Italy 6/4/13
Tony got me a brand new pink suitcase and our adventure to Italy started. We left US on Tuesday, May 20 and now I am on the airplane back on June 1st. Our trip was taking Sports international tour for Giro d'Italia for the final weekend, move onto Venice, then to Florence. From Florence we took a day trip to Siena to ride a bicycle in Chianti, then go back to Rome and fly out of there. Each stage of Giro and the bike ride in Siena have been blogged already. Since this blog is supposed to be fitness theme, I will keep this travel log as one time, compact and generalized.
As a language person, I started studying Italian last summer. I went through Pimsleur part one taking the whole summer. We also started to subscribe RAI in Verison Fios. Even after spending the whole summer, I was not happy about the level of conversation I could manage with my Italian colleagues at school. I told all four of them that I am visiting Italy and am studying Italian. One even game me techie textbook inspection copy they used. In previous trip to Japan, I bought a few learning books and I bought English-Italian dictionary and verb conjugation book. For 2013, I bought Italian phrase calendar. I made into a little more materials in winter break. Overall, I was not happy what I had accomplished. Most of the materials I learned felt like what I ask my students to do in the very first chapter in 1st year.
People were telling me that we would do just fine using English. Besides, my Spanish should help. And Italian people are nice. Well, getting by as a tourist is one thing, but I took this mission as more of the polite gesture to be a guest to Italian people as well as intellectual challenge. When I studied Spanish, I felt that people appreciated my effort. During the stay, I was giving myself a hard time. I quietly started to understand as I left Austrian border after the Giro tour. I noticed a lot of words end in "i" and by substituting with "o" often become dictionary friendly, more recognizable form. Then I started to feel like cheating: there are a lot of past participles that I can often guess. Then when I started to make strong vowel "o" in Italian with weak combination "ue" in Spanish and "e" to "ie" respectively. And adding an extra "e" at the end of Spanish verb infinitive is a legitimate Italian cousin. Or simply switch “e” and “I” and “g” and “he”. If you are a tourist, they really don't expect y to hold a conversation in the language. And people who know knowing English means money, they don't exactly make a good practicing partner. It is rather similar to Japan, I thought.
But as I listen to the audio program that I studied this winter, I notice that I have better ear to the language. Being in the environment in context is a powerful tool to help understanding. After a while, just seeing a sign saying "Vietato Fumare" made me breathe easier. And knowledge from my musical days. Now I know I played a lot of opera overture and Canzone. "Fermata" being a bus stop and tram station stop made my day. My husband may say that now that the trip and Giro are over and I did not watch enough, he may want to cancel the Italian channel, but I hope we get to keep. I feel like I just started. There are so many things that I still had no clue to, even in the 1st semester material, but this feels Iike a good start.
Everybody who have been to Italy told me food is just so good in Italy. My adjustment was the idea of first course, second course style at the restaurant. If I am not careful, it is absolutely easy to over-eat. I was basically not exercising at all and most of the time I was sick. I am really horrified to get on the scale tomorrow morning. It may take a long time to get back. Or maybe not with all that tourist walking. I liked Italian style breakfast. Sliced meats, cheese and fruits at hotel breakfast buffet was a nice way to get protein and sodium in the morning. And maybe there are a lot more varieties in prosciutto. Some are a lot softer than I Ever found in US. Supposedly there is a good Italian meat market in Dallas; we have to check it out. And Tony became stickler to water with gas: we called fizzy water and I went with without, naturale. Rocket is may new kind of favorite vegetable. It has peppery flavor like arugula and it showed up in a lot of dishes. But what surprised me was what I had eaten before. In a restaurant, a dish Tony ordered had fried basil. It had concentrated flavor that I I could not believe. And in a seafood restaurant, they serve olive oil to go with bread and ironically I thought that was the best thing in the restaurant. It smelled like a garden. And in the hotel buffet, the first thing I noticed was egg. The yolk was so yellow and I realized that is how I recall eggs from Japan growing up. When I notice locality in the menu, I take every opportunity to take advantage. I tried a lot of Austrian-like dishes in Dolomites, more dishes with meat in Tuscany. Maybe it was my imagination, but it felt like it is illegal not to have tomatoes in a dish. But being an island country, seafood was excellent anywhere we went. And I think I understand "al dente" better now. It almost feels like you need to add another minute in the pot, but it continues to cook on the plate.
