Flying Meets Facebook

Just when you thought that an airplane might be the best place to get away from it all and truly unconnect in our highly-connected world, KLM has introduced "Meet and Seat", a service that links passengers' Facebook or LinkedIn accounts to the seating plan of a flight.  You can now see who will be on your flight, and you can then choose to sit beside someone more interesting than yourself.  Thankfully, I don't have a Facebook page and wouldn't share my Linked In profile in the hopes of getting a better seat mate.  Click on the link below, then click on the diagram of the airplane and a short video will run.  Sure looks like a dating service to me!

http://www.klm.com/travel/ca_en/prepare_for_travel/on_board/Your_seat_on_board/meet_and_seat.htm

Cooking with Gas

Francesco, our instructor

You can drop-out of language school, but that doesn't mean you should stop going to SCHOOL and stop LEARNING, right?  Well, that's exactly what I did last Friday night. I went back to school, but this time, it was cooking school. And what a treat is was!

Maria from Montreal, and me, at In Tavola

My friend Maria asked me if I wanted to take a cooking class at "In Tavola", a cooking school in Oltrarno, the other side of the river, a stone's throw from Palazzo Pitti. With nothing better to do on a very cold Friday night I said "sure" and off we went. We were greeted by Fabrizio, the owner, offered a glass of wine (naturally) and then we met our tutor for the evening, Francesco.  Francesco was everything you'd ever want in a cooking instructor: young, handsome, knowledgeable, multilingual, skilled in the kitchen, patient, and with a good sense of humour.  The task for the next 3 hours or so was to prepare a 5 course meal.

Maria, making crepes; Francesco cooking the eggplant

The menu was as follows: homemade crostini toscani, spaghetti in a simple tomatoe sauce, crepes with spinach and ricotta filling, pork roast stuffed with zucchini and wrapped in fried eggplant, and panna cotta with chocolate sauce.  We started with the panna cotta then worked our way back, often making two things at once.

Another class was happening at the same time as ours, but in a separate kitchen.  Towards the end of the evening, when everything was done, we all sat together and sampled our meals.  The other class consisted of a unilingual Japanese woman, and a mother and daughter duo from Perth, Australia.  They reminded me a bit of "Kath & Kim" but with a bit more money and a lot more class. They were on a 6-week 'round the world tour, and Firenze was their last stop.

The Other Class, and the communal table

As we got talking and the wine kicked in, it turns out they had been to THE MALL the previous day, where they were in Italian designer fashion discount shopping heaven. Seems the daughter had a bit of a shoe fetish as she had purchased 22 pairs of shoes on their trip and a separate suitcase to lug them all home. She was very proud to show-off her new Valentino boots, which had many sparkely-bits on the heel - very fashionable in this part of the world at the moment.

But back to cooking and the food. The food was delicious, plentiful, and Francesco's skill as a chef was evident in the meticulous presentation of each course.  But 5 courses is a lot to eat in 45 minutes so we were stuffed by the end of the evening.  No doggie bags were offered or asked for, and I suspect the other employees of the school eat very well indeed. A delicious experience from start to finish.



Bronzino!

Portrait of Eleonora of Toledo and son Giovanni, by Bronzino

So, I took myself to my local art gallery this afternoon – the Uffizi. There, I saw not one, not two, but ONE DOZEN paintings by Bronzino – all in one tiny little room. They were lovely portraits of long dead people, but they were alive in the paintings, and lonely in the gallery room. So…..I stayed and kept them company for a long while, admiring everything about them.  I am a better person for it, and the people in the paintings were still smiling as I left. I think they were secretly happy I visited with them.

Portrait of a Young Man with a Lute, by Bronzino

Turning the Page

One of the reasons I came to Italy was to learn the language.  After “studying” Italian, on and off (but mostly off) for nearly 20 years, I thought the time was right to immerse myself in school and finally learn it. Expectations were high all the way around – of others that I would be speaking like a native in no time; of myself that being surrounded by everything Italian would somehow help the language sink in.  Malcolm Gladwell, in one of his books, writes that you need to devote 10,000 hours of deliberate practice to become an expert at something. Even if I was speaking 24 hours of every day that I’m here, I would only get to about 6,500 hours. On a good day, I would maybe speak/practice 1.5 hours in total. The structure of class at school was not very conducive to the practical application of what we were being taught, so, I’ve stopped going to school. That’s a bit of a news flash! 

