I Learned Italian - and So Can You!

I'm happy to report that after many years of unsuccessful language study, I was able to learn Italian in a few short weeks. I'm hoping this post will help all of you follow it my footsteps and enjoy my success.

Lesson 1: There are three volume levels in which it's appropriate to speak Italian: loud, loudest and Top of Lungs. Please note that any volume that seems required for a quieter atmosphere (like a nice restaurant) should be completely disregarded and be set to 'loud' at a minimum. If the American tourists at the next table aren't covering their ears, then you're being too quiet. If ever in doubt, select 'Top of Lungs.'

Lesson 2: In Italian, the words themselves are less important than hand gestures. This lack of focus on vocabulary was the key to my quick study! There are several general categories of hand (or sometimes full-body) gestures you can select from.

Group 1: Exasperation. This expression can be subtle, such as hands placed on your hips in combination with a well-placed dirty look (such as when a tourist meekly asks 'may I have a menu please?'). The gestures generally escalate to grander levels including hands raised overhead in a Y-shape, featuring either shaking fists or open palms (also known as the 'Praise Jesus' pose). Don't forget to tailor your volume to the appropriate level of Exasperation -- louder is generally better. Also, there is no need to wait for a legitimate reason to become exasperated with someone. In fact, the more oddly-placed the reaction (such as flipping your lid for having to wait for a pedestrian to cross the street), the more culturally appropriate.

Group 2: Accusation. This group of expressions is often used after Exasperation, but is in no way required. Features of this group usually feature a shaking fist or an index finger pointing sharply in another's face (the closer the better). That same accusing finger can then be used to point at a variety of objects to indicate the source of your frustration (such as 'You did too order the mushroom and peanut butter pizza and by God you're going to eat it!'). Don't forget the finger can also be pointed at "The Heavens" to invoke the wrath of God, although this generally works better in close proximity to The Vatican.

Group 3: Elation. Elation is the rarest of expressions, and therefore the most tricky. Elation can only be used after repeated cycles of Exasperation and Accusation. Just when you've really worked yourself into a lather, you must pause as though you're about to escalate to physical violence. While maintaining intense eye contact, you must quickly reverse course and break out into manic laughter. Grab the person tightly by the shoulders and cheek-to-cheek kiss them repeatedly. This expression is reserved for other Italians only -- no tourists. Be sure to remember to adopt your sour expression after a short course Elation.

There you have it -- only a few short lessons and you're fluent. I hope this short course on Italian will prove helpful on your next trip. Feel free to intersperse some actual vocabulary memorization as needed.

Italy in a Nutshell

Unfortunately, my procrastination on the blog is going to result in some high-level summaries of some of the places we've been lately. Perhaps my subconscious is shirking off any type of activity that distantly resembles responsibility. I'd like to think I was simply embracing the way of life here in Italy -- I'll get to it when ever the heck I feel like getting to it! Nevertheless, time in Italy was spent and needs to be written about.

Overall, I'd say the experience was a mixed bag. Our mistake was to start with one of the most beautiful places I'd ever been -- Cinque Terre. This is an area of Italian coastline that is really five small villages that are joined by a very hot, rickety local train line or some of the most beautiful hiking that exists.

These towns are indescribably etched into the stone mountain side resulting in steep, winding streets and sidewalks that seem to lead everywhere and nowhere all at the same time. There are also many terraced grape vineyards with small wineries nestled along the cliffs. The hiking was as beautiful as it was perilous -- many places had trails that were only about 18 inches wide had foot traffic going in both directions. Falling off would result in a long slide down a cliff (landing on some picnickers or sunbathers, no doubt). No railing or safety measures here. We skipped the wineries (the hiking was too challenging and all we really wanted was more water) but opted for many lazy afternoons under an umbrella or lazing in the warm ocean. In short, it was heaven on Earth.

To be fair, many beautiful places would pale in comparison to Cinque Terre, so it's only normal that we were somewhat let down by Florence. Florence was generally dirty, with a run down semi-suburban feel. Our big mistake was to disregard some advice to purchase museum tickets in advance (we'd been standing in line for several months at this point, why get fancy now?). This would prove to be a huge mistake. Getting into the museum that houses Michelangelo's David would prove to be over three hours of standing in the hot sun -- only to spent about 30 minutes in the museum itself. We were plagued with long lines, odd museum hours and an oppressive heat that was most easily escaped by going back to our apartment. In the end we didn't see much and weren't too sad to leave.

