ER - Italian style

Right after our return from the Netherlands, I was having coffee with some new American girlfriends in Pavia. Afterwards, my new friend Rene and I, with Asher, headed out to lunch at a Lebanese restaurant, yum! We walked down Strata Nuova, which is mainly a pedestrian street with lots of shops and limited traffic, only buses. It’s time to cross the street, Rene and I head out first, I turn back to Asher and tell him to come. He starts towards me and a high speed cyclist runs Asher over, first knocking him down, then literally running over his entire body with the bike falling on Asher’s head. I ran to him, throwing the bike off, to hold my silently screaming Asher.

This is one of those moments where you hear about mothers who lift cars or have amazing feats of strength. I know it was only a bike, but as I threw if off him, I felt like I could have lifted a boulder off of him. Asher was hurt pretty badly, I have never seen him in such pain or so discombobulated. We had a huge crowd around us, as there were many pedestrians already walking on the street, everyone concerned over the little bambino that just got hit. The police were on the scene and called an ambulance before I could even call Doug. Doug got to the scene just as the ambulance was ready to take us to the hospital. I was so thankful for my new friend Rene who translated everything and even rode to the hospital in the ambulance and stayed there translating for me for several hours.

In the hospital, after an xray and an additional CT scan, we found out Asher had a small skull fracture. In my mind, I kept thinking how could this have been avoided, thoughts/regrets swirled around in my head. I should have held Asher’s hand across the street, even though it’s a pedestrian area…How did I not see that bike…I should have been more attentive and not so chatty with my friend. Nothing could bring that moment back, and so I have to live within the present reality. Learning from the past and not dwelling in it.

After the discovery of the skull fracture, the doctors wanted to keep us in the hospital for 24-48 hours. This turned into 3-4 days which turned into 9 days. As Asher is admitted, I am also “admitted” and a patient/prisoner with him. Normally, I would not sweat this, but in this case, the timing was terrible. We were having Lucas’ birthday party that Sat, and on Sun, Grace, Taylor, Sophia and Sherry were arriving for a visit from the US.

So here we are hospitalized in Italy’s state run health care system. I had some wariness in the back of my head, but as a foreigner that barely spoke the language, I was forced to trust the care we received from the doctors. And I have to say that we received excellent care. You would think that a state run system, wouldn’t want to shorten the hospital stay or not have thorough testing, but I felt the doctors did not leave a stone unturned. We had a private room with a bed for me as well. I was given meals along with Asher. It seemed they were without a care for the costs, and did all that they could. With my brother and Doug’s sister Jody giving us advice/thoughts that confirmed what our Italian doctors were doing, we appreciated the care we received.

While we felt we had quality doctors here in a state run system, I did see the evidence of a state run system in the facility. It wasn’t shiny and new like some American hospitals with flat screen TV’s and private bathrooms. We did have a sink in our room, but had a shared toilet and bath down the hall. Our balcony door was kept shut with a table in front of it. The second night, I asked for a towel, I didn’t know the word for it and did a round of charades to get them to figure it out. In the end they gave me a sheet. I managed, but made sure I learned the word for towel the next time. I asked for an asciugamano and I got…a sheet. Apparently, they don’t provide towels. Asher’s rolling IV bottle holder had two bum wheels on it (later on we got a better one with only one bum wheel), which meant I had to half carry it down the hall for bathroom breaks. And the hospital food-I won’t even mention it for fear of gagging. Although, I blame this on another new American friend of mine, Cindy, who told me just the day before that she had the best food at an, albeit different, Italian hospital after she gave birth. So I was ready and excited for my gourmet Italian hospital food. Needless to say, I’m setting the bar low, really low, for future Pavia hospitalization.

