so I had to find an electrical shop.  The hours of the shops are very different.  They are open from 9 or 10 to 1:15 p.m. or so.  Then they close until 5 p.m. and stay open until 9 p.m.  This is not true of all shops, but the service shops, like pharmacies, telephone stores, electrical shops, etc. seem to operate on these hours.  The shops that sell clothes and gift items items of interest to tourists are pretty much open from 10 a.m. to 9 p.m., as are most restaurants and food shops.

I stopped at the post office, and the mode of entry to the building is quite unique.  Only one person can enter at a time.  A glass door slides open and you step into a glassed in area.  The door behind you closes and then the one in front of you opens.  This is a scanning process for security purposes--they must have had someone "go postal" here, too.  Then you have to select one of four options on a kiosk, and it spits out a numbered ticket.  When you see that number appear above the station of one of the several clerks, you get served.  Of course, my limited Italian didn't help me to know what button to push and I selected the wrong option.  I got my stamps anyway from a nice clerk who took pity on me.  There were others who just ignored my obvious confusion and avoided eye contact with me.  (Some things are the same in all countries, I guess.)

I finally found out how I can access the Internet from my apartment without signing up for a service.  Some of you may know that you can purchase a device that looks something like a memory stick and fits into a UBS port—it allows you so many megawhatevers of internet time.   The one I purchased today will be usable tomorrow, so I can start posting here more regularly.  Now I just need to figure out how to download pictures from my cell phone (believe it or not, I’m now the owner of a smart phone!) to my computer.  The instructions are in Italian—no English ones available I’m told, but can’t believe it—and my intuitive powers have never worked on electronic devices. 

Fortunately, I’m an adaptable creature and have taken all these cultural differences in stride.  I beginning to feel a little confident in my ability to navigate this town, and like the locals, I’m looking forward to the end of the busy tourist season in mid-September, so the streets aren’t so crowded.  

Living the Dream

SONO ARRIVATO!   (I HAVE ARRIVED).  

First, let me offer my condolences to anyone who has to travel internationally for their job.  What an uncomfortable journey it was.  Toledo to Chicago….no problem.  Chicago to Madrid…met two very lovely young women….one was headed to Torino, Italy to spend a year as an au pere to 7 month old twin girls and their eight year old brother.    The other was headed to Seville, Spain to study Spanish for a semester.  Comfort level on plane…..minus 4.  No leg room, and the woman in front of me had her seat reclined for 90% of the flight.  Madrid Airport….by the time I got off the plane, I had one hour to get to the gate for my flight to Naples.   You have to be part mountain goat to navigate this airport.  Just getting from the plane to the concourse was a seemingly endless uphill incline from ground level to level 3.  Then a llllloooonnnnngggg walk to the terminal, then a series of escalators that eventually led to customs officials.  Went through quickly….wouldn’t have needed that ticket to Cork  Then more escalators down to a train that took several minutes to get to the concourse where my flight was departing.  Then another llllooonnnggg walk.  All this time, I’m lugging around two bags with no wheels (that’s another story…bad luggage decisions).  All this took 50 minutes.  I slept on the 2 hour flight from Madrid to Naples.  After whacking my head on the hand dryer in the Naples gabinetti per signore, I found my luggage and my driver and enjoyed a relaxing drive with breathtaking views all the way to Sorrento, where I slept all afternoon.  Ate my first fresh sardines for dinner last night.  Yum....very different from the canned ones.  Then I slept 12 hours.  I think I'm caught up now on my sleep.

A wonderful realization came to me as I was strolling the narrow streets of old Sorrento this afternoon.   I don’t have to rush to see this place.  I can explore at leisure, which is a luxury I have never enjoyed, and I think most of us don’t in our short vacations here and there.  I’m really looking forward to that.  Another realization.  Everyone here speaks English!!!   My driver said I picked a bad place for learning Italian, because most residents here work in the tourist industry and are quite fluent in English.  No matter….they know how to speak Italian, right?  

Will post some pictures next time....if I can figure out how to do it.  I think I left my instruction book back home (where is that?)  I move into my apartment tomorrow and start language school on Monday.

Arrividerci for now!

Be Still, Crazy Head

Okay, getting this blog set up wasn't all that hard, except I want it to look pretty.  I have no idea how to do that, but I hope it is revealed to me in the near future.  In the meantime, it'll look pretty boring.  Bear with me.  

(I need to get my fingernails cut, because I'm making mistakes on almost every word!)

This will be a short entry, because of the fingernail problem, and because I'm still in the U.S., preparing to leave for Italia on August 29.  I arrive in Naples on August 30, where I will search for the driver who will deposit me in a lovely hotel in old Sorrento, on the Amalfi Coast.  There I'll luxuriate for 2 days, until I can move into my apartment, which, who knows, could be a dump.  It does, however, have a balcony with a view to the sea, so I can tolerate a little dumpiness for that.  One of my first pictures will be the view from my balcony.  

Most of you know that I couldn't get a visa, so I'll be applying for a residence permit and throwing myself to the mercy of the Italian immigration officials.  I have a ticket to Cork, Ireland in hand, should the permit be denied.  I'll stay there until I can return to Italy.  I loved Ireland when I was there, and, although I hope I can stay in Italy, this is not the worst scenario one could imagine.

My sister from California is arriving today for a week's visit, so I will happily spend a few days with my family before I leave.  My head is spinning with last minute details, but I wear myself out enough with the spinning to be able to sleep at night.  A great comfort.

Summer in Ann Arbor has been lovely.  I could easily live here.  My next entry will be from Sorrento, Italy and you will see the beauty of the coast I will enjoy daily for 3 months.  Lucky, lucky me!

Ciao!