The Honest Truth

I listen in on a stranger redefining “home for the holidays”

“You’re alright,” says the blonde woman on the tube, when I clumsily bump into her with my bags. She speaks quickly and with confidence, like someone used to the rhythm of a big city.

I take a seat across from her. It’s 9:30 a.m., and I have to get to Heathrow airport for my noon flight back to Canada after six months abroad.

I’ve spent the last six days in London, staying with a friend from Ottawa who owns a pub. She and her boyfriend live on Bricklane, a hip area of London that’s still got its grunge (i.e. I was attacked by a pack of kids with snowballs walking to a pub and thought I was going to be mugged).

My host, Farika, is a nutter. As one friend puts it, she outgrew Ottawa when she was 14, and Montreal when she was 16. She’s just pushing forty and opened her fifth pub in London two years ago.

When I stepped in the door on my first night she was busy behind the bar. “Can I give you a hand?” I asked her.

“Fuckin’ right you can!!!” said Farika, always with a smile.

She wore a white turtleneck stained with her efforts to make mulled wine. I helped her for less than half an hour, enough time for her to realize I was taking up more space than I was helping, at which point she switched to feeding me booze.

The bar was filled with people of all shapes and sizes. Hipster kids, straight business men, oldies, gay men with little dogs and furcoats. I chatted with one of her friends who immediately offered to give me a cellphone for a few days and took me to a “dinner party” that turned into an all night techno-fest.

I spent the next day puking instead of seeing a museum.

This morning I woke up, dragged my three bags (one of which has three litres of olive oil in it), down the street, onto the bus and onto the tube. It’s a miracle the oil isn’t everywhere and that I haven’t suffered a nervous breakdown.

The woman across from me with blonde hair is staring at her blackberry. She’s thin and wears makeup a shade too light that’s caked around her nose.

“Hi love,” she says into headset, her accent and volume level betraying her American roots. “Listen, I know it’s early but I need you to do me a favour.” She closes her eyes and breathes in deeply like she knows how this conversation will go. “I need you to look up flights when you’re awake.”

There’s a pause while she waits for an answer. “I know,” she says, her eyes pooling with tears. “But there’s no way I’m staying overnight in Atlanta. The way things are looking that’s what will happen and I’d rather just stay in London.”

She waits again.

“I know,” she says, more tears pooling. “I’m just so done with this. I’ve been gone for four months and I just want to make it home for Christmas.”

She looks tired, fed up, and like she’s been battling with airline companies for a while.

Suddenly, her tone of voice changes. “France? Maybe I’ll go to Paris or Budapest. At least a place I know.” She sounds sarcastic, like someone who’s accepted bad news and is ready to joke.

“I was talking to my cab driver who’s trying to get back home,” she says. “He just said, ‘If I make it, I make it. If I don’t, I make the best of it.’ I told him ‘Blessings.’”

It’s December 22 and London has just been dumped a pile of snow and runways are slick. Farika came back from Dublin the night before after a three-hour delay. Eurostar trains completely shut down after a temperature jump from France to London caused train electricity to cut out.

“I’m just getting stronger day by day and building so much character,” she says, utterly convinced.

“Okay,” she says, her voice turning quiet and sweet. “Bye, I love you, and love to the babies.”

She turns off her phone, takes a deep breath and chooses a song to play. She closes her eyes and I listen to the vibrations from her music.

A few minutes later I look over and her thin lips are smiling. She looks serene. She calmly makes a call and holds the phone up to her ear.

“Hi. I’m leaving,” she says decidedly. “Budapest.”

She looks happy with her self. “I’m leaving,” she says again. “I just had an epiphany. I just wanted to call and let you know you’re fabulous. And thank you.”

She pauses.

“There’s no but. You’re fab, I just wanted you to know.” She spends the next ten minutes trying to convince this person of their fabulousness, and thanking them so much for all they’ve done for her.

“This whole thing was my choice. It was a bad one, and now everything’s just such a mess. I guess that’s what champagne and other things do to you. Mostly champagne,” she says, laughing a little.

“Anyway. I just wanted to call and say how fabulous I think you are. That’s it. Now go back to bed. No really. You’ve grown so much. You came from having no growth potential to realizing growth. Blessings. I’m so proud of you. So proud.”

“I won’t call you,” she says, tentatively. “I know, it’s not fair. This was my choice and I love life so I’m doing it.”

“Love you. Love you. I’ll probably call you once to let you know I’m somewhere in the world. I love you. I love you. Okay, yup. You too. I love you.”

She hangs up.

I want to ask her what’s going on or at least say something like “sounds you’ve had quite the adventure,” to prompt her to talk. But she’s in her own world. She puts her headphones back on and listens to music until the tube stops at Heathrow. She stands up, grabs the handle of her rolly luggage, and flicks her black coat ails behind her.

Off to Budapest. In charge and loving life. Blessings.

Find out why we can’t stop talking about a certain woman…

“Allora, hai sognato di Frieda? (So, did you dream of Frieda?)” Elvira asks Stefano when he walks onto the field of olive trees.

I fondled 'em

“Non,” Stefano says, embarrassed.

Elvira, 50-something, owns an agritourism in Tuscany, and every fall harvests her 350 trees to make olive oil. Stefano, a 40-year old Italian from a nearby city and I are helping her and her husband, Sergio, with the job.

Stefano—a manboy with a mop of curly grey hair who perpetually wears sweatpants— is practically a professional WWOOFER (willing worker on organic farms). During the summers he works on a beach in Rimini, his northern Italy hometown. In the fall and winter,  he travels to farms around the country, living off unemployment insurance.

That’s how he met Frieda. He worked on her farm for a couple of days last fall.

Map of Tuscany

When we take the day off to visit Bibbona, an oceanside town just less than an hour from Donoratico, where Elvira lives, Stefano says he knows someone in the area.

*****

When we pull up to Frieda’s, no one’s in sight. All we see are rows of her crop: Indian cannabis. Her spot is beautiful. She’s surrounded by bright grassy hills that overlook the ocean and a nearby island, Isola D’Elba.

“Stefanooooooo,” she almost sings, coming toward him with open arms. She looks over

Frieda's crops

50,with the scrunched up face of a bulldog, and her blonde hair peeks out from a red bandana.

She tells Stefano to show us around while she says bye to her guest and grabs something for us to drink.

Frieda lives “en plein air”,  in a series of rooms shielded by bamboo walls. Her dining room is a table and chairs surrounded by bamboo shoots. Five metres away is her workspace, a big desk and small cot also surrounded by bamboo, with a tarp laid over the sticks on the ceiling to keep out rain.

Her desk is littered with empty bottles and papers. A shelf behind displays glass bottles with bright coloured green and red liquors.  A cellphone’s charging on the solar panel outside.

Elvira and Sergio are impressed.

This is Frieda’s business: she sells liquors and teas made from her cannabis and leads workshops in the Etruscan lifestyle, (a culture in the Tuscan region that spanned 8^th to 3^rd century B.C., when the Romans took over).

We walk past the kitchen, where pots and pans hang on a rack above a little counter and sink, to her bedroom, which has the same bamboo walls as her office, a cot in the middle and a little desk to the side. A few feet away is a pit with a showerhead coming out of the ground, also protected by bamboo shoots. Frieda built it all herself.

