Sempre in Italia: churches, stairs and coffee!

Well hello there, English and full vocabulary…nice to see you again! After two and a half days straight of communicating solely in Italian, it’s refreshing to be able to express myself completely coherently and with more sophistication than a five-year-old! But despite the difficulty of a weekend 99% English-free (I cheated with words like “peanut butter” and “sword fish” and “syrup”) I absolutely loved the fact that with this foreign language, a language I just began learning a year and a half ago, I was able to communicate with and get to know my relatives in Campania! What a feeling it is to realize you understand these strange-sounding syllables and that you can express your thoughts and feelings back with them, without using any of the vocabulary you’ve relied on for 20 years.

This weekend was by far one of my favorites of this entire semester so far. I feel lucky to have been able to experience it. A weekend with relatives from across the world, exploring the Amalfi Coast and communicating entirely in this foreign country’s native language…it was an amazing combination. Kind of a surreal experience. I still can’t get over the fact that I didn’t speak English, and that I didn’t hear any English spoken.

For those who don’t know, the relatives I visited are related to my Grammy (great grandmother) Palma, and they live maybe a half hour from where she grew up, in the region called Campania. Rosalia is the great-granddaughter of Grammy’s Aunt Palma (the woman she was named after), if that makes any sense to anyone! I had to have it explained like five times and see the family tree that they have at their house, before I could halfway understand. Another way to put it would be that Marisa and Emanuela (Rosalia and her husband Mimmo’s two daughters) and I share a common set of great-great-great grandparents. Despite this rather distant connection, the family welcomed me into their house in Baronissi with open arms and treated me like a guest of honor.

I took a 5 hour bus ride from Perugia to Pompeii on Friday, where Mimmo, Rosalia and Marisa picked me up. Then we drove over to a nearby town called Cava, where I got to eat my very own authentic Neapolitan pizza. Obviously it was amazing—thick crust, mozzarella di bufala, flavorful tomato sauce—and as per usual in Italy, it was one whole pizza per person. A funny Italian pizza quirk is that the pizza is never precut—you always have to fiddle around with your fork and knife to cut your own slices, and it’s not easy! But the delicious reward when you bite into that first morsel of piping hot pizza is so worth it.

Marisa and I have been communicating by email in Italian for the past 8 months or so, so I had warned her in advance that I would probably make a ton of mistakes speaking the language. She and Mimmo know a little bit of English, but definitely less than what I know of Italian…so lucky for them, they didn’t have to call upon their English vocabularies during the weekend! Marisa was prepared Friday night with a dictionary, but we only used it once—to look up “peanut butter.” I think she was pleasantly surprised with my ability to communicate! Out of everyone in the family, she was most able to understand the meaning of my words and my pronunciation mistakes, and she was very patient with me! When her parents didn’t understand something I was trying to explain, she always got it and was able to communicate the meaning to them.

Throughout the weekend as I was fumbling through my Italian sentences, I came up with an analogy (as anyone who knows me well can attest, I’m always coming up with random analogies). Well here’s one for you: communicating in a foreign language to native speakers is like trying on a crazy outfit—something that’s totally not your style—and wearing it in front of people without being able to see yourself in a mirror. You’re sure you look absurd, but you have no way of being able to see and judge for yourself. You’ve just got to trust that you’re not making a complete fool out of yourself. Because if I speak Italian anything like the English I hear some Italians try to speak now and then, I’m sure I sound ridiculous. But I appreciate that despite how I sounded, my relatives were very understanding and willing to converse with me in public!!

I’ve heard it said before that you know you’ve picked up on a language when you’re able to make jokes (and understand ones you hear) in that language. If that’s the case, then I’m doing pretty well. I feel like the weekend was full of laughing, jokes and even sarcasm (yep, I’ve mastered a little bit of Italian sarcasm!), all in a language other than English! I especially loved getting to know Marisa and Emanuela, because they are both close to my age, and it was kind of like meeting the girl cousins I’ve never had! They both had tons of question about life in America (as did Mimmo and Rosalia) and it was really fun for me to try to explain different customs and exchange pieces of our two very different cultures. I just loved that they so genuinely wanted to get to know me, and I thought it was so sweet that they had such a sincere desire to spend time with someone who shares far away roots on the family tree

So what sights did I see with my relatives, you might be wondering? Well on Saturday Mimmo took Marisa, Emanuela and me to a place called Paestum. It was kind of like a mini Pompeii (which I’d seen back in high school), with ruins of temples and ancient buildings. But this settlement was originally Greek and then transferred over to the Romans. I learned all about the ruins from my two tour guides, Marisa and Emanuela, who have been to Paestum many times on field trips. Emanuela is studying art history, so she was able to offer insight about the style of the remains of the buildings. I felt very glad that the weekend before, when I was in Rome, Lindsay and I took the tour of the synagogue in the Italian language. Because that’s essentially the tour I had of Paestum! It was a beautiful day, almost summer-like, and later on we went together with Rosalia to the historic center of Salerno, about 15 minutes from their house. Salerno is a really pretty town, right on the water, with a nice boardwalk and a main street with tons of high-end shops. The historic center reminded me a lot of the Gothic Quarter in Barcelona. It was really adorable, and I’m excited to explore it more when I go back with my parents, Melissa and Aunt Dianne in May. I also went inside Salerno’s duomo, another beautiful Italian church, and saw a small art museum with paintings by artists from Salerno. The relatives also made me try a “Baba,” a typical Salernatino (I hope that’s a word) dessert, kind of like a fried cream puff of sorts, but with an assortment of sweet fillings to choose from, depending on your preference. I went for the Nutella-filled one.

