Repacking and Returning: What I’ve Learned

In the midst of packing to go home for Christmas, for which I’ve had to pay Ryanair for an emergency extra suitcase, I’m beginning to get a good handle on the things I’m glad I brought with me and the stuff I might as well have left at home. The extra suitcase is partly for Christmas presents, and, admittedly, partly (mostly) for clothes I’ve bought out here. But I am still aware of the vast amount of things I brought that just weren’t necessary and wasted my precious, precious luggage allowance. Hence I have decided, in all my newfound wisdom, to create an exciting* TOP TEN of things to bring!

*excitement not guaranteed or even particularly expected.

1. Decent rucksack

My rucksack has served me very well throughout my time here. Mine is a Herschel and makes excellent hand luggage, with a pocket for my laptop and comfy straps and padding on the back. The bonus of bringing a rucksack as hand luggage rather than a carry-on means that Ryanair will never ask you to put it in the hold when the cabin gets full, so you needn’t worry about being front of the queue at the gate, and can just breeze onto the plane like the well-seasoned traveller you might possibly become. It’s also good for uni, day trips, nights away at friends’, picnics, hikes, storing plentiful snacks etc.

2. British plug adaptor and a plug extender

This was a genius idea that unfortunately I only had a couple of weeks after my stay began. You avoid having to buy numerous adaptors if you just buy one, and plug an extender into it. Look at all those pleasing British sockets! Just like home!

3. Handheld luggage scales

Not a very exciting one, but basically unavoidable if you want to squeeze the most value out of your heinously expensive baggage charges. Don’t forget to take it with you so you can weigh your stuff again when you come back. Mine even has a reassuring smiley face- though it’s not much good when I realise my suitcase weighs 5kg with nothing in it and my limit is only 15kg.

4. Painkillers

For some unknown reason, these are horrifically expensive in Europe, and given that they’re about 20p a box for supermarket own brand versions and weigh practically nothing, it’s worth just packing as many as you can. Within reason. Try not to look like a drug mule…

5. Basic stationery

My definition of ‘basic stationery’ is quite different to most people’s. I couldn’t face the idea of being parted from my 24 coloured fineliners for 4 months so I brought them with me. Even if you don’t suffer from quite the same levels of stationery addiction as I do, having a few pens, highlighters and paper will serve you well you in your first few weeks of chaotic bureaucracy and paperwork.

6. Paperclips

I’ve put this one on the list separately because it is of vital importance if you have an iPhone/other tricksy smartphone model. It’s impossible to open the SIM card slot on the iPhone without a paperclip or similar implement. Bring one with you every time you need to change countries and thus SIM cards and avoid my scenario of scanning the floor like a magpie with an eye for sharp things on the floor in Stansted terminal, searching desperately for a hair pin or a loose staple or ANYTHING that would allow me to switch cards and call my mum to come get me. I ended up paying £3 for 125 gold paperclips in WHSmith. Avoid this. Bring a paperclip.

7. Spotify Premium

This really isn’t essential but is a very nice companion to travelling. Students can get Spotify Premium for £4.99/month, which allows you to listen to an unlimited amount of music and even download playlists and albums to your phone or computer for listening offline. Apologies if I sound too much like an advert but I just really love Spotify. It’s great. And make a playlist of joyous tunes before you leave, ready for darker days.

8. Gravy/Tea/Marmite/insert homely food as appropriate

This is a bit of a tricky one as you don’t know which foodstuffs you won’t be able to find/will miss terribly until you’ve already arrived. Some important ones, to my mind, are gravy, Marmite, tea, squash, (get one of those super-concentrated Squash’d things), Cadbury’s hot chocolate and custard creams. If you have obliging visitors/parents willing to post you a box of what you’re craving when the time comes, even better.

9. Currency card

These are pretty nifty even if you are just travelling short-term. Essentially, you are able to load the card with Euros either online or using an app, and then spend on it or take cash out as if it were a normal debit card, except you are never charged for these services. The exchange rate is usually not bad, and it saves you paying charges to your English bank every time you want a bit of cash. I’ve also found it quite good for budgeting, as you can load the amount you think you’ll need for a couple of weeks and then make sure you stick within your means. More money to spend on clothes that you don’t have the luggage space to bring home.

