Epilogue : Ode to my last Italian ice cream

It’s cloudy and humid in Reggio today: weather that makes me angsty, and I’m even more on edge than usual as my big journey home is looming over me. Still, nothing is going to come between me and my last ice cream.

There’s only one place that could possibly be deserving of such an honour, and that’s Sottozero, the best gelateria in Reggio Calabria (anyone that tells you that it’s Cesare is wrong and needs to take a long hard look at themselves.)

Locals know that the best thing on the menu is brioche filled with ice cream. Of course, this is Italy, so it’s brioche filled with three flavours of ice cream. I make my selection carefully.

1) Biscotti – A surprising staple in the Italian diet, school children have a bowl of milk into which they’ll dip their biscuits for breakfast every day. Initially I thought this an alarmingly unhealthy habit, until I realised it’s basically cereal backwards. Newcomers to Italian supermarkets are advised to head straight for Pan di Stelle in the biscuit aisle, and the ice cream version is delicious.

2) Golosella – Goloso means greedy/gluttonous and, while I have no direct translation for it’s meaning with the fancy ending (Italians love their confusing suffixes), I’m choosing to translate it as ‘deliciously indulgent’. Apt, as this flavour is essentially extra creamy, cold Nutella. Nuts are a frequent feature in Italian desserts, and, like all things, different regions have their own specialities. The South is known for pistachio and almond. Nutella, of course, is a national treasure, and if there’s one flavour that could sum up my relationship with Italian food, this is it.

3) Tiramisu – I made the discovery of Tiramisu semi-freddo way too late into my year abroad and it’s rapidly been promoted to second favourite (see golosella). The texture is just dreamy: the creamy fluffiness of freshly whipped cream with a gooey meringuey finish. The taste of coffee brings the sounds of clinking china to my ears – the sound you hear when walking past any one of the dozens of coffee bars on the high street. It’s the sound that says ‘come on in, take a break, you deserve it! And hey, if you chance upon a croissant while you’re sipping espresso, that’s ok too.’ Pure comfort.

I savour my ice cream in my favourite spot in Reggio: the steps of an old amphitheatre facing out to sea. The weather hasn’t improved (just as well – I forgot my camera again) but the sound of the sea is soothing, and the taste of the ice cream is, well, fabulous. Despite the clouds, Sicily is still clearly visible, the evening lights just starting to twinkle. It’ll be my last look at this view for a while. Time to savour the moment.

Chapter 26 : The End

Well, folks, the time has come to say goodbye! It feels surreal to say the least that this time tomorrow I’ll be well on my way home. So I thought for my final blog post it would be a nice idea to sum up some of the things I’ve learned and loved during my time here, and some of the delights that I can’t wait to be re-united with.

First Things First: What I’ve Learned

How to boil an egg

This might sound plain ridiculous to any self-respecting 21 year old, but before my year abroad I had absolutely no clue about cooking. When I arrived here, before I could figure out how to work the oven (don’t laugh) I was convinced that the only thing that could be cooked on a hob was pasta. I’ve come a long way culinary-wise this year, and while producing the odd monstrosity in accidental homage to my past self, I think general cookery knowledge will probably be the most useful skill that I take away from this experience.

Have a little patieeeeence

You would go insane in Italy if you didn’t manage to develop at least a little pazienza. Nothing happens quickly or on schedule here – from my first pay check taking three months to arrive, to the hour long queues in the post office to the painfully slow walking that is borderline moving backwards (wouldn’t be an issue except that building works, also showing no sign of being finished anytime soon, mean that all foot traffic is single file along the main street.) This year I’ve gradually got the hang of turning my speedometer (mental and physical) down a notch and trying to just enjoy things. Slowly. 

A whole lot about myself

How do you go about defining yourself when plucked out of your home environment and placed somewhere with no friends, family or easily-joinable clubs? With no precedent or expectations telling you who you should be, it’s an interesting experiment in finding out what really matters. So, who am I? Turns out I’m a food-loving countryside enthusiast and wannabe yogi. All I have to do is reinstate my friends and family into the equation and I’ll be complete 🙂

Second Things After First Things: What I Will Miss

The Food

No surprises that this was the first item on the list: I LOVE ITALIAN FOOD. While I think I might just about have had my fill of pizza for the time being, I’m not quite ready to part from my best friend brioche, or the gelato. Fortunately Rome airport has a pretty decent gelateria – clinging on to the very last!

The Teaching!

Yep, shock horror, and not just my favourite students (yes, I have favourites – think I’ve hidden them well though) but all the lovely diversity and hilarity of school life, like trying to explain the ‘meaning’ of the lyrics to ‘All About that Bass’ to confused teenagers, or the boy who, when asked what he would buy if he had €1 million responded ‘a tank.’ Anything else? ‘No, I just need the tank.’ Given that the social side of my year abroad has been a bit dire, having the school community and befriending some lovely teachers has been what’s kept me sane.

The Community

As above, the school has been amazingly welcoming, but there’s something about this whole area that just feels close. Reggio has almost 200,000 inhabitants, yet I feel like the community spirit is stronger here than in Aston Clinton, which has under 4,000. You can’t walk along the main street without someone recognising a pal and wandering over to shake their hand. Speaking of which, I’m now on hand-shaking terms with the gentleman that works at my supermarket, while the owner of the corner shop has been known to buy me an espresso when I come in and comments if I miss a weekly visit – ‘we thought there was no way you could be in Reggio.’ Similarly, the man on the cash desk in my favourite café noticed when I got a bit of a tan and has started giving me free chocolate. These people have all made me feel so welcome in their own small way that I wasn’t sure if I ought to be going round telling them all that I won’t be popping in in the future. I decided against it though, as I’m pretty sure that’s how they treat everyone, because people here are lovely.