Here’s are some photos of Paestum and the Salerno coast viewed from above:




That night we stopped by Rosalia’s father, Tomasso’s, apartment. I was able to meet him and his wife, as well as his son Palmo and his wife and son (the son is also named Tomasso Canzolino…lots of repetitive names in this family!). We sat around the table and looked at old photos of the family, and Tomasso gave me some to take back to Grammy. He asked if Grammy still plays the piano, because he remembers when she would call and play “Oh sole mio” on the piano for him. I told him yes, she still plays! They also all got a kick out of Grammy having a boyfriend, John. It was a night filled with lots of Italian and laughs, and we got a picture of the family all together.



Saturday morning Marisa and I woke up early to make my mom’s famous pancake recipe. Yep, I really did bring pancakes to Italy. It was Marisa’s idea to make them, because we were talking about the things she liked the best during her two-week trip to New York two years ago, and we got on the subject of American breakfast food. Before I knew it we were emailing my mom for the recipe, and the next morning we attempted to convert it into Italian measurements (and Italian words). Despite leaving out the whole-wheat flour, using shavings and chopped bits of chocolate instead of chocolate chips, and not having syrup, they were a success! Marisa is definitely saving the recipe and using it again in the future. Before I know it pancakes will be spreading all throughout Italy, and the days of cornetti and coffee for breakfast will be no more!

After breakfast the whole family got in the car for a drive halfway through the Amalfi Coast, from Salerno to the town of Amalfi. We endured the endlessly twisting, stomach-flipping road that curves around the mountainside, because any amount of stomach-flipping would be worth it to get a glimpse of the beauty that is the sparkling blue waters below those cliffs. I had to step back and realize how lucky I am—this was my SECOND time on the Amalfi Coast, and I’ll be there a THIRD time in May. Seriously, if someone finds themselves at this paradise once in their life, they’re lucky. I’m not even 21 and I will have been there three times. I can’t help but appreciate how rare and special that is.

We stopped at a town called Ravello and toured the Villa Cimbrone, an old estate that offers breathtaking views of the water, as well as pathways through gardens and past sculptures.





Then we drove a little bit up the coast to the town of Amalfi itself, where we ate lunch by the water. I tried the coast specialty, lemons, in a cream sauce over penne pasta. But of course, this being an Italian lunch, and therefore the largest meal of the day, a dish of pasta could never be the sole entrée consumed. Rather, after the pasta a huge assortment of seafood and vegetables (and French fries for Marisa and Emanuela) were delivered to the table. Needless to say, I had no room for gelato at the end of this feast. Even by Italian standards this was a huge lunch—Marisa explained that they definitely don’t eat like that every day!


After lunch we made our way to the town’s center, where we toured a beautiful cathedral.



Sempre le chiese, le scale e il caffe in Italia, we kept on joking! Always churches, stairs and coffee in Italy! The stairs we kept climbing to get to monuments, viewpoints, anywhere, and we couldn’t help making fun of how ubiquitous they are in Italy. This is how you work off those three-course lunches! The churches—well that’s self-explanatory. Every town has its own important “duomo,” and they’re all beautiful and unique. When in Italy, a person begins to lose count of how many she’s seen and walked through. But yet they really are worth visiting…there’s such a sense of peace to be found in Italian churches. The coffee part—that we kept laughing about, because Rosalia and Mimmo had to stop for a coffee break maybe five or six times every day. For them it’s totally normal. As an outsider, it was quite a phenomenon to observe! The Italians and their coffee…

Saying goodbye to these relatives after such a wonderful weekend together was really difficult, but it would have been much more sad if I didn’t know I’d be seeing them again in less than two months! I really can’t wait to be back there and spend more time together. And I hope that sometime in the not-too-distant future they’ll come to America so I can offer them the same hospitality they gave me! I’d love to show them around Washington D.C., Longwood Gardens, Brigantine, and for them to meet the rest of the family there. Hopefully one day!

Now that I’m back here in Perugia, I’ve unfortunately come down with a nasty cold—and I want it to go away ASAP because I am supposed to visit another relative, Pasquale, this weekend in Milan. Let’s hope I feel much, much better in the next 48 hours so I’m well enough to see him Friday! The plan is for me to stay there one night and then spend part of Saturday and Sunday in Verona, a Northern Italian town that’s supposed to be really charming, and is, of course, the home of Romeo and Juliet.