10. Lowered expectations

Perhaps this seems like a depressing piece of advice. It isn’t meant to be. I only mean that the year abroad is a much hyped phenomenon, and you will probably come with expectations that are impossible to meet. The beginning of the year will inevitably be crap. It will not remain that way, and it may indeed turn out to be the best year of your life, but waiting for it to happen will not help you in the slightest. Don’t expect too much; wait and see what there is to explore on your arrival, then make it your own by doing it how you want to. Like all good things, it takes a bit of time and effort, and it’s not worth being frustrated with yourself for not having the Great Time® you’re expecting to have at the very beginning. Andrà tutto alla grande; but give it a chance.

Advice duly dispensed, time to get cracking on the mountain of mince pies that must be scoffed before tomorrow’s flight home! I am so excited I think I might cry with joy when I see Stansted- an unusual reaction to an airport, but one I feel is very appropriate. Buone feste!

The Puffer Jacket Conundrum

It’s fair to say Italy has more than its fair share of world-class fashion designers. Prada. Gucci. Dolce & Gabbana. Versace, Armani, Emilio Pucci, and my favourite of them all, Valentino. Milan is one of the four fashion capitals of the world, and Florence home to some of the best artisan leather producers. Italians are known, perhaps after only the French, for their style and elegance, and I half expected to turn up here and be judged for my pathetic English high street wardrobe by better-off Italians, as they flounced by in a swathe of carefully matched, beautifully produced textiles, their leather brogues click-clacking on the marble pavements. And you better hope those shoes have a good tread. Said shiny marble pavements are a death trap to those of us who dare to wear otherwise.

I have thus been surprised to find myself in a world of, well, puffer jackets. It’s hard to put it any other way. I am literally surrounded by them whenever I leave the house. Like Day of the Triffids but with polyester. It would have been weird enough to see this many puffer jackets in any country, but in one famed for its style, it’s incomprehensible. I cannot get my head around it. It has reached the point where I am starting to see every other type of coat as simply a variety of puffer jacket. Are fur coats not just puffer jackets made in a different fabric? I don’t even know anymore.

Because I know it may sound like I’m exaggerating the number of puffer jackets, I have chosen to provide some photographic evidence. I did consider going out and photographing all the puffer jackets I saw in one day, but given that that would have meant stopping every passerby to ask to take their portrait, I couldn’t be bothered. Sorry. So, here comes some anecdotal pictorial evidence, and you must simply trust me, dear reader, that this is representative of normal life in Italy.

The cloakroom of a museum. Nothing but puffer jackets.

 

 

One of many sources of the puffer epidemic.

THEY’RE EVERYWHERE.

 

Even brides are into them.

Now, whatever your opinion on these things, most people can agree that style comes from individuality comes from NOT ALL WEARING PUFFER JACKETS. I’ve been trying to comprehend their ubiquity ever since ‘winter’ (if a slight wind chill can be described as such) began. I’m sure they are warm, but really it is not that cold, and a good woollen coat would keep any passing chill at bay. If the question is warmth, then why not choose one of many other ways to stay warm? I would rather see someone strolling down the high street in their dressing gown, if only for a little variety.

In good faith, I thought there would really be no other way to get to the root of this by trying one on myself. And so, off I trotted to United Colors of Benetton, where, true to their name, they have a range of colours. But not a range of styles. That’s the point. They’re all the same. Trying one on, a matte purple number, I came to three main conclusions. 1. It made me look like the Michelin man, and who needs that in panettone season? 2. It made my hair go all static. And 3. Okay, I admit it, it was actually pretty warm.

And yet I’m afraid I’m not going to end this blog with the revelation that actually I fell for its cosiness and bought one- but wouldn’t that have been a brilliant shock?! I will, however, say this: the Italian word for the puffer jacket is piumino, a word that also means duvet. If they’ve managed to create a society where it’s okay to go out in what is essentially a waterproof duvet, and not even try to deny it, I guess they’ve won. And, go on then, if Valentino ever makes his own version (and it would only make financial sense, given their popularity), sign me up. But only to try it on.

