Incredible mussels Mario made one night.
Frittata
I left Treviso for a week in Bologna and met my new host, Mario. I'm getting a little tired of being on the CouchSurfing website all the time, searching for hosts. It takes a long time to read through profiles and write couch requests. I used to write a lot of requests for each city because some people would say no, or already have a surfer, or be too busy, respond too late, or not respond at all. (Although sometimes, I'd receive 'yes's' from almost everyone and have to decline them.) So this time, I only wrote to one person (Mario,) and he accepted. What a relief.
From the Bologna train station, I walked to Porta Mascarella, one of the old entrances to the city, where Mario met me on foot. We walked to his place and I put my stuff in the empty room. We sat at the kitchen table for a “getting to know each other” chat. We spoke in Italian. He found out that I had been in Napoli, and I mentioned some of my impressions of the people there. In Napoli the people are “menefreghista,” he said. I didn't know what that meant, so he explained in English: “They don't give a shit... don't care... couldn't be bothered.” I was impressed with his ability to speak English, wondering how he had learned all those different expressions. On top of that, he spoke without the characteristic Italian accent.
We continued talking, and I asked him if he was born in Bologna. He gave me a funny look and said he was born in Australia. I found out that his parents are from the southern region of Calabria in Italy, and that they went to Australia a few months before he was born. So both Italian and English are his first languages!
Mario's great, loves to read, is a fantastic cook, has a wicked sense of humor, and has my favorite game (Trivial Pursuit) in my favorite edition (Genus) sitting in his kitchen. Later in the week we played it a few times. He has the Australian edition, so to level the playing field, we excluded all the questions about Australia, since he knows the answers and no one else does.
That first evening, Mario asked me what I wanted to do and suggested a tour of the city. I was not in a touring the city kind of mood. Then I realized I'd love to go running, and Mario asked if he could come with me. He was a great running partner and convinced me to do sprints with him. He used to be a sprinter and did the 100 and 200. I always ran the 400 and the 800, so he got me to do shorter sprints and I got him to do some longer ones with me.
We got home in time to shower and go to a bar to hang out with his friends and watch a soccer game. Mario didn't care that much about the soccer, so he hung out outside in front of the bar. A bride-to-be out on her bachelorette party walked by the bar with some friends. One was holding a sign that said, in Italian, “The Last 50 Kisses!”, another carried a digital camera, and another a dish of candy. Mario gave her a kiss on the cheek and the friend snapped a photo. He was given a piece of candy for his efforts.
Still outside, Mario eyed himself in the front window of the bar. He checked out his stomach in profile, and, alluding to the run, asked if he looked thinner from that morning. He saw his back reflected in the mirror and realized that his tank top was visible through his shirt. In his Australian accent, which adds dramatic flair that left me inwardly cracking up, he exclaimed, “You can see my singlet! Oh, how embarrassing!” I never heard it called a “singlet” before. So then, since he didn't want people to see his tank top through his shirt, but being naked was okay, he proceeded to take off his shirt and tank top, draping them around a friend's neck, and then just put the shirt back on.
Throughout the week, Mario and I spent a lot of time making fun of each other's accents.
At one point, I was thinking to myself, and, since we've been spending so much time together, in the middle of my thought-sentence I pronounced the word “opportunity” like he does. I told him. He said that maybe my pronunciation will improve. I said that maybe
his pronunciation will improve. He said that an American pronunciation is not an improvement. Whatever.
Late Sunday morning, we left the house to have breakfast. We walked to Piazza Maggiore, the hub of Bologna, but the café there was too expensive, so we continued through the piazza in search of a cheaper spot. Mario shared one of Bologna's hidden secrets with me.
He said he wanted to show me something, and we walked to the end of the piazza to the famous statue of Neptune coolly controlling the waters with one hand. We stood squarely in front of the statue. “As you can see,” Mario told me, “Neptune's penis is not that big.” I nodded warily.
Silently, Mario walked away from the statue and stopped at a forty-five degree angle behind it. “Now look.” I burst out laughing. From here a huge protuberance jutted out from his lower abdomen.
When I took a few steps forward and to the right, I realized it was the thumb of his outstretched left hand, seen from a unique perspective.
Random Proverb #1: “La donna baffuta e` sempre piaciuta.” Literally: “A mustached woman is always liked.” I found one interpretation online: “A plain woman is always more considerate and more affectionate.”
Here's a list of places I have been to on my trip and a map with virtual push pins. I've always wanted a real push pin map! When I made this map, I realized I haven't been to the region of Abruzzo. I thought I went there when I stayed on a farm in April, but it turns out that the farm was JUST over the border in Lazio. Below is the list of cities and towns. It's not complete because sometimes I would forget to write down the names of places that I went to just briefly, but all the major places are there. If I was only in the train station somewhere, I didn't put it on the list.