I know that the US is currently in a heated debate over health care reform. My experience gave me some new insight on how complicated it all is. I won’t comment on the American health care system/crisis mainly because it’s complicated and I am ignorant of all the issues involved on both sides. But I will say this: We walked out of the hospital after 9 days of hospitalization, xray, CTscan, EEG, ear scoping and exams, hearing tests, neurological examination, and a slew of other things I am probably forgetting, without a bill or any money out of our pocket. For this, I will be forever grateful.

Going to the Motherland

A girlfriend of mine, Julia and her husband Mike, moved to Groningen, Holland earlier this year. So we booked a cheap flight on Ryan Air to visit them in the beginning of November. I was a little wary of Ryan Air, notorious for its charge-you-for-everything policies (ie €40 to pay with a credit card, when our tickets cost only €60). Also, Ryan Air operates out of Bergamo, outside of Milan, so we took a bus, a train, another train, then another bus, to finally get to the airport to board our plane. After arriving in Bremen, we rode a 3 hour bus and then a taxi to arrive at Julia’s. Totaling 12 hours of Trains, Planes, and Automobiles. Despite the length, we had a good day of travel with the boys and to our surprise, our experience with Ryan Air was very positive.

So we arrived in the Motherland. And it was cloudy. cold. rainy. A reason to Groan, again and again in Groanagain, oops Groningen. Yes, I was a little grumpy during the first part of our trip. To leave sunny, warm Italy for this was a little tough for me. But as the days past, I really came to love Holland.

First of all, it felt like a homecoming for me. Yes, this is Doug’s motherland, not mine, but it’s a part of me due to our many years in Grand Rapids, which holds a lot of the culture and feel of the Netherlands. We stayed on Diephuis Straat (so we thought of Doug’s good friend Greg often). We saw so many friends’ names on store fronts, businesses, and streets (Winkel, Ruiter, VerBeek, VanderMeyden to name a few). We had Ollie Bollen at the market - several times. We loved the fried fish, the cheeses, and the cosmopolitan nature of Groningen and Amsterdam. There were all different ethnic cuisines you could choose from. The markets held goods from all over the world. (I bought a jangle scarf for belly dancing there, and there were 3+ booths selling them- I think GR can follow suit here. More belly dancing in GR!)

Anther thing I loved about Holland is that everyone spoke English. It’s amazing that bus drivers, grocery cashiers, and street vendors, practically everyone on the street, spoke English. Not only this, what amazed me further was that many people would first talk to me in Dutch then after my blank stare and request for English, they spoke to me in English. Even in the USA, there are still people who will first try to talk to me in Chinese or Japanese. We only encountered a handful of people who did not speak English. One was a happy drunkard who adored our children. Which leads me to recount a serendipitous highlight of our trip.

On Monday night our whole family went for a night walk to throw away garbage and recycle. This kind drunk man sees us, says hello to the children, and says “lantaarn” to us, pointing at the kids. We smile, but shrug our shoulders and shake our heads, having no idea what he’s talking about. Well on Wed afternoon, I am heading back from the market with Julia on our bikes (of course!) and I see a family with children carrying lanterns. So I accost one of the families and find out that the kids make lanterns, hang them on a lit up fishing pole. They go around to others homes and businesses, sing a song, and get a treat. Trick or treating with a twist! So I run bike to the store, buy some of these lit poles and lanterns, ride home, grab the boys and off we go. The first place we go to was a bike store. The owner had these huge marshmallow treats in a container that were not individually wrapped. Well, Lucas grabs one promptly turns to me bright eyed and innocent and says, “Mommy, it's not covered, so we have to eat it right away, right?” Throw out any candy poisoning anxiety, how can I say no? We went around singing Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star, which got rousing cheers. Many had never heard it before. At a few homes they sang Jesus Loves Me, which got more odd looks, maybe because Lucas forgot some of the lyrics in the middle (we’ve been missing Sunday school- reminded me to do more at home!) So we stuck to Twinkle, Twinkle. Lucas sang this quite slowly and carefully in the beginning, but by the end, he was whipping it out in double time. Even Asher started to get it and was a little echo with Lucas by the end. Twinkle. Star. You Are. High. Sky. It was great spontaneous fun for our whole family, and the kids (we) got huge bags of yummy candy.

