The invasion of the “Portuguese”!

For many years now (at least 19, the period that I’ve so far resided in Italy), cities like Rome and other major (and minor) centres throughout Italy have been populated by a small army of “Portuguese”. Now, pray tell, why have I put that nationality within quotation marks? Because the rather derogatory term refers to those Italian (and non-Italian citizens) who very often (1 out of 5 actually) never pay the bus or subway fare.

Why then the word connected to the Iberian nation? It stems from an event which happened in Rome in the 18th century. The Portuguese embassy had invited all its citizens to a show at the Argentina theatre located in the centre of the Eternally Chaotic City. The embassy had decided to invite all its loyal subjects, but without the need of a special invitation. All one had to do was to declare one’s Portuguese citizenship in order to gain admittance. Not wanting to pass up something for free (who does actually?), many Roman citizens went to the event pretending to be Portuguese, when in reality they obviously weren’t. And so the “label” has stuck ever since.

According to a very recent Italian transportation survey, there’s quite a variety of travellers who don’t pay their travel tickets (indeed very humane the Italians: they stopped travellers in order to do give out a travel questionnaire. Those who were in fact caught without a ticket but volunteered to take part in the survey were not fined!): students, employees, homemakers and the unemployed are included in the list. Statistics show that the hole left by unpaid tickets amounts to “only” 450 million Euros per year, enough to buy 900 new buses—per month!

Eleven percent of women don’t pay whereas the men amount to 21% of the culprits. And once the fines are finally dished out, only 1 out of 3 fines are in fact paid. Transport authorities are now thinking of adding stewards on buses and in the subways, sort of like what is now going on in Italy’s soccer stadia (an idea copied from the Brits). That’s an awfully smashing and wonderful idea, but wouldn’t it make more sense to have buses WITHOUT three doors, and proper turnstiles in the subways of Rome for example?

Just recently Rome installed electronic reading turnstiles in its subway, the ones that for years have been used in more “advanced” countries. The buses: there are usually 3 doors to a bus, the 1 in front for getting on and the middle and the 1 at the back for getting off. Naturally, in such a chaotic city such as Rome where the average Roman (and not only him/her) can’t follow the simplest of rules, everyone gets on/off in ALL the doors. Add to this that unlike the buses I used to take living in Canada (only 2 doors, 1 in the front and 1 in the middle), the drivers don’t accept money or tickets and don’t at all bother to check your monthly pass. What the buses do have is a cancellation machine, usually two to a bus (and in many cases, they don’t even work!). What that less-than law-abiding citizen must do is to “obliterate” his/her ticket in order to validate it. It’s basically based on the honour system (which in a country such as Italy is in itself a contradiction in terminology!).

I never ONCE recall a bus inspector in my hometown of Winnipeg (when I was a kid going to school), just because there was a little contraption as you got on (located right next to the driver’s seat) where you either put in the correct fare or your bus tickets. You didn’t’ pay? You didn’t get on the bus, it was that simple (and you can be SURE that there was NO hope in hell of convincing the driver of letting you on either!). The middle door was ONLY used for getting off and NOT to get on the bus. And if you tried, the bus driver would simply tell you to either p.off or to use the front door!

Ditto for the subway (which I used to take in my 3 years spent in Montréal). You either had to show your monthly pass to the fellow in the glass booth (who was DOING is job well) or you had to pay for a ticket or to put your daily ticket in a special device. Or with your monthly pass you’d put it in the electronic turnstile. If it was obviously valid, the glass doors would open. If it wasn’t, the doors wouldn’t open and the man would give you a strange look (meaning to say, “So, you’re NOT going to try to jump over the turnstile, are you”?). We’re talking about the late 80s by the way.

Now some fun stories about taking the subway in Rome: pre-2000 (just in time for the Holy Jubilee in the year 2000 the local subway transportation hired a bunch of young kids for the added influx of pilgrims who flocked to Rome. Many turned out to be the kids of long-time employees who retired earlier in order to leave their jobs to their kids). One day, during the morning rush-hour (8ish or so), as I approached the tiny man in his airless glass booth, I noticed that he was rather pensive and with a pencil in his hand. He was sort of looking out into outer space, totally oblivious to the zillions of passengers who were whizzing by him to go to work (most of them could have been gorgeous naked women and he wouldn’t have flinched in inch!). As I got closer and being rather tall, I peered down to see what he was doing (perhaps he was filling out an important related to his job?). No siree, he was trying to guess the results of the upcoming soccer matches for the state-run soccer lottery known as Totocalcio! On another occasion, around 8ish during the week, a colleague of the soccer aficionado was simply sleeping in his booth (and as I walked by I yelled out in English: “Wakey wakey”!!. He opened his eyes half-groggy and rather p.offed too that someone had DARED disturb his morning siesta!). And on other occasions during rush-hour, the booths were totally empty with employees either out for coffee or a very long and extended pee! It’s no wonder that city transportation companies have throughout the years lost an enormous amount of money with such HIGHLY inefficient personnel!