Travelling

Before this year I’d seen a fair bit of Italy, but now I can confidently claim to have been to pretty much anywhere that people suggest. Rome, Florence, Turin, Perugia, Capri, Naples, Pompeii, Palermo, Parma and Bologna have all been highlights of this year, with other local Southern places peppered into the mix for good measure. While I’m looking forward to being rooted back at home for Summer and returning to Cambridge in Autumn, this year has shown me that it’s much less effort than you think to get around and see some beautiful places – all of those trips were done over long weekends and have fed my enthusiasm for all things Italian throughout the year.

And Finally: Things I Can’t Wait to be Reunited with

My entire wardrobe (and not having to censor what I wear)

Only through the process of packing did I realise how little I have accumulated this year. All my stuff fits easily into two suitcases, whereas my Cambridge move is usually an entire car full! As such I’m getting a little bored of wearing the same clothes, and making sure those clothes are high-necked, low hemmed, not too fitted and not too summery. There is an unspoken uniform here of jeans, trainers and puffer jacket in winter and jeans, t-shirt and and lighter jacket in the summer (Italians don’t seem to feel the heat) –  none of my preferred clothes fit that criteria at all (I didn’t even bring jeans with me), so I am left feeling uncomfortable either because I’m wearing things that I wouldn’t usually be seen dead in or because everyone, leery men especially, is staring at me because I’m different. I’m looking forward to being back in a country where no one gives me a second look!

Shock Horror: English Coffee and Food!

I know, I know, I just said that the food was something I’d miss, but while Italian food is scrummy, it is all Italian. There’s one Chinese restaurant to visit, a Mcdonalds and then that’s pretty much your lot. I am absolutely dying for a curry, proper fish and chips, a burger (not from Mcdonalds) and some tapas. I have varied and expensive tastes that Italy fails to satisfy. Similarly, while Italian coffee is the pinnacle, it’s a very intense experience. I can’t drink it without quite a bit of sugar, and find myself missing it’s weedy cousin Nescafé. I’m also looking forward to the lengthy coffee dates that a long English beverage necessitates. Espressos are great, but gingerbread lattes with friends beat them every time.

The Countryside

One of the best things about my placement this year has been the location: right on the gorgeous mediterranean coast. I’ve loved my runs along the seafront and (very) occasional dips in the ocean, and now I’m ready to go back to my home: the English countryside. Over Summer I’m planning on spending a lot of time with my family in the West Country and am excited to swap ice creams and salty air for cornish pasties and fresh country breezes!

My Friends and Family

I won’t lie, it’s been quite a lonely year. To make up for that, my social calendar for my (four month long!) Summer is absolutely jam-packed. Nothing beats home friends, but more than that, I’ve learned that absolutely nothing beats my family. They’re a mad lot, but I feel a whole lot saner round them than I do anywhere else!

So it’s time to say a fond farewell to Reggio Calabria, and an excited squeal at the thought of seeing my parents at the airport tomorrow. And what will I be having for my homecoming meal? Fish and chips, of course!

Chapter 25 : A Grand Day Out Italian Style

Over the past eight months I’ve seen a lot of Italy, but yesterday was by far my most ‘Italian’ day out. For starters, I was actually with bona fide members of the Italian nation, which always helps make things that little bit more authentic. A group of teachers from school were going to Sicily for the day and Silvana, my mentor tutor aka life saver, invited me along for the ride.

Italian point 1 : Integrating myself with Italians

The crew heading out

We started the day taking the ferry over to Messina and ten minutes later had our first stop at the service station (I only included that detail for you, Mum!) Unfortunately, the espresso I’d been daydreaming about wasn’t to be, as the majority of the staff of Autogrill were on strike and asking for customer solidarity (which was given, a little reluctantly by some of us…) so we were quickly (after half an hour’s miscellaneous standing) on our way again to Taormina, a beautiful Sicilian resort that was on my bucket list to visit this year.

Italian point 2 : Intention to drink an espresso

Italian point 3 : Strike action

We lunched in Taormina and had a lovely wander round – I love places like this as much for the fact that they are filled with other tourists as that they are gorgeous places to visit. We took a photo by the sea front next to a random American woman who kept saying ‘oh, there are so many of you!’ ‘Oh my! Beautiful!’ ‘That’s lovely!’ Americans are definitely culturally closer to the gushy Italians than the brits. Feeling a little peckish post-panino I joined the rest of our group in indulging in an arancino, a typically Sicilian snack (or meal, depending on levels of hunger/greed) made from rice with meat and cheese coated in breadcrumbs – I found a recipe for these online so will definitely be trying to recreate them at home!

Italian point 4 : Eating local

Sadly we couldn’t spend all day in Taormina as we had a show to catch, so in the early afternoon we headed to the theatre. Hopefully someone* will take me back to Taormina some day to properly explore the history and taste all the amazing things they do with almonds!

So, on to the show. Being forgetful I couldn’t remember where the show was (and when I asked Silvana I immediately forgot again as it’s a place I hadn’t heard of) and indeed what we were going to see, and my hopes of having a fabulous time were momentarily dashed when we arrived at the theatre and it all just seemed a bit dodgy. My personal experience with Sicily seems to be that unless you are in a very precise touristy spot (i.e. inside a museum or in the haven of Taormina) then it all feels a bit unsafe and not the kind of place you either want nor ought to observe more closely. However, everyone else I know (Italians and the Brits alike) tell me time and time again that Sicily is magical, the best part of Italy and totally stunning, so I’m prepared to put my personal prejudices on hold, if remaining lightly sceptical of the whole thing.

