Learning the Lingo

A new year has begun and I am getting myself organised and ready for the bureaucratic merry go round to begin in April when I have to renew my permesso. Yes, I am very naughty, you have not found yourself in some strange time and space continuum, but you are only now getting this blog in May…..I blame it on the slow internet….no not really, I have been remiss, and there has just been so much going on.

Anyway, I’ll continue from where I started and you can pretend we are still in January, but I cannot believe 8 months have gone by since I arrived, and I am now on the hunt for paid work but also working on a little dream, a piccolo vegan gelato shop. When I worked in the music business in Canada many years ago one of the managers of a large record store chain after agreeing to display a bunch of punk rock Epitaph CD titles at the very entrance to the store said to me that I could sell ice to the eskimos, but could I sell gelato to the Italians? Well that remains to be seen and it is just a dream right now although a perfect location has opened up almost opposite my home in Lucca, so let’s just say preliminary investigations are underway.

I do think this could however be a very complicated venture, as while my Italian has greatly improved, I am by no means fluent and probably not equipped to navigate the red tape needed to start a new venture in Italy. Just getting a haircut the other day for example was a long involved and complicated scene. I am trying to grow it a bit, so if we have a crazy summer like we did last year it will be long enough to tie up or hide under a hat. Growing out a pixie cut is not easy and after many explanations, gesticulations, popping out the translator which spun around for ages because their wifi was patchy at best, or trying to show a picture of what I was aiming for I still came out of the parrucchiere with crazy hair not looking anything like the picture I showed , so I shudder to think what might happen trying to start a business? Nevertheless, I will persist.

Sometimes doing simple things can be really complicated. Tonight I have had to decalcify the dishwasher as Lucca water is full of calcium. White chunks accumulate in the kettle, the sink always has a white film on it so I can only imagine what the dishwasher and washing machine look like inside. Even with my glasses on, it is difficult to read the instructions so I can translate them. This explains why my days seem to disappear as while I definitely get the gist of most things I read, everything takes time. Deciphering the gas and electricity bills, responding to emails, reading instructions, recipes, street signs. This year I will have to take my written driving test, the Patente, which apparently is a nightmare even for fully fluent Italian natives, so I need to get started now so by August I will be able to get an Italian license. Australia and Italy have a reciprocal agreement for many things. An Italian could arrive in Australia next week, never having driven on the left hand side of the road, the right side of the car or ever followed a speed limit in their life, but they can just exchange their license just like that, but not here, Oh no. Apparently the problem is because every state in Australia has a different registration body, vicRoads, Main Roads in WA, so the reciprocal agreement is not reciprocal at all even though we all drive the same way in Australia and the rules of the road don’t change much between states. Here there do not seem to be any rules except never stop at a zebra crossing, or a traffic light unless the poor pedestrian risks their life and hopes you will stop. Park your car directly on the zebra crossing facing the opposite direction to the flow of traffic, park on the pavement so you can barely get into your front door. Slowdown when approaching a roundabout, are you mad? The number of near misses I have had with “A” just at the large roundabout near my house is growing rapidly, as he gets cross with me for flinching and holding on for dear life. Calma, tutto va bene. All is well. Actually I am the worst passenger in the world in a car, I admit it and I don’t know why. Nevertheless, Italian drivers are absolutely crazy from what I have witnessed so far, so part of me wonders what on earth I am even thinking about wanting to get my Italian license. If I have completely grey hair next time anyone sees me you will know why.

But the countryside just 5 minutes outside of Lucca beckons as it is just so darn pretty, with cute little hilltop villages, mountains, rivers, thermal springs, ancient historic villas, vineyards, beaches that I am just itching to explore whenever I feel like it, which is a bit difficult to do if you have to rely on public transport which takes 2 hours to get somewhere which you can actually get to in about 20 minutes in a “macchina” so it looks like I will have my head in the Patente books soon too.

Italian culture is another language that needs to be deciphered and everyday presents a new challenge. They are very passionate about coffee, but there are some rules, and the main one is no cappuccino after 12 noon under any circumstances. “A” is palpably physically embarrassed to ask for a cappuccino with soy milk for me even 1 second after noon as he orders a macchiato for himself which is essentially espresso with milk, and honestly does not look that different to a cappuccino! So just to annoy him I say, can you please then order me a macchiato with lots of latte di soya and he feigns strangling me. I think it is hilarious and it is a running joke now, although something has happened that I never thought in a million years would. I actually like espresso and now even have one of those cute olde worlde silver stove top coffee pots and cute little espresso cups always at the ready. I do need sugar though. Speaking of sugar if you put sugar into someones coffee and you stir it, well that is akin to a marriage proposal here in Tuscany, so be very careful whose coffee you stir.

