Compare and contrast...

Archive post September 10, 2019…

I am in North Carolina… NC, for short. It’s America. Photo on the left. Bucolic, no? In about 9 hours, I will hop on three airplanes to come home to il Poggiolo a Codiponte. It’s in Italy. Photo on the right. Majestic, ne? Let’s compare and contrast, shall we?

The Similarities…

Life in an NC gated community sort of matches il Poggiolo’s gated community. Have to wave at the fellows manning the NC gate. Enthusiastic wavers. They offend easily though. Then they might call the police! At il Poggiolo, no guards. Just dogs. One barks. The other wags her tail. Got 3 gates.

The NC local folk speak English. Accent is a twang. On Good Days, I can fathom its wang-whaw. A verbal fingernails down a blackboard. Ouch! On Bad Days, I AUTO-DELETE. Too hard to figure what has been said. Or, from impatience. I dislike waiting for info. Takes awhile for the NC-ians to spit it out. Takes more time if they have dentures. A lot do. In Codiponte, Italian is the lingua franca for the locals. Barely. By habit, they habitually speak in an incomprehensible dialect. Imagine slamming verbs & nouns into mush. More mush, if missing teeth. And many are.

And with that, thus end the Similarities.

The differences are many more…

Views of golf course fairways studded with pine trees and scrub oaks against panoramas of the mighty Apuane Peaks. That Dog included.

NC has sandy soil. Perfect for golf course saw-grasses. Magnolias, azaleas and grass need hep’. Imported soil and fertilizer. A ga-zillions years ago, the place was under the ocean. Today, it is well above ground and hosts 51 golf courses. Horse farms have their corners of sand & pines too. Unmistakable scent of pine needles mixed with consistent & sopping humidity. Codiponte is surrounded by forests. A compilation of chestnuts, oaks, and a growing population of acacias. The last leaves a flowery perfume in the air near May. Think honey too. The greenery is occasionally interrupted by a castle keep or, a stone village. A ga-zillions years ago, volcanos were dominant. Their gracious bio-donations, so to speak, means you can grow anything with glee. Got to be ready to can or freeze the stuff so it won’t go bad. You can survive the Winter and avoid a trip to the supermercato.

In NC, you can choose from over 20 fast-food restaurants all within 10 minutes. 7 days a week. Not Chick-fil-ee. They close on Sunday. Management says you are supposed to go to church and rest. God did. Well, not the church part but, he did take time off to admire His Work, I suppose. Fast-food may not be your thing. When in NC, I try to limit visits to 1 or 2 times a week. I can feel the effects, if I succumb to the strong temptations to increase the number of visits. Like a school menu, Burger King on Monday, Bojangles on Tuesday… Biscuitville on Saturday!!! A heaven. My Loves are McDonald’s sausage & egg biscuits and anything over the counter at Chick-fil-ee. But, if ya’ got a hankerin’ fer sompin’ diff-er-rent, you can tootle over in your automatic drive SUV and get yerself som KFC chicken-pot-pie. Yum-yum. The folk in NC love fast-food. Lots a families. Lots of retirees. No time. They do drive-thru. Often there are 2 lanes! Normal restaurants are likewise parts of chains or, there are a few independent eateries which are considered -spensive. And apparently, no one cooks though many have fabulously large & well equipped kitchens. Sadly, there is ABSOLUTELY no fast food in Codiponte, except for maybe the past due-date panini over at the Scuzzy Bar. The nearest restaurant to Codiponte is a 30 minute drive away. Pasta is far better. The nearest authentic fast-food to il Poggiolo is in Sarzana, a long hour’s drive away. A McDonald’s. Breakfast though is a bust. Biscuits do not taste like those in NC. And, Italians really are not raised on breakfast. Caffe al latte e un biscotto ain’t breakfast. But, hey! The McDonald’s is open until Midnight! NC can’t come near that. 10PM.

TV is fun in NC. 405 cable stations. You have such a sense of control with the remote. Point and shoot. Very American. Especially of late. However, you must accept, right from the start, that if you are not into sports or episodic series about serial killers in high heels, then, there’s NOTHING interesting to watch. Netflix included. ZILCH. TV is disappointing in Italy. Or, it was the last time I watched. It’s been a while. I do not have a TV at il Poggiolo. I stream on a laptop. Or, hey! I read a book. What a novelty.

There are mobile homes in NC. In Italy, that would translate into a living in a tent or, under a bridge. Or, temporary quarters after an earthquake. If circumstances allow, you can have a house in any style you want in NC and, as big as you dare to build. A residential Disneyland of style & size. Who cleans these mansions? In Codiponte, Tuscany, Italy, you have three choices: a house in stone with a terracotta roof, an homogenized stucco house with weird roof lines and decorative grill work or, find a happy home in the stair-stepped Commie House above the village. A dream come true for some. Not me.

America, and NC is automatically included, is an irresistible drug of convenience, availability and choice. The true Gods of the nation. And, overwhelmingly so. Cars with automatic drive. I kept engaging the pedalled Parking Brake thinking it was the Clutch pedal. Went nowhere fast until I broke myself of the habit. AC is everywhere and at bone chilling temps. Don’t forget your sweater. A parka would be better. Huge multi-laned roads course hither & yon in NC, with left turn lanes… sometimes 2 lanes to go left or, right… and with assigned traffic turn-lights too. Grocery stores… did you know you can have low-fat Half&Half? I counted 16 varieties of potato-chips and peanut-butter? Gluten Free, Low Sodium, Low Sugar, No Sugar, Low Oil, No Preservatives!!!… and pharmacies are all open 24/7. You can buy car tires in Walmart, while you are waiting for your heart medicine at its in-store pharmacy. Starbucks on every corner. Drive-thru included. Go inside. The lines are shorter. Ditto for gas-stations. 9 brands of gasoline. 3 types of unleaded. Often they crowd.