Anyway, this place genuinely was dodge – our car was hailed down by an unsavoury looking character on the way in, who asked us to park where he indicated ‘to save time when coming out.’ I didn’t like the look of him or the thought of handing him euro, but I also didn’t like the idea of trying to do differently to what he said. Luckily the decision wasn’t in my hands and our driver dutifully obeyed him, telling me afterwards ‘This is Mafia. If you don’t park here and pay them who knows what they will do to your car while you’re in the theatre.’ Heck!

Italian point 5 : Encountering and surviving the ol’ Cosa Nostra

Fear not for your narrator, though, not only did I survive the show but it. was. amazing! It turned out we were seeing Romeo and Giulietta, which was fortunate as I could follow the story well enough even when the Italian got a little beyond me. Not only had I never seen a musical of Romeo and Juliet before, I’d never seen the play at all, so I had no real expectations. First thing to note, the actors playing Romeo, Benvolio and Mercutio were all absolute stunners (and Tybalt if you like your men without long flowing curls) and amazing singers and dancers. The Prince Juliet is supposed to marry was played by a sufficiently poncy ballerina who didn’t have any lines, and it had a really cool edge based on the crisis of faith experienced by everyone (including the friar, who does a great rock solo about it) in the face of all that tragedy. The performance was fantastic- the troop have travelled around Europe and have been to England (not sure where their Italian audience would be?) and they had some hardcore fans waiting for them in the audience – the staff placed barriers before the stage before the curtain call! One thing I will say about the play is that it was much steamier than I imagine the British equivalent would be: Romeo and Juliet enjoy many extended kisses on stage, Mercutio and Romeo get a proper on the lips kiss (don’t remember seeing that in Shakespeare’s version) and there is a nude Romeo! Even if it is from back view/behind a translucent screen.

Italian point 6 : Any excuse to get touchy feely

Mercutio (left) and with Benvolio (my personal favourite)

As a lovely day drew to a close we had one more stop to make: a café in a nearby town that on Silvana’s authority was the second best granita she’d ever tasted (the first was a bit more of a trek). Granita is basically a cross between an ice cream and a slushy – the best ones are nearer to ice cream and the worst ones taste like someone’s poured milk in what could have been a delicious ice-cold beverage. This was one of the better ones, and momentary panic that the café had run out of brioches was replaced with the intense joy of receiving them freshly baked! Brioche goes with everything here, and is definitely one of the things I will most miss!!

Italian point 7 : Everything with brioche

Me with pistachio and chocolate granita and freshly baked brioche #1

Another brioche (tee hee) and a taste of local liqueur later and we were heading back home. By this time it was nearing eleven and some of us (mainly me) were pretty tired, so I took a back seat (literally ha) in the car and the conversation – something that is especially easy when there are four Italian women around you to take the reins. The ferry home was late so I rolled into bed at around 1am – am I embarrassed to say that is one of the latest nights I’ve had this whole year?

Italian point 8 : Be late (the ferry) and sleep late (me)

Thankfully, unlike everyone that I was travelling with, I get Mondays off, so am spending the day in a glorious state of relaxation, munching on grapes and shuffling papers ready to start packing, because – and I can scarcely believe it – I’m coming home a week today!

The grand day out was the perfect way to spend my last calm weekend in Italy, reminding me of all those Italian quirks that I might just miss.

*cough Alastair

Chapter 24 : Back to School

For someone that couldn’t wait to be shot of school the first time round, it’s surprising how many excuses I’ve found to go back: Homework Help clubs, British Council, and now I’m seriously considering teaching as a future career. Problem is, I fluctuate from one extreme view to the other with alarming rapidity: I have close to zero authority in the classroom, lesson planning is a drag and trying to maintain enthusiasm in front of a bunch of teenagers all day is exhausting. But the thing is, being in school not as a student – ha, never again as a student! – is also kind of fun.

Young people* usually have pretty interesting things to say on the topics we’re discussing, but they’re at their best when they decide to take the conversation elsewhere (which thankfully in a conversation class actually counts as work). While I was waiting for ‘absolute silence’ from the class the other day (I usually end up settling for quiet murmuring or I’d never get anything done), one of my students piped up: ‘Isobel, while we wait, where did you get your clock? It’s too beautiful.’ Day made. (He meant watch). Incidentally, said class have also started greeting me ‘Good morning beautiful’ each lesson – I would tell them that it’s not really what we say in the UK, but I’ve grown to love my weekly confidence boost.

Of course, not all my classes greet me quite as enthusiastically, especially the group of topless boys I accidentally walked in on after a P.E. class the other week – though I think I might have been more embarrassed than them.

But it’s not just the time spent with students, now that I’m on friendly terms with most of the staff here I really enjoy coming into school – it’s a community. On my way in I’ll say a cheery good morning to the building staff – I had a really nice chat with one of them the other day while waiting for another teacher – turns out he speaks fluent french and has friends in Luton! Small world! I also invariably end up spending an hour in the segretaria once a month when my pay hasn’t come through – in their opinion my Italian has greatly improved by the way! And for the most part I get on really well with the teachers themselves, although I still feel a little bit out of place in the staff room (most of them seem to think I’m a student who got lost on the way to the toilets).

