Ferragosto and Calcio

I recognize that the updates on this blog have been sparse lately. Fortunately though, it is not due to a lack of happenings on this end. Actually, we’ve been pretty busy doing a bunch of different things as well as welcoming our first of several visitors coming to town over the next month or so. Here are a couple of highlights:

August 15 in Italy is a national holiday called Ferragosto aka the Feast of the Asumption for all you Catholics out there. Though it fell on a Saturday this year, Natalia still had the prior Friday off of work so we took advantage and went to a hill town in Umbria called Orvieto for the weekend. Only about 90 minutes by train from Rome, Orvieto is an old Etruscan town known for its ceramics, Orvieto Classico (a delicious white wine), and small town charm. I definitely recommend it to all. I’ve posted a ton of pictures on facebook from this weekend, but here are a few for the non-social media folks reading this. We stayed at a nice bed and breakfast, which had the luxury of a television (sidenote- we’d been without tv for about a month in our new pad, though our landlord brought one over last night. We can now get dialed in to the world of Italian game shows, dramas, and commercials. Bravo!). During down time in Orvieto, we watched some Italian MTV(Euros do love that high energy music) and one night I stayed up late watching E.T. in Italian. I forgot what an epic movie that is. The highlight being E.T. exclaiming “telefono…casa”. Too good.

The price of wine in Orvieto was unbelievably cheap. Many enotecas (wine shops) were selling 3 bottles of good local wine for anywhere between 6-12 Euro. Converted that’s about $9-$18. Or $3 a bottle. Again, bravo! The one wine shop we stopped into gave us a free tasting of about 6 different wines allowing us to choose the wine that best serves our novice pallates. That’s one of the more stand-out things about Orvieto. Everyone was so nice. Maybe it’s the fact that wine flows like water or that they live in such a beatiful environment, but the folks we met were just great. Another memorable exchange occurred at a ceramic shop where we were looking to buy something as a memento of our visit. We settled on a cool little olive oil bottle. Anyway, the lady at the shop could not have been more helpful and pleasant. She told me several times how beautiful Natalia is. So much so, that I began to wonder if she was really saying how did you pull that, you moppy haired, unshaven Americano?

As we were leaving, I wanted to get a business card so we could remember this spot for others. Unfortunately, I don’t know the word for business card in Italian. Once we figured out a way to get our message across, they gave us a card and I asked “come se dice questo?” (how do you say this?). The lady was unsure and turned to her husband who thought a minute and responded “beez-ee-ness card”. We all laughed as did other foreigners in the tiny shop as I guess he thought we wanted to know how to say it in English. Once his wife told him we wanted to know in Italian, and we were in fact native English speakers, he shrugged and muttered something. We all had a good laugh.
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This past weekend, our friends, Stephani and Sean, came to visit from DC. They win the award as the first friends from home to toast our arrival in Italy. (The rest of you reading this are now on notice.) Such a blast to have good friends from home share the experience of living abroad. Not to mention, the fact that they brought us American magazines, Ziploc bags, Ipod tunes, and a reason to try a ton of new restaurants. We had a great time. Among the many highlights included catch a soccer game at the Stadio Olimpico. It was opening day actually for Serie A, Italy’s top soccer league, and I couldn’t have been more stoked. There are two local teams in this league, Roma and Lazio. To put this in American context, I would say that Roma is like the Lakers and Lazio is like the Clippers. Not to say that Lazio has had a prominent history of futility like the Clips, but I think the majority of folks around here support Roma, just as most Angelinos are Lakers fans. This could not be more evident by the attendance at the game. I’d say that the stadium was about 40% of capacity. Tons of empty seats. Shockingly so. There could be a number of reasons for this though. One, as mentioned in a previous post, most Italians skip town in August. Since its still August its conceivable that most Lazio fans are still seaside or in the South of France. Two, Lazio played Atalanta (no, not the Falcons). A bottom of the league type team and not really a lure to the Stadium as AC Milan, Inter Milan or Juventus would be.

All in all, we had a good time at the game. Steph and Natalia were initially worried that the stadium might be packed with rambunctious and rowdy Italian fans, which was clearly not the case…unless you consider these guys pictured here rowdy.

