How to Italy

Five things I've learnt since moving to Italy (Part 17)

December 15.

It probably doesn't mean anything to you. But it does to me. It was the day I was meant to finally get my photo taken and update Facebook, Twitter and StumbleUpon with my beautiful mugshot showing off my new glossy, shiny locks.

But as you can tell that didn't happen due to what I will kindly call The Biggest Hairdressing Disaster in history. I should have escaped the moment that my wet hair started being attacked with a brush rather than a comb. Stupidly I didn't. I was already rooted to the spot with fear. 

My hair has turned out so lopsidely bad that even Mario couldn't find anything good to say about it. He didn't even go with the 'no comment' option. When I was cussing and cursing about it on Monday, he said 'yep, they've mangled your hair'.

Needless to say, there is no way it is being immortalised in a photo until I've got a British hairdresser to repair the damage.

But it has inspired another entry in the Five Things I've Learnt...category.

1. I felt like an alien in the hairdressers last week. They were all gossiping away in Sardinian and I had no idea what they were on about. Gallurese is totally different to Cagliaritano or Capadinese spoken in the south. Even Sardinians can't understand each other when they speak in their own dialects. What hope is there for me?

2. I've had some rather fearful episodes at Italian hairdressers. Once, when I was gowned-up in the chair and there was no escape, the hairdresser cheerfully confessed to me that I was his first client. The results spoke for themselves. My hair ended up a good five inches shorter than it should have done because he couldn't get it level. I couldn't speak Italian very well then so I just sat and stared in horror.

3. No matter that the rain is lashing down, Italian hairdressers insist on blowdrying your hair to perfection and attacking it with the straighteners. It's a pointless exercise when you don't have an umbrella, you have to walk to the bus stop and there's no bus shelter.

4. I'm not Sardinia and I'm not blessed with their lucious thick locks. My hair is typically British: fine with annoying kinks where you don't want them. Sardinian hairdressers don't understand this and cut my hair according to conventional wisdom. Result? If I couldn't do anything with it before, I can do a lot less with it now.

5. My hair causes every single Sardinian hairdresser to stop in their tracks and call over everyone else in the salon to look at the colour of my hair. Women in Sardinia have one of three hair colours: dark brown/black, bleached blonde or dyed red. My hair is a natural mix of auburn and different shades of brown and, while it is perfectly normal in the UK, Sardinians have never seen anything like it. Temporarily I feel like a princess - until they start hacking away at my hair.

Five Things I've learnt Since Moving to Italy Extra

Okay, I know that I've been slacking on the Five Things I've Learnt...front.

That's because I've actually been taking the hints and suggestions on here about doing something with them and am now doing just that.

In the meantime, here's one thing that really does baffle me:

Italians love their cars more than they love their women so it stands to reason they want to test them out and drive them as fast as they can. Which happens regularly even when the speed limit is going to be broken by 20, 30, 40, 50 or even 60 kilometres. What's a speed limit, after all?

That's okay, I can accept that Italians like to pretend they are Michael Schumacher or Kimi Raikonnen on a Formula 1 racetrack. Just. Not that I have much choice when the G-Force pins me to my seat as Mario hurtles us around hair pin bends. The only threat - and it's far bigger than it actually sounds - that does any good is reminding him that if he dares to do it again, my mum will force him to watch the rest of us as we tuck into Christmas dinner.

But what I don't get is that how Mario, or any other Italian, can speed so carefreely when the cars being overtaken are those of the Caribinieri - one of Italy's four police forces. Not that the carabinieri mind. They are too busy smoking a cigarette and sharing a joke to enforce the law.

And another thing I really don't get is how the caribinieri don't mind drivers breaking speed limits but are bothered about the mountain bikes, which are tightly secured to the rack on the back of my VW Passat, not having a hazard sign. That got points taken off my license and fine.

But why am I complaining? Italy wouldn't have the same charm if everything ran smoothly like it does in Germany.

Five things I've learnt since moving to Italy (Part 16)

Are we really up to Part 16 of these?

