Travel Blues

Vacations are a good topic for English lessons. Before their departure, students have to tell me about the upcoming adventure using the future tense. The real teacher's pets send me a couple of messages from the road in present tense. Then when they get home it's all in the past. And seeing that I've already been most of the places they're going, I can round out the lessons correcting their nouns (people, places and things) and adjectives.

I'm often sad to hear how much countries have changed, but thankful to have seen them when I did. I know others have been to these places long before me, just like I was there long before today's Instagram travelers. I appreciate my older, adventurous audiences silently satisfying me when I spoke of sleeping on the roof of a mud hut in Mali to the sounds of the village kids playing in the midnight moonlight; as much as I felt like the first, I now know I wasn't. I try to give my students the same silent satisfaction, but it's not easy for a know-it-all like me.

Recently I've been thinking a lot about packing up (not packing) my backpack and leaving the world's people, places and things unbothered by tourism. The thought came after a 50-year old student told me about his itinerary on an upcoming trip to Morocco. I patiently listened to his list of overly organized activities and retained my remarks. But when the scheduled event for Day 5 was to taste Moroccon food, my trip advisor comments couldn't be contained.

If you've figured me out at all, you know I'm not adventurous when it comes to food; but even I wouldn't wait five days for an expensive tasting tour to find falafel in Fez. If countries that were once on the U.S. Department of State Travel Advisory list are now filled with tourists searching for the comforts of home, it's probably time for me to start looking for the comforts of home at home.  

Let There Be Emotion

The last time someone told me that people either love me or hate me I saw the bright side. I wasn't bothered by the statement in the past, but I've finally realized I should take it as a compliment.

Being loved or hated means having a strong enough effect on someone to evoke at least some kind of emotion; be it good or bad, at least they feel my presence. If you hate me it means I have a personality. I might rub you the wrong way, but a bad rub to one is a massage to another. And knowing there are people out there that I rub the right way makes the haters fade away.

It's not to say I find joy in being hated. But is there joy in feeling that your place in someone's life is met with the same indifference as the __________?

I had to leave that blank because the only people I feel indifferent about are the one's I don't know. I could have written the guy at the gas station, but when I go for gas we talk about skiing. Then I thought about the mailman, but when he shows up on his scooter I teach him new phrases in English. The lady on the running path smiles, the guy at the dump saves me broken ceramics and the old people in the mountains and at the sea wave and say hello; I find indifference difficult.

So go ahead and make my day. Tell me you love me or hate me. But please don't say I'm just ok, because I take that as a real insult.

Alternative English

Last year, in search of exciting extracurricular activities, I announced to my night class that I prostitute my English. Luckily my students don't have a great grasp of the language because the use of exciting extracurricular activities and prostitution in the same sentence wasn't really the best choice. The right word would have been barter, but had I chosen that I might not have had their full attention. I explained that I would offer my services (speaking English) in return for something they could offer me.

At the end of the class a guy asked if I could ski. Then he asked if I could REALLY ski. I think it's safe to say I can't REALLY play the ukelele or the piano and I can't REALLY paint or write. But I convinced him that I could REALLY ski. So, he bought the lift ticket and lunch and I spoke English for 11 hours.  Luckily, a year later he still needs help with English, so last week we had another beautiful day in the mountains.

I've also been treated to rock climbing (not the wall at the gym) and backcountry skiing (not just going off the slopes at the ski resort). Those days the guy learned a lot of scary new words the  teacher had never used in the classroom. 

Camping in Slovenia with a mountain guide was probably my best gig so far. He put up the tents, cooked and found the hikes. All I had to do was speak English and laugh at his mistakes.

Sadly, it takes two to tango and I'm having a hard time finding a ballerino (dancer, not a male ballerina). I thought someone might like sweet nothings whispered in their ear while waltzing, but I have no takers. It's possible that it's impossible. The men that know how to ballroom dance probably wouldn't be able to hear my whispered words over the music. And those that could, would prefer a much younger ballerina.

Last week I may have met my match in a new student that owns a pizzeria. At the end of the first lesson he proposed that I stop for dinner, we speak English and he pick up the tab (prostituting pizza?). For most folks it wouldn't be a bad deal. A pizza with porcini, prosciutto and parmegiano and a nice glass of wine is definitely more expensive than the hourly rate of the neighborhood English teacher. However, with my unalterable cheese pizza and CocaZero, I'd only be gaining weight and losing money. But now that I think about it, maybe I have another trick (no pun intended) up my sleeve. I can propose paying for the pizza in return for a little cha-cha-cha.
 

Time for Tombola

Just like most years in Italy, I was once again invited to play Tombola (Bingo) on New Year's Eve. I'm not a lover of group games. Put me in front of a puzzle if you want me to stay up really late. But puzzles aren't made for ten people, so I said yes to Tombola.

Each player had two cards to control. In case you haven't played for awhile (like lucky me, until I moved to Italy) you no longer place chips on a little cardboard card with numbers. Now the card lives in a plastic case and has tiny plastic windows that you slide down when your number is called. If you ask me, it takes a bit of the fun out of it. Trying to keep the bingo chips or pennies (or in Italy, beans) from sliding onto the neighboring squares used to be the most exciting part of the game.   

But this year's most exciting part was Cristina, the girl who called the numbers. She drew each one with enthusiasm, asking for silence then waiting for shrieks. She seemed sincerely hopeful that every one of us would win every time.