Lazio won 1-0, which let the fans go home happy, and is always nice. As most of you know, I’m a pretty big fan soccer fan and left the stadium unsure of how my fandom would play out while we are here. I’d always known this, but it was so evident during this game-- Italian soccer players are floppers. The dramatic pratfalls and writhing around on the field in “pain” whenever there is a bit of contact irks me to no end. (The most egregious and memorable example of this for most is when France’s Zinedine Zidane head-butt the Italian player during the last World Cup and the Italian player basically went into faux cardiac arrest in a play that could not have possibly taken him off his feet.) I’m not sure if I can really get fully invested in a league whose players are lying on the field as if they just got shot. Only time will tell I suppose.
More soon…

Agosto en la Citta (August in the City)

Its officially been one month since arriving to Rome and I’m feeling pretty comfortable about my ability to get through typical daily activities now. Markets, grocery stores, asking (and actually giving) directions, and restaurants are becoming pretty manageable at this point. Admittedly, I mostly know nouns and am still struggling to get comfortable with verbs and proper conjugation and such, but it’s a start.

There are still some other transactions that continue to be tricky though. For example, last week I had to purchase a wireless USB device in order to get internet at our new apartment. There is no way I could have made it through this process without a friend of mine that happened to be in town and speaks fluent Italian. Despite this help, I still screwed up and wound up spending 30 euro (~$45) for about an hour of internet the first night I hooked up the device. Apparently, I didn’t realize that I needed to sign up for a specific program before logging in, which zapped all of my credit pretty quickly. Live and learn.

I do have a helpful phrasebook that usually gets me through most daily interactions. Its broken down into helpful chapters like Eating, Shopping, Sleeping, etc. Upon reviewing the different chapters, I found the particular order of the following series of phrases pretty funny. Under the section, “Oh, Amore”, phrases listed in this exact order include:

What’s the best place to dance nearby? (C’e un bel locale da ballo qui vicino?)

Do you want to dance? (Vuole ballare?)

I have no diseases. (Non ho mallatie.)

I have many diseases. (Ho molto mallatie.)

A couple of lines later, the phrasebook continues with:

Let’s have a wild and crazy night! (Passiamo una notte di fuoco!)

Can I take you home? (Posso accompagnarti a casa?)

Why not? (Perche no?)

How can I change your mind? (Posso cambiare idea?)

From what I can gather, Rick Steves, famed author of this particular phrasebook, seems to think that upon dancing, one should immediately include disclose their health status, and one should also expect that their hopes of a wild and crazy night will be shut down immediately so here are some phrases that can help you sound desperate. This should help. ( I expect all visitors to try out these lines. I look forwa

rd to witnessing the results.)

Aside from my slowly improving Italian, I am still adjusting to the afternoon siestas that Italy continues to follow. From 1pm to 4pm, the city virtually shuts down. Sure, the tourist areas are still buzzing and some stores remain open, but for the most part, Rome is a ghost town. Its crazy. There’s no way possible that this could even happen at home. Its actually kind of nice, but working at home and hoping to take an afternoon break with a quick lunch or drink has proven to be a challenge. To magnify things even more is that August is basically a vacation for most Italians. In my neighborhood, Testaccio, about 30% of all stores are shut down for the month. I don’t know how they can afford to do this. The stores that are closed are usually the mom and pop restaurants, grocery stores, clothing stores, etc. Maybe they are backed by the infamous “waste management” money. Who knows.

Again, imagine this at home. The Mission in SF is closed for a month. The East Village only has 25% of its bars open. Hollywood swinging is limited to a handful of joints. Crazy. Yesterday, we had a lazy Saturday afternoon watching a marathon of Mad Men. As it was approaching evening, I went out to grab a bottle of wine for dinner. During my walk to the enoteca about three blocks away, I only saw four people, one scooter cruise by, and no cars. Again, this is in the middle of Rome, not a 

remote hill town in Tuscany or a suburb. So crazy.

I’m told that things start to get a bit busier and hectic around these parts come September, which will be interesting, though I sense things will still be pretty mellow. I just hope I can stay clear of the dance-related diseases.

Mangiano

Along with the renaissance, baroque art, world class soccer (calcio around these parts), and high fashion, Italy may be most known for its incredible cuisine. Italian food has to rank highest in appeal factor of any ethnic food in the world. Are there actually people out there that don’t like pizza? Pasta? Gelato? I’ve yet to meet a single one, and am not sure I’d want to.

With such great food literally at every turn, we have struggled with trying to keep a lid on the gluttony to both keep our wallets fat and our our bellies flat (or as flat is they were before we got to Rome). For this reason, we have been trying to be good and cook as much as possible. Natalia and I are not quite Martha Stewart and Mario Batali either, but the efforts have been quite fun. Most of the satisfaction is due to the plethora of fresh foods available here. We’ve been spoiled by the access to delicious tomatoes, onions, peaches, nectarines, and melons among others, which have helped spice up the meals. Rome also has a ton of mom and pop markets that we’ve enjoyed hitting up, but last weekend we hit the motherlode of all produce markets. Near Piazza Vittorio Emmanuel, there is a huge indoor market filled with booths selling fresh meats, vegetables, fruits, and herbs (no, not that kind). Quite the find.

