^ downtime in Siena during a class trip to Tuscany It’s traditional in the Italian school system, at least from middle school on, for each class to take a school trip (gita scolastica) most years. Rossella started at age five, during her last year of scuola materna. Though most of them had never been away from home … Continue reading School Trips: An Italian Tradition
Whatever one’s feelings about the rightness or otherwise of it, war is never a comfortable time. This one in particular is cause for nervousness among Americans overseas. I’ve just received email from the US Embassy in Rome advising “American citizens in Italy to take prudent steps to ensure their personal safety in the coming days. … Continue reading Here We Go Again: The Beginning of the Second Iraq War
(for women) I read somewhere that an astonishing proportion of Italian women dye their hair – was it 60% ? Wouldn’t surprise me. Look around you on the Milan metro any crowded morning, and it’s hard to find a woman who doesn’t dye her hair. There are plenty of blondes, few of them natural. A woman’s hair … Continue reading In Italy, Dyed Hair More Common than Natural
^ carabinieri arriving for a soccer match at Milan’s San Siro stadium I used to believe that spectator sports were a way of channeling the mob’s inherent violence into vicarious forms of conflict. “Supporting” a team means joining a sort of artificial tribe, comprised of that team’s fans. You signal your membership in the tribe … Continue reading Is Football Worth It? The Cost of Stadium Violence in Europe
Scuola materna (kindergarten) is a wonderful thing. In Italy, every parent has the right – though not the obligation – to put their child in preschool, free of charge, for three years, until they begin first grade in their sixth year. Traditionally, this seems to have been regarded as a way to socialize kids to … Continue reading Scuola Materna: Public Preschool in Italy
