Inlingua Xmas party

Here's some dodgy photos from the inlingua Christmas dinner. Think pizza, pasta, vino and half a dozen different languages, and even more nationalities around the table. Buon Natale!

Butchers on the move

A warning...the following story is not for vegetarians or vegans. Please turn away from the screen now!

Our apartment is basically in the middle of a busy market street. When you walk out the front door you are assaulted by the smell of fish and seafood on display for sale on the left. If you make it across the road, dodging the scooters coming from both directions regardless of the one way signs, you can enter one of two butchers on the same block. I love to watch the 'meat truck' arrive and the unloading of the half carcasses. It's all conducted calmly and matter of factly, despite the fact that they block the traffic and one man, dressed from head to toe in a white coat with a hood pulled up over his head, heaves the heavy half beast of meat across his shoulders. He walks in through the front door (most of these old buildings only have one entry/exit...imagine the fire safety regulation breaches!), past the customers and into the back of the butcher shop where it will be cut down further. Yesterday I watched him take four halves in, including a trail of intestines and offal.

Quick Christmas Thoughts

Why does Christmas start so much earlier in Australia than in Italy? It seems to me that the shops are advertising and decorating in mid October back home. The television is already seeing the first festive season commercial impact before the end of September. Shopping centres and elevators (damn American English invading my brain, I mean lifts) are piping out cheesy Christmas carols for months on end. Christmas parties are scheduled from the beginning of November and some of us talk about finishing the Christmas shopping and posting Christmas cards well before December dawns.

In contrast, here in Italy, well at least Naples, Christmas officially kicked off on the 8th December. Why the 8th? Check your calendar of saints and Catholic religious events and you’ll find that’s the Feast of the Immaculate Conception. (Does that mean that the Virgin Mary was only pregnant for 13 days if Jesus was born on the 25th?) December 8 is traditionally the day when Italians put up the Christmas tree and recognise the start of the festive season. Accordingly, shops start to decorate their windows and the Christmas markets scattered around the city come into force. All of a sudden, the streets are full of people madly out shopping for gifts (more so than the usual year round culture of consumerism that has recently replaced Catholicism in Italy). I’ve seen a couple of pitiable Santa Claus in the main street in Naples. However, it’s nothing like the meandering queues at Myers where children and parents line up for hours to secure a photo on Santa’s lap in Australia.

I miss the feeling of Christmas in Brisbane. I miss walking out of the sweltering summer heat into a refreshingly cool shopping centre. The decorations at home seem to be more sophisticated, the Christmas parties more merry and the steady flow of Christmas cards a reminder of friends and family you may not have heard from since last Christmas.

Neapolitans don’t give Christmas cards; in fact, I’ve found it difficult to buy any to send to those at home who aren’t on my emailing list. But they do like their gifts wrapped by someone else, usually queuing unusually patiently at the gift wrapping table set up temporarily in most shops. A young girl stands by a cluttered pile of gift-wrap and cheap ribbon, bored and haughty that she has been given such a lowly task. Similarly, the shop assistants become increasingly short tempered as Christmas approaches, as their work hours are stretched out and more shoppers arrive to disturb their carefully arranged displays of sweaters, boxed perfumes, stuffed toys or women’s lingerie.

I miss hearing mum’s updates about the progress of her Christmas plans. Cards done and posted? Tick. Christmas cake fruit soaking? Tick. Christmas cakes baked? Tick (yours will be waiting for you when you get home Jenny, I was recently told!) Christmas tree up, decorated and lights blinking in the evening or when the grandkids visit? Tick. Christmas lunch menu decided (traditional hot lunch of roast turkey and trimmings, or cool seafood and salad buffet)? Tick. Gift buying finished? Tick. Christmas parties attended, enjoyed or endured? Tick.

Christmas smells differently in Naples. Hot roasting chestnuts, a favourite of every Neapolitan I know, but something I find tastes of not much at all, wafts along the street. The bars start to have hot chocolate available as a matter of course. The fish vendors are busy as ever, the pungent salty odour mixing with the decidedly horrendous blue exhaust fumes from scooters that badly need servicing.

