October Rain, Genoa

I photographed the rain as it came down from the hills this morning. I experienced a couple of small downpours on my return to the city. I was busy all day. I had wanted to do some work for the NGO, then there was the big walk looking for a money machine I had misplaced in my memory which is kind of fun when it involves fabulous streets like Via Garibaldi. I bought some supplies and chose tonight's fresh ravioli and there was a mad last minute dash for a new book.

And then came the rain ...

I have lived all over the South Island of New Zealand ... Dunedin, Cromwell, Blenheim and Te Anau ... such was that life as a teacher's wife.

Te Anau is located in the mountains, in the south-west of the lower South Island and it is torrential rain country. Lots of millimetres in a very short time.

Istanbul didn't offer me that so often and I was living a 5th and a 2nd floor life. There was no thunderous drumming of rain on the roof. It was different there. 14-million-people-in-a-crowded-city different perhaps.

Belgium doesn't often specialise in the tin-thrumming downpours that I loved back home in New Zealand however ... it seems that Genova does.

So tonight I ran out the door to pick up some work from the internet cafe. It wasn't raining, I forgot my umbrella and then, almost here, the heavens opened.

I'm trapped at the moment, only until I embrace the idea of being soaked in 3 seconds on the way home ... despite being saved by one of the umbrella-selling guys with a mini-5euro umbrella. I think this rain will destroy it in seconds.

I love it though.

Eating pizza alone in Genoa

As those who know me will confirm, I have moments of social brilliance and ease and then there are those other moments, when Mr Bean looks like the twin I was seperated from at birth. And he's just an actor …

So last night I decided I would brave the pizzeria across the alleyway, without Paola's mum there with her Italiano. I started confidently, having woken from a nap imagining I could do anything, even without language.

Ordering the Napoli pizza went just fine but the red wine was where I went so wrong. There is a pizza called rosso-something and so began the unravelling of Di as a relatively intelligent adult.

I gave my order by pointing at the menu, as per Simon's book of how to point in any language. Then the lovely old man, another customer, opened the fridge for me … the wine, beer and etc are stored in it and most adult customers are deemed intelligent enough to get their own drink. OhdearGod!

I knew their music had woken me from my nap, their opening shop music, and I know this pizzaria rocks through the night with its own in-crowd. I knew I had to hurry, feeling as linguistically deficient as I do in these days alone in Genoa

I chose a table where I could look out into the alleyway, a mistake because it also put me in prime position in the dining room.  I didn't realise until the place started filling and then, sigh, then they gave me a plastic knife and fork, which makes sense because of the thin pizza crust but did real Genovese use them?

Pizza etiquette...
I smsed Gert holding in that nervous, oh-my-god-I-don't-have-any-idea laughter. I opted to switch between the plastic utensils and eating with my hands because, as luck would have it, I was the first one served and I couldn't check out what anyone else was doing. There was me, the lone foreigner, quite possibly breaking 50 of the 99 how-to-eat-pizza-with-dignity rules.

The pizza … oh the Napoli pizza is so good here. Not too many anchovies, just right amount of cheese and tomato. The red wine is fine chilled, the music is good and loud, and the surroundings are purely delicious.

All this insecurity is just about me feeling very much like a child of the South Pacific in this ancient city.

The good news … well, when I bit into that terrifyingly hard piece of pizza topping, I was A. able to remove it from my mouth relatively discretely and B. identify the crunch.  Just like last time, the end of that plastic fork prong had snapped off when I bit it.  What's that about?  I've never bitten my forks  before.

Oh, and my leftovers fitted into the rubbish container without incident. If you knew the amount of worry I had invested in whether or not I could smoothly drop my leftovers and their cardboard base into that bag, I do believe you would applaud about now.

And the clown bows …

Today, in Genoa, Italy

This morning, I set out on a 6km walk to Boccadasse and like the adventurers of old, I was working without a map. Unfortunately navigation isn't a natural talent of mine...

