before, they live in Pordenone, a small city about an hour from
Venice, and Cinzia is here until August 20th, when she's returning to
Richmond. Anyhow, they've been incredibly hospitable. (Side note: the
Italians are some seriously hospitable people; looking back, Marco
didn't know me outside of like two e-mails before his family agreed to
host me, and yet they did SO much to make me comfortable--way more
than I needed, honestly! His parents invited me to Sardegna in August,
and Marco and Francesco won't even be going there with them. I
wouldn't impose again so soon regardless, but anyhow I already have
plans in Spain and Morocco. By the way, Carrie, when I said I would be
with a friend in Spain, they invited you too. Haha the Italians really
are some of the best people in the world.)
Anyhow, Pordenone is small, not particularly exceptional, but
comfortable and a bit quaint nonetheless. Cinzia doesn't think it's
anything exceptional either, so I'm not being ungrateful. And Cinzia's
family lives in a more rural area, outside the town itself. They have
a vegetable garden, some cows, and I believe they make the wine we've
been drinking with dinner every night from their own small vineyard.
During the weekdays, Cinzia's nephew, Pietro, has been here, as well.
Her parents watch him while her brother and sister-in-law work. He's
three years old, and while he isn't in the least bit quiet or timid,
he refuses to talk to me. He talks ABOUT me, though. I suppose I am
something of a big, strange foreigner. But I don't think he dislikes
me, because he told Cinzia where he wanted everyone to sit at lunch,
and he sat me across from him. He just doesn't want to TALK to me.
Cinzia took me to Venice Saturday (see my first post), and Sunday we
relaxed and took a bike ride around the Italian countryside. It was
beautiful, even though it made me miss my bike. Monday we went to
Trieste, and Trieste I REALLY liked. It's a beautiful city, but it's
not so touristy. It feels lived in. It's a port city, like Genova,
which I loved last year, and it has a pretty unique vibe, because it
hasn't always been under Italian dominion. It was part of the
Austro-Hungarian Empire until the end of World War I, if my history is
correct, and so it's more accurately "mitteleuropea"--central
European--than Italian. To those who visit Trieste, I recommend that
you dress fairly well. Trieste and its people are both well-taken care
of, and while I didn't look BAD, you might feel a bit more in sync
with the slow, comfortable, elegant pace of the city. Today Cinzia
showed me around a few small, local towns. I'm not going to go into
detail on them all, but suffice it to say that there are a lot of
beautiful things to be overlooked from the big city tours, and there
are also some places even in Italy that are somewhat anonymous.
Staying in Pordenone has been a bit strange for me, however, because
right on the route to and from town is Aviano--the first American
military base I've seen in Italy. The base is like a gated community.
They have housing complexes, a supermarket, and even (according to
Cinzia, but it isn't visible from the road), a Taco Bell. It seems to
me that most of the Americans here keep themselves pretty isolated,
and so the base makes me kind of uncomfortable. Cinzia told me that a
lot of the Americans used to live outside the base or leave the base
to interact a bit more with the community, but it doesn't seem like
they do all that much anymore. To me, it furthers the stereotype that
Americans have no interest in or respect for other cultures or
countries, which is a stereotype that negatively affects a lot of
American travelers. I haven't had any real problems myself--although I
once received a backhanded remark simultaneously complimenting my
Italian and insulting my nationality--but I know a lot of Americans
who claim to be Canadian when they go abroad to avoid scorn or an
unpleasant reception. However, there are exceptions. Some families
whose assignments are more permanent live off-base, and apparently
some of Pietro's classmates at preschool are American. He has an
American friend who speaks English, but he wouldn't tell me his
friend's name.
I'm almost done with Catch 22, which I positively love, and I'm
simultaneously reading a translation of one of my FAVORITE books, The
Great Gatsby (Il grande Gatsby), that I bought after much
deliberation--that is, I read the first page of three different
translations to decide which best preserved the tone and beauty of the
English original, and I'm happy with my selection. I'm halfway done,
and I'm becoming more comfortable with some of the
less-frequently-used Italian tenses, and I'm picking up some new
vocabulary to boot, and I have a pretty cool and unique souvenir to
bring home from Italy. That, and I'm going to buy some Italian coffee
for my moka pot.
Tomorrow I fly from Venice to Sicily, where I'm intending to see (in
eight days) Palermo, Catania, Taormina, Messina, the beach, Mt. Etna,
Siracusa, and maybe more. One step at a time: find my way from Palermo
airport to my hostel.
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