17 Nov. 2004
Torino, Italia
I have come to the realization that being a nanny or au pair is pretty much the same wherever you go. Maybe it’s when songs like “The Purple People Eater” or “B-I-N-G-O” get stuck in your head, or when you begin to have a favorite Barbie that you always choose to play with. Maybe it’s when all you can think about is making puppets, friendship bracelets, and play dough or when a trip to the pet store to look at the rabbits through the window genuinely gets you excited. I am so thankful that I am blessed with the love of children and do actually enjoy and laugh at such realizations, if not I would be in bath toys, pollypocket, and dressups over my head. (I just finished watching the new Barbie movie in Italian, just so you know, and she’s worth a watch!)
It’s two months already and again I greet you all, from this beautiful country and this beautiful family (songs, dolls, and all…)
I cannot believe that it has already been a month since I wrote you all last, but I must say it has been a wonderful one. I hope that the same is for you, that life is grand and that God is teaching you new things through different circumstances. My days and weeks here continue to pass so quickly as I now have a real routine and Italian life begins to become normal, as strange and crazy as that sounds. But families and life are not that different in most parts of the world -- a different language, yeah, and maybe a few food differences here and there, but your basics are the same and that fact is quite a comfort. My weekends, however, which are usually full of some sort of travel, always seem to remind Jen and I of where we are and what exactly we are doing. It’s about an hourly realization we have that Italy is, in fact, our home for a year and that we are having the time of our lives traipsing around the country with not too many things to worry about other than getting to our trains on time and making sure we eat as much pizza as we can.
To start the book out (I’m just going to admit it, it’ll be long, but a month!! So many things to tell!), I must fill you in on a few things here in the lovely Turin which is bustling and pushing itself to be ready for the Winter Olympics in a year and a half for 2006. (Jen and I aren’t really sure how everything is going to get done, but I am sure they will pull through.) There is church. The International Church of Turin, which Anne and Jen Hart (the two nannies before Jen and I) went to and recommended. Jen and I have been going since we arrived here two months ago whenever we are home for the weekend and it has been such a blessing. Imagine a church of about 75 people that uses a small hotel meeting room for its services. The people are from all over the world as in North and South Africa, Romania, America, Britain, Switzerland, Italy, and Argentina…they all speak English which is the language used for the service and they all love and serve the same God which is quite an experience. We were welcomed into this congregation as the “two new nannies,” asked to come to the women’s Bible study at someone’s house every Thursday, and practically forced to join the 15-person choir who is practicing for the Christmas service in early December.
I hear you all laughing as you imagine Jen and I in the choir, especially when there are only 15 people and most of whom are from another country. Jen and I couldn’t stop laughing at our first practice as we sang Christmas songs with these people in the soprano section where we couldn’t just “blend in.” But what a hilarious experience, the Christmas program should be a hit! The people we have met, specifically a man named Robert from Britain who is the comedy and encouragement of the church, Betsy from the states who is an organizing queen and houses the Bible study in her home, Catherine from Indiana who is the missionary keeping the church moving, Adina from Romania who leads worship and is an absolute delight, and the interim pastor with his wife and 6 kids who are a welcome taste of the Midwestern states of the US of A….all of these people have been such a blessing to get to know and they have allowed Jen and I to feel all the more connected to the people and city of Turin. Though the service is not grand and the music is only a keyboard, these are people who want to be there and that is truly something that makes it worth going.
Then there’s ironing which is something that Italians have ingrained into their culture. Because most clothes are hung dry, the result: stiffness (we have a dryer, thank goodness, but only about 2% of the population does…too expensive and just not very normal) and because their cotton is different here, everything is ironed. We are talking about the sheets, the t-shirts, and yes, even the towels. (what?!) Everything. I am responsible for the girls’ and my things and have proudly conquered how to iron a fitted sheet in under 10 minutes. Ha, it has been something funny that I am actually almost used to (and this coming from a girl who would hang her shirt in the bathroom during a shower to get the wrinkles out before pulling out an iron.)
