Pasqua phenomena

Tube Stops: Termini, Barberini, Spagna, Piramede

Easter came and went in a flash of pseudo-Bank Holiday rememberance: a weekend that stretched on for eternity, leaving you with that disgruntled, embittered edge going back to work, sure that you could have benefitted from at least another day's holiday. But the British cannot complain for as I was typing this by dull desk-lamp Sunday last, gli inglese were looking forward to having the next day off. And all because of *that* royal wedding.

Waity Kate gets her mate

I managed to crack open one of the computer's at work (not literally) to try and source a website with which to openly speculate on the proceedings from across Europe. The Telegraph Online obliged with crystal-clear quality and we gathered around to cries from Salvatore, one of our administrators at work, who was fearful that the couple hadn't kissed at the altar after exchanging vows. I'm not sure if he was expecting an open consummation of the marriage minutes after vow-exchange but then I'm not up to date with the differences between Italian and English marriage services...

He *might* also have been expecting Kate to show a little thigh as well but then weddings can be oh so different depending on your country/tradition/audience of several billion. But all in all, we saluted the taste decisions that were made, including Kate's dress, the several trees that lined the aisles inside Westminster Cathedral (minus London's continually defecating pigeons) and the camera angle that just about managed to hide Will's bald patch. A tip, Wills: Grade 1 trimmer.

Oh and it was with some bizarre psychological connection to fairy-tales, told to us in our youth, that we noted that both Princesses Eugenie and Beatrice had decided to come in costume as the two Ugly Sisters. When public ceremony calls for you to wear the desiccated carcass of an alien crab-type creature, by all means, wear it with pride.

I've since learnt that there's a Facebook group
dedicated to slating her tribute to Aliens 2/hat.

Pasquelettina

Oh Comparatives, oh superlatives...how hard you are to teach in English, let alone learn in another language. Point of interest, English really comes into its own when it has to rely on syllables and holding up its reputation as being a time-based language. What the exhausted of us English language teachers realise is that when we have to use more syllables, we actually compress our sentence speed, to keep our rhythm (and who said English wasn't musical...?) With comparatives, we only add beats to small words and use extra words for longer adjectives whilst compressing the sentence, hence keeping the speed. (Yes, don't worry, I bored myself a little there...)

At the same time, Italians, when they use comparatives and superlatives, they add endings to their adjectives which can be disproportionate to the comparison they are making. For example:

Poco = little
pochissimo = littlest (as in hobo).

I taught this lesson tonight with my Mondays and Wednesdays evening class, which involves Maria (suspected age 45, but hidden beneath bleakly coloured, matronesque sixties twin-set and dyed black hair in a bob that has the consistency of frightened starch), Patrizia (who bakes chocolate cakes with the intention of reminding her English teacher of which country has the better food reputation. Answer: Italy (no competition), Guilia (whose English sometimes astounds me/is better than my own) and Carlo (mild mannered, ex-Roger Moore double whose regular refrain to any question is 'I can confirm.')

After last lessons attempts to review comparatives and superlatives failed, Rosie decided to enlighten the class about her trip to New York recently, by writing up on the board several quotes she came across engraved on several plaques around the city. Unfortunately, seeing as some of these poems were written by Walt Whitman and other American poets whose use of the most metaphysical, trascendental and existential of topics meant we spent the entire lesson trying to work out whether rivers can flow backwards. Essential Business English learning.

In the face of learning the 3rd conditional for the fifteenth time,
Giovanni resorted to another, less complicated language.

And so on to Pasquetta and Pasqua. Pasqua is meant to be spent with families, being fed copious amounts of food and if you're a bambucino or mammino, there's usually not far to stumble until you reach your own bed. Upstairs.

Pasquetta is spent with friends and lies on Easter Monday. This is usually known to us Brits as 'Easter Monday/Bank Holiday Monday', and represents an opportunity to wake up late, go to bed late and rediscover what the French at the beginning of the 19th Century labelled 'ennui' or general house malaise. The rest decide to block motorways with motorhomes.