I completed Level 3 at Istituto Michelangelo at the end of January. In Level 3, you finish learning all the Italian grammar that there is to learn. The congiuntivo (4 tenses), the imperativo, the ipotetico, the passiva, the impersonale, the gerundio, the infinito, and the participio.  It was 5 weeks of very intensive study and towards the end, my brain was shutting down. Too much of a good thing, I think, plus it was really starting to feel like “work” and I was not having a good time.  While school got me up every morning at 7:15 and out the door, it was not the experience I had hoped for.  Now I’m turning my attention to reviewing what I’ve learned and applying it in everyday situations. Sounds like it should be easy, but I think it will be more difficult than attending school.  But that is the challenge ahead of me and today I embrace it with open arms.

There was a big up-side to going to school: it gave me some structure, a network of new friends from around the world, and more insight into the Italian psyche than I could have imagined.  My last bit of homework was to make a brief presentation to class about my experience at school.  My teacher, Luca, was looking for thoughts and impressions of class, but he would have been disappointed with what I would have said.  Instead, I sat back and thought more holistically about what I had really learned.  This is what I said:

“Quello che ho imparato all’Istituto”

Dopo aver fatto dieci settimani alla scuola, ho imparato la sequente:

1.    Ora, mi accorgo che imparare l’italiano è piu difficile di quanto sembra, sopratutto per un inglese.

2.    Ho imparato che tutti nel mondo è simile e tutti vogliono le stesse cose: un buon lavoro, una bella casa, il cibo sul tavola, la sicurezza, niente paura, di fronte un a mondo che cambia.

3.    No imparato molto sul il modo di vita italiano, il bene e il male, che rende l’Italia come un paese interessante.

4.    Avendo avuto quattro classe, tre insegnanti, e sedici studenti diversi, ho imparato di accettare il cambiamento.

5.    Avendo avuto freddo la prima volta, ho imparato da indossare i vestiti caldo.

6.    Ho imparato molto su tanti paesi diversi, sopratutto Brasile, Messico, Spagna, Russie, Irlande, è Polonia.

7.    Ho incontrato tante persone meravigliose da quando 14 novembre, quando ho iniziato la scuola qui.  In totale, ho avuto seidici compagni di classe diversa.

8.    Ho imparato quanto sia fortunato sono io di essere Canadesi, e vivere in un paese tollerente e generoso.

9.    Mi sento come se fossi appena iniziato il mio viaggio per imparare l'italiano, e la scuola mi ha dato una solida base per continuare.

10. Io ho imparato che è molto importante per celebrare la partenze di qualcuno, e io sono felice di festiggare il mio oggi.

Sono triste di lasciare oggi, ma sono felice che sarò di fare cose diverse in futuro.  Ci vediamo un’altra volta, e buon divertimento sul cammino della vita. Zak

ENGLISH TRANSLATION:

What I Learned at the Institute

After having had ten weeks at school, I’ve learned the following:

1.    Now, I realize that learning Italian is harder than it seems, especially for an English-speaking person.

2.    I have learned that everyone in the world is the same and we all want the same things: a good job, a nice house, security, food on the table, in the face of a changing world.

3.    I learned a lot about the Italian way of life, the good and the bad, that makes Italy such an interesting country.

4.    After having had 4 different classes, 3 teachers, and 16 different classmates, I’ve learned how to accept/embrace change.

5.    After having been cold the first time, I’ve learned how to dress warmly.

6.    I have learned a lot about many different countries, especially Brazil, Mexico, Spain, Russia, Ireland and Poland.

7.    I have met some wonderful people since November 14 when I started school here. In total, I’ve had 16 different classmates.

8.    I have learned how fortunate I am to be Canadian, and to live in a tolerant and generous country.

9.    I feel like I am just starting my journey to learn Italian, and school has given me a solid base to continue.

10. I have learned that it is very important to celebrate the departure of someone, and I am happy to be celebrating mine today.