One’s loss another’s gain: Florence

Returning from Oktoberfest, we got the opportunity to visit Florence. Doug’s cousin Janelle and family moved to Italy just a week before us. However, because they were traveling in Europe for 3 months prior, they encountered some visa problems and had to return to the US to resolve them. They generously offered us their apartment while they were gone. Thus, their loss became our gain. After our rough hotel stays in Austria & Germany (and this was at a nice 4star hotel where we all had our own beds!), we jumped at the chance to stay in an apartment, to be able to cook healthier (and cheaper) meals, have the space to move around, and sleep/relax in separate rooms. And the icing on the cake: their apartment was bellisimo! It had a huge master suite with space for sleeping, an office, and a master bath, a nice spacious kitchen with eating area & dishwasher(oh how I miss my dishwasher!), high ceilings, huge windows, satellite TV in English, and it was right in the city center amidst all the top attractions of Florence. I had some serious Italian apartment envy.

Once we got situated, we did a Renaissance walking tour and got our bearings around the center of Florence. Visiting some of the major sites, the Duomo/Baptistry, Santa Croce, Bargello, San Lorenzo Market, Ponte Vecchio, Piazza Repubblica, Piazza Signoria, Piazzale Michelangelo, Palazzo Pitti, Palazzo Vecchio, Boboli Gardens, Uffizi… we appreciated the architecture, the sculptures, the art, the markets, the views, and the gelato (of course). There is so much there, you can see some of it in our pics.

When you travel, there are always unexpected blessings and curses. One day, we visited Palazzo Vecchio, which has a children’s program in English. So, we roamed through this palace with some other English speaking families, the boys searching for turtles in various parts of the palace art. At the end of the tour, we were talking to a few of the families, and it turned out a group of them were Renaissance professors on fellowships doing research in Florence, an American family, an English family, and a Canadian family. Well, it was Canadian Thanksgiving and they generously invited us celebrate it with them. We love those Canadians! So we got to enjoy some Tuscan delights, wild boar stew, pappardelle, sausages, cheeses, croquettes and of course good Tuscan wine & grappa. The kids all entertained themselves in the spacious apartment(I had apartment envy once again). It was such a great afternoon, listening to fun stories and meeting a new set of families (who are actually very familiar with Italia, the language, culture, and of course, the Renaissance).

And then there are the curses. We loved James & Janelle’s apartment, but there was one pesky problem. Mosquitoes. These mosquitoes didn’t bother us during the day, but it was in our sleep that they would buzz in our ear and bite us all over our face, arms, and hands. We would lay out traps before we slept, trying to lure them in and kill them. But whenever we killed one (which was not an easy feat as the Italian mosquito is quite elusive), there was always another one around. Poor Doug got the worst of it. Usually, I work well as Doug’s mosquito repellent, apparently in the States, they favor my blood. Here, in Florence, Doug got double the number of bites I did. Ouch!

Denn alles fleisch es ist wie gras (Oktoberfest)

So here we are in northern Italy, and we realize that the real deal Oktoberfest is taking place in not so far off Germany, so off we go with our 2 young boys. We stop for a night in Innsbruck, Austria where we had a yummy dinner of starchy salty delicacies – Susie had the best mac and cheese she’s ever had. Doug washed it down by a surprisingly sweet tasting beer (more on that later). That night we tried to get the whole family asleep in an 8 by 12 foot room with 2 single beds. So the boys are first. We put them down, and we hunker outside the door watching Planet Earth. We probably had to stop the show at least 8 times to try and curtail their giggling, talking, and otherwise not sleeping. Needless to say, none of us got a lot of sleep that night. Ah, the joys of staying in a hotel with kids.