There is no Pasquelettina, although I make it my business to attempt any form of comparative and superlative with all kinds of nouns in Italian. In my opinion, Pasquelettina would be purely for little girls who demand that the main meal be followed by a doll's tea party. Or something.

I spent a glorious premature Easter meal on Saturday in the company of fellow teacher S, and her friends Harmony & Detto at their roof-top pad in Navigatori, near Piramede. Under the panopy of the grumbling thunder and darkening, humid twilight, we had a proper English roast chicken meal, lovingly prepared and fortified with copious bottles of vino. The only thing that could naturally follow, being quite a bit over my legal drinking limit in Italy (i.e., a glass of wine) was Glee karaoke followed by a dance Wii game where your new friend becomes a long, thin remote control in your fevered grip as you attempt to girate, body-grind, cut various pieces of rug and generally ensure that your actions match those of your onscreen dancing counterparts. Whilst not breaking the furniture.

Benvenuti a Coca Chola!

Two friends of mine, as a couple came to see me in Rome and to savour their first time in the Eternal City. We ate like kings (albeit before the reign of Vittorio Emmanuelle when Italy was made a republic soon afterwards...) and tried a different restaurant each night, culminating in visiting La Buca di Ripetta, a restaurant which housed a Vespa in the middle of its floor. We tried in vain to find our beloved Lacrime dell'Moro wine that we had tasted on Pasquetta at a restaurant called Braccio in Via del Pigneto but "settled" instead for incredible pasta all'amatriciana, suckling pig, pasta carbonara and other delicacies.


After one particular evening, after discussing how exactly my superhero task force would work (Coca being a dab hand at Judo and Chola at Karate), we decided to treat ourselves to some Il Padrino cocktails, involving at least three different types of alcohol.

Finding a relatively quiet watering hole off Via della Cancelleria, conversation returned yet again to the imminent visit that C & C would be making to the Santa Maria della Concezione dei Cappuccini where thousands of bones of Capuchin monks are nailed to the walls inside the church's crypt, forming macabre momenti mori about the fleeting time we have on earth before we shuffle off our mortal coils. So, you could see why we need the drink.

Chola was unpertubed by this morbid prospect and it was only later whilst ordering our evening meal in one of the restaurants towards the end of their stay that we realised the full impact this experience had had on Chola. At the slightest suggestion of trying 'Trippa alla Capuchin' (or Capuchin-monk stomach lining), Chola lost both her appetite and a little of her self-restraint which was keeping her from losing both a boyfriend and a good friend with a single blow.

Taking in the sights

On return from said night of drinking - I do not remember leaving the bar nor the taxi ride home - I found myself in Termini's barren, cubist puzzle. Futuristic jagged building designs, running parallel with neat tram lines dissecting the pavement, bold bollards lining the pavements and tall apartments filling the skyline.

Termini station: where bold, avant-garde architecture
meets taxi-driver turf wars

All was quiet, not a soul was around. Except for...

a Somalian man holding a length of metal chain, attempting to whip a transexual prostitute whilst they both howled at each other.

(I'll just let that image sink into your minds a little.)



Incidentally, whilst waiting for the above picture to load onto my blog, I just caught sight of an elderly woman walking up to the grotto in the courtyard, making the sign of the cross in front of a statue of the Virgin Mary and walk off without anyone noticing, except me. I'm like David Attenborough in the hive of the worker-bee Italians, or something.)

A frantic search on Google Images reveals nothing close to the image that I found that night, the vision that kept me checking that I still retained my powers of sight (my tears now being close to 87% alcohol to 13% saline might have melted my lens away, hence the Bosch-like 'end of the world' tableau vivant.) I stood powerless, just staring across the street at the spectacle, hopelessly trying to remember the phone number for the Carabinieri...

Just when I thought shouting and running around like an erratic duck with only one good leg would be a sensible course of action, I saw the prostitute, all 6ft 4, blonde wig, black leather dress, catch the end of the chain and yank it out of the Somalian guys hands. More howling (inhuman) and she began viciously to try to whip him.

"Vabbe" (fine), I thought. She/he looks like she/he can cope with things from now on. Italian women, whilst still anatomically being men, can more than handle themselves.