I already wrote about traveling in a train earlier. We are so used to door to door car life in US and taking public transportation requires patience, attention to detail and plenty of time (to avoid possible mistakes). Team T&K did very well. We had help from Marco when arranging trains, Stuart when being dropped off at Bergamo station and Jacopo at Siena station going back to Florence, but we managed well. The only money costing mistake was buying tickets from the wrong origination after the tour and time consuming mistake was getting on the wrong line at water taxi in Venice. But we caught all the trains, at assigned time and sat at assigned seats and went to the right directions. There were tricky platforms to find and changing platform, but we managed. Tony even spotted a funny sign in Da Vinci express, which we ended up seeing everywhere in trains thighs the country.
According to my Japanese guidebook to Italy, Italy is about 80% in area to Japan. Both countries are both surrounded by the sea. Compared to US, which has generous land space, both countries rely on public transportation and smaller vehicles. Italy, in a way, seems more challenge, hence bicycle is everyday means of public transportation. Elevators in hotels, in particular, are very small. There are areas in the city that cars are basically not permitted. It was so funny to see a lady taxi driver so frustrated with rain and congestion in Florence and non-speaking private hire driver back to Fiumicino airport only expressed himself with hand gestures when other drivers misbehaved. If there is "cultural distance" that I can measure, even for the first time in Europe, many aspects reminded me of Japan, making me believe, the cultural distance of US for me was greater.
During my stay, I was constantly thinking about Americans go to Japan and live there. Even for me, after short stay of 10 days, things started to look somewhat familiar. We knew we had to leave the hotel key to keep the lights on and no longer tried to pull emergency cord in the bathroom. From the context, I could analyze language structure and understand more language. Of course, the language part would be more challenging for Americans living in Japan. In this trip, we were very good tourists and the only local contact we had was with bike guide, Jacopo in Siena. He spoke good English and was familiar with a lot of US things. He was very sweet, genuine and made me think I would love to come back to stay with his family Agriturismo business one day. Maybe next time, we will start from Rome, spend another day or two and head to Amalfi coast then toward south for good seafood. We know how to get around in train and I would keep brushing up my Italian. How does that sound, Tony?
As a language person, I started studying Italian last summer. I went through Pimsleur part one taking the whole summer. We also started to subscribe RAI in Verison Fios. Even after spending the whole summer, I was not happy about the level of conversation I could manage with my Italian colleagues at school. I told all four of them that I am visiting Italy and am studying Italian. One even game me techie textbook inspection copy they used. In previous trip to Japan, I bought a few learning books and I bought English-Italian dictionary and verb conjugation book. For 2013, I bought Italian phrase calendar. I made into a little more materials in winter break. Overall, I was not happy what I had accomplished. Most of the materials I learned felt like what I ask my students to do in the very first chapter in 1st year.
People were telling me that we would do just fine using English. Besides, my Spanish should help. And Italian people are nice. Well, getting by as a tourist is one thing, but I took this mission as more of the polite gesture to be a guest to Italian people as well as intellectual challenge. When I studied Spanish, I felt that people appreciated my effort. During the stay, I was giving myself a hard time. I quietly started to understand as I left Austrian border after the Giro tour. I noticed a lot of words end in "i" and by substituting with "o" often become dictionary friendly, more recognizable form. Then I started to feel like cheating: there are a lot of past participles that I can often guess. Then when I started to make strong vowel "o" in Italian with weak combination "ue" in Spanish and "e" to "ie" respectively. And adding an extra "e" at the end of Spanish verb infinitive is a legitimate Italian cousin. Or simply switch “e” and “I” and “g” and “he”. If you are a tourist, they really don't expect y to hold a conversation in the language. And people who know knowing English means money, they don't exactly make a good practicing partner. It is rather similar to Japan, I thought.
But as I listen to the audio program that I studied this winter, I notice that I have better ear to the language. Being in the environment in context is a powerful tool to help understanding. After a while, just seeing a sign saying "Vietato Fumare" made me breathe easier. And knowledge from my musical days. Now I know I played a lot of opera overture and Canzone. "Fermata" being a bus stop and tram station stop made my day. My husband may say that now that the trip and Giro are over and I did not watch enough, he may want to cancel the Italian channel, but I hope we get to keep. I feel like I just started. There are so many things that I still had no clue to, even in the 1st semester material, but this feels Iike a good start.
