I went to work and today was the picnic in the afternoon. I got through my morning email and doc reading. Then Vincenzo gave me a lift down to Rovereto. It is a small town south of Trento. Far enough away that I remember it was the train stop before Trento. There we went to this old vin yard. And it was neat that they had the grapes labeled as to what they were for and when they were planted. I saw vines dating back to 1969 for the Cabernet Sauvignon. The place had some rustic back rooms that gave a real good idea of what it must have been like 50 or so years ago there. But the rain came as the picnic started. We were all under white tents set up drinking the spumanti wines. Then the bell went off for lunch at 13h00 sharp. We were all herded down to the wine cellar. There was a big open space set up for the food. Down here were various spumanti's aging in their bottles, large metal vats and dozens of wine barrels.
Lunch started out with me sitting at a table with few English speakers. One of them, Adriano, kept referring to me as Zoff, who was an Italian soccer player of repute and also of Russian lineage. He is also the personnel director at the company. At one point I helped carry him to the stage as he was reluctant to do so of his own accord, as I found out later probably because he is unable to sing! As the day wore on we were served multiple courses of food. The Italians sure do know how eat. I was stuffed before the last course came by and I was only sampling the food! Italian cuisine is pretty good. By the end of the lunch, 17h00, there were Italian women dancing on tables. The proprietor came up to me for some reason and in Italian said that he was not going to be responsible for the women dancing on the tables and falling off. Why is it everyone thinks I'm in charge?! I wouldn't even know how to tell the girls to get off the table even if I wanted to. Prior to this the upper level management was required to dance to the live band with their secretaries.
The rain continued through out the day not cooling things off at all and only adding to the humidity. Vincenzo drove me home and had a word with Gabriella. Apparently she had babysat for one of the other members of the comany and had somehow not called the agency or something. I guess Vincenzo was giving her some reality therapy when they left. Here in Europe there are very strict rules about work and working and I guess Gabriella being as young as she is didn't do something she was supposed to.
I also find that when the Italians talk amongst themselves there seems, to me, to be a level of either frustration or agitation. But I'm finding more and more that this is not a personal attack when they are speaking but simply their way of getting things off their chest. Because in several situations that I found to be nonplused there were what I considered to be heated words. But I think it is simply a raised tone of voice to indicate their feelings toward something or someone.
The kids and I hit the super mercati and the magazzine. Kristie wanted to buy more toys and seeing how they don't have much here we did. Stephen got another Lego set and Kristie got some new clothes and a Ken doll for her Barbie. We bought some food at the mercati and headed home. It had stopped raining but a drizzle would come down every so often.
And that was pretty much the day. The kids played with their new toys and are sleeping and now I think I'll do the same.
Copyright @ 1997, Alexandre POLOZOFF. All Rights Reserved.