We move to the spot with the best view, where Frieda’s set up a plastic table and a medley of mismatched chairs. “Qui e il fino del mondo (This is the edge of the world),” says Elvira, soaking up the view.

Frieda brings us some cake and white wine, and she, Elvira and Sergio start talking about life on farms. For once, Sergio—a friendly looking man with a big smile a snoopy-esque nose—is asking more questions than talking about himself.

Frieda is Dutch, and moved to this spot 16 years ago after it “choose her” on a trip she took to Italy. During the winters she moves to Amsterdam where she gives powerpoint presentations on the Etruscan lifestyle and “reconnects” with the world.

When we leave, Sergio and Frieda exchange numbers while Stefano and I shove our pockets full of weed.

For the next two days, Frieda is everywhere.

Elivra–a feisty pipsqueak of a woman who’s been fending for herself since her parents died when she was a teen–greets Stefano every morning by asking if he dreamt of Frieda.

Sergio’s developed a repetitive monologue about her in which he begins by saying her name

Can you see the Snoppy in Sergio?

and smiling, continues with a criticism that though her place is beautiful, the average person wouldn’t want to spend more than a few days, and ends with though she doesn’t look like much, she’s very intelligent.

Sergio- who has the ability to  easily switch from laughing to speaking intensely to yelling, oblivious to his change in tone-decides when we’re done the olive harvest, he’s inviting Frieda over for dinner.

The next day an Italian couple in their 20’s named Francesca and Fabio arrive to help us finish. The combination of having four more hands, and it being a weak year for the olive trees, means we finish in two more days.

We sit around the lunch table trying to decide what to do with the afternoon.

Sergio suggests we show Francesca and Fabio Frieda’s. I look at Stefano, and we nod nonchalantly. They’ve been hearing about her for two days nonstop, and may as well see the place for themselves.

When we pull up to Frieda’s, she’s showing someone the start of a house she’s building in classic Etruscan style. She wears the same loose shirt with no bra tucked into high pants, but her hair is styled under a straw hat, and she’s wearing makeup. Stefano says she must be expecting male company.

“Stefano, sei ritornato!! (Stefano, you’ve come back!!!)” she says. “Vai a montrare l’ambiente un po’ agli altri (Go show the ambiance to the others).”

Stefano gives the tour, made different only by the two rows of cannabis leaves drying on crates outside of Frieda’s bedroom.

When Frieda joins us, she’s not all wine and cake. She asks if we’d mind giving her a hand, picking up acorns outside her room that attract wild boars, and harvesting the cannabis. Stefano tries to tell her it’s our day off and we have plans, but Frieda insists we can spare half an hour.

Stefano and I follow Frieda to the field with baskets under our arms, leaving Fabio and Francesca to pick the acorns.

As we trudge through the tall, dry plants, Frieda encourages us to pick whichever leaves “feel right.” The leaves range from a dark purple to dark green and look like exotic flowers. When our baskets are filled, we dump the cannabis on the crates, and head towards the view.

Frieda rewards us with sparkling water infused with cannabis, and some of her homemade

Sergio, Frieda, Francesca and Fabio soak it in

liquor, a bright green substance made with alcohol, cannabis and honey. She lines up plastic shot glasses, and we say “Salute (Cheers).”

It’s smooth, and I buy a bottle without thinking of how I’m going to get it across the border.

That night at dinner, the conversation turns to Frieda. Sergio contributes his usual opinion, followed up by “E vero, Stefano? (Am I right Stefano?)”

But Francesca and Fabio are still under the spell, and gush about their time at her farm.

“Penso che sognero anch’Io della Frieda stasera (I think I’ll also dream of Frieda tonight” says Francesca before going to bed.

Sergio never does invite Frieda for dinner, but it doesn’t really matter. It feels like she’s been here for days: morning, noon and especially night.

Find out why you don’t need an audioguide to learn about Renaissance art…

We’re standing in front of Mary and Jesus.

“What do you notice about the painting?” a thin Italian man passionately asks the American couple beside me.

Jesus looks like a midget, not a baby, and Mary’s all…cartoony and distorted. They look…Egyptian?

“It’s flat,” says the salt-and-pepper-haired man in a golf shirt. His manicured wife nods.

“It’s flat,” the Italian man repeats, drawing out the words. “You know why?” he asks suddenly, moving around them and gesturing with his hands.

The man,  dressed sharply in a black cardigan and wears glasses, explains that in the 13^th century, people still believed biblical figures were spirits rather than real people. Artists, to reflect the belief, depicted them in flat, unrealistic ways.

Oh, so, it’s not Egyptian…

I smiled at the newfound information, feeling smarter by the minute. He is the perfect guide: Smart. Passionate. Local. Only problem, he isn’t mine…

I was ready to pay for information. I really was. I showed up at the Uffizi gallery in Florence,  45 rooms of the most famous Renaissance art in the world, at 8 a.m., to join the already lengthy line up.

After an hour of watching a screen with big red lights that predicts the wait time, I got in.

The scale of the place is overwhelming, and though I usually don’t spring for an audioguide, I justified this as an investment in my education.

I stand in line to rent one and the polite woman asks me for a driver’s license or passport.

I give her my temporary license, the only valid I.D. I have on me.

She turns it over and tells me it’s expired.

I try to explain my valid license was mailed after I left for Europe, but she’s heard it all before, and turns into a curt, machine-like employee.

“Non posso fare niente (I can’t do anything)” she says, as the image of my audio-guided self smugly learning about renaissance art deflates and is replaced by me staring dumbly at room after room of meaningless paintings…

God works in mysterious ways. I find the Italian man within minutes of walking into the overwhelming hallway, lined with marble statues and frescoes of creepy cupids. He tells the American couple the gallery is so huge, he’ll just show them the gems.

Screw the canned British ladies voice telling me to press 5 for more info on Italian depictions of Madonna and Bambino. I’m with this guy…

The crowds of people made it easy to “knowledge-drop” (get it? Like shop-lifting, but with…nevermind). I put my headphones in, just to be stealth, and follow them into the next room.

We stop next at a painting by a Flemish painter depicting the Adoration of Christ. There’s people huddled around, and I’m able to blend in flawlessly. The 15^th century piece is divided into three panels (only two here due to lack of space), and the middle shows the three shepards kneeling before Jesus. It’s a very realistic portrayl, compared to the 13^th century depictions.

Our guide explains how having the background of a hill on the left and right panels (the left shows the Three Magi on the road to Bethleham) introduced a new perspective Italian painters tried to emulate.

In the next room, we come to Bottecelli’s “Birth of Venus”, where the crowd is so big you’d expect George Clooney was standing in front. This is good for blending in, and I stand so close to my unsuspecting guide we brush shoulders.

He explains how the name of the painting is a misnomer, because it depicts Venus coming back to life, rather than her birth. He draws our attention to the Greek god of wind on the left, blowing the her towards the goddess of seasons on the right that hands her a cloak.

“Do you like the painting?” he asks the couple.

“I think her expressions a bit weird,” says the American guy.