1. Italian homes are, for the most part, very formal places. As soon as you step over the threshold you are elevated to super-guest status. Even if you've been close friends with someone for years (or decades), you will not be allowed to help out in the kitchen or even get the water from the fridge. Interestingly, the word for guest in Italian is 'ospite' as is the word for 'host'. It could be confusing but I like it. It reflects the formality of the occasion and the fact that both the guest and the host have a role to play and should be on their best behavour.

2. Italians are shocked by the idea that you might stay over impromptu after a late night. What baffles them even more is that you're willing to sleep on the floor - albeit it on a inflatable matress - or a sofa. We regularly stay over at our friend Sabina's flat. I'm slowly introducing her to the Anglosaxon ways of doing things - she now lets me wash the dishes and make my own breakfast but she still draws the line at us sleeping anywhere other than in her room while she decamps to the spare room.

3. The formality continues within the family itself, especially in southern Italy. 'Lei', the formal form of 'you', is often used to address a mother-in-law or father-in-law even when you've been married for 15 years, and will often be accompanied by Signor Carlo or Signora Bruna (Mario's parents names). It's something that I've never really understood. How can you ever feel part of a family when you're having to be formal? As for me, I don't use the 'lei'. When I first moved to Sardinia, I was still struggling with the use of 'lei' so Mario told me to use 'tu' and to 'fregarmene' (not to care). Five years later and it seems silly to introduce 'lei', even though the formality is definitely there.

4. Mealtimes are always elaborate affairs. Which is in keeping with all that formality and sense of occasion. Even if you're dining alone, you get the best tablecloth and the best crockery out and crack open the wine. Whenever I break for lunch in the middle of day and I'm not out with friends or with Mario, dressing the table reminds me that I shouldn't be eating on the go or at my desk. Lunch is no longer an inconvenience but has become a ritual worth celebrating. Now, I don't know how I ever did without a two-hour break in the middle of the day.

5. When Italians get married, they don't always have wedding lists. That means that they often receive enough sets of expensive china to stock the halls of Harrods. The same goes for towels and anything else you might need in your home. My apartment is lined with shelves for my books; my friends' apartments are filled with shelves for their wedding gifts. It's a good job that I'm not married - I'm not ready to get rid of my books just yet.

Five things I've learnt since moving to Italy (Part 15)

It's Wednesday. Which means it's time for another five things (part 15. Yikes. I can't believe I've learnt that many things):

1. Money is a taboo subject. It can take until the third, fourth or even fifth interview before you come to discuss salary expectations. But it's taboo away from the workplace, too. You should never talk about costs or payment until you've gone out for lunch or dinner first.

2. Italians never mix work with pleasure. Lunch or dinner are strictly non-work moments and you should never introduce business topics, unless you are discussing money. This is a chance for you to develop your business relationship. If you are paying the bill, wow your guest with an unusual restaurant or one with a stunning view. It may make a painful dent in your wallet, but it's a great seduction tecnique for winning new business or good foreplay to set the mood for a clinching a deal.

3. Italian workplaces are much more formal affairs than those in the UK, Australia or the US. When addressing someone, Italians distinguish between the familiar 'tu' and the formal 'lei'. The repercussions spill over into the office.  By using 'lei' with someone, the barriers are there from the start and it is difficult to cross the line into friendship. It goes without saying that employees are employees and managers are managers and never the twain shall meet.

4. Italian companies are often run by the entrepreneur even when the entrepreneur is 78 years old and should have long given up running the business. When the entrepreneur does pass on control, it's normally to the children who have zero business experience or are new graduates. How someone who has spent the last six months living on Bond Street in London - supposedly on a beginners English course but in reality out partying - has the necessary skills to take over reigns is beyond me.

5. Italian employees don't like change. And don't like travelling too far to work either. Last month M had to ask an employee to move temporarily from one office to the next. He was relunctant even though the company was going to be paying petrol money. It wasn't a long way. Oh, no. Not at all. It was 8km (4.9 miles) and, with no traffic lights or roundabouts on the road, so took less than 10 minutes by car. What a dream. Apart from when I'm working from home, I've never had a job I could drive to in under 10 minutes.

