Antica Drogheria Calzolari So, I’m just going to jump in here and write. No excuses. No explanations for the silence, or rather, for the lack of blog-energy. Just write… So, I have this great 30 minute walk from our apartment to the university. We live in “Centro,” but on the very south side of the old historic district, and the university is on the northeast side. So, I have a diagonal meander through narrow one-way cobble streets, with medieval buildings, piazzas, palazzos, and plenty of portici (the porticoes that define Bologna, and that keep you covered from the rain as you wander through town). The portici have been especially handy as we've had nothing but rain for the past week, after a gorgeous rain-free month of January. I make the walk twice a day. I often think I should ride my bike, or take the bus. But it turns out that the distance is perfect, as it allows me to get through exactly one 30-minute Italian lesson on my phone. So, it’s perfect. I wander through these amazing streets with my headphones on, and having conversations in Italian with my Iphone. Perfect. Anyway, I thought: OK! This is my opportunity to actually make my first plunge into the Antica Drogheria Calzolari. Though there are a few wine shops along my route, this one seems especially fun. I'll have a glass of wine there, chat with some people, and get some recommendations for a couple of special bottles of vini locali. Time to break the ice. I have about 12 minutes of a portici-covered walk (and yes, it was raining pretty good) from my office at the university to Antica Drogheria. Plenty of time to practice all the phrases I would need. “New to the neighborhood.” “Want to learn about local wine –vini locali.” “Friend arriving tonight from California.” “Show me a good time.” You get the idea. And I was especially keen on sharing these phrases with the old guy who I always see behind the counter, and clearly runs the place. I was ready to impress –at least for the first 4 minutes of the encounter. Well, as I get to Antica, it's surprisingly quiet. There’s one guy at the counter drinking a glass of bubbly. The old guy who runs the place is sitting down behind the counter, totally engrossed in a crossword puzzle. And there’s a younger guy stocking the shelves. So, as I make my grand entrance, with a gorgeous “Buona serra,” I get nothing. Not even a lookup from the old guy. Barely a nod from the young guy stocking the shelves. At that moment, all the beautifully articulated Italian phrases left me, and I resorted to grunting: “Lambrusco, un botelli. Sangiovese, un botelli. Per favore.” I just froze. I guess communication is really a two-way street. And not getting much love as I entered the place, didn’t help grease the wheels. Rather, it made me that much more self-conscious. Back to grunting. No gorgeous subjuntive phrase: it would be so nice if... Well, as the young showed me a few Sangiovese options, things started to warm-up. I asked a few questions; saw a bottle that Naomi and I had bought before and liked. Was able to tell the guy that, I think. And ultimately, had 3 bottles on the counter ready to buy. I paid the bill, and was about to leave. And still, the old guy behind the counter hadn’t lifted his pen from the crossword puzzle, let alone offered me a glance of recognition. So, as I was about to leave, I said, “Fuck it. I’m going in deeper." So, I walked over to the guy drinking bubbly, and said, “come here often?” (vieni qui spesso?) Who knows what he thought I was really asking. And then, I asked, “what are you drinking? Any good?” (Che cosa stai bevendo? E bene –or should it be “buona.” I still get those confused). He was sweet, and like so many of the people we’ve met in our first month in Bologna, so happy to speak with me, even though I was clearly only getting 10% of what he was saying. He gave me a long explanation about the wine, and the region it comes from, and most of that just flew by me. BUT, I went back in, little by little, and got the details in understandable chunks. And time went along, he had figured out how to share his wisdom in BA-SIC I-TAL-IAN-O. And I was finding phrases that had been hidden in pockets in my jacket for weeks, or so it seems. It turns out, he was drinking a wine called “franciacorte,” that comes from north Italy between Bolzano and Brescia, at the foot of the alps, and is made in the champagne style –or so I think! (Yes, that is another characteristic of living here –understanding doesn’t come all at once, but slowly seeps in, or not) Well, Marco, happens to be a waiter at a local restaurant in town, and couldn’t have been nicer, more polite, and more forgiving with my Italian. We talked about wine, about California, about grapes, about restaurants. Of course, I ended up having a glass of the bubbly with him –delicious. The young guy went back and brought out some snacks as is the