By far the best thing is getting to work with teachers that are really inspiring – the ones that the students behave for out of respect rather than fear, who seem to really care, or who have the sense of humour to make the hour pass quickly. My favourite by far is a substitute teacher I met this week: on seeing his jeans and leather jacket, statement glasses and goatee I was gobsmacked when he started talking to me with a West London accent! I’ve never know anyone able to become so animated about the vocabulary of law and order – it’s so true that enthusiasm in the classroom is infectious!

The problem is that for every four or five days where teaching is a dream and I sail through the corridors nodding at everyone and thinking I’ve pretty much made it in life, there’ll be one where I end up teaching one student while the rest make paper hats/doodle/consult each other on how to reply to the hottie in the year above, where no one will stop talking and I have to unleash my squeaky shouty voice, or where one of the teachers will look at something that I’ve tried really hard to make fun with a face that says ‘why are you here wasting my lesson time?’

Still, it’s hard not to laugh when I’ve just finished delivering a stern verbal warning and a student breaks what I have taken to be a stunned and penitent silence with ‘What was the question? I didn’t understand.’

Safe to say that, whether teaching is a part of my future or not, it’s guaranteed to be a fondly remembered part of my past.

*I know it sounds pretentious using ‘young people’ as a young person but I can’t find a linguistic way round it. Bucketful of soz!

Chapter 23 : In and around Naples

So here I am, I’ve just got back from a beautiful weekend away with myself in the Naples area – see how Italian I am, I’ve started thinking that ‘beautiful’ is an acceptable adjective to put in front of everything.

I had high hopes for this weekend away, not least because it would enable me to tick a whole three things off my Italy bucket list (bringing me to the somewhat mediocre total of 15/42 so far, though perhaps it was ambitious expecting to be able to tour the whole of Italy, small villages included, in eight months).

I have mixed feelings towards solo travel. On the one hand, I always come away feeling inspired and chuffed with my intrepidness, you can tailor the itinerary to meet your expectations exactly and you don’t have to make conversation while walking uphill (which there was an awful lot of in Capri!) That said, the evenings can be a bit of a bore, even for someone who loves their own company as much as I do.

The expression ‘the only person that notices if you’re dining alone is you’ is total bull. While I tucked into the most sublime pizza of my life* in Naples I received odd looks from fellow diners and waiters alike (though I think one of them might have thought I was a mystery diner as he asked me what I did for a living, so he’s excused). That said, I genuinely couldn’t have cared less – the pizza was so good that it would have been an absolute travesty to miss out on it to save myself from embarrassment. Maybe the phrase should be ‘the only person that doesn’t care that you’re dining alone is you.’ I didn’t even get my book out – but then, I am blessed with having very interesting thoughts to keep me occupied.

In fact, I had a really lovely time with myself. On arriving in Naples I marched straight to a celebrated pasticceria to sample the best traditional pastries – you haven’t lived until you’ve had a sfogliatella or three! Then I worked up an accidental sweat power walking to the National Museum, which houses some of the best preserved artefacts from Pompeii. Naples is an exciting city, but I have to say I’m glad I wasn’t based there for the year. Priorities suddenly switch from ‘How can I get the most out of my day?’ to ‘How can I live to see the end of the day?’ The narrow streets are treacherous motorways for mopeds and the station is unfortunately surrounded simultaneously by the best places to eat and drink and the seediest characters to avoid at all costs.  I’m definitely paranoid, but better that than to be mugged as I always say!

The next day I got my tourist on in style in Pompeii. Forgetting that there would be other tourists in Pomps and that it would thus be ok to dress like one, I was left absolutely boiling even in leggings and a t-shirt – Summer has definitely arrived! Pompeii was nothing like I’d expected. I’d imagined it to be a city perfectly stopped in time where you’d be able to peer into houses where tables were still laid and petrified people were frozen in action like Bernard’s Watch. In reality the main thing on show is the rubble of a city, which, if you’re as bad at reading maps as I am and as bad at signage as the proprietors of Pompeii are, is phenomenally difficult to navigate. As such I’m not exactly sure what I saw, although I did find the forum really interesting, and a few of the larger villas have been particularly well preserved/restored. So all in all quite an interesting day, especially once I’d bought a sfogliatella (heh heh heh) and decided to take the advice another tourist was offering to his friend and ‘imagine everyone walking round in togas’.

The forum in Pompeii – one of the few times when I knew where I was.

From Pompeii I headed to Sorrento. Crammed with tourists, Sorrento definitely has a ‘resort’ feel about it, but if anything for me that was its charm. I wiled the evening away ambling through pretty market streets, wining and dining myself and sampling some particularly incredible ice cream (if you’re ever in the area, I recommend ‘nuttellone’ with all my heart and soul!)

View from the terrace where I enjoyed a Spritz in Sorrento!

On my last day I took the ferry to Capri, which is PARADISE. Gorgeous weather shone on gorgeous surroundings, and my boat tour around the island revealed lots of magical hidden grottos. The idyllic image was only slightly marred by the fact that our captain, bless him, seemed to think that we simple tourists wouldn’t be satisfied with the stunning views and crystal waters unless he hyped them up a bit, so a fascinating natural arch became ‘an arch that, with a bit of imagination, looks like an elephant!’ and a grotto adorned with hanging stalagmites became ‘a grotto with stalagmites that, with a bit of imagination, take the form of the Madonna!’ No, they don’t, stop saying that.

Beautiful Capri!

