Rotary Meetings

I've attended two Rotary meetings, my orientation, and a Rotary event with the Piena Degli Albanesi club, so I thought I would reflect on my experiences so far. I'm always terrified I will have to give some sort of speech, and that I will promptly forget all my Italian and just say where I'm from. Luckily no one really seems to care that I don't say all that much, so I will just have to impress them later on when I'm a bit more comfortable with my Italian. The problem I have frequently with the Rotary meetings here is that I struggle to do the right things at the right time, so usually when they call us up to the front, I'm so focussed on making sure there aren't any sesame seeds in my teeth, or that my pants haven't disappeared between sitting down and being called to the front, that I forget to bring something important, like my flag from my Rotary club at home. Of the three times I'm exchanged flags, I've forgotten it twice and had to run back to my seat.

Aside for the usual language problems/timing issues/social awkwardness, there are two main reasons I get really nervous when going to Rotary meetings:

1. They are really formal*. Last night's was apparently relatively informal. Which meant suits with ties, or nice sweaters for the men, and dresses, or jackets with skirts or pants for women. I don't really do formal all that well. In fact I don't think I even own clothes formal enough for these events. Plus my hair is even more of a shaggy mess right now, so it does not do formal. At all.

2. I have to wear my Rotary blazer. I don't really mind my Rotary blazer. It's just that the colour is just a bit too bright, and it doesn't fit all that nicely, it was just the best I could find. But, an ill-fitting, too bright blazer does not say elegant, and well, see problem one. Also, the only jacket I have that fits over my Rotary blazer is my rain coat (again see problem one), so to w

ear my nicer jacket, I have to take off my blazer and carry it. Which looks awkward.

Last night's Rotary meeting was also a beer tasting, which was pretty interesting. Each of the four courses came with a certain beer, and the announcer went into great detail about each one. First course was an egg dish with ham, second was risotto, third was meat and lentils, and fourth was a beer gelatin, with deep fried fruit. I wasn't a huge fan of the beer gelatin and could not figure out why you'd take wonderful, delicious, fresh fruit, and fry it.

Here is a photo from Orientation. Note the lovely blazer. And how I'm at least a foot taller than the other exchange students.

My flags. Going clockwise from top: Piena Degli Albanesi, Siclian flag (note the awesome three legs coming off of a head with red snakes for hair, and green wings. wicked), Palermo East, and Palermo. My Rossland one is in the middle. The Rossland one is a lot smaller, and less elaborate than the others, but I still really like it. I feel like it reflects Rossland nicely.

*Yes, I'm aware that I sound like a bit of a small town hick. That's because I pretty much am a small town hick. The last big city I lived in was Tucson when I was four.

Making Bread in the Country

My host parents had mentioned that the country house had a wood fired oven (I'm not sure exactly what they are called), and that they wanted me to try it out with my bread. Right-o. I have never used one before, but I'm not too worried. On the way there my host mom mentions that I will be making it with six packages of yeast, and three kg of flour - effectively multiplying my recipe by six. It's now approximately one and a half times larger than a big batch I'd make in Canada. I'm starting to get a little nervous. The store worker tells us that we want rimacinata flour. OK. No biggie. Sure, I've never used this kind of flour before, or this oven, or made this much at once, but I'm sure it will work...

My host parents are so excited and I'm afraid I will let them down. I gather my ingredients and heat my water and milk mixture, and my host dad gets out the huge trough I will be working in. I'm so nervous now I could cry. I take a guess at how much sugar and salt I want, and mix my dry ingredients. I pour the water mixture over the flour, but unfortunately the wood isn't entirely water tight and some of the liquid leaks onto the floor. Luckily the rest of the process goes well and sooon I have something vaguely resembling bread dough. I allow it to rise, then form it into seven loaves and one focaccia and allow it to rise again. Meanwhile, my host dad lights the fire in the oven to allow it to get hot enough. Finally it is time, and my host dad and Pino (the guy who runs the farm when my host dad isn't there), remove the embers, and place the bread inside, along with the chickpea flour batter my host mom made. We close the oven, and leave. It is frustrating to have to wait without being able to see it.

We take it out and I can't help but feel proud of myself. I know that I would have cried had they failed. I had invested a whole day into this project, as well as my host parent's and Pino's time, and it meant a lot to succeed.

On a side note, we made bread again last weekend and burnt it. It was sad. I think the oven was hotter the second time.

Ingredients.

Tasting to check salt level, also feeling to check texture.

After second rise.

Placing the bread in the oven.

After 25 mins, or so.

Finished product!

Baking in Italy

I love to bake. It's a problem. I get hungry, or stressed out, and I make a double batch of chocolate chip cookies (ok, so I really only make one batch of cookies, and eat a batch worth of cookie dough...). Something about it calms me down. Plus you get cookies out of it. Win win.