Our final stop of Rome was better in ways, not in others. We got off on a bad foot by getting incorrect directions from the Hotel website who insisted it was an easy walk from the train station. It would have been, had they provided the correct location on the map, not one that was over two miles in the wrong direction. The locals spoke only the most basic English and no one could really help us. We located an Internet cafe, where AC discovered that he never received a confirmation of our reservation. In addition to not being able to find the place, we're not sure if we even have a reservation! We found ourselves back at the train station (we were out of cash and every ATM we tried wouldn't take our card) and saw an ad for our hotel! Let's just say this ad resulted in a huge misunderstanding with the hotel that still makes my blood boil, so I'll write about it separately. :)

Rome itself was just beautiful. We started our time in the Vatican, where the Pope is treated like a rock star, and the treasures of the church are like none I'd ever seen. AC explained that many of these riches were actually stolen during the Crusades, a fact that the museums categorically overlooked. Other highlights include The Coliseum and the vast ruins of ancient Rome (like nothing I'd ever seen), the Sistine Chapel and all the other amazing places you'd expect to see on your first time to Rome. If you've never been, it's a must-see place.

One last observation about Rome was the food. In other Italian cities we had found a nice variety of cuisines to choose from. Rome was 99.97% Italian food. This would normally be great, but after several weeks I felt as if I had to eat one more slice of pizza I would explode ... the button off my shorts to be specific. It was a carb-laden time, but we were sad to see Europe go, and equally excited to get away from the Euro and awful exchange rates.

Zur-ick!

Let me just come right out and say it -- I didn't care for Zurich. It's not that it was particularly bad or anything, but it wasn't particularly good either. The kicker for me was the expense!
I realize I was complaining about the exchange rate when we were using British pounds and was glad to start using the Euro. We heard that Switzerland didn't use the Euro, but little did I know how fiercely independent they were. The Swiss franc is about even with the US dollar, but damn everything is so expense. Just to give you a taste:

Paperback book - 22.00
McDonald's Happy Meal - 12.00
Plate of Nachos - 20.00
Bottle of Corona - 8.50
Cheapest bottle of wine - 50.00
Lunch on the train - 100.00

That lunch hit particularly hard. A plain chicken breast on top of some noodles with four beers shared among our friends. Ouch!

To make things even more interesting, our hotel was directly above a complex of gay bars. We should have been suspicious when each nightstand had a pair of earplugs free of charge. Nothing is free in Zurich my friends, but our room was pretty loud. AC had trouble sleeping because he kept hearing Madonna songs and got too excited to sleep.

We're now headed into Italy for our final leg of our European tour -- Italy. I've only been to Venice and all I remember is the dirty water and pickpockets. Let's hope for a pleasant surprise!

The Matterhorn

AC had somehow heard of Zermatt Switzerland in the past and it really stuck with him. I think it was on the Today show on that 'Where in the World is Matt Lauer' segment. Anyway, we grossly underestimated the amount of time it was going to take to get there from Salzburg. In all, we had to take three separate trains and travel over 10 hours to get there.

If you ask me, it was well worth it. Zermatt is a tiny skiing village nestled at the base of the Matterhorn (you have to go through many small mountain towns to get there -- my favorite was Saint Niklaus). Zermatt is a very environmentally-conscious town, and there are no cars allowed in the city. The primary mode of transportation is golf cart! Unfortunately it was pouring rain when we got there (and 90% of our time there).

The whole golf cart thing got a lot less cute when our driver from the hotel came and picked us up. Three of us had to sit with our bags in the flatbed portion of the cart with just an umbrella to shield our legs from the rain. At every bump I was sure I was going to get ejected onto the street!

First thing in the morning, we tackled the Matterhorn. There are innumerable trams that go to various parts of the mountain, but because the weather wasn't cooperating with us a lot of the good ones were closed. We took it as high as it would take us and the view was pretty spectacular. We were just under the snow line, which ruined my snowball fight fantasy. In the end, it was a bit pricey to get up there and not get to the snow, but I'm glad we did it.
Our travel buddies were a less impressed by Zermatt and kindly asked if we could leave early and head for somewhere a little more populated. Since we'd been dictating the route thus far, it was only fair so we headed for Zurich.