The next morning we head to Monk-town (Munich), only an hour away. It is during this leg of our journey that we face the fact that neither Susie nor Doug knows German. This turns out to be 100% true for Susie, but Doug is oddly able to recall a smattering of phrases from a former life: das is nicht zo goot; ich ben ine Berliner; spreckenzee Deutsch? Nine. On top of this, shreds of Brahmsian phrases from choir days return as well, but we think ‘Then all flesh is as the grass’ will not be easy to work into everyday conversations.

Parking by our hotel, we took the train into Thereseweiss, the place of Oktoberfest. At every stop the number of people on the train doubled. Young and old alike garbed in leiderhosen, leather trousers for men, and dirndls (can I buy a vowel here?) busty calico dresses for women. The climb out of the subway station is truly climactic as it summits right in front of the main gate to the festival – which started some 199 years ago when Crown Prince Ludwig gave his new bride Therese a field and they used that location for a wedding party.

We have arrived, and it is now our duty to try and convey the wonder that is Oktoberfest. So it is I, Doug, authoring this entry, as I was the one viewing the event through the appropriate lager-colored glasses. This is not just a metaphor, as the glasses are so big that when you drink, you cannot see over it and must look right into your glass and out the bottom. I enjoyed a pair of these over the course of the day, enough to wash down the roasted chicken and sausages, but not enough to do anything embarrassing.

So it turns out when you center a festival on Beer, it becomes the biggest one in the world. It was packed with people, all in various stages of debauchery and tomfoolery. Not just young people either. Kids, older adults, it seemed every German, and those wishing to be German, showed up. In the Hacker-Pschorr tent, where we got in first, we sat down next to 2 Austrians, dressed in their leiderhosen, who just drove in for the day. One was a cop and had been up the whole night before. He could barely keep from falling asleep. It was the awake one that clued us in to the existence of the radler. Some of you know that I enjoy creating ‘beer-coolers’ with juice and beer. Well, that’s what a radler is. It turns out I had ordered one in Austria, and now discovered that it was invented by bikers in Bavaria, who upon nearly running out of beer, starting mixing it with lemonade. The radler (german for rider) has been a Bavarian staple ever since.

The truly shocking part about the fest, though was the rides. Yes, carnival rides. Enough to outdo Cedar point. Loopers, swingers, whizzers, every combination of swervy motion you can imagine. Now rides are a lot of fun, but remember this is a beer festival. A beer festival where the beer is served in large litre size mugs – all Andre the Giant size. And people were drinking a lot of beer (typically 7 million liters total). The festival has an entire operation dedicated to picking up passed-out-drunks and discretely covering them with a box, before carting them away to a rather large recovery tent. The festive cacophony is punctuated surprisingly regularly by the sounds of ambulance sirens entering and leaving the grounds. Never was chunder more inevitable. I include a picture for those of you who dare to look.

Our day wound down as we sat in a park near the entrance, surrounded by happy playing children, and the numerous men lying in the fetal position. Notice the level of the glass in these pictures taken just minutes apart. I tried to tell him “Denn alles fleisch es ist wie gras”, but I don’t think he heard me.

(By the way, Brahms wrote his requiem between 1865 and 1868, almost 60 years after the first Oktoberfest. I like to imagine he attended himself in 1864.)

Our next day in Munich, we did a walking tour of the city. We learned about the history of Munich and Bavarian culture. It is amazing that after all the bombings during WWII, the buildings are as beautiful as they were prewar. Apparently, the Nazi’s took a lot of photos of the buildings, which were used to rebuild them to their previous glory. As we walked around, we could see the foundation of the buildings had bullet marks in them showing the evidence of the bombings, some buildings had cannonballs lodged in them. Another interesting thing we learned is that the leiderhosen, the leather trousers, are passed down from generation to generation. So you know a true Bavarian by the condition/age of their leiderhosen. Now, are the leiderhosen cleaned before being passed on to the next generation is another question. We also visited a pub, where you have your own beer mug, and your own booth. If you get to the restaurant, anyone sitting in your booth must move and they will serve you beer in your very own personalized beer stein. Now that is VIP service!

