Home

 

“Home is where the heart is set in stone, is where you go when you're alone, is where you go to rest your bones. It's not just where you lay your head, it's not just where you make your bed.”

 

 

   I am feeling melancholic. This week my Dad moves out of the house that my family has lived in for almost 18 years. The plans for selling the house have been in place for a year, the actual sale happened over a month ago and now he is finally moving to his new place, not to far down the road. Although it has been a long time since I have actually lived in the house full time, it is still my home and embodies all my definitions for a place that is such.

 

   Now I find myself in a paperwork situation where I am forced to change my 'home' address on things like passports, bank accounts and the like. If by home they mean, 'place of permanent abode', then they are out of luck. I have none. But if they mean 'somewhere we can send your mail to', then I can help them. I am changing all of my official addresses to my Mum's address because someone of my name at least lives there but it brings me to think about the fact that I have spent more nights at certain hostels in Europe than I have at my Mum's house. So in what way is it my 'home?'

 

   Mum does have boxes of my possessions in her garage, but so does the crew house in the Netherlands. And in both places I feel comfortable to wander around in my pyjamas, un-showered and barely woken (which counts for a lot when considering your 'home').

 

    Mum's house contains within it's walls those people that I love and call family. But I could argue the same of Claire's house in New York, or the O'Dwyers in Ireland.

 

    And whilst I have been sleeping in my current bed for about 2 months and living within the walls day in and day out, I could not call it home in the most rounded of senses. I feel more relaxed at the Venice camp-site, or at Annie's house than I do here. So time spent in a place does not necessarily count for much.

 

   Thinking about this the other day, suddenly the above quoted song came on. In it Gabrielle Alpin argues that home is not even necessarily a place of 4 walls and a bed. That home can be a person. I would reason that it is a person that makes you feel grounded, who you can be relaxed with and who contains memories. If this is the case, then even more 'homes' exist for me around the world. How exciting to now think that Tom and Kathleen and Damian (amongst others) now all contain homes for me in their company.

 

   I spoke to Tom saying that when the house was sold I would be truly homeless. His response? 'Don't give me that, you have more homes than I do. You could go and live in Ireland, in New York or with any number of your friends all over the world. You'll never be homeless'. That was what really started me thinking on the matter.

 

   And although I am still thinking sadly of my beautiful old house with it's door documenting the growth patterns of our family, with its walls bearing the scars of where I removed posters with too much passion and with it's familiar views out every window. It has also given me the chance to  reflect on how lucky I am to have travelled  and made friends and homes all over the world.

 

Straya

Happy Australia Day everyone! I LOVE our national day. I like it better than my birthday and it is a tough call between it and Christmas that I don't want to have to make. Unfortunately this year will be my worst Australia day hands down, this is partially because all the other ones have been so good, partially because I am not in Australia and partially because I will be having a party for one for most of the day (unless I invite Nona over to kick back and listen to JJJ in the morning?) So I'm going to do some reminiscing on some of the wonderful things about our country. I have compiled a very small list of things that you will see in Australia that you will not see in Italy. I'm not talking the obvious ones like the Opera house, cricket or kangaroos, but the smaller ones that you might not notice help to make our nation great.

Takeaway coffee cups

This might sound strange. Isn't Italy famous for it's strong dark coffee? Aren’t they known for drinking coffee at all hours of the day? Yes they are, but how they do it is different. Italians, like in the movies, stand at the bar to drink their coffee, or they will have it quickly at a table after a meal. I do not think I have ever seen a native Italian carrying a coffee to go. When tourists ask for takeaway they are often confused (as I was) at being handed a clear plastic cup, only half filled with coffee (Italian coffees are small). On occasion they will also give you a plastic lid WITH NO DRINKING HOLES IN IT. It is not thought that you would walk and drink at the same time. You must be walking to somewhere where you will stop, remove the lid, and drink your coffee.

Road rules

Most people have heard that Italians are terrible drivers. And whilst that is a huge generalisation.... I have experienced it's truth. But I have also found out some things that may perhaps explain it a little. They love roundabouts in the region I am living in (Veneto), they have huge three laned roundabouts, they have these strange kind of figure 8 roundabouts and they have roundabouts that look like they should have 2 lanes but actually only have one. And all these different types can get a bit confusing. Add to the fact that on top of that, I found out that the first roundabout in the Veneto region was only introduced 3 years ago! And they came in a huge flood and now cover the region. So all of these people who had been driving for years and had never used one before were now encountered by all of these strange new things, but were they educated on them? My guess is not.

