Polpetta e ragu'

Saturday, February 5
Our first real weekend begins, and we explore a couple of the nearby communities on bicycle. It turns out there is a discount electronics store, Trony, only about a mile away in Ponte Alla Ciliegia, so I am able to buy a printer. We also stop at a macelleria in Chiesina Uzzanese, where Lucy buys some polpetta and ragu', and we have them for dinner tonight. Wow, what flavor in those meatballs and meat sauce! Lucy has always been a great cook, but now she is even better, simply because the ingredients are somehow more pure and robust. Fruits and vegetables are always ripe when picked, so tomatoes, apples, Brussels spouts and so on burst with zesty taste.

Connected

Friday, February 4
Today we take a more relaxing trip to Lucca, just to walk around and get a feel for the town. When we return, we find the wireless has been fixed, and we enjoy catching up with news from home. I try to order a printer online and am stymied when I find that a required field of entry is the codice fiscale, roughly the equivalent of a social security number but used even more widely here. I had tried to obtain a codice fiscale ten years ago and was turned away, but I think now that I could have obtained one if I had been more persistent. It has become obvious to me by now that just because one Italian official tells me I can’t do something doesn’t mean that the official next door won’t tell me the opposite. The fact that I don’t have one is still a bit of a sore point for me, but it will be another challenge that I will overcome.

Losing our way in Lucca

Thursday, February 3
The next morning we ride our bikes into San Salvatore to pick up our pane integrale. We want to ask Luigi if there is a safe place to chain up our bikes, because this afternoon we want to take the train to Lucca and walk to our language school to confirm our lessons for next Monday. We have been advised by Luca not to park our bikes at the station. Luigi is quite busy cutting meat for his customers, though, so we decide to walk over to a nearby bar. Maybe if we park the bikes right by the bar windows, thieves would not dare cut the chains. The whole business section of San Salvatore consists of a main street about six American blocks long. There are a couple of bars, two small grocery stores, a fruit and vegetable store, a pizzeria, a gas station, a hair salon and a half dozen other small businesses. At the bar, we order two hot chocolates and sit down. Across the street, we see a bike rack in a parking lot, but knowing how quickly a thief can cut through a bike chain, we don’t think anybody would even notice if someone pulled up, cut our chains and loaded up our bikes. There is not a bike rack in front of the bar, and the young lady at the counter is not from San Salvatore and doesn’t know where we can park the bikes.

We try one of the grocery stores and find a young man working the counter whom we had also seen the day before at Luigi’s macelleria. In fact, this store also bears the name Bianchi, and it is owned by the same family. We suspect this is Luigi’s son, but we will wait for another day to ask him that. Meanwhile, he invites us to park our bicycles behind the macelleria whenever we take the train. Another problem solved.

After exploring the town a little more, we return for a siesta and then plan to ride back into town to catch the train to Lucca. At the agriturismo, there is still no wireless, so I borrow Luca’s computer and jot down some directions for the Lucca Italian School. Ordinarily I would have studied the map carefully and written down more detailed directions, but I am in a hurry and don’t want to take up more of Luca’s time.

The train ride takes 20 minutes through flat farmlands. It would cost 1.1 euro each time to take our bikes on the train, so we plan to go a piedi in Lucca. It should take about 25 minutes to walk to the school, according to Google maps, but then, we don’t actually have the map with us, just some scrawled notes on a piece of scrap paper. After having visited Italy almost yearly for the past ten years, I should have known better.

The thing about Italian city streets is that they almost never travel in a straight line. However, the curve is so gradual that you hardly notice it. Countless times I have started walking north on a street, only to find that six blocks later, without having any idea of the change, I am now walking west. To make matters worse, many streets change names every couple of blocks, and when the street name changes, the house numbers start over; therefore house numbers have no correlation with where you are in the city. Even using Mapquest or Google maps helps only a little, because it is often nearly impossible to find out what street you are on. Street names are sometimes etched on the sides of buildings, but it is no easy thing to find the names when you travel by car, as there is no standard placement for the name. If you plan to rent a car in Italy, GPS is a necessity.