I am sad to be leaving today, but happy to be doing different things in the future. See you another time and have fun on life’s journey. Zak

Me, Carlos, Luca (teacher), John, Annette, Michelangelo, Anna - the final class.

I was not the only one leaving that day. Anna from Poland and Annette from Ireland were also leaving – Anna to go back to work; Annette was moving her family from Siena back to Berlin.  So we continued the tradition I had started when someone leaves class: we had 2 bottles of Prosecco, one bottle of Fragolino (a sweet, strawberry sparkling wine – very yummy), a cake, and a tray of sweets! It was a great party and the best way to end school.

Milano - Part 2 - Pictures!

This is the train that took me from Firenze to Milano - 1hr, 45m door-to-door, often at 300km per hour. I love the trains here.

This is another picture of Milano's Stazione Centrale.......beautiful!

Alright, ENOUGH about the train station!

This is the Peace Arch in Parco Sempione, in Piazza Sempione. I think every city needs an elegant Peace Arch!

This is the man-made cross-country ski course that I spotted on my stroll through Parco Sempione. I thought is was a left over from the Christmas holidays...that was until I saw someone using it.  Turns out you could rent skiis & boots and go for a "giro". That was all splendid, but it was sunny and 12 degrees C that day!  You've got to admire the Milanese: they live about an hour from the Alps, but build a ski course in the middle of the city.  No fear of the snow melting this week. The whole north of Italy is blanketed with snow, and today it's -5 in Milano. The skiers will be very happy.

 

This is the VERY large demonstration that happened in Piazza del Duomo on Sunday morning.  It was organized by the Northern League, which has as one of its aims, the separation of the northern part of Italy (Roma on up) from the South.  Seems the rich are tired of supporting their poorer brothers and sisters. Separation: echos of Quebec circa 1976.

This is something you don't see everyday - a license plate from the Principality of Monaco. Long Live Grace Kelly! The car was very nice too.

This is an example of the general signage for the current "exhibit" at the Triennale Design Museum, also in Parco Sempione.  The Triennale is a WONDERFUL museo, devoted to Italian design. It's a rather new museum (2007), and every 18 months or so, the whole musuem "renews" itself. They've only had 4 "exhibits" and the current one highlights the history of Italian design, Italian "dream factories" - small to large design firms located within 100km of Milano, the design "process" (and it is a process, which was facinating to learn about) and how designers push the envelope of their work to create superb products, and flops. It was a highlight.

This rather imposing building is the Castello Sforzesco. I think every city deserves a castle.

This is the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II, at night. I wanted to capture the lighting (didn't do a good job there) but also the marble floor, which is as smooth as a plate of glass.  I wonder how they did that!

This was a statue in Parco Sempione - I just liked the lighting.

This is a statue of Cesare Beccaria (rhymes with Zaccaria!) and well, I love statuary. I also live two minutes from Piazza Beccaria, and I often wondered who Beccaria was. Well, it turns out he's from Milano, and wrote a famous thought piece in 1764 called "On Crimes and Punishment" in which he argued (among other things) the abolition of captial punishment.  The Grand Duchy of Tuscany was the first state to abolish the death penalty and we have Beccaria to thank for that.

This grand statue is the inside of the "Brera", Milano's main art gallery. It is more formally known as Pinacoteca di Brera, pinacoteca being italian for "picture gallery." Anyway, the Brera is a JEWEL. Lots of religious Renaissance art, mostly from northern Italy, some of it magnificent. In one room, there were 20 paintings and 14 of them had an image of baby Jesus. I sensed a theme happening there! There were also two gallery rooms which contained huge restoration chambers/rooms, so you could witness paintings being restored. Quite faciniating.  The Brera also has some of the largest pictures/paintings I've ever seen, stemming from Venezia. Seems that all that dampness in Venice is not conducive for frescos, so the Venetians had (literally) wall-sized painting done for their palazzi.  How do you get a canvass that big? Well, you sew serveral canvasses together, then create the painting. How ingenious!

