A young journalist came in yesterday to talk about differences between American and Italian culture. The one thing he said (that stuck in my mind, anyway) is that although divorce rates are much lower in Italy, the infidelity rate is around 70%, much higher than in the US. Meanwhile Indians neither cheat nor divorce (as a rule) but they often make their spouses miserable enough that divorce might almost be a relief.

I used to think that in some cultures (cultures of so-called compromise) it was more common to love someone else until the day one of you died. I guess that's not true. All the happy old couples are beating the odds.

Whine and cheese...

So apparently being as slim and tan as a Hollywood actress isn't natural. Chatting with an Italian woman yesterday (she spent a year studying at Northwestern and speaks perfect English), we learned that Italian sixth-graders, boys and girls, will have competitions to see who can eat the least. When pressed she added that "team bulimia" is an even bigger problem. It seems Latin America isn't the only place on Earth where eating disorders flourish. I'm almost ashamed of admiring how in shape everyone seemed, and I wonder why we can't just let it all go.

When Italy won the World Cup quarterfinal, restaurants offered patrons free pitchers of wine. Bars offered up free beer. People danced in the street. And the nice thing about it is everyone all over the country is cheering for the same team.

When in Venice...

View from the Bridge of Sighs, on the way into one of Venice's old prisons

The things that stick in my mind about Venice have little to do with museums. However: the Bellinis in the Accademia Museum are amazing, many over ten feet tall and the same impressive width. The fact that one man could create so many works of art in his life amazes me.

What I remember best is that night. We spent the first night roaming the streets of Venice. We went out in search of a bar, exhausted but determined. Along the way, we met a South African soccer player who bought us a round of drinks (the second round, without asking if he could, but he seemed like a decent guy.) We wandered the curvy cobblestone streets, taking bridges over the green canals (which looked black in the night.) Around 3 am we found a Russian bartender who agreed to open his bar for us. The patrons had left, leaving only him and several of his friends. We started talking. I asked them if they had read Marcel Proust, they told us they knew Americans weren't responsible for all of President Bush's policies.

"I am an artist, a revolutionary," one of them kept saying. "We are all artistas." After an hour or so he asked us to accompany him to another bar he knew. "One of the worst places in Venice," he said in broken English, "you will love it. You will just love it." Along the way he said, "Americans are free, and this is the most beautiful thing in the world." I wasn't buying it, but the ground had started to move underneath my feet and I figured, I was better off sticking with the crew than striking off alone into the night, especially after so many shots of tequila.

We reached his bar. He needed a password to get in, and he passed the two of us off as his girlfriends. "Que belleza Oriental," one of the bouncers shouted after me. (Lit: What an Oriental beauty.) I felt weird about the comment but figured it didn't matter. When we entered, we realized we weren't in the best area of town, he hadn't been kidding. There were no other women there. The other girl I was with was loving it. I sat on the pool table, pulling on my drink and watching her flirt with the boys, wondering what I was doing there. A dim hour passed, a Moroccan came over to me. He sat down. " I love Indian women," he said, putting his hand on my leg. "You are so beautiful." I wasn't that drunk. "No, signore," I said. "What is this no, signore?" he demanded. I sighed, picked his hand up, and put it back in his lap. "No," I said again, got up and used the bathroom. When I came back he was gone, but two more guys were hanging out with the girl who had come in with me. She was loving it. "How do you say blonde hair?" She kept asking them in Italian (she's blonde.) I watched. One of the thugs cracked a joke, the artist (who was lingering nearby) caught it and frowned. "No con mi regazza, per favore," he said. (Trans: not with my girlfriend, please.) I wondered if my companion understood, but she wasn't ready to leave. I played musical tables, moving from seat to seat. The bartender (an enormous woman with dark skin and hair and a tattoo across one of her arms) kept assuring me the drinks she served were clean. I wasn't sure how to respond. My other friend was getting friendly with the South African on a nearby pool table. Finally, the artist sat down beside me.

