Natale

this is me spending the Christmas in Italy. it has come as a surprise to numerous friends all over Europe (especially the ones who are going home from abroad themselves), some work colleagues, my relatives and the guy from the fruit shop downstairs. as strange as it seems, it does make sense for me to take advantage of a chance to spend a completely different holiday this year, after 22 of them being properly with the family. after all, the celebration itself is not so special really, apart from the family itself. we eat until we can't eat any more. we make gingerbreads. we wear granny-made woolen socks and gloves, all of us. and usually there is at least some amount of snow outside. we stay in and do things that we usually don't have time for.

in Italy things are different. snow exists only in the mountains (not too far from here, but not close enough). no-one knows anything about gingerbreads or glögg. i didn't even get a chocolate christmas calendar this year because they were all finished from the shops. our Christmas tree is a pine instead of the traditional fir, or rather, it's a collection of green bottle-brushes. the decorations cover most of it up, but even thus it's not exactly the nicest tree around. not that we see it too much, as instead of obediently staying at home with the older generation, evenings are all for bars and seeing people who have come around for the holidays from far-away places. the midnight after the Christmas Eve is celebrated similarly to that of the New Year, if maybe on a smaller scale. the bars are alive, hot wine flowing, old rock-n-roll songs blasting from the speakers and the waiters dancing with the bottles of Prosecco.

along with the Christmas trees put up everywhere, and the same old cheesy christmas songs ('all i want for christmas is you'; 'last christmas', 'jingle bells' etc) all around (including our discovery of the month, the accuradio), there are a number of novelties to make up for the lack of snow and family. the first of them is undoubtedly the Panettone / Pandoro, the ultimate sweet-tandem of Italian Christmas. the main change on TV at the approaching holidays is the odd red hat here and there, and the endless flow of advertisements for Panettone (or its Veronese counterpart, the Pandoro). the TV spots usually start with something completely different - a family, children, Christmas tree, mountains, jewels, expensive cars, beautiful women, etc etc, until the Panettone comes along. in fact, as Panettone is synonymous to Christmas, then all these things are highly relevant. it's not only a Christmas cake with raisins and dried fruits that is being promoted. it is the whole idea of Christmas, and the celebration of the Italian way of life.

as I haven't been able to track down the most stupendous of all these commercials, a spot where someone burns himself while fixing the electricity cables and then a Panettone jump out of nowhere (obviously); here are some of the more mainstream ones offered by YouTube.

(Maina panettone 2006 - "go slow like Maina - we let our panettone ferment for two days")

(Pandoro Bauli - "good - just like you")



other than the Panettone and the time spent in the bar during Christmas, something completely new for someone coming from a mainly Protestant background are the nativity scenes, preseppi. there is one in front of the main church and one in every home with the slightest sense of tradition. basically it's just the set of figures of Maria, Joseph, the three kings, the shepherds, the sheep and, added at Christmas, the baby Jesus of course. as the plan was to have as typical a Christmas as possible, we were planning to make one too, though we didn't really want to spend a fortune on the plastic figurines. R assured me that making them of origami would definitely not be the most unorthodox way of making the preseppe. we got as far as making two extremely ugly Santas out of paper, and then slopping down to watch a movie instead.

my attempt to make gingerbreads from scratch hasn't gotten anywhere yet, as simple syrup (without the mint, lemon or apple taste) is nowhere to be found and I should spare a whole day to gather the courage to overcome the fear of creating another one of my post-cooking warfields in the kitchen. but thanks to all the mammas, we've been eating well enough. eating, drinking, breathing in. half of the Christmas day was spent sneezing, wheezing and sniffling, after D spilled a boxful of pepper on the floor. the rest was spent:
a) trying to find out if the presents were satisfactory to the others;
b) properly appreciating all one's own presents;
c) slopping down to watch a movie.


obviously the snow and family make a great difference for the celebrations. but I've had some of the next best people, and, of course, the Panettone.

il nord

The North, seen by the italians, is a concept perceived both in an admiring and a ridiculing way. from one side, The North is a place where all the women are tall and blond, the trains are on time and the politicians don't punch each other in the parliament. the other side is the stereotypes of bad food, the bad fashion and extreme coldness in communication. The North starts from germany towards the north, and the stereotypes are greatly influenced by the germans and british. french are not nordic. the swiss are. norwegians are so nordic that they must be wearing patterned wool sweaters and viking helmets all day, and it's very difficult to imagine.

my brother was visiting me here a few weeks ago. he entertained the italians as the blond 'viking' guy who drank a lot and didn't talk much. by estonian standards he has brown hair, not blond; he didn't drink much at all; and was very talkative. (only the 'viking' part was party correct, as people from the island where we're from, Saaremaa, indeed were pirates once.)