I can't really go a year without baking, so I mentioned to my host family that I love to bake, and they were very excited, especially when I said that I like to make bread. I started making bread once in a while, and my first batch was... considerably less than ideal (my host family still loved it though, because they are fantastic and encouraging). Since then I have made a few adjustments - mostly due to the different flour. I think that Canadian flour has a higher protein content, so I had to add more milk than normal.

During Thanksgiving time, I really wanted pumpkin pie, so I decided to give that a go. It took a while to even find the ingredients (or adequate substitutes). The recipe I use at home uses canned pumpkin (see - not a food elitist!), brown sugar, and evaporated milk - all of which I wouldn't find. Of course I just cooked and pureed fresh pumpkin, which was easy enough, and I found something similar to brown sugar (a type of demerara), but I'm fairly certain that evaporated milk doesn't exist here. No biggie - evaporated milk is just that - milk that has been concentrated through evaporation. So I measured out twice as much milk as I needed, and started heating it on the stove. This was harder than it sounds - too hot and the milk will curdle. Another adjustment was using all butter in my pastry, instead of half lard. I probably should have found an all butter pastry recipe, as my pastry was not terribly flaky.

I'm intimidated to try my North American recipes here for more than just not being able to find ingredients, measuring cups don't exist here. We use a scale, measuing spoons, and we have one jug with dL on the side. In the end my pie was pretty good, certainly not my best creation, but I still liked it.

Festival of Old Tastes

My host family owns a farm in the country where they have various animals (sheep, cows, horses, and chickens), grow vegetables, and produce olive oil and cheese. (On a side note, my host family would say "we're going to campagna this weekend", or "Fabrizio will be in campagna for a few days", and I always thought "campagna" was the name of the nearby town or the name of the region - like how someone might say "the Kootenays" or "the Okanagan". Nope, "campagna" means "country" or "countryside", the way someone would say "the country house" or "the farm is in the country".) The house in the country is very rustic, but I really like it. It's super quiet, and it's good to get away from tv and internet for a while.

On Saturday night we went into town to the "Festival of Old Tastes". It reminded me of Rossland during the sidewalk sale or Golden City Days. Everyone knows each other, and the street is filled with people eating and drinking, and looking at what was for sale. There are the usual street vendors selling scarves, belts and jewellery, but there were also people selling artisan biscotti, liquor, olives, oil, and sausages. The festival is about celebrating the old ways of doing things - rasing and growing organically, producing olive oil and cheese with the traditional techniques, cooking and baking with less refined ingredients. I got to taste some really delicious cookies, several kinds of olives, and though not an ancient food, crepes with Nutella. I also met many people, including the mayor (possibly). I enjoyed learning more about the region and its livelyhood - combining my loves of food and history.

Olives

Sausages

Vending Machine: 3, Michelle: 2

I mention to my friend that I'm going to get a coffee, and he decides to accompany me (probably for amusement purposes). I throw in my money, reset the sugar to zero, hit "espresso", then grab the cup as soon as I see it. "What are you doing?", my friend asks, "You're supposed to wait until the coffee has been made." He's looking at me like I don't know what I'm doing. Ha. I'll show him. The machine, however, decides against giving me sugar today (I mentioned that this thing is tempermental, right?). With embarrassment I mumble something about, "well, last time..." My friend gives me another strange look (like I said, they keep me around for entertainment purposes, I'm sure). (Just kidding, my classmates are awesome)

We tied this one.

I'm Really Good at Math...

In Italy, a class stays pretty much together their entire highschool career. This has many benefits: it allows a class to get really close, you know who to ask for help with homework, it's easy to study together because everyone is studying the same material at the same time - there's a sense of unity. This is good for me also, I can break into one class fairly easily, and it's easier to remember 30 names than 100. However there are many frustrations as well. In Canada, classes are in a certain block, and those blocks are on a rotation. This allows students in grades 10, 11, and 12 to take any class that falls in that block, or to take a "spare" or study block. In this system students can take, for example, grade 10 english, grade 11 math, and grade 12 history, if those blocks fit. Here, however, since I don't want to take Latin or Ancient Greek, I have to struggle to find classes that fit. For example, I could take the second hour of science three, or the first of two hours of Italian two, but I wouldn't be attending all the hours of that class per week. However, I decided that attending three of five hours would be good enough, and joined another class.

I had two main reasons for finding a fifth year math class. 1. I wanted a challenge other than the language. I wanted something that I needed to learn and practice that wasn't Italian. And I'm good at math (or at least I was in Canada), so I wanted a way to prove to people that I wasn't as dumb as I looked. And 2. I wanted to meet new people. I love my fourth year class. People have been beyond nice to me. But at the same time, I wanted people more my age, and just to meet some different people. When we get together on weekends, its usually just the class meeting up, again, so I thought it would be a good idea to get to know some new people.