tradition here for aperitivo. And, we had a delightful time. Finally, as I was asking questions about grappa, the Italian distilled beverage made from grapes, the old guy looked up from his crossword and chimed in to correct something that Marco said about grappa. And, so I thought, that’s my opportunity to say something toward him, sort of. So, I said to Marco, but loudly, “Allora, lui a qualcosa a dire?” (He has something to say afterall?). And Marco replied, “yes, he is the maestro” –in English. But that’s all I got out of the guy. Until, toward the end of the conversation, I was talking about our wine in Monterey, about our relatively young, up and coming wine industry. And I said, somewhat loudly, “Monterey e un regione speziale.” And all of a sudden, the old guy looks up, and says in full voice: “Monterey Pop Festival. Greatful Dead! Janice! Jimi Hendrix! Quicksilver Messenger Service.” (Not sure he got the last one right, but…) Needless to say, I was blown away. Not only about his knowledge of Monterey Pop Festival, but that I actuall finally made it onto his radar screen. I finally had an in to talk with the Maestro. And whoda thunk it would have been 1960s rock music. Well, how dumb was I? The name of this place was the Antica Drogheria afterall. Well, I told him that I went to the 50th anniversary concert with my family last summer, and some of the original antichi musicistas were there, and not looking too good. He said, “and…???”, in other words, “what did you expect?” That led to a bit more chatter about rock music, about drugs, about legal cannabis in California, and about our few months stay in Bologna. At which point, I was really out of words. So, all I could say was, “Gotta go home. Buona serata,” and took leave.
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Thanks Brighton. So, we are packed up and ready to go. Heathrow here we come for a rockin' New Years Eve at the hotel. Then, it is up early for the 8:30 flight to Bologna. No, we are not traveling light. We have 6 pieces of checked bags and 3 carry-ons between the three of us. Pretty much all of them weighing in right aat the 23kg limit. Somehow, we acquired one extra piece of luggage, which will make for even funner shlepping through airports. (Not sure what I was thinking, but at least I already have my bike/bici for Italy figured out, and if the airport gods are with me, it will be in semi-decent shape when we arrive). Naomi and I had our last meal out on the town last night. After a few last minute changes of plans, we ended up back at The Curry Leaf Cafe, just down the hill in Kemptown. We had been there once before, and really loved it. And, we were not disappointed. Chef Sabu is from Kerala, and the food is amazing. Perfectly spiced; perfectly cooked; and beautifully presented. We think he's the best chef in Brighton. So, it turned out to be the perfect last meal out; that is, after we had started our meal with a Mayo sandwich (kudos to Chef Todd, our favorite Monterey Chef). So, I guess its time to say goodbye to beer and whisky, and hello to Aperol spritz and buon vino Italiano. Here's a link to the website of our new place at Via Solferino, 18. So you can travel the route with us. La vita a di Bolognese comincia. Ciao billissimi amici. Hasta pronto a Bologna. Seth./. ![]() A Month of London Contrasts “Happy Christmas,” as they say here this time of year. I can’t believe that we are now looking at our last week in Brighton, as we board our flight for Bologna on 1 January. The last month has been quite the blur. Please excuse the lack of posts, but, once I woke up from my chest infection stupor, I dove deeply into the research project that I have been working on at the University of Brighton. I finished 66 interviews with U of Brighton faculty, senior administrators and community partners, as part of an effort to help revive and re-orient the community engagement program. I've written the first draft of the final report, and presented my findings to the Senior Leadership Team. Then, last Monday, we had my going away party at The Bevy, the community pub where I started my time in Brighton, 4 months ago. Fitting, to start and end my time here at The Bevy! So, that pretty much wraps up Sabbatical Part I. I will write about the work part of the 4 months in an upcoming blog. Needless to say, higher education is in quite a state of transformation here in the UK. The pressures that still exist from the post-recession "austerity" period are made all that much worse by the current fears about Brexit. This image speaks volumes to what is happening in higher ed here. But, more on that later. For now, here's an update on our adventures over the past month, which have focused on our beginning to explore London, and its many contrasts. We were able to take 3 trips there in the past month. So, here are a few highlights of our past month.
