Today’s vanity-laced topics: hair, language and looking at American politics from Europe. Pictures will be interspursed. And it’s a fucking novel.
I’ve tried to keep the picture-postings and Italy stories to a minimum, because few people who read this blog actually know me, and I figured that such things would be a bore to everyone else. But there has been a request for more pictures and for travel stories, and since I have many of both and a bit of extra time, I am of course happy to oblige. Most of my favorite stories involve the family I’m staying with and the child I’m caring for, and out of respect for their privacy I’m going to refrain from writing much of anything about them (this is because they’re wonderful people and I really like them and wouldn’t want to violate their privacy, not because the stories are bad).
First, one bad thing about this 90 degree weather and 16 hours of sun a day: what it has done to my hair. I’m a brunette. I like being a brunette. I have olive skin and dark features and I tan easily. I’m also sarcastic and monotone and slightly icy – there is no way in hell I was ever mean to be a blonde. But the longer I’m here, the blonder I get. An illustration:
It could certainly be worse, but I’ve got another month and a half to go. And I know that compared to actual blondes, it doesn’t look that blonde. But check out the natural haircolor (from last August):
This isn’t anything against blondes – my mother and sister are both blonde, and they’re quite beautiful. But on me, blonde looks weird. So I’ve taken to tying my hair up to hide its blonde-ness. I don’t want to dye it because my hair is a little finicky and coloring it inevitably makes the waves turn into frizz. And boxed dyes always turn my hair red. Any suggestions?
Anyway… Aside from oh-my-god-what-is-my-hair-doing complaints and injury stories (which are always my favorites), most of the mishaps I get myself into here involve my lack of Italian language skills. I can communicate with small children and I can ask for directions, but I’m not so great at having adult conversations. And while I can understand the language much better than I can speak it, I often make the mistake of listening to entire sentences or statements and piecing together a general sense of what the person is telling or asking me, instead of directly translating it word-for-word in my head. This creates some comprehension problems. For example, during my first week in Sardinia, I was speaking with a friend of the family I’m staying with and I apologized for my poor Italian. She said it was fine, and asked, “How long have you been here?” Which I heard as, “How long will you be here?” and answered, “Three months.” The woman, then, thought I was a complete idiot for having been in Italy for three months and still being so bad at Italian. Luckily, a family member who knew how long I’d been here jumped in and corrected the mistake, but I still felt like a moron.
And that, I think, is one of the hardest things about being here – I feel really, really stupid a lot of the time. The inability to communicate fluidly makes other people assume that you aren’t very bright, and it makes the person with the poor language skills (in this case, me) feel completely incompetent and helpless. While I certainly never looked down on non-native English speakers before, I have a new-found respect for them after living in a city where literally no one in the service sector speaks my language – no waiters, no shopkeepers, no bus drivers, no one.
Cagliari is a city that makes quite a bit of money in tourism, but most of the tourists are Italian. There are also quite a few Germans and other Europeans, but I haven’t seen another American since I’ve been here (there was one Canadian at the site of some medieval ruins). The only people I’ve heard speak native English are from England. And everyone seems to think that I’m Spanish. I’m not sure if this is because I look Spanish (I don’t think I do, although it’s quite a compliment) or because I speak Italian with a Spanish accent (possible, since I learned Spanish before I started learning Italian) or if it’s because I unknowingly use Spanish words when I’m trying to speak Italian (very likely). But either way, after a sentence or two of speaking with an Italian person, they inevitably ask, “Spagnola?” and when I say “no” they follow with, “Inglese?” or “Inglaterra?” When I say, “Yes, I speak English, but I’m an American,” (in Italian, of course) I get one of two responses: either they smile widely and say, “Ah, America!” or they look apprehensive and say, “Ah…” The latter is sadly much more common. Even sadder is the only way I’ve found to break back into amicable conversation is to add, “And I’m very sorry for my President,” after which they smile and laugh and all is well again. Of course, it’s the truth – I am sorry for my President. Many Sardinians, like the people I’m staying with, are well-traveled and open-minded and don’t think poorly of individual Americans (they’re having me stay in their house, after all). But there’s a certain tenseness whenever I divulge my nationality. And it isn’t because of the reasons conservatives are most likely to give. They aren’t jealous, they don’t hate freedom, and they have no desire to see America suffer. They aren’t anti-American. I’ve heard time and time again from Italians that they credit U.S. soldiers with bringing them out of WWII, that they’ve never met people as friendly as Americans, that New York is a beautiful city and how lucky I am to have lived there. But they don’t like how America acts like a bully. They’re disgusted by the war in Iraq, and they resent the fact that their people are fighting and dying in a war premised on deceit.