I show up at the classroom and wait for the teacher. The teacher doesn't really seem to care all that much, and I tell him I'm good at math, so he tells me to take a seat. During a short break I tell all the other students that I'm super good at math, and that fourth year math is too easy for me. The lesson continues, and I dutifully take notes the whole time, while thinking, "oh yes, I know exactly what this graph/diagram means!" and, "that makes perfect sense!! Of course i^2 = -1! Why didn't I see that earlier".

I then head back to my fourth year class. I have a math test during this block, but, no biggie. It's just logarithms. I can do this. Wrong. I take a look at the questions, and they don't seem too hard, until I get to one of them. I can't remember how to do this question. (I can hear Mr Nutini saying to me now, "Study the types of questions, don't do the same type over and over." Sorry Mr Nutini, I have failed you.) It was a type of question that the teacher only briefly explained, then sorta left us on our own to learn, and I still haven't gotten around to buying a textbook yet, so I had only done a few examples. I hand in my test at the end of the block not totally satisfied with my answers. I know I got at least two wrong, more likely four. Four wrong? That can't be that bad.... On a nine question test....

Vending Machine: 2, Michelle: 1

Success! Aha take that!

After repeatedly trying to set the sugar level to zero I give up and just hit "espresso". But this time, I have a plan. Oh yes, I will get unsweetened coffee. The cup appears and I grab it immediately, watching with near glee as the sugar pours though the holes at the bottom of where you take the coffee. The machine spits a stir stick at me and I replace the cup. I feel accomplishment as I walk back to class. I know that I can repeat this to get unsweetened coffee everytime!

Paperwork

Step One: To study in Italy, I required a visa. This involved quite a bit of paperwork (all of which made more difficult because my parents are divorced), a trip to Vancouver, then hoping my passport would be here on time (luckily it was).

Step Two: Once I got here, I had to fill out a Permesso di Soggiorno, within eight days of arriving. Just getting the forms was a challenge - we couldn't find them. Next step was to purchase a tax stamp from a tabacchi shop (not from the post office), and go to Poste Italiane to hand in the forms. This might have been fairly simple, except I misunderstood my family's instructions and all the tabacchi shops were closed for lunch by the time I got there. After lunch my host dad and I went out again. Keep in mind that this was after I had been here for two weeks and my Italian was terrible (although for the most part it still is) and that I was with my host dad who doesn't speak English. Off we go to a Poste Italiane. Poste Italiane is more than just a post office. True, you can send packages and some people recieve mail there, but it's also where you go to pay bills, hand in paperwork, and other things as well. I think it serves as an official arm of the government for some things as well, such as some documentation and identification purposes. Anyway, we wait at a smaller Poste Italiane closer to the house for roughly half an hour before our number is called. We are then informed that that location does not service our request.

Off we go to another location. At this one we wait for roughly an hour. By this time I'm getting pretty tired and frustrated, not helped by the awful beeping sound made by the machine that informs everyone whose turn it is. I think this machine and the life-sucking machine in the Princess Bride have the same roots - I felt like my life had been considerably shortened when I left. But seriously, the noise it makes is awful. Finally my number is called. The man behind the desk informs us that we need more photocopies of my and my host dad's passports. Of course, I don't fully understand this, but my host dad does, and grabs my passport from the death grip it had previously enjoyed in my hands, says "wait here" and runs out of the building. He returns and we are able to finish the paperwork.

Step 3: Going to the government office. I was unable to make my appointment at the government office, so my host dad and I go hoping to make another appointment. They are able to look at my paperwork right away and tell us to return the next morning with the final pieces. Whenever I hand in paperwork, or go to an official office, I am terrified that they will find something wrong and send me home. And, knowing my luck, it will probably be something stupid, like checking off "male" instead of "female", or saying that I was born in the 17th month, and that will be the end.

One of the requirements for the paperwork was more passport photos, so on the way home we stop at a roadside photo booth. My host dad pulls over, and sends me on my way with no instructions whatsoever. I guess he must have thought that I'd used one of these before. Just a few problems with the photo booth. Firstly, it would not take my money. I am capable of being a pretty patient person, but the machine had a timer going, so I was stressing out. (What would have happened when the timer ran out, I'm not sure. Maybe the the stool would become a launch seat and throw me from the booth?) Secondly, I can't seem to get centred correctly. I know that passport photos have very specific regulations, so I'm more than a bit nervous that my paperwork will be trown out and I'll get sent home. After three takes I give up and hope for the best. A tip: you never know how these things will decide how to crop your photo.