My Favourite Christmas Song, and Bologna at Christmas

A few days ago, I had a dream that I was at home for Christmas. It was a dream entirely in English, I’m afraid to say. I shall always feel guilty for dreams that are not in one of the languages I’m learning; the final great linguistic hurdle that I can’t control at all. I’ll just keep telling myself it’s because people don’t talk much in my dreams anyway.

The details of said dream are quite blurry, luckily for you, because really, nobody likes hearing about other people’s dreams. They’re pretty dull in the cold light of day. In this particular one, I had forgotten to bring home any presents, but it didn’t seem to matter: I was home, surrounded by love and food and warmth, and there were even Christmas bells jingling merrily in the background… oh, that was just my alarm.

Still, Christmas spirit seems to have well and truly arrived in Bologna and it’s infectious. I am already meticulously planning my Love Actually style return home, even if it is strictly speaking at Stansted and not Heathrow, and saving my best turtleneck for the occasion.

Hoping we can skip the part with the insults

It’s also the first time I’ll be returning home close enough to Christmas to really be able to claim that I’m driving home for Christmas, or at least being driven home for Christmas (although that doesn’t have quite the same ring to it!). In previous years my terms have finished ludicrously early, so that I’m more being driven home for the start of December- and that’s got even less of a ring to it. So it is with great joy that this year I will almost be able to sing along truthfully to my very favourite Christmas song.

It’s definitely what Christmas is about- not the driving, or the traffic jams, as real as they are- but everyone returning home to their families and friends. And having been away from mine for so long, I’m more excited than ever. Not to mention that my return home means mince pies, which, try as I might, I just cannot find in Italy- if anyone wants to post me a jar of mincemeat, I would be delighted to offer you my address. It is impossible to try to search for something with such a weird, untranslatable name that doesn’t reflect its ingredients in any way. It’s the number one thing on my to-eat list when I get home. (I don’t actually have a to-eat list. Yet.)

Back in Bologna, I have been embracing the Christmas spirit (so, Christmas food) early, stocking up on panettone and buying myself an advent calendar. When I showed the calendar to my Spanish flatmate, I was shocked to discover he’d never had one. ‘No, I don’t think we have those in Spain,’ he said, only to be corrected when another flatmate, also Spanish, came in and said, ‘Um, yes we do, I had one every year when I was a child.’ His poor face dropped, and not being able to bear the idea of an advent-calendar-less existence, I picked one up for him at the Christmas market a couple of days later. Christmas joy all around.

The Christmas market is a European tradition that hasn’t quite crossed the Channel, and more’s the pity, because they are just so much FUN. Whilst it fails to reach the heights of some truly traditional Christmas markets, especially in Germany, Bologna has a couple; the Antica Fiera di Santa Lucia on Strada Maggiore, and one on Via Altabella that has not yet opened. Here’s a little film I made earlier of the delights of the first. Watch out for the model of Bolognese man cutting the traditional meat, mortadella!

A Brit Abroad: The Double-Edged Sword of Englishness

A British Social Attitudes survey carried out in 2013 saw a drop in the number of people who would describe themselves as ‘very proud’ to be British. What were we, then, if not ‘very proud’? Eight in ten said they were at least ‘somewhat proud’ to be British, a statement I really love. Quietly asserting a secret bit of patriotism in this way is just so, well, British. Whilst the whole idea of British patriotism has been rather tainted, especially in recent years, by its hijacking by certain political parties and far-right groups, most of us are happy being ‘somewhat proud’. We like to moan about all sorts of minor issues, but deep down we’re rather content with ourselves.

I’m getting nostalgic for all sorts of weird things, some of which I’m not even sure I liked that much in the first place. Things like the shape of a 50 pence piece, the word ‘juniper’, muddy fields, Bradgate Park, and the concept of a cone of chips. Are these things really that exciting? I’m not sure anymore, but I know they’re a part of my heritage. I’m somewhat proud of it.

