Rome, October, 2003
All posts by Deirdre Straughan
Imaging in Italy: A Photographic Walking Tour of Rome
I spent the week of October 12-18 in Rome, on Tony Boccaccio’s Imaging inItaly course, a wonderful, fun experience that I heartily recommend to anyone wishing to improve photography skills OR, even if you’re not an experienced photographer, if you want to do something completely different in Rome – and bring home some amazing photographs of your very own.
NB: The tour when I did it was a week long, but Imaging in Italy now offers shorter sessions. Contact Tony for more information.
I was supposed to arrive Sunday afternoon for an introductory session and dinner. Upon reaching Lecco station at 6:30 am, I learned that there was a railway strike, and my train to Milan was two hours late – no chance of making the connection for the Eurostar from Milan to Rome. So I rebooked for the next day, arriving Monday at noon (which required waking up at 4:30 am). Two other course participants had been held up trying to get to Rome from Venezia, so the welcome dinner Sunday was postponed to a welcome lunch on Monday.
Day 1
I got to Hotel Alessandrino just in time for the end of a morning session on Visual Thinking. Then we all picked up our cameras (mine is a Nikon Coolpix 775 digital) and walked down to Saint Peter’s. Along the way, I grabbed this shot:
Piazza San Pietro was being decorated and filled with chairs for the Pope’s 25th anniversary bash. This was not a problem, as we wereavoiding standing in the middle of the circle and taking postcard shots. Instead, we first walked around the colonnade, looking for different ways of seeing and showing what we saw, with Tony offering suggestions, and taking pictures of us taking pictures. I was fascinated with architecture and geometry, so there was plenty to keep me busy.
We finally got our welcome lunch, at the Antica Taverna (via Monte Giordano 12). The antipasti were excellent, and, of the three pasta dishes we tried, my favorite were the orecchiette (“little ears”) with a sauce made from sweet bell peppers.
When we finally staggered away from the table, I accompanied my coursemates to the Spanish Steps, the Keats museum, and on other wanderings.
Italian School Schedules and Calendars
Rossella is in her first year at Liceo Artistico (art high school), and we’re all struggling to adjust to her new pace of education. We didn’t know that Artistico requires more hours in the classroom than probably any other school: 4 days @ 5 hours plus 2 days @ 7 hours equals 34 hours a week, with only brief recess breaks, even on the two days that they have a lunch period. This time is divided into 40 periods of 50 minutes each.
19 periods are spent on standard academic subjects: biology, literature, religion, algebra, physics, grammar, English, history, anthology, and narrative (not sure I see the difference between these two and literature, but it seems to add up to several different kinds of reading each week). Then there are 19 periods of art: technical drawing, “plastic arts” (sculpture), art history, and pictorial arts. Finally, two periods of physical education. All that, and they still have homework most days.
School six days a week, ugh. Not only does Ross have to get up on Saturdays: so do I, to ensure that she does, though this is probably easier for me than for her. I’m the only morning person in this family, though occasionally even I like to have the option to sleep in. And most Sundays we’ll be getting up early as well, so Ross can ride. Groan.
School on Saturdays is traditional in Italy, but many schools in Milan have moved away from it, I suspect because many Milanese like to escape the city on weekends, fleeing to their second homes at the beach, on one of the lakes, or in the mountains (hence traffic is hideous going out of the city Friday night and back in Sunday night). Lecco retains the Saturday tradition, so it’s a good thing we are not in the habit of going away on weekends. On the other hand, who needs to? Lake Como is one of the places the Milanese escape to!
Italian Babies: Why So Few Are Being Born
“How to solve Europe’s pension crisis: Work longer, have more babies”
cover of The Economist, Sept 27, 2003 – with a photo of a rather horrified (and rather Italian) -looking woman
“Sheesh! What is wrong with you Italians?! You inherit one of the most beautiful cultures the world has ever seen and you jeopardize it by refusing to breed.”
Reader comment on an article about Italian birthrates, Zoomata
The Economist speaks somewhat tongue-in-cheek; I’m not sure about Zoomata’s anonymous reader. So, in case you’re wondering, today we will address the question of why Italians don’t have more babies.
To quote an American politician, completely out of context: “It’s the economy, stupid.”
First, real estate costs: Buying a home is expensive in the desirable parts of the country, i.e., those where you can actually find jobs. Rentals are almost non-existent, and also very expensive. Until recently, rent laws so favored the tenant that a landlord could well find himself saddled with a tenant who didn’t pay rent, yet could not be evicted until after a long (ten years!) and expensive court battle. People who own real estate are therefore reluctant to rent it, unless they are large-scale landlords who can afford the risk. There aren’t many of these, so the market is tight, and rents are high.
