Socks with sandals: Just another Myers Family Vacation

Between exam season, Italian earthquakes, and hoards of directionally-challenged tourists, the Myers family managed to survive their Italian adventure. Back in August (as my mom likes to fondly reflect on), my dad was sticking to his "there's no way we're all going to Italy, that's ridiculous" story. Who would have thought that I'd be meeting my parents and sisters for the first time in ten months at the Mcdonalds in Termini Station in Rome.
Between my mom's determination to interview every single gelato shop we went into and my dad's insistence that no meal can be enjoyed unless it's eaten outside, I'll admit it was a little stressful. Traveling family style is pretty different from the 10 euro hostel and bread and cheese dinners I was used too. But, in the end, I am so grateful that I was able to share this experience with them. We started in Rome, then hit Florence, Cinque Terre, Bologna and ended in Venice. I'll relate some details using a few of the gajillion photos that my mom insisted on taking:

Good ol' Ricky Poo. Rick Steves (travel guide extraordinaire) was our sixth travel buddy. There's only so much I know about the Forum and and Michelangelo's David. Occasionally, we would pause for mini-lessons with Rick. My sisters would pretend to listen while they took ridiculous photos of themselves, my dad would make "that's nifty!" comment, and it would all be followed by my mom's ever-inquisitive "so this must be how it relates to everything else you've ever learned" spiel.

 Second night in Rome and there were already problems. We showed up at a restaurant where I had made reservations buuuuut they gave us an inside table. My sisters and I all tried to hide awkwardly in the back as my dad proceeded to insist on an outdoor table, threaten to leave, then get people who were halfway through their meal to move over and make room for us. To be fair, dad, the meal was actually better outside.

So, yeah, many of these pictures focus on food. We ate very well in Italy. Who knew! Here Lilly and I are enjoying a Florentine steak. They season it with just salt and cook it for about 30 seconds on each side. It was big enough to feed five and is the only steak that I can truly say has melted in my mouth.

One of our best meals was in a restaurant on the cliff side in Cinque Terre. Here we have our waiter, Paolo, cleaning the fish of the day. Highlight of this meal: the gelato with caramelized strawberries on top. My dad would probably say the view.

The start of our Cinque Terre hike. Parts of the trail were closed do to the mudslide so we ending up walking about four kilometers actually up into the mountains. Olivia's Urban Outfitter sneakers were not prepared for that. Lilly and I ended up stripping out of our leggings around a corner in front of as sanctuary to the virgin Mary. I did the last stretch by myself while everyone else took the train.

 Dinner with the Longo's. This was an experience. They wanted my family to try all the bolognese food. It was a four hour meal consisting of tagliatelle bolognese followed by lasagna. At this point we're all full and actually have to take a break from the table to get air. Then came the tortelloni in broth followed by a meat plate with prosciutto and mortadella. I thought Olivia was going to just drop her head into her plate and sleep. Then came a big bowl of fresh cherries and a cookie cake thing that you dip in dessert wine. There was (of course) new wine for every course and special fizzy water to help with digestion. We all left vowing to not eat for three days (which is a huge lie).
The above photo is of me with the family: Antonello, Letizia and Pietro Longo. My family brought Pietro a Sporting KC shirt and he didn't take it off all night. Letizia cried when I left and they've downloaded Skype just so that they can talk with me. I would never have guessed that I could have hit it off with a little kid!

I left my family in Venice with an extra bag full of my things, a couple of blisters, and absurdly full stomachs. I think we can successfully say that the Myers family vacation was bellisima! Lilly and Olivia, I expect you to be able to translate that by now.

Lions and tigers and worms...Oh my!