The boat tour took us to the famous ‘grotto azzurro’, so named because the way that the light enters the cave creates a blue glow in the water. In my opinion the blue grotto is fairly overrated, and at any rate what would have been an exciting place to visit was ruined by extortionate entrance fees for a max five minute visit and boaters who, in the hope of a tip, belted out a range of italian songs all at the same time. Not exactly soothing. By far the most exciting bit was entering the grotto itself: we descended our tour boat onto little row boats, in which you have to lie completely flat as you go through the tiny entrance – it was the same feeling as when you’re on a roller coaster that suddenly speeds up: I even let out an involuntary squeal, so petrified was I that our guide was going to smash his head on the rock!

Wandering through the quaint paved streets in Capri afterwards was a little like being in Bicester village – lovely atmosphere but everything massively overpriced. As such the only think I bought was a pizza and a beer for lunch, which I ate in a little piazza watching the world go by. (A lot of the world went by two or three times, it’s quite a confusing place to find your way around.)

I had just enough time to pick up an ice cream in Sorrento on my way back to Naples to get the train home. I definitely won’t shy away from solo travel in the future, especially in places where there are lots of tourists, but I must admit that I’m excited to see my big sis in eleven days time!

*Da Pellone, Via Nazionale 93, near the station. The best pizza I’ve ever had in Italy and indeed my life! Queues of locals out the door are proof that it’s not just my opinion, too. I got my tip offs from this website which is worth checking out! 

Chapter 22 : Crêpes, baguettes and the TMG quartet

Paris. Synonymous with all that is aloof, stylish and delicious. The only city where a restaurant’s set menu is a savoury crêpe followed by a sweet crêpe, where going out without make-up is more common than being caked in the stuff and where the locals cannot be prized away from their trusty baguettes, even while jogging.* And lucky lucky me just spent a weekend there – safe to say it was amazing!

The next best thing to securing a kick-ass year abroad location (no hard feelings, Regg, but you coulda been a bit more happening..) is having friends with a kick-ass year abroad location. I congratulate past me on having the foresight to befriend Ellie and Bec, who are now sharing a flat right in the centre of Paris for the latter half of their year abroad. Result.

Naturally, Han and I invited ourselves over to grab a slice of the elusive Parisian dream.

I’ve been to Paris twice before, but I think that this was the first time I really got it. Hanging round with locals is a major boon,** and my eyes and ears were free to take in everything around me as long as I could keep up with Ellie’s marching pace, which for the average human would count as moderate to intense exercise, depending on fitness levels. The secret, I conclude, is to make like the French and never ever try too hard. Naturellement, we moseyed up to the Eiffel Tower and along the Champs Élysées, but these weren’t the things that made the trip for me (unless you count the frappé latte I picked up en route). Far more memorable were the moules frites in a gorgeous café tucked away in a lazy flea-market, complete with eccentric motherly waitress and live french music. Another highlight was sourcing out the best baguette in Paris (we watched the judging process – it’s rigorous!) and using it as the base of a fondu and wine night. Mmmm.

Me with not one but two prize winning baguettes. There’s a pretty awesome cake in the box as well.

Just to make sure the tourist edge wasn’t lost, we went to the Sacre Coeur, the Amélie café and a Picasso museum as well. Cultural.

I have to admit I was aghast at my French. Having gone from basic fluency at A-level (bit of an exaggeration but I was definitely WAY more confident), my language skills seem to have slowly diminished at Cambridge as Italian barged its way to the front of my mind. Typical Italian. Whenever I opened my mouth to speak French, Italian would come out, so I asked ‘quanto?’ instead of ‘combien?’ to a nonplussed salesman, replied ‘si’ instead of ‘oui’ to everything and got unnecessarily excited whenever I saw an ice cream parlour. Then, in some kind of cruel irony, as soon as arrived in Milan I was throwing about ‘mercis’ like it was my job. Even as I floundered over the basics of the language, though, I still felt like I was absorbing something of the Parisian vibe.

Fitting in like a local along the Seine.

From a language student’s perspective, I ought to have left feeling rather dejected with my efforts – my degree will say ‘French and Italian’, which is essentially a lie: I got Ellie to do most of the talking for me this weekend. However, the only sadness I had room for was disappointment that I wasn’t staying for longer. Ellie and Bec might be glad to have their living room back, but I’m already pining for croissants fresh from the boulangerie! Five weekends to go until I’m home for good, let’s see if the next one – Pompeii! – lives up.

*This is not stereotyping. This is something I saw.

**When did we stop saying boon? I demand its immediate reinstatement in the common tongue!

Chapter 21 : In which I see how many brackets I can squeeze into one blog post

Spring has definitely sprung in Calabria. I would say that Summer has in fact sprung (we’re mostly in the twenties now), but I have been overruled on this by my students, who all disagree with me, and the majority of the Italian population, who are still wearing coats, or at the very least a gilet.

Speaking of my students, I can’t say that I have much to do with them these days. The combination of it nearing the end of term and April being bank holiday central means that I’ve had more cancelled lessons than successful ones. Most of the time this is a relief, but I do start to miss some of my younger classes (the ones that at the very least tolerate school and English lessons).

So yesterday it transpired that I arrived at school three hours early (which is the difference between getting up at 6.30am and 9.30am – ouch) as one of the teachers had gone on a trip with her other classes – poetically translated by one student as ‘she’s flown away’ – and forgot to tell me. The prospect of returning to bed was an inviting one, but the half hour walk home was not, so I decided to have a wander round the town instead. Interestingly, lots of my students seemed to have had the same idea, as I saw many of them out and about during first lesson hour, steadfastly avoiding my gaze. I thrive on the power.