"You know, you are so smart," he said to me. "So smart. American girls they are funny but they are not all smart. They do not all want to be so smart." He sighed and pulled out one of his pungent cigarettes. I had had enough for the night, I shook my head. "The thing is, in this country, we don't have competition in grade schools. Nothing like that we have. But you have. I have seen it in the movies. But I think you should not worry about being in the background. You are not like that. Perhaps it is because you are not originally American." I was uncomfortable with the quality of the patronage, but mostly I just couldn't handle the constant references to my ethnic heritage. Every man in the bar must have commented on it at least once. I don't think they were trying to be rude, but I've been on edge ever since graffiti swastikas started appearing on the stone walls of various Veronese buildings. The thing is: now more than ever, Italy has a huge problem with immigration. People from all over the Mediterranean arrive on the coast in boats, many illegally, many from Northern Africa. The swastikas are a reaction, a fleeting racism. When I asked the artist about it, point-blank, he looked me in the eye and said, "In Italy we don't have racism." And I thought: this middle-aged kid is either lying or totally clueless. And his nice words of earlier just seemed naive. I put my drink cup down and looked at him. He was fuzzy and obviously drunk and stoned, and I realized I didn't need any therapy from him, or any attention from the crack dealers, pimps and so-called revolutionaries he called his friends. "We're going," I told him. They all groaned as if, truly, this was the saddest thing they'd ever heard.

We left, and were shocked to realize it was already daylight again. The artist ran after us, as did the bartender and the soccer player. They insisted on buying us coffee to make up for the oddness of the night, so we sat in the breeze off the canal, took pictures and drank cappuccinos. By the time we returned to the hotel it was 8 am. I slept for an hour, got up, and went down to face the music. The program director called the three of us girls into the front room. "It's your first night in Venice and you don't come home all night?" he demanded in a fury. "What if your parents had called? What would I have told them?" He brandished an Italian newspaper. "A woman was raped in Italy last night, a tourist. They left her in a canal. Think about it." And he left us with the paper. The other two started crying, but I shrugged and went on to do the full day's program of touring and adventuring. Later I learned that a few of the other girls had come to him around 6 am, concerned about where the three of us were. He replied, "There's not much we can do about it until they turn up in the canal." Warm and fuzzy.

That night when we went out the ten of us stayed together, drinking wine and beer in the plaza, striking up conversations with wandering Americans, Italians and Englishmen. It was safe and comfortable, none of the edgy awkwardness of the night before. I sat on an old well cover and realized that I had never in my life been so exhausted before.

We saw more churches than I count, the Doge's Palace, and the shopping district. In addition to wandering around at night we went into the Dolce, the Gucci, the Zegna (none of which are cheaper here, by the way) and thumbed through the designer clothes. We visisted the Museum of Erotic Art (more of a shop, really) and bought suggestive playing cards. We sat behind at least five different stone\wood\lace altars and stared at life-size statues of a crucified Christ. I climbed to the top of a bell tower and saw all the islands around Venice, green flecks in the bright water.

Venice is cramped and hot, but beautiful beyond belief. When I try to imagine the city without tourists I see acres upon acres of carved marble and wooden pilings, sinking slowly back into the lagoon. Gold leaf and bright artwork growing green with alage, dark wooden gondolas growing soft with rot. The city is an experiment and it will be over. I know this won't happen for thousands of years, but I'm glad I saw it anyway.

I could make a fortune...

A somewhat blurry photo of the gelato available in Verona's Blue

...writing a guidebook to Verona's gelato parlors. I have more pictures of ice cream than historical monuments or artwork. Combined. Verona is full of ice cream. There are ice cream vending machines in the halls. As well as print cartridge vending machines and ones that sell at least thirteen different kinds of coffee. Last night I stayed up late getting philosophical with some of my tripmates, and this morning I bought a macchiato (espresso with foamed milk) and a cappuccino d'orzo (barley coffee with steamed and foamed milk). The d'orzo tasted like barley, not as strong as the coffee bean espresso. Yesterday I had a caffe shakerato, an iced coffee with sugar and milk. Each drink tastes different, so it's fun to experiment. Besides, coffee and wine are cheaper than water.

