Cruising

Tonight after work I went for a stroll which is the Ancona version of cruising. We’re in the middle of a stretch of perfect late fall weather so I was in no hurry to get home and neither was anyone else. The evenings right after work are prime-time for cruising. As it is anywhere and has been for years, the purpose is the same – walk around to see and be seen, check out the hotties and wait for something more interesting to happen. The kids cruise in large packs, trading between groups like the baseball off-season gone mad and massing at corners to talk, smoke, text, and wait. The adults are usually in pairs and I imagine are bemoaning how much better things were back when they were young and there weren't all these rascally kids around. It is constant, casual motion with an eye out for the best place to be and be seen. Wherever you are somewhere else might be better so off you go. What you never see are people by themselves. So in that regard, I’m a trend-setter, bucking convention, challenging perceptions as I walk along solo. The people watching is fantastic – bars filling with people having their aperitivo, pizza stands doing a brisk business in slices, dogs crapping under foot, people rushing to finish their shopping before everything closes for the evening – all to the soundtrack created by the mad church bell ringers religiously marking the passing of another five minutes.

As I was having my saunter and challenging the local paradigm, a couple pushing a stroller with twins passed me. It was one of those double-wide strollers quite common in the States but apparently an apparition here. That the twins were adorable, flaxen-haired bambini in matching outfits eating matching gelato didn’t hurt, but everyone they passed did one of those classic double-takes made infamous by men everywhere. It was almost like Raphaella Fico herself was walking down the middle of the street in only her metallic bikini.

The roommates all went home for the weekend so I have the apartment to myself. I think I might mark the development by eating small amounts of all their food, just enough so that I know I ate it, but they don’t notice it missing. Yes, I really am that wild. They did a really nice job of cleaning-up before they left so I came home to a sad and empty but sparkling clean house.

We four roommates are bonding quite nicely. I am constantly being evaluated for how good an Italian I will make. We’ve devised a scale where I started out in Austria and the more Italian I manage to be the further south I will be placed. It's like one of those fund-raising thermometer signs, just upside down and shaped like Italy, not a thermometer. Following the success of a pasta dish this week I have managed to cross the border into Italy. Next stop, Bologna. We generally eat dinner together several nights a week and I really enjoy those meals. Sometimes Deborah will cook for all of us or everyone will try to make their own meal simultaneously, sharing space in the cramped kitchen. Conversation is usually a mixture of Italian, English, French and some German with good natured teasing, bizarre jokes that are lost in the switching of languages, hilarious misuse of words from other languages, and quizzes about what was learned in class that day.

I don’t know how it happened but I got really lucky to be sharing an apartment with Raimondo. I learned how to spell his name correctly; we get along quite well, easily tolerate each other, and share a common sense of humor. He’s a physicist doing physics research (I assume) at the university. I asked him if this means he spends his day rolling a ball bearing down a ramp into a spring and measuring how far back up the ramp the bearing goes. Something like that he said. He also likes to make jokes at the expense of mathematicians which all seem to start the same way, “There is a physicist, an engineer and a mathematician…” Deborah and Alice (it’s pronounced ah-li-chay in Italian, but she was named for Alice in Alice in Wonderland after her mother discovered the book while on holiday and pregnant with her) are very sweet, concerned that I learn Italian quickly and don’t remain single. They’ve both decided that their older sisters are perfect for me.

It was a good week at work. My team actually closed a couple projects which translates (get it!?!?) into income rather than expenses for the company. They were small but as most leading sales experts would agree, a small sale is generally considered better than a large non-sale. We also submitted our second large RFP. If we’re selected for any of these RFPs I’ll be able to go on cruise-control for at least 3 days.

As an aside, for those still curious, the challenges posed by the Italian computer and keyboard have mostly been overcome. They are almost more natural feeling than my American laptop. That said I can’t figure out how to resize Media Player. It’s either in mini-player mode or full-screen with no way to place the pointer on a border and shrink it so it’s full-size but not full-screen. I can’t read the Italian interface to figure out how to shrink it. If you have suggestions please leave a comment below.

It’s coming soon and I’m sad to be missing it. We (no, I am not referring to myself in the third person, it was Dave and I) went last year and it placed the rest of the day pitch perfect. “Have a great time,” to all who participate.


A small triumph earned this week in my quest to learn Italian that gives me hope for the future. I had to go see my landlord to give him the rent. He is a doctor and told me I could just come to his clinic during office hours and drop it off. Since patients would be waiting he told me to let his segrataria (receptionist) I was a friend and not a patient and she would go get him and I could jump the line. Reasonable enough plan except that she doesn’t speak Italian. On the walk over to the office I rehearsed my lines and sweated. The way my nerves were acting up it was a good think I was headed to a doctor’s office. I walked into the segretaria (reception area) to find it full of waiting patients. Great, I had an audience. To my surprise and delight, I managed to utter my lines, she behaved herself and followed our little unwritten script as if we had been rehearsing for weeks and soon enough I found myself in the doctor’s office. I’m a big boy now! We chatted a bit, his English is only a bit better than my Italian so we get by on an amusing and confusing mixture of the two, and at the end he told me if I even need anything to see him, the care would be free. I don’t know if that’s because he’s my landlord and fried of Lothar or if that’s socialized medicine, but I’m thinking of learning the Italian word for Percoset.

I received a first hand report on what Eric was doing “right now” this past Wednesday. Jenn happened to be on Skype the same time I was and we were able to chat and trade gossip for a bit. As devout Luddites we both marveled at the wonder of us chatting live separated by thousands of miles yet immediately connected by some geek’s code, electricity, wires and voodoo. Jenn marveled at the fact that I was sitting in my office in Italy and I marveled at the fact that she hadn’t gotten out of bed yet. Lazy!

Twenty posts and a month and a half later I’ve received a few nice compliments on the blog and I just want to say thank you for reading and following along. Have fun at Meadows this weekend, Jerks.

This is the fabled pasta sfoglia ricoperta al cioccolato. Feel free to come visit and I'll take you out for one with a machiatto caldo.


I wonder what Eric is doing right now?