“At the time, this wasn’t considered a great painting, and Venus wasn’t considered very beautiful,” he says. Our guide explains her long neck, and the way her left shoulder slopes didn’t comply with the style of strict classical realism of Leonardo da Vinci or Raphael. It was only later Botticelli’s artistic license became appreciated.

He takes us through the next couple of rooms, asking about our responses and passionately explaining the narratives (The god on the left in this painting is turned away because he’s married.)

After the Leonardo DaVinci room, and two hours later, my group decides they’re going to take a break before going through the second half. To avoid sitting beside them in the hall, I linger in the last room, thinking over what I’ve learnt.

I linger too long, and by the time I come back out, they’re nowhere to be found.

I do what any good Italian would, and have an espresso on the rooftop café of the gallery. I enjoy the view of the old bridge, and figure I’ll catch up with “the group” inside.

No cigar. They are nowhere to be found. After getting over the insensitivity of this, I latch onto another guided group. The gallery official, short with grey hair, is explaining Titian’s 16^th century masterpiece, Venus di Urbino. She says to a group of six the portrait was commissioned by the Duke of Urbino (who was around 50 at the time), as an instructive model for his 14-year old bride. It was considered very scandalous, and Mark Twain dismissed it as “the foulest, the vilest, the obscenest picture the world possesses.”

His wife should be seductive, illustrated by the goddess’ pose and inviting stare, as well as faithful, illustrated by the dog in the corner.

Interesting information, but this woman lacks the character of my Italian art aficionado, so I ditch for some alone time with the masterpieces.

I’ve experienced my own renaissance: This guy has taught me how to look at religious art by looking for the stories, and understanding how the style of the painting shows the artists’ interpretation of the bible or myth.

When I come to the end of the gallery, after another two hours of rooms filled with art up until the 18^th century, I decide to revisit some paintings not considered “gems” by my tour guide.

I smile to myself past the flat depiction of Madonna and child that means so much more than it did four hours ago. My attention is drawn to a group huddled around a big 13^th century depiction of Christ’s crucifixion. My interest is perked. We didn’t go over that one. I shimmy over to hear what all the fuss is about.

The guide is from the museum, and has short, chin-length black hair. She describes things with a straight face, and moves her group quickly from painting to painting. I miss the description, but follow them into the next room. I put in my headphones on, and cast my eyes downwards.

She plants her group of obedient tourists in front of a painting and tells them to move in close. There are less people at this hour, and barely a crowd to blend into. I take a step forward to better hear, but the guide shoots me a glance; a guard dog showing it’s teeth.

She’s onto me. The honeymoon is over.

I find my way to the gift shop and feel inspired to make a contribution. I pick up a book called “Understanding Religious Art” that explains that stories of the most famous art in museums around the world.  It’s heavy, and overpriced, but easier to pack than an Italian tourguide. That’s what I call an investment in my education…

My first night in Budapest I get a too-warm welcome.

“How did you find this place?” asks the man sitting at the bar. “It took me ten years.”

It’s quite simple: I arrived just hours ago in Budapest and my enthousiastic 22-year-old hostel owner sat me down with a map and pointed out his favourite spots. He said it’s strange this bar advertised on a tourist map, as it’s always filled with local people.

After walking around in the dark, mist-shrouded Budapest, it started to rain. I took out my map and went in search of that warm, local place to rest my tourist ass.

When I arrive, Kiadó (which means for rent in Hungarian) is exactly what I expected: a cozy, basement bar with wooden tables and tall glasses of beer. I walk up a couple stairs to where a  man in a black t-shirt and ponytail leans against the bar, smoking a cigarette and drinking a beer.

“You speak some english?” I ask, stuffing my map in my pocket.

“A little,” he says, disinterestedly.

“Can I still eat?” I say, making the international motion for eating.

“Yes,” he says, and I sit down on a big, padded chair in front of the bar.

On the chairs beside me sits a couple, glued to eachothers’ faces. The girl, who looks like Scarlett Johansson, has red, puffy eyes. Whatever happened, the baby-faced guy looks happy to enjoy the “making-up”.

To my right a group of friends take up a couch and some chairs and in front of me a few regulars warm their barstools.

I stare at the paper menu written in Hungarian. Salat must be salad, Goulash I know, Leves? Kolbasz? Bab?

The pony-tailed man comes over I say shyly I’d like something to eat, but…(the international symbol for “I don’t understand this menu”).

“It’s possible,” he says, not answering the question. “Drink?”

I say a glass of white wine and he nods.

After slowly sipping my wine, I realize my fantasy  of the bartender bringing me a myriad of Hungarian delicacies isn’t happening. It was lost in translation.

I try to make eye contact and hold up my menu, the international sign for “I’d like to order.” He seems more interested in drinking his beer.

Finally, I wave him over. “Maybe you can choose something for me?” I say, pointing to the menu.

He shrugs like he doesn’t understand, and then, as if everything is suddenly clear, he flips the menu over to the english side.

Koszonom,” I say. Thank you, in Hungarian.

I order a big bowl of an interesting sounding soup: deer ragout with red noodles. I slurp it down, order another glass of wine and sink back in the comfy chair.

The man at the bar with slightly graying hair and a blue zip-up sweater keeps looking over. He’s drinking red wine. My bartender is rolling a cigarette, and feeling confident from the wine, I go up to ask if I can have one.

“Do you know how to roll?” says the blue shirt man who I’m now standing beside.

“Yes,” I say, defiantly, thanking god I taught myself to roll a joint.

The bartender nods towards his tobacco, I take a paper and roll a cigarette.

“Where are you from?” the man asks me.

I tell him.

“A Canadian on her first night in Budapest, ends up here,” he says. “That’s so strange. It’s a very special place.”

The man is from Budapest and his English is a little rusty.  He now lives outside of the city, but has two businesses here. He comes in every Tuesday to check up on them, and Tuesday night you can find him on this very barstool.

“Do you want something to drink?” he says, rightly sensing I’m preparing to go.

Okay.

“Two rums,” he tells the lanky bartender with a long beard sitting behind the bar. “Sit down,” he says, motioning to the stool beside him.

The bartender brings three shots and joins in on the cheers. I down the whole thing, and after putting the empty glass on the table, realize they’ve only drank half.

“You didn’t know,” says the man laughing, after I point this out.

He has a dimpled smile, confidence with women, and in his tastes.

We talk a bit about my trip, and he tells me he’s spent some time in Italy. I tell him I love the language, and he says he doesn’t like it very much. To him, Italians don’t sound like native speakers of their own language.

?!?!?!?

I ask him about life in Budapest and he says he loves it here, but not to live. Too many cars with crazy drivers, too much theft and backwards people.

He order us another rum and writes down his perfect day in Budapest: a thermal bath at one of the many bath houses, a turkish dinner at a restaurant near my hostel, and a drink at a bar near the opera house. He titles it “Sunday menu.”

Feeling tipsy, and noticing that most people have cleared out, I thank him and try for a second time to leave.

“You’re going?” he says, surprised.

“They’re closing.”

“It’s flexible,” he says, smiling.

He insists I try a liquor called Palinka, a type of Hungarian Schnapps. I choose the  plum favour and ask him if he’s having on too. He says no. It hurts his stomach too much.

Well no shit. If there was any plum in there I’m too distracted by my burning windpipe to notice.