However, because it is so difficult to find one’s way in Italy, the macho American stereotype of men never asking for directions does not exist here. Everyone asks for directions, and the locals are always willing to help.

I lead us to within three blocks of the school before making a time-consuming error. I have found a four-way intersection I am looking for. One of the streets should be via Pisano, and there it is. Now we are almost there. What I don’t realize is that straight ahead is via Pisano, but also 90 degrees to the right is via Pisano. Who would have thought that here where street names change randomly and for no reason, at this intersection a street made a 90 degree turn at a four-way intersection and does not change its name? And unfortunately, this happened to be an exceptional street in still another way: the via Pisano I choose goes on for at least a mile, and who knows how much longer, because that’s when I stop to get directions. After retracing the last mile, coming back to the four-way stop and taking a left, we find the school within a few blocks, via Sant’Anna 14, a street that is so short that none of the various people we had asked during our wanderings had heard of it.

Once at the school, our fortunes improve. Our lessons are confirmed, and one of the teachers, Daniela, tells us what bus to take back to the Lucca station. The bus will be leaving in five minutes, and the last train to San Salvatore for the day departs in half an hour, so we must hurry. Without the bus, we would have had to run all the way on foot, and another wrong turn would have left us stranded.

We had chosen San Salvatore in part because it was small and isolated. We knew people there would not speak English, and that’s what we wanted. We also chose it because it has a train stop, although the actual station has been closed for some time. Trains from Firenze to Lucca pass regularly, but only a half dozen a day are regionali that stop at small stations. We will have to time our trips carefully when we take trains.

As it is, the bus returns us to the Lucca station in plenty of time, and so despite our minor misadventure, we accomplish something important today. Still on my list is to purchase a printer for my computer and get our Italian passports, but neither item is as urgent as the other things we had already taken care of.

Hope for the passaporti

Wednesday, February 2
We spend most of the next recovering from jet lag. By late afternoon, the bikes have not arrived, so I ask Luca to call the bike shop. I tell him I am not comfortable speaking Italian on the phone, and it turns out to be a good move, as it takes him at least two minutes of vigorous Italian to explain what it is that we want. He tells me that first a bambino answered the phone, and then he spoke to the nonna; Francesca was not available, but after a bit, Luca was able to make himself clear. The nipote who was supposed to deliver the bikes had not come home from school, so Luca would come in his van and get them.

The two bikes, with chains and a basket for Lucy, cost 150 euros, more than I had originally expected, but a bargain considering that the first bike shop wanted 90 euros, plus 10 euros more, for a single bike with a basket. When Luca and I return, the tecnico has just arrived to fix the wireless, and Lucy is in conversation with an Italian man who speaks excellent English. His name is Ari Natali and he was born in America but returned to Italy at age 12 when his father died. He has lived here ever since and wants to get together with us on occasion to keep his English sharp. My eyes light up when he tells us that his wife works at the comune in Pescia. Yes, he says, he will go with us when we try to get our Italian passports. We would never be able to get them without someone who knows what he is doing, he explains. He take down his phone number and promise to call him when we get more settled. Suddenly a day which seemed entirely uneventful has proven fruitful. We have our bikes, we have a new friend and ally, and the tenico is at work. Unfortunately, the work day is over, and the tecnico leaves with the job unfinished. Forse domani.

Getting settled in

Tuesday, February 1

Our first 24 hours here are exciting and encouraging, though a tiny bit frustrating in some ways. We accomplish more than I expect. The frustration comes when I am constantly reminded of my poor understanding of Italian, despite previous language lessons and trips here.

Steve and Patti take us shopping and we stock up on the staples. Patti again is a big help to Lucy in figuring out what is what in the grocery store, although the EsseLunga in Pescia that we have discovered has a wider selection of food than we found in any of our previous visits to Italia. Even Patti is surprised to find traditional oatmeal, even if the box is tiny compared to our American Quaker oats container. We also find peanut butter, a rarity here.