(Market Esquilino at Vittorio Emmanuel)

Even more exciting was the fraction of the cost that shopping in this market was versus the supermarket costs. I remember expecting to pay about 3 euro for a few carrots, 3 peaches, and a zucchini and was pleasantly surprised to learn that the bill was 1.5 euro. Nice. So this has helped us quite a bit in keeping the food costs down as well as trying to immerse ourselves further into daily local culture. Dabbling in the culinary arts has definitely been one of the early highlights of living here in Rome.

(home cooking)

While on the topic of food, we estimate that of the total restaurants in town, 90% are probably Italian restaurants. We’re not sure if this is in line with how things are in other places like France, Spain, or even Russia, but coming from the US, particularly SF and NY, such limited variety has been a bit startling. The only non-Italian restaurants we’ve tried have been an Indian restaurant and two different Chinese restaurants. Both Chinese restaurants were decent but, as a self-proclaimed connosieur of good Chinese food, I would give the restaurants a 3 out of 10 when compared to SF Chinese food and a 5 out of 10 when compared to NY Chinese restaurants. I have noticed that most Chinese restaurants here are usually pretty busy. I guess everyone likes Chinese food, though describing chow mein as spaghetti in the menus probably eases the transition for the locals.

So we are continuing to steadily increase our home-cooked menus and have had a lot of fun doing it. That said, I of course can't help but to treat myself to the finer offerings that Rome has to offer.

Summertime in Roma

As Mister Senor Love Daddy (played by a young Samuel L. Jackson) says at the beginning of Do the Right Thing, “the forecast for the day is hot!” This pretty much sums up the weather for each of the ten days since I’ve been in Rome. Mind you , I’m not complaining. Each day has had perfectly blue skies, with temperatures reaching approximately 90 degrees, and I’ve been fortunate enough not to have any run-ins with any pizzeria owners after asking them why there aren’t any pictures of any Americans on the wall. So the similarities to Do the Right Thing stop here I guess.

(As I write this at about 4pm on Thursday from my apartment, there is the constant howling of a dog in the alley outside of my kitchen window. I wonder what its deal is. The guy is screaming bloody murder. I’ve looked out the window several times, but haven’t seen any kane (dog) sightings. Weird. PS- above is a view from the kitchen window.)

While I have been mostly working during the day, I have taken the time to take walks in the middle of the day to remind myself that I’m in Rome and not necessarily tied to a computer and desk as I’ve been most of my professional life. Although I often return to the apartment feeling like Patrick Ewing looks at tip-off of an NBA game, there are a number of things that make this among the most pleasant heats I’ve ever dealt with. First, out of nowhere, a cool gentle breeze will fill the air periodically providing an excellent natural coolant system when I’m about to overheat. Its almost a tropical or off-shore breeze, yet the shore is miles away. Odd, but I love it.

Second, is Rome’s world-famous gelato. There are dozens and dozens of flavors to choose from but my simple dessert taste buds have me leaning towards “mezzo fragola e vanile” ( ½ strawberry and ½ vanilla) flavor, and its so refreshing and delicious. I just need to be careful. I don’t want to return home looking like a post-retirement Patrick Ewing. (Why Ewing is getting in the cross-fire here is beyond me too, so don’t ask. For those not in the know, Ewing is fat now.)

(This dog will not stop. Maybe its missing its mid-afternoon vino.)

Lastly, and my favorite reason, are the water fountains located throughout the city. Unlike any water fountains in other major metropolises, the water here is clean, cold, and somehow tastes better than any water I’ve ever drank (or drunk…or drunken…whatever). And this is from someone that drinks tons of water. The guide books tout the water as such, yet I remained dubious for a while. In fact, I mentioned to Natalia how long it would be before I would drink this water— imagining it to be a long while. Well, since I asked that question, I think I filled an empty water bottle and sipped away the following day. I’m glad I did. To say I’m hooked would be an understatement. After playing hoops the other day, I took the long way home just so I could take a couple swigs of Rome’s finest tap water. Did I mention it comes out cold too? So good.

And that’s the double truth, Ruth.