There’s nobody left in the bar and the bartenders are packing up their things. We both stand up to go, and the bearded bartender hands the man a rose. It’s his daughter’s second birthday, tomorrow.

The man walks me to the corner I have to turn down to get home. Then he says the garage where his car’s parked is nearby, and he’ll give me a ride.

When we get to the parking complex, the man can’t find his car. He curses his driver for telling him the wrong floor, and we ride the elevator to the next one up.

To make small talk, and to clarify some questions floating around in my head, I ask him if he lives with his daughter. He says yes. I ask him where his daughter’s mother lives. “We live outside of Budapest,” he repeats, confusedly.

Right. You, your daughter, and your wife.

I don’t mind that he’s older, but I’m not up for helping him have some good ol’ fashioned extra-marital fun.

Once we arrive on the fifth floor, he still can’t find his car.

He tells me to wait while he looks on the floor above.

I say I think I’ll just walk.

“Why? You have to wait here just a few minutes.”

“Trust me,” I say.  “It’s better if I walk.”

“Is this because my car is lost, or because I have a wife…” he asks.

I tell him the latter.

“So what? I drive you to your hostel, we kiss, and you leave for Canada.”

“No,” I say, shaking my head.  “I can’t do that.”

He gives a half-laugh, like he can’t believe what I’m saying.

“Alright,” he says, and walks away.

I walk quickly in the other direction, and once outside of the parking garage, find my spot on the map. I start in what I think is the right direction, but stop at the next corner to be sure.

“Need some help,” asks a young guy in perfect English, walking a dog.

I show him my spot on the map.

“You have to go this way,” he says, pointing to the opposite direction I’m going. “I’m sure, I used to live there.”

“Where are you from?” I say.

He looks at me suspiciously. “Seattle,” he says, pausing, then adding: “But I’ve lived here for ten years. Do you live in Budapest?”

“I wouldn’t be holding a map if I did,” I say, and thank him for his help.

Walking away I think maybe I should’ve said yes, and told him about a little bar where all the locals go…

On a farm in Tuscany, dinner tastes extra sweet for a reason…

Tonight, something strange is happening at the dinner table: we’re eating cake.

It’s strange because Pierangelo, the man whose farm I’m staying at, doesn’t like sweets.

He’s made one amazing meal after another, going way beyond the typical Italian fare of  pasta, meat and pizza. Pierangelo cooks vegetarian casseroles, tasty soups and bean-based dishes, all of which we wash down with local red wine.

But never dessert.  He doesn’t have a sweet tooth.

I arrived on Pierangelo’s farm six days ago, a paradise 625 metres up in

these mountains hug Pierangelo's house

the Tuscan mountains with over 100 chestnut trees, 20 rows of rasberry plants and six donkeys. I’m here to help with the annual October chestnut harvest, along with a hodge-podge of foreigners.

There’s the 60-something couple from small-town Quebec who speak exclusively french (save for the man who has a basic english vocabularly) and the 20-something couple from Brooklyn, one of whom speaks pretty good Spanish.

Pierangelo has a working level of both Spanish and French (though he insists he doesn’t understand Quebecois, as does his partner Cristina, who knows a little French).

Then there’s me, who knows the Quebecois accent well (and probably speaks with it a little) and speaks Italian. The Brooklyn couple dubbed me Nicole Kidman from “The Interpreter”.

The french couple is working on farms to save money during their 3 month long Italian trip, the American couple are making their way to Russia to do the Transmongolian railway that ends in China, and I’m here to learn Italian. We all came together for the common good of chestnuts.

Every morning we go off into the woods to collect the chestnuts. They fall from trees in big spiky shells that look like the things you’re supposed to avoid in a super mario game. You crack the shell open with your foot or gloves and take out the chestnut. If a falling shell one hits you on the back, the thin spikes (a type of tannin) make your skin itch for days.

I can’t describe the feeling of being in the middle of the woods, surrounded by huge chestnut trees, listening to the rain-like sound of shells periodically falling and donkeys roar. Land before time shit.

The afternoons we were free and around 8:30 p.m. we all meet for dinner.

Pierangelo’s kitchen perfectly fits the rustic Tuscan stereotype. In the middle is a long, dark wooden table, where he casually places slices of white bread for every meal. There’s a warm, orange hue to the walls, and the shelves are home made with pots and pans hanging in every direction.

Not the real table but looks pretty good too, no?

There’s  one communal room in the house of which the kitchen takes up half.  Dividing the two sides is a big white furnace, and the living is made up of a couch, a small t.v. and a big loom.

Pierangelo is in his 50’s with a mop of curly grey hair, an earring, and a soft, lispy speech. He escaped to the countryside from Florence when he was a teenager, in protest of Italian politics and a life of consumerism. After living on a commune in the Tuscan country side, he and some friends started building houses in Borgo San Lorenzo, the mountain property he lives on now.

He had met Cristina a few years before, who was living on a different commune, and she moved in with him. They had two kids (now young adults) but never married and act more like friends.

Pierangelo has travelled a fair bit, which accounts for his international cuisine. He spent time in Africa, and South America, fostering his passion for hiking. He’s a quiet man and oddly calm. He never made us feel guilty for kicking back in the afternoons when his day was half over.

It’s riding with him in the car that I learned the most about him. He tells me the problem with calm people is that they bottle everything up, and then explode. And speaking of bottles, Pierangelo has the bad habit of keeping one beside him in the cupholder, and on a long trip, stopping every now and then for beer at a roadside bar.

The curious, but maybe normal thing for functioning alcoholics, is that his demeanour never changed. His face was always a reddish hue, but he maintained his calm, pleasant composure.

Cristina drinks like a bird. A quarter glass of wine at dinner and she’s done. She’s a nurse at an old age home and hates her job. She’s a lanky 46-year-old with a child-like demeanour: she touches my arm a lot, talks quietly and says things under her breath like a student trying not to get caught.  She has pieces of died red hair around her short dark hair that match her red-framed glasses. She says though Pierangelo has many good qualities, his drinking isn’t one of them.

When she comes home from work tonight, we’re already on dessert.

For dinner, Pierangelo bought us each a ball of Mozzarella di Buffalo, the more expensive and delicious sibling of cow’s milk mozzarella, and made a soup with rice and vegetables.

There was no second course because instead, he serves us scacciata (a type of croissant like pastry also used for savoury pies) with a grape filling. Since it’s not too sweet, he likes it.

After we eat, the Quebec couple does the dishes and goes to bed. The Americans stick around, because the guy, Rob, is feeling sick, and Cristina’s prepared him a bucket of hot water with drops of teatree oil to help his breathing.

The phone rings and Pierangelo stands up to answer it. He says a couple of words in Italian, and takes the portaphone outside.

Rob suddenly lifts his head from over the hot bucket and says “Is it his birthday?”

“Noooo,” I say, thinking since I spent the whole day with Pierangelo and he didn’t say anything, it couldn’t be.

To be sure, I traslate to Cristina.

“Si,” she says, casually. “Lui non piace dirlo a nessuno (He doesn’t like to tell anyone).”

I tell Rob he was right. “How did you know?” I ask.

“He said something about being another year older,” he says. “I guess my Italian’s pretty good.”

