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Friday, August 27, 2010

Whatever you do, befriend someone in the DMV

Upon arriving in Rome, Italy in August of 2002 (mid-August, more accurately, which is the BEST time to visit Rome since everyone is at the sea but NOT the best time to try to get anything done because everyone is at the sea), after being hand-printed at the local police station (more on this later) and having the police come visit me on a Saturday morning and looking in my closets to make sure I was actually living there (more also on this later), I soon contacted the Wisconsin Department of Motor Vehicles to understand how I could renew my license once it expired.  Much to my horror, I learned that I was not allowed to renew it since I was no longer a resident (military people are the only ones who have the ability to renew from abroad, not a silly in-love-with-an-Italian person) and that the only way I could renew it was to come in person once I again was living in Wisconsin.  It seems that some people get around this issue by 1) being in the military as previously mentioned, 2) faking an address or using one of a really good friend or 3) like most things in the world, knowing someone really well who could maybe oil the wheels of bureacracy a bit for you.
Well, I wasn't in the military, and I really have an honest streak and wouldn't feel particularly comfortable asking most people to use their address for something like this, and I wasn't lucky to know anyone in the DMV...so basically I was screwed.
The reality though is that my Wisconsin driver's license in Italy means diddly, except that I could drive for one year.  But after that one year I was required to do the full shabang:  a knowledge test of 20 multiple choice questions all in Italian plus the driver's test.  I studied night and day for about 3 months, learning the amount of brake fluid a tractor needs (how have I driven up to now without this information?), how to report an accident (as you know from reading an earlier post, this is vital...and more on my own experiences with accidents and blown-up cars to come), and I learned in Italian all the parts of a car, learning parts I didn't even know existed in English.  We went to Bologna in Northern Italy for me to take some driving lessons with Pier's brother's wife's dad (did you get that?) who was a driving instructor, named Paolo.   We stayed with Pier's parents in the heat of the summer of 2006, with two year old Luca and a pile full of driving materials at my side.  In July I went to take the written part of the test and passed it the first time, which surprised everyone including my driving instructor, because typically these tests are not passed even by Italians the first try (one might ask if Paolo had oiled the wheels for me?) but knowing how much I had studied it's maybe possible I could have passed but we'll never know....
Then I took the driving test, and about 10 minutes into the test the examiner, said "pull over here!" and once parked, the examiner got out of the car and crossed the street to a bar (in Italy a bar is where you get coffee and pastries, not a vodka) and she sat down with what seemed the owner or a long-time friend and had herself a cappuccino and a cigarette, all this while I'm idling the car, also still nervous because I'm smack in the middle of my darn exam.  Once back in the car, as if that were all par for the course, we continued on with the exam, and at the end she handed me my license, just like that.  I'm sure that here in the US you have to wait a few weeks at least for your license, and usually for most other things in Italy you can expect a good wait for most anything, but here was an instance of miraculous wonder...
So with license in hand, I headed back to Pier's parents' house with Paolo who offered to drive.  As we were driving back, he turned to me and said "now let me teach you how to really drive" and he saw an older woman crossing the street and he said "ahh, e' vecchia", or "ah, she's old" and he kind of swerved by her in a way that for sure could have caused a heart attack.  It did for me, that's for sure, but prepared me for the years to come, as I drove through the streets of Italy.
Back in the states, as you may remember, my Italian driver's license doesn't mean SQUAT, and I am presently studying again to take the test here in Pennsylvania.  Apparently if I had fallen in love with a French or German fellow rather than an Italian one, my license would be automatically transferred to a Pennsylvania one.  I tried to explain that a European license lets you drive all over Europe, don't matter if you have a French, German, Swedish, or Italian one.  No matter.  I don't know someone in the DMV. So if you can, befirend someone in the DMV if moving abroad!!!