Sunday, 29 October: As my cough deepens, Florence Naomingale heads to DC, and I hunker down in bed with tea and herbal remedies and lots of online sports –See Blog from 10/30. Friday, 3 November: After a week of tea and herbal remedies and no relief, I ask a friend for a referral to a local GP. Turns out there is a small office about 10 minute walk from our home. They open at 8:30. I’m there at 8:25. Once they open, I am given the next appointment for 10am, after filling out a short information sheet. I’ve got my passport and “Resident Permit Card” with me, proud of the fact that I paid $560 to be able to access the NHS system while in the UK for one year. They could have cared less about my card. I was given the appointment because it was available and I was in need. I go for a coffee and come back at 10. I’m called into see the doctor at 10:15. She takes my temperature, listens to my chest, hears congestion, but nothing shocking, and concludes: “It’s most likely viral. Keep doing what you’re doing. Liquids and rest.” She also gives me a prescription for an inhaler which I get filled next door. Total cost: $9 for the inhaler. Wednesday, 8 November: Florence comes back from DC, having successfully nursed Maya back to reasonable health, and is now there to help her other patient. Multiple batches of chicken soup follow. Friday, 10 November: The congestion has shifted into the bronchioles, with lots of wheezing, gurgling and rattling. We decide to walk to the Brighton NHS Walk-In Clinic next to the train station. It opens at 8:00am. We are there at 7:55, third in line. We go in, fill-out a short form, and within 30 minutes I am being seen by a nurse practitioner. He takes my temperature, listens to my chest, and concludes: “It sounds like you could now have a bacterial chest infection.” He prescribes an antibiotic which I get filled. He says I should start feeling some relief in 48-72 hours. Total cost: $11. Sunday, 12 November: Over the past 48 hours, the cough had gotten progressively worse. More wheezing and more gurgling. I woke up in the middle of the night wondering if I should go to hospital. In the morning, I call the NHS non-emergency out-patient number: “1-1-1.” The person who answers asks me a series of questions to make sure I’m not bleeding profusely, in cardiac arrest, or some other potentially fatal condition. He couldn’t have been nicer, more compassionate or more patient with me. Then, he tells me that I will get a call back within the hour from a nurse or doctor. In 45-minutes, I receive a call, apologizing for the long wait time, telling me that I haven’t been forgotten, and asking how I was feeling and if my condition had changed in the past 45 minutes. I thanked them for their concern and call. After another 30 minutes, I was called by a nurse practitioner named Grace. She was awesome. Totally calmed me down, listened to my detailed description of my struggles with breathing and wheezing and gurgling, and encouraged me to wait another 24 hours, and that the antibiotic would start having an effect. And, that if it became any harder to breathe, I should call back and they would send a GP to my house! Total cost: $0. [NOTE: I did feel improvement the next morning, and the improvement continued through Wednesday.] Thursday, 16 November: I was scheduled to take a 7am train to Sheffield for two days of seminars that I was giving on service learning at the U of Sheffield. This had been arranged by Sanjay Lanka, a professor there who had previously taught with us at CSUMB. I woke up, and the gurgling had come back, with a vengeance. Was debating whether to go or not, and decided, “what the hell, go for it.” Got on the train to London, and thought, “wrong move.” Sent Sanjay a text saying I was en route, but could we see a doctor in Sheffield? Once in Sheffield, we went straight to the NHS Walk-In clinic. It was pretty busy, and I was able to finish almost 3 Sudoku puzzles in the waiting room. Finally, I was called into see the nurse practitioner. She listened to my detailed description of my congestion, wheezing and gurgling, took my temperature, listened to my chest, and said “WOW! That’s loud.” While the previous antibiotic had addressed the congestion in my chest, it hadn’t touched the gunk in my bronchioles. So, she prescribed a new, broader spectrum antibiotic, which I got filled next door, and quickly took the first two pills as prescribed. We got to the U of Sheffield at 2:25pm, and our first meeting was at 2:30pm. Two hours of service learning talk with the School of Management faculty went great. Total cost: $12. Today, Sunday, 18 November: So, while I’m still