Everybody who have been to Italy told me food is just so good in Italy. My adjustment was the idea of first course, second course style at the restaurant. If I am not careful, it is absolutely easy to over-eat. I was basically not exercising at all and most of the time I was sick. I am really horrified to get on the scale tomorrow morning. It may take a long time to get back. Or maybe not with all that tourist walking. I liked Italian style breakfast. Sliced meats, cheese and fruits at hotel breakfast buffet was a nice way to get protein and sodium in the morning. And maybe there are a lot more varieties in prosciutto. Some are a lot softer than I Ever found in US. Supposedly there is a good Italian meat market in Dallas; we have to check it out. And Tony became stickler to water with gas: we called fizzy water and I went with without, naturale. Rocket is may new kind of favorite vegetable. It has peppery flavor like arugula and it showed up in a lot of dishes. But what surprised me was what I had eaten before. In a restaurant, a dish Tony ordered had fried basil. It had concentrated flavor that I I could not believe. And in a seafood restaurant, they serve olive oil to go with bread and ironically I thought that was the best thing in the restaurant. It smelled like a garden. And in the hotel buffet, the first thing I noticed was egg. The yolk was so yellow and I realized that is how I recall eggs from Japan growing up. When I notice locality in the menu, I take every opportunity to take advantage. I tried a lot of Austrian-like dishes in Dolomites, more dishes with meat in Tuscany. Maybe it was my imagination, but it felt like it is illegal not to have tomatoes in a dish. But being an island country, seafood was excellent anywhere we went. And I think I understand "al dente" better now. It almost feels like you need to add another minute in the pot, but it continues to cook on the plate.
I already wrote about traveling in a train earlier. We are so used to door to door car life in US and taking public transportation requires patience, attention to detail and plenty of time (to avoid possible mistakes). Team T&K did very well. We had help from Marco when arranging trains, Stuart when being dropped off at Bergamo station and Jacopo at Siena station going back to Florence, but we managed well. The only money costing mistake was buying tickets from the wrong origination after the tour and time consuming mistake was getting on the wrong line at water taxi in Venice. But we caught all the trains, at assigned time and sat at assigned seats and went to the right directions. There were tricky platforms to find and changing platform, but we managed. Tony even spotted a funny sign in Da Vinci express, which we ended up seeing everywhere in trains thighs the country. According to my Japanese guidebook to Italy, Italy is about 80% in area to Japan. Both countries are both surrounded by the sea. Compared to US, which has generous land space, both countries rely on public transportation and smaller vehicles. Italy, in a way, seems more challenge, hence bicycle is everyday means of public transportation. Elevators in hotels, in particular, are very small. There are areas in the city that cars are basically not permitted. It was so funny to see a lady taxi driver so frustrated with rain and congestion in Florence and non-speaking private hire driver back to Fiumicino airport only expressed himself with hand gestures when other drivers misbehaved. If there is "cultural distance" that I can measure, even for the first time in Europe, many aspects reminded me of Japan, making me believe, the cultural distance of US for me was greater.
During my stay, I was constantly thinking about Americans go to Japan and live there. Even for me, after short stay of 10 days, things started to look somewhat familiar. We knew we had to leave the hotel key to keep the lights on and no longer tried to pull emergency cord in the bathroom. From the context, I could analyze language structure and understand more language. Of course, the language part would be more challenging for Americans living in Japan. In this trip, we were very good tourists and the only local contact we had was with bike guide, Jacopo in Siena. He spoke good English and was familiar with a lot of US things. He was very sweet, genuine and made me think I would love to come back to stay with his family Agriturismo business one day. Maybe next time, we will start from Rome, spend another day or two and head to Amalfi coast then toward south for good seafood. We know how to get around in train and I would keep brushing up my Italian. How does that sound, Tony?
1 Comments:
Lovely Keiko!! I'm so sorry you were not feeling well the majority of the time. I'm sure your Italian is hands down better than mine was when I went. I made febile attempts!! the people were helpful to us. still waiting for pictures!
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