Gap Year, Week 1: Southern Italy
As you know if you are reading this, I am taking a gap year! I am going to try and keep up a blog so people can see what I’m doing and I can also look back in the future. If you click the link at the bottom you will get an email when I have a new post (and you won’t get any more emails than that, don’t worry).
Currently I am sitting on a couch with six-year-old Davide (da-vee-day), watching a Donald Duck cartoon in Italian. He has the same voice, if you were wondering. It’s 9:30 at night and still probably 85 degrees, no air conditioning and they rarely run the single fan in the house. However, after a week here, I am getting used to the temperature- and I actually turn the shower as low as it can go for some refreshment 🙂
For my first month, I am staying with a family in Copertino, Italy, 20 min from the town of Lecce, located in Puglia, the heel of the boot! It is very hot and humid here, and for some reason I am constantly covered in mosquito bites while the rest of the family has none. The house has no air conditioning, and one fan which is sparsely used, so I am just getting used to the heat. Here, I share a room with the two kids: 11 year old Sofia and Davide. Luckily I get my own bit of privacy in a bunk bed! Sofia is almost fluent, Davide loves to say cat and hello, and he can count to 4! We are working on his English. The mom Guilia is very fluent as she lived in London for 3 years. She is from Northern Italy, so I get to hear lots about the differences from her. Sandro, the dad, is okay at English if I speak slowly- not one of my strong suits but I’m working on it!
I expected this to feel like a job; however, it’s quite the contrary. In the week I have been here, I have only watched the kids for a total of around 5 hours. I feel more like a cousin visiting- they have taken me to see the town and meet friends and occasionally done some chores (dishes, hanging up laundry on the rooftop clothesline.) They pay for all my food, and even give me a small weekly allowance of €50. It’s crazy to me- I feel like I should be paying them! Aside from the plane ticket, so far I have MADE MONEY from this experience! I hope my next two chapters are similar. It is a great way to travel. Already I feel I know the Italian lifestyle well.
So far, I have gone to the beach, a soccer game in Lecce, two (very small outdoor) concerts, met much of the family, had lunch with the grandmother, and went on a road trip 7 hours north to Assisi!
The beach is a lovely, crowded, stereotypical European beach (except everyone was clothed.. not sure if nude beaches are common but that is kind of what I always picture as a European beach). The soccer game was fun- the stadium was packed for not a huge team. There were fans standing on the wrong side of the railing, hanging on, with a 40 feet drop below! I guess that’s spirit?? Some guy almost scored with a bicycle kick but, alas, he didn’t make it into that pesky net.
And for the trip to Assisi, the kids start school next week so the parents wanted the kids to get one last road trip. I was happy to escape heat! Assisi is a beautiful medieval town, famous because it is where St. Frances/Francisco lived. They gain many religious tourists because of it- and I realized after visiting 5 churches in the 1.5 days we were there that we, too, were religious tourists. The churches are beautiful, and it’s hard to comprehend how old these buildings are because they are so much older than the ones in the US. Most were around 900 years old! One church even showcased locks of hair they said to be St. Clara’s… blonde and apparently 800 years old. So cool. Because it is touristy, this is the first time I heard an American accent all week and I almost started to cry when I heard it! The old couple was from California.
We stayed 10 min from Assisi in a place called Villa Verde. It was beautiful and the food was delicious- especially the penne with cream sauce made with sausage and truffles. I LOVE truffles, and apparently this area is the best in the world. Of course I had to get some truffle salsa as my first souvenir. Here, all lunch and dinner, including those at home, are served in courses. Usually: starter such as Bruschetta, then pasta, then meat, then salad, then melon and stone fruit, then dessert, then coffee. At home we usually skip the bruschetta and coffee. They also leave hunks or slices of bread on the table and one can just rip of some of the bread and eat it- not the whole slice.
A note on northern and southern italy: Northern Italy has better jobs, more advanced, more progressive, bigger yards, mountains, colder. Southern Italy has more poor people, slower life, traditional, town houses, near the sea. Of course it’s not all like this, but it’s what has been explained to me. For a while, there were debates of Northern splitting off because they were frustrated with people coming from the South to take the jobs. Apparently it has gotten a bit better and this is very unlikely. It’s unlikely here for people to move in their life, especially Southern people. That’s why it’s unique that Guilia moved from the north when she married Sandro. Apparently her dialect is different enough that sometimes people ask her if she is foreign!
Anyway, I am enjoying the food and the slow lifestyle. I have been reading A TON! And I’m embracing the discomfort and working to make myself at home.
See you next week,
Annie C. Reller
Originally published at http://anniereller.wordpress.com on September 7, 2019.