And yet, when abroad, many of us feel quite a lot less proud when our Britishness is horribly evident in the games of Charades and Articulate that we’re forced to play in attempting to speak the language. Don’t know the word for earplugs? Don’t worry, just say ‘the things you put in your ears when you’re trying to sleep and there is some noise outside’ (a generous translation- a truthful one would have contained many more grammar errors), and the assistant will grimace and hand them over. At least it’s good practice for Christmas.

As a country, we’re pretty rubbish at learning foreign languages. The classic excuse is that ‘everybody speaks English anyway’, and whilst I desperately want to turn around to the people that claim this and say “no they don’t so get your head in that grammar book”, it’s kind of true. English is an extremely marketable language, and one that most European children now study intensely at school, so most people probably do speak at least a little bit of English anyway.

Therefore, when abroad we end up being immensely privileged. If you visit a museum in almost any other country in the world, and they have been so kind as to provide a translation of their reading materials, they will translate them into English first. Because even if a visitor from, say, France, is visiting Italy, they probably will have some knowledge of English. And so it is that everyone else has to read in a second language they are assumed to have, whilst we swan about and are spoilt with information handed to us in our native tongue.

I was talking with a friend from Germany about how much I hate dubbed films, and my struggles to find a subtitled version of the new Hunger Games film to watch. She pointed out that I probably only hated them so much because most films I saw were already in my language. A privilege I had never really noticed because I never really had to think about it.

There are lots of these privileges. Museums, films, tours, restaurant menus, signs: you name it, they’ve probably already translated it into English for you. Often quite broken, unwittingly amusing English, but a valiant attempt at English all the same. And it sounds so ungrateful to describe this massive, massive blessing as being actually a curse-in-disguise, but sometimes, when you’re really desperately trying to make the effort to actually learn a country’s language and all they seem to want to do is help you to avoid doing so, it’s quite demoralising.

Anyone who has attempted to speak a foreign tongue abroad has probably been confronted with the classic helpful waiter/waitress/shop assistant who replies to you in English, happy for the chance to practise as well as being just a little bit smug that they are doing you a grand favour. So they think. I wish I could wear a big sign that says ‘PLEASE SPEAK TO ME IN ITALIAN. I’M TRYING.’ But in the absence of cardboard and a big pen (where are all the stationery shops in Italy?), I just have to smile and keep ploughing on in the hope that they will be the first to crack in the battle of language wits.

If I have one aim for the year abroad, it is not for people to stop trying to speak to me in English. I am visibly foreign and not ashamed to be so; I am ‘somewhat proud’ of my heritage. No, the aim is thus: when I reply in Italian, and later in the year, French, they will be so struck by my mastery of the language that they will immediately revert to it. And that’s how I’ll know I’ve won.

Dr. Autonomy, or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love My Own Company

I’ve been looking for an excuse to riff off (or, some might argue, rip off) this film title pretty much since I started this blog. Quite a lot of the things I’ve written about could be categorised under how I learned to stop worrying: about travelling about in foreign climes, if I’m learning Italian the ‘right’ way, and whether or not it’s okay to eat biscuits for breakfast.

Worrying, I have convinced myself, is a normal part of life: if you’re not worried about anything, you’re probably also not excited about anything either, as the two feelings do tend to skulk about together. I worry a lot. It’s self-indulgent, it’s analytical, and it’s endless. Quite a lot of the worrying we do back at Cambridge is competitive worrying: who has the worst essay crisis this week? Whose extra-curricular commitments are going to drive them to distraction this term? Who is actually going to fail?

A lot of this worrying was pretty surface-level for me, and I would hazard a guess it’s the same for most. I knew I probably wasn’t actually going to fail. I recognise this now, because I have never experienced such acute worrying as I did before moving abroad. I shan’t bore you with a list of the things I was afraid of, because it wouldn’t do justice to the overriding fear of absolutely everything that I lived with before getting on that plane alone at Stansted. What all the fears boiled down to, though, was basically just that: being alone.