A Random fun thing we encountered in Munich: We ran into the LEGO roadshow 2009 and had fun playing with legos, jumping in a giant lego blow up, riding a lego ride, watching them build an 80 ft tower...

I am going to end this blog with an age old adage from Homer Simpson; "Bacon that sausage, boy."

Milan Mums and Tots

So this past week I found out about a mums and tots play group in Milan. It was such a blessing to meet with some English speaking women/moms. Thursday was also their monthly mums night out, so I got to try out a charming little Italian restaurant (Casa Tua). The dinner out started at 830pm. So after making dinner for our family (we eat at 7pm, early for Italians) I took the commuter train into Milan (20 min) then hopped on the metro for a few stops to get to the restaurant. My love for city life has returned being so close to a large city. When I got to the restaurant, it was nearly empty, but with reservations full they were turning people away. Then by 930pm, the restaurant was packed out. There were even a few models sitting at the table next to us (fashion week starts soon). Service was slow, so we had a very long meal, but it was good. I even got to try rabbit, and it was surprisingly delicious and tender. I had to leave by 1130 to catch the train, so I missed dessert. A few interesting things about eating out in Italy: complimentary mini appetizers, multiple courses with meat 2nd after pasta/rice, no tipping, no doggy bags(except pizza), specify water-naturale or frizzante, and some slower service (longer paced meal).

As you might have noticed, instead of mom, it is mum due to the overwhelming large number of British mums over American moms. I am partly surprised by the great number of Brits over Americans in Europe, and also all over the world, considering our population difference (England 61mil-USA 304mil). Of course in Europe, you would expect to find more English expats because it is so close. In addition, I think there is a greater openness to moving to a foreign country. As Americans it’s common to move to another state or another city, but uncommon to move overseas. Maybe it is because we are blessed to live in such a large country with varied landscapes, demographics, and subcultures. Maybe it is because we are a bit isolated and insulated from the rest of the world. Regardless, I am thankful we had the opportunity to live abroad. And as charming it is to hear some kids say mum, I love to hear my kids call me their mom(my).

To Bidet or Not to Bidet

There has been a lot of talk in our house regarding our new bathroom accessory. While I am usually not one to engage in bathroom talk, the Bidet cannot be missed in our blog. The boys have been very intrigued, with Asher asking, at times demanding, to use it as a second toilet. While they pay less attention to it after 3 weeks, he asked again if he could pee in it just yesterday. Doug and I have been discussing bidets, their use, the frequency, the ubiquity. In the past, we’ve seen some with little fountains in the middle, but ours, including most Italian bidets, is a shallow sink shaped like a toilet with a faucet. So we’ve been debating how to use ours. Do you splash from the faucet or fill & dip. What is your vote?

With many of our Italian questions, we went to our friend Dario got the low down. Bidets are still used by many to wash after the #2. Most from our generation do not use it, but it is still in every home, including new construction. His parent’s generation probably still uses it regularly. And how do they use it? Drum roll…fill and dip!

We had this lovely bidet conversation with Dario on our way to Brescia this past weekend. Dario’s parents invited us to lunch at their house. We made a day trip of it and Dario took us to see his home town and a lake close by. It was a fun day, seeing some sights in another Italian city. The old Duomo there is circular and a newer (centuries ago) Duomo was built next to it. Both beautiful buildings inside and out with a wonderful green piazza in front. There was even a children’s bush maze. In Brescia, there were even some old Roman ruins that we got to see. What is amazing is that as the city is built around these ruins, in the last 2000 years, the ground level around the ruins steadily risen, some by natural sediment deposits and some man built roads/construction, but there is nearly a 12 feet of ground level difference from the ruins and modern day. It is wild seeing things that are so old!

