A nni ago with my nephew of 5 years - visiting from California - I went to the Coliseum. More than the immense building, the boy was impressed by the faux Roman gladiators with grim faces, helmets, cloaks and daggers flying silvered wooden. Li said at length, thoughtfully, turning their around, then said gravely, "Grandma, when you were small, the time of the Romans ..."
Question justified in the eyes of all children is contemporary! Just at the time of the ancient Romans was not there, I said, but in Rome in the century, since before the half. Ancient times always were.
In those times of ancient Romans, I went to America (1960).
between the old and the new world there was only the ocean. It was just another world. In Italy who knew the two countries (apart from immigrants) we had come through the studies, books, movies, pop songs, jazz. After the reconstruction of the fifties, yes, Italy was in economic boom, but in the middle-class families in general and for girls, yet little had moved. Feminism was still to come, the rights of women were in their infancy, there was no divorce. Only those who had finished high school could have access to all university faculties: serious study, the professors all-powerful, stern, distant. Passing tourists and foreign residents in part of the boot were all Italian, eat Italian, few were familiar with the languages \u200b\u200b(and, if anything, with the French). The majority of Italian intellectuals who have published in dopodguerra American authors had never set foot in the States.
The Rome Olympics were about to begin. I had just graduated from (then you graduate in 4-5 years, it was normal), I spoke pretty good English, having made two long visits to England as an au pair. Thanks to a scholarship, along with 9 other fellows did the crossing from Naples to New York on the "Leonardo da Vinci." Of my companions, only two had spent a year in America, one in college ever thanks to a scholarship, the other guest of a Washington correspondent journalist uncle. Even among the intellectuals who in previous years had translated and published in Italy American authors, Moreover, few had seen the Statue of Liberty, having learned English - more or less - on the books.
arrived in New York the 10 scholars took different paths. The target was me and two Bolognese Cornell University in Ithaca a, state of New York , not far from Niagara Falls. A huge campus on green hills, with streams, ponds and a waterfall.
The name "Ithaca", in particular, appealed to me, I came from classical studies. That was the end rather than the beginning of an adventure? A return? Not too far from Ithaca, about six hours from NY, I see three directional signs: Berlin, Babylon, Rome. Fantastic, baffling geography, even liberating. In the New World has to be invented. But why do you call "Babylon," a quiet town in the green? (Maybe there is a Sodom around here ...)
you step by writing to the present, some of my impressions of that time . Yes, stuff is stale, banal "deja vu"! The distance is now no longer exist, the Italians traveling frantically, Google raised in an instant by any curiosity. But then, for an "ancient Roman" plus Young, were big news from write home (to be once a week), experience enviable and envied.
(click below to continue reading.)
In America, young women also have high breasts, perfectly conical, compressed and pulled up by formidable-shell bras. That amount of ice cream are all different, even strange, in the Howard Johnson on highways, exaggerated! The Coin Automats, tristanzuoli but useful, delivering sandwiches to the hungry wrapped in cellophane, soda cans, "donuts" with a hole are baked repeatedly by special machines, fragrant with cinnamon and glazed with honey. I seem to repeat customers policemen and bus drivers who buy a half dozen at a time and if you eat them right away, walking or car.
The water of the toilets on the highway are lined with paper, to be replaced after each use for hygiene reasons. Old men wearing certain colored jacket and baseball caps, we do not exist; pass old ladies with full synthetic fabric in pastel colors and flashy sunglasses decorated with rhinestones, thick curly permanent.
Communicate with difficulties with Italian-Americans who speak Italian very surprising (a lingua franca, mixture of several southern dialects between them and English, plus many funny neologisms. The "She" is an unknown territory. Yet they are looking at me puzzled, as if I came from the moon rather than the "old country" or vaguely reminiscent of hearsay, sometimes with a tinge of nostalgia: the mountains of Calabria, Caserta and dell'Avellinese villages, remote corners of Sicily, the taste of spicy sausage, expanses of citrus trees. How is it that a young person like me in America recently, "off the boat" does not seem excited about it all? Needless to explain that I ran away from misery, even in Rome there is the soft toilet paper, vacuum cleaner, a my house we eat every day and also good.
many American blacks! Distraught-looking women who are often obese, with crowds of lively little boys, boys dall'andatura loose, soft, rubber bodies, born to dance, and poor boys who shined shoes blonde student clothes, indifferent-looking, old squatting ask for spare change on the ground or a cigarette. But even well-dressed men, busty girls all dressed up, teetering on her heels.