I am no stranger to independence. I live autonomously at uni in England: cook for myself, organise my studies, make sure I get enough sleep, arrange to do things with my friends. But I was never really alone in the way I had to be when I first moved abroad. Trotting off to university was so different; my parents drove me there and made sure my room was comfortable, took me for some coffee- by the time they left I had practically already made friends, and from then on it was pretty much a breeze. I never had to be alone again if I didn’t want to be, there was always someone to ask for help, and if it all went pear-shaped I was only ever a 2 hour train from home. Add to this the fact that Cambridge terms are just 8 weeks long, and that I was lucky enough to have my parents visit once a term, and you can see why I was still living a pretty comfortable life in the famed bubble.

Months before the year abroad began, I asked myself quite a worrying question: if I had to choose whether to go or not, would I? I was required to spend 8 months abroad in order to graduate, but if this wasn’t the case, would I have chosen to do it? 99% of the time I told myself I definitely would have gone anyway, but there was always that niggly little 1% hanging around in the dusty corners of my neurons, saying, but would you? Would you really choose to go?

Dusty little things

If I could reach back into the past and shake little worried Ellie and give one piece of advice, it would be, yes, you would, and you should. And not for all the reasons I thought, about natural language acquisition, easier accessibility of gelato, opportunities to travel, or the absolute classic, better employability and something to stick on your CV. All of these reasons pale in significance against what I now see as the number one reason to do a year abroad, which I shall now (finally, sorry) attempt to articulate.

Only an absolute split from everything familiar to you forces you to understand yourself. Yourself, not in connection to your past, your culture, or your loved ones- none of those things are really there when you first step off the plane. Being alone in this very particular, inimitable way not only allows you, but forces you, to really get to know you, and recognise what you want and need and love and hate and miss and still have to discover. It sounds like a cheesy travel blog, I do see that. But it is so important, in a world where our favourite hobby is generating new distractions from solitude, to find a little. Cesare Pavese puts it quite nicely:

“Viaggiare è una brutalità. Obbliga ad avere fiducia negli stranieri e a perdere di vista il comfort familiare della casa e degli amici. Ci si sente costantemente fuori equilibrio. Nulla è vostro, tranne le cose essenziali – l’aria, il sonno, i sogni, il mare, il cielo – tutte le cose tendono verso l’eterno o ciò che possiamo immaginare di esso”

“Travelling is a brutality. It forces you to trust strangers, and to lose sight of all that familiar comfort of home and friends. You are constantly off-balance. Nothing is yours, except the essential things- air, sleep, dreams, the sea, the sky- all things tending towards the eternal, or what we can imagine of it.”

It doesn’t mean I have become a hermit and never want to see people again. On the contrary, I do want to, and I do! It simply means that I am content alone too. I have literally learned to stop worrying about it, and do my own thing (thang?). And it’s great. I could go out now and sing, and dance and be merry! But I don’t want to. I want to curl up in my cosy bed with a good book and read it until my eyes get droopy. And you know what? That’s fine too.

The joy of visitors, and the pain of the elusive Erasmus grant

Last week I wrote about how important it was to your sense of homeliness to get away from a place and return to it again, kindling a sense of familiarity, a comfort in comparison to the unknown land you escaped to. There and back again. Well, it turns out that another important way to make a place feel like home is to bring people from home to it.

I don’t just mean with photos, notes and memories- though all these things are important- but actually having your friends and family in your new city is essential to homely feelings. Not to mention that you can hear them in a way that sounds like they’re sharing dry land with you (because they are), rather than that 3-feet-underwater-vibe that Skype so loves to offer its users.

Artist’s impression of Skype’s audio-routing systems.

Having visitors makes the lone year-abroader feel several nice things: important, busy, fluent and knowledgeable, because for the time your visitor is with you, you are comparably all of them at once.

Visitor wants a coffee? I have favourite coffee spots in this strange distant land! Visitor wants to see Italy but is afraid of getting lost on foreign trains (naming no names, boyfriend)? Not to worry, I always remember to validate the train tickets! Visitor cannot communicate their food order to the waiter? Fear not, I am your comparably linguistically gifted saviour! Not to mention that said food order may well be paid for by grateful guest.