But wait, the best has yet to come: the Rome soccer derby between Roma and Lazio! On more than one occasion I’ve taken the subway around 8:30 pm and NOT paid the ticket, simply because you can be nearly 100% sure that subway employees and the inspectors that are (at times) at the bottom of the stairs making sure you’ve paid your ticket, are either Roma or Lazio fans, and they’re either at the Olympic stadium taking in the match or at home watching it live on Sky tv! In fact, the subway that night is virtually empty (even more if Italy is playing in a World Cup event).

I said it nearly 19 years ago and I still say it today: in Rome’s case, both the buses and the subways are simply “strainers” that lose on a yearly basis zillions of Euros. Some people have accused me of being dishonest and of being like the Romans themselves (well, after all, there is a famous saying isn’t there, “When in Rome….”?). I almost say proudly that “Yes, I too am dishonest, but only because the system ALLOWS me to be dishonest”! I wasn’t perhaps particularly crazy to pay for the bus/subway in Canada, but I had no choice in the matter as the system didn’t permit me to be dishonest (in the nearly 19 years of Italian life, I’ve NEVER said that Canada is populated by saints. It’s just that Canadian society doesn’t allow you to get away with a zillion things as you can in Italy).

So yes, from now on, do call me then that “Crazy Italo-Canadian-Portuguese”!

PS In all this “Portuguese” matter, it doesn’t help much that according to the most recent Transparency International European corruption index, Italy comes in at position 22, right after the Czech Republic and just ahead of the Slovak Republic. The least corrupt nation in Europe? Denmark (the most corrupt one is Romania)!

Talk about following the rules!

Well, you can’t say that the folks near Bologna, precisely in the small town of Castel San Pietro, don’t observe the laws! While walking around the town for its great little blues festival (it also has several baths), I came across this old gentleman who was correctly parked in his wheelchair in the bikers’ parking spot (do note the sign on the left!). Apparently, his friends/assistants were calmly chatting away as he was just sitting there. If only the entire country were as observant of the laws as the folks in Castel San Pietro, well, Italy would indeed be a marvellous country in which to live (photo by M. Rimati)!

From a buffoon to a genius?

The April 19th edition of The Economist slammed on its cover (see picture) our beloved leader, Silvio Berlusconi, who for the third time now has been elected prime minister of Italy. This is by no means a first for good’ol Silvio as in the recent past the prestigious British magazine has put him on the cover several times, with such titles as, “Why this man is not fit to govern Italy”, and other fun-loving titles such as this recent one, which basically warns Italians to NOT vote for him (which they didn’t bother listening to the Economist’s warning and did vote for him instead of Walter Veltroni, Rome’s former mayor).

The title is taken from an old Abba song and personally speaking, isn’t THE most respectable title one can give to a political leader. And the pic of Silvio isn’t exactly one of the nicest around either. In fact, it makes him look like a clown, or better, a buffoon. While Italy has to a certain degree fallen in shambles (the Alitalia affair which no one seems to want and is losing zillions of euros, the on-going and nauseating garbage issue in Naples which seems to have no end in sight and which can only get worse with the warmer weather, and other “funner” things which seem to pop up on a daily basis in Italy), the Economist comes out with a wee bit of refreshing news with their April 26th issue: it has spoken VERY highly of Sergio Marchionne, the managing director of Italy’s largest company, Fiat. The title of the four-page article on Fiat is: “The miracle of Turin”.

Here’s a few things that the magazine has said about the apparently easy-going Marchionne (he rarely dons a tie and jacket for example at press conferences or at international car fairs):
“By the time Sergio Marchionne came along in 2004, most of the beauty had gone and the stiffness had become sclerotic. Born in Italy but educated in Canada and schooled in business outside the car industry, Mr. Marchionne combined an insider’s sense of how the system worked with an outsider’s vision of how badly it needed to change”.

A bit of Canada in Fiat’s success? Perhaps yes seeing that Marchionne’s first university degree was in law from Toronto’s prestigious Osgoode Hall and his second degree was an MBA, again from Ontario. He was born in the town of Chieti and moved to Canada when he was young. No doubt his Canadian upbringing and education has been a “jolt” to the Italian industrial sector which, according to Italian journalists, is in desperate need of a change vis-à-vis its current managers.

Just how different Marchionne’s style is can again be seen in the words of the Economist:
“He is the antithesis of the archetypal smooth Italian executive, in part that may be because Mr. Marchionne, though Italian-born, grew up in Canada, where he qualified as both a lawyer and an accountant. His approach to business is decidedly Anglo-Saxon, as is his frequent use of expletives. He demands complete openness, fast communication, accountability; he abhors corporate politics and hierarchy”.