The Sound of Music

Salzburg is home to many interesting things that we're well-familiar with in the US. Mozart, The Sound of Music to name a few. Did we check out any of those areas? Heck no.

The first thing we did was take a tram up to the Festung Holzensalzburg castle, which is perched on the mountainside overlooking Salzburg. Not only does it house some historical information about the palace itself, but holds a few museums on assorted subjects. The stand out (for me) was the marionette museum. It could only be described as creepy - smelling of mildew and the various Sound of Music Characters and lines of can-can girls eerily smiled and stared off into space. The stuff that nightmares are made of, at least for me. It also contained the most colorful graveyard we'd ever seen, and catacombs that were carved directly into the side of the mountain.

Hands down, the nicest thing we saw were the Wierfen Ice Caves. It's about 40 minutes of hiking and a tram ride up to a sizable height of the Austrian Alps. The guide hands a select group of participants a small kerosene lantern, which promptly blows out as they open the door and you are blasted by an arctic gale of wind going anywhere from 60 - 100 km/hour and is -1C (~30F). As they relight all the lamps and your eyes adjust, you begin to see the sides and soaring ceiling of the cave and the ice that coats most of the walls. In all, you hike over 1000 steps through ice formations that look like polar bears, elephants, and one room that looked like it was straight out of Superman and the Fortress of Solitude. AC diligently tried to take pictures (even though it was strictly forbidden), but none of them really turned out.

After about an hour of hiking in the freezing cold, we were more than ready to get the heck out of there. My toes thawed out on our hike back down the mountain, as we reflected on one of the coolest things we'd ever seen - no pun intended!

Vienna

Still somewhat recovering from being the host country of the EuroCup, Vienna was yet another beautiful stop on our trip. As we were down to just two travelers (AC and I), I felt a bit more comfortable dictating our tour stops. We made a beeline to the Albertina, which was the former home of the Viennese monarchy, and is now a fine art museum. In addition to an impressive permanent collection, they had very interesting exhibitions of Oskar Kokoschka and Paul Klee (both of whom we were unfamiliar, but really enjoyed!). The top floor of the building has been restored to its original palatial elegance, which was gaudy but neat to see.

I was not the only one excited by the local museums. AC is a freak about ancient Egypt, and we were lucky enough to catch the traveling exhibition of King Tut. It was totally mind-blowing. Beside the fact that you're looking at treasures from 3000+ years ago (many of which look good as new), he has an fascinating story I wasn't aware of.
King Tut was literally the boy king, assuming the throne at the age of 10. In ancient Egyptian culture, your transition into the afterlife was more important than your life on Earth. Typically a king immediately began to prepare for his death upon his coronation. Little did anyone know that his death would come so soon -- at the age of 19. It's unclear what happened, but what they do know is he must have seriously pissed someone off. In addition to speculation that his untimely death was a result of some shady dealings (scholars currently think, however, he may have died from a broken leg) they tried to wipe him completely from history. His name was removed from all records, all statues in his image were changed or destroyed and he was largely forgotten. This is particularly devastating in their culture because the more you were remembered the better you fared in the afterlife. Being forgotten was worse than anything.

But their plan backfired. Unfortunately, being a 'famous' dead king meant everyone knew where you were buried. Thieves often ransacked their crypts and stole all the precious items leaving very little behind. This makes archaeological discovery difficult -- but this was not the case for King Tut. Since they took such great pains to erase him from the history record, his crypt was kept in tact until its eventual discovery in the 1920s. Although his hurried burial made the crypt look like a rush packing job, it was the most complete find ever and took over 10 years to recover and catalog all the items.

The end result was that King Tut is not only very remembered, but is now the most famous Egyptian King in all the world! I'm not a believer in the afterlife personally, but I couldn't resist hoping that King Tut was slyly smiling somewhere enjoying an awesome afterlife because of his new-found fame.

Budapest Pride - HungAryan?

Our friends that we made in the Czech Republic went to visit a friend in Budapest for the Hungarian Pride Celebration. We were originally going to tag along, but ended up going to Vienna instead.

We got the love parade (featuring the fastest dance music we'd ever heard!)

They got the hate parade!

Budapest Gay Pride march attacked