Five things I've learnt since living in Italy (Part 14).

It's Wednesday. Which means only one thing. Or, rather, five.

Here they are:

1. Italians and roundabouts do not go together. Italians have not yet understood that roundabouts should enable traffic to flow not bring it to a complete standstill. But bring it to a standstill is what Italian motorists do by not giving way. Needless to say, narrowing the lanes to one to go around the roundabout and no one indicating where they are going doesn't help matters. Roundabouts are good for one thing only: perfecting the horn beeping while shoouting a string of profanities in Italian.

2. Italian drivers have no patience whatsover when it comes to traffic lights. The nanosecond the light turns from red to green, drivers 15 cars back will start beeping their horn furiously because they haven't yet moved. Again, this is another place to perfect hurling back a string of profanities in Italian.

3. Italians are lazy and refuse to walk anywhere - as I mentioned last week. They stop their cars in the most convenient place for them, which, naturally, is the most unconvenient place for you. When a bank is located at a major junction, you know you have a problem. Car driver parks on corner blocking your view. Friend sees car driver and decides to park two-abreast to say hello and stays there chatting for a good 10 minutes because the fact that you are risking your life trying to pull out on the other side of the road is irrelevant.

4. Pray that you do not need an ambulance while in Italy. Italian drivers do not give way to ambulances even when the sirens and flashing lights are going. I've pulled in many a time for the ambulance to pass only to be overtaken by three or four cars which didn't let the ambulance pass. It's the same for fire engines. Only the police are allowed to pass. And that's because no one wants to be stopped by them.

5. Italians do not always drive in one lane. They like to drive in the middle of two lanes. It applies to pedestrians, too. Two people walking along a wide pavement position themselves so that you cannot get past on the left. Or the right. Or in the middle. You have to actually step onto the road.

Five things I've learnt since living in Italy (Part 13)

Five more things I've learnt since living in Italy.

1. Butter is the devil's food and very very bad for you. But pouring a year's salt allowance into each meal is not bad. It's simply making the food tasty. That's not my opinion - I'd happily go without salt and smear my toast with butter. It's the opinion of every Italian I know. I once asked my 14-year-old students to compare English breakfast with Italian. "English people is fatt (sic) with spots because eat fatt butter and fatt bacon and fatt sausage and chips, toast and cornflakes and for breakfast every day," wrote one. Another wrote "English people eats bad because they eat too much sugar and too much butter." Apart from the fact that I too would be fat (not fatt) and bursting at the seams if I ate that much every day, isn't too much salt, sugar and oil also bad for you?

2. Italians don't do polite at the dinner table. They will tell you to your face when they don't like it and exactly what is wrong with it. Italians are inbuilt with a far superior olfactory system than north Europeans and can detect every single ingredient in a fresh creamed soup. Perhaps the police should use Italians rather than sniffer dogs in their line of inquiry.

3. Italians have no qualms about telling you when you have lost weight or put weight on. "Ahh, Emma, what's all this ciccia?" 'Ciccia' means fat. Disturbingly, Italian men are also programmed to spot cellulite that even you didn't know you had and openly tell you about it. After recovering from falling off my chair in shock, I tackled one ex about it. "Amore, why you angry?" he said. "I could drown in your eyes they are so beautiful' (the classic Italian romantic spiel). "I am only trying to help you improve yourself".

4. Italians are fitness freaks, there's no doubt about it. Pilates, swimming, yoga, baskeball are all popular choices. But never try to get an Italian to walk anywhere. Walking is not something you do for fun, unless it's the evening passeggiata around the piazza to show off your new clothes and your fabulous blow dry. Even the estate agent yesterday offered to give me a lift to my Volkswagon Passat, which we could actually see from where we were standing. Obviously I refused. Well, I needed to work off the 'ciccia' somehow.

5. You should never go out with wet hair. You will catch a cold. You must dry it at all times, even in the summer when it's going to dry within five minutes of stepping outside the front door anyway. Even your hairdryer not working isn't an excuse. It would be better to knock on your neighbour's door and ask to borrow one.