These last two Italian “symptoms” are what quite often slow down Italy’s progress on a national scale, as I’ve personally witnessed in nearly 19 years of Italian life (the public sector, at least in Rome, is one to avoid like the bubonic plague!!!).

There is now in Italy a new debate on immigration given the fact that in Rome for example there’s a new right-wing mayor and the new Italian government also has in its coalition a rather large xenophobic contingent made up of Northern League members, apparently the most prominent in all of Europe. Most of the talk always and inevitably regards immigration in a negative light (such as the Romanian community that commits rapes or murders). Rarely though does anyone speak of the valid contribution that some “immigrants” such as Marchionne (albeit he was in fact born in Italy) can give to Italy itself. No siree, the immigration debate in Italy is still seen in a negative manner. Indeed a pity as exceptionally qualified people like Marchionne could actually do Italy a LOT of good and actually make it part of the First World (and NOT the Third World)!

Hey buddy, know where I can catch a plane?

Italy is only 33 times smaller than Canada (and my old home province, Manitoba, is only 3 times larger than ALL of Italy, a country of some 58 million people), and yet the country “only” has a record 101 airports, 41 of them for commercial use! Roughly speaking, that’s an airport every 70 kms or so.

With the disastrous Alitalia financial situation (the quasi belly-up national airline company which was once one of the best in Europe) which has made the companyt lose a whopping 4 billion euros in the last few years, or roughly 3 million euros per day, the airport situation in Italy, along with the garbage in Naples, ain’t one of the best in Europe! Upon entering the new government, Silvio Berlusconi has asked his predecessor, Romano Prodi, for 300 million euros in order to still keep the company in the air until someone comes along to save it (Air France/KLM and Aeroflot have pulled out of the deal, no doubt due to strong pressure from the powerful trade unions). The astounding thing is that the money should be returned by December 31st of this year (yeah, sure)!

More red-tape-Italian-style bureaucracy can be found in Rome’s second major airport, Ciampino (which is also used by the Italian air force). Ciampino, unlike Fiumicino, is used primarily by low-cost carriers, such as Ryanair. The advantage of Ciampino is that it’s located closer to downtown Rome, and this is very convenient to the Irish airline company, but unfortunately is also located basically in a residential area. This means that flights that should arrive at say 11.30 pm can eventually arrive even at 2 in the morning due to delays. The positive thing for Ciampino is that passengers are up now to 5 million per year. The negative thing is for the health and sanity of residents, they want the airport moved. But where? Some have come up with the idea of Viterbo, the so-called town of the “popes”, located just 100 km from the Eternal City. Ryanair wants no part of that deal and threatens to sue the Italians. The problem with Viterbo is that the runway would have to be extended by approximately 1 km in order to accommodate large aircraft and trains are rather antiquated and bulging with daily commuters to Rome. Some experts suspect that the airport will no doubt be completed…in about 10 years’ time!

Help, is there a “dottore” in the house?

For those who lived in Italy (and for those who have never lived in the Bel Paese), they know that Italians absolutely adore titles! If you have a simple degree, let’s say the equivalent of a BA, well, here they’ll almost DEMAND that you call them “Dottore”, Doctor (and they’ll get highly offended if you call them Mr. or Ms. too!). If you’re an accountant, they’ll call you “Ragioniere”, or the abbreviated version, “Rag.”

And as we all know living in North America or in the UK, only if you have your Phd. can you be called a “doctor”, or if naturally you’re a medical doctor. But just how many Italian university graduates are truly full-blooded “dottori”? I ask because there have been several cases of students buying their degrees, or of cases where they’re not even “dottori”, but expect you to call them by their (illegal) title. This happens more in southern Italy. Or in many cases, students either cheat like hell (I had the pleasure years ago of having taught English in Rome’s “European Economic School”. We gave out an exam. Well, the exam had to be re-done because there was not ONE single student who HADN’T cheated on the final exam. Not one! It also goes to show you why the average Italian speaks English sooooo terribly too) or buy their exam results.

This recently happened at the University of Bari, located in southern Italy, a university notorious for also having in just one faculty nine members all from the SAME family (gosh, they must have obtained their teaching positions because they’re good, eh?). Math results in the Faculty of Commerce & Economics were sold to students, many of them foreigners, by two professors and their assistants. Some of the fees went from 700 to a whopping 3,000 euros. Some students were even “coerced” into attending private lessons for “only” 3,500 euros! The culprits were nabbed, but seeing that we’re in Italy, I doubt many things will change…


Yours truly only studied 8 years in two different universities in Canada. I admit that at high school, a true dunce in maths and physics, I’d (occasionally) copy exams from my brainer classmates, but quite honestly, not ONCE did I dare copy at university, for the simple reason that I would have blown the entire academic year, and with that also the money that my poor folks had dished out for so many years for my BA and subsequent Master’s degree. And in those 8 years I can perhaps count on one hand (and on just a few fingers) the students that we’d hear about that got straight As in ALL their courses. You had to be some type of nerd who never frequented people and who basically just studied all day and night to get those grades. Ah, but not so in Italy where the “110 lode”, the toppest of all grades awarded to university students, is handed out with a certain amount of ease. In North America, you had to be MORE intelligent than both Bill Gates AND Henry Kissinger put together in order to get the equivalent of the 110 lode.