At 1pm, we went on to the home of Dario’s parents, Luciano & Adele. Dario’s newly married brother, Sergio, and sister in law, Teresa, joined us as well. The meal started with wonderful antipasti, there were 8 different varieties, including: roasted red peppers and garlic, pepperchinis with parm cheese, octopus (even Lucas tried this, now he’s proud to say he’s eaten octopus), and marinated mushrooms. This was followed by some wonderful risotto with saffron and mushrooms. I had to work hard at not eating too much because I knew there was more to come. It was a relaxing meal with wine and good conversation about Italy and life in the Pasini household. The whole family loved on our children, giving them candies and letting them run around. They knew what it was like to have two boys as Dario and Sergio did the same thing many years ago. Back to the meal, the main dish was some stewed beefsteak served with a delicious polenta and mashed potatoes. After that we had salad. It’s different having the salad toward the end of the meal, but there’s something nice about having the greens to wash down the heavier foods from earlier in the meal. Then we had two courses of dessert. First some fruit salad sweetened in syrup with gelato (of course!). After that an apple torta. I saved a little bit of my torta to have with my espresso at the end of the meal, which Italians typically have by itself.
Four hours later, we were full of food, wine and Italian company. Because the meal is over a large period of time, it was nice to have breaks here and there, especially towards the end of the meal, a few people, including Doug, lounged in the couches nearby as we talked.

From there we headed to a lake nearby, Lago di Iseo. There is another lake nearby, the largest lake in Italy, Lake Garda. This lake is a bit touristy so we headed over to Iseo which is picturesque and has a large island in the middle of the lake, which you can take a ferry to. We had planned to take a ferry to visit the island, but dark clouds moved in and so we shortened our visit at Iseo. Of course we made time to have some gelato and walked through a large open market for antique furniture.

It was a great day away thanks to our friend Dario and his family.

Rain, rain go away…

The weather was beautiful our first two weeks here, and then its rained for the past three days. So when the sun peeked out today, we tried to take advantage of it. We went to a big outdoor kids play area in Pavia that had inflatables, trampolines, mazes, ball pits, playground equipment, play riders and more, for only E3! We were the first ones there and the last ones to leave. Stopping only because it closed for reposo (aka siesta). Leaving there, in passing, Doug noticed a guy with a Cal sweatshirt. Soon after, we ducked into a bakery (about to close, luckily we got in) to buy some bread. I saw the Cal sweatshirt guy and asked him if he went to Berkeley. It turned out he was Italian and did not go to Berkeley, but his friends were three American boys, all Berkeley grads. Go Bears!

With the respite from rain, we finally got the chance to check out a new park I had seen while biking around. The boys enjoyed it, but I realized I was starting to get bug bites, then they started to swarm around us, I must have swatted 6 mosquitos in 10 seconds, two of them on Asher's forehead. I quickly got Asher in the bike seat and we headed out. When we stopped, I noticed Lucas was all bit up. So much so that I counted his bites. (I wanted to tell Doug who was not with us) There were 42 of them! The bugs have been an issue. We (even Doug) get bug bites throughout the entire day. Typically in the US, the bugs come out at night, but here, it's an all day deal. Fresh American blood, something new and exciting for the little buggers?

Our final fun activity was a mini festival/open market in our town. We headed there after dinner. It was an interesting market of goods, from jewelry, hand puppets, cars, kids clothes, sausages, jellies, sauces, cheeses, wines, and (random) products from Madagascar. Restaurants were open with seating outdoors and of course gelato stands. They had stages set up for bands in different areas. We can hear them play right now. We caught a fire eating show in the kids area, where they had balloons and face painting. We were just enjoying the show, when we felt the drops of rain. We headed back home in a drizzle. Lucas asked why we didn't bring an umbrella. Which started a series of "why" questions on reading the sky and weather patterns.

All in all, we made up for the days it rained with lots of fun activities for the whole family.