Shopping around town yesterday I realized what I like about fashion in Verona. 40-year-old women in short, bright red sundresses walk the streets in sky-high cork heels. 20-year-olds layer ripped tees over leggings. Browsing through the beautiful, the strange, and the bizarre in Verona's clothing stores I realize that you can get away with just about anything. Blouses cut to the navel? Fine. Wedge heels laced up to the knee? Maybe not common, but no problem. Floor-length embroidered skirts during daytime? No one would blink. American fashion is generic and bland by comparison. I get the feeling (and this may just be me) that Italian women are better at understanding this about clothes: messing up (so to speak) can be much more fun than doing what you know is safe.

This weekend we're going to Venice. The slowly-sinking city built in a lagoon. What strange marvels people accomplish! And without the aid of modern science, too.

Citizens of the World...

A view of Verona from the bridge

Yesterday we wandered down to Juliet's house. I'm still not sure whether this is real or a tourist trap, but apparently this house in fair Verona (of "where we lay our scene" fame...) contains the tomb of Romeo's Juliet. It's tradition that visitors stand on the balcony and then take a picture of themselves groping the breasts of the courtyard statue (of Juliet, who was 13 at the time the play takes place, so the groping might be a little creepy.) We pinned love notes to the walls of the courtyard (another tradition).

I went in search of the bathroom. I asked the woman selling tickets where it was, in my newly-learned Italian. She directed me, also in Italian. Along the way I met an elderly woman who started speaking to me in Spanish. She had an accent, so I asked her (after about five minutes) where she was from. England. So we switched to English. Then, as if this trilingual exchange wasn't enough, I headed over the market stalls and was hailed (in Hindi!) by a street vendor. He and I struck up an exchange in Hindi (which ended with him asking my friend Cara and I to come back at 8 for a date.) After speaking four different languages in only a half hour I must say: I have never felt so suave. Or such a citizen of the world.

An Italian grocery store is nothing like a grocery store in the US. For one thing, a bottle of drugstore shampoo costs €2.5, or $4. That's no bargain. But more importantly, if someone were to take a plane from Jewel-Osco directly to ____ (which is where we were), it would look like the major food groups in Italy were wine, cheese and pasta, whereas the major food group in America is "prepackaged." That's not a bad thing. It seems Italian people eat much fresher ingredients, shop more often and cook more. It's a nation of slimmer people: the women are thin and tanned, and the men wear fairly tight pants (None of that gangsta-falling-off-the-ass-revealing-boxers-and-bling business. That won't fly.) There are no bars or clubs in Verona, but the coffee shops don't close until past 2 am, and the coffee is strong. Working at Cafe Ambrosia, I drank three shots of espresso in a couple hours and felt nothing. This morning I drank a cup of Italian coffee and was wired all through the morning class. And that coffee came out of a vending machine. The real thing is even darker.

At the monastery we cooperate to prepare meals. I'm going to making beef and pasta for a bunch of people. I bought a Chianti to serve with the meal and some vegetables to make a salad. I figured out the gas stove and poured everyone shots of whiskey on ice as an appetizer. I felt adult, until I stepped out onto the balcony and remembered I couldn't even read the street signs.

To attract an Italian man...

You must be "like a cake, not like a lemon." So said the bus driver to one of the girls in our tour group, an outspoken New Yorker who didn't (as far as I know) take his advice too seriously.

Everyone warned me about the Italian men, but no one said anything about the German women. I was thoroughly groped by an absolute stranger who spoke no English and carried a heavy black metal detector wand. This isn't that bad in and of itself, but when she asked me to take off my shirt I hesitated. Turns out my new bellybutton piercing set off the metal detector. She threw it a very suspicious look and let me pass. "This," I shouted back at her as I walked off, "is definitely not a bomb."