That brings me to a perplexing question: if Italy is populated by sooooo many geniuses, how come it’s run sooooo badly (ie, just look at the disastrous situation vis-à-vis the economic situation with Italy’s national airline company, Alitalia)? It’s not perhaps that the odd manager out there, a “dottore”, actually bought his degree somewhere, perhaps in Bari? Naw….

Kill the ref (literally!)

Well, just how many times have we all heard in North American sports the saying, “Kill the ref” or “Ah, com’on ref, he wasn’t off-side!!? Sure, thousands of times. But what’s now happening in the fun and whacky world of Italian soccer is rather unbelievable.

Italy’s Pierluigi Collina, deemed after the 2002 World Cup THE best ref in the world, is now the head of the Italian ref’s association. Well, for the last few months the poor sod has been going around with a police escort as crazies out there have sent him via the mail bullets as a “warning” that his refs aren’t doing their job properly (and no doubt many of these crazies are probably Juventus fans). Not only that, but just the other day, the ref of a Juventus-Naples match was kidnapped by irate fans. Well, almost. I say almost because the “Keystone Copish” fellows who went to kidnap him ended up kidnapping his look-alike and NOT the real McCoy (someone who was very similar to the real ref)! Once they noticed the mistake they made the poor look-alike was immediately released.

But the nightmare hasn’t ended there for the real objective in question. No siree. The real quasi-kidnapped ref for two weeks has had to leave his hometown of Genoa and has gone in seclusion for fear of REALLY being kidnapped!

A ref’s association member, which counts only 32,000 referees in Italy (including the minor leagues where quite often refs are beaten up by rowdy fans), stated today that things will certainly worsen if something is not done about the violence against refs. The situation of Italian sports shows (99% of them talk exclusively about soccer) doesn’t help matters much either: unlike rugby, many of these shows literally will bring viewers to the exasperation point as they’ll repeatedly show and analyse the same foul or off-side a zillion times. I say, “Why the hell not just concentrate on the bloody match itself rather than talking endlessly if Del Piero was tripped in the pk area or not”?

But alas, as with politics, Italians absolutely adore talking and talking and talking endlessly about their favourite national pastime, soccer. The result is that the Italian state (ie, all us taxpayers) now have to ALSO pay cops in order to defend refs (as though we don’t pay enough each weekend for stadium security!). Somewhat ridiculous, I must say (not that Italy doesn’t have MORE serious problems to contend with, like the mafia).

Pedestrian crosswalk, so what’s that?

Another major pedestrian tragedy occurred near Rome’s Fiumicino airport the other day: a driver who was travelling at some 190 km/hr mowed down 5 girls and women, killing all of them. Under the former Berlusconi government, a new form of deducing points from one’s driver’s licence was implemented. At first, it appeared to have had a resounding success. All Italian drivers basically started out with 20 points. Infractions varied according to the severity of the infraction, say 5 points for driving without your seatbelt or 10 for talking on your cell phone. Well, in true Italian fashion, that program has now failed as the “shock” effect has worn out and Italians are back to their usual (bad) driving habits (my cousin the other day in his two-door BMW was travelling at the “modest” speed of 180 km/hr on the highway in order to get home for dinner!). Italians blatantly still drive while talking on their cell phones, sometimes right under the noses of traffic cops!

The latest stats say that out of the 60 pedestrians that are injured DAILY in Italy as they cross the street, 2 die. That’s quite the percentage of deaths. But in 2008 we all know (at least those who live in Italy like yours truly) that Italians STILL don’t know what pedestrian crosswalks are or for what they’re intended for. In the small and quiet town of Udine, few Italian drivers will stop to let pedestrians cross the street. Quite the opposite of what I witnessed in Munich in 2004, my first-ever visit to the splendid country of Germany: 90% of German motorists would stop as I would go to cross the intersection. And what to say about the dirty looks you got from Munich bikers if you accidentally walked on their bike paths! Drivers in most “civilised” countries, like the UK, will act exactly in the same way as Munich drivers.

Jay-walking infractions in Italy? “Now what’s that”? will the average Italian ask you (in 1999 as I was Italy’s interpreter at the splendid Women’s World Cup held in the US, we were in Santa Monica one night playing pool in a bar. As we headed back to the car to go back to LA, I decided to cross in the middle of the street to head for the car park. My LA chaperon stopped me and said, “You have to cross at the lights otherwise the cops will fine you for jay-walking”! I laughed as my immediate thought went to the zillion of jay-walkers in Naples!!!).

