Friday, April 18, 2008

Breakfast Rules

Want to know what I had for breakfast this morning? Probably not, but I'm going to tell you anyway. I had a cappuccino and a cornetto. And yesterday? Cappuccino and cornetto. And every day last week? Cappuccino and cornetto. Why don't I branch out and have something different? Well, um, I'm not entirely sure. Having rather too much time on my hands I've given this some thought and come to the conclusion that I've been inadvertantly sucked into the Italian 'order of things', a routine which can never be satisfactorily explained because it usually doesn't follow the rules of logic, but is nevertheless followed by almost everyone. Breakfast consists of some type of coffee and a sweet cake or pastry, and that's just the way it is. I'm only talking about breakfast here, but many aspects of life in Italy seem to be shaped by invisible sets of rules that are set in stone and extremely puzzling for the outsider.

With that in mind here's a troubleshooting guide to breakfasting in Italy:

Help! I am currently living in Italy and am fed up of being treated as a mad eccentric foreigner at the local bar. Can you advise me on breakfast bar etiquette?

Certianly. Firstly, unless you are elderly or it is the weekend you must always stand at the bar to eat your breakfast. This is also beneficial for your digestion. Secondly, don't let the locals push in when you are ordering, they will lose all respect for you. It's each for their own out there. Thirdly, make sure you are ordering the normal breakfast items- coffee and cornetto should be fine. It's as simple as that!

I don't have a particularly sweet tooth; is it acceptable to have one of those delicious looking sandwiches instead of something sweet?

Of course! Sandwiches are allowed after about 10am.

Last time I tried to order a sandwich and a coffee for breakfast I was scolded like a child. Now I am scared of trying this combination again. Please can you explain?

This is important: you must never combine coffee and sanwiches. You will have death-inducing digestion problems. Coffee and cornetti are SWEET, sandwiches and fruit juice (the only acceptable accompanying beverage for sandwiches) are SAVOURY.
(Just to let you know, it is ok to have an espresso (but no other type of coffee) after a sandwich, but now we're getting into lunch territory).

If I don't sweeten my coffee am I allowed both a sandwich and a coffee?

This is a pointless question, because as you should know everybody takes sugar in their coffee. You are destined to remain forever a mad eccentric foreigner at your local bar.

Thursday, April 17, 2008

Bella Frattura

To be honest I didn't know I was getting a leg cage when I went into the operating theatre (I never remember the official name of it in Italian so it was christened and remains 'leg cage'). Due to my poor understanding of medical Italian I had a few communication troubles, but seeing as I managed to damage myself in seemingly the most hypochondriac country in Europe (more of that another time) I was fairly trusting of the doctors' ability to put me right.

I knew I wouldn't have a cast due to the fact that I sustained, as the doctor told me, a 'bella frattura'. This does not, as one might assume mean a beautiful fracture, but on the contrary a bloody bad fracture (oh, the complexities of understanding this strange language). Instead there were mutterings around my bedside about 'ferro' (that would be iron to me and you), and it was explained to me that a rod would be put inside my leg to reconnect the bones. So far, so good. I explained to everyone what would be happening, and a few days later was wheeled into the operating room under local anaesthetic expecting to be wheeled out with some kind of long incision down my leg where they'd inserted the rod. They put a screen up in front of my face so I couldn't see what was going on, and I lay in a fair amount of discomfort for four hours while I heard them drilling and cutting, and felt strange sensations of tugging, hammering and screwing. Hang on, hammering and screwing? What the hell were they doing down there? 'Ah, whatever' I thought, tranquillized to the teeth 'who cares'.

Outside the theatre I waited with a sheet over my leg waiting to be taken back to the ward when along came my doctor. '"It went really, really well. Are you ready to see it?" he asked me, eyes full of excitement. He pulled back the cover and revealed to me for the first time my leg cage. He smiled, "quanto e bella?" he asked me- “isn’t it beautiful?” 'Ok' I thought, understanding, 'he’s slipped in another of those confusing, sneaky ‘bella’s’', and I started to agree how terrible and hideous the cage was. Then I realised that it wasn’t a sneaky bella; his face was shining with pride as he gazed in admiration at his work. "This technology is modern-issimo, isn't it great? Hang on, let me take a quick photo". He then proceeded to take out his mobile phone and take photos from several different angles. "Cool, now I can show all my friends" he informed me enthusiastically. A nurse came over and asked “can’t we take her away yet?” The doctor finished off his photography, took one last loving glance at the cage before re-covering it gently, and allowing the nurse to wheel me away.