I live in a former hospital high up on a cobblestone hill. Half of the building belongs to a crew of retired priests, and I woke up to hear them singing Mass this morning. My broken window unfortunately afforded me no view, so while I showered I thought about the dinner I'd had the night before.
I've heard it said that wine is like sex, in that "when it's good it's great, but when it's bad it's still pretty good." In my opinion, this is not true of wine. The house red I drank last night was a hundred times better than my father's imported Merlots. The pizza had a crust as thin as paper, it tore apart when I picked up a slice.
When I got up to photograph the view, I smelled hyacinthe and pizza and shallow, muddy water. The one thing I realize, when I travel, is that the US doesn't smell like much. India smells like people and sewage and jasmine. Costa Rica smelled (to me) like fried ham and crushed guavas and wet, dark dirt. Whenever I leave the US it's as if my twitching nose is waking up from 20 years of sleep, and I'm almost overwhelmed.

Stopped in Philadelphia, I called my father. He and I had the following conversation.
"Wow, take a look at this World Cup on ABC."
"In the airport?"
"Im sure someone is watching it. Listen, the US just scored a touchdown but the stupid ref took it away."
"Dad, I think it is called a goal, not a touchdown."
"What the hell do you know about it?" Talk about hitting an obvious target. "The US is wearing white, the Italians are wearing blue." I hung up and went and looked for the match, McDonalds ice cream in hand. I wedged myself in among a bunch of men holding beer. We stared at the sports bar's slick flat screen TVs.
"That ref!" One man said to me. I nodded and sucked on my ice cream cone. (Later someone explained the ref is a Uruguayan man who's been taking bribes for the past 4 years. I don't know if that's true.)
I remember when I was little and missed my family, my mom always said something cute like "Just look at the sky. They're seeing the same moon you are." Skulking around Cibo's, ice cream in hand, I think, "How cute. I'm seeing the same game my dad is." Celestial bodies, national networks, and man does the work of nature.

Before starting out...

I'm going to Italy with a suitcase full of clothes, but no cell phone or laptop. I'm already feeling naked. Will this put me in touch with history? Ariella says I'm going to Italy to "drink and fuck." But really, I'm doing it for the history. Here's what I've heard of Italy's checkered past.

Imagine it's a Sunday morning in 1327. All Italy's eligible singles are packed into the Church of St. Claire. Francis Petrarch looks up from the service and catches a glimpse of Laura ___. She's only 19, but she's already married to another man. He doesn't know her name, her age, her marital status, but he's instantly in love. Over the next fifty years he writes her hundreds of sonnets, many composed after her death in 1348. Along the way he gives birth to an art form (the word 'sonnet' roughly translated means 'please sleep with me, strange woman.') Which means that Shakespeare, Marlowe, and hundreds of shady men in dark nightclubs have been following in Petrarch's footsteps (some without even realizing it.)

The Catholic church has a lot to do with Italian history. Erica Jong said, "Every country gets the circus it deserves. Spain gets bullfights, Italy gets the Catholic church." She also said, "Show me a woman who doesn't feel guilty and I'll show you a man." I've met men who felt guilty, so it's quite possible the church isn't a circus after all. This trip will be my research.

And finally: they drink coffee out of glasses. Glasses made of glass. This happens a lot in Europe, I'm told. But as many Americans tell me every weekend when I work the Saturday night shift at Ambrosia, it doesn't happen in America. In fact, coffee in glasses is un-American. Unpatriotic. Subversive, unsupportive and liberal. Hello, I tell them, at least I'm not burning flags on the lawn. What's the difference, they want to know. (All right, so maybe I'm exaggerating...)

They have statues of male genitalia everywhere. So says my friend Tara. But maybe she was exaggerating.

So it looks like I have my trip planned out for me.

I'll be staying in the North of Italy, at the Collegio.