Pescia is about four miles from San Salvatore, and as San Salvatore has only two tiny corner grocery stores, we figure that we will probably make regular trips to EsseLunga for our major shopping trips. It is only about five blocks from the Pescia train stop, and it shouldn’t be too difficult to hop a train, shop, stuff our backpacks full and hop back on the train. Today, of course, we have the Gray’s van, so we pack the cart to the brink of overflowing.

While Lucy and Patti shop, Steve and I slip over to the train station, where we are told that the kilometric passes we used ten years ago no longer exist, but we can buy monthly passes from Pescia to Lucca and places between, which includes San Salvatore, so I settle for that. It would cost more to add Firenze to the pass, and since we don’t expect to travel there as often, we’ll just buy individual tickets as the need arises.

The grocery store also has a small electronics department, and within 10 minutes, Steve has arranged for us to purchase two cheap cell phones, which we will have to charge before we can use. The conversation is too fast for me to follow, but Steve explains the details when we finish.

“I could have done that myself,” I tell him, “except it would have taken about an hour of me telling her to slow down and repeat, and lots of hand gestures.”

It would have been a good education for me, but we have too many details to arrange and we only have our friends here for today. Better to let them make the most of the time. There will be plenty of opportunities for us to do things the hard way after they leave.

Near EsseLunga, we find a bicycle shop and inquire about used bikes. Steve, as usual, handles the conversation and translation. We find a heavy but durable and well-used woman’s bike, but the price is high—90 euros, or about $120. Ten years ago in Padova, we had paid from $15-25 for used bikes, so we pass for now and decide to look at another shop, this one owned by Francesca Seghieri, whom we met last spring. But now lunch break is about to begin, so we decide to head home.

Since part of our purpose is to get to know the local people, we decide to try buying our ground beef for today’s lunch from a macelleria in San Salvatore, so we head back home. The macellaio, Signor Bianchi, a man in his fifties, is waiting on customers, all women who appear to range in age from forty to seventy, and all of whom he refers to by first name. As we wait, we look at the cuts of meat in the display.

“The chickens still have their feet,” Lucy points out. We look closer. “Oh, and their heads, too.”

One is a rooster, and his comb has been cut off and included in the display, perhaps to show he was a rooster, but more likely because traditionally, all parts of animal produce were eaten, and the comb very well could be considered a delicacy.

We don’t find any ground beef, but Patti explains that we just tell the macellaio how much we want and he macerates it on the spot. Now we have to work on our metric conversions, because we have to order in kilograms instead of pounds. Patti suggests a mezzo kilo, and we try that. It looks about right, so Lucy decides to order more meat to make chili later in the week.

Without help from Patti, Lucy and I manage to stumble through the order. We want tre quarti kilogrammi, misto manza e maiale, machinato, three quarters of ground beef and ground pork, mixed, although we didn’t say it that smoothly. Nevertheless, we think we will be able to do this on our own next time. We have met the butcher, Luigi Bianchi, and he seems friendly and patient, and Steve has introduced us as Americans who will be living here for three months, so we will feel comfortable returning.

He also sells bread, and we ask for pane integrale, which is a denser and darker bread with grains in it. Sold out, Luigi says, but he has some bread with five cereals in it for today, and he can save some integrale for us tomorrow if we want. This we don’t understand, but Patti explains, and somehow we feel more at home to know that our own macellaio is already thinking of us as regular customers.

“Va bene,” I say. “Pane ceriali oggi, ed il integrale non domani ma giovedi.” We’ll take the cereal bread today and the integrale not tomorrow but Thursday. Simple sentences, I can handle.

Back home, I fry up the ground beef for hamburgers and am amazed at how little fat there is. Ordinarily I would pour out a quarter cup of fat after frying four one-third pound burgers. Now there is nothing to pour. This, of course, is meat from the macellaio, not the EsseLunga, which has prepackaged ground beef such as we are used to, and it is much more expensive. We probably paid $8 for these four burgers, so we can’t afford to see Sr. Bianchi for meat every day.