Sunday, April 13, 2008

Drying Out

I was thrown a lifeline last night. E's friend was celebrating his birthday in Rome and I had already resigned myself to the fact that I wouldn't be able to go and had sat E down and in a very mature and non-martyrish fashion told him he should go without me as Giorgio is a close friend. (But only on the condition that he spared a thought for me every now and then, spending the night sitting in on another couples' relationship breakdown).

Luckily for me Giorgio and his girlfriend offered to pick me up from my village outpost and escort me to the bar in Rome. I got so excited I was ready and waiting an hour before they were due to arrive. And they, following Italian time-keeping rules turned up an hour late, so I watched a bit of 'Tempesta D'Amore' (dubbed German soap of choice in this house) and tried to ignore Sonia's occasional death stares.

It was my first 'Italian' birthday, and very civilised it was too. We passed a relaxed few hours chatting, eating and drinking. No-one ordered more than two drinks the entire night, and many weren't even drinking alcohol. Having purposely avoided the painkillers in order to enjoy a few drinks I felt a bit put out, but I really should have known. I've been to a pub with a bunch of Italians on another occasion and it was exactly the same- on the table I spotted two lonely glasses of wine, a dozen cokes, and two pots of tea (TEA? In the pub on a saturday night?). Here, in the gaps where perhaps in England we'd refresh our pint glasses, they summoned the waitress to give a detailed descrition of the different antipasti on offer, or went on a mass exodus outside to smoke. Having had in my hand the same glass of warm, half-flat coke for half an hour (I started wobbling on my crutches after the first drink) I got a bit hopeful when, after the cake, the waitress brought out 12 glasses. 'Oh goody' I thought, 'here comes the prosecco'. But no, it turns out the birthday boy had asked her to bring us a big bottle of mineral water, which was eagerly poured and passed around. I can only assume this is some absurd part of the digestion maintenance routine which seems to be an obsession here.

A bit later we all left together, lingering outside to chat a bit more, and finally going through the double kiss on cheeks rigmarole with every other person present. The birthday boy, who'd hit nothing harder than a coke all night, drove us home.

Friday, April 11, 2008

Friday night is medicate-your-leg night!

It's been all go here today. First there was a 7-hour powercut while I was alone at home. I had to take to my bed through boredom; I have become sadly reliant on atrocious Italian TV. Later Marco and Sonia came home and had a blazing row in which Sonia threatened to leave. I tried to avoid the row by doing a few circuits of the bedroom on my crutches, and by the time I braved the sitting room again they had magically made up and decided to head out to buy some scratchcards.

Now I'm waiting for E to come home from work to medicate my leg (my Friday nights really have come to this). I have to do it at home once a week in addition to going to the hospital once a week to have it done. At the hospital I usually see the no-nonsesne doctor Pierro who has, as he put it 'been my butcher since the beginning'. Most of his family live in New York, and as a result he speaks English with an Italian-American gangster accent straight from the movies. My favourite day in hospital was when he appeared at my bedside and said "hey little girl, how ya doin?" (look, nothing much exciting happened in hospital ok?). Last visit he was asking me questions, probably trying to distract me from the antispetic he was wiping liberally over my leg, when he got round to asking about E. "What does ya boyfriend do?". "He's the manager of a pizzeria. OW, what are you doing now?". "Pulling out your stitches" yank "well, that's interesting, my family have a pizzeria in Long Island" yank "stay still, I'm not gonna hurt ya".

Five minutes of yanking and vicious swabbing with antispetic later Pierro says "why don't we call your boy in, he can keep you company while I finish up". E is summoned and looks puzzled, unsurprising given that on several occasions he has been forcefully ejected from my bedside when leg medication has been in process. But it turns out Pierro wants to chat pizza. I lie helplessly on the hard bed, pizza talk swirling around my head while Pierro, losing any sembelance of bedside manner he may have had through lack of concentration, pours on some more antispetic for good measure and slaps on bandages with his meaty hands while my boyfriend, sent to 'keep me company', gesticulates excitedly on the other side of the room about pizza varieties. They end the visit in high spirits, with Pierro promising a visit to E's pizzeria soon. I wearily lower myself and my throbbing leg from the bed.

