Saturday, January 16, 2010

Is it Possible to Live This Way? An Unusual Approach to Italian Existence | Vol. 1 Patience



I don't like getting email updates and if you've sent me one before I probably haven't read it. I swear we are friends. It's just I'd rather talk to you about your trip instead. I like being involved. Also not all of us are talented writers, and if I am going to sit down and read two pages about how you spent your first day in Alaska deep sea fishing, it better be either a really enthralling big fish story or an email you sent specifically to me because something hella funny happened to you that would make ME laugh and not 25 other additional people. Even better if it's both. That's really the main problem with study abroad mass-emails, they are boring (bad writer) and have nothing to do with you (the person receiving).

With that in mind, I decided to post about my time in Italy on this blog. That way if you really want to hear my thoughts about living and studying in Italy you can just check a website at your leisure. You don't have to feel bad about archiving my email or even promise yourself that you will come back and read the email later seeing as I am "your good friend and all"...instead you can just come here and skim through my bad writing whenever you want. And truthfully I might not even post anything after today.

So, Italy.

I arrived almost 3 weeks ago now. I don't really remember my first thoughts because I didn't write them down. I do remember getting off the plane and waiting for three hours for Stefano to come pick me up at Malpensa, but other than that I don't have a whole lot to say about my first moments in Milan.

You know what was cool though? I sat next to this guy on the plane who is from Oakland and that works for Motorola. We became friends and talked a lot about various high profile prescription drugs that he'd tried and more importantly about if they really do what the advertisements say they do. Viagra? Yes. Cialis? Different, but yes. Lunesta? Yes. Ambien? Yes, but make sure you get your full 8 hours and don't drink to much Cognac. We also talked about Japan and how cool it is and how I should go. And then we talked about people who say they were born into the wrong body, which in this case meant people that thought they were born the wrong gender. I obviously had my opinions on this. The good news was, I kept my cool. This paid off too. Because, as it turns out, he was a Star Gold Alliance Member and when we landed in Munich he got me into this sweet lounge with free beer on tap and good food/internet/every newspaper available in Berlin (also for free). After we said our goodbyes I spent the rest of my layover in the lounge and kept thinking about how God is always really good to me. Not only did I get to see what a Star Alliance Gold Member lounge looked like in Munich, but I also learned about pharmaceuticals that I know I will never use. Plus, the guy was just really nice and, when you have to sit next to someone for that long of a trip, getting a nice guy is really a blessing.

I spent the next couple days with Stefano at his home in Pavia. His family is really wonderful and I felt at home as soon as arrived (actually as soon as I saw Stefano's face at the airport I felt at home). From the moment I walked in, the house was filled with gunfire. His two brothers and cousin were glued to the TV playing the latest Call of Duty on Xbox and my first thought was that American culture is not something you can escape. My second thought was that I was glad they choose to be American and not Russian. That first night I ate everything Ste put in front of me. Everything was healthy, nothing was processed, and it all tasted amazing and decidedly not American.

My second day in Italy I went with Stefano to visit Don Pino from Genova (not the famous Don Pino of Cattolica). The first thing the man did was hug me as if he already knew me. We were invited in his study and conversed for about an hour. Toward the end of our time with him he poured us all some terrible whisky and told me I had to write to Traces Magazine about how I met the movement of Communion and Liberation. He said that kind of story has to be told because people need to know that Christ is a living Presence and one that has unmistakable features. He couldn't believe that an American was sitting in his study who had met CL in Chile. God really is great, and we really are witnesses to an incredible mystery.

Then Stefano dropped me off at the Metro and I made my way to the San Babila region of Milan
where I live with the Raimondi family. The first person I saw was the dad who is a hilarious guy with a great sense of humor. I got along with him from the moment I met him last summer. Actually the entire family is really incredible and living with them in their home has really been more than I deserve. They treat me like a member of the family and everything about my life with them is comfortable and enjoyable. I am really without want. They even took me to St. Moritz in the Swiss Alps.

That Alps were really something else. They're just like you'd imagine they should be, big. The are overwhelming, scrape the sky and put you in your place. You recognize you're human in front of the Alps, finite and yet still capable of grasping and affirming their beauty. They take over the entire horizon and you say to yourself "yeah, they should be like this, they should be huge and powerful and magnificent. I want them to be just like they are." I couldn't think up a better version of the Alps even if I tried.