Another one is zebra crossings. I couldn't figure out from watching traffic if the cars were supposed to stop for pedestrians at the crossings or not. I asked my family here and they looked perplexed. Well of course you were supposed to stop they said, but they couldn't tell me why people didn't. Then driving a regular route the other day I took notice of the road. On one stretch of busy main street I counted 7 zebra crossings in the space of 1km. I realised what the problem was, this is the case all over, if they are putting zebra crossings on a street they tend to put down A LOT of them. And you kind of get immune to them as bad as that sounds. Zebra crossing's power is in their scarcity.

And finally. Indicators. Drivers here don't use them. I do not have a reason for this so I am guessing it is sheer laziness. Just to freak the locals out, I use mine all the time, I'm a particularly big fan of indicating OUT of a roundabout, just to show some locals what they should be doing.

Hipsters

Everyone loves a good hipster, don't they? There's something in that neatly trimmed beard, ironically printed shirt buttoned all the way up to their chin and tight tight jeans that make you think they must have been born in them that just gives me the warm fuzzies. Well it hasn't caught on over here. Either they completely don't have them or maybe they don't look the same as Australian Hipsters. Which might also explain the dearth of coffee cups... nothing a hipster loves more than a good takeaway coffee, except maybe a good vintage store.

Picnics

I asked very recently what Italians thought of picnics. My answer was that it was pretty much a fad that started and ended in the 60's. On occasion people might eat at a picnic table (which are rarities in themselves but if you go up the mountains there are more) but put down a rug on the grass? No. One excuse that was used was that the ground was too wet, please, they invented rubber backed rugs for a reason. No picnics= no eskies = no backyard cricket stumps. And there we also have the answer as to why cricket does not exist here.

So there we have it. A list of a few things that I am missing this Australia day. I have the hottest 100 on, we are up to #18 and it's getting intense. Happy Australia Day where ever you are in the world and I hope you are using it to think about what you love about Australia!

Learning a language 2.



The next part of my Italian, hand gestures



I've been hanging out in Monfumo for about 2 months now so I thought I'd update you on how my Italian is going. The short version is.... average. The long version goes like this-

Now I can understand what is being said as long as I know the context. Big statement. Maybe it's better to say that I can figure out the theme of a conversation if I have some relation to it. I couldn't go in to someone else’s dining room and expect to know what is going on but at dinner time here I can basically follow the conversation. If we are watching a movie I can vaguely follow it. Here and there I will understand whole sentences. Watching the news however, I am pretty shit. They have pictures but the type of language they use is not the sort that I am used to. Which brings me to...

My Italian is family based! On holiday with Mum and Tom around Italy I still struggled. I can get by in a restaurant or train station but I don't know words to use in a hotel or really in a museum. The things I say regularly involve eating dinner, getting dressed for school/bed and what activities we are doing and when. Now that I know some words and sentences it is hard to not use them with the kids, which is not what I am here to do. I have to remind myself to speak English to them because this is what they are supposed to be learning. Also I am used to the accents of my family here. I think that that makes a difference.

There is a big difference between knowing sentences and actually knowing how the grammar works and having the ability to create your own. For instance. I do not know how to use past and future tense. All I know is in the present. And I only just learnt that the 'Papa' that we use to say 'pope' is actually said differently from the 'Papá' for Dad. Until now I had thought they were the same word and that in different contexts they meant different things. Not so.

I now have the confidence to tell people that I don't speak Italian, in Italian. However this generally turns into them telling me that my Italian is great because I can say that one sentence with all the right accents. Sometimes I even mix it up and tell them I only speak a little Italian, just to keep myself on my toes. My aim when I go into a café is always to get through the whole encounter without them realising that I don't speak their language. I think I do pretty well but you never know if they are just being kind to this girl because she is obviously a bit special.

After writing this up last night, Stefano, the father of the family, complimented me on my increasing grasp of the language. He said he has noticed me start reacting to the conversation around me and the movie s that we watch. I was glad to hear that he could notice a difference but it also made me think of how strange it must have seemed before, to have this person at the dinner table not reacting to anything because she didn't know what was being said. I still have that situation sometimes. My most embarrassing place to be is the after school activity one of the kids does. I sit in the waiting area with the other mums and we watch kids waiting for their turn play in front of us. The other mums all laugh when the kids say stupid things or look knowingly at one and other, and then they look at me and I give an awkward smile cause I have no idea what they are laughing at. I worry that if Alessio started being rude or saying inappropriate stuff I would just keep smiling at these mums with them thinking 'Why doesn't she stop him?' so I try to spend as little time as possible there, to the café!