To avoid mocking by any Genovese reading this, I won't write of the route I took but I was lost for quite sometime however the journey was surely as much a part of the destination.

You see, I found this as I was wandering along Via XX Settembre. The light was just so and this photograph was the result.

The Little Fiat, Genoa

I uploaded some photographs and had no idea which order to blog them in but here goes ... let's begin with the cute little Fiat that we rented from Hertz.

Paola drove us from our Milano landing into Genova, passing through some beautiful hills as we approached our destination, making me feel a little nostalgic for New Zealand.

But the car ... cute, isn't it.

Day 2 - Genoa, Italy

Today has been a mad crazy freefall into the narrow streets of this ancient city.  Into interviews, into the kindness and generosity of a friend, and of many strangers too.

Without Paola there wouldn't have been the magical introduction to her hometown. I might have found these places but over time and without my translator.

This morning was meant to begin with a slice of the best focaccia in the world, and it did, but that led to an interview and photographs at the bakery an hour later. Not only that but we were sent on our way laden down with some more of the best-ever focaccia in the world. Photos to follow when my internet issues are resolved.

We discovered a cafe called Cafe Boomerang where the cappucchino was so creamy and light it was immediately marked down as a favourite.

We wandered the alleyways visiting a soap and ecetera place, an exotic old shop full of mysterious things and ... ended up conducting an impromptu interview with the owner.

Shoeshops, bookshops and then there was the fresh pasta shop with the cafe through in the other half - better I photograph it than explain, as words fail me here. On to the chocolate factory where we have an interview booked for 2.30pm, and the shops ... did I mention how quaint they are, and I use 'quaint' because I'm not sure how else to describe the old world charm of something that is real and apparently unchanged over decades.

Then there is the habit of aperitivo here.
I'm learning that if you order a drink at a bar, a huge plate of food may appear with it. It might be that I enjoy more than one glass of wine but I'm becoming quite traumatised by the quantity of food that comes with each glass. The waiter understood my 'Dear God!' last night and we all laughed.

So we stopped for a non-alcoholic Shirley Temple drink before lunch and out came the plate of food ... the peanuts, the pistachio, the chips, the salami, the cheese and the focaccia.

We were only there because I was needing to rest my achilles some before lunch.

Lunch was at Da Maria's - an interview is booked for later this afternoon but it is known as being an authentic and affordable Italian kitchen-type restuarant. Paola chose wild boar while I caught up with an old love ... ravioli.

And somewhere in-between the breakfast focaccia and the lunch there was also the very special and wildly extragavent expresso with bananas and whipped cream. We went to the original shop and not one of the copycat shops that have appeared since.

Genova is a beautiful, warm and welcoming city.
It has raced to the top of my favourite places in the world list ... let's see how it goes in the days ahead.

I hope alles goed where ever you are.
Ciao!

Italy is everything and more ...

Paola woke me at 4.45am Brussels-time, I think.  The memory is vague at this other end of the day.

The taxi took us to the airport and the plane had us in Milan by 8.30am - a fast flight. Paola explained it, suggesting that 'traffic' was lighter at that time of the day, making us both laugh some.

She's driving our little bright bright yellow Fiat, the one that Hertz gave us. It's the latest model and you can't help but smile when you see it.

Genova is stunning ... better than every place so far maybe.
We have wandered, bookshopped, and eaten lunch.  Dinner tonight was simply aperitivo - there so much more food than a tapas snack.

I've been out roaming, looking for a corkscrew for that wine that found its way into the apartment while Paola catches up with a friend who just had a baby.

I don't think I'm lost ... I know the internet shop is on a piazza close to the apartment, so it's just a matter of leaving and setting off in the right direction.

Well yes, it could be that the map is back 'home' on my bed.

It's been a good day so far, just in case you were wondering. I hope yours was too.
Arrivederci!!