We stayed there for three days, each of which we skied. I snowboarded, which was incredible. The snow there is so dry and has so much give. I had never experienced anything like it. The whole trip to the Alps was like that, everything was new, something I was experiencing for the first time and maybe even for the last. Everyone should see the Alps before they die, they are humbling, the epitome of God's grandeur (and if that sounds cliché its because you haven't been there).

Most of the time in Milan post-Alps/honeymoon period has been a trial in perseverance and patience. The bureaucracy here is a nightmare. I spent at least a week trying to get a "permesso di sogiorno" which is basically the government's complicated way of making sure that they know you are here and, more importantly, that they know you have verifiable fixed address. It's safe to say they have an illegal immigration problem here. I basically went to the post office like 50 times because that's where you have to go to turn all the paper work in and seriously no one ever knew what I was talking about. The only post office where people actually understood why I was there was the central post office where all the other immigrants hang out. It was kinda cool actually because while I was waiting in line I met this Korean girl who had lived in Manhattan and gone to fashion school and who was now doing a masters in jewelry in Milan. We didn't become such good friends that I could ask here if getting a masters in jewelry was really something you could get your masters in, but she seemed trustworthy. Anyway after I turned the paper work in they gave me a receipt with the date and time of an appointment with the police. So needless to say, it's still not over. Surprise.

The master's program I am in seems legit but I still have yet to see. The professors seem excellent and the course itself is really well organized and will be useful for the kind of work I hope to do in the future. However, I wasn't necessarily blown away by the caliber of my peers. I hope they prove me wrong in the next few weeks though, alumni is an important part of this whole thing.

Also the School of Community that I am supposed to attend is made up entirely of Africans. I'm sure I'll be returning to this subject in future posts.

There are obviously a lot more details that I could go into about the time I have spent here but I wanted to give an overview rather than going overboard, because that's something I also hate about travel emails, they are too long. I enjoyed doing this though so look for more posts soon.

And now its time for my favorite part of the post,

Things American's will find absurd about Italy

1. Sure, it's no longer strange to encounter a European that enjoys a good game of "basket" but naming your basketball team "Armani Jeans"? Absurd.

2. In Italy you won't find a single theater showing a foreign film in its original language. They are all dubbed. Every film, every television show, is dubbed and there is never the option for subtitles. If you ask to watch a film in its original language, usually English, with Italian subtitles Italians will complain but begrudgingly yield to your demands because they want to practice their English, that is, unless they are tired.

3. This is related to #2 but deserves its own paragraph because it is equally as absurd. In Rome you can find various schools devoted to teaching their students the art of "dubbing". That's right people go to school in Rome to become voice over "actors". It is a profession, and a quite lucrative one at that. In fact, a Italian voice actor ( or "doppiatore") makes his career voicing over a single actor and essentially "becoming" that persons voice in every one of their film. For that reason Italians will tell you that when they hear an actors real voice for the first time their gut reaction is that it can't be their "real" voice.

4. The song "Tik Tok" by Keisha and "Sexy Bitch" by David Guetta feat. Akon are extremely popular here. I know, that's absurd enough by itself, but the best part is that: (1) most people have no idea what the lyrics mean and inevitably sing the most inappropriate parts in public making me uncomfortable and (2) it confuses their English. I can't tell you how often people ask things like "Why does Keisha sing 'But the party don't stop' instead of 'will not stop'." To which I try my best at a decent expalnation of english meter and rhyme scheme (all of which I learned from Santi and my friend Sam) and "street culture" (from Everett)...but usually fail.

5. You can do everything at the Post office in Italy. They offer mobile service, bank accounts, immigration services and even health insurance. Oh, and they will mail your stuff. If you think the lines are bad at the post office in the states you obviously haven't lived in Italy.

6. 55% of the people in Milan own a Montcler Jacket. So does Kanye.

I keep a running list of these things and will continue to put up at least five every post. At this point it does not look like I will ever run out.

Also, I can't believe I live in Milan. I can and do walk to the Duomo whenever I want. I often say morning prayer there. I go to mass in Churches that have been there for centuries and walk along streets where I know Saints have been before me. I live in the city where Fr. Giussani began a movement that changed every part of my life. I'm learning Italian.

We really are given more than we deserve.