Intrepid Three Year Old

I courageously embark trip to Merate today, senza Gauss o Costanza. I have the vocabulary of a toddler. Can my meager skills get me to a small town 40 kilometers away?

Whenever I'm sitting, I rehearse what I might say.

“Non parla molto ” 

“Questo treno va a Merate?” 

“Dove l'ultimo destinazione per le treni a Merate? Lecco o Como? 

“Lecco? Grazie.”

Telefono Donato. La moglie de Donato parlate.

“Sono Patti, sono in treno”

“Uno momento.--Donato!”

“Ciao, Patti!”

“Ciao Donato, sono in treno. Esperiamo questo e il treno correto.” (OK, wow, I know I murdered that sentence, hope he understood.)

“Quanto tempo...” he asks (something here I didn't understand, I figure from context he wonders when I left Garibaldi.)

“Departe Milano a nove e quattro” (I think I am telling him that I left Milano at 9:15, but actually I am telling him I left at 9:04. He seems to understand and I get the idea that he now knows when to pick me up. Fingers crossed.)

On this train, a clear female voice comes on to announce each upcoming station: “Prossimo fermata, Monza.” Whew, I know where I am. I hope I understand her when she announces our arrival in Merate. I can see the foothills of the alps a little north and to the east of us so I know we are headed in the right direction, at least. I relax.

Oops, wrong again. An hour after departing Milano, I haven't seen Merate yet. I copy down the name of the station we just passed and call Donato. He speaks NO English so I am entirely dependent on my lousy Italian.

“Donato, sono en treni, penso non e treni giusto,” I say. “Siamo a Molteno” (name of wrong place.) Wrong verb form, it makes Donato think there are two of us traveling together. I catch myself and reword the murdered sentence.

“Sono solo io en treni.”

Donato says something to me in grammatical Italian, and I understand that I am supposed to continue to Lecco and then catch a different train to Merate.

I settle back and enjoy the scenery. This part of Italy is beautiful. As we pull into Lecco I wish I were staying here instead of gritty Milano. Dramatically tilted beds of metamorphosed rock form the mountains that plunge down to Lago di Como.

I cannot claim credit for this lovely photograph. I was on the train fretting about what to do next, so I had to swipe this picture from the internet. Not mine.

I get off the train and walk into the station, hesitating at the counter because I know I speak only the barest of Italian. After circling the wicket a couple of times, I muster my courage and approach the clerk, beginning with my standard opening line:

“Non parla molto Italiano. Bisognio andare a Merate.”

There, I've thrown myself at her mercy. She's nice, really nice. She speaks carefully to me, first telling me the price of the ticket, 2.70 [Euros]. I've only arrived in the Eurozone last night, so I'm not sure of the coins and bills. I pull out three coins, two large and one small. The big ones are two-Euro coins, so she gives one back to me along with my other change. Then she tells me the departure time and track.

“Il treno per Merate parte a undici-zero-sette,” she says, slowly and clearly, checking to make sure I've understood her.

“Capisco!” I assure her. That means it leaves at 11:07, six minutes from now.

“Binario cinque,” she says, again checking to make sure I've got it.

“Binario cinque,” I repeat (Platform 5.) “Capisco.”

I kept seeing the abbreviation “bin” and wondered what it meant. I've just learned that it means “platform” at a train station.

I scurry through the underpass to platform 5, where the train is waiting. I step into the vestibule but continue to read the video screen that lists all the intermediate stops until I see “Merate.” I do, and now, confident that I am boarding the correct train, I get on and settle in. I phone poor Donato again and tell him what number train I am on and the arrival time.

“A Merate a undici-trento, undici e mezzo,” I tell him, triumphantly.

It's a short ride, only about 20 minutes, and I'm relieved when I am able to read “Merate” on the station. I get off and there's Donato, waiting.

I tell him a sentence I rehearsed while on the train that is ungrammatical but true.

"Arriva a Merate e una piccola vittoria!" (Translates something like, "I arrive at Merate is a little victory," which sounds like the kind of translated sentence I usually cringe over.)

We get into his car and I explain, as best I can, that when I bought the ticket, I asked which train to get on, and the man who sold it to me said I should go to Lecco.

When we get to the house, Donato explains to his wife, Anna, what happened. She speaks to me in French, which I am forgetting now that I am trying to speak Italian. But I understand from her that there are two routes to Lecco, and only one goes through Merate. Oh, if only there were maps in the train station, I would have figured this out!

Donato shows me the paintings we own that he is keeping in his house. There are three portraits of Gauss's grandmother, Maria, two of which are huge. Donato gets the word through to me that I probably won't be able to carry the two largest ones with me. There may be problems—it may be difficult to take them out of the country. I say I am happy to just take the smaller ones with me, but in the meantime, Donato phones his nephew, Marco, who speaks English and works at the airport, to ask about it. Marco's not there.