Rosso della Casa

Well lookee here. The blog is back— live and direct from Rome, Italy. As most of you know, I’ll be here for the next seven months as Natalia secured a consultancy with a UN agency here. As for me, I am now a consultant for my former organization and looking forward to what life has to offer next. So there’s no better reason than to get back to the blogging. Its been a while. I look forward to bringing you all on the ride with me...
We got into Rome yesterday and are settling into our digs for the next month. Here is a photo of our front door and the view down the street. (That building you see at the end of the road may look familiar…lions once attacked Russell Crowe there.)

Most notable so far is how things have changed since I last traveled through the Eternal City in 1996. Upon graduating from UCLA, Eric, Rich, Jim, Clark, Luke and I traveled through Europe for a few weeks. (I believe Francis crashed on our hostel floor one of the nights too.)Back then, the Euro was non-existent, which has seemingly made things quite expensive compared to the US these days. Also, the Internet was nowhere near what it is today. I remember having to call home to ask my Dad to help sort me out a ticket from LAX-SFO upon my return. Today, I could do everything via the web. (Perhaps most interesting to some is that I am currently watching the Dodgers-Mets game live online as I type this. Gotta love the web!)

Despite the web making the transition much smoother than ever before, there continue to be some difficulties in the transition. Most notably, the language barrier. Natalia’s Italian is definitely passable and has gotten us through some situations already, but my language is sparse to say the least. Hopefully, Rosetta Stone and further interactions will get me up to speed. I am already familiar with ‘rosso della casa” (house red wine), which I believe will be useful in the coming months. Arrivederci.

Moments and Momentum

Happy New Year, true believers! This week marks the start of the lunar new year, which also happens to be the Year of the Ox...my birth year. Each year, I get a personalized card from a colleague in China to commemorate the beginning of a new year on the Chinese calendar. In this year's letter, she mentioned that this year, the Ox year, my year, is destined to be special for me. While this message is likely just a Chinese tradition and does not carry any real meaning, calendar year 2009 has already included moments and occasions that have been so life-altering and cause for deep reflection, that I now believe Pei Bin was right.

On 1/7/09 at 10:15pm, my cousin gave birth to her first child, a healthy baby boy. This birth was probably the closest thing to me having my own child born. In essence, my cousin might as well be my sister. We grew up together, spent summers at our family's country home in Placerville with each other's families, celebrated every major holiday together with our enormous family, and have enough shared memories and stories to last a lifetime. Now in adulthood, we remain close and continue to create memories, whether it was my participation in her wedding, their visit to New York while I was living there, or a Dave Chappelle comedy show. For these reasons, 1/7/09 will always hold a special place in my heart.

The following day my email inbox was buzzing with baby pictures and updates from the new grandparents and responses from friends and family welcoming the new addition to the world. Among the emails, my cousin's husband, Toby, sent a cute picture along with the revelation of the little boy's name. I vividly remember scrolling down the email message to see a cute picture of the newborn with the caption, Quincy Kye Ludwick.

Recalling this moment continues to fill me with warmth and awe and other emotions that I believe cannot be qualified with words. I don't remember a time that I have felt more honored and appreciative of my life, my family, and the future. Quincy's birth was more than enough of a reason to smile, but for us to be uniquely linked with the same middle name for the rest of our lives could not be more exciting. For the rest of the week, I was wrapped up in my emotions over this gesture and used this time to try to better understand myself and my feelings. Kudos to Natalia for listening to endless ramblings over this issue and my reflections over it, which likely did not make much sense at the time.

The one thing I take away from Quincy's birth and the tremendous honor of the shared name is that throughout one's life, you just hope that the decisions you make will lead to something bigger and better and always move you on an upward trajectory towards a fulfilling life. Like most people, I find myself questioning whether I am making the right decisions, or doing enough, or maximizing my potential. While I think that this is probably normal, what is frustrating is that there are rarely opportunities to have something tangible to gauge one's progress. The one prevailing thought that I take away from the honor of sharing middle names with Quincy is that on some level, I now know I must have done something right to earn this flattering gesture. I look forward to spending the rest of my years watching and participating actively in Quincy Kye's life. I hope that I can play a part in ensuring that his childhood is as satisfying and fulfilling as his mom's and mine was.

As I consider the events of 1/7/09 as a micro-level life altering moment for me, merely two weeks later, I participated in an event that affected the world on a macro-level and holds significant feelings in me as well. As I mentioned in a previous post, I was in Beijing during the US presidential election on November 4. Though it was interesting to have the Chinese perspective and an immediate global reaction to a Barack Obama presidency, I felt like I missed out on one of the most historic days in American history, and did not have a true sense for what this day meant at home. For this reason, Natalia and I decided that heading to DC for the inauguration would give us the chance to celebrate the dawning of a new era together along with the throngs of excited Americans expected to attend.