For us city kids, not celebrating a birthday wasn’t gonna fly.

“Should we sing?” I ask excitedly. “Let’s light a candle.”

Cristina hesitantly agrees, but on the condition Pierangelo knows she didn’t spill the beans.

We find a tea candle, light it, and put it beside what’s left of the cake. We top up his glass of red wine.

We turn off the lights, and prepare for his entrance. In the meantime, I teach the americans the Italian words to Happy Birthday.

Finally, after our eyes are long accustomed to the one candlelight, we hear the door open.

We burst into a butchered version of “Tanti Auguri.”

Pierangelo smiles, and looks suspiciously at Cristina.

“Rob ti a sentita al telefono (Rob heard you on the phone,)” she says, innocently.

We turn on the lights and tell him to make a wish.

Pierangelo nonchalantly blows out candle and when I ask him what he wished for, he vaguely says he’s always thinking of wishes. He says he’s had enough cake but takes the wine voluntarily. Then he tries to squirm out of the birthday spotlight and change the subject.

I ask him why he didn’t say anything, and he predictably says he doesn’t believe in birthdays. It’s just another day where he’s older than someone who’s 52.

The cake? The mozzarella? Okay, he admits, those were for the occasion.

That night we drink more wine, and Pierangelo ends up attaching a hammock across the living room and falling asleep.

It’s nice to know that even the most humble of farm men, if secretly, still commemorate another year gone by.

I’m on a bus with 50 Italians when I hear the announcement:

“Abbiamo un bell’sorpresa quest’anno da nostra ospita internazionale (We have a nice surprise this year from our international guest,” says Lucca Albertini, the man at the front of the bus holding a microphone.

I’m with my cousins on a trip they take every year to Germany for Oktoberfest—the annual beer guzzing, music listening, weiner schnitzel eating fall tradition in Munich.

They’ve been going for 15 years, back when the trip was a couple carloads of people. Word spread, and now people reserve a year in advance for a spot on the bus filled with Italian parents, kids, significant others, recent divorcees and sulky teenagers.

Lucca is the man in charge. Growing up, he made frequent trips to Germany with his dad who bought animals in a town called Rosenheim for a farm in Italy. Lucca became enamoured with German language and culture, and anytime he had a free minute, crossed the border to get his fix.

Now he runs the unofficial “Albertour” (derived from his last name) and every year he takes care of all the organization that goes into getting 50 Italians to a table in Munich and 2 litre pints of beer in their hands.

It’s a lot of work, but also his time to shine. Lucca’s a natural tour guide: A lanky, almost bald man, with bright blue eyes and a wide smile. He has the energy of a ten year old, and the ability to snap into problem solving mode when someone gets the vegetarian plate rather than the roast pork they ordered.

The 3 day excursion is a chance for Lucca to wear his beige german overalls, get up on stage at Oktoberfest and conduct the symphony (he’s been going so long they know him there), and be treated like a hero of every Italian on the trip. There’s inside jokes from years of beer-stained history, and though the people on the tour change slightly by the year, everybody know and loves Lucca.

He’s standing near the busdriver explaining the night’s festivities as we return to our hotel that falls just outside of German, and into Austria.

It’s the last night, and the group always puts on a show of some sort. In previous years it’s been a beauty contest or a talent show. This year, among other things, I hear these words tumble slowly out of his mouth:

“Angelina, la Canadese, va cantare un cansone Inglese (Angelina, the Canadian, will sing an english song.”

I sink deep into my seat. I’ll do anything, just don’t make me sing in front of people.

I took songwriting lessons for a couple of years when I was 13. I even performed some of my songs at a local bar open mic. I loved singing, but after being sushed to many times while singing along to the radio, many failed auditions for the city choir and a specific episode in high school where my best friend and mom both agreed I didn’t have a good voice, I decided they were probably right. I just didn’t have it. Ever since I’ve probably exaggerated how bad my voice actual is, and despise singing in front of people.

I laugh nervously at Lucca. Chances are, if I don’t make a big deal, this will go away. Lucca’s a guy who likes to joke around, right? Just look at those overalls…

I’ve gotten enough attention already from being the only international person here. From the tall, creepy man with glasses asking me “Posso domandare una cosa: Cosa fai qui? (Can I ask you something, what are you doing here?)” to the bus erupting in applause when I met them in Austria (I came from Berlin) before arriving at the hotel.

Singing infront of the entire group? Too cruel to be true.

That night, we sit in the hotel dining room finishing off our dinner. We take up half of the chunky wooden tables in the room with windows that look out onto a beautiful hilly landscape of small town Austria. Our waitresses are dressed in traditional green and white dresses with their busts spilling out.

We are divided into groups by region of Italy. There’s the table from Venice, by far the most obnoxious and loud, two Bologna tables (Northern italy), the Reggio Nell’Emilia table, a city North of Bologna, and the kids’ table.

Lucca, who sits at our table, is always bouncing around doing damage control.

Maria-Grazia, his wife, is a tall, lanky bird with a witchy nose and thick, untamed black hair. She’s always lurking around, screeching at people with her high-pitched voice.

“Adesso, facciamo le preparazione per la spetaccolo (Now let’s start the preparations for the show,” says Lucca, standing on the stage above the dining room. “Tutti le pays di Italia devono cantare un canzone tipico della regione (Every part of Italy ha sto sing a song typical of their city.”

Okay. Group singing I can do.

“Sarebbe un po di balla country (There’ll be some country dancing).”

I wasn’t part of that.

“E la talenta internazionale (And the international talent).”

Shit.

Lucca comes over and puts a songbook in front of me. “Scegli qualcosa (Choose something),” he says, without asking whether I’m truly okay with it or not.

I get a few sympathetic looks from some of the women at the table, but no one stands up to say maybe I don’t want to do this.

I put on a brave face, hold my beer tight and flip through the song book.

It’s weird how memory works. I flip through these songs I’ve heard a million times. Elton John’s “Crocodile Rock”, Paul McCartney’s “Imagine”, but when I see the lyrics I forget the melody.

I take a swig of my Leffe and thank god I’m not paying for the beer.

There’s “California Dreamin’”, but only in Italian and I can’t remember all the English words.

I try to pick based on what could get the crowd going. There’s nothing upbeat except an Ace of Base song I’m not sure would translate so well on acoustic guitar.

There’s “Let it Be”, and “Hey Jude”, but with my flat voice, they might be kind of sleepers…

I must’ve had a panicked look on my face because one of the guy’s at the table looks at me and says casually, “Dai, Fai Yellow Submarine (C’mon, do yellow submarine).” Thanks for the advice.

All around me the Italians are going over their sheet music. At my table, everyone’s playing shy and convincing the guy with a good voice to sing most of it solo.

Lucca comes over and asks if I’ve picked something. “Um, ohhh..,” I manage some sort of answer which leaves him satisfied enough to send me to the stage where the guitar players are waiting.

There are three: one, I learn later, a classically trained professional guitarist, another, a middle-aged blonde-haired man with a passion for music, and the third, a acned teenage boy who’d rather be playing in a garage band.

They ask me what I chose. I fumble the same answer again, and the blonde guy takes the book from me. “Facciamo Let it Be? (Let’s do “Let it be?” he says. “Una bella cansone (A beautiful song).”

