14. There and back again. An examiner's tale.

Well, here I am back in the UK. The journey from Naples to London was pleasantly uneventful - even managed a little nap on the train to Rome and then the flight. Never a bad thing.

One thing to note about the whole trip though, was that towards the end, I was being asked directions and information by Italian people with a surprising frequency. In the beginning I was clearly too pastie-looking to look like I knew anything at all about timetables, buses and opening times, but something must've changed. Perhaps it was the fact that I went a little pink as opposed to being the anaemic white fostered by an upbringing in Scotland. I wouldn't like to say. Either way, the result for the Italian questioners was generally the same:

"Scusi. Non ho capito...."

However, this wasn't always the case . On Thursday when I was travelling from Benevento back to the polluted hive that is Napoli, the train was replaced for part of the journey by a replacement bus service. As you can imagine, this was greeted with as much enthusiasm as it would be in the UK, except that there was one difference - no one was told about it until it happened. This at least kept passengers in the dark until the last minute, thereby avoiding all that negative expectation. What an idea.

Problems continued when a whole train tried to get onto a single bus. There were rumours of a second bus. The station attendant certainly seemed to think so. But if there was, where was it. Lots of to-ing and fro-ing later, one confused passenger turned to me (clearly knowing what was going on, of course) and asked me something about 'un altro autobus'. Knowing that I knew what she was asking and knowing that I couldn't respond, I fortunately came over all Italian and knew exactly what to do. Looking around in an exaggerated fashion before fixing my eyes on her, I turned my palms skywards, stuck out my bottom lip and gave an expressive shrug while articulating that oh-so-useful Italian sound, "Buh!". No sooner had I done this than I realised communication had been made as she nodded and did the "buh" shrug as well. I got on the one bus and she took her chances with the mystery second one.

And there we have it. Communication. Verb declension tables aren't needed over in Italy - just some wild over-expressive gestures and barely articulated sounds. What was I thinking of enrolling on an Italian course before I came out? What a waste of time.

Back to the journey, things got more confusing when we had to leave the bus (and oh what a rush there was to get off; you'd have thought there was a golden goose awaiting the first person to board the train) because the station attendant was quite doubtful that the waiting train was for us, despite the driver's protestations. In the end it all got quite heated as to where the train should, or shouldn't have, been going. Finally, however, off the train went and we did get to Naploi. Slowly. It's only 70 km from Benevento to Napoli but they do like to take it gently, taking 1 hr 45 (the faster train!), just in case they hit anything. Well, you can't be too carful, can you? Quite the contrast to the city driving, though.

I was asked another question on the train to Rome (isn't it exciting?) but I was taken by surprise and couldn't answer (not so exciting). Turns out the very attractive young lady was just wondering what the seat number next to me was. Perhaps some more Italian lessons wouldn't be such a bad idea after all...

Anyway, that's it. Another journey and another blog done. It's got late and I do rather think it's time for bed now.

Goodnight.

13. And she talks!

The weather in the south has been a touch on and off (that is sun and cloud rather than sun and rain) meaning that today's ocular wear is designed to compensate for the varying degrees of sun. For that reason, we've gone foe the eye patch, as pictured, and as worn by pirates and bon viveurs throughout the centuries.

But onto Italy. Regular readers will be aware that I was in the middle of nowhere, trying to make polite, conversation with my local liaison in Benevento. Up to yesterday, communication was proving most difficult, with short responses of 'yes', to the most engaging of of opening gambits, like "I hear rain is forecast...". My challenge was to get more than mono-syllabic utterances out of the teacher, and my work finally paid off. On the final day, leaving the hotel with my bags Marie asked where I was going to next. "Naples", I said. "Aghhhh. Napoli. Is a crazy place. I can'ta standa ita". This was the opening I was looking for. A few light questions about the traffic and rubbish problem brought forth a whole internal dialogue about problems with driving there and the noise, pollution, etc.

Having exhausted the topic of pollution, I thought I'd go out on a limb:

Ben: But as I was leaving the hotel, I noticed the small of the wild rosemary from the local church [check me!]

Marie: Ahhhh. Rosemary. It's so beautiful! I looooove the smell of rosemary. [etc. etc.]

As it happens, I stumbled across to topics in a single car journey after having endured none for the previous two days. Success was achieved.