There were big baskets filled with different-sized prizes wrapped in newspaper. Three, four and five numbers in the same line were all prize-worthy, but it wasn't until all of your windows were shut that you could yell TOMBOLA. As winners opened travel tissues and scented soaps wrapped in newspaper like they were opening a tiny blue box from Tiffany's, I mused about the magic of playing this silly game on the last day of the year; it's nothing more than connecting (or reconnecting).

I've already decided I'm spending next New Year's Eve at my friend's nursing home calling numbers for Tombola. (See December 31, 2025 post.) If I can breathe the same energy into that sterile room of walkers and wheelchairs as our hostess breathed into me, they're going to have to add a new wing to the building because Maria and her other almost 100-year old friends are going to be around for awhile.

Thanks to Cristina's enthusiasm I was reminded that what you give is what you get. Therefore, I have no fear that trading my glittery gold nail polish for a package of plastic clothespins will leave me hanging out to dry. It can only mean that 2026 is sure to sparkle and shine....BINGO!     
 

It's Time for BINGO

Is THERE a party with a game that BINGO is its name-o? (It sounds better if you sing it.) I ask because in Italy that party is a New Year's Eve party. I really don't think I found room for it in Michigan between my 9pm dinner and the beach fire, but I've been away so long maybe I've just forgotten.

In any case, while my fellow Americans are joining Dick Clark's replacement in Times Square my fellow Italians (young, old, cool, dorky, educated and uneducated) will be emotionally putting little chips on little cards to win little prizes.

The only year I really liked the game was in 2021 when I taught a 91-year old lady in the mountains how to play her first game. In the beginning she was about as interested as I was. She was grumpy and groaned and found it senseless.  She'd only gone to school until the second grade and I wasn't sure she knew her numbers past 20, so I sat by her and played two cards, saying one was hers.

After her daughter got Bingo and took the first prize, Maria's mood lightened a little. I decided to deliberately miss a number on what we called 'her' card and was happy when a wrinkled finger silently showed up with a light tap. I understood no one was to know she was playing and I kept her secret safe. She didn't win a game that night, but if she had I wonder which of we two'd have yelled BINGO.

Now Maria lives in a nursing home. I went to see her yesterday for her 95th birthday. She's as sharp as ever and fortunately her fingers don't seem any more wrinkled. I imagine they'll play Bingo tonight; what better place than a nursing home to put little chips on little cards to win little prizes. I'm sure Maria's looking forward to it as much as I am. From one grumpy friend who finds it senseless to another, good luck Maria and Happy New Year.

Brief, but comprehensive in expression

I'd love to have known the authors of my 1,258-page Concise Oxford Dictionary. I imagine a group of word-nerds sitting around in whatever you sat around in in 1911 expressing themselves in as few words as possible; like their definition of concise: brief, but comprehensive in expression. You can't get 'conciser' than that.

I discovered my love for this book after a week in the mountains with no internet. And I also discovered that I have a lot of apologies to make to the students I've laughed at for what I thought were made-up words.

What would you think if you heard someone say disremember? I'd have thought it was a cute and  clever way to get their point across had they disremembered the word forget. Instead, it's a header (a word I've apparently invented because I've just looked it up and it's not there. Just how does one find the name for the words at the top of each page in a dictionary when there's no internet?).

I'd set a goal this year to publish 36 posts, but on the eve of New Year's Eve I 'unsadly' accepted my failure. It's the fault of my new favorite book that distracted me until New Year's Eve morning. If I fall asleep tonight before the ball falls will they believe me when I say I was up til dawn reading the dictionary? It sounds as believable as those folks on the train pretending to enjoy books instead of their phones. Just what will they think of the lady on the vaporetto reading her 3 lb. wordbook (my favorite new word for dictionary)?

 

Living the Tourist Attraction

With no TV and a lousy (or no) internet connection, watching a film at my house means setting up the laptop with two tiny speakers and watching a DVD from the library. Last night's pick about a German girl moving in with her Italian father-in-law in Sardenia was an interesting insight into just how much my life has changed in the past 13 years.

Greta entered the fairytale taking pictures of the three-wagon train as it pulled away and left her miles from everything she knew. She loved the woodburning stove where water boiled in a big pot and the ladel and spatula hung on the open stove top. She took a shower outside, shushed the boys if they spoke while the church bells were ringing and lay in a hammock eating kiwi she picked from the overhead canopy. She was in love with the shepherd and sheep, surprised by how easily the sickle cut the grass and happy to hang her laundry on the clothesline in the Sardenian sunshine. This land was so sweet and strange she decided to turn her new life and home into a destination for tourists.

When I first came to Italy I loved the same things Greta loved. The difference is that for her they were a tourist attraction and for me, a daily distraction. I heat my houses with wood on the same stove I saw in the film. And there's still a thrill to cooking dinner with no gas or electricity. I, too, love shepherds and traffic jams caused by sheep, especially when there are a few donkeys thrown in for good measure.

But some of these hundred-year old habits aren't as quaint as they seem. Laundry on the clothesline is only cute 'til it rains and you can't wear your favorite shirt out for pizza. Forgetting to light the fire in the hot water heater means the dishes and your hair will have to to be washed later. Weekend houses with fireplaces can't be heated with an app on your phone and and there's no Campbell's soup to warm your soul when you get there.

Some days it's hard to remember that all good things come to those who wait. My only choice is to grab my granny square afghan, set up my laptap and watch a 20-year old movie suggested by the local librarian. And if the movie's no good, I can dream about the next time my American friends come to experience my daily life which still seems to them like a tourist attraction.