Equally, having friends and family from home makes the whole experience feel much more like a holiday. Many people mock the year abroad, accusing us of exactly this- a year-long holiday, whilst they struggle on with their final year at uni and bitterly ‘like’ our Instagram photos. If it makes you feel better, the year abroad is nothing like a holiday. Unless you usually holiday alone, attend lessons in two different languages every day and independently sort out every bureaucratic, academic and financial issue that you really wish you could run away from.

Admittedly it is probably the year abroaders that exacerbate the problem; I have never written a blog post describing my lamentations about the lack of gravy in Italy, or about the fine line between independence and loneliness, or how much I cried at the well-timed capitalist genius of the John Lewis advert, and yet I’ve written lots of fun things about travel and festivals and food. In the words of the great modern philosopher Ronan Keating, ‘Life is a Rollercoaster’, and I’ve never felt that more than on my year abroad.

Some of the big rollercoaster peaks have definitely come with the visitors I’ve been lucky enough to have so far- my mum, dad and little brother/fratellino (thanks for teaching me that word, Peppa Pig!), and my boyfriend.

The fratellino of dreams

Sharing Italy, and specifically Bologna, with them, made it feel more mine, and much more like a holiday. Equally, memories of them all are rooted physically in places here; where we ate, shopped, and generally strolled about. Which brings me to another year abroad philosophy, developed with several friends I’ve stayed in contact with as we all embark on our extended holidays across Europe: do what you want, not what you feel you should be doing to have The Essential Year Abroad Experience. If what you want involves having a few friends to stay and speaking English constantly for a week, that’s FINE. Honest.

What is not fine, however, is the big hole in my bank account caused by the missing Erasmus grant. I should be getting, alongside thousands of other students on the Erasmus scheme, €400 a month during my stay, which is pretty essential to maintain a decent quality of life here. However, nobody seems to know where the money is. I’ve certainly not got it. It’s floating around somewhere between the EU, the British Council and the international offices of UK universities, but it has not yet made its way to my balance. Infuriatingly, many of these official bodies are now turning around to claim that we should never have budgeted around expecting to receive the grant we were told we would receive, because that would be a ridiculous thing to do.

A spokesperson from Sussex says: “We always encourage students to think of the Erasmus funding as a contribution towards the costs of studying abroad, rather than as an essential part of their budgeting.”

Thank you, o wise spokesperson from Sussex! Because ‘contribution towards the costs’ and ‘essential part of budgeting’ are such very different things, and a student would be terribly silly to mix them up. I’m still holding out hope that the grant may come through in time for me to pay my rent next month, but if not I will be in quite a tricky situation. A situation of quite a lot of time abroad left at the end of the money. A little more transparency would go a long, long way.

Still, the coffee is cheap, these days I shelter from the rain in ancient porticoes, and there’s a chocolate festival on in Piazza Maggiore. Take it away, Ronan:

Ellie watches telly in Italy

As the screaming hordes of fans of my other blog will know, as they sit desperately hitting F5 in anticipation of the next almost unbearably brilliant post, I’m a big fan of telly. Alright, most of that wasn’t true; apart from an errant visitor on October 19th, nobody’s reading it anymore, which is most probably colpa mia as I’m not writing it much anymore.

I see you, reader.

I shall attempt to justify my lack of posts; it’s partly that I barely manage to maintain a regular posting rate on this one, and running two blogs would take up a bit too much of my time. But mostly, it’s because Italian telly is rubbish. I hate to generalise, but it truly is terrible. I’m not one to make such a grand statement without evidence, so these are some of the average shows you might expect to find on a flick through the schedules.

Italy doesn’t seem particularly keen on making much of its own programming, so it has a huge amount of badly dubbed imported stuff from England/America. The thing is, the shows they choose to import are really of the very worst quality. It’s almost as if they’ve approached the production company about buying something to fill the schedules, been handed a list of possible choices and just gone for the very cheapest ones so they can go and spend the change on a nice cappuccino. We’re talking shows about people using fake identities on online dating, teenage pregnancies, and Geordie Shore. Really. They seem very keen on the ‘real life’ angle, even when that real life is incredibly dull. They even have a channel called Real Time devoted to it.