As one person told me (and I’m quoting from memory here), “Any European nation would be proud to help America fight terrorism. We’ve had terrorism in Italy. Other European nations have had terrorism in their countries. We know that we must fight it, and we would be so proud to help America. But we look at what America is doing in Iraq, and we are confused. What does Iraq have to do with what happened to the twin towers? We see what is happening in Iraq, and it is just wrong.”
He continued to say that he wished more Americans would just take a minute to understand the European perspective, instead of reacting by pouring out all their French wine. “Maybe those people who broke bottles of French wine just don’t understand why the French wouldn’t help in Iraq,” he said. “They don’t understand that Europeans are worried because America thinks it governs the whole world. And if they want to govern the whole world, fine,” he said, laughing. “But just give me a vote!”
Another woman jumped in, saying that U.S. politics have a broader affect than most U.S. citizens seem to understand. Italy has lost soldiers in a war which most Europeans recognize as a sham. “It is hurting us,” she told me.
And in these conversations, I don’t know how to respond. I often find myself trying to explain the “American” perspective – why some (idiotic) Americans poured French wine into the gutter, how in America you’re raised thinking that America is the greatest nation in the world, that we’re #1, that no one can touch us. I find myself defending concepts that I don’t even believe in. And they don’t understand. “Of course Americans are proud of their country,” they said. “Everyone is proud of their country.” But it’s not pride. The American mentality transcends pride. It doesn’t say, “I’m proud to be an American,” but instead, “We’re #1! America is better than every other country in the world!” One thing that living here has taught me is that there is a huge gulf between the pride you find in a Sardinian or an Italian or a Frenchman or a German, and the braggart cockiness that tinges American discourse (to be clear, though, I don’t think that most individual Americans – or at least most individual Americans who would want to travel abroad – hold this kind of cockiness). Consider the current political climate: you can’t question the Bush administration or the war without someone calling you anti-American, anti-troop, a traitor, a bad patriot. There is no doubt in my mind that some people will read this post and walk away thinking, “Jill hates America” when nothing could be further from the truth. But when you’re sense of pride is based on the statement, “We’re the best,” any questioning as to whether or not we really are the best in a particular situation is naturally construed as lacking pride.
I’m proud to be an American, which is why when someone asks me where I’m from I don’t say “Canada,” like some American travelers do. If I didn’t like America, I wouldn’t live there. It’s that simple. But something has gone awry when members of Congress are bragging about not having passports because, apparently, the rest of the world sucks and America’s got it all. That’s an incredibly unhealthy (and scary) way to look at an increasingly shrinking world. And it’s a mentality that you just don’t find in Europe, and that Europeans can’t quite grasp. Here, not having a passport – never traveling –is a sign of intellectual poverty. Today, in America, it passes for patriotism.
Now, obviously, if one doesn’t have the money or the time or the privilege to travel, that’s a different story. But I don’t think that’s the case for the boys of the GOP in Washington. Imagine if a group of French political leaders loudly stated that they never left France; and in particular, they would never go to the U.S. because France has it all, and what could they possibly gain by seeing America? I imagine you’d get a lot of Americans using words like “arrogant” and “elitist” to describe such Frenchmen. And they’d be right. But these same people won’t turn the lens on themselves.