Here are photos of the three canvases I'm bringing back with me:

I'm hungry, and we go to lunch. Donato and Anna must be regulars, they're greeted like old friends. The proprietor lists the selections for i primi and i secondi. I'm baffled and say, “mi piace tutti,” so they just pick something for me. When it arrives, it's incredible, a simple spaghetti with garlic, a bit of prosciutto, and freshly grated parmesan. Just as we dig in, Marco calls. 

Donato and Anna at the restaurant in Merate. The food was amazing. Notice the Italian-English dictionary (yellow cover) to the left of my plate. It was my constant companion.

Donato has him talk to me, but we're not getting anywhere. Marco asks what I want to know, and I say I want to take some paintings with me and am worried that there may be documents that I need. Marco doesn't address the issue, talking instead about the size of the tube they're carried in. I hand the phone back to Donato, who seems to get to the meat of things, but then Donato hangs up before Marco can explain it to me in English, so I still don't know what's going on. I know it's about 4 a.m. for Gauss in California, but I call him anyway, apologizing that I know it's really early.

He talks to Donato and they come to the conclusion that I'll just carry a small tube with three or four paintings in it. That's fine with me, so I tell Gauss that, and he tells Donato, and we hang up.

The next course arrives, spiced lentils with four pieces of some kind of fresh sausage, again, fantastic. I am reduced to the vocabulary of a three year old, making small talk about my children, ages and occupations, and filling in the rest by miming and pulling out pictures of them. I am capable of simple stuff like this in Italian.

“Quando parla Inglese, sono un po intelligente,” I say, “ma quando parla Italiano, sono molto stupido!”

Anna and Donato have a laugh at this. I may be stupid but at least I have a sense of humor. 

For dessert we are given a choice of tartufo (literally "Truffle" but in Italy this means a scoop of ice cream covered with cocoa powder so it looks like a dirt-covered fungus from the forest floor) or meringue. I pick the meringue. The first bite is wonderful, but it gets even better when I take the second and realize that the middle is filled with gelato. This one is easy to talk about. "Fantastico!" I tell them.  

We drive back to the house. Anna has to leave, so I hang out in the studio with Donato while he removes the three canvases from their stretchers so they can be rolled up. Too bad, as one was beautifully framed.

Donato removing paintings from the stretchers in his studio. Donato Frisia the elder was a thrifty guy: The painting in the bottom picture had images painted on both sides. 

Donato needs to buy a tube, so we head to the hardware store and buy a PVC pipe from the stash stored outside behind the store. Back in the studio, he cuts it. I discover that it is wet inside and dry it with a heat gun while he carefully rolls the paintings. He puts the paintings into the tube, caps the tube, and we're done. He takes me back to the train and makes sure I get onto the right one.

Ah, the adventure begins again! This train stops in the next town, Osnago, and sits. And sits. A few people filter out and stand on the platform. There is a young couple in the seat in front of me. They giggle and kiss to pass the time. After awhile, the conductor walks through, yelling something that I cannot understand. The girl turns to me and says, in English, “We all get off.” We join the rest of the people milling around on the platform. After ten minutes or so, the conductor yells something else and everyone herds back onto the train. I follow the little couple, and we all go back to the seats we had been occupying.

When we get to Monza, the girl again says, “We all get off,” and sure enough, we all do. I follow the other passengers to another train. People are crowded together and I lose sight of my little couple, so I ask a woman standing next to me, “a Garibaldi?” She answers, “Si” so I settle in and hope for the best. This time the best happens. The train goes to Garibaldi. I know the subway enough to get on the correct train, make my transfer to the line that runs by Costanza's place, and get off at the right stop. I unlock the door (no verbal requirements for that) toss my stuff on the bed, and call some U.S. friends on Skype. Wow, it's nice not to be stupid for a change.

But I can't leave well enough alone. I'm hungry, and Costanza doesn't really eat here, so the only items in her kitchen are chocolate and cookies. Time to grab the Italian-English dictionary and head out in search of some grub!

The selection is good at the little grocery two blocks away. I buy a small piece of one of my favorite stinky cheeses, taleggio, a small loaf of bread, some salami, a bag of pre-made salad, and a ball of buffalo-milk mozzarella. I only make one stupid mistake buying food. I don't see the scale next to the bulk fruit, so when I show up at the checkout with two loose mandarins, the cashier asks me why I didn't weigh them. She gets up and does it herself, to the irritation of the five people in line behind me. I slink out the door, stupid foreigner again. But dinner is delicious!