When it does make its own programmes, the minimum possible budget rule is generally still followed rigorously. Thus, they end up with a lot of poor ‘current affairs’ programmes, my favourite of which is the one where a man gets all the day’s newspapers and sits there highlighting parts as he reads them out. Cheap as chips, but much, much duller. They also have a hell of a lot of weirdly outdated game shows, which often involve a myriad of barely-clothed showgirls, known as veline. I’d rather not go on about how obviously damaging this presentation of women is; instead, it’s good to know that someone is doing something about it, even if the process seems to be taking a long time.

A pair of more generously clothed veline

I always knew we were spoilt in the UK with our world-renowned darling, the BBC, as well as top drawer commercial services like Channel 4. But I didn’t realise quite to what extent: there are really next to no decent dramas or comedies being made in Italy at the moment, apart from the excellent Commissario Montalbano, which itself was imported by BBC Four a few years back. I asked my Italian friend about this: surely there’s a demand for decent programming made in Italian? So why isn’t there any? The answer: in a word, Berlusconi.

Berlusconi’s media empire has pretty much single-handedly pulled the rug out from under Italian television. He started with Mediaset, a commercial competitor to the state broadcaster RAI, and won large audiences by pandering to the lowest common denominator, usually sex. A few years ago, Berlusconi also bought into RAI, and applied the same strategy again, so now there is little difference between the two networks. Add to this the financial pressure of the recession, and the lack of willingness to take risks, and it makes sense that they’re sticking to tired formats rather than pumping money into developing new ones.

Still, if someone were to stop me on the street tomorrow and offer me a job in Italian television, I’d take those risks and make better stuff. Italian television could still have the potential to go through the same cultural revolution that English television has gone through in recent years, becoming a more highly respected cultural pastime and a quality competitor to the cinema with its own artistic merits, rather than something to just have on in the background. Just make it happen before I leave in February, per favore.

Italy: Where everything (really, everything) gets its own festival

Festivals are what I call a good thing. We often forget about the pleasure of the little things in life, so having an occasion to focus on them and celebrate them can be no bad thing. The Italian word for ‘to celebrate’ is even ‘festeggiare’; festivals are in their blood, it seems.

And Italians love to celebrate. They’re famously, perhaps infamously, proud of their culture, especially when it comes to food. Not only would they laugh pityingly at the suggestion that any country’s cuisine might be superior to their own, but they are fiercely proud when it comes to regional specialties. Try asking any Italian where the best food in their country can be found, and they will undoubtedly claim their own region, and probably their own mamma/nonna’s kitchen.

Hence the endless festivals! I do not think I have been in Bologna a day when there has not been some sort of festival running. The first I actually went to was a tortellini festival, a Bolognese specialty that is now found across Italy. But of course, the Bolognese still do it best. How dare you suggest otherwise? The very idea of a tortellini festival pleased me immensely, reminding me of a friend from uni’s tendency to describe his incessant eating of Sainsburys tortellini (worryingly cheap, cooked in a few minutes; student essential) as a tortellini festival. The one I visited was significantly more extensive, but the two festivals had the same heart: a love for food and sharing it with friends.

Bologna’s tortellini festival was a popular affair, with over 20 chefs from around the city’s best restaurants stationed in a piazza, cooking up their wares to be tasted at a few euros a bowl. I had the joy of tasting the tortellini di parmigiano, carbone, funghi e nocciole (parmesan, charcoal, mushrooms and hazelnuts) from Trattoria Scaccomatto.

Okay, so I will admit it looks weird in this photo but I promise it was delicious, and entirely different to any pasta I’ve ever eaten before. Another joyous part of the festival was the availability of WINE BAGS. Along with the cupboard-dryer (see this post), we need these to hit the UK mainstream immediately. I forgot to take a photo in all the excitement, but a wine bag essentially hangs around your neck, snugly holding onto your glass of wine, leaving both hands free to eat with! This could only be normal in a country that puts the joy of food and wine above all else. I thought it was great.

How tortellini is made- from neat little squares.

Beat that, Sainsburys.