congested, I think its moving in the right direction. I started to feel almost instant relief from the new antibiotic. Hopefully it is the right one, and by the time the course is over, the wheezing will be gone as well. It feels good to be coming out from the mucus-laden darkness and into the light of breath again. Still, walking up our hill in Hanover to our home on the top of Windmill street is a struggle. Gives me new appreciation for the power of clean lungs. But more than anything, I have such an appreciation for a functional national health service. The definition says that the NHS provides healthcare to “all UK citizens.” Well, I ain’t no UK citizen. In fact, anyone who walks in the door to a GP gets treated, for free! And, everyone I’ve met and talked with at my GP, at the Brighton Walk-In Clinic, the Sheffield Walk-In Clinic, and on the “1-1-1” line has been exceptionally warm, caring and human. And this is a system that people feel has been decimated by budget cuts. Yes, “SAVE OUR NHS!” And once I return home, the campaign will be, “CREATE OUR NHS!” How simple: a system which provides healthcare for all in the USofA based on their need for healthcare rather than their ability to pay for it. It SHOULD BE funded by taxes.
A Sports Blitz
So, for the first time on Sunday, after Naomi had gone on the bus to Heathrow (any connection there is surely a coincidence), I ordered a 1-day "subscription" to EuroSport (£4.99). My goal was to watch my first "Brighton Hove Albion" soccer game --my new home team. They were playing Southampton at 1pm, and I was bed-bound with a cough. So, after not having watched a single sporting event (besides my venture out the previous weekend to the local pubs to experience some male-bonding), I was welcomed back into the fold of sportsfandom with a cornucopia of "euro-sports:" snooker, darts, indoor track cycling, Bangladesh v. South Africa in cricket, the Mexican grand prix, but no soccer. Little did I know that EuroSport didn’t have the rights to broadcast European soccer, but, that it was on “Sky Sport.” So, after another investment, this time £6.99, I hit the sports jackpot: every kind of soccer imaginable. I eventually figured out how to find the Brighton premier league game --this is the first year that Brighton has been back in the premier league after a couple of decades of being relegated to the minors-- just in time for the game preview. So, I got my first introduction to my home team, which included a retrospective back to the 1980s, when they were somewhat of a Premier League powerhouse for a few years, and an up close and personal look at their Israeli goal-scorer, Tomar Hemed, who was just coming off a 3-game suspension for stamping on an opponent in the game against Newcastle. (Not the kind of behavior you’d expect from a nice Jewish boy). Well, Brighton tied 1-1, on a cool header in the second half. Would've been nice to see a victory, but not bad coming away with a tie, even if it took place just up the street at "Amex Stadium" --American Express has their European headquarters in Brighton, just two blocks away from our home, and so they put their name on the gorgeous, brand new stadium outside of town, right next to the University of Brighton and University of Sussex campus. Then, it took all the will power I could muster to not spend the rest of the day in bed, watching soccer --Real Madrid, Juventus, Manchester United v Tottenham Hotspurs ("Go Yids!). [A slight digression. Who knew that the Tottenham Hotspurs, also known as “Spurs,” had a second nickname, “Yids!” That’s right, that same not so polite name for a Jew. Turns out, that Tottenham is known as a Jewish team, as many of the Jewish "East-Enders" at the early part of the 20th Century made Tottenham their team of choice, and it has stuck! Their fans call themselves the “Yid Army.” Who knew? Whether you appreciation the appropriation of the slur or not, as it was explained to me by a colleague at the university, “If you’re Jewish, you support Tottenham. No questions asked.” Of course, I had to check the source of this historical tidbit. And it is supported by Wikipedia. Check out the link: Yid.] Luckily, I needed to get out of bed and make my way to the health food store for some more cough medicine and food, so, I was able to break the soccer spell pretty easily. When I got back in bed later that evening, it was around 4pm in the east coast, and guess what was now on Sky Sport --NFL Football! They had a featured game, along with the "Red Zone" which shows highlights of all games, as they are happening. So, needless to say, I indulged; or perhaps, over-indulged. And then, as