There is winter, which has definitely arrived and my coat and sweater are worn every day along with a scarf and my breath that is visible in the cold air. It is a nice change, however, and when the sun is out and the air is crisp and cold, the snowcapped mountains and peaks of the Alps which surround Turin can be seen beautifully.
And there is school. School I could go on about for an entire page because most of the time I am in class I feel like I could be in a movie…the whole experience is hilarious and ironic at the same time. The setting is a normal classroom, Jen and I sit at the front table along with other classmates next to and behind us. The professor is Maurizio, a gray-haired man in his sixties who loves to smoke by the smell of his breath and his habit of leaving class for about 10 minutes half way through. Despite the loud voice that shouts Italian into my ears for two hours, two mornings a week, I really like him. He has a sense of humor that makes me laugh more at the fact that I have no idea what is funny than him being actually funny. At times, as he tries to pronounce English words and we correct him and then he repeats them the same way, I am reminded of the scene in “My Big fat Greek Wedding” when the mom cannot pronounce the word “bunt” when she is given a bunt cake and just keeps saying it wrong over and over again. And we can’t forget the classmates. The class consists of about 10 of us: three middle aged women from France, a girl our age from Sweden whom we have talked with and found very nice, a forty-ish women from Russia who knows no English and always wears some short of shawl, a twenty-ish guy from Africa, and then there’s Noam who is in his late twenties and from Israel with a long black ponytail, speaks English along with three other languages, lived in NYC for four years before coming here where he worked as a dancer in music videos for such artists as Eminem; who also used to be a professional volleyball player and is now going to car design school in Turin. Do you see the movie happening in my head? Imagine your two newly graduated American white girls who are nannies for a year and you’ve got the entire picture. I will let your imagination take you from there. Ha! It’s been great so far and the conclusion that Jen and I have come to is that we…ahem…need to study.
Lastly, and most recently in Torino, there was another family dinner this past weekend except this time on the other side of the family, the one which Jen belongs to. And so, after a day trip to nearby France (yeah, it’s that close) Jen and I met our families at the parent’s of Federico (my dad) and Bitta (her mom) along with their three other siblings and their families: a total of 14 adults around one table and then 7 cousins enjoying themselves to the fullest, running around and playing. To say that it was an experience is downplaying the evening and Jen and I seemed to enjoy it even more since we were able to share in it together, exchanging glances when the food seriously did not stop coming or when the talking became so loud I couldn’t tell whose voice was whose and all I could do was laugh. The first course of the meal was special to the Piemonte region of Italy (where we live), a sauce made of garlic, anchovies, and oil. We were warned many times about it (it looks as bad as it sounds and when I say garlic, I mean garlic as in the family warned Jen and I to bring a glass of water to bed with us that night because we would wake up in the middle of the night with our tongue stuck to the rough of our mouths…um, yeah.). But, to our great surprise and to the delight of the family, we loved it! (It’s hard to not like the food in Italy.) The night was wonderful and Federico explained to us during an irregular lull in the five thousand conversations going on at the table, that in such a situation, the main goal is really just who can speak the loudest…no one is really listening to you and you are really just speaking to hear yourself. As funny as it sounds, it was even better to witness.
Here I am, almost two pages into this massive beast and still I haven’t even touched on where Jen and I have ventured in the last month. You must be patient and at least let me give you some highlights. (I realize that my highlights are other people’s detailed stories that they only tell their mother who then falls asleep in the middle of them, but just bear with me here, it makes me feel better if I at least share with you a little of this heaven that I am being privileged to experience.)
Since I last wrote, I have been home to the state of New Jersey for the long period of about 48 hours, explored a palace and it’s gardens on an island in the middle of a lake, taken a night train to Rome and survived, and driven through Italy, Austria, and Switzerland within a few hours of each other. (Wow, I hadn’t realized all that stuff until now!) In New Jersey was the wedding of my Aunt Nancy and (now officially) Uncle Al. It was a wedding that was long overdue and one that could not be missed, even if the trip to get there was a little longer than usual. I was there for only two days, but it was wonderful to be with my entire family and enjoy such a celebration!!