I really think that everyone, American or not, could deeply benefit from living abroad, even for a short period of time. I also realize that it’s an incredible privilege to be able to do so, and that I’m very lucky to have had such an opportunity twice (here in Sardinia and studying for a semester in Florence). There is a world of difference between living and traveling. When you travel, you can effectively maintain your normal habits, just in a different space. But when you live, it’s a different story, especially if you make the effort to truly live like an insider and not a temporary guest. You begin to understand (not just see) that not everyone in the world does things the same way you do at home. And while at first this is a major inconvenience – the first time I traveled to Italy, the slow restaurant service and looooong lunches drove me crazy, and I think I cried after my first trip to the grocery store because everything was so confusing and the clerk yelled at me for not tagging my fruit correctly – eventually, if you let yourself adjust, you begin to realize, my way isn’t always the best way. Now, I love long lunches and I’ve learned to allot two hours for any meal in a restaurant. I can’t imagine eating pasta without a good red wine. I think Italian grocery stores are fabulous, and I miss them when I go home. You can never use too much olive oil or parmesano. Natural fruit does taste better than the genetically-modified kind.
Gelato is also better in Italy. Especially when you’ve been hiking through a city on a hill all day, and your skin looks disgusting.
And sometimes you think, man, these people don’t know what they’re missing. I don’t know how Sardinians live without sushi and Indian food. I think it’s stupid that you can’t buy a bus ticket on the actual bus. Combination anti-perspirant and deodorant is a beautiful thing. It doesn’t make sense that you can’t buy stamps at the Poste Italiano (Italian post office) office supply store. And lines, people, lines! The concept of lining up (Or, as the British would say, “queuing up”) doesn’t seem to exist here. Pineapple on pizza may be strange, but it tastes good. Some things just should not be eaten – cheese with worms (“They are delicious and crunchy!” one man told me), stomach lining, rectum, testicles and fried brain come to mind.
But most often, it’s not about making a comparison at all, but about unconsciously adopting certain habits, and missing things when you don’t have them. It offers a little bit of perspective. And, at least for me, living in Italy has poked some serious holes in the theory that “America does it better” – and it has also reminded me that America does a lot of things really well.
So, to wrap up this ridiculously long post (which, I’ll admit, I wrote offline during my mid-day relaxation time), here is what I will certainly be taking back with me to the United States:
-A small Italian coffee maker and some ground espresso beans for a morning and after-lunch café (short, with one sugar)
-Lots of bottles of red wine
-A penchant for big, long lunches and late dinners, always followed by an aperitif (Mirto is traditional in Sardinia, but I like limoncello better)
-A constant craving for octopus salad, spinach with garlic and oil, spaghetti alle vongole, roast fish (with the head on!), red wine, and fresh fruit – my favorite Italian lunch
-A habit of eating lots of cheese after dinner – especially pecorino, mozzarella di bufala, and gorgonzola
-A daily “reposito” – two hours to nap or just lay in bed and relax
-The quickest and simplest pasta dish ever: cook up small pasta (mini farfalle, oriochette, etc) al dente, add olive oil, butter, and far more grated parmesan than you think you need. The cheese, oil and butter create a sort of sauce, and it’s delicious. The key is good oil and real parmesan (i.e., not Kraft). Here, it’s a kid’s dinner – Mom makes it for the little girl I’m watching. But it’s so good, I could eat it every night (and I’m a little jealous that the bambina gets to). Also, fresh tortellini with butter. Yum.
-Nick-names for my future children (or any children I take a liking to): doppolina, amore, stella, stellina, patata, bella, bambina. They’re fun to say. They’re pretty words. They all mean nice things that just don’t sound as cute in English. And in Italy, they’re all common terms of endearment for children.
-The knowledge that oversized sunglasses are always chic
-Newfound beach-going confidence – who cares if these bikini bottoms are only three inches across? Might as well tan as much of your ass as possible. And since I’ve seen about a hundred people with asses twice the size of mine, bathing suits half the size, their lack of bikini top revealing real (imperfect, asymmetrical, small, big, saggy, pointy) boobs — and still looking pretty damn sexy (partly because they don’t really give a shit whether you think they’re sexy or not), I’m a little less self-critical. So fuck off, Elizabeth Hurley. And I’m a little more critical of the fact that you can’t tan topless in the U.S. What’s the big deal about bare boobies? C’mon, even Alberto Gonzales likes them.
-Some sick tan lines