I still recall one golden rule that teachers would tell us while going to school as a kid in Canada: “Remember children, look BOTH ways when crossing the street”! They would also teach us that when sidewalks were missing we should walk FACING traffic, another golden rule which is often lacking in Italy.

With such catastrophic accidents on a weekly basis in Italy, involving both drivers and pedestrians, I often ask myself: “But what on earth do they (or don’t they) teach in Italian schools”?

“You’re a piece of sh…”!

Ah yes, never a dull moment in Italian politics, that’s for sure. Last Thursday night Italy saw the fall of the Prodi government. Nothing terribly unusual in that because I think in the last 60 years or so there have been some 60 governments (61 now I think. Or is it 62?).

But what happened in the Italian senate was not only appalling but I must say, also typically “Italian”: pure chaos. When the president of the senate came out with the final tally which thus drove the nail into Prodi’s coffin, one senator (who was a former hoodlum in his youth!), a fellow by the name of Gramazio, uncorked a bottle of spumante while a colleague below him, whipped out, presumably out of his pocket, slices of mortadella (or Bologna ham as it’s also known in North America)! The mortadella was in clear reference to Prodi himself whose round face is often compared to the delicious ham.

But that wasn’t the end of it. The same senator who gulped down the mortadella began yelling repeatedly to an opponent senator: “You’re a piece of shit”! This was naturally picked up immediately by the foreign press. More was to come though: another senator spat at his opponent (who suddenly fell over ill) and showed him the classic hand gesture in Italian of someone who’s wife has screwed around on him (the gesture is the same that Americans in Texas use at football games—the Texas longhorns--or that deaf-mute people use to say “I love you”. The gesture in Italian means instead that you’re a “cornuto”! The senate cornuto gesture brings back memories of what happened many years ago in Rome when George and Barbara Bush came on an official visit when Sr. was US president. Barbara had gone to a Roman orphanage. She looked at the kids and said, “Do any of you speak English”? No was the reply from the kids. Barbara then asked, “Well, do any of you speak Spanish”? Again no was the answer. All of a sudden, Barbara showed all the kids the “cornuto” sign, saying: “Well, do you all know what this means? It means “I love you” in deaf-mute language”! her entourage from the embassy were naturally aghast when she showed the kids the “cornuto” sign! That night, the two were invited to the presidential palace in Rome for the official dinner. For the life of him, George Sr. couldn’t quite understand why along the presidential route Italians were showing him the “cornuto” gesture!).

All this, coupled with the atrocious and exceptionally embarrassing situation of the garbage problem in Naples which has been going on for the last 14 years (together also with the recent resignation of Italy’s justice minister over a classic case of Italian-style nepotism), helped (unfortunately) once again to put Italy on the same map as some Third World countries…

New Year’s in Prague!

We thought we’d do something slightly different for New Year’s Eve this year so we decided to travel to Prague.

We chose a night train from Udine, a rather long journey I must say but at an affordable price: 120 euros return. We left at 11 pm on Saturday night and arrived in Prague at noon the following day (the return instead was at 5 pm with arrival in Udine at 6 am). We went just for four days. Luckily, we took a couchette and there were only four of us. I kept thinking during the trip to Prague and as we rode through parts of Austria of more than 60 years ago and how thousands of people, with not much choice in the matter, were hauled in cattle wagons to concentration camps (including my uncle). That must have been simply atrocious as the wagons were jam packed and with only a hole in the floor for washroom purposes. Our train this time was decidedly MUCH more comfortable!

I thought Prague was indeed a most elegant town, home to some rather interesting architecture as well as some well-known personalities who were actually born there and/or who lived there, such a former U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and novelist Franz Kafka (he had lived in a small house in the city’s castle). Beethoven also lived there. The country has also given birth to film director Milos Forman and Juventus soccer player Pavel Nedved, not to mention the country’s former president and author, Vaclav Havel, who lived through Czechoslovakia’s “Velvet Revolution” and was the Czech Republic’s president from 1993 until 2003 (the Rolling Stones played there just after the Berlin wall came down in 1989. Some thirteen years later they were again in Prague, and both times they had been greeted by a jubilant Havel).

The castle is quite nice as is the famous Charles bridge (albeit some of the statues would need some urgent cleaning!). And the beer? They say that Czechs are the world’s largest consumers of beer in the world. It is indeed mighty fine to drink a wide variety of the stuff. We noticed many Italians there, especially kids, who no doubt travelled to Prague for the great beer and the party atmosphere. The city itself doesn’t come across as being chaotic in nature, like Rome, probably because it has a smaller population and because it also has three functioning subway lines (like Munich’s subway, Prague’s subway trains are almost spotlessly clean, a far cry from Rome’s decrepit trains!). There was also a quasi-absence of scooters too which made walking around the town rather pleasant and relaxing. The eve countdown was spent near the Charles bridge.