The next weekend Jen and I ventured to the fashion capital of Milan (this time on our own) on Saturday and explored the incredible Duomo (church) that is the third largest in the world and took about, oh, 600 years to build. Right. We shopped a bit, toured a few other things and really found that we loved the city. It’s only about 2 hours away by train and a great place to go for the day. From there we were off to a small town in the Italian Lake District called Stresa. Located on Lake Maggiore, we stayed here on Saturday night and spent all of Sunday in this quaint city. The lake is so huge that it has three islands on it where people actually live (though cars are absent, they each take about half an hour to walk across). One of the islands, Isola Bella (Beautiful Island), houses a palace (for real) of one of the most prominent families in Italy, which the family still uses a few weeks out of the year (what!?). We took a ferry to this island and toured the palace and it’s expansive gardens, then came back and lounged in the old-school, high class hotel in Stresa where Hemmingway once stayed.
The next weekend was Roma. We had Monday off due to a bank holiday and took advantage of it to venture a little further than just a normal weekend could hold. Rome is about a 7 hour train ride from Turin, so we opted for the night train (scary, but not bad) and got there bright and early Saturday morning -- groggy, gross, and, ahh yes, speaking English as always. J The weekend couldn’t have been better, however. The Colosseum is something that you can stare at for hours and hours and never actually grasp that you are actually there looking at it for real. The remains of the Roman Forum allow you to walk where Caesar once had his palace, where Romans built the empire…its all still there!! Rome truly forced me to comprehend in my mind that all of this history did actually happen, though the many years since seem to make it simply a fairytale because it was so long ago. We went into the prison cell where Peter and Paul were kept and saw the chains with which Peter was held…truly an amazing experience and something my mind had trouble grasping. We went to the Vatican and saw the Pope speak, craned the neck to the see the Sistine Chapel (different than I had pictured in my mind), climbed to the top dome of St. Peter’s Basilica, the largest church in the world and truly mind-boggling and beautiful at the same time. We shopped, we went to a music concert in a museum, and ate at our two favorite gelato places within 20 minutes of each other. (So we like gelato, okay?) And we visited the catacombs – a burial ground five floors deep underground and over 350 miles long where Christian martyrs were buried during ancient Roman times, an experience that affected and is still affecting me much more than I ever anticipated. Humbling, to say the least. The weather was amazingly warm and sunny and though our feet ached from walking a ridiculous amount and our bodies were exhausted from waking up really early and going to sleep really late, it was wonderful.
Lastly, the first weekend of November I went with my family to Merano, a town up in the Alps, northeast of Turin, so close to Austria that the main language is German and all the street signs are in both Italian and German languages. The architecture is different, the food is different and the people are different. It was beautiful and the town, so homey and already decorated for Christmas with green garland hanging in the streets. We stayed one night there for an ice skating competition of Bea’s and then headed to an even smaller town the next day, farther up in the Alps. The drive home on Sunday was beautiful and breathtaking. Though five hours in the backseat with two girls could seem quite the contrary, I loved every minute of it as we went through Austria, Switzerland and then back in Italy on our way home and weaved in and out of lakes, small towns, and mountains with peaks capped in snow and trees decorated in every Fall color. We even got high enough for snow!! Which was a treat for the Florida girl.
And life is good! I am learning new things not only about this culture and this country, but also about myself which is what I had hoped. Conclusions about life or ways to solve the problems of the world?…no, but learning about myself or at least growing in some way has always been something I truly look forward to. And so, now, to you true friends and precious family who have made it through the third letter, I promise to write more often so this serious mother-of-an-email doesn’t happen again and I truly thank you for your interest and your determination to finish my tellings thus far, I am flattered and grateful. (and hope you took a bathroom break at least for your sake.) I hope that things are fabulous at your end of the world and in your details of everyday life and routine. My walks to drop the girls off at school, to help clean up the kitchen after dinner, or to simply be apart of this family here have fallen into regular things and that is quite nice. Thanks for the letters, the emails, the special packages…they are so appreciated!