Step Four: Returning to the government office. The next morning we show up again. This time there are quite a few people there as well. The strange thing is that they stood outside the building, while I went inside, no idea why. There is some discussion about why I need the Permesso di Soggiorno, and then they take my fingerprints on an electric scanner. Then we head across the courtyard to another office where only I am allowed in (not my host dad). One of the workers in there is wearing medical gloves and the other is wearing one of those white suits that you wear over top of your regular clothes. This makes me nervous. My Italian is spotty at best, and I'm afraid that this is not going to go well. They take my fingerprints (again), and my palm prints, then I'm allowed to leave.

Step Five: receiving my Permesso di Soggiorno - hopefully in January?

Trapani

The exchange students from this district were invited to go to the Interact National Assembly in Trapani, just an hour away from Palermo. There were clubs from all over the district of Sicily, as well as clubs from other parts of Italy. I think they were meeting to discuss a group project.

Sunday started with a short presentation from sev

eral people, then it was time for lunch. Normally I would think to myself, "maybe I shouldn't eat this much food, I will need two seats on the return flight to Canada", but then I remember I'm only here once, and that I should go for it, so I certainly did not hold back here. Lunch was pasta, couscous and veggies, and the dessert was incredible. I had some of everything, except for one thing, which I missed. I had profiteroles covered in chocolate whipped cream, coffee mousse, and a cream pie with fruit. So delicious.

After lunch were introductions from all the clubs involved, and us exchange students said a few words. That night was the gala dinner so we changed into our dresses and sat at fancy tables. Before dinner were more speeches, and the flag presentation common to many Rotary events. Once again, I ate everything. We had quiche, ravioli with mushrooms, a meat course of beef, stuffed pork, and peas, then dessert, then fruit with lemon sorbet. Honestly this food was good. And it sounds like a lot, but remember that it took over two hours to eat.

After dinner was the discoteca!! We danced for quite a time, then went back to the hotel in time to hang out for a bit and get a few hours sleep.

On Monday we went on a tour of the historical centre of the city. I really enjoyed this although I stopped even trying to understand the tourguide after what seemed like the hundredth church. Trapani is right on the coast, and was super windy, which I loved, and the sea made me think of sailing. After the tour, some of us went for lunch at a pizza place. I had Genovese pizza, which had pesto, sausage and breadcrumbs and was delicious.

At this point it was time to say goodbye to our lovely hosts and head back to Palermo, after this fun but exhausting weekend.

I'm not sure if it was just because of my poor language skills, but I'm not sure what exactly this event accomplished. As a member of Interact for several years, I do know a little bit about budgetting for projects, but I could never imagine putting this in the budget. I know that a little bit of money can go a long way and can't help but cringe at the costs for this event. But, most likely, I just didn't know what happened because I didn't understand Italian. Best of luck on your projects, Interact!

Who needs school anyway?

Last week I had three half days, then two full days, then four days off. And the reason I have time to write today is because we got out four hours early.

The first half day wasn't really a half day. We had one hour of classes, then two hours of elections, then one hour of class. During the last hour the PE teacher wasn't there, so we went home early.

The second half day started late (though I didn't know so I was there on time) and ended on time, but we only had one hour of class. At nine thirty we went to the theatre to take part in an anti mafia video internet conference. This might have been interesting had I understood what was being said, but a combination of poor sound quality and my near-existant Italian skills made that impossible. After this we had an hour of practicing for our Dante presentation.

Then, Dante festival!!! Last Wednesday my class attended, along with other classes and schools, a series of plays, music, videos, powerpoint presentations, and skits put on by students focussed on Dante. Unfortunately I forgot my camera, so there won't be any photos from this event. We watched several presentation from other schools. I didn't understand a lot of them. Some I understood because of my limited knowledge of the Divine Comedy, but not a lot. Plus the people around me were getting noisier and rowdier as the day went on (as is common for most teenage boys), and that did not help me concentrate. Then it was our turn, and I stood in my place in line as part of the chorus (we didn't sing, but I'm not sure what to call a speaking part equivalent to a chorus). I had three lines, and walked a course with a group of other classmates. I was pretty proud of myself for remembering my lines, and not tripping. Shortly after our presentation we left. The next day my Italian teacher gave me a poster from Dante week, and circled the event we went to. He then wrote "Don't forget us!" and signed his name. I've been here six weeks and I'm already getting "don't forget us" notes. I love this guy, I think he's hilarious and enthusiastic.

Saturday we had off so they could either do a big cleaning, or de-insect the school (ummm), I don't remember which. Monday and Tuesday were Festa dei Morti (Celebration of the Dead), so we didn't have school then either. Halloween isn't celebrated here, there are few costumes for sale, no candy, no candy on sale the week after, but some people do celebrate Festa dei Morti. During Festi dei Morti, people visit the cemetaries their families are buried in to remember their lives. There are other activities associated with this event, but since my family didn't participate, I don't know a lot about them. My host dad went to another area of Sicily to observe this festival, but my host mom's family is in northern Italy.