A lot of history in the city/country as the poor Czechs not only lived under the brutal regime of the Nazis from 1939 to 1945 but again went through the communist regime years later (this year by the way, in August, marks the 40th anniversary of when Warsaw Pact armies marched into Prague under Alexander Dubcek’s reign. More than 100 Czechs were killed, including Jan Palach, who in 1969 lit himself on fire in a sign of protest). Perhaps the most difficult period was under the head of the Gestapo, Reinhard Heydrich, affectionately called the “Butcher of Prague”! He had been the protector of Prague for only 8 months until he was assassinated in downtown Prague by Czech partisans. When news of his death reached Hitler, the Furher apparently unleashed hell upon Czechoslovakia!

For a (strange) lover of concentration camps, Prague had also been a treat for me as about 80 kms north of Prague lies the concentration camp of Terezin (the name is in honour of the former empress Maria Teresa. Its German name is Theresienstadt). It’s an old fortress which had been actually designed by an Italian architect in the 18th century as a fortification during the Prussian period. The Nazis then established their concentration camp there (it would become the Gestapo’s Prague prison).

Prisoners from Poland, the USSR, Germany and Yugoslavia were incarcerated there, as were Jewish prisoners who were treated rather brutally. Over 10,000 victims died there, many were cremated in the crematorium in the town of Terezin, located a few hundred metres from the fortress (there’s also a ghetto museum there which contains the crematoriums). Some 15,000 children went through that camp with only about 130 who survived. The saying “Arbeit Macht Frei” which is so famous the world over and which is seen always hanging over the entrance to Auschwitz is also present at Terezin (see picture). The phrase was imported to other camps such as Terezin from Dachau. There’s also a gallows pole and a firing range next to it where up to 600 shot. The prison cells could contain up to 60 prisoners at a time, in obvious appalling sanitary conditions.

Poetic justice: as in the case of Auschwitz’s commander, Rudolf Hoss (who had worked for 6 years at Dachau and who had been handpicked by Himmler to run Auschwitz), Terezin’s commander, Heinrich Jockel, who had commanded the brutal SS wardens there, was tried and executed at the very same place he had run—Terezin. Another “illustrious” prisoner at Terezin was a fellow by the name of Gavrilo Princip. Princip was the main protagonist of the Saravejo assassination of Francesco Fernando d’Este (his death had basically sparked WWI!). He was imprisoned and died at Terezin in 1918 (his cell is still there with a commemorative plaque from the Yugoslav government recalling his “heroic” act). This was my 7th concentration camp visit after Dachau, Buchenwald, Mauthausen, the Risiera of San Sabba in Trieste and Auschwitz-Birkenau (some of these camps I’ve so far seen twice).

From the picture I took of the map of concentration camps in Europe, if you look below and left of Berlin and north of Buchenwald, you’ll see a town called Halberstadt. That’s where my young uncle Mario, an Italian partisan, had died in the POW camp there. The day that I’ll go to Berlin I’ll probably pay a visit there too (after Bergen-Belsen and the other adjacent camps). You can also see below and on the right the camp of Terezin (all pics by M. Rimati).

Who me, a mafioso?

In 30 years that I lived in Canada, from about the age of 7 or 8 when I began to understand what it meant to be the son of Italian immigrants, I was constantly bombarded with jokes and puns on typical Italian things, such as pizza, spaghetti and the mafia. Having also THE most Italian-sounding name around, Mario, didn’t also help things much (the inevitable question would be: “Hmm, Mario, are you Italian? Bet your old man is a mafioso, eh”? or one of my favourites: “Bet you eat spaghetti every day, eh”?).

I used to get the jokes from ignorami all the way to the “intellectuals”. One just happened to be the head of the consular section at the U.S. Consulate-General in Montréal (this guy had hanging in his office a picture where he's shaking hands with the Shah of Iran, well before the U.S. hostage crisis there). Having worked with the odd diplomat here and there, many I must say are rather “cultured”, well-travelled, have a few degrees in their pockets and also speak several languages. I had had an in-house promotion one day at the Consulate and I was going to be working for this diplomat. I'll never forget on Monday morning as I showed up for my first day of work as he was going out for coffee. We crossed paths. He looked at me and said and with a big laugh said, “Here comes Mario the Mafioso. Now we can feel protected”! Unfortunately, I couldn’t very well tell him to piss-off as he was going to be my new boss, and so I had to simply chuckle at his wonderful pun.