over and over again i find myself explaining to people the difference between public and private context and why the strange nordic estonians, after frowning for weeks, can suddenly turn into the biggest party animals and do everything for their friends. it's just a question of switching from 'public' mode where it's necessary to seem as cool and uninterested in anything as possible, to 'private' mode, where much more is allowed than normally in a mediterranean company. the knowledge that there is fire under the ice might make it easier to endure the formality of usual communication in a nordic country. it takes a lot of time (during which you might stop trying), but once you're considered 'inside', the people will become unrecognisable.

the stereotypes i've encountered vary greatly. often i have to explain, for example:
- why i'm not blond, and that not all estonians are.
- not all estonians act comatose in company (many of them do though).
- a cold room will be cold for both italians and estonians, no matter which outside temperature we are used to (note that cold is supposed to be outside, not inside).
- how the people manage to stay in a straight line in queues.
- how people manage without the bide's (we have showers).
- if we have orange trees / edible chestnuts / lemons / watermelons / grapes / wine (no, we don't).
- if we have reindeers (no).
- how we survive sauna, and that a 100 degrees won't make your blood boil.
- that yes, we eat pasta (but most people don't know how).
- that we don't use the window covers because we're not used to them and we can sleep with light.
- that we don't hate russians, we just think they don't respect us.
- that we speak estonian, which is not russian, and not related to russian, and don't you ever forget that.
- that yes, we drink a lot (must be all the cold and darkness).
- that yes, the women look very nice (but men generally not).
- that we're an independent country.
- that we're not in war (Baltics & Balkans).
- that we're in the EU.

what noone has asked me about:
- how do we survive the -25 C weather (wearing double hats, pants and gloves, drinking double shots of vodka).
- the temporary ice-roads between the islands and the mainland (1m thick ice will carry up to a 1 ton car).
- the wonderful and healthy black bread.
- the white nights - with only 2 hours of twilight between 12 and 2 am.
- tartu.

edit: I'm aware that in the attempt to avoid going into too many details, I haven't given a satisfactory answer to the burning question of the bidé. In fact what I meant was that a shower can be used instead, though, yes, the bidé will definitely be more convenient. It's just one of these things that exists in some countries and not in others, much like the window blinds (tapparelle), pedestrian reflectors (carta rifrangente), or the gesture of taking off one's dirty shoes while stepping into someone's home.

to be continued

self-creation

this blog has been waiting to happen for a while now. living abroad creates a whole new world of impressions and for a period of time the mind seems to be like an extremely messy room, the kind where under the things is another layer of things and the walls are not visible for they are covered with other sets of layers of things. as confusing as it is, the things keep moving around a lot and there are moments where it seems that there is some kind of self-established order in the mind. this, obviously, is a temporary illusion, and as time goes on, the necessity for fixing things, sort something, or write down gets more persistent.

starting from the beginning is not easy. the story would have to go back two years and describe a lot of people for whom it's too early to surface yet. it's enough to say that for a considerable period of time i've regularly ended up in Italy for one reason or another, and thus spent quite a lot of time in Veneto before i officially became an EVS volunteer here. i will be staying here until the end of July next year. living here more or less permanently is something completely different than being a visitor. i've had to face learning how the bread-shop works. why the post-office resembles a market, and why the market is only in town for 1,5 times a week. i've found myself glimpsing the endless labyrinth of the Italian office system and been bored, surprised or irritated a lot of the time. i'll hope to get to everything in turn.

i'm staying in Italy, in the region of Veneto, county of Vicenza, in the town of Valdagno. i'm here with a youth-oriented non-formal learning programme called the EVS (see Encyclopedia), and working for an organisation called Association 451 that is creating youth projects with a general aim of cultural awareness. what i do every day will vary from writing this blog (as it's a part of the reflection process for the project) to telling people who we are and why does the EC pay for youngsters to go to Portugal for a week for almost no money at all. i've found life here relatively relaxing (despite being the stressed northeast), at least in comparison to where i come from, and i'm sure the people know how to enjoy life much better here.

so from which angle am i saying all this? i'm coming from Estonia, which is a country, (currently very cold, dark and depressive), and anything i observe here is inevitably filtered by my being from a completely different background. the texts here, rather than being straightforward honest accounts of life in Veneto, will be a comparison - only as a stranger would it be possible for me too see the things this way. i will be writing about silly little everyday things that i will probably stop thinking about after a while. then it will take another stranger to remind me that it's not the only way to do things. this blog will be an attempt to write everything down before my mind organises itself and i forget to be surprised.