I have been studying worms. And cranes, salamanders, starlings, wasps and eagles. This is not, in fact, something that my veterinarian roommates have thrust upon me, but rather my syllabus for a literature course. And not just any Italian literature. I have been studying worms in the greatest Italian poem of all time: Dante's Divine Comedy.
As some of you may know, Dante is actually the person who got me started on this crazy adventure.  We became good friends in high school, then, after seeing the Sistine Chapel for the first time the following summer, I knew I would have to come back. So when the opportunity to take Filologia Dantesca this semester at the University of Bologna came up, I jumped on it like the dolphins from Circle VIII, Bolgia V of Inferno.
Here's a brief overview on Dante. He lived in Florence in the late Middle Ages and then was exiled when his political party lost power. As part of his punishment, he banned many of his enemies to burn in the most beautifully detailed hell ever written. He then went on for 100 cantos imagining the first full-fledged Purgatory and then topping it off with his journey toward an indescribable divine realization in Heaven. 

It's quite a bit to chew on. So a five week course on man's pilgrimage through eternity needs to be pretty focused. Professor Ledda (a short bald Italian man who wears Converse, jeans and a tie/jacket combo to class) decided to focus on animal similes in Dante. The idea is that animals in the Middle Ages had very specific habits and diverse meanings. Meanings that today have been long lost or proven completely ridiculous.

For example, the stork, know for it's motherly and familial instincts, also tended to get pissed off at the whiny chicky-poos; so, she would go ahead and kill them. The dad stork was then known to come along, cut himself open and feed his dead babies his blood, bringing them back to life. It's pretty gross, but it works wonderfully as a metaphor for Christ.

Then there's the dove image. Peace and happiness right? Not really. Doves were actually more connected to the pagan tradition describing them as birds of Venus. They were lustful, always kissing each other and they couldn't wait more than five minutes before they felt the urge to race back to their nest and make sweet bird love. They're Latin name actually means "cult of the loins".


From ants to otters, we covered new animals everyday. Sometimes five lines would take up the entire two hour class period. Sometimes we'd read passages from medieval bestiaries in Latin and I would nod along like I understood. I loved every second of it.
Dante in English has nothing on Dante in Italian. It's incredible to me that a poet, who was one of the first to really move away from the Latin tradition, provided a basis for the entire language that I am now learning today. And he still has something to say. Even if you're not religiously or spiritually inclined, Dante captures in beautifully crafted poetry the world's thoughts on what it means to be human.

What does it mean to be on a "journey" through life?
How can we reconcile rationality in the face of the incomprehensible?
How can we really go about learning or even teaching for that matter?
When verbal communication fails us, how can we go about truly sharing our experiences with others?
And one of my favorite themes, what does it mean to truly love in the best way that we possibly can?
Giving my oral exam for this course was one of the most rewarding things I've done here so far. Sure I waited three hours for my turn nervously chewing off my fingernails, but it didn't even feel like an exam in the end. Professor Ledda and I spent just as much time talking about my own interests in Dante as we did on the test material. He asked me about what KU is like. I told him about my Shakespeare research. He told me about the guest lecture on Dante happening the following Thursday. I received a wonderful score and left his office with a personalized syllabus for the independent study I'm be doing with him over the next two months. As Dante would say...I can't even begin to tell you how happy I was.
Who knew studying worms could be so inspiring!

The Fine Land of the French

It's only natural that in a predominantly catholic country, the secular concept Spring break is replaced by Easter or "Pasqua". For Easter break, we get classes cancelled and everyone either goes home or goes on vacation. I decided to spend my week and a half break in France. I'll admit, I went into this trip with a strong bias toward the French. They were going to be mean, they were going to be snobby, and they would probably pee in their fancy French food because I'm not able to pronounce the items on the menu. But, I decided to go anyway. It's not very often that your boyfriend has an apartment in Paris.
So I packed my bags, took my first ever RyanAir flight (which will also be my last) and found myself in a strange land where people make weird nasal sounds when they're communicating which I tend to stumble over and then swallow like three-day old baguette chunks.
Honestly though, I was impressed and I have now added French to my growing list of languages to learn before I'm thirty (this list also includes Latin, German, to reteach myself Spanish, and Russian)