The sweet smell of popcorn, entering the cinema, it suffocates. A girl on all fours in the corridor of power desperately trying to scramble around the contact lens that has just fallen. In Italy I have not heard of such lenses. I eat a burger, the first time, with a knife and fork, between the laughter of the onlookers.
In winter, snow outside and heated inside the ball, at home and in office is short-sleeved. Synthetic fabrics for everything, living convenience. No press. The cotton shirts are worn in dry, starched collars and cuffs, and is cheap to collect the next day. Viva la machine dryer, unknown in Italy, is made in an instant, no wires to hang out if not in open countryside in the summer.
You buy revolting sticky spaghetti with meat sauce, canned, Brand Chef Bo-dee-yar. In family cook indefinable "casseroles, main dishes with canned tuna, mushrooms and some sort of béchamel, or camouflaged with leftovers. We need big glass of milk with spaghetti sauce. All drinks are served on mountains of ice, they hurt your teeth. Loaf white or dark, light, no crust, tasteless: it seems to chew on cotton wool. The rule margarine, and desserts, instead of butter, lard an artificial white packaged in cans, it seems hand cream, olive oil is rare, however dear. Labels inform that every packaged product contains sugar (even salt has), preservatives, dyes. Milk powder and condensed milk is usually consumed as we need to during the war. The Fanny Farmer's Cookbook teaches classic American cuisine. It contains basic information: Remove from bag frozen vegetables before you boil it, put 1 / 3 teaspoon of cinnamon, mix 4 times and bake for seven and a half minutes. We use standard measuring spoons: the recipe calls for a glass of milk? E '"that" measure, not a bigger or smaller. In comparison, the Italian recipes are imaginative, made for experts, vague of an ingredient to put "as enough, "bake" until it is ready, "add" a little ', "making eye". Fanny Farmer, patron of the charity beginners, leading to a successful conclusion without hypocrisy.
The lettuce is iceberg, ball, hard, looks like a cabbage: tasteless American invention that bears very long trips in cars or refrigerated trucks and kept almost indefinitely in the refrigerator. It is time for gourmets! No one talks about organic food, nouvelle cuisine is to come: the convenience reigns supreme. Since I have never cooked before, I appreciate any shortcut, the final result I little worried, I'm not greedy. Tasting a bad Italian meal came the comment of the guest is the American kind and positive, "it's interesting." It has no terms of comparison and strangers still eat "weird." Milk never goes bad, who knows how many preservatives contain, but do not think.
The supermarket in Ithaca, I feel great (is not), strabocca of goods, too many choices ... I buy the wrong things because I do not care to read the detailed labels. Every fruit, every pepper or radish for sale is large, shiny, identical to any other of the same species, as if designed by Walt Disney. On balance, however, knows a little, it's hard, learned a month ago and matured in refrigerators. At the table all spread salt in abundance on food before you taste them. We do not drink wine at the table except in exceptional cases, the boys are kept firmly away. As an appetizer offering rum mixed with Coca-Cola, or so dry Martini breathtaking (practically there is only the smell of vermouth, gin is all).
electricity, such as gasoline, has a negligible cost: appliances of all kinds abound - ever seen in Italy el'apriscatole electric knife. One day when the light is not just not eat, can not open the cans in any other way. Houses and buildings are lit constantly, make fun. Where is the air conditioning is kept to a maximum, so that you have to stay in bed under the covers even in August, banks, offices and employees throughout the year wearing nylon shirts with short sleeves. Outdoors, summer can not breathe, the humid heat gets to the throat of winter you should intabarrare. The cars are big, huge, with useless ornaments, but the university circulating cool Volkswagen Beetle: signs of moderation or snobbery around? There are Wasps, suction and a treasure of Italian children.