But Italy’s image at home (and abroad) also doesn’t help matters much. On the one hand, the International Herald Tribune ran an editorial on November 21st by Yossi Alpher, the former special assistant to Prime Minister Ehud Barak. Here’s how Alpher describes Syria’s Assad: “Assad may resemble a Mafia chief, but unlike Abbas, he can deliver”. On the other hand, the November 10th edition of The Economist (which I’ve been subscribing to for the last 15 years or so), ran two articles on Italy, and both were rather negative. One was on the death of a Roman woman in a seedy neighbourhood of Rome at the hands of a gypsy punk. Flip the page and there’s an article on the arrest of a high-profile mafia boss in Sicily, Toto' Lo Piccolo. On page 69 of the same issue there’s instead an article on corruption in Bangladesh. The article starts off in the following manner: “The problem is that the mafia in Bangladesh were the political parties"...

Another article the other day mentioned the fact that Italian politicians aren’t seen in a very positive manner abroad (Bush seems to have a high esteem of Germany’s Merkel and France’s Sarkozy, but not of Italy’s Prodi). Some things concerning Italians, even after 18 years that I’ve left Canada, never seem to change…

Piggie in the middle?

Yes, it’s indeed a rough life these days if you’re a pig in Italy. In Padova (aka as Padua), where St. Anthony also lived the last days of his life, the “Lega Nord”, the somewhat xenophobic “Northern League”, has come up with a rather "novel" idea of impeding the construction of a new mosque in that city: a handful of NL members have created a "Pig Day" in which they march around dragging a (live) pig on a leash over the construction site of where the mosque should be erected! By doing so (and hoping that the pig’s prostate is weak too), they hope that the area will be desecrated and therefore local Muslims will be so disgusted as to not want to construct their new mosque there.

Politics comes into the picture (no, really, in Italy?) as the NL members in Padova have stated that thanks to the left who gave the plot of land to the Muslim community in the first place, they have triumphantly marched with their small swine and “blessed” the land under their feet and under those of the Muslim community. Naturally, the left-wing mayor of the city is disgusted by the NL’s peculiar gesture and feels that his fellow citizens are too. The tiny piglet’s official title by the way is “the anti-mosque pig” (no official uniform though has been given to the swine).

Once all the hoopla will be over with and the pig’s work is no longer needed, I wonder just how many slices of fine prosciutto will end up on the tables of NL members (washed down naturally with some fine Italian red wine)?

I found the “G”!

I won’t dwell too much in this posting on the recent polemic surrounding the tragic death of a 47 year-old Roman woman at the hands of a 24 year-old Romanian gypsy criminal as the immigration issue has now become a hot “potato” pretty well all over the world, including Italy (and cases like the recent one in Rome’s somewhat run-down Tor Di Quinto neighborhood unfortunately WON'T be the last will see either).

What I will instead talk about is what our illustrious former “Great Leader”, Silvio Berlusconi, said the other day while strolling in an Italian town. It was in reference to a part of a woman’s anatomy which is still somewhat shrouded in mystery. Silvio, not one new to certain “faux pas” (as Prime Minister years ago he had gone on a visit to Wall Street. In order to attract more American investments to Italy, he came out with the less-than brilliant comment: "We also have beautiful secretaries"! No doubt, this comment probably didn't go down very well with businesswomen such as Meg Whitman, Ms. e-Bay herself!), said the following: “I’ve found the woman’s G spot. It's located in the last letter of the word “shopping”!

Oh, I can hardy wait for the day that he becomes (again) Italy’s Prime Minister…

Holy Viagra Batman!

Is there nothing sacred in this world? Judicial authorities in Rome have put under investigation four employees of the Vatican’s pharmacy. The reason? They were caught selling expired medicine but at the regular price (they passed the pills to customers making them think they weren’t expired). The pharmacy is known in Rome to have great prices but it’s apparently off-limits to the general public (it's only open to Vatican employees). Authorities became suspicious upon noting the added work that the four employees had.

Those naughty priests (one allegedly admitted on hidden camera the other day that he is in fact gay, causing quite the stir in certain Vatican circles), are they perhaps stocking up on Viagra?

Caprese Michelangelo

Ever heard of Carpese Michelangelo? Probably not. Ever heard though of the Sistine Chapel? The Moses and Pieta’ statues located in Rome, not to mention the incredible David statue located in Florence’s Accademia? No doubt yes. Well, Caprese Michelangelo is the birthplace of none other than the sculptor, painter, architect (his is the cupola which sits atop of St. Peter’s Basilica) and poet know to the world as Michelangelo Buonarroti.

The town, actually village (pop. 20!), is located about 260 km from Rome, near the Umbria, Tuscany and Emilia Romagna borders. Michelangelo was born in Caprese on March 6th, 1475. His birthplace is located in a tiny castle atop of a small hill. The surrounding area has a population of only 1,500 people. The village itself isn’t too far from Florence (his family’s roots are Florentine) and Carrara, famous not only for its exquisite marble but also for the material which Michelangelo used for many of his sculptures (the Moses, located next to the Rome’s Coliseum, is simply incredible. His Pieta’ instead is his only work which carries his name. It’s actually inscribed on Mary’s sash and through the bullet-proof glass it can be seen if one looks carefully. Back then, there was someone in Milan who was going around saying that HE was the real Michelangelo who has sculpted the Pieta’. Buonarroti, enraged by the news, decided to lay claim to HIS masterpiece, and therefore signed sculpture).