Torino, Italia
I have come to the realization that being a nanny or au pair is pretty much the same wherever you go. Maybe it’s when songs like “The Purple People Eater” or “B-I-N-G-O” get stuck in your head, or when you begin to have a favorite Barbie that you always choose to play with. Maybe it’s when all you can think about is making puppets, friendship bracelets, and play dough or when a trip to the pet store to look at the rabbits through the window genuinely gets you excited. I am so thankful that I am blessed with the love of children and do actually enjoy and laugh at such realizations, if not I would be in bath toys, pollypocket, and dressups over my head. (I just finished watching the new Barbie movie in Italian, just so you know, and she’s worth a watch!)
It’s two months already and again I greet you all, from this beautiful country and this beautiful family (songs, dolls, and all…)
I cannot believe that it has already been a month since I wrote you all last, but I must say it has been a wonderful one. I hope that the same is for you, that life is grand and that God is teaching you new things through different circumstances. My days and weeks here continue to pass so quickly as I now have a real routine and Italian life begins to become normal, as strange and crazy as that sounds. But families and life are not that different in most parts of the world -- a different language, yeah, and maybe a few food differences here and there, but your basics are the same and that fact is quite a comfort. My weekends, however, which are usually full of some sort of travel, always seem to remind Jen and I of where we are and what exactly we are doing. It’s about an hourly realization we have that Italy is, in fact, our home for a year and that we are having the time of our lives traipsing around the country with not too many things to worry about other than getting to our trains on time and making sure we eat as much pizza as we can.
To start the book out (I’m just going to admit it, it’ll be long, but a month!! So many things to tell!), I must fill you in on a few things here in the lovely Turin which is bustling and pushing itself to be ready for the Winter Olympics in a year and a half for 2006. (Jen and I aren’t really sure how everything is going to get done, but I am sure they will pull through.) There is church. The International Church of Turin, which Anne and Jen Hart (the two nannies before Jen and I) went to and recommended. Jen and I have been going since we arrived here two months ago whenever we are home for the weekend and it has been such a blessing. Imagine a church of about 75 people that uses a small hotel meeting room for its services. The people are from all over the world as in North and South Africa, Romania, America, Britain, Switzerland, Italy, and Argentina…they all speak English which is the language used for the service and they all love and serve the same God which is quite an experience. We were welcomed into this congregation as the “two new nannies,” asked to come to the women’s Bible study at someone’s house every Thursday, and practically forced to join the 15-person choir who is practicing for the Christmas service in early December.
I hear you all laughing as you imagine Jen and I in the choir, especially when there are only 15 people and most of whom are from another country. Jen and I couldn’t stop laughing at our first practice as we sang Christmas songs with these people in the soprano section where we couldn’t just “blend in.” But what a hilarious experience, the Christmas program should be a hit! The people we have met, specifically a man named Robert from Britain who is the comedy and encouragement of the church, Betsy from the states who is an organizing queen and houses the Bible study in her home, Catherine from Indiana who is the missionary keeping the church moving, Adina from Romania who leads worship and is an absolute delight, and the interim pastor with his wife and 6 kids who are a welcome taste of the Midwestern states of the US of A….all of these people have been such a blessing to get to know and they have allowed Jen and I to feel all the more connected to the people and city of Turin. Though the service is not grand and the music is only a keyboard, these are people who want to be there and that is truly something that makes it worth going.
Then there’s ironing which is something that Italians have ingrained into their culture. Because most clothes are hung dry, the result: stiffness (we have a dryer, thank goodness, but only about 2% of the population does…too expensive and just not very normal) and because their cotton is different here, everything is ironed. We are talking about the sheets, the t-shirts, and yes, even the towels. (what?!) Everything. I am responsible for the girls’ and my things and have proudly conquered how to iron a fitted sheet in under 10 minutes. Ha, it has been something funny that I am actually almost used to (and this coming from a girl who would hang her shirt in the bathroom during a shower to get the wrinkles out before pulling out an iron.)