Now it’s back to Pescia to find Francesca’s bike shop. We meander around a bit, trying to remember from last spring where it is. Eccolo. And it is just re-opening from lunch. We are greeted by a woman who must be in her late seventies or early eighties.

“Avete biciclete usate,” I am able to say.

“Per uomo o donna?” she asks.

“Tutti i due,” Steve says, taking over as usual, which I accept as a necessity.

Now Francesca comes out, and we re-introduce ourselves. Here the conversation speeds up, but in the end we are able to buy two bicycles, with locking chains, and a basket for Lucy’s bike. The older woman is Francesca’s mom, and she takes a liking to us, complimenting Steve on his Italian and inviting Lucy and me to return on our bikes to visit her. She is Dosolina, and her late husband was a Seghieri. She says we should talk to Francesca’s uncle, Marco, about the family history, and I say we would very much like to do that. When we met Francesa last spring, she had given us Mario’s name and number, but we didn’t have time to contact him at the time.

Lucy’s bike will cost 70 euros, basket included. Francesca will have to talk to her husband to determine the price of mine, but she thinks it will be about 60 euros. She will have the bikes delivered to our agriturismo tomorrow and we can pay then. Her husband will install the basket and make sure the bikes are in proper order, and they will deliver them tomorrow afternoon. We order two locking chains as well. Once again, much of the conversation is too fast for Lucy and me. Frustrating, but this is only our first day; we have three months to make progress, so I try to counsel myself to be patient.

Steve and Patti's work here is done; they must return to Padova, and now we are on our own.

Moving day

Monday, January 31

I am wide awake at 6 a.m., so I sneak down into the basement and go through our boxes, rearranging items into piles to take, piles to keep in storage here, and piles to throw away. Many of the towels and blankets are musty smelling. We spend the morning packing the Grays' van to nearly overflowing and after lunch, they take us to San Salvatore. The only thing we can't fit are tables, desks and a heavy old bike.

Our apartamento at Casolare dei Fiori (http://www.casolaredeifiori.it) consists of a bathroom, bedroom and another room that serves as a kitchen, living room and, with a fold-out sofa, a spare bedroom. In typical Italian style, many of the appliances are small: the refrigerator, the tv, the sink, the cabinets. However, it does have adequate floor space and it is comfortable and everything is new and shiny. Luca, one of the co-proprietors, says it is only three or four years old. It is supposed to have wireless Internet, but for some reason, the wireless didn’t work on our two-day visit last spring. We acquire the wireless password from Luca and try it out. It still doesn’t work. Luca is surprised. How can this be, I wonder? Has no one else complained about this in the last nine months? Luca says he will call the tecnico.

Steve and I go about determining how many electrical adapters and power strips we will need, as the apartamento is not designed for extended living. Every wall outlet, and there are not many, has only one electrical receptacle. We will need six power bars and one extension cord, plus a few adapters for the heavier appliances. Lucy and Patti unpack the household goods that we have been storing in the Gray’s basement for the last nine years, and within a couple of hours, our place almost looks like a home. We take the Grays out to dinner in Montecarlo, a delicious feast with antipasto, primo, secondo and dolce. We save money by ordering only one plate of each course for each couple, and it turns out to be just the right amount.

Travel details

We leave Gig Harbor, Wash., early Saturday, Jan. 29, and arrive in Venezia Sunday afternoon, Jan. 30. Stefano and Nancy Mammi, friends from our adventures in Padova in 2001-02, pick us up and let us take a nap at their house and then take us to ICF, the international church pastored by Steve and Patti Gray. The Grays have been graciously storing a half dozen boxes of our stuff and some of our furniture for the past 10 years in their basement. From church, we go to their home for dinner and more sleep. Tomorrow they will take us to our apartment in San Salvatore.