New favourite word : Ghiaccio – Ice. Pronounced 'ghee-ah-cho'

It's Your holiday, do it Your way

Mother and Daughter at Sacre Coeur

For my recent trip to Paris with Mum I made us an itinerary. Which is proof that I can actually be organised if I want to be. I made it because there was so much we wanted to fit in that it actually needed to be planned to see if it was possible, and also because we were going over Christmas I wanted to look up all the holiday times for what we wanted to see. I made sure we weren’t rushed, scheduling in only 2 things a day, at the most 3. Which gave us plenty of leeway for standing in possible lines and shopping or just walking and enjoying the city. On day 2 I had written 'The Louvre' and 'l'Orangerie'.

We started with l'Orangerie and after the musee d'Orsay the day before, it was a breath of fresh air. It is small and manageable in just one dose. The d'Orsay had had beautiful art in it of course but there was just so much of it that after several hours you were dragging yourself to the next room, feeling obliged to look at every artist seeing as you were here now.

 

Musee d'Orsay

At l'Orangerie there were two levels with various artists and to look at all the paintings took us about 2 hours. When we walked out Mum asked what was next on the agenda and I told her 'The Louvre'.

'Hmmm' she said. 'I think I've had enough art today, lets go shopping.' So we went to the Lafayette galleries and spent hours and hours marvelling at all the wonderful things money can buy you. And we had a really great time.
 

Galleries Lafayette

The next morning she asked me again, what was on our plans for today (it was a bit of a ritual). I said we had Versailles pencilled in but if she wanted to do the Louvre now instead we could shuffle things around. Her answer surprised me.

'I'm really not fussed if we don't go to the Louvre at all'

Ummm, why not? You know that for some people, that is the ONLY thing they come to Paris for? You know that when you get home everyone will ask you, 'did you go to the Louvre?' And you will have to explain why not?

'Yes' she said, 'but there's just so much in there that I would only get tired by it all and I'm much happier doing small, bite sized galleries, lets go to Versailles'. (not an example of a bite sized gallery).

And we went to Versailles, and had a great day.

At the Picasso Museum

And we didn't go to the Louvre. At all. We went to Musee Rodin and the Picasso museum, we love art, don't get us wrong. But mum knew what she wanted and didn't need to succumb to something that people often do when travelling (or in general really). Namely, 'this is what everyone else is doing, therefore, I should too'.

I love it.

Everyone goes to Venice and gets in a gondola, because that's what you do. But it's expensive, maybe you are by yourself and don't feel comfortable or maybe you see it as a waste of time to go out in a circle in a boat. Just because what people are going to ask you when you get back is 'did you go in a gondola?' is not a good reason to go. If you genuinely want to, then of course go for it, but travel shouldn't be about ticking things off the list that has been laid down by someone else.

My friend went to Albania for a holiday. Some people said 'That's weird, who goes to Albania, JUST Albania, for a holiday?' Who cares? Not her. She loved every minute of it.

And at the same time, its not about being all 'hipster' whilst travelling. 'I hate tourist attractions, I avoid them, I like to get to some place more real' is something I've heard before. Bullshit. The Colosseum is really touristy, but do you know why? It's because it is really really cool. Do you know why so many cruise ships pull up to Santorini? Because it really is even more beautiful than pictures can describe. It's great to get off the beaten track and find something new and exciting, but don't deny yourself some of the wonders of the world just because they are 'touristy'.

I guess my end message is just that travel needs to be about you and what you want out of that experience. Mum didn't care to tire herself out feeling obliged to visit every one of the thousands of pieces on display in the Louvre. So she didn't. We didn't get on a gondola in Venice either (It was stupidly cold) but we loved the Colosseum and seeing the David in Florence.

I still made her do fun/silly/touristy things

And when mum emailed a friend at home and said that she hadn't gone to the Louvre, Chris replied saying that she hadn't gone in either when she had visited Paris, but that yes, everyone would ask her if she had.

Maybe a good and easy reply would just be 'I'm saving something for next time I go back'.