In Ascoli everything is closed on Sunday mornings and afternoons. Last Sunday, I walked through the streets and felt as though I had them to my own. I walked past houses where you could hear forks and knives on plates and families chattering through the wooden shutters. Although one can witness something like this during the midday break on the weekdays, on Sundays it is as if everybody devotes the beginning of their days to church, family and sitting down for a great meal. At night, after the streets have been left desolate for hours, bars, stores and restaurants open to the people of Ascoli and the city all of a sudden fills with life again.
I walked around Piazza del Popolo and Piazza Arringo to be welcomed by swarms of people gossiping and walking around with their families and friends. This happens ever night of the week, but on Sunday the piazzas are the most crowded.
On Sunday night, a group of us went to a Chinese restaurant down the street from the UNH classrooms. Chinese food in Italy is very different than Chinese food back home. I was hoping there would be chicken fingers and General Chow’s chicken on the menu, but unfortunately I found none of what I had anticipated. I’m not sure if what was on the menu was authentic Chinese food or the Italian version of Chinese food, but it did not taste that great to me. I ordered dumplings and a chicken dish. The dumplings were not good and the chicken was spicy and made me cough. I thought it should have come in a quesadilla. Chinese food in Italy, for me, was not a good idea. It was a break from the heavy pasta and pizza overload I’ve been experiencing these past few weeks, so the change was welcome. Everybody else seemed to like what they got and made plans to come back. Italian Chinese food, for me, was a one time experience.
The school week went by normally. The weather has been getting increasingly colder this past week. It is a relief from the scorching humidity we were welcomed by when we first arrived.
On Thursday after Italian class, my cinema class and Federica, an actress who plays the lead role in my film and is the girlfriend of one of Cristian’s buddies, filmed the alleyway scene of my movie. Federica was a great choice for the role of Carina and totally embodied the character that I wrote. It is an amazing thing to see something that I wrote and created be brought to life. I am so happy that I was able to take this course and discover something that I never knew I would be interested in.
After the wrap of the first day, I headed back to school for a round of email writing and kept up with the news at home.
Then, I took a leisurely stroll around town. Phil and I walked across another bridge and I got to see a side of the town I had never seen. I discovered a few other grocery stores, found out where the train and bus stations in town are, and saw the Ascoli soccer stadium.
On Friday the group of us UNH in Italy students woke up early in the morning and ventured across one of the bridges in town to go to the police station in Ascoli where we had an appointment to meet with the police regarding our stay in Italy.
Before moving on, a little back story is necessary: When we first arrived in Ascoli, it was necessary for us students to receive permission from the Italian government to stay in Italy for three months. The third day of our stay we all went to post office and received a packet of information that Cristian and Diana, his assistant, helped us fill out. We then had to go to a Tabacchi (a shop that sells stamps, candy, tobacco, phone cards and lottery tickets) and purchase a Marco di Bollo, which is a stamp that cost 14.62 Euro and issued when someone sends any official document to the Italian government. We then had to copy every page of our passport, even the blank ones. Then we all went back to the post office and completed the registration by placing all the documents in an envelope, paying the fee to stay in the country and putting the stamp on the envelope to be sent off for processing. We were officially allowed to stay in Italy for three months…or so we thought.
Earlier this week, Cristian told us that we needed to have our fingerprints documented and our pictures taken for government records. On Friday, we would have to go to the police station for about two hours while we were fingerprinted and the documentation was tied up. When we arrived at the station, there were about 15 other foreigners from around the world huddled at the door. We assumed they were here for the same reason. We all dropped our passports and the receipts we received for the Permesso di Soggiorno in a small box and waited to be called.
After a half hour of waiting in a small, smelly room we all started getting restless. People came after us and dropped their documentation in the same small box and were called and situated before us. The room grew crowded and the situation more frustrating.
Finally, after about an hour and a half of waiting, the first of us were called. In succession we were each told that we needed to complete the process of buying another stamp and copying our passport again and were each handed a new set of documents to fill out. We tried to tell the officer that this is not what we were told we would be doing today, but we were not understood. Frustrated, we called Cristian, and he made his way to the police station to help us out. Once he arrived and was waiting in the room to figure things out, we were called in succession into a different room to get our fingerprints taken.