Roman firemen

One evening Pier and I returned home late to the apartment in Rome, at around midnight, with a little Luca about 1 year old, exhausted, and Pier's mom, who is probably one of the most dramatic and emotional women I've ever known, aside from my own mother who is by far the most dramatic and emotional woman I've ever known. Pier and I were overly happy from eating a delicious Roman pizza (the flatest, crispiest and tasiest pizza on the planet) and ready to just crash into bed, probably we were tired from a working day because for some reason I remember it was a Friday.  Sometimes Pier's mom, Gabriella, came down from Bologna to Rome to help us if Luca had been sick, or maybe if I was working and Luca didn't have school.  For whatever reason, we were all together, coming back a bit late (probably we tried using Roman public transportation), and much to our surprise when we tried the key into the lock of our big wooden front door, nothing happened.  I mean we put the key in, and tried to turn it, but it was stuck, not even a sound of a hopeful turn or squeak. 
So at this moment of course hysteria kicks in, because there is no other way in the house because it is a ground floor house with bars on all the windows to protect any possible thieves entering (and we put an additional plastic green screen on most of the windows after two nights of being in Rome when we discovered a stray cat enjoying a late night snack in our kitchen), and so we tried again to open it, and another time, and well, it was time to call what I consider one of the best public services in Rome:  the Roman firemen.
Most things in Rome take time, like getting a bus or a  parking spot, and often going to public offices like the police station or post office can test even a person with the most patience.  However, these Roman firemen arrived swiftly, and most professionally, and may I add, with the most fit, muscular and tanned bodies in tight fitting clothing that I had ever seen.
Six or seven of them worked together to get our door open, but I can't really recall how they opened the door because well I was a little distracted. I'd just never seen firemen looking like that.  So the next time you are in trouble and you are in Rome, I think you'll know who to call!

Wednesday, August 25, 2010

Driving in Italy

The first time I drove in Rome I started crying.  It was on the GRA, Rome's ring road, with a speed limit of around (I say around because the speed limit, like most things Italian, are negotiable) 75 miles per hour.  The problem is not so much the speed in and of itself, which for me in and of itself is a problem, but add in motorcyles and mopeds zigzagging in front of you and behind you and on the right, on the left, squeezing in little spaces at rocket speeds and at the last second changing their minds.  Plus you have cars also zigzagging in front of you and behind you and on the right, on the left, squeezing in little spaces at rocket speeds and at the last second changing their minds.  Combine this with everyone talking on their cell phones, with their hands in the air engaged in some intense conversation, usually involving yelling, with kids squirming in the back seats without seat belts or car seats, and throw in a few taxi cabs who are in the left lane who drive faster than the speed of light.  On most days traffic will be blocked up due to someone who had zigzagged into another zigzagger, and so add in a few ambulances, a few firetrucks (more on Italian firemen later) and policemen, and that my friends is Italian driving 101.
Now I haven't seen all of the world in my life yet, and I've been told that there are other places that equal or surpass the intensity of the Italian roads.  Please please tell me so I will know not to go to these places.

Back in the US, I'm in shock, I'm practically falling asleep at the wheel.  People here (and for some reason I really don't remember this, but it could be my 8 years of fast living in Italy) drive soooooo slow, and combine that with my new automatic car, I'm going to have to start drinking some high caffinated drinks in order to make it to my destinations.  I guess though if I have to choose behind zigzagging in Italy or comatose driving here, maybe I'd choose the latter (but let me get back to you on that after I'm here for a bit longer).
After being in Italy for a few months we learn that I will have to get an Italian driver's license in order to drive there.  You have one year only on a US license (same as it is if an Italian comes here, but I'll rant on about this bureacracy in a bit), and so I started studying for my Italian driver's test, in all Italian.  Yes, you might think, you said a few posts ago how much your Italian sucked.  Yes, you remember well dear reader.  But please, ask me how to tell you in Italian how much brake fluid a tractor needs, or the parts of a car, or how to report an accident (which we now know is very important), I am absolutely the most fluent speaker you will ever meet.  I passed my written test (the skills, or knowledge test here) the first time around (unusual even for Italians) and also passed my driving test too.  Little did I know that back in the US, years later, I would have to get a learner's permit (remember being 16?) and start all over again.  More on that, later.

