Pizza Christmas

So as mentioned in an earlier post, my good friend Marco from Torino invited me to spend Christmas and New Year’s with him and his family. This was an absolutely incredible experience for me, possibly my favorite part of the trip so far.

I had a pretty good idea that I unfortunately wasn't going to be able to spend the holidays with my family this year.. so I didn't have much planned originally, and when Marco invited me back to Torino for this, I was really, really excited. I got to experience how a completely different culture celebrates these holidays, and I saw a lot of similarities and differences. But the one common factor in all of this was family. Although I was apart from my family during the time of year where family is often celebrated the most, I actually had a family here. Marco’s family took me in and treated me like one of their own, and although they didn't speak any English, there was still a special bond created here and they hosted me and fed me more than I could imagine. We didn't need language to feel this sense of family, nor to eat some amazing home cooked meals almost every day for the entire two weeks that I was there.

Marco’s family lived in a suburb about 25 minutes outside of Torino called Pianezza. In the beginning of my time here, days were spent in the city. Because Marco had work during the week, in the mornings his Father (who we called "Babbo Natale," or Santa in Italian, because he was) would drive me to the closest metro station and I would take the metro into the city. I began to spend the days in the city writing in my own personal journal. I brought this moleskin notebook with me for the trip and I hadn't used it at all yet during the trip. Now that I was traveling alone I had found some time to start writing in this thing and turns out it’s actually awesome. I would sit down in the park and just write down thoughts that I’d have about the trip and about my life in general. I would definitely call it my new hobby, and I definitely plan on doing this more often.

Sat by this cute couple while writing in my journal.

So there I was, sitting on a bench in beautiful Parco Valentino, writing stuff down in a notebook. I felt like an artist for the first time in my life! And maybe I sort of was? It was all new to me, but I really enjoyed it. Anyways, that’s something new, but aside from that I would also try to meet up with some other friends I had in the city while I was there and try to catch up on stuff while just having a good time. I would meet back up with Marco when he got off work and we’d take the metro back to the burbs and Babbo Natale would pick us up in his sleigh and bring us back home. We would eat amazing food and drink wine for dinner every night and then we would usually go back out into the city to a bar or something to meet up with more of Marco’s Italian friends.

Not all of Marco’s friends spoke English, so it was always fun and interesting for me to basically look like I understood what they were saying, but meanwhile I would be listening for key words, trying to figure out what the hell they were all talking about. I made a very enjoyable game out of this, and I definitely got better at it by the time I left.. and I played this game a lot. Marco and his brother Mattia, who is also a great friend and spoke great English, would translate for me anything their Father, Stepmom, or 90-year old Aunt would have to say to me, then I would respond and they would translate back. This is how most of the conversations took place during my stay with the family and it ended up creating some very memorable and funny conversations.

On Christmas Eve, a very strange and hilarious conversation took place between myself and Babbo Natale. The topic of conversation was about what I had to do in order to become the next Santa when he retires. There were a lot of erroneous and hilarious details, and requirements included anything from beating him at a game of Pinacola (a card game that he taught me that was really complicated and fun and involved A LOT of cards), to obviously growing a white beard myself, to running and jumping off the roof at different distances to try and fly without the sleigh first. There was another really strange one about getting the reindeer to fly that involved chili peppers that was way too weird for this blog, but it was hilarious. And Marco was sitting there translating and having his mind blown every time we continued the conversation…it was awesome and we couldn't stop laughing. I should also add that one of the funniest things I've ever heard was when Marco was teaching his 90 year old Aunt how to say something very inappropriate in English but all too funny to pass up (something along the lines of “wassup mother ______? < I’m sure you can fill in the blank) and it was the best. I couldn't stop laughing at this either, and I think I’ll just remember that one for the rest of my life, especially when I’m feeling upset or unhappy about something.

Marco's father, and my new friend - Babbo Natale

On another evening we had a BIG family dinner at a really good pizza place somewhere in the burbs and met up with A TON of Marco’s cousins and aunts and uncles. I think there must have been over 20 people there, and I met every one of them. I had never met that many Italian people at one time and it was definitely a little overwhelming, but it was a lot of fun. None of them spoke very much English, but I was sitting by Marco so it was okay. We actually had this big gathering not just because of the holidays but because Marco is actually off on an adventure of his own, moving to Australia for a year to work and live abroad for a while. I’m really happy for him taking that step for a life changing experience, and it’s cool to be going through a similar situation. So the family had a big get-together to say goodbye and celebrate since he’s leaving very soon.

This big family dinner actually took place just before Christmas (sorry I’m a little out of order). But in Italy, most of the families do the big Christmas dinner and everything on Christmas Eve. So on Christmas Eve we had another amazing dinner and home cooked meal thanks to Marco’s stepmom, and we opened some gifts! Marco and Mattia even got me a gift! It was really nice of them, and the best way I can describe it is a build-it-yourself straw to drink from a glass (preferably alcohol). It was a touching little gift and it was small enough to even fit in my bag, so I've got that added to my inventory now. We nicknamed it the Straw-nzo, which is funny if you know any bad Italian words (Mattia’s great idea for the name). I got them a nice beer from the city and we shared it after our dinner (and during the crazy conversation that Babbo Natale and I had as previously described).

After Christmas Eve dinner (and of course drinking) the festivities are followed by Christmas Day lunch. So we did that, and the food was once again incredible and all too plentiful. I was still completely full from dinner the night before, but it would be rude not to indulge, right? So I met some more family that joined us later that day and we had a great time. Christmas night usually marks the end of the Christmas festivities in Italy and it’s popular to go out to the bars there and meet back up with friends, discussing how everyone’s holidays were. So we did just that and that was another great night in the city with Marco and friends.

Skyping the family for Christmas!

So Christmas was a great success, and one of the best parts about it was when we returned home that Christmas night (after a few drinks) at 3:30am Italian time, because I Skyped my real family for their Christmas dinner, Santa hat and all. It worked out perfectly, and I was able to see so much of my family that came over to my parents’ house for Christmas as they proceeded to pass me around on the computer like some kind of baby. This was something I knew I wanted to do once I realized that I wouldn’t be home for the holidays and it worked out perfectly. It was so great to see everyone after so long, and it really meant a lot and capped off the rest of the holiday for me in the perfect way.

Another story worth noting was when we visited yet another friend of Marco’s not far from his hometown where we were staying. He warned me that they were a loud bunch and there were going to be a lot of them, and both pieces of information were true, but these people were hilarious. After a few drinks some of them could speak a little bit of English and we played a pretty fun game that involved auctioning off cards of animals and other objects to try and win some actual money. I didn’t win anything, but they made me the center of attention being the only foreigner there, and they had a lot of fun with it. Marco told them of my story and they really liked it, and I think they appreciated what I was doing and why I was there, which was a really cool feeling. We had a lot of fun there, sometimes at my own expense, but as usual it was great to be out of the comfort zone and having a great time with good people.