Tea?

We wandered into a bar on Saturday with the intention of procuring panini for lunch. We had a look at the selection and decided on a slice of pizza each instead.
"Prego" said the barman.
"Due pizza, per favoure", I replied.
"Two?", pointing to both of us.
"Si".
"Alle tavola?"
"No, al bar" (because we are tight asses and don't want to pay the extra to eat at a table).
"Okay", he replied, picking up the pizza slices to go and heat them up. "Blah blah blah" he said to the bar lady, who then proceeded to put tea cups and a selection of teas in front of us.

"Hmmm, looks like we're having tea!" I said to Marito, "I didn't think I ordered tea...oh well...tea's good". We drank our tea, ate our pizza and paid the nice people. The only thing we can think of is that the barman thought we were English and knows that all the English like tea, so when we thought he said "two", maybe he was saying "tea". Who knows...

We went on to do our grocery shopping and there was a giant mortadella sitting out in the deli section. Diameter - about that of a steering wheel in a small car; length - about 2 m long....coool.

Delicious Truffles

Italian's love their festivals and street fairs, there seems to be one on in Trieste every few weeks. In Trieste there is a pedestrian street called Via XX Settembre, a beautiful street with trees up the middle, and an abundance of gelatarie and bars along the sides. We have been to two "mostre" on this street, one was in celebration of Carnivale and the other to flowers, called "Viale in Fiore". Anyway, regardless of what the festival is about there are always chocolate stands with chocolate in all shapes and sizes. For some reason there are always chocolates cast in the shape of tools...chocolate wench...I mean wrench, anyone? Being good little foodies we alway like to sample the goodies...at Viale in Fiore it was truffle time...we tried all of them, "uno di tutti" seemed to work here.

Strada Napoleonica

We went for a walk along the scenic Strada Napoleonica (Napoleon Road) today from Villa Opicina to Prosecco. Villa Opicina is a village above Trieste, located about 3 km from the border with Slovenia. I say above because Opicina is at an altitude of about 350 m and only about 3 km from the sea, leading to great but slightly stomach lurching views of Trieste (which is at sea level) and the surrounds. The bus ride up to Opicina winds along some pretty narrow bends, which the bus drivers take at sensible controlled speeds (ha!).

According to legend, Strada Napoleonica was built by Napoleon's army, but really it was designed by an engineer chap called Vicentini. The Strada is quite popular with the locals for an easy weekend walk or jog (in lycra of course, the Italian's seem to love running in fancy outfits). The sheer cliffs along the walk are used for climbing and have anchor points in place so you can just show up with your equipment and away you go.

No cheese for you

I was shopping one day and came across a great special on Parmesan, you had to buy a kilo block but I thought at the rate we were eating the stuff, non problemma! I picked up my enormous block of Parmesan and finished the shopping imagining all the tasty eating ahead of me. Now, usually at the counter I have little to no idea what the cashier is talking about, but I have mastered the question: blah blah blah borsa? Which translates as "would you like a bag?". In the supermarkets the bags are 5 Euro cents so everyone usually brings their own (one bag equating to about one red frog, at least that used to be the conversion). So at the counter I can say buongiorno and then answer the bag question - or even preempt the bag question! Right, so I arrived at the counter with my purchases and had a conversation somewhat like this:
Cheese taker: buongiorno
Me: buongiorno
Cheese taker: blah blah blah some word starting with tess blah blah?
Me: (I wonder if this is another word for bag?...I'll assume so). No grazie, ho borsa.
Cheese taker: blah blah blah blah. (Places the cheese under the counter)
Me: (but, but, but....where's my cheese? I want the cheese!!! I like the cheese!!!)

I then proceeded to wander off in bewilderment...and a kilo of cheese else where. I related this conversation to Marito later that night and he was stumped as well...as was his French office mate when he heard the story the next day. What possible question could I have answered that meant I got no cheese? I proceeded to read the dictionary under the tess section and came across the word that made it a little clearer. The conversation again:
Cheese taker: buongiorno
Me: buongiorno
Cheese taker: do you have the magical card (tessera) that will grant you this cheese at this extra special price?
Me: No, I have some bags here, thanks.
Cheese taker: (Hmmm, crazy lady). You need this magic card to obtain the cheese, therefore, no cheese for you!

"No cheese for you", is now a common expression between Marito and me for those moments that are just Italian.

What's it all about?

In January this year, mio Marito and I moved to Trieste, Italy from Australia. Marito has a job in cosmology (really!) at the International School for Advanced Studies and I am here on a working holiday visa. This means I can work for six months out of 12 - I am currently enjoying the first of the six months that I can't work. We have spent the last month wading our way through the bureaucratic nightmare that is the Italian way and now have an apartment, receipts for our Permesso di Siggiorno (more on that later), and Internet but still haven't worked out if we have a phone line or why my cheese was taken away at the supermarket.

Marito and I took Italian lessons with Giacomo at Italia 500 once a week for 20 weeks before moving to Trieste; those equipped us with the knowledge of how little we knew about the Italian language. We started taking Italian grammar lessons last week and are slowing building up our skills. I'm keeping myself busy exploring Trieste, cooking and doing some knitting.