Tuesday, August 24, 2010

I need a manual to drive manual

I'm one of those rare folks from the states who actually learned to drive on stick shift and has only driven on stick shift my whole life.  This worked to my advantage when I moved to Italy since it's pretty impossible to find an automatic car anywhere on the entire European continent.  So for the past 8 years in Italy, I drove a little green Ford Fiesta, and I zoomed through the streets shifting happily like everyone else.  (More on the experience of taking an Italian driver's test and surviving and driving in Italy, to come).

Monday, August 23, 2010

Italy, oh Italy

Pier and me, Rome Italy

Luca at the Pantheon

Pier and Luca, at our favorite hangout Sperlonga
Luca and Vespa
Two weeks into my landing in the states.  Two weeks ago I had finished my eighth year of living in Rome, Italy, with my guy, my six year old son Luca, and 13 year old cat Grace.  I'm originally from New York State, 41 years ago, growing up in the mountainous hills that make up the former Borscht Belt with ghost shells of hotels, most of which have closed.  I landed in Potsdam, near Canada for a few years, honing my flute skills, and then in 1993 moved to Madison, Wisconsin where I finished my Masters, and met Pier Giuseppe, who I literally dropped everything for and said "yes" to when he mentioned his mom's apartment, ready for us to live in, in the beautiful Eternal city of Rome.
I had never traveled much outside of the states, except for one jaunt to Germany when I was 16, for two weeks as a sort of exchange student, and to Canada on a few road trips. I was so covered with prosciutto over my eyes (an Italian expression loosely translated) that I would do anything to be with Pier (let it be known that I still would do anything) so a gigantic leap of faith combined with a desire to explore (and let it be said, not a word of Italian) found me sitting in my mother-in-law's apartment not far from the Vatican (I always thought a good title for a possible book could be "what's a nice, Jewish girl like you doing in a place like this) with nothing changed for 50 years since she lived there as a girl.  The first night we slept there, I begged Pier to please take the cross down that was above our bed, and so this began a long period of diplomatic negotiations between Pier and his mom, who held steadfast to the apartment remaining AS IS and some understandable angst between my new love and me.
I signed up for an Italian class, in which everyone was 20 and spoke 5 other languages, in even the lowest level class.  After the first 20 minutes of my first class, I was so lost I can't begin to tell you.  Now in this way I fit in such an unfortunate way into the american stereotype of not being able to speak anything else except English.  I hate it, because I have always had friends from all around the world, I love seeing new places, hearing different languages, tasting new foods....but I just have never gotten the drift of another language being processed in my brain and coming out of my mouth.  I even have problems in English (ask Pier).  One would think that a musician would have a good ear, but in fact, I don't.  I basically suck.  So....here I am back in Italy, learning a language for love, a language that is love (the most romantic language if you ask me) and I'm ending up in tears, it's much harder than I expected....and I can't summon up the courage to do my day to day things as easily as I was doing them before.  I got incredibly lucky when I started teaching Business English at Proctor and Gamble, and all my students were these awesome young Italians who enjoyed doing conversations in both my broken Italian as well as their broken English, and we had a great time...and I dropped that damn class that gave me such stress.
But the truth is, dealing with banks and taxes and drivers licenses (more on that adventure later) is much different than asking for a pizza with mushrooms.  I ended up being so dependent on Pier, much more than I have ever been on anyone in my life....and this caused some understandable tension.  That combined with the apartment from hell (more to come on that too), the chaos of Roman life (that's to come also)  and my working full-time eventually at an international school run by nuns....well, it just got to be a little out of hand.
But then there was the food and the sea and the sun, and well the Italians who you just have to love.  The avoidance of anything legal, the tasting of foods that bring you to heaven, the smiles that are full of soul and eyes full of wonder.  It's enough to make you crazy enough to continue as I did, for 8 wonderful and difficult years.  More on my Roman experience will come.
As for now, I'm in Pittsburgh, and Pier is taking his turn in culture shock.  But we're living more easily in some ways and I'm returning to myself in some ways that were slipping.  I will write on this blog mostly for myself, but I hope whoever is reading this might find something worthy for themselves too.