While planning how I could continue the conversation on the return leg, I learnt that it would be a different teacher driving me back to the station. This didn't concern me, as my goal had been achieved. At least it didn't concern me until I got into the car with the driver. The woman seemed to have as much control over the car as a seven-year-old with an Alsatian. While trying not to make my concerns felt about over taking on corners, drifting onto the wrong side of mountain roads and simply failing to brake until being within metres of traffic ahead, the teacher sometimes tried to engage me. How the tables had turned. The conversation wasn't the problem, but the fact that when the teacher turned to speak to me, she also pointed the car in the same direction, was. Especially when there was oncoming traffic and it was only a sudden lurch back to the left that averted certain death or serious injury. To add insult to near injury, the teacher had Elton John on the stereo, too. I don't know if it was for her benefit or mine, but I certainly wasn't going with the whole 'Hakuna Matata' on that trip. Good gad.

Anyway, obviously I survived and got back to Naples for a final day of examining, only to have to fail a load of candidates who couldn't understand what I was saying. The fact that lots of people fail when I've had a bad night's sleep is starting to seem to me more than just coincidence... Nevermind.

The picture of the arch you see above is one of the school wheat models made for the annual wheat festival I mentioned in the previous blog. By clicking on the image and enlarging it, you too will be able to see the fabulous detail the locals have put into this truly organic masterpiece.

Anyway, tomorrow it's the early train to Rome and the final blog installment. Bet you can hardly wait.

12. Cakes, cars and the Fonz.

Just a quick one today, Carry On jokes aside. 'Notable' points from today:

1. Got cakes. Delicious, if a touch on the heavy side in the heat (7 1/2 / 10)

2. Got a piece of shaped straw (seen next to cakes and looking like a Chinese finger puzzle) called a 'scooby-doo'. Used as the basis for straw modelling (wonderful place, the countryside) for floats during the annual Wheat Festival. I would suggest coming to the festival in August [pictured], but I think I already know what your reply would be.

3. Went to the modern art gallery and saw a dozen pictures that could all be called 'Grey Shape on Dark Surface'. Beautiful.

4. Saw a small Fiat. Look! I'm there beside it.

5. Saw the Fonz. These days he says, 'Yo!' instead of, 'Heeeeeeeey!' Times, they are a changing.

6. Now packing for the seething metropolis that is Napoli.

Penultimate blog to come. Enjoy the pics.

12. Things to do in Benevento when you're still alive

It’s the hottest day of the tour so far (coming in at 33 degrees) and to celebrate the fact, we’ve got some high spec specs for today’s featured blog. The classy numbers pictured are the Infamous Italian Polarised Sunglasses by Arnette. Quite the thing, no?

Before I go onto Benvento, an update on the gambits I’m employing to lure the local teacher liaison (Marie) into conversation during the 20-minute drive to and from the examining centre. I was feeling a little tired this morning (strange dreams about houses in Blackpool preventing a thoroughly decent night’s sleep) and so wasn’t up to the challenge quite so much. I did, however, start with an old favourite: the weather. It was already pretty hot at 08:30 and so I thought I’d remark upon this and ask how long the weather would hold. The answer I got was, “yes” [stop]. Now, there can be several explanations for this:

1. The teacher’s grasp of English is so poor that she just feels all she can say is ‘yes’, in an effort to cover up her ignorance [this I don’t believe, as she’d explained some examining information to me the day before in sufficient upper-intermediate detail]

2. She was tired of my gambits and was just replying ‘yes’ in an effort to accommodate my relentless baiting for conversation [this I also don’t believe, as the ‘yes’ responses started from the very first gambit, and she could hardly have got tired of me before I started speaking, could she?]

3. She wasn’t listening.

If it was the third option, then I really was in for an uphill struggle, as first I’d have to get her to listen before I could even engage her in the sparkling small-talk that was scintillating in the discourse before her. And so the journey to the centre was passed in silence, with only a passing question about the unusual architecture of a passing church. The response was so passing that it could’ve been passed without notice. The return leg prompted her to ask about the candidates. Obviously worried about their performance, she let me know that it was the students’ choice rather than the teachers’ to decide who should be entered for the exam. Not that it really mattered, as after 5 ½ hours of the same grade, my mind had ceased to function (like the pictured cat's) and I could only think of yellow flowers as I dribbled spasmodically out of the corner of my mouth and onto my collar. Why yellow? I cannot say, I only know that I had an awareness of the fact that everybody had passed; although an awareness was all it was.