People buy non-stop, endless supply prices, with discounts throughout the year, invite: things, often of poor quality, are made to last a short time to seek other acquisitions. I get blamed for mending a pair of socks instead of throwing them away, not help the economy!
powerfully students get drunk every weekend. If you do not, you're a loser. It only comes out on Saturday night and in pairs, never in a group like us. If a guy invites you to a party, for the duration becomes his property, you can not dance with him. A girl without a "date" on Saturday night does not put his nose out of the house so you do not know about. The rules are numerous and rigid social live: Despite the talk of freedom and their ease my American counterparts are terribly conformist. We foreign language instructors are advised to avoid formal "dates" with students and younger students.
The students are well kept and elegant, dressed in a pleated kilt or pants with blouses Bermuda, golf and matching socks, loafers or tennis shoes of different colors. I am kindly teased because I continue to wear nylon stockings and leather shoes. In Italy Superga using the white or blue only in the gym or the tennis court, carrying in a bag so that the soil does not dirty the way. Here the girls always smile, it is a lot of makeup and furiously shave, the hair is a sign of dirt. The fellows were warned about the orientation session before departure from Italy. Graduate at Cornell is a good passport to a career, but also serves to find a husband. In particular, girls dream of getting married immediately after graduation and go to Bermuda or Paris on their honeymoon.
In the center you see women all dressed up with his head bristling with curlers. On campus, the males wear sweaters hot pink or apple green, light blue or crimson jackets (in Italy you would find in the mountains), light trousers of cotton even when it snows, a crew cut (so the ears stick out, not always favorably) , dark glasses with heavy frames. I admire men and women in the perfect white teeth, clearly the result of lengthy and expensive orthodontic treatment. All smoke (not me). Drug did not hear about.
Here invented equality, yet it is as if every American an identification tag worn around the neck of his source: Yankee, Italian, Polish, Irish, jew, etc. The Yankees believe the best are often the most wealthy. In the back of a man's name sometimes appears an ordinal number (Wiliam Tuckert Pendergast IV, for example) that states that three times as long runs in the family, not necessarily rich, but certainly not "new." E 'in memoriam, a quasi-patent of nobility that it sounds funny in a democratic country par excellence. Women do not enjoy it doubtful distinction. The guy with the ordinal number of which he boasts, will still and always called "Bill", or "Billy," because everyone here has a nickname (in addition to a rather useless "middle name"). It's not a question of remedy a bad name, old-fashioned or long, in fact there is no "John" that is not called "Jack." So I wonder, yes, your name is Nicole, but what is your name?
Gi Jewish students held strongly to identify as such, are more like each other. At Cornell there are many, especially in New York or New Jersey. They are cute and funny. The lessons of history happens that one of them asks, "What did the Jews in that period (or in that place)?"
Catholics go to confession every Friday afternoon, the confessor is efficient , listens without putting your mouth, Penance is now and always, in three Hail Mary. The first confession in English is a surprise and a relief. Stuff a few minutes. Later, however, it bothers me. You might as well confess in front of a car, put a coin in the slot and pick up a printed package "do not do more, three Hail Mary, come back next week." The sermons on Sunday drawing so wavering, scenarios of sin, to be avoided like the plague, and call for bids, and must be given generously. Charity = love not we hear about. The priests are of Irish origin, jovial, drive nice cars (paid for by the congregation) and the red cheeks it is clear that dish out a good glass. Just do not cool the girls go to church all dressed up, white gloves, high heels and hats. To blend in, at Easter I bought a light green wool.
The wonderful news is that even the most prestigious professors are friendly and available, call students by name, encourage them to ask questions and discuss in class or face to face with them. In Italy, then, the university and sometimes even in high school, the teachers give the "you" to the students, not confidence, it was almost scary. Here we call home, do some evenings babysitting their children, but not for this I expect a better grade. Sometimes you eat neighbors, the tables of the cafeteria, chatting in simplicity. A professor makes me an odd compliment: "You have finally lost your British accent!" We are language instructors have been forbidden to have "dates" with our students and our students.