The high cost of renting or buying is also part of the reason young people don’t move out of their parents’ homes until age 30 or beyond, and/or they marry. You can’t afford a home of your own until there are two of you to contribute to the expenses, and even then you probably need help from one or both sets of parents (as we had).
If you’re living at home and not married yet, you most likely don’t have kids. So, by the time an Italian woman marries, she’s often past 30, with few reproductive years left. This is also about the age that people first begin making decent salaries, and, in spite of fairly liberal maternity laws, Italian women face the same career-vs.-family choices that American women do: being a mother slows you down on the career track, so the choice to have a child is also a choice to lower your lifetime income.
Once you do get married and move into your own place, your first home is probably a small one. Enrico, Rossella, and I lived in a three-room apartment for 12 years. And I do mean three ROOMS (plus bath): two bedrooms and a living/dining room; our kitchen was so tiny (1 x 2 meters) that it didn’t count as a room. The refrigerator had to be in the living room, along with the dining table, TV, sofa, and shelving. Enrico’s piano had to go in Rossella’s room, which began to be a problem as she got older and wanted her privacy. Her room also contained a huge closet/bed/desk unit called a cameretta (used partly for storing off-season clothes and other stuff for the whole family) and a second closet, as well as shelving. Our room contained a large closet, our bed, bookshelves, and one corner was my “office”.
Had we had a second child, where would we have put it? Buy a bigger place in Milan, you say? Couldn’t afford that – that’s part of the reason we moved to Lecco. Where I’m now looking for work. And did I mention how hard it is for anyone to find jobs in Italy, especially outside the big cities?
At least in Italy putting kids through college is not the huge financial burden that it is for Americans. Italian universities are essentially free and open to everybody; a modest tuition fee has been introduced in recent years, but the only other expense is for books – IF you live in or near a city that has the kind of university program your child wants to attend. If not, you’re looking at big-city rents again: say 1000 euros a month for a studio apartment in Milan, maybe you can get it down to 500 if your student shares a small apartment with several others. This obviates any small-town low-rents advantage you might have enjoyed previously.
Then, when your kid finishes college, he is likely to be at home again (or still) while searching for a decent job, and then working his way up to a salary level that would permit him to move out. So you’re still supporting this kid, and you’ve got to keep a home large enough to hold everybody until the he’s finally out in his own place, which you will likely help to finance. Oh, and, by the way, that pension you’re being taxed up the wazoo for? Don’t count on it being there when you retire. Which will be later than your parents did, and you’re still going to get less than they did. Why? Because Italy has been paying over-generous pensions for decades, the system is going bankrupt, and there is no political will to make the necessary reforms (just like in the good ol’ USA). You’d better start saving now for your retirement.
So… are you still surprised that 45% of Italian children have no siblings?
See also: Rebecca’s view
Other People’s Bookshelves
In the course of looking for a place to live in Lecco, we’ve seen the insides of many strangers’ homes, up for sale (for the moment we’ve ended up renting, but that’s another story).
The décor was extremely variable. Many Italian homes run to a type I think of as “classic” Italian: heavy, dark wood furniture, with family photos in silver frames, and lots of silver gewgaws of the type that you give as gifts when you want to give something costly but don’t know the recipient’s tastes (I loathe these things: too ugly to display, too expensive to give or throw away).
We did see one place stunningly decorated with masks and sculptures from all over Africa; the owner has travelled there a lot. The interior design of this house was also stunning, with an iron spiral staircase going up to a loft office under the peak of the roof. But the furniture was a little too well-matched for my taste – and it was green! As was the kitchen. What is it with green in this country? Do we have to pay homage to the olive in everything?
Another place had furniture clearly designed by an artist and custom-built for the house. It was made of laminated layers of different woods, cut away in strange angles and curves and polished to a sensual smoothness that made you want to stroke it. If the furniture had been included in the (exorbitant) price, I’d have wanted the place on the spot.
What I found surprising in most of the houses we saw was the lack of books. I admit that we probably err on the side of excess. But I’m always suspicious, and somewhat uncomfortable, in a house with no books. You can tell a lot about a family by what’s on their shelves, and you can always find something to talk about. In one friend’s home, I could see instantly that someone was a classicist. In another, it was downright hilarious how many books we had in common, right across the spectrum from science fiction and fantasy to Indian novels.