Here are some nice (and not so nice) things I learned about France:

1. When they laugh at you, it's actually more encouraging than demeaning
You would think that the guy working at Subway would at least speak a little English. That's incorrect. When we went in the first time, my friend Kelly tried asking for a six inch sub using her fingers to demonstrate. The guy looked confused, then started laying out six napkins to make six sandwiches. We've lived in Europe for seven months now and we still can't remember that they don't use inches. Thankfully, he found our attempts to communicate enjoyable (not pathetic as we obviously sounded). He even helped with the pronunciation of words like "oignon" or "laitue". I can now count to ten and successfully pronounce the word for "twenty" which is "vingt". Trust me, it doesn't sound like it looks.


2. Sometimes there are lines....(It is a tourist destination)
We spent one entire day moving from one tourist hot spot to the next hoping that there wouldn't be a two hour line (d'Orsay, Catacombs, Tim Burton exhibit all were a bust).
3. French is absolutely beautiful
If you've ever heard a native French person speak, you know what I mean. There's no snobbery about it. Just pure butter. (Although, Italian will always be my number one).


4. The Louvre is the worst museum in the world.
I cannot imagine a worse way to spend a day than in this museum. I like museums. I went to some unbelievably wonderful museums while in Paris. But, the Louvre was not one of them. It's disgustingly gigantic. Our tour guide said if you looked at everything for only ten seconds without eating or sleeping it would take you more than 6 months to get through the place. It's crowded. Overwhelming. Claustrophobic. And the crowd of a hundred people bunched around a tiny Mona Lisa really isn't worth it. The reputation of French snobbery must have originated amongst the tourists at this cultural Mecca.

Kelly and I in front of the Invisible Pyramid outside of the Louvre

5. Goat cheese is France's way of saying it loves you.

6. The Paris metro is better than Disney Paris.
Full of accordion players, violinist, puppet shows and bleeding drunk men, the Paris metro is full of surprises. And the best part is it's free! Well, sort of... The two for one deal is quite common. For me, this means staying close to Kyle as we use his metro card to go through the turnstile at the same time. For some other stray Parisians who just don't feel like paying, it means grabbing onto to my friend Kelly's waist when her back is turned as she's walking through.

Kyle and Joel goofing around in the metro

7. A good Parisian waiter can make make (or break) your night. 
We ate only one meal in an actual French restaurant (Paris is expensive!). After watching him scold another American woman for accidentally ordering rose wine when she had really wanted red, I was afraid of even ordering at all. The moment our waiter looked down his skinny nose at my pointing and gesturing to a dish on the menu, I was almost sure he'd be the one to pee on my food. Thankfully, we came at the end of the night, and as soon as the clock struck "almost time to get the hell out of here" our nightmare waiter became helpful and jolly. By the end of the night, he had brought us complementary postcards from the restaurant and joked with Kelly as she tried to pronounce the phrase "it was delicious!".

8. And finally, the Eiffel Tour sparkles!

I spent my last two days in Nice, France on the Côte d'Azur. The weather was perfect and I have two square sunburns on each ankle to prove it. In the end, I think France was rather good to me. Soon I will master their elegant "unh"-ing and "oui-ing". Then I will return to eat all their goat cheese and lecture them on the negative consequences of peeing in tourists' food. They will love me.

Bidet: The "Butt" of All the Jokes

 I can't remember where I've heard this joke before, but I'm going to start my post off with it:

President Bush is winding up a tour of Europe. When he gets to Italy, the bidet in his hotel confuses him. "Why is the drinking fountain in the bathroom so low to the ground?" 