Italy is brilliant for getting lost in the moment. I think the sea helps. There’s nothing like a blustery coastal walk with salty air filling the nostrils to blow away the winter cobwebs. My favourite moment to get lost in however obviously involves food, thus I took advantage of being out and about pre-10am to snaffle one of the best chocolate croissants in the world (Italians like their breakfast early and croissants sell out well before 11, thus creating the eternal battle between laziness and greed.) As I munch away standing at the bar (I’ll never quite get used to that) I eavesdrop on a woman telling her friends an exciting story. (I use eavesdrop loosely here as I couldn’t actually follow what she was saying, so I listened to the sound of her voice rapidly gaining ground against that of crumbling pastry). The waitress serving the group sets down two glasses of water that immediately tumble and spill all over the storyteller. Neither she nor the waitress notice, such is the hustle and bustle. Perhaps one day I will write a blog post so enthralling that someone could tip a bucket of water on your head and you would barely notice with the eagerness to get to the next line – what has that crazy Isobel been up to this time!? (If this is you, why not leave an encouraging comment?)

Actually I have rather neglected my blog of late, not for lack of fun trips, but through the fear that it is difficult to convey the fun in an ‘I did this and then I did that’ style format. And sometimes, guys, however hard I try, there’s just no clear thematic thread! I’m a victim. But, recently, the lack of writing has actually been more to do with an increase in reading – I am on my fifth book of April! I finally got round to reading Little Women, which was so brilliant that I immediately had to read Good Wives. I think I’d enjoy being Jo, marrying an eccentric German and opening a school for boys – not that I’d have any authority, but that wouldn’t matter if I owned the place. Then to counteract the wholesomeness of Christian children’s books I moved on to Gone Girl, which I enjoyed enormously but has had a decidedly negative effect on my sleeping pattern. God, I’m a wuss. So it was back to the hearty sort of literature with The Secret Garden – the only book I’ve ever read that made me want to put it down and rush outside in the fresh air every time I picked it up. I’ve ambitiously proceeded to Middlemarch, which should keep me busy for a while, and if the weather holds I’ll be back to reading on the beach!

Over the next few weeks there are school holidays that I actually have advanced notice of (the dream), which I am using to visit my MML pals in gay Paree (excited!) and hopefully also to see Naples again with a possible tour of Pompeii and Capri (scouting the area out for future family trips). If I succeed in finding an angle, perhaps I’ll tell you about them, if not, you might just get more of this. Thanks for reading!

Chapter 20 : In which time does not wait for me

It’s been a little while since my last blog post. And yet, it does not feel so.

Simply because I have suddenly become extremely busy. I arrived back from the Christmas break on January 6th. I blink and it’s March 10th. Spooky.

In November I had so much free time – despite three weekends of activities – that I wrote a novel. A NOVEL. Now I find myself struggling to fit in a 500 word blog post.

I wish I could say it was down to me making a cohort of Italian friends. Ha. Haha. Though, to give me my due, I met a very nice woman at a recent Anglo-Italian dinner who said she expected I found it very boring here due to the lack of young folk and the insular attitude of the ones that are around. There – it’s not my fault!

No, I suspect rather that my lack of time is due to the 10k training (turns out that when you can run for more than ten minutes at a time it can eat quite far into the afternoon), the realisation that my distant dissertation deadline is actually slowly approaching and my slightly naive idea of letting my classes decide the topics of the lessons for themselves – much more interesting for us both, but rarely do all twelve pick the same theme, which has upped the amount of prep time required of me somewhat.

And, of course, there has been the usual flurry of visitors and visiting.

In February I was treated to visits from Laura and Lois, which was a great opportunity for me to relax and enjoy Reggio, rather than zipping off to meet people in more exotic locations.

Laura and I were extremely unlucky with the weather, but where the southern climate failed me Laura’s sunny (geddit?) personality stepped in, and what would have been a very dreary weekend for me on my own turned into a fantastic one. Having now shortlisted my favourite eateries, it was a weekend of gastronomic bliss, with the best ice cream, aperitivi and antipasti that Calabria could offer. We also explored some local delights that rather embarrassingly I had never stumbled upon in my wanderings: a castle and a rather lovely Ottoman church. It’s always nice to see somewhere through somebody else’s eyes, and I loved getting reacquainted with my (temporary) homeland, as well as one of my best pals 🙂

Enjoying a meal out with Laura

I was sad to see Laura go, but after a three day grieving period I was off to the airport again to collect the Lo for another weekend of frivolity. Laura had shown me how the airport bus works (one weekend here and she’s WAY more of a native than me), so I could look like a truly accomplished local when I presented Lois with her pre-paid bus ticket. As it was her first time to Italy, Lois’ requests were simple: Italian pizza and ice cream were a must. We managed to get a table at Spacca Napoli that night, a truly divine pizzeria in the town centre, as well as championing some amazing looking pasta at home.

Sisters reunited

As the sun decided to come out on March the 1st (to quote Lois, ‘It’s like somebody has just switched on Spring!’) we managed to get in a day trip to Tropea, a local-ish seaside resort that has been on my bucket list since I arrived. Tropea was really stunning – the cliffside town is both pretty and dramatic and you can walk along the gorgeous blue sea underneath the cliff tops. My advice to those considering a visit would be to stick to the pavement though, unless you want to experience the most acute agony of your life. The sandy/stone hybrid beach is clearly a feeble disguise for a disused broken glass depository – walking along the beach barefoot has never been such torture. If you look closely at the photos our carefree smiles are revealed as grimaces of pain. Still, it was lovely to spend some time with my big sis, and there is even talk of a second sisters visit to Tropea if weather and uni timetables comply!

