the kindness of strangers

There is something about the friendliness of Italian people which never fails to warm my heart, even on such a cold day like today (it's currently three degrees warmer in the south of England than here, and I envy you).

Today saw the hundredth time I went in to the Copisteria to photocopy another bajillion or so pages of music. The owner of the shop and I are getting to be warm friends, and he always greets me with a big grin and prepares himself to be stood by the photocopying machine for a long time, as I hand him delicate book after delicate book and try my best to give him specific instructions as to which pages to copy and how I want them. Today I was ten cents short when it came to paying. He smiled and said "ti faccio uno sconto, non ti preoccupare" - I'll give you a discount, don't worry. And off I went feeling that little bit happier.

Then after a days' worth of lessons, as I left the Conservatorio, the very first member of staff I ever met (called Vittorio - he was very happy when he learnt my name), handed me a small gift. A pin of Verdi's face. Nothing much, but again it made me so happy that I never forget to smile and say hello to him every time I see him.

After previously having talked with a lady who worked at a market stall on Sunday about how the Italians were just naturally friendlier people, always keen and eager to help when they can, and never wanting to pass up an opportunity to practise their (sometimes quite hilariously terrible) English, my agreement with her thoughts was sealed when the lady in the bakery gave me an extra little pastry for free and wished me a good evening.

And just for the record, those two pastries were delicious.

la mia Parma

Perhaps it's just me who had never previously heard of Parma the City. I was discussing this today with a classmate: everyone knows Bologna, Milan, Rome, Venice, Florence, but Parma not so much. I was having to tell people I was going to a city near Bologna. He couldn't understand that. Being from Parma himself, and its University being one of the oldest, as well as the fabulous food and the longstanding history (mentioned below) it was of course, one assumes, a city much talked-about between Italians.

Yet when someone mentions prosciutto (parma ham) or parmigiano reggiano, something immediately clicks. These things are well-known to most English people. My town is the town that these two delicacies were named after! And the town which takes so much pride in every aspect of eating and cooking food possible.

But it's also rich in its history. An Italian friend was telling me how many parole parmigiane have something of a french twist. Owing to the influence of Maria Luigia, wife of Napoleon, who ruled Parma in the 1800s.  They absolutely love her here. They take pride in their heritage and their history (by naming every single shop possible a different variation on the Duchess' name).

There's also this building:

Grand and somewhat the antithesis of beauty, it somehow manages to house the Italian equivalent of the Globe theatre (that being it's all wooden and was also destroyed, and is honestly breathtaking) called Il Teatro Farnese.

This, plus the food, plus the Parco Ducale, mentioned fondly in many other posts, means that even in winter, when the fog comes rushing all around us and the cold becomes unbearable, there is something magical about this place.

This video was just posted to my town's erasmus page. I think it perfectly sums up everything about this wonderful little city that should be better known.

Enjoy!

the first taste of Christmas

Saturday the first of December - an excuse for all Christmassy objects and foods and drinks to make a proper appearance without being scoffed at.

And my first day of December was spent in true erasmus student style getting up at a quarter to five in the morning, excitedly hopping on the bicycle and cycling down to the meeting point where our coach would be departing (nice and pronto at 6am) for the region of Alto-Aldige: the beautiful mountain-filled home of some very fine Christmas markets. After a three hour journey, including an Italian-style '20 minute stop', we arrived in the small town of Merano. As soon as we set foot in the main part of the Christmas market I was squealing with excitement (despite the few hours of sleep) to see an actual varied landscape. Anywhere you turned, you could see a beautiful snow-topped mountain peeking out from behind grand and slightly German-style buildings.

We stayed there long enough to sample the Strudel, the Brulé di mela (hot apple juice) and the Würstchen in all their true German/Italian glory, and wander round the town to the sound of a live Brass Band playing Christmas songs.

Our next stop was a mere half hour drive down the road to Bolzano, also known as Bozen.

I completely fell in love with Bolzano. For the picturesque streets, the atmosphere of the place and the friendliness of the inhabitants. It seemed to me that the fact there were German and Italian-speaking inhabitants somehow made this town seem more like home. I was even shocked when I asked for a caffè normale and the barista looked at me blankly then corrected me and called it an espresso. It seems that living in such an Italian town like Parma has rubbed off on me without me realising!

We spent the afternoon wandering around the City, sampling Lebkuchen, Glühwein and coming to terms with having to switch between two languages very rapidly. I wish I could have spent even more time there. I have to go back there. Every twenty metres or so we passed the most beautiful-looking café or restaurant or even just a shop sign painted on the wall above its door, and I craved to go inside every single one. The menus for nearly every single place were a good healthy mix of Italian food and German too. I fell in love with Bolzano even more when I saw this - in Parma I've found one Indian restaurant and one tapas bar, but they're not often frequented. It is baffling for an English person to consider only eating stereotypical English dishes but for Italians, it's simply the done thing. They only eat Italian food.

Continuing our exploring of the city we found ourselves drawn towards the archways behind which stood an almighty tree decorated with bright red baubles, their shiny red strings fluttering gently in the wind. We struck up a conversation with an Italian family whose daughter was telling her mother all about how she was learning English at school (but shyly refused to say anything to us), as we tucked into our Goulasch soup, hardly being able to believe how delicious it was.

We drank our Glühwein in the middle of the trees with the baubles, on bright red tables, surrounded by fir trees, like we'd somehow stumbled across the real life Winter Wonderland.

The whole City seemed to have been infected with Christmas joy, all the residents proud of their long-standing Christmas traditions and their truly beautiful decorations.

I was glad we stayed long enough for the lights to come on, as we did one final tour of the main square to the sound of live singing floating down from somewhere nearby.

I slept the whole three hour journey home, exhausted from the early start and the tonne of excitement yesterday brought to me. 

And now I feel appropriately Christmassy and cannot wait to go back home in England and try a mince pie or two! I've been told that my sister has been busy making around six and a half kilos of mincemeat!

As much as I loved experiencing this mash-up of cultures, both of which not my own, and how they do Christmas, I know that no tradition will ever beat that of your own. The way you open presents (even the time of day it's done), the things you eat, the things you watch on TV if anything at all, and maybe even the places you go. But the most important thing will always be the people you choose to celebrate it with. And I couldn't ask for a better group of people to do so than my own family.