Oh, Bidets.
Americans can't understand them. Italians can't live without.
I hadn't given much thought to the bidet in my own bathroom until the other night after dinner.
"Can I ask you something a little strange?" asked my roommate's girlfriend.
"Go ahead," I replied (not knowing what I was getting myself into).
"Are there really no bidets in America?"
No, there really aren't, which is precisely why most Americans, when they come to Europe have a moment of confusion when they enter the bathroom. A bidet is a sink like fixture meant for washing yourself after using the toilet. Set right next to the toilet in nearly all Italian apartments and hotels, it's a staple of daily hygiene. I just like to pretend it's not there.
For Americans, the bidet is a comical and confusing object. Most jokes are centered around the misconception that Europeans are in fact unhygienic because they use this "spot-washing" to take the place of daily showers. When I tried to express my disgust for it, I was quickly shot down.

     "How can America not have bidets? They're so nice!"
     "I'll tell you why not, they already have them built in. The water is so high in the toilets that it just splashes up when you drop something in."
(This was an observation from Alessandro who has been to the US)
     "Eeeeeewwwww"
     "Do you know why it's called a bidet?" Alessandro asked.
     "No, why?"
     "Bidet in French means little horse. It's because you have to sit on it like your straddling a horse to use it."
     "Oh, come on. Don't you think that's totally weird and unnecessary."
     "You just don't know how to use it right."
     "Yeah, did you know that it used to be weird for Italian southerners too. When they came to the north, they would use bidets for cultivating tomatoes plants."
     "Can you use it to wash your feet?"
     "Of course!"
     "How about washing clothes?"
     "Sure"
     "Oh, I don't know. They just seem so silly."
     "No, they're really nice. I really like using it!"
     "Yeah, I shower every day and I still use the bidet!"
     "How often do you shower, Berny?"
     "Uuuuhhhh, not every day..."
     "And you still don't use a bidet?"
     "Well...no...but..."
     "Gross! Americans are so unhygienic!"

Oh, how the discussion had turned.

     "Have you ever even tried it?"
     "No!"
     "Don't you want to?!"
     "Not really..."
     "But it's nice! You have to try it! How can you live in Italy for a year and not even try the bidet. It's a real cultural experience."

My study abroad experience had been reduced to the fine art of bathroom hygiene. But there was some truth in the cultural relevance of the bidet. Italians are actually very fond of them and don't understand the disgust and confusion found in the foreigner's point of view. So with the threat that my roommates were all going to wait outside the bathroom for me until I'd given them my verdict, I decided I'd have to try it out.
The thing is, I still don't really understand how it's supposed to work.
Sitting or squatting? Which direction are you supposed to sit? Do you use your hands? A towel? A special bidet cloth? Soap or no soap? How do you dry off? More toilet paper? Another towel? That's quite a few towels. Isn't that kind of wasteful?
My hesitations, I realized, all stem from preconceived notions and stereotypes I had of Italian hygiene that I'd brought with me from America. In the end, judging a bidet is just a manifestation of our fear of the unknown, of something new and strange that makes us uncomfortable.  And the bathroom, let's be honest, is the last place where anyone wants to feel uncomfortable.
I have given in to the roommate pressure and tried the bidet. Just once. For the details of such an experience, I recommend trying it yourselves one day. It was, well....wet. The main point is, though, nothing actually came out of the faucet to bite me or give me hives. It's a completely harmless contraception that actually makes some sense, if you care about personal hygiene. I think I'll probably stick with my normal hygiene routine, which, for those of you who know me well, is preeeeetty simple. The complexities of bidet usage and cleanliness, I'll leave to the "dirty" Italians.

Gol!!!!