Vivienne Westwood

These lovely pink shoes were 400 euros a pair.

This is a sampling of some of the 2012 Spring fashions that adorned the shop windows in Milano.  Milano, next to New York City, is a shoppers paradise. The high-end designer boutiques along Via della Spiga and Via Montenapoleone are true magnificent. Seems if you want to get people into your store, the best thing to do is keep them out. At three or four stores, there were bouncers with ear pieces, stanchions with red rope, and people lined up to get into the stores! I saw the same thing at Tiffany's in Firenze at Christmas time, but it's a very small store, so I could understand a bit of crowd control.  But some of these stores looked empty inside. Oh well, the rich really are different.  And that was my trip to Milano.

Teatro del Sale

Last Thursday, I had a date with my friend Anna from Poland.  We took ourselves to the Teatro del Sale.  It was a one-of-a-kind experience for Firenze because it’s the only dinner theatre in Firenze and worth every bit of the €30 we paid for the evening.  As with many establishments in Italy, you have to become a “member” of the “private association/club” to participate.   You fill out an application and sign a form and for €5 you become a “member” and they give you a nice membership card. Personally, I think it’s a way to get around whatever kind of vague liquor laws they have here, plus it’s a way to keep you out if they don’t like the looks of you.  Dinner was called for 19:00 hours, which is incredibly early here, but we went and signed our forms and became members – all with the greatest spirit of adventure.

The Teatro is just one big room with a small stage.  There is a big open kitchen, a bit of a mercato when you walk in, and a small foyer with two comfy chairs.  The “occasion” that evening was the launch of a local vintner’s new red wine, so we had a glass, and sat at a table.  The tables are all communal tables, but it wasn’t very full, so Anna and I had a table all to ourselves – that is until I spotted a nice Asian woman sitting all by herself.  I went over and asked if she would care to join us.  With a big smile and in fairly good English, she said “Yes!” and joined us. Her English name was Vickie and I don’t quite remember her Chinese name. Vickie was 29, the proprietress of two hotels in Beijing, and was in Italy for the first time for 2 weeks (Roma, Firenze & Venezia.)  We were interested in knowing how someone so young could be the owner of two successful hotels in Beijing and the answer came back: my father knows people in the government.  Vickie was a lovely dinner date and we had interesting table talk.

Vickie, me, and Anna

Dinner at the Teatro is self-serve.  Every so often, the cook comes to the window of the kitchen and yells out the details of the next course of the meal.  Everyone gets up, goes to the kitchen, and gets a plate of food.  The food was incredible, plentiful, and by the end I hardly had room for the lovely chocolate torte and caffe they were serving.  All this eating and drinking and talking took about 2 hours at which time all the tables and chairs and dishes were whisked away and all the chairs were assembled, theatre-style, in front of the stage.



La cucina at Teatro del Sale.

The owner of Teatro del Sale (and a few other well-heeled establishments), one Signore Fabio Picchi, then came out and gave a little pre-show show. He’s a bit like Santa Claus on speed but he’s fun and entertaining and introduced the performers for the evening – a jazz duet of guitar and piano.  For the next hour, we are given an acoustic jazz concert that was second to none. The rapport between the two musicians was truly MAGICAL, and all I could think about while listening to the concert was: I wish Richard Scott was here. He would totally appreciate this experience!   The only drawback to the whole evening were the two women behind us who insisted on talking throughout the performance, despite my best “if looks could kill, you two ladies would be dead by now” stares.  I was later informed by Luca at school that this type of behaviour (which I’ve witnessed several times now) is, in fact, the norm.  Clearly there’s a problem over here with attention deficit disorder!  As promptly as things started, they ended, and we were all better for the experience.  It was a great way to spend a Thursday night in Firenze.

Milano - Part 1

Basso Relievo (Bas Relief) on the Museo del Novocento, Milano, Gennaio 2012

I can’t say I liked being wrong.

But sometimes being wrong is the best thing.  It means there’s room to grow and learn and there seems to be a lot of that happening these days.