Beautiful Tropea

What with these visits and two trips back home (I indulge myself), it’s perhaps easy to see how this year has flown so far. And it shows no signs of letting up – there are still thirty things on my bucket list that won’t cross off themselves, and with under twelve weeks until I’m back home for good, I’d better get cracking!

Chapter 19 : The differences between Italy and the UK, as illustrated by my week spent in both

Italy’s a funny one. Like the UK, it’s part of the EU. Like the UK, its nearest neighbour (ok, one of) is France. Like the UK, it is populated with humans. Here end the similarities between us. Take a look.

Adjective Availability

I have started with this obscure point because it is the one that I feel by far the most passionately about. There are a few adjectives that have been completely dropped from my vocabulary in Italy, and that only upon my return to England did I realise how sorely they had been missed. When I returned to Cambridge, I was absolutely delighted to see my friends, and fell immediately back in love with the quaintness of all that is British. Coffee and a chocolate muffin in the John Lewis café is for me the pinnacle of human happiness, and in the UK we are even allowed to sit down while we drink! None of this espresso at the bar funny business. So ‘quaint’ has been ushered back to the deep recesses of my mind for the rest of my time abroad, as has ‘cosy’. Italy’s climate is fantastic, but with a lack of cold weather comes a lack of indoor cosiness. Tiled floors have not won me over, and being at home with our unnecessarily large sofa and access to my ever-growing collection of woolly jumpers was far more of a treat than being greeted by hot weather would have been. Italy’s restaurants are inviting, and Mariana and I were treated like queens with free appetisers and prosecco in our accidentally posh choice of restaurant in Lucca, but they aren’t cosy, as I realised when I was reacquainted with that delightful pub feeling in the Eagle on Valentines Day. It was in various pubs over the weekend that I also rediscovered ‘tipsy’, that old friend that’s been in hibernation ever since I discovered that Italians drink because they actually like the taste of wine, rather than to enjoy that just-on-the-right-side-of-drunk feeling that we covet back home.

So back in Italy I am once again swimming in a sea of ‘bella’s and more than the odd ‘bellissima’ – Italians are impossible to underwhelm, nothing falls short of this threshold. Of course, what the Italian vocabulary lacks in variation is more than compensated for in gestures and volume – heaven knows how they manage by e-mail.

Queuing

We British are much mocked for our love to queue, and as well as being the best at forming a lovely straight line, we excel at the passive aggressive grumble that must accompany it. Coming back from Italy, I know I’m home when I hit the queue for passport control. For some reason the e-passport machines find me completely unrecognisable, but I join the queue nevertheless, and wonder who will be the first to say ‘it isn’t actually quicker, is it?’ as we tap toes in time. Actually, it is much quicker, as I found out on the way back, as I joined a more Italian style queue at my stop-off in Milan – one enormous bulging body where the man who was originally next to me is suddenly ten families ahead and I haven’t moved at all. The most frustrating part was that I could see person after person passing through passport control and the queue on my side didn’t seem to be getting any smaller – probably because every time a space with my name on it opened up it was immediately filled by a sharp-elbowed Italian. In the end I latched onto a family so my shins were permanently pressed against their suitcase – they gave me a few odd looks but boy did it speed up the process.

Public Transport

London excluded, the UK’s public transport system is utterly hopeless. Tickets for buses and trains cost an absolute fortune, and said buses and trains are rarely on time – meaning that for short journeys at least it is far quicker and cheaper to get a taxi if you form a small group, which in my mind is utterly ridiculous. Here in Italy, the balance is correct, but far more extreme: it costs literally a few euros to travel to the next cities along by train, but to get from one end of Reggio Calabria to another (a straight line on a traffic-less road about 2km long) cost me €20 – because it was Sunday. My plane home this weekend was late, leaving me angsty that I would miss the last train home, which I definitely would have done had this been the UK. Still on the plane at 10pm, I managed to make the 10.19pm train at a station a 10 minute drive away thanks to the combination of a friendly taxi driver and a worrying but useful lack of passport control. Just as well – the one and a half hour journey would have cost me €250 in a taxi – if you take one thing from this, AVOID AVOID AVOID taxis in Southern Italy.

The North South Divide

We joke about the North South divide here, and maybe speculate on its seriousness, but my, my does Italy put all that into perspective. Here it’s the prosperous North that takes the snobbish approach and the South that’s left to be misunderstood, with questionable efficiency and economic prosperity even if they do have some of the best food (some things are universal). I always thought that the northerners hating on southerners thing was a bit of a stereotype, but I’m proved wrong time and time again by Italians themselves. In an absolutely gorgeous restaurant in Florence Hannah and I were telling the owner what had brought us to Italy – he was all smiles as Hannah explained that she was living in Parma, but his eyes clouded over when I mentioned that I was down in Calabria, as he made a gesture that I thought meant ‘dodgy’ and Hannah thought was a gun – either way not ideal. Then, on my connection flight from Milan, the security guard looked at my boarding pass and said ‘Lamezia. Why?’ Naturally I panicked that I had chosen the wrong gate, but turns out he was just questioning my travel choices, as he proceeded to add ‘you work there?’ Momentarily confused about which languages I speak and which he expects me to answer in, I opt for a sage nod as an answer and hope he understands the complexity of my year abroad setup. Strangely, I have never heard a bad word from a Southerner about the North – either they are a much nicer bunch, or the Northerners actually have a point..