Five things I've learnt since living in Italy (Part 12)

Oooh, look: Wednesday has rolled around again. And we all know what that means. Yep, it's time for Five Things. Can you believe we're now on Part 12?

This one's dedicated to doctors and all things medical:

1) GP surgeries open at funny hours. There's no orario continuato. Oh no. Opening all day would mean losing valuable time for lunch, going shopping and spending time with family and friends. Most medici (doctors) open for two hours per day. Presumably they need the time off to recover from writing all those prescriptions. In order to ensure you are seen within the allotted two hours of business, people start queing up to an hour before the surgery doors open.

2) Generally speaking, family doctors make do without receptionists. Put simply, that means that when you are talking to the doctor, there will be lots of interruptions as people ring through to find out whether the doctor is available or not, or whether they can get a prescription or a ticket for blood tests or a specialist visit made out to pick up later. Add to that, the general social chit chat that goes on (the last time I went in, I ended up chatting about the running a marathon, walking or biking the Camino de Santiago, low cost flights and going on holiday by yourself. The actual point of me being there took less than five minutes, the rest was 15 minutes of conversation) and you can be in for a very long time.

3) It's particularly difficult trying to arrange specialist visits in advance. Try for anything beyond three days and no one can understand why you need to book so early. They normally ask you to ring back the day before you want to be seen. This used to be a big bug bear of mine and I've felt like banging more than one head against a brick wall on several occasions. But, well, now I've learnt that if you can't be seen when you want to be seen, there's always something else you can be getting on with. For example, having lunch, going shopping and spending time with family and friends.

4) When you go for a specialist vist, doctors write in their illegibile handwriting (why does every single doctor the world over - or at least in the UK and Italy - write in scrawl even worse than mine?) on a piece of paper and then stamp and sign it with a squiggle. This multipurpose sheet of paper serves as a reminder of the tests you need to do, when to come for your next check up, other instructions and your prescription. This has several repercussions, good and bad. The downside is that every single pharmacist knows everything about you and can often be found to tut away at the diagnosis. The upside is that you never have to get repeat prescriptions because whether it's a day or a year from when the medicine was prescribed, you can just hand over the multipurpose sheet.

5) Relatives are normally expected to take care of patients in hospital. On that note, if you're boyfriend or girlfriend is ill, or you live with someone and aren't married, you're going to have a problem. Because you're not a relative, you're visiting hours are extremely limited.

---

This is Part 12 in the continuing series of 'Five things I've learnt since living in Italy'. I add to this series each Wednesday.

Five things I've learnt since living in Italy (part 11)

Another week. Another five things. I'm house hunting at the moment (yes, again) so I'm dedicating this post to Italians and their property.

1) Italian estate agents often haven't seen the place before they take you on a viewing trip. While you uhm and ah and peak into the tiny bedroom, the immaculate kitchen and the bidet-fitted bathroom, so do they. Then, as you come out and comment on the outside not being up to scratch and it won't sell like that, the agente immobilare (estate agent) says 'yes, I totally agree. It's really run down. It will never sell at that price'. The outcome is you disbelievingly scratching your head and thinking 'and you're trying to sell this wreck to me?'

2) Italians favour front gardens over back gardens. Why on earth would they like a back garden where no one can see their expensive garden furniture or their designer clothes? Having a back garden is also impractical for social reasons. It's far easier to talk to the neighbours from your front garden or front step than shouting over a five-foot-high wooden fence.

3) Property makeovers prior to a sale haven't hit Italy yet. That means homes are often uninviting spaces to walk into and you have to use a lot (and I mean a lot) of imagination to see the potential. Second bedrooms are filled up with junk. The garden is in need of Emergency Room treatment. And the chipped floor tiles clash with the colour of the cracked walls.

4) Religion is everywhere. Pictures of the Jesus and statues of the Madonna can be found around the house. Understandable in someone's own property if they are Christian but in rented accommodation? I slept with a three-foot Jesus looking down on me in my bedroom for nearly two years. Now, I'm not Catholic but I started to get so much Catholic guilt, I almost started going to confession.