The situation went something like this:

…..I had taken the train down to Roma on Saturday morning with my new friend Natalia. I was off to visit Anna S. for the weekend, and Natalia had arranged to visit a family friend. I offered to walk with her to the obelisk in Piazza San Pietro since it’s not too far from Anna’s apartment. The sun was shining and it was warmish and Natalia and I had a splendid time together walking from the Piazza di Spagna, down Via dei Condotti (which is littered with high-end stores), and across Ponte Sant’Angelo (which is littered with Statues) to her rendezvous point at the Vatican.

I also had a splendid time with Anna, as we always do, and much of the weekend was spent sleeping and eating.  On Saturday night, I had the privilege of meeting and dining with Amelia, one of Anna’s lifelong friends. Amelia and her husband Larry (Lorenzo) were in Roma for 10 days and had just arrived from the US. The four of us repeated dinner on Sunday night at a typical Roman trattoria. 

We were discussing Amelia’s PhD and medieval history and somehow we got onto the topic of Milano and architecture. I was in Milano the previous weekend and was going on about how much I was appreciating “Fascist Architecture.”

Now, that statement requires a bit of context.

Milano is a city of contrasts. When you get off the train at the Stazione Centrale, you are greeted by a most grand railway station. 

Stazione Centrale, Milano, Exterior View

It’s a mix of architectural styles (Art Nouveau (aka Stile Liberty in Italy) and Art Deco) having been designed at the beginning of the 20^th century and completed in 1931 under the heavy hand of Benito Mussolini.  It is grand is everyway and begs to be photographed.

Stazione Centrale, Milano, Entrance Portico

Walk out of the station, and you’re greeting by one of the first high-rise office towers build it Italy – the Pirelli Tower – until recently the tallest building in Italy.

Stazione Centrale, Milano, East Entrance Portico; Pirelli Tower is on the left

 Stroll down Via Vittor Pisani and you walk by some uninspiring 1960’s office buildings. Stroll further down Via Alessandro Manzoni, and you walk by the Armani Hotel, La Scala (the opera house), fabulous shops and then you land in the Piazza del Duomo, where you cannot help but be in awe of the second largest church in the world – Milano’s Duomo (late Gothic).

The Armani Hotel, Milano

The Duomo, Milano

Museo del Novocento, Milano



Twin of  the Museo del Novocento, Milano

Also in Piazza del Duomo is the new Museo del Novocento, housed in a building which really is Fascist Architecture and also built by Mussolini.  On the opposite side is the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II, another grand, Neo-Classical building from 1877.

Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II at night, Milano

Against this cacophony of architectural styles is “Fascist Architecture” or “Razionalismo Italiano” which developed at the same time as Art Deco, so it’s hard to distinguish the two.  Milano has several fine examples of this type of architecture.

Cassa di Risparmio delle Provincie Lombardy, Milano

The first time I visited Italy back in 1992 or 1993, I remember being in Roma with Alan (my long ago-ex) and seeing my first examples of fascist architecture – the buildings stood out like sore thumbs against the rich palate of styles in the eternal city. They seemed grey and square and blunt and minimalist to the extreme. I didn’t appreciate what I was viewing at the time, but this trip I did. Just as my eye is developing for different periods of art, it’s also developing for architecture.

Loggia, Cassa di Risparmio delle Provincie Lombardy, Milano

So…back to dinner.

…. I was telling my dinner companions what was appealing to me about some of the buildings: the strong, clean lines, the scale of the buildings, the simplicity of their ornamentation, and just how different they were from the opulent styles of previous 100 years.

Istituto Nationale Assicurazione, Milano

I referenced, wrongly, Arts and Crafts architecture (which preceded Art Nouveau) as being “ornamental” and was prompted corrected!  My art movement timelines were getting all mixed up (must have been the wine) but I was clearly wrong, and so I did what good dinner guests do in situations like that, I changed the subject. Whew!

In the end though, being wrong made me delve into Wikipedia for a few hours today and now I think I have my art history and architectural timelines more or less in order.  Arts and Crafts architecture was not ornamental, but it was a distinct style, different from Neo-Classical and Art Nouveau.

Sometimes, being wrong is a blessing in disguise.  And Milano was great fun!