On the way home E is full of chat about Pierro "isn't he such a cool doctor? Did you hear he said I could go and work for his brother in Long Island?" Yes, I thought, reaching into my bag for my painkillers, very cool...just you wait until he treats your wounds and then we'll see how cool you think he is!

Thursday, April 10, 2008

Another Day at the Ranch

We live with a disaster couple Marco (cousin of E) and Sonia who argue from morning to night. Marco is here without documents and waiting to marry Sonia (who is Romanian) so that he can live here legally. She is refusing to marry him because according to her he treats her like a skivvy while he goes out gambling with his friends spending all their money. But anyway, that is a story for another day.

Returning from work this afternoon Sonia, as usual, switched on the TV, made us a coffee, started chain smoking, and launced into a tirade against Marco. Being trapped as I am in the house I have become her unwilling confidante. (Not wanting to get involved in their disputes, I have learnt to employ a wide range of my newly-acquired Italian-style non-commital grunting noises and indifferent shrugs.) Just as today's tirade was coming to a climax ("I do everything for him, I even took my lawyer to get him out of jail the last time the carabinieri came, and what does he do for me? Asks me why his dinner's not on the table. Well vaffanculo!") the doorbell rang.

Enter a sheepish looking Marco...followed by two carabinieri. "We need to see all of your documents" said the fat one, taking a cigarette from the packet on the table. "Listen, I'm English, what do you want from me?" I asked (a bit of Italian assertiveness coming through). "Ok, nothing, you're fine" said the fat one, and started asking about my leg. Meanwhile the thin one with the bumbag disappeared with the others into their bedroom. Wondering what was going on, I made small talk about my leg cage with the fat caribiniera, and after a bit the others reappeared. The thin one with the bumbag picked up an empty shoebox, opened it and peered inside. "Ok" he said after a moment "let's go." And then to Marco: "we'll let you go this time, but hurry up with the wedding".

So what the hell happened? Turns out they were anti-drugs squad who go around searching out people who they think look shifty (foreigners, especially Albanians, would be at the top of the list) and then accompany them to their houses to look for drugs. Marco just got lucky that they were more interested in searching through old empty shoeboxes than enforcing immigration laws. This one should keep Sonia and I busy for the next few afternoons...

Precious Wound

We have come to accept that the staff in the local village pharmacy are pretty useless. While you stand (uncomfortably, on crutches) in the queue they will gossip blithely with locals, place coffee orders with the staff from the bar across the road, and occasionally leave the counter altogether and disappear mysteriously behind a curtain into some back room. When your turn comes they will ask for a detailed account of your accident (out of pure nosiness one assumes), at which point the others in the queue will suddenly stop tutting and cursing under their breath at the slowness of the service, and all remember that they too have a friend/relative/greengrocer who had an accident similar to yours. After listening to a polite amount of stories, advice and well wishing you will make a 'I'd love to talk more, but you know, the queue is now 50 people long and I don't like to keep people waiting' face and finally hand your prescription over.

The woman behind the counter will put on her glasses and stare at it confusedly. She will call over the other staff. They will confer for 5 minutes. They do not stock this product apparently (at this point you will turn to your boyfriend in bemusement because you thought you were only asking for bandages, not treatment for a rare tropical disease). One pharmacist will disappear into the mysterious room. One will get on the telephone to try and source the elusive bandage. The other, inexplicably, will go and start stacking the shelves with baby food. Now there are no staff left to serve the queue and people don't seem so eager to be your new best friend any more. You will leave the pharmacy empty-handed half an hour later, having declined the offer to order in the product and wait 2 weeks for its arrival.

Another week, another prescription. This morning our task was to buy a special giant plaster for the wound on my leg. I elected to stay outside ('um, my leg hurts, I need to sit down'- surely you've got to milk it sometimes) and sent E in, face set in a grim mask of determination. Fifteen minutes later he's back outside; "they've just looked it up on their computer. We'd have to order it in and it costs 150 Euros". I laugh, tell him to forget about it and to just go to the pharmacy in Rome near where he works to pick it up. We go for breakfast at the bar across the road and snigger over our cappuccinos about incompetent pharmacists, wondering which other outlying villages they send the university drop-outs to.

E departs for work and I, out of curiosity and boredom search for the plaster online. To my surprise our incompetent pharmacists got it right- it does cost an unbelievable 150 Euros. A bit more digging reveals that it works using the 'sustained use of hydroactivated silver'. The doctors have asked me to buy one silver plaster a week. Obviously I can't. Any advice?!