Other festivals that have gone on in the city since I’ve been here include a mortadella festival (a type of gloriously fatty ham), a water festival, a festival celebrating reading out loud, a techno music festival, and a books/art history festival. I decided to get in on the act by volunteering at a film festival, Terra di Tutti Film Festival, which took place at the Cineteca di Bologna, one of my favourite places in the city. I started by doing some translations into English for their website, and ended up volunteering at the festival itself at the weekend, earning me a very nice free t shirt and some new friends to boot.

The festival welcomes documentaries and social cinema from the southern hemisphere, aiming to bring to light some of the issues that ravage every day life for people in these regions. I was genuinely glad to have had the chance to be involved, something which no doubt improved my Italian too (I now have fun vocab at my disposal like information desk, badge and projection!). The spirit of celebrating good things can only be a good thing itself. I’m now looking forward to Bologna’s next big event: the famous Jazz Festival.

Biscuits, breakfast and the battle for toast

I’ve begun with an absurdly boring blog title, in what has actually been quite an eventful and cultural week. This week I’ve been to the opera, a music museum, out for delicious lunch and two equally delicious dinners, to see both a French and an Italian film, and volunteered at a film festival. But what’s on my mind? Biscuits. Sorry. At least there was a nice attempt at alliteration in the title.

It’s specifically these biscuits, the quite wonderful Pan di Stelle, that I’ve fallen for.

I was first offered one of these in Florence in 2013, which seems a strangely long time ago now, when Isobel and I were staying with a lovely Italian lady who offered us tea with these biscuits on our arrival. I hadn’t the heart to admit I wasn’t a fan of tea, especially because it was obvious she’d gone to a big effort to make the quiet, nervous English girls tea, so I sipped it meekly through pursed lips with a grimace that, looking back on it, probably could have been subtler. The biscuits, though, were a revelation, followed up by a purchase of at least 2 large bags during our 10 day stay. Just the right balance of nuts, cocoa and sugar. I tried to find them on my return to England but they haven’t made it there yet; I had them again in Rome in summer 2013, but they were always a bittersweet treat given that I knew I couldn’t bring them home. So I did the simple thing and moved my home to where the Pan di Stelle were.

I’m so glad we’re reunited. Even better, the biscuits are often on TV in this slightly creepy advert where the children live in a magical biscuit star world:

They’ve eaten too many Pan di Stelle and are in need of some Dulcolax, pronto.

I’m eating a lot of them. Breakfast, lunch, dinner, snack, pre-bed supper. Often spread with Nutella on top, I am ashamed to say. But before you go judging me for eating biscuits for breakfast, you should first know that this is actually an important moment of cultural assimilation, and not just a problem. Because, in Italy, the dreams of small children across England’s green and pleasant land come true, and biscuits-for-breakfast is a perfectly acceptable status quo. You can just pour yourself a glass of milk, dunk them in (Pan di Stelle make for excellent dunking) and nibble away. In the end it’s really not much more unhealthy than a generous bowl of Coco Pops, but it still feels like a decadent way to start the day.

Other breakfast items are harder to come by, though. The concept of toasters does not seem to have made its way over to Southern Europe, and in a bizarre response to this, Italy just sells ready-toasted bread. I mean, I think it’s toasted.

How long until we get an episode of ‘How It’s Made’ on these babies?

These things are called “fette biscottate”, roughly translating to “crisp slices”, or more neatly “rusks”. Through a quick Google search, I’ve discovered we do actually have these in the UK, but here they are a staple of the diet, and my experiments reveal that they go very nicely indeed with apricot jam or Nutella. I’m trying to slowly replace my standard breakfast of Special K with them for three main reasons. 1. Special K (or its supermarket own brand equivalent) is heinously expensive here. 2. UHT milk ruins it anyway. And 3. I’m hoping that this breakfast change is a symbol of a greater attempt to integrate and live la vita italiana, starting with the little things and moving onto such heights as tonight’s task: applying for a PAM supermarket loyalty card to fill the void my Nectar card has left in my purse. Time to grab the Pan de Stelle and get cracking.

Parma Palio 2014

In my very first attempt at editing video footage, here’s a short clip from the Palio at Parma a couple of weeks ago, starring for at least a few seconds my good friend Hannah. Apologies for bits of shaky video. I’m working on it!