Libraries are wonderful, rich, open until late at night. What's new and what satisfaction to see the "open stacks" without limitation, to make discoveries, we can always count on a table reserved! The time is multiplied by the lack of obstacles that seem inevitable in Italy.
John Kennedy, said Jack, was elected president. He 's young, charming, a Catholic, has a fine wife. Back to the myth of Camelot. Shortly after the crisis breaks out, however, the Bay of Pigs, I fear, at least in Italy you are not constantly on the warpath! When Kennedy was assassinated is now at another university, it's my birthday. The announcement comes from a student who opens the door of breath while I'm doing Italian lesson. Shaman away upset. We spend hours watching TV sad. My cake with candles, forgotten, inacidirà.
Then even Martin Luther King and his brother Jack Kennedy, were assassinated. It 's so unexpected, almost unbelievable, we are in front of the TV which broadcasts live, while quietly drink a coffee. They look like film. Perhaps the two now get up. Not at all, other than the country of plenty, America is violent, full of crazy with revolvers and rifles ready to fire.
In America we have been long, there I am married and two of my children were born. The early years of that ancient time have been the happiest of my life and I have not noticed. But that's another story.
Nicoletta Barbarito - END -
you step by writing to the present, some of my impressions of that time . Yes, stuff is stale, banal "deja vu"! The distance is now no longer exist, the Italians traveling frantically, Google raised in an instant by any curiosity. But then, for an "ancient Roman" plus Young, were big news from write home (to be once a week), experience enviable and envied.
(click below to continue reading.)
In America, young women also have high breasts, perfectly conical, compressed and pulled up by formidable-shell bras. That amount of ice cream are all different, even strange, in the Howard Johnson on highways, exaggerated! The Coin Automats, tristanzuoli but useful, delivering sandwiches to the hungry wrapped in cellophane, soda cans, "donuts" with a hole are baked repeatedly by special machines, fragrant with cinnamon and glazed with honey. I seem to repeat customers policemen and bus drivers who buy a half dozen at a time and if you eat them right away, walking or car.
The water of the toilets on the highway are lined with paper, to be replaced after each use for hygiene reasons. Old men wearing certain colored jacket and baseball caps, we do not exist; pass old ladies with full synthetic fabric in pastel colors and flashy sunglasses decorated with rhinestones, thick curly permanent.
Communicate with difficulties with Italian-Americans who speak Italian very surprising (a lingua franca, mixture of several southern dialects between them and English, plus many funny neologisms. The "She" is an unknown territory. Yet they are looking at me puzzled, as if I came from the moon rather than the "old country" or vaguely reminiscent of hearsay, sometimes with a tinge of nostalgia: the mountains of Calabria, Caserta and dell'Avellinese villages, remote corners of Sicily, the taste of spicy sausage, expanses of citrus trees. How is it that a young person like me in America recently, "off the boat" does not seem excited about it all? Needless to explain that I ran away from misery, even in Rome there is the soft toilet paper, vacuum cleaner, a my house we eat every day and also good.
many American blacks! Distraught-looking women who are often obese, with crowds of lively little boys, boys dall'andatura loose, soft, rubber bodies, born to dance, and poor boys who shined shoes blonde student clothes, indifferent-looking, old squatting ask for spare change on the ground or a cigarette. But even well-dressed men, busty girls all dressed up, teetering on her heels.
The sweet smell of popcorn, entering the cinema, it suffocates. A girl on all fours in the corridor of power desperately trying to scramble around the contact lens that has just fallen. In Italy I have not heard of such lenses. I eat a burger, the first time, with a knife and fork, between the laughter of the onlookers.
In winter, snow outside and heated inside the ball, at home and in office is short-sleeved. Synthetic fabrics for everything, living convenience. No press. The cotton shirts are worn in dry, starched collars and cuffs, and is cheap to collect the next day. Viva la machine dryer, unknown in Italy, is made in an instant, no wires to hang out if not in open countryside in the summer.