In short, I am glad that we went. Although I've been fortunate enough to witness history on several occasions, nothing matched the palpable energy and momentous air that filled the nation's capital. (sidenote: the other historic moments that I have attended live that immediately come to mind are all sports-related: two no-hitters live- (Jerry Reuss v. SF 6/27/80 and Kent Mercker v. LA 4/8/94); 2 World Cups (02 Korea/Japan, 06 GErmany); 2008 Beijing Olympics; UCLA's 1995 basketball title; and 2000 Game 7 Lakers v. Portland Western Conference Finals).

Living in San Francisco, the "hype" over Obama's election has been significant. Window signs all over town, stylized t-shirts, and continuous media coverage over every moment of Barack's day. While this coverage is unlike anything I've ever seen for a presidential candidate, believe me when I tell you that this was nothing compared to what was going on in Washington D.C. We arrived into DC on Monday evening and were immediately struck by how Obamamania had impacted the city. Virtually every store window, whether a liquor store, bar, restaurant, clothing boutique, or bookstore had some sort of tribute to the 44th President of the United States. Since this was only my second time there (and my first welcoming a president whose approval rating was greater than 30%), maybe this wasn't all that outrageous, but it was clear that something special and unique was happening when we woke up on inauguration day.

Waking up at the absurd hour of 6:30am on the recommendation of every local Washingtonian in order to secure a spot near the Washington monument nearly a mile away from the Capitol steps was the first indication this was not a typical inauguration. Then turning on the tv to get an early gauge of the weather (20 degrees) and seeing mobs of people already on the mall and long lines at local transit station was surreal, as if we were extras in a movie.

What ultimately transpired is unlike anything I have ever participated in or will ever happen again I believe. Two million people gathered together as witnesses and celebrants of history. All freezing, but all smiling, laughing, dancing, cheering and perhaps most notably, completely on the same page--not a bad apple in the bunch. As we waited, they replayed the concert on the Mall from the Sunday before, which helped pass the time. I vividly remember us all jumping around and dancing in tune to Garth Brooks' version of Otis Redding's Shout. One of the purest, most fun, euphoric moments I can remember.

As the oath was taken, tears were streaming down faces of fellow supporters, strangers were hugging one another, and shouts of support resonated all along the Mall. Truly a once in a lifetime experience.

The atmosphere was absolutely electric and before this becomes a laundry list of cliches, I will close by saying, historic moments often occur in our memories and reflections after the fact. Both of these events mentioned above hit me on a very personal level and have changed me to some degree. Though one never knows what the future will bring, I am excited to see what the remainder of this Ox year has in store, because this first Act could not be more intriguing.

Facebook Killed the Blogspot Star

On November 4, 2008, the world changed. For someone like me that embraces historic moments like this, I expected to have plenty to write on this here space. Emotions were running high, the feeling of patriotism and hope was palpable, and a world that I would want to bring children into returned. I definitely had plenty to say. Coupled with the fact that I was in Beijing on election night (actually early morning), my election experience was unique and the post-election dialogue here has been stimulating, exciting and worthy of posterity on this blog. I likely will still put my thoughts down here over the next few days. But I had one question of myself...
why has it taken so long?

I have tons of thoughts floating around in my head, yet no blog posts to show for it. While jetlag and long work days here are part of the problem, there is a single leading factor in my recent departure from writing. Thy name is facebook.

This blog had always been a convenient way for me to quickly write down my thoughts in any medium I want— photos, blurbs, formal essays, links, etc. Then along comes facebook, which has made this lazy guy even lazier. A quick status update and all my contacts know how I’m feeling. A quickly tagged photo and everyone knows what I did last weekend. A post on my wall, a perusal of friends’ profiles, and I feel connected with the world and without much feeling for writing too much more. Admittedly, I do utilize the status update feature to try to concisely convey my mood, activity, or sentiment at that moment with the use of a bit of creative writing whenever possible. For example, you’ll never see my status update say, “Kye is.” or “Kye .” Unfortunately, once my profile is updated, that’s likely the only personal writing for public audiences that I’m going to do that day. Probably a maximum of 30 words. Sad really.

I’m hoping that now that I have made this revelation, I will be re-inspired to get back into the blog a bit more wholeheartedly. While I have tons to say about my opinions about the future of the US, Manny Ramirez, the quest for a fourth Final Four, and international work/travel, I have been remiss in letting facebook tell my story.

No more. Change has come to America and will come back to this blog. Yes I Can!