American requires balls. Or, stamina. I am an out-of-shape ex-pat when there. But, after a few days, I adapt with gusto. Italy is put aside until I hit the catch…

Forget plain & simple in America. Nowhere to be found. A friend asked me to buy and bring back Crest Toothpaste. Plain, simple, ordinary Crest Toothpaste. She likes the taste. No problem, I said. That used to be important once-upon-a-time. Ordinary was thrown out in the 90’s by the marketiers. They perceived the market was ready and needy for more singularly focused dental-care products. Another God. All the better to capture attention in self-service stores. Americans run crazed about the slightest defect. Toothpaste for whitening, anti-cavity, total f**cking protection. Nothing plain, nothing simple, nothing regular, nothing ordinary. A toothpaste which is toothpaste? Nope. Not an interesting exercise in chemistry or marketing. It has to do something more… focus on one freaking dental-care issue per product. It’s a dupe. Toothpaste can only clean. Stop. Anything else is a fraud. Of no interest on anyone’s radar. Americans think differently. I persisted to pursue. I went to 9 stores. 9 grocery and drug stores, plus a Walmart. Walmart had the worst stock, by the way. Was told by a nice woman in a ill-fitting blue Walmart smock she had never seen plain, simple… Crest.

Italy, and Codiponte well belongs here, is blessedly the opposite. To NC and America, there are embarrassingly few choices. Different. Most cars are manual. That may change with the forced introduction of electric cars. However, electricity is massively expensive and for a car, will be more so than gas. Just saying. AC is for hotels. For Americans. Movie theaters are not AC-ed. Italians rarely risk eating ethnic. Suspect. And, why should they? Their cooking is genius. Why screw around with it or, risk diarrhoea. You know? A hamburger in Italy comes out of a micro-wave. Not hard to think why. Grocery stores are not open 24/7. Many close for the pausa pranzo at Mid-day or, afternoons one day-a-week. Starbucks are ONLY in airports… if even there… and you have to sweat to find a gas station unless you are travelling on an autostrada. But even then, you sweat. And, I would get laughed out of the country, if I were to ask for low-fat panna. Done. A paradise of plain, simple, ordinary wonderfulness. Familiar. Fast too. Nothing to ponder, debate, weigh the pro’s or con’s. See, grab, go.

End of the story? Not quite. I cannot wait to get back.

Italy to Emerald City USA...

Archive post November 29, 2018…

I traditionally vacate the Italian peninsula for Thanksgiving. Done 30+ yrs. of trans-Atlantic travel in or around the last Thursday of the last full week of the next to last month of the year of November. Got that?

Now, it is pretty obvious, just listening to my heavily American accented Italian that, lo’ & behold, I am an American! Unavoidably so. The Codipontesi mimic My Dog Commands in Americanized English… Come on being the more frequent phrase heard. The accent is a worrisome fact though. Hard as I try to roll those r’s… especially the 2 found in my first name… use big words like coniugare, pronunciare, pontificare or, throwing in obscure exclamations such as, Canta che ti passa, none disguise my oltre l’oceano origins.

Most of the surrounding Italians march past all that. My American-ness appeals. They do think I talk like the dubbed Laurel & Hardy… Stanley e Olio in Italian. They are instantly recognizable and adored for the heavily American accented Italian slap-stick. What they ARE truly wanting to know is…

Quando vai in America?

I gush, swallowing the last bit of brioche and noting that some of my cappuccino landed at stomach-level on my COS sweater before replying… Thanksgiving! Getting a blank look, I quickly translate… per il Giorno di Ringraziamento. Less of a blank look. Then, swiftly comes… Come vorrei accompagnarti in America! Eyes bright as Emerald City, for cryin’ out loud. Off they go and I am left with the sensation the Italians think America is akin to Dorothy and her tag-alongs of Toto, the Tin Man, Scarecrow and the Cowardly Lion skipping on the Yellow Brick Road to savor the fun, and have granted a wish or 2, in Emerald City. A perennial Thanksgiving TV favorite… in America, that is.

Requires substitutions, alterations. The Italians are prepared. They’ve study America. TV is the culprit, again. Italians like spectacle. BIG fantasies too: BIG trucks, BIG buildings, BIG shopping and BIG food. A BIG 50 State buffet of anything you want in any quantity in any location. It dazzles and delights. A dream.

Here I am, in Emerald City USA. AKA North Carolina. And a rather different experience to what my Italian friends will expect to hear from me upon my return. Could well risk being accused of not getting it: ate salmon steaks instead of turkey on Thanksgiving, got sick with the flu because you cannot open a window for some fresh air and wall-to-wall carpet have germs… however, it might be the tactical error of that salmon as the real cause of my malady… sipped microwaveable chicken noodle soup and watched movies on Netflix for days on end so not to spread the apparent plague of influenza over the land, missed Black Friday AND Cyber-Monday totally, and so on and on and on. I may have to lie. Keep the dream going.