You buy revolting sticky spaghetti with meat sauce, canned, Brand Chef Bo-dee-yar. In family cook indefinable "casseroles, main dishes with canned tuna, mushrooms and some sort of béchamel, or camouflaged with leftovers. We need big glass of milk with spaghetti sauce. All drinks are served on mountains of ice, they hurt your teeth. Loaf white or dark, light, no crust, tasteless: it seems to chew on cotton wool. The rule margarine, and desserts, instead of butter, lard an artificial white packaged in cans, it seems hand cream, olive oil is rare, however dear. Labels inform that every packaged product contains sugar (even salt has), preservatives, dyes. Milk powder and condensed milk is usually consumed as we need to during the war. The Fanny Farmer's Cookbook teaches classic American cuisine. It contains basic information: Remove from bag frozen vegetables before you boil it, put 1 / 3 teaspoon of cinnamon, mix 4 times and bake for seven and a half minutes. We use standard measuring spoons: the recipe calls for a glass of milk? E '"that" measure, not a bigger or smaller. In comparison, the Italian recipes are imaginative, made for experts, vague of an ingredient to put "as enough, "bake" until it is ready, "add" a little ', "making eye". Fanny Farmer, patron of the charity beginners, leading to a successful conclusion without hypocrisy.
The lettuce is iceberg, ball, hard, looks like a cabbage: tasteless American invention that bears very long trips in cars or refrigerated trucks and kept almost indefinitely in the refrigerator. It is time for gourmets! No one talks about organic food, nouvelle cuisine is to come: the convenience reigns supreme. Since I have never cooked before, I appreciate any shortcut, the final result I little worried, I'm not greedy. Tasting a bad Italian meal came the comment of the guest is the American kind and positive, "it's interesting." It has no terms of comparison and strangers still eat "weird." Milk never goes bad, who knows how many preservatives contain, but do not think.
The supermarket in Ithaca, I feel great (is not), strabocca of goods, too many choices ... I buy the wrong things because I do not care to read the detailed labels. Every fruit, every pepper or radish for sale is large, shiny, identical to any other of the same species, as if designed by Walt Disney. On balance, however, knows a little, it's hard, learned a month ago and matured in refrigerators. At the table all spread salt in abundance on food before you taste them. We do not drink wine at the table except in exceptional cases, the boys are kept firmly away. As an appetizer offering rum mixed with Coca-Cola, or so dry Martini breathtaking (practically there is only the smell of vermouth, gin is all).
electricity, such as gasoline, has a negligible cost: appliances of all kinds abound - ever seen in Italy el'apriscatole electric knife. One day when the light is not just not eat, can not open the cans in any other way. Houses and buildings are lit constantly, make fun. Where is the air conditioning is kept to a maximum, so that you have to stay in bed under the covers even in August, banks, offices and employees throughout the year wearing nylon shirts with short sleeves. Outdoors, summer can not breathe, the humid heat gets to the throat of winter you should intabarrare. The cars are big, huge, with useless ornaments, but the university circulating cool Volkswagen Beetle: signs of moderation or snobbery around? There are Wasps, suction and a treasure of Italian children.
People buy non-stop, endless supply prices, with discounts throughout the year, invite: things, often of poor quality, are made to last a short time to seek other acquisitions. I get blamed for mending a pair of socks instead of throwing them away, not help the economy!
powerfully students get drunk every weekend. If you do not, you're a loser. It only comes out on Saturday night and in pairs, never in a group like us. If a guy invites you to a party, for the duration becomes his property, you can not dance with him. A girl without a "date" on Saturday night does not put his nose out of the house so you do not know about. The rules are numerous and rigid social live: Despite the talk of freedom and their ease my American counterparts are terribly conformist. We foreign language instructors are advised to avoid formal "dates" with students and younger students.
The students are well kept and elegant, dressed in a pleated kilt or pants with blouses Bermuda, golf and matching socks, loafers or tennis shoes of different colors. I am kindly teased because I continue to wear nylon stockings and leather shoes. In Italy Superga using the white or blue only in the gym or the tennis court, carrying in a bag so that the soil does not dirty the way. Here the girls always smile, it is a lot of makeup and furiously shave, the hair is a sign of dirt. The fellows were warned about the orientation session before departure from Italy. Graduate at Cornell is a good passport to a career, but also serves to find a husband. In particular, girls dream of getting married immediately after graduation and go to Bermuda or Paris on their honeymoon.