5) Italians are noisy, especially when they are in a palazzo (apartment block). Paper-thin walls mean you know all about your neighbours and what they are up to. You can hear phone conversations, arguments, the Hoover and the click-clacking of shoes across your ceiling as you're trying to get to sleep. I'd never met my upstairs neighbours but I knew they listened to documentaries on Sunday night, House on a Friday night and that someone slept on a sofa bed because I heard it being opened every evening and closed every morning. Before renting a place, it's a good idea to check whether there are any novice instrument players in the condonminium. If they are, you will hear them at all hours of the day and night.

---

This is Part 11 in the continuing series of 'Five things I've learnt since living in Italy'. I add to this series each Wednesday.

Five things I've learnt since living in Italy (Part 10)

Five things I've learnt is back. And this time it's dedicated to the family.

1) It's considered 'brutta figura' to open your door in your pjs after 9am - even to your own family. Heavens! What would they say if they saw me working in my pjs sans make up during the day?

2) Italians can never ever make firm social arrangements. It could be a party or a day out at the beach but you won't know who will be there until the event is in full swing. As the popular detto (saying) goes: Chi c'è, c'è. Chi non c'è, non c'è. Who is there is there. Who isn't there, isn't there. Painfully obvious but oh-so-true.

3) Families often employ a 'badante' to look after their widowed or divorced dad. This is not because he is in ill health and unable to look after himself. It's simply because he doesn't know how. Even Mario's mum can't spend a day away from the house because his dad wouldn't know how to prepare his own lunch. Luckily for me, Mario doesn't take after him.

4) Italians seem to have been born with a gene for rustling up large gourmet meals at a moment's notice. I still have no idea how they can find all the ingredients in their cupboard. But they do.

5) Italian children share bedrooms right up into their twenties. One of my friends who is 31 still shares a bedroom with her 28-year-old sister. Their narrow twin beds are a mere 50cm apart and in the same position as they were all those years ago. So much for personal space.

Five things I've learnt since being in Italy (Part 8)

Here's another five things that I've learnt since being here and being as I'm very much in holiday mode, this post is dedicated to the beach.

1) Italians shun conventional wisdom that it is better to cover up in the sun. They believe you are ill if you are pale and rather nicely describe you as bianco come una mozzarella (as white as mozzarella) or palido come un cadavere (as pale as a corpse). After all this time in Italy, I now get my cheeks pinched whenever people see me in the summer as they say compliment me for no longer resembling mozzarella or dead people. I'm not sure when the transformation happened as I wear sunscreen all year around and factor 60 from april through to November.

2) Italian girls pluck their eyebrows and apply their make up under the midday sun. Personally, I prefer to do it in front of the mirror in my bathroom, but each to their own.

3) Italian girls also take a little bag to the beach with all of their sun creams and oils in. Me and you obviously only use one or two spf factors but not Italian beauties. You need a low one for your legs because they tan slowly, a higher one for your feet because walking about in flip flops means the sun is always on them, a not-to-high one for your face, and a lowish one for your arms, and a very very low one (SPF 1, 2 or 5) for your abs which are hardly ever exposed. This ensures an even tan all over. But that's not the end of it. Oh no. Next up is the oil for the hair and the freshwater spray for the legs to boost circulation while frying in the sun.

4) Italian mammas and babbos don't like their wee ones to get sandy feet once they've got dressed to go home. So said child will be hoisted up by the arms, carried down to the beach and be made to dip their feet in the sea until all sand has gone. Then, they will be carried back to the towel to dry off and put their shoes on to walk back to the car. My sandy barefoot walk back home doesn't pass muster.

5) Italians don't do light lunches at the beach. It's not uncommon to see families under their gazebos as they get out their pasta salad, prosciutto, mozzarrella and tomato salad and fruit and then round it all off with an espresso that they heat up on their little camper stove. Gosh! No wonder Italians can't go in the sea for three hours after eating.

Happy holidays! Five things I've learnt... will be back in September!