Chapter 18 : My Friends in the North

Last weekend saw me take a friendy trip up North to see ma buds Ellie and Hannah in Bologna and Parma. With planes working out too complicated, I decided to risk the enigmatic night train – previously avoided due to the new ‘trust no one’ attitude that I’d adopted for personal safety reasons.

Still, I felt that there was little that could go wrong in booking a ‘women’s comfort carriage’, and when I arrived at the station it was pleasantly full of friends and families saying their goodbyes, which put paid to the image I’d had of a pitch black deserted station with a mafioso leaning against my carriage drawing on a cigarette.. (you can see how my time abroad has really opened my mind, can’t you?)

By using it once, I feel the word ‘comfort’ may have been overused in the description of my carriage, which consisted of the arm rests being raised on three day seats and a blanket and pillow in a packet placed in their stead. Still, I am so tired from the week that it actually looks pretty inviting. The train creaks into action. Fourteen hours. That’s the longest train in the world. Still, it could be worse – leaving at 9.35pm, my train arrives in Bologna at 11.30am the next day – the woman opposite me, headed to Milan, won’t get there til 3pm.

I was lucky to be sharing with a very nice lady and I did manage to sleep for most of the fifteen hour journey – until our bed things were unceremoniously collected at 9.15am that is (we were assured that usually they collect them promptly at 9, but they gave us a lie in as it was Sunday). There was even a little cubby hole with a mirror to do my make-up the next day, although it was furnished with a particularly lethargic movement sensor light, so while I apply my mascara with one hand I am manically waving around with the other. Doesn’t make for the smoothest application.

I ate well on the train. I had broken my fast with my cake bar and banana when I awoke, then my bunk mate woke up and offered me more. After a few seconds of polite refusal that I got the feeling were being interpreted as a rude refusal, I gave in and had a second breakfast. Then a third when she offered again half an hour later. All this journeying and eating, I could definitely be a hobbit.

Bologna and Parma, unlike most of the cities that I’ve been visiting recently, are places that you might actually plan a holiday to from the UK as a normal holidaying type person. Bologna is home to the oldest university in Europe, and is full of both those big, wide streets that I loved in Turin and the narrow, ‘explore me’ ones you can find all over Rome. I am ashamed (or proud?) to say that I didn’t bother with anything particularly highbrow during my one day visit, although we did explore a lovely cluster of medieval churches and head inside the San Petronio for good measure. I have to admit I was rather jealous of Ellie’s European chic coat/glasses/bob combo (I only have one of those things!!), which is probably what led me to break my New Year’s resolution while still in January by buying an ‘interesting’ black dress from COS – we reasoned that these sort of pieces must be invested in in the sale.

Other highlights of the day were food and friend based – enjoying a delizioso cappuccino with Ellie and Hannah on the terrace of the best coffee shop in Bologna, then following the pair round Tiger with increasingly wide eyes as Ellie convinced Hannah that no, she couldn’t live without a set of five heart-shaped sponges and Hannah convinced herself that no amount of craft materials would be sufficient for the time being.

In the evening, after a few spritzes/mojitos and a seriously amazing aperitivo, we said goodbye to Ellie and hopped on the train to Parma, where Hannah is living and working for the year. Only we couldn’t hop back off at Parma, because none of the three doors we tried would open to us, and despite some well-meant yelling at an innocent passer by on the platform, we were forced to take a detour to the next town along and then casually hop on the train back, as if that was how we’d planned it all along.

I feel like now would be a good interlude to say that Bologna and Parma were cold. It’s about 14 degrees in Reggio Calabria, but it feels a lot colder than that. (Whenever I talk to locals about it they say that it’s the humidity that gets to your bones – I always thought humidity made a place warmer but I do kind of see what they’re saying – it’s a weird cold feeling that locks in place and is difficult to shake – not helped by the fact that my apartment is sans heating). But, anyway, I though Reggio was cold, Bologna and Parma are pretty much in British climes at the moment, and I was hopelessly unprepared. I didn’t even bring a coat back to Italy with me, so Hannah kindly leant me the cosiest snuggliest Norwegian jumper and I marched happily round Parma as if I knew it would be this chilly all along.

Anyway, as Hannah is a working gal these days, I had Monday morning to myself to explore Parma, which was lovely. Parma reminds me of Cambridge a lot. People go everywhere on bicycles, you stumble across lovely hidden buildings wherever you go and the place is overrun with independent bookshops and cafes, such as ‘La Pulcinella’ (the puffin) where we enjoyed another coffee before lunch.

In the afternoon we met up with Mariana, who is working in Reggio Emilia (dammit should have gone to Emilia Romagna) for lunch and a mosey round. We had a look in some charming but confusing antique vintage shops (charming in that everything in it incited an ‘ooh’ from at least one of us, confusing because none of us could figure out how they made enough money to still be here) and had another coffee (sensing the tone of the day?) in a lovely chocolate shop, although I nearly spat it out again when the bill came to €15.50 just for mine and Hannah’s share!! We were sitting opposite a mother and son, the former having bought the latter a cream cake, which provide endless amusement as he proceeded to sink his fists in the oozing cream and try a little misguidedly to bring it to his mouth without spillage.

In the evening we met up with Peter, another english language assistant from Parma, and we went for a pizza (prosciutto di Parma style, of course) and a few drinks. It made me wish that I had been placed in a more studenty area – again, Parma seemed to have managed that diversity of people that I feel is lacking where I am. Even so, I felt that lovely familiar ‘home’ feeling when I stepped back off the train in Reggio on Tuesday, not least because it was about 10 degrees warmer. Heading to Lucca next weekend, where a quick google tells me its a miserable 1 degree. I’m going to need to buy a coat.