In Melbourne I used to order a weak soy latte, now I am drinking full strength expresso even at night before I go to bed, and even more miraculously I am able to sleep! I reckon it’s because I’m in the northern hemisphere. One time travelling in northern India where the drivers are even more insane than Italians, to reduce my nerves from being totally frazzled I sat in the back seat and tried to read a book. Normally after 30 seconds, reading a map, looking at my phone in a car I become instantly nauseas but in India which lies completely in the Northern hemisphere I did not get even slightly nauseas and read a massive tome over three weeks which thankfully distracted me from all the unbelievable shenanigans happening on the highway, camels, goats, cows, trucks on the wrong side of the highway, that needed to be dodged by our most excellent driver. Thinking I was cured of my inability to read in a car, I tried my new found superpower when I got back to Australia only to be severely nauseas after just a few seconds. So, I think my late night espresso drinking and ability to still sleep might also fall under the category of some weird Northern Hemisphere phenomenon. That’s my theory anyway.

Anyway, I digress. I have finally managed to enrol at CPIA which is kind of like a community college that specialises in teaching foreigners the Italian language and where it is possible to learn Italian for roughly 25 Euros a year which is amazing when you are on a budget. I began my enrolment last year in June not long after I arrived and it taken me up until a few weeks ago to finally be taking classes.

Finding where to actually enrol on the website was akin to an archaeological expedition, translating along the way and going down all kinds of Internet passageways leading to dead ends and obstacles, but after a few hours I managed it and received the notification that I had been enrolled and someone would be in touch shortly! Whoo hoo! Roughly 4 months later after much chasing someone got in touch and I was informed they needed one more piece of paperwork and to send it to their WhatsApp, only to once again never hear anything ever again despite further chasing, until I finally just marched myself into the school and asked what gives? It is interesting to me that a school whose main focus is to teach Italian to foreigners who cannot speak Italian has no members of staff that speak English, French, or Ukrainian since these are the languages spoken by most of the people enrolling as many Moronccans,Ukrainians, Americans, Canadians and Brits are landing in Lucca. Luckily I had my university Italian from 40 years ago and what I’ve learned since I’ve lived here to ask for what I wanted and explain the enrolment process I had gone through, but I cannot imagine how someone who has just arrived and does not speak a word of Italian would actually enrol in the school.

So after much ado about nothing, yet more WhatsApp messages, since they couldn’t solve the mystery of my enrolment in. the school while I was actually standing in the building, the good news is I have finally started attending the B1 intermediate level classes 3 times a week, with 3 different teachers in 3 different class rooms, but I did miss a week because of a rotten cold. Last week, while sitting in our Friday morning class we got a message on our WhatsApp B1 group saying that because they have so many new enrolments from absolute beginners and are offering some other courses, our B1 class will now only be 2.5 hours a week on a Friday morning, reduced from over 7 hours as they don’t have enough teachers. It was almost completely cancelled after running for many years, but a teacher stepped up and said she would continue to teach her Friday morning class, and I thought to myself, I am finally in this class, finally after almost a year of getting enrolled and now 4 weeks in, the class has practically been cancelled. Am I a jinx? Nah it’s just Italy.

Since I started writing this post my gelateria dreams have unfortunately come to a screeching halt and have for all intense purposes been shattered into a million pieces.. After a visit to the Lucca Chamber of Commerce to ask about starting a business I was once again met by staff with absolutely no English language skills however via a mix of charades and my Italian I managed to get a list of organisations that apparently can guide you in starting a business. (un attivita) I studied the sheet which had 12 different organisations and proceeded to research their websites only to find that half the websites did not work, at all, were under construction or were completely irrelevant to what I was looking for except for 1 called CNA who I contacted, and to be fair responded quickly and a meeting was arranged. Interestingly Tuscany has a huge campaign to get foreign companies to start businesses here, and it mainly targets English speaking countries, however, anyone you have to talk to about starting a business here does not speak a word of English. It is absolutely perplexing. Meanwhile at the pizzeria a few doors down they now have a young girl there who speaks English, but the important institutions where you need to go to get things done do not. With the use of Google translate I was able to get an appointment and luckily “A” accompanied me so he could translate and ask questions for me if I ran into any difficulty.