It’s been unseasonably cold leading up to Christmas the year. The cold weather is somehow something that feels quite normal for the festive season, despite the fact that the majority of my Christmases have been spent in hot, humid places wishing for a swimming pool or air conditioning. Years of Christmas images of snow, reindeers, carols around a roaring fire and European landscapes have made Christmas and winter a normal reality in a part of my brain. Ironically, Neapolitans find it almost impossible to imagine a hot Christmas, where the Santa dresses in board shorts and you might just spend part of the day at the beach.

All of that said and done though and back to my original thought about how llllooonnnggg Christmas seems to go for in Australia, compared to the much shorter period dedicated to celebrating the birth of Jesus Christ in Naples…..I can’t help feeling that shorter is better. If 60 odd million Italians can get together in 13 days why are we 20 million Australians inflicted with weeks and weeks of it?

Merry Christmas!

Sunny snaps

Not many cities are beautiful when the sky is grey and cloudy, the sunlight denied. Not many cities inspire photography when it’s wet and raining persistently. Naples is one of those cities, despite the energy on the street, and the dogged determination of the street vendors, their goods covered in large sheets of well used plastic.

But, when the sun shines, taking advantage of the break in the weather, the colours come out of hiding and beg to be captured. Here are some I took this week while Christmas shopping with Gig.

Keep your head down

There has been another shooting in our neighbourhood. An innocent standerby, a woman seven months pregnant was also accidentally shot in the back. Of course it is the camorra, the local mafia family. This is the third shooting in the last 18 months in this zone. Gi was telling me how much better it is now, compared to 20 years ago!

It's still three shootings too many really.

What he hasn't done is read the newspapers and internet blogs which tell me that we are in the middle of an Camorra war, with different families fighting over territory and business.

We might have had crappy neighbours at Fitzgibbon in Brisbane but it was nothing compared to this!!

What transport strikes?

Isn't it funny how sometimes Naples is a city that seems to go out of it's way to inconvenience me, and then when big things happen it hardly makes a bleep in my radar?

Take the recent transport strikes. There have recently been public transport strikes with the buses and metro either closed or on limited service. Luckily, I have always needed to be at work before the strike begins and don't return home until it's well and truly over.

Then this week there the trucks have been striking. Anyone with a car has potentially been stranded with petrol impossible to buy, and the supermarket shelves are mostly empty as customers have been panic buying and deliveries have been delayed. Did it affect me? No. Thank goodness. That's what comes of not strictly following the local habit of shopping everyday for exactly what you need to eat that day. I always have some pasta, rice, tins, vegies on backup. But reading the BBC website it seems that lots of people have had their knickers in a twist as a result of the interruptions.

But still it's the little things that get my knickers in a twist. Smart cars that refuse to acknowledge pedestrian crossings, rubbish overflowing from the industrial bins on our street, people throwing half smoked lit cigarettes towards my coat at the bus stop, dirty old men and their wandering hands in a crowded bus, if I want to sit down at the cafe with my coffee it costs me extra...

Italian lorry drivers end strike

Unions representing 80% of the drivers were on strike
Gridlocked roads Italy's lorry drivers say they are suspending their three-day blockade that has led to shortages of petrol and food across the country. The two main unions representing the strikers say the government has agreed to address their concerns about rising fuel prices and long working hours. Thousands of drivers have been blockading motorways since Monday. The strike has caused huge queues at petrol stations, and shops have begun running out of fresh food.
Several unions representing 80% of the country's drivers were involved in the strike.
They were protesting against rising fuel prices and demanding more money for the transport sector in the government's 2008 budget.
Petrol stations across the country have been running short of supplies, and there have been long queues at the pumps. There has also been panic buying, leaving many supermarket shelves empty.

Pastries please!