There are many things about Italian culture that I love. Gelato. Espresso. Pasta. (Ok, maybe lots of food related things that I love). But, one thing I'll never been able to understand is soccer.
For some reason (and I am very thankful for it), I managed to find the one apartment in Bologna that contains not a single soccer fan. But, as I've been informed by my roommates, they're not normal.
This quickly became apparent when I watched my first game with Pietro (the boy I teach English to) and his family.
One night after dinner, they asked me if I would like to stay to watch the game. Bologna versus Naples. It was supposed to be a big deal. I said yes. I had never seen a game before and I thought it would be a good cultural experience.
For two hours, Pietro sat next to me narrating every move. He knew every player for Bologna for Naples, the referee names, the brand of shoes they were wearing, the color of the filling on the captain's back molar. This kid is 6-years-old! He won't tell me what time it is in English, but he'll tell me anything and everything about the world of "calcio".
He now is the proud owner of a collector's book. All the players, team photos, coaches and flags of Series A, B, and C are in this book and he must collect the playing cards to match up with the right empty spaces. Lately, my lessons with him have started with a thirty minute list of names that he's still missing and of the players he's just bartered for with his duplicates.
What I find the most confusing about soccer is that people will start yelling when it looks like nothing has happened at all. A player passes the ball and shouts of "Awh c'mon!" and arm-waving accompany it.  The ball goes out and everyone starts clapping and cheering. Someone kicks it far and everyone begins cursing. Then there is of course the elusive off-sides rule. One minute people are dribbling and the next a whistle blew and the other team has the ball. Everyone grumbles about that forward who was way to far up there and I still think we're the team with the possession.
Last weekend, I went to my very first game at the Bologna stadium with Pietro and his family. I was told we were playing Novara and that if we didn't win that would do bad things to our ranking.  Despite my hesitation, I still really wanted Bologna to win. Otherwise Pietro would probably consider their lose my fault since I was the new person at the game with them. That would make our relationship a little complicated
After the captain of Bologna missed that one type of kick where it's just him and the goalie, Pietro shut up for the entire first half. I thought he was about to cry. I thought his parents would try to cheer him up but one look at them and I saw his dad's face buried in his hands and his mom slouched down in the chair leaning against his shoulder. It was as if they were witnessing the drowning of innocent puppies.
Later in the game, something happened near the goal and everyone jumped up screaming. Apparently we scored. I hadn't seen but I jumped up too as Pietro's dad grabbed me and pulled me into an air-born hug. I was confused. As usual. But Pietro cheered up a ton.
The last ten minutes of the game kind of dragged after that (kind of like the first hour and a half). And then at dinner the complicated ranking conversation left me less than enthralled. But at least I tried it right?
I think I just miss KU basketball too much and that's why I'm trying to find a replacement in my life. Did you know that Italy is the only European country where ESPN360 doesn't stream? I had to hear about the Mizzou game from facebook and the highlight video.
Soccer just doesn't compare.

Shall we?

Along with teaching that almost-lovable little monster from my previous post, I've moved right along with my lessons at the middle school. My first day back I decided that after three months with the same group, I should probably learn their names. They've been working on the present-progressive tense so I played the Icebreaker game where you attach an action to the front of your name (i.e. Bouncing Bernadette) and call on people throughout the room. They have a pretty limited range of verbs so the results were pretty interesting. We had a Finding Federico, Taking Tomaso, Noticing Nicola, Voting Valerio, and my favorite: Nursing Natali. I half expected her to lift up her shirt and start "nursing" her pencil bag. Apparently, they teach it as the equivalent to "taking care of". Sure that is part of its definition, but not the first one that comes to mind.
Since most English teachers here in Italy are not native speakers, many things like this go unnoticed. In my roommate's middle school, everyone was taught that "apple" is pronounced "ehpple". Since I found that out, I have been very clear with my classroom on vowel pronunciation.
After the gerund lesson, the teacher of my class showed me the chapter they were working on and what I should focus my lesson on for next time. It was the future tense. But, she pointed out a very specific conversation printed at the front of the chapter in the textbook.
It went like this:

Mary: Hello John.
John: Hello Mary.
Mary: Shall we go to the store?
John: Yes, let's go to the store.
Mary: Shall we invite Susan?
John: Yes! Let's invite Susan.
Mary: Will she meet us there.
John: Yes, she will meet us there. Shall we go?
Mary: Yes, let's go!