After about an hour of conversation as I slumped deeper and deeper into my chair, I realised how completely unnecessarily complicated and absurd it was all going to be. I felt like I was in a Kafka novel. It is no wonder there are more and more empty shops everywhere as it is virtually impossible for anyone to start anything. For example, if I wanted to sell cold drinks in the gelateria meaning a fridge with drinks in it, I would need a separate license. If. wanted to serve juices or smoothies, another license. If I wanted to have a table out on the pavement I would need a license for that, a license if I wanted a staff member to bring a gelato to that table, a license for a staff member to pour a non-alcoholic drink, never mind having to hire a “geometra” (surveyor) and pay a fortune for him or her to say yes or no to a space being suitable to even conceive of the notion of having a gelateria there. What about a food van? You would still need a separate premises to make the gelato even though I only essentially need a couple of hot plates. Can I make it at home and run a catering business? Nope. Then if you want to park your food van anywhere, you need to get licenses for that spending more time doing paperwork than actually getting on with business. I would also have to go back to school to do the HACCP even though I have it and all kinds of food handling certificates already. Any staff you employ would also have to do the course, and if the casual staff member decided to leave after 5 minutres, then I would have to hire a new person and pay for them to do the course. A great way to get free education without doing any work!! I quickly realised I would probably spend 40 thousand Euros before I had even sold one cone just in ridiculous bits of paper for the most stupid things ever conceived. The ladies at CNA told us that they had spoken to someone who wanted to open a mechanics workshop and that he needed over 99 different licenses to fix cars, we joked and said he probably needed a license to hang a calendar with naked ladies on the wall! Another friend who had looked into opening a gluten free business experienced the same frustrations and said its like they have employed someone to make everyones lives as difficult as possible to be an entrepreneur…..so for now I just don’t have the energy to face it… and now I can finally completely understand why everyone works in. the “Nero”. Don’t even get me started on the tax system.

It seems like I have spent much of this post complaining, which I have, but folks, the honeymoon is over……. no not really. I still love living here, but the reputation Italy has for its crazy bureaucracy is absolutely and unequivocally warranted and the madcap illogical things that happen just give Italy its charm and character….well kind of….but you can see how time can just fly trying to sort out the most mundane and simple things. ;-)

It has not all been doom and gloom, far from it and I have had some lovely adventures, such as countryside jaunts with my friend Rivka who I met in Italian class. She lives in Israel. but is renovating a house here and goes back and forth. She is an absolute marvel. “A” packed us off to Padova for three days over my birthday weekend and that was marvellous, such a gorgeous city, not far from Venice, where we got to eat Indian food and went to an amazing vegan restaurant. Padova has been a University town since 1222, so it has a certain vibrancy like Bologna, with hip student areas and funky hole in the wall restaurants. Padova has the oldest horological clock in Europe situated in Piazza Dei Signori and the Palazzo della Ragione which is an enormous building sitting in the vegetable market has to be seen to be believed. They used to bring people there to who were accused of various crimes to be judged. The building is so intimidating it would have anyone shivering in their little Mediaeval boots for sure. The city is very beautiful with its Venetian and Byzantine architecture. The little hotel we found near the Basilica di Sant.’Antonio was the quirkiest and coolest place ever. The Al Fagiano Art Hotel was a stones throw from everywhere of interest and had the most amazing artwork in the reception, stairwells, corridors, dining room and in every room. The staff were extremely nice and helpful, and our room was comfortable and interesting. It was a brilliant discovery and I would happily stay there again.

So what does 2023 hold in store? I really don’t know but the novelty of living in Italy certainly has not worn off, and now I have to keep my fingers and toes crossed that all will go well with the renewal of the Permesso at the end of November. There is such a bureacratic backlog at the moment that while I have applied to renew my permesso in time, and been given my appointment, I will actually have to wait almost 7 months for the renewal appointment which will now happen at the end of November. At least I can get on with my life for now and I have so much more news to catch you all up on. Until then, ciao for now.. and thanks again for reading and for your patience with me. xx Z