if that wasn't enough, the late games came on, so I got to watch the Cowboys v. Redskins and Seahawks v. Houston from start to finish, as they kept switching back and forth, and sometimes would show both games at once. Great games both, by the way! I finally dozed off around 10:30, bleary-eyed, and football-fuzzed, and fell asleep. But when I awoke at 5am, my typical rising time even when sick, I remembered: "World Series Game 5!" And, I still had some time left on my 24 hour subscriptions to both Eurosport and Sky Sport. So, I quickly opened up the lap top, and searched madly. Nothing on either of my sports channels. What's up MLB? Only soccer re-runs, snooker and cricket from New Zealand. And to make things worse, when I pulled up the score on Google, it said: 12-12, 9th inning! Unfortunately, I couldn't ever find a way to watch the last inning live, and ultimately, the final score appeared: 13-12 in 10 innings. Go Stros! Gotta go and catch up on my snooker. Seth./. A Quick Catch-Up It's been quite an eventful past two weeks. Lots to share, but here is the gist. Maya came down with a case of MONO. She called us about two weeks ago to let us know. Naomi's reaction was, "I want to go back and help nurse her back to health." Maya's reaction was "No. I'm fine." My reaction was, "let's not over-react." Well, after two weeks of not being so fine, and in fact, feeling pretty shitty in the dorm, Maya finally relented, and said, "please come." Naomi found a semi-reasonable ticket to DC, and got on the plane yesterday, Sunday morning. They've got an Airbnb in DC for a week, and hopefully, that will help Maya get up and over the hump, and back into the swing of her once robust college life. So, send your healing blessings, and any excess energy you have, Maya's way. Hopefully, we'll have good news in future blogs.
The “Stile” Section So, The Sunday New York Times has a “Style” section. So, it’s time for my blog to have its own “Stile” Section. This is a rather significant achievement, since just two weeks ago, I had no idea what a “stile” was. As Naomi and I were plotting some of our country walks, we would read about “stiles” as we read through the many possible walks we could take in books such as “Pocket Pub Walks in the South Downs” or “50 Walks of 2-10 miles in Sussex and the South Downs.” A typical line in the directions would read something like: “Cross a stile to the lynchgate and walk down to the path junction." Or, “Cross a drive, go through a gate and straight across the field to a stile, then continue between fences.” So, what’s a stile?
It is a small, very welcoming group, led by a lesbian Rabbi, Rabbi Elli, who has been there part-time for 17 years. They just completed a 6-year renovation project to their building, and this was just the second year that they were worshiping in the new sanctuary for high holy days. Rosh Hashana services were wonderful. Prayerful and tuneful. In fact, they started with the same song that we sing at CBI, "Return." Except, while we sing it emphasizing the first syllable "RE-turn," they sign it emphasizing the second syllable, "re-TURN." Hmmmm... Our only gripe was that there was a bit too much of repeating the English after having read the Hebrew, one of our pet peeves. (Yes, Yom Kippur is coming up, so I will have a day of forgiving...). Overall, a very sweet service. There was a beautiful moment on Rosh Hashana morning when as we were about to recite the mourner's kaddish, a man in the front row let out a deep, deep loud sob, and collapsed. We thought he was having a heart attack, but in fact, he was just feeling grief. Rabbi Elli came over to him, and through his sobs and struggle to even get words out, he shared that his father had passed-away in April, and that he missed him. Rabbi Elli took a moment to comfort him, to ask him for his father's name, and then to invite the entire congregation to hold this man's father's memory in our hearts as we continued on with the kaddish. What a beautiful moment. And what a gift this was for all of us. His grief allowed us all to truly feel for that moment, to feel in such a pure way the fragility of being alive. Zichrono Livracha --May his memory be a blessing.
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About MeI am a Professor of Service Learning and Director of the Service Learning Institute at California State University, Monterey Bay. I am interested in how universities can be more involved in social change, particularly in supporting underserved communities to address complex social and economic challenges. Archives
December 2017
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