The teacher of my classroom: If we could focus on shall for next time that would be great. The kids really have a hard time understanding when to use it.

They have a hard time? I don't think I ever learned it! And I speak English as my first language! Maybe I use it as a joke every once in a while (Shall we stop at the loo? [fake British accent]) but I thought it was considered archaic. In fact, according to Wikipedia, "shall" is considered an archaic term and it is grammatically correct to use will and shall interchangeably in both the US and the UK.
As much as I wanted to go in and blow their tiny little minds with my awesome native language skills, I couldn't exactly go into a lesson and discredit the teacher, their text book and completely confuse the poor kids.
I spent a good hour going over game scenarios in my head, but the thought of little Nursing Natali asking "Shall we buy some tomatoes?" and Voting Valerio responding, "Let's buy tomatoes!" was too hysterical.
I eventually decided to avoid shall all together and make fortune tellers with the class instead. Unfortunately, they're covering the future tense for the next two weeks. What in the world shall I teach them...?

The BF

I am in a very serious relationship. I'm not talking about my boyfriend, Kyle. Nor am I talking about my relationship with gelato (which is starting to get a little clingy). I'm in a very committed relationship with a 6-year-old Italian boy.
In case you've forgotten, Pietro and I have been moving right along with our English lessons. I still kick the soccer ball around. He still kicks it back at the mirror/picture frames/fragile centerpiece.
But I guess I didn't realize just how attached he was getting. Over Christmas break, Kyle came to eat dinner with me at the Longo's (Pietro's family). Everyone was really excited to meet him. Except for Pietro. He spent most of the night under the dinner table and ended it with a screaming tantrum that carried him into his room. Apparently, he was a little bit jealous. Their only interaction occurred during a foosball game, which I told Kyle to lose on purpose. My next lesson with Pietro, I asked him what he thought of Kyle.
"I'm way better than him at foosball. He lost 10 to 2."
Yup, he was a little jealous.

I now have this photo posted on my wall right next to the family photo from a camping trip.

This past week, I brought my friend Chloe to the lessons. Little did she know, I'd be blatantly using her for physical labor during her visit from Berlin. We spent most of the the time playing games that got pretty competitive. One such game, a favorite of ours, is meant to help practice the verb "to like". I made my own food flashcards,  all perfectly clear and realistic (Pietro said my picture of chocolate looked like poop). I then place the cards in the living and come back to sit on his bed. Then the game proceeds like so:

Pietro: D-d-d-o yoou like milk?

Me: No, I don't like milk?

Pietro: Do you like like apples?

Me: Only, one like Pietro.

Pietro: Do youuu like apples?

Me: No, I don't like apples.

Pietro: Do you like cake?

Me: Yes! I like cake!

He then races to the next room, grabs the flashcard with cake on it, races it back and watches as I happily "devour" my cake. Sometimes we switch off and he sits on the bed while I run back and forth (not my favorite).
But when it was time for Chloe and I to guess and race each other to the food images, I got a pleasant surprise. I let Chloe grab the flashcard the first time only to turn around and find Pietro standing there grinning. He grabbed the card of of Chloe's hand and shoved it into mine, racing back to his spot on the bed so I could bring him his food.
He wanted me to win.
I never thought the day would come when a kid would actually like me. Let alone that I would feel good about it. He won't be getting English anytime soon, but there are moments when we really get each other: marveling over the fact that "ph" makes the sound "f", teaching each other how to say "burp" in our respective languages, quietly coloring elephant pictures florescent pink because none of the grey markers work.
It's still hard to get myself motivated to go every week but, every time I leave now, I feel like we got something done.
And then I get this warm fuzzy feeling around my heart...
Haha gotcha! There is, at the least, a warm fuzzy picture on my wall. Who knows how much closer he can get.