I let them take the lead and we go through the song once.

“Voi cantereste con me? Will you sing with me?” I ask at the end.

“Non lo so come pronunciare le parole (I don’t know how to pronunce the words),” says the blonde guy.

“Non e bello quando noi cantiamo in Inglese (It doesn’t sound good when we sing in English,” says the professional guitarist.

The next half hour is a blur of trying to get more drunk and reminding myself that nobody really cares how this goes, and at least, in the end, I live in another country.

The people who really don’t want to sing get to be judges. The three guys, my cousin included, take their place on the side of the stage. Lucca announces we’re about to begin, and I go grab another beer.

The Venetians kick things off with a melancholy song about riding in a gondola. The judges jokingly walk off stage within the first couple seconds it sounds so bad. To me, they sound pretty good.

I have no idea when I’m going to be called up, but until then, my heartrate won’t go down to the level of a normal audience member.

The country dancers do a couple sleepy numbers and then, from where I’m sitting at a table to the side of the stage, I hear the word “internazionale.”

I’m up.

“Questo e cattivo (This is mean),” I hear myself say, as I get up on stage. I make the guitar boys stand around me near the front of the stage, and after a series of awkward attempts to hold the book so everyone can see it, Lucca squats down in front and holds it open.

The blonde guy must’ve caught on to how nervous I am. While strumming the opening chord, he hums the starting note, which brings back memories of a particularly mortifying audition for grease in high school when I sang all of happy birthday off key.

Off I go.

I hear my voice in my head but I don’t know if anyone can hear me.

As usual, when I’m nervous, I overcompensate.

I move my hands like I’m conducting the audience, especially at the chorus. I have no idea how people are looking at me: with pity, admiration or embarrassment. I’m picturing them all naked.

When it ends, I take a bow (I think), and thank the guitar guys profusely (maybe they played so loud they drowned out my voice).

I sit back down at my table with that adrenaline rush the rest of my table can feel. A couple people tell me good job. I smile politely and give an overwhelmed look.

After five minutes my performance is long forgotten after a guy from tReggio Nell’Emilia with an incredible voice leads the group’s song.

Then the classical guitar player busts out an amazing tarantella, and people look from him to each other with expressions of “isn’t he amazing???”

In the end, I win the prize for most emotion filled performance. I don’t know what the means, but can only imagine I looked like a clown waving my hands around and smiling like a maniac.

Once the show is finished, Lucca’s sister teaches a group country dance lesson, and some of the room files out for a good night’s sleep.

The blonde guitar player calls me up to the stage. He asks enthousiastically if I’ll sing “Hey Jude.” I’ve just country-danced country with a 50-year-old for the past twenty minutes. My ice is broken.

I get up there and surely do shame to a beautiful song. This time, I don’t really care. I forget sections, fall flat on notes and make the guys sing in their broken english.

“Ba ba, ba ba ba…baaaaaaa,” I sing like a fool, trying to hit that top note and failing.

I realize my voice isn’t the point. They have classically trained professional guitar man for that job.

The point is I’m foreign, and I can pronounce the words to beautiful songs they can’t. Finally, my talent is…natural.

That night, I went to bed singing.

“Hey Anggggggg…don’t make it hardddddddddddddddd.”

My eyes burn.

I’m surrounded by rows  of ceramics: plates, vases, ashtrays. There’s something about these grey warehouse walls and the vast space filled with shelving that makes everything look the same.

I hate buying souvenirs.

I’m with my Cousin, who lives in Northern Italy, his wife, and ten-year-old son in a small South Western Sicilian town called Caltagirone (http://www.pbase.com/bauer/caltagirone, check out the pictures, my souvenir to you). It’s late August, and we’re visiting his parents (My great aunt&uncle) and sister (my cousin) in Sicily.

The sun is shining and we’ve just finished a delicious “granita a frutti di bosco”, a high-class slushy made with blueberries and rasberries, typical of the region. Everything is going well, until I feel the need to commemorate how well it’s going by buying things.

It starts at the top of 142 stairs. Caltagirone is known for its staircase leading up to Santa Maria church, each step framed by cermaic tiles.

Once I get to the top,  my adrenaline’s pumping, I’m feeling in love with Italy, and convienently, there’s a souvenir shop a few steps down.

This isn’t your eiffel tower rubber keychain souvenir store either. We’re authentic cermaics from a small town not even some of the most Italians of Italians have been to. Even a cheap-ass like me knows it’s time to spend…

What do I decide to buy? Obviously a gift for my Italian cousins I’m with who come here everytime they’re in Sicily. Obviously.

I hate buying souvenirs because I’m bad at it. I want everything to be meaningful. I can’t buy a souvenir, it has to buy me. It has to sell me on the fact that its colours, its form, its very being is exactly right for you, you and you.

This goes inherently against the nature of souvenirs: designed to be cheap reminders that you thought of your loved ones in a place they might never go to…for 5 minutes and euros.

In this case, I make a worse mistake. I try to make a souvenir into the most meaningful thing of all: a gift.

I spot an espresso set painted with lemons and blue swirls. I remember my cousin’s wife saying she has an entire set of lemon dishware from the town. It’s perfect. I’ll add the missing piece.

I give 25£ to a dodgy-looking guy claiming to have made all the ceramics and walk out the store rich is smugness.

After joining my cousin and his wife at the bottom of the stairs, this feeling ends a block later when we arrive at their favourite, authentic, ceramic store.

I watch in horror as my cousin’s wife buys some lemon-decorated plates that are smaller, and match her set at home. As she laments over the fact she can’t buy as many as she likes, I let my golden opportunity to “buy some for my mom” pass, feeling too weighted down by the bag in my hand.

The regret doesn’t end end here. For the grand finale, they take me to a warehouse, announcing it’s the best, cheapest place to buy ceramics in Caltagirone. When in Rome…follow a Roman.

Here I realize not only did I buy the wrong pattern of lemon, but I got ripped off. As is the case with most things sold from a warehouse, I see the same set for less than half the price I paid.

Like a guy with a small penis, I look to compensate.

I notice my cousin and his wife bringing armloads of things to the cash, and I start thinking of people back home I could by things for. People who will think what I buy them is cool by virtue that it comes from far away.

I stare for awhile at a modern looking ceramic ashtray splashed with bright colours. I like it. I have friends who would gladly impress guests by saying their ashtray is Sicilian. Maybe I should get two? What the hell…maybe five?

My cousin, who demands attention by virtue of his size, walks by and says dismissingly the ashtray is a poor attempt to modernize an old design. The authentic stuff are the ceramics with traditional blues, yellows and greens.

Reluctantly I take a walk down the aisles, one cermaic blurring into the next. I try to appreciate the classical style of decorating, with fruits and nature, but I don’t have an aunt Gertrude with a country home that needs more flair…

I slyly wander back to the ashtrays, and look both ways to make sure my cousin isn’t lingering. I alternate for a while between picking it up, picking it down, justifying why I shouldn’t buy it, justifying why I should buy more than one.

I settle, as I normally do, with a rational in between. I quickly take an ashtray to the cash and pay for it like I’m making a drug deal.