Long story short: The lady who was calling us in the line never looked at our receipt from the post office that stated we had already filled out the paperwork. We were only supposed to be there to get fingerprinted. She overlooked this and freaked us all out with our lack of understanding and frustration.
After the ordeal, Darin and I, the last ones to get fingerprinted, walked out after about three hours of waiting. We both went to our own apartments after a trip to EuroSpin, a discount grocery store near the bridge and bought some groceries for the weekend.
I guess this experience was a true, honest Italian experience. Waiting for nothing. The bright side of it all was that it was interesting to see the people who were waiting with us. There were people from all over the world in that room: People from the Middle East, North Africa, Asia and then us Americans. I came to realize that Italy is not solely an American or western attraction. Italy attracts everyone from everywhere. I guess I didn’t have to be in an Italian police station to understand this.
Later that day, after a salami and mozzarella sandwich, I headed to the second day of shooting for my movie Ascoli Ottobre. It was raining, which made for a wet day of filming, but the shots came out better because there was no glare from the sun. Federica delivered a stellar performance once again as did Phil, Erica and Samantha, who played the waitress in the scene we shot today. Much thanks to everybody from the class who helped me out. Again, I’m hoping to be able to insert the video here on the website in about a month, so look forward to that! It was great to see how films are made. These last couple of days I have come to appreciate the time and effort of the many people involved in the production of films and television. Over the next two weeks, I’ll be able to try all the different aspects of film making as we will be filming the two other movies as well as the post production side of my own movie, which includes adding audio effects, editing and putting the whole thing together. In this point of the project, though, I feel the writing aspect of the film is my favorite.
Point of Interest: I have found the best cookies in the world. They are located at Pasticceria Marini, across the bridge that is next to the Tigre, a grocery store in town, on our side of the city. I have been there three times now, walking a short distance to the pasticceria and ordering usually a dozen at a time. They are very small cookies that have a kind of pie crust flavor and are decorated at each end with a generous spread of nutella, a sort of chocolate frosting. I would walk to Turin for these cookies. They are my favorite and because of this I have taken a picture of them and the place to get them:
I’ll be asking for the recipe before I leave. I just got back from my Saturday around town. Every third weekend of the month, Ascoli hosts an antique market in Piazza del Popolo and Piazza Arringo. Large white gazebos are set up on both squares and merchants fill them with their stuff. Along with this market is the usual clothing and food market that spreads itself out on the streets that lead to both Piazzas. Walking around the antique market was a great experience. There were antique door knockers, furniture, lamps, pictures, jewelry, old books, clothing and home décor. It would be great to buy some of the stuff, but shipping it home would cost an outrageous amount of money and frustration. Besides, pictures will suffice.
By far the most interesting thing I saw there was the Nazi war uniforms and different items decorated with the swastika. For some reason, seeing the symbol on television and in movies and reading about World War II in history books does not make real that devastating time as much as seeing the clothing, weapons, and helmets that were actually there. It was fascinating to see, but scary to think of what it represented.
And now a side note on Italian culture: Italian drivers are crazy. Out of their minds. Insane. Even in the small town of Ascoli Piceno, where there is no need to be racing to get to anywhere, danger for the pedestrian exists on the streets. Vespas and cars don’t stop for a person on two legs. Even when someone is in the middle of a crosswalk, cars do not hesitate to speed past as long as they are a few inches from the person. If the person should be in front of them walking, they will stop about an inch from the pedestrian, pushing on their breaks as if it was a courtesy gesture and not a safety concern. The Italian pedestrian takes the drivers in stride, commanding the space they are walking on, unwilling to let drivers pass them. For me though, never having any sense of grace or direction, the road can be a bit scary. Thankfully, I have yet to be hit or see somebody get hit by a vehicle here. I think drivers are so trained and used to quick stops that they have trained themselves to not hit people. They don’t, however, give a second glance at pigeons. On my daily walks, I usually see a pigeon on the stone road with its head squashed or body flattened. I guess that’s Italian road kill.
Lastly, my parents and my grandmother are coming to visit me in 18 days!!! I am so excited to share my experience with them. We are going to venture around Italy and visit Rome, Bologna, Venice and then spend a couple days here in Ascoli. Right now I’m in the process of trying to figure out the train systems here in Italy so I can try and be a confident traveler when figuring out the schedules and train lines. I know that we’re going to have a great time!
I hope that everyone back home is doing well. ~Alex
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