There is winter, which has definitely arrived and my coat and sweater are worn every day along with a scarf and my breath that is visible in the cold air. It is a nice change, however, and when the sun is out and the air is crisp and cold, the snowcapped mountains and peaks of the Alps which surround Turin can be seen beautifully.
And there is school. School I could go on about for an entire page because most of the time I am in class I feel like I could be in a movie…the whole experience is hilarious and ironic at the same time. The setting is a normal classroom, Jen and I sit at the front table along with other classmates next to and behind us. The professor is Maurizio, a gray-haired man in his sixties who loves to smoke by the smell of his breath and his habit of leaving class for about 10 minutes half way through. Despite the loud voice that shouts Italian into my ears for two hours, two mornings a week, I really like him. He has a sense of humor that makes me laugh more at the fact that I have no idea what is funny than him being actually funny. At times, as he tries to pronounce English words and we correct him and then he repeats them the same way, I am reminded of the scene in “My Big fat Greek Wedding” when the mom cannot pronounce the word “bunt” when she is given a bunt cake and just keeps saying it wrong over and over again. And we can’t forget the classmates. The class consists of about 10 of us: three middle aged women from France, a girl our age from Sweden whom we have talked with and found very nice, a forty-ish women from Russia who knows no English and always wears some short of shawl, a twenty-ish guy from Africa, and then there’s Noam who is in his late twenties and from Israel with a long black ponytail, speaks English along with three other languages, lived in NYC for four years before coming here where he worked as a dancer in music videos for such artists as Eminem; who also used to be a professional volleyball player and is now going to car design school in Turin. Do you see the movie happening in my head? Imagine your two newly graduated American white girls who are nannies for a year and you’ve got the entire picture. I will let your imagination take you from there. Ha! It’s been great so far and the conclusion that Jen and I have come to is that we…ahem…need to study.
Lastly, and most recently in Torino, there was another family dinner this past weekend except this time on the other side of the family, the one which Jen belongs to. And so, after a day trip to nearby France (yeah, it’s that close) Jen and I met our families at the parent’s of Federico (my dad) and Bitta (her mom) along with their three other siblings and their families: a total of 14 adults around one table and then 7 cousins enjoying themselves to the fullest, running around and playing. To say that it was an experience is downplaying the evening and Jen and I seemed to enjoy it even more since we were able to share in it together, exchanging glances when the food seriously did not stop coming or when the talking became so loud I couldn’t tell whose voice was whose and all I could do was laugh. The first course of the meal was special to the Piemonte region of Italy (where we live), a sauce made of garlic, anchovies, and oil. We were warned many times about it (it looks as bad as it sounds and when I say garlic, I mean garlic as in the family warned Jen and I to bring a glass of water to bed with us that night because we would wake up in the middle of the night with our tongue stuck to the rough of our mouths…um, yeah.). But, to our great surprise and to the delight of the family, we loved it! (It’s hard to not like the food in Italy.) The night was wonderful and Federico explained to us during an irregular lull in the five thousand conversations going on at the table, that in such a situation, the main goal is really just who can speak the loudest…no one is really listening to you and you are really just speaking to hear yourself. As funny as it sounds, it was even better to witness.
Here I am, almost two pages into this massive beast and still I haven’t even touched on where Jen and I have ventured in the last month. You must be patient and at least let me give you some highlights. (I realize that my highlights are other people’s detailed stories that they only tell their mother who then falls asleep in the middle of them, but just bear with me here, it makes me feel better if I at least share with you a little of this heaven that I am being privileged to experience.)
Since I last wrote, I have been home to the state of New Jersey for the long period of about 48 hours, explored a palace and it’s gardens on an island in the middle of a lake, taken a night train to Rome and survived, and driven through Italy, Austria, and Switzerland within a few hours of each other. (Wow, I hadn’t realized all that stuff until now!) In New Jersey was the wedding of my Aunt Nancy and (now officially) Uncle Al. It was a wedding that was long overdue and one that could not be missed, even if the trip to get there was a little longer than usual. I was there for only two days, but it was wonderful to be with my entire family and enjoy such a celebration!!