That night, I can’t get to sleep. I’m thinking about my other cousin, the one who lives in Sicily, and how I haven’t bought them anything to thank them for their hospitality.

There’s that tooney I have at the bottom of my backpack..? I toss and turn, trying to avoid what seems to be my only option.

I can’t…that’s stupid…they live a stonesthrow from the town…but it looks modern…my cousin is a modern woman, she even reads a magazine called donna moderna…zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

I wake up early the next morning and go straight to van. I open the door, reach into my bag and pull out the ashtray. Inside, I place it on the kitchen table, and write a thank you note.

Dear reader: if you were hoping for an Italian souvenir, I’m sorry. I’ll pick you up some maple syrup from the Ottawa airport.

Ray looks like he just woke up in a place he didn’t fall asleep in. He surveys the room, bug-eyed. The walls are covered top to bottom in pink fur and plastic beads. Bright pink, like the inside of a neon uterus and light up by gaudy chandeliers. Techno music pulses and the room is sweaty with men standing around, anticipating sex. Ray is fresh meat on a conveyor belt.

Walking into Roses Bar is being transported into another world. From the street this place is unnoticeable; a door with a small rose lit up like a seven eleven sign. Inside gays, lesbians, oddballs and eccentrics bump elbows under the pink glow. There’s no windows, just a small front and back room, packed wall to wall.

We’re in Berlin. It’s a crisp September night, and I’ve dragged two Australian boys, Ray and Adam, and a Montreal-Canadian girl I’ve just met at the hostel for drinks on my birthday.

None of us know the city, but my friend who spent a year here compiled a list of must-do’s. Going to Roses was number one.

I didn’t consider that Zack’s favourite bar would obviously be gay, over-the-top and a shocker for these jockey Australians. I was more focused on navigating us through the metro, and streets with numbers that jump randomly from 4 to 187.

We b-line it to the bar and squirm our way through the crowd to find a place to sit. We squeeze half a buttcheek each a small couch in the corner beside a table. Ray sits on a stool, facing the entire room. He’s higher up than the rest of us, and there’s a picture of a lit-up baby jesus behind him.

He sits with his arms crossed sheepishly across his tight white t-shirt that says “Viva Vida.” He’s a big guy, with bulging muscles from working on his parents’ farm and a full head of brown hair. His face, with chiseled cheekbones, a strong nose, and gooey blue eyes, always has an innocent expression. He looks tasty as a wiener schitznel and doesn’t even know it.

“I can’t look up,” he says through tight lips in his soft Australian accent.

“Why?” I say, sitting beside him on the couch.

“People keep staring at me.” People meaning men. “I’ve never been to a place like this,” he says, genuinely frightened.

“You’ve never been to a gay bar?” his friend Adam says loudly, with a harsher accent. He’s rounder than Ray and has spiky hair and crooked teeth. “You never been to (insert Australian gay bar name) back home?” he asks, surprised.

Ray shakes his head.

“I love gay bars,” says Adam too enthousiastically to be true, and casually leans back on the couch.

I’m feeling, and pardon the pun, cocky. I’m high on the fact that I brought these kids to this strange place because I have a cool friend who lived in Berlin. I feel in-the-know, and like this is exactly where we should be in this pulsing city.

I remember Zack saying the bartender at Roses loves giving free drinks to cute girls. After spilling my gin and tonic after a few sips, I confidently strut up to the overweight bartender with a buzz cut and slicked back hair. “I spilled my drink,” I say, coyly. “Can I get another?”

“No problem,” she grunts, in a thick German accent. “But you have to pay for it.”

“Of course,” I say nonchalantly, trying not to hide my disappointment. 8 euros in the hole and no birthday buzz.

I walk back to the couch beside Ray, who is sitting on his stool with the expression that someone might throw a pie at him any minute, and start chatting up the German guy beside me.

“There’s an old man staring at me,” says Ray, tugging at my arm.

“Pretend I’m your girlfriend,” I say, laughing, and brushing him off.

Across the room I notice an older Indian women and two young German men looking over at me and whispering.

One of the guys is gorgeous. I smile flirtatiously, and raise my glass.

I’m  feeling more than happy to indulge some attention, and the trio and I shoot glances back and fourth.

The woman flashes me a flirty smile, and gestures me to come over. I realize the cute guy is gone, and her other friend is playing wingman.

Even still, I’m a few gin and tonics down the shoot and decide to play along. I make some Italian gestures with my hands that mean “what do you want?” but can easily be interpreted as “you’re driving me crazy.”

Ray, who’s been watching the whole interaction, leans down from his stool. “Now you’re in trouble,” he says.

I laugh confidently, as to say, don’t worry about it Ray, I can handle myself at a gay bar.

The woman keeps waving me over and I’ve indulged the attention too long to ignore her. I  sheepishly gesture that I can’t, pointing to Ray and implying we’re together. I try to keep talking with the German beside me, but I’m drawn in by her hungry stare.

It’s my birthday, I’m feeling good, and in Zac’s honour, I decide to walk over.

“I’m going,” I say suddenly to Ray.

“I don’t think you should,” he says. “Anyway, if you’re going to do it, at least find someone better looking.”

Ray just doesn’t understand. The Indian women is beautiful. Sure, she’s older and a little short n’ squat with that over 40 haircut, but, she has really nice eyes..? I take a hard swig of my drink g&t, which may be to blame for this whole situation, and strut confidently towards her.

When I worm my way to where she’s sitting I smile and give her a kiss on both cheeks. She pulls me in close and asks me where I’m from.

“Italy,” I hear myself say, in a weird accent I think sounds like an Italian speaking English but which someone later informs me sounds Russian. Apparently after having spent the last month and a half only speaking Italian I’m reluctant to switch back.

I don’t catch where she’s from, but she has a strong accent of some kind. I give a kiss to her friend, and he smiles knowingly at me. Her eyes burn holes in my back and after some small talk she pulls me in close.

“You’re so cute,” she says, and her eyes twinkling at me. “I have a hotel room…”

I shake my head shyly. “No, I can’t.”

“C’mon,” she says, pulling me in tighter. “Do you like women?”

“Uh, yeah,” I hear myself say to be “open.”“ I like men too though,” I add, quickly.

“Have you ever tried it with women?” she asks, flirtatiously.

“Yeah,” I say, lying. “But I have a boyfriend here.” I point vaguely to where Ray and the German guy are sitting.

“Which one?” she asks, intensely.

“The left,” I say, pointing at Ray.

“Him?” she says, disapprovingly. “Too bad.”

Now she has her hand on my thigh and is whispering “C’mon,” in my ear.

I look desperately at her friend and say “She’s crazy.” He nods, and gives me a look like, “you asked for it.”

After a series of false promises: “I’ll come back and find you tomorrow nights” and “I just can’t get away while he’s heres,” I pry myself from her grip and say bye.

“You know it’s a gay bar,” says her friend, as I pass by and shoot him an overwhelmed expression.

Back at the couch I sit down and lean into Ray who’s been watching the whole thing.

“I told you it was a bad idea,” he says, laughing.

“Shut up,” I say, tight-lipped. “Act like my boyfriend.”

Kate Moss’ legs are spread and tucked behind her head.