In the center you see women all dressed up with his head bristling with curlers. On campus, the males wear sweaters hot pink or apple green, light blue or crimson jackets (in Italy you would find in the mountains), light trousers of cotton even when it snows, a crew cut (so the ears stick out, not always favorably) , dark glasses with heavy frames. I admire men and women in the perfect white teeth, clearly the result of lengthy and expensive orthodontic treatment. All smoke (not me). Drug did not hear about.
Here invented equality, yet it is as if every American an identification tag worn around the neck of his source: Yankee, Italian, Polish, Irish, jew, etc. The Yankees believe the best are often the most wealthy. In the back of a man's name sometimes appears an ordinal number (Wiliam Tuckert Pendergast IV, for example) that states that three times as long runs in the family, not necessarily rich, but certainly not "new." E 'in memoriam, a quasi-patent of nobility that it sounds funny in a democratic country par excellence. Women do not enjoy it doubtful distinction. The guy with the ordinal number of which he boasts, will still and always called "Bill", or "Billy," because everyone here has a nickname (in addition to a rather useless "middle name"). It's not a question of remedy a bad name, old-fashioned or long, in fact there is no "John" that is not called "Jack." So I wonder, yes, your name is Nicole, but what is your name?
Gi Jewish students held strongly to identify as such, are more like each other. At Cornell there are many, especially in New York or New Jersey. They are cute and funny. The lessons of history happens that one of them asks, "What did the Jews in that period (or in that place)?"
Catholics go to confession every Friday afternoon, the confessor is efficient , listens without putting your mouth, Penance is now and always, in three Hail Mary. The first confession in English is a surprise and a relief. Stuff a few minutes. Later, however, it bothers me. You might as well confess in front of a car, put a coin in the slot and pick up a printed package "do not do more, three Hail Mary, come back next week." The sermons on Sunday drawing so wavering, scenarios of sin, to be avoided like the plague, and call for bids, and must be given generously. Charity = love not we hear about. The priests are of Irish origin, jovial, drive nice cars (paid for by the congregation) and the red cheeks it is clear that dish out a good glass. Just do not cool the girls go to church all dressed up, white gloves, high heels and hats. To blend in, at Easter I bought a light green wool.
The wonderful news is that even the most prestigious professors are friendly and available, call students by name, encourage them to ask questions and discuss in class or face to face with them. In Italy, then, the university and sometimes even in high school, the teachers give the "you" to the students, not confidence, it was almost scary. Here we call home, do some evenings babysitting their children, but not for this I expect a better grade. Sometimes you eat neighbors, the tables of the cafeteria, chatting in simplicity. A professor makes me an odd compliment: "You have finally lost your British accent!" We are language instructors have been forbidden to have "dates" with our students and our students.
Libraries are wonderful, rich, open until late at night. What's new and what satisfaction to see the "open stacks" without limitation, to make discoveries, we can always count on a table reserved! The time is multiplied by the lack of obstacles that seem inevitable in Italy.
John Kennedy, said Jack, was elected president. He 's young, charming, a Catholic, has a fine wife. Back to the myth of Camelot. Shortly after the crisis breaks out, however, the Bay of Pigs, I fear, at least in Italy you are not constantly on the warpath! When Kennedy was assassinated is now at another university, it's my birthday. The announcement comes from a student who opens the door of breath while I'm doing Italian lesson. Shaman away upset. We spend hours watching TV sad. My cake with candles, forgotten, inacidirà.
Then even Martin Luther King and his brother Jack Kennedy, were assassinated. It 's so unexpected, almost unbelievable, we are in front of the TV which broadcasts live, while quietly drink a coffee. They look like film. Perhaps the two now get up. Not at all, other than the country of plenty, America is violent, full of crazy with revolvers and rifles ready to fire.
In America we have been long, there I am married and two of my children were born. The early years of that ancient time have been the happiest of my life and I have not noticed. But that's another story.
Nicoletta Barbarito - END -