The next weekend Jen and I ventured to the fashion capital of Milan (this time on our own) on Saturday and explored the incredible Duomo (church) that is the third largest in the world and took about, oh, 600 years to build. Right. We shopped a bit, toured a few other things and really found that we loved the city. It’s only about 2 hours away by train and a great place to go for the day. From there we were off to a small town in the Italian Lake District called Stresa. Located on Lake Maggiore, we stayed here on Saturday night and spent all of Sunday in this quaint city. The lake is so huge that it has three islands on it where people actually live (though cars are absent, they each take about half an hour to walk across). One of the islands, Isola Bella (Beautiful Island), houses a palace (for real) of one of the most prominent families in Italy, which the family still uses a few weeks out of the year (what!?). We took a ferry to this island and toured the palace and it’s expansive gardens, then came back and lounged in the old-school, high class hotel in Stresa where Hemmingway once stayed.
The next weekend was Roma. We had Monday off due to a bank holiday and took advantage of it to venture a little further than just a normal weekend could hold. Rome is about a 7 hour train ride from Turin, so we opted for the night train (scary, but not bad) and got there bright and early Saturday morning -- groggy, gross, and, ahh yes, speaking English as always. J The weekend couldn’t have been better, however. The Colosseum is something that you can stare at for hours and hours and never actually grasp that you are actually there looking at it for real. The remains of the Roman Forum allow you to walk where Caesar once had his palace, where Romans built the empire…its all still there!! Rome truly forced me to comprehend in my mind that all of this history did actually happen, though the many years since seem to make it simply a fairytale because it was so long ago. We went into the prison cell where Peter and Paul were kept and saw the chains with which Peter was held…truly an amazing experience and something my mind had trouble grasping. We went to the Vatican and saw the Pope speak, craned the neck to the see the Sistine Chapel (different than I had pictured in my mind), climbed to the top dome of St. Peter’s Basilica, the largest church in the world and truly mind-boggling and beautiful at the same time. We shopped, we went to a music concert in a museum, and ate at our two favorite gelato places within 20 minutes of each other. (So we like gelato, okay?) And we visited the catacombs – a burial ground five floors deep underground and over 350 miles long where Christian martyrs were buried during ancient Roman times, an experience that affected and is still affecting me much more than I ever anticipated. Humbling, to say the least. The weather was amazingly warm and sunny and though our feet ached from walking a ridiculous amount and our bodies were exhausted from waking up really early and going to sleep really late, it was wonderful.
Lastly, the first weekend of November I went with my family to Merano, a town up in the Alps, northeast of Turin, so close to Austria that the main language is German and all the street signs are in both Italian and German languages. The architecture is different, the food is different and the people are different. It was beautiful and the town, so homey and already decorated for Christmas with green garland hanging in the streets. We stayed one night there for an ice skating competition of Bea’s and then headed to an even smaller town the next day, farther up in the Alps. The drive home on Sunday was beautiful and breathtaking. Though five hours in the backseat with two girls could seem quite the contrary, I loved every minute of it as we went through Austria, Switzerland and then back in Italy on our way home and weaved in and out of lakes, small towns, and mountains with peaks capped in snow and trees decorated in every Fall color. We even got high enough for snow!! Which was a treat for the Florida girl.
And life is good! I am learning new things not only about this culture and this country, but also about myself which is what I had hoped. Conclusions about life or ways to solve the problems of the world?…no, but learning about myself or at least growing in some way has always been something I truly look forward to. And so, now, to you true friends and precious family who have made it through the third letter, I promise to write more often so this serious mother-of-an-email doesn’t happen again and I truly thank you for your interest and your determination to finish my tellings thus far, I am flattered and grateful. (and hope you took a bathroom break at least for your sake.) I hope that things are fabulous at your end of the world and in your details of everyday life and routine. My walks to drop the girls off at school, to help clean up the kitchen after dinner, or to simply be apart of this family here have fallen into regular things and that is quite nice. Thanks for the letters, the emails, the special packages…they are so appreciated!
posted by Laura at 6:02 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home