“Chi è questa (Who is this?)” says a lady in a purple shirt with big sunglasses and lipstick.

“Non lo so (I don’t know),” says her short, frumpier friend dressed in beige. “Forse un’attrice (Maybe an actress).”

The larger-than-life, white marble version of the model sits a top a podium by Porta Borsari, of one of Verona’s ancient stone archways.

That’s right. Verona: Shakespeare’s backdrop, Venice’s overlooked sibling and Kate Moss’s yoga studio.

The women go back and forth, batting guesses between each other.

“Credo che lei viene da Stati Uniti (I think she comes from the States).”

“Si, si, hai ragione (yes, yes, you’re right). Ma cos’è sua nome? (But what’s her name)”

The sculpture’s is part of an exhibition throughout Verona by British artist Marc Quinn called Il Mito (The Myth). It starts with a piece called “Alison Lapper Pregnant”, a white marble statue of the disabled British artist with no arms at the entrance to the main piazza. It culminates at La casa di Giuletta (Juliet’s house), which is where the real Juliet Shakespeare’s character is based on is said to have lived (located on Via Capello, a striking similarity to Capulet, eh?)

“È Kate Moss,” I finally jump in, worried they’ll go away thinking they were looking Julie Roberts’ crotch.

“Ahhh, Kate Moss,” says the woman in the purple. “Attrice (actress?)”

“Non, modella (model)” I say. “Da Gran Bretagna (From Great Britian).”

“Modella, si, si.” says the one in the purple.

“Non, non, Kate Moss balla con il palo (Kate Moss dances with a pole)” and feigns pole-dancing. “Comme si chiama? (What do you call it?)”

“Lo so solo in Inglese (I only know the world in English)” I say. “Stripper?”

“Si, stripper,” she says, pleased with herself.

The exhibition inside Juliet’s house, the second most visited place in Italy after the Vatican, includes the gold version of the Kate Moss statue with an estimated worth of $2.7 million dollars, and a marble statue of Thomas Beattie pregnant, the transgendered man who became pregnant last year.

“Che cosa significa? (What does it mean?)” says the one in the purple, as if she’s standing infront of an alien.

I say it’s supposed to be the symbol of absolute beauty.

“Fa schifo (It’s disgusting),” she continues. “Questo non dovrebbe essere a Venezia. Magari alla New York o Londra ma non chi (This shouldn’t be in Verona. Maybe London or New York, but not in Verona”)

“Mi piace,” says the one in the beige.

“Non è qui per tanto tempo,” I say, trying to be diplomatic.

“Lo stesso (Even so),” says woman in purple. “È una brutta cosa (It’s an ugly thing).”

“Gli Italiani perdano sempre (Italians always lose)” says the blonde woman, with makeup dripping off her face. She’s in her 60s with wrinkles around her painted lips and teeth stained from years of smoking. We’re in Bovolone, an Italian town in the North of Italy about half an hour from Verona, watching a group perform traditional Italian dances in the street.

My Nonna (grandmother) was born here, and I’m visiting her cousin, the last of the family left in this small town.

Carina is 75, but looks older. She is small and witch-like, with a slight hunchback. Every week she gets her short jet-black hair washed and blow-dried. Her jet-black eyebrows are usually furrowed around her deep-set eyes. She frowns as she sits infront of the t.v. and follows up long pauses with “è cosi (it is what it is)” and a sigh. Her eyes twinkle when she laughs, but only for a second.

After her younger sister died of cancer about five years ago, Carina lives in the too-huge family apartment by herself. Though there’s two floors and three bedrooms, she sleeps in the smallest one with a single bed. Neither of the sisters ever married.

When I arrive, she greets me with the awkwardness of someone who hasn’t been visited in awhile. “Hai sete? (Are you thirsty?)” she barks seconds after I walk in the door. She hates to cook, and takes me out for dinner every night, insisting on paying.

I have fond memories of visiting Bovolone eleven years ago: Falling asleep to noise in the streets after Italy won a soccer game; walking around the city and feeding stray cats with Carina; buying gelato down the street and coffee for my mom at the bar downstairs; going out for the best thin-crust pizza.  Maybe I was just smaller, but Bovolone felt bigger when I was 12.

This time, I walked the sleepy main strip in ten minutes and went back to the apartment. Bovolone, with a population of just under 14,000 is the kind of town where when someone dies, a poster goes up, and everyone talks about what happened in hushed voices.

I don’t remember how they got on the topic of immigration. The blonde woman may have been feeling patriotic watching the traditional Italian dance.

In the past fifteen years, more immigrants have come to Italy from third world countries. According to Russell King, a professor at Trinity College and author of “Recent immigration to Italy: Character, causes and consequences” this is for a couple of reasons: ease of entry into the country, Italy’s increasing prosperity, more employment, and higher instability in immigrants home countries. The problem is, Italy is not used to diversity, and especially in small towns, foreigners are an unwelcome addition (citation in the blog, Heyooooo)

“Sai che c’è tanti Marocchini, Turchi e Romeni qui (You know there’s lots of Moroccans, Turks and Romanians here” the blonde woman says, leaning in as if telling me a secret. Her and her husband are acquaintances of Carina’s we bumped into on the way back from dinner.

“Gli immigranti vengono qui per lavorare, ma prendano tutto il lavoro da nostri giovanni (The immigrants come here to work, but they take all the jobs from our kids).”

A band is playing on the church steps and the people dancing in front wear red and white. A young girl with a page-boy haircut wears a serious expression, as if this is more than just a dance, as she twirls arm in arm with an older looking man.

“Loro prendono nostra cultura (they take our culture)” says the blonde woman, who’s wearing a too-tight white lacy skirt that shows her underwear. “Non parlano Italiano, ma loro verzione della lingua. L’accento di Bovolone non existo piu (They don’t speak Italian, but their version of Italian. The Bovolone accent doesn’t exist anymore.”

The dance changes, and the kids in red and white move to on the church steps to play instruments. Women standing on the street dance with the men in traditional dress. The girl with the page-boy cut blows into her tuba and looks seriously at the dancing below, as if jealous her partner is dancing with somebody else.

“Anche sono sporchi (they’re also dirty),” says the blonde woman with an earnest expression. I wish she wouldn’t lean in so close.

“Non fanno la dolce (they don’t shower either),” says Carina, who up until this point had her arms crossed staring straight ahead. I remember her describing an immigrant run restaurant near her house with disgust. “Avanti c’erano molti immigranti Tedeschi e Francese che avevano la cultura piu come noi. (There used to be many german and french immigrants who had culture more similar to us),” she says. “Ma dopo la guerra e cambiato…(But after the war things changed…)”

“Gli Italiani perdano sempre,” says the blonde woman, trailing off…

The conversation switches to me, and I answer basic questions about where I’m from and what I’m doing here.

“E’Fantastico di viaggiare (It’s great to travel),” says the blonde woman enthousiastically, as if she didn’t just spend the past ten minutes bashing diversity. “Sei brava. Devi farlo quando si è giovane (Good for you. You have to do it while you’re young.”

It’s obvious none of us are going to dance, and Carina looks more slouched and tired. We say our goodbyes and the blond woman grabs my face. “Che bella che sei (You’re so beautiful.)”