The story: Kristina and Madii came to Naples, shopped up a storm, ate pizza and pasta and on their final night bought traditional pastries to enjoy after dinner. I came home from teaching at 9pm to find Kristina in bed and Madii in her pyjamas. Having enjoyed a late lunch, Kristina was more interested in sleeping, but Madii and I had dinner while her mother tried to pretend that the lights were out and all was quiet. I asked if she wanted the pastries as desserts. 'No, we'll have them in the morning' was her response. Ah, to be 16 years old and think nothing of eating sweet, flaky Italian pastries at 6am on the way to the airport. 'Ok, you won't forget to get them out of the fridge?' I asked. 'Definitely not, I'll remember!' she adamantly replied.

Guess what? In the 5.30am process of getting up, dressing, locking bags, making cups of tea and dragging luggage down to the taxi...they forgot the pastries. The girls are now far away in Germany, so there was only one thing to do...give them to Gigi and take photos so that at least they can see how much he enjoyed the tasty little treats.

Kristina and Madii, you'll just have to come back to Italy (especially Naples or Sicily) to have a second go at indulging in real Italian pastries.

Pastries are always lovingly wrapped for the journey home.
Gi gently works the ribbon open.

Success! He is already salivating with anticipation.

Oh yeah. Sweet custard, buttery pastry and a light sprinkle of icing sugar.

Yes, they really are as good as this face suggests!

No going, going...well and truly gone.

Yes Charmaine, here it is!!

The girls (my SDS friend Kristina and her 16 year old daughter Madii) blew into town, quite literally with the wind and rain, and have this morning flown off to Munich where the forecast minimum is 1°C and the maximum a heart warming 2°. Unfortunately the weather meant that the usual highlights of a trip to Naples weren't really ideal so having discounted the Amalfi coast trek and a visit to Pompeii we cruised around the historical centre of Naples, enjoyed a day at a thermal spa and shopped.

It's been a long time since I've enjoyed shopping but I must say that Kristina and Madii are an inspiration. We hit the crowded Christmas markets along Via San Gregorio Armeno where the artisans make the traditional 'presepe' nativity scenes complete with handcrafted figures, animals, furniture and all manner of decorative paraphenalia. Some are even populated with moving figures eg a woman doing the laundry, a pizza guy in front of his wood fired oven, a doctor tending to a sick child, and a boy fishing. Where my shyness often stops me from asking the price or entering shops Madii was unstoppable, approaching every stall and engaging politely and determinedly with anyone. She was a forced to be reckoned with. A chatty, confident teenager with money burning a hole in her wallet is something to watch.

They are, as far as mother and daughter teams are concerned, almost complete opposites. My dear friend Kristina, is, like me, something of a control freak. Her daughter is, perhaps like Gigi at times, off with the fairies. It makes for an interesting chemical combination.

Here's a photographic summary of what we enjoyed:

Madii reluctantly dragged her luggage to the train station in Rome and then sifted through my ipod for the 2.5 hour train journey to Naples. Ah, to be a teenager.

This is the view of the buildings directly across from our bedroom balcony.

The girls enjoy a real, real pizza.

This apartment and piazza featured in one of Sofia Loren's 1960's movies.

1. Good luck symbols as magnets for the tourists.

2. Stop racscism, sexism and fascism protest poster

1. Busy spaccanapoli street. 2 Abandoned church entrance.

San Gregorio Armeno cloisters.

The cloister gardens.

1. Fountain in the cloister gardens.

2. Stairway into the cloister.

1. A nun on a poster. 2. A nun in disguise.

Inside the Naples Duomo (cathedral).

The front of the duomo reflected in an illegally parked car.

Bust of patron saint St Gennaro. The girls at the front of the duomo.

Kristina and Jenny with the bay & Vesuvio behind.

The Royal Palace.

At Piazza Trieste Trento.

Stufe Terone thermal spa...the quiet zone.

1. Madii has her compulsory gelato.

2. Then she finds a shop sign that almost matches.

Kristina, ever the scorpio at Galleria Umberto.

1. Side view of the Castel Nuovo.

2. Mother and daughter in Naples.