In 1503 Michelangelo was commissioned by Pope Giulius II to come to Rome and paint the Sistine Chapel, a place where most of the world congregates once it makes its way through the incredible maze of the Vatican Museums (I’ve been on several occasions to the V.M. Most tourists just whiz by the incredible works of art to do just one thing: to see up close the amazing ceiling of the Sistine Chapel). The artist also created the square which sits right in front of Rome’s City Hall which has also become a symbol for the City of Rome. From tiny Caprese, Michelangelo not only made his way to the Eternal City but also died there at the “ripe” age of 90.

And the food in his hometown? Well, you’re blogger also happens to be part of the Italian Sommeliers’ Association. What to say about eating in a tiny pensione-restaurant right under Michelangelo’s home: tortellini with truffles, polenta with boar and all washed down with some fine red Tuscan wine! Indeed, a “rough” life.

Some pictures of Caprese Michelangelo, the tiny St. John the Baptist’s church where young Michelangelo was baptized and some of the surrounding towns (the cat by the way was guarding the ATM machine!), including a very nice Franciscan sanctuary where yes, St. Francis had once frequented during his many pilgrimages throughout the country (all pics by M. Rimati).

Why it's fun to live in the "Old Europe"!

Karpathos is an island located between Rhodes and Crete. It's part of the Dodecanese islands. To get there, we took a chartered flight from Ljubljana (there are also flights from Athens). After slightly two hours we were on splendid sandy white beaches. One minute I was in Italy, then in Slovenia and then in Greece, in like 4 hours' time! Cool!

The island itself is just 49 km long and only 11 km wide with a population of about 6,500 people. Unlike Milos (home of the famous Venus which is found in the Louvre) which we had visited 2 years ago and which is much closer to Athens, Karpathos is rather void of (very) expensive yachts and boats and therefore the surrounding water is simply crystal clear and with practically no traces of boating pollution. In fact, the beaches themselves (with very few tourists in September) can be wonderfully silent as there are few boats which pass by (on one beach there were only five of us one day!). Those who come from Chicago will no doubt find themselves very much at home on Karpathos as it's an incredibly windy island (thus making those very hot days much more bearable).

We rented a scooter and covered some 450 km in just one week, exploring many of the magnificent and deserted beaches. Costs are still incredibly low in Greece. For example, two lawn chairs and a beach umbrella ran as low as just 5 euros and as “high” as a whopping 6 euros. A far cry from what they charge at Ostia! Sights to see include the secluded town of Olympos. To get there, you can either take a boat ride and dock at Diafani and take the 9 km bus ride to the town or you can do what we did and take the "Highway to Hell" road: a 18 km dirt road full of rocks and holes which winds all the way up to Olympos (hopefully, EU funding one day will help the islanders to pave that road thus increasing even further tourism to Olympos). If you're going to take that route, the best way is to rent one of the many small jeeps which are available. The ride is no doubt much more comfortable. The paved road back to the main town (Pigadia, where the main port is located) amongst the high cliffs is worthy of a high-speed chase scene from a Bond movie!

Many locals speak rather good English as many had gone to live in the Boston area and in Canada. Sensing that Karpathos is on the rise tourism-wise, after more than 30 years in North America many have moved back to their native island to open hotels and restaurants (we ate in one for as low as 24 euros). There’s a small airport which is slowly expanding. The one and only terminal for the time being has a luggage retrieval about the size of ones washroom and the duty-free shop is currently located in a container but the plane got us there and back safely and that’s what counts the most. The organization, a Slovenian-Greek cooperation, went off very smoothly. Our hotel, the Amoopi Bay, was exceptionally convenient as it was located right in front of some splendid beaches. There was also a pool-side bbq one evening and with 12 euros you could eat all you wanted to. The surrounding mountainous area is rather barren, almost lunar-looking actually, but nevertheless varied with the odd goat located here and there as you drive by on your scooter. Quite amazing to see just how far the Roman empire once stretched as there’s even an ancient Roman cistern located on the island.

Some of the old villagers also speak rather good Italian. From 1912 to 1944 the Italians had captured Karpathos from the Turks who had gained control of the island in 1830 under the Protocol of London. October 7th, 1944 is an important date as the islanders, tired of foreign occupation, took up arms in the town of Menetes on October 5th and after three days had liberated their island once and for all of Italian troops. Karpathos: no doubt worth a summer-time visit next year (all pics by M. Rimati).