I did ask about Benevento and what one could do with a few hours spare and the response was brevity itself. You can look at the arch [pictured], the anfiteatro [long since closed and not accessible] or go to the museum [always closed]. There was, however, a modern art museum near the park, should I be interested. I feigned interest, just to be polite, but I think the chances of looking at some splodges of snot on a maroon canvas are between non-existent and pretty remote. However, I do have a half day tomorrow and as I’ve already taken in both the arch (both at day and night) and the anfiteatro (from a distance), it seems there’s little else in the sightseeing catalogue to do.

However, for those of you not able to get here, I've learnt that the ever caring British kindly relieved the locals of some of the reliefs from the arch and removed them to the British museum - well, it's only polite to help others look after their own history, wouldn't you say? What a relief!

I could, of course, just sit out on the roof terrace and read while knocking back the local Peroni [as you see pictured]. I’ve already spent a good amount of time doing this as it affords a valuable opportunity to dry one’s clothes (see shirt hanging up behind me), and nibble on some snacks from the local supermercato, thus saving the trouble of having to go out to a restaurant for lunch / dinner yet again.

Another option is to spend some more time with the other examiner staying here. Yes, there’s another one here too. When I first arrived, I was sure the hotel was completely empty bar for me. However, breakfast revealed a Trinity examiner in his first year. From his wild-eyed look and trembling hands, I gathered at once that he’d been alone here for some time. This deduction turned out to be correct and so, wishing to be sociable, I arranged dinner that evening with him, whereupon we set out to a local trattoria for evening sustenance. While we did polish off a couple of bottles of the house white between us, he did strike me as being a little less on the enthusiastic side of life / work than other examiners I’ve encountered on this tour. Still, everybody likes to have a good whinge about life, work, transport, countries, bosses, the weather, , inter-planetary motions, the universe, etc. every now and then, especially when facilitated by house white. Lovely. Can't wait till tomorrow night. I wonder if there are any there are any topics left - perhaps I can try a few conversational gambits...

So there we have it. Benevento. I’m sure there’ll be more to write about tomorrow while there’s free internet access available here at the hotel.

11. The hills are alive with the sound of...

As we reach up into the hills of the Apennines, today’s sunglasses would reflect the need for higher altitude production and would be a mountainesque-type. However, technology and my abilities aren’t coinciding today, so you’ll have to imagine some kind of Sir Edmund Hillary affair with icicles forming on them and the like. But let’s move on from my inabilities.

So here we are in Benevento, far, far away. To be honest, the only things I knew about this place were gathered from the Lonely Planet guide book – a sometimes helpful and oftentimes dubious source of information. Experienced users of the guide will no doubt be used to reading between the lines when it describes a particular location. The Lonely Planet guide says:

“Despite the ring of drab modern housing that announces Benevento, the city, nestled in the green hills, boasts a lovely city peppered with remnants of its ancient past”

Reading between the lines, you get:

“It’s far away and difficult to negotiate without private transport. There are a few old city walls which haven’t been concreted over”

Lonely Planet goes onto say:

“The town was heavily bombed in WWII and the Romanesque cathedral had to be largely rebuilt”

Translate this into:

“All the old stuff has been destroyed, but there’s some new concrete stuff where the old used to be.”

The final line in the ever helpful guide tells me:

“The main church adjoins what was once an abbey but now houses a collection of 1st century remnants dedicated to the goddess Isis.”

Which means:

“There’s a church with a small museum which has some broken pottery plates in it.”

OK. That’s Benevento. But, to be fair, the surrounding hills are particularly picturesque, as can be seen and there’s an old Napoleonic arch, celebrating Italy’s invasion (is that right?). It may have taken 1 ½ hours to get here by train from Naples (although it wasn’t travelling very fast in case it might’ve hit something) but once you are here, the relief from the pollution of Naples is significant - I no longer feel as though I have to cough up the burnt rubbish I breathe when I stroll through the town – surely a boon.

And while I was thinking that nothing could happen here, just last night while taking a pre-bed stroll, I literally happened across an annual religious festival, complete with a huge array of monks, nuns and even a bishop or possibly a cardinal – tough to tell, although he was looking particularly pious. Either way, it’s certainly the greatest number of monks and nuns I’ve ever seen in a single place; there were monks in black, grey, white and brown and if that’s not worth writing about then surely nothing is. There’s got to be a joke about monks in there somewhere, but if there is, I’ve yet to work it out – look out in later blogs to see if a less drunken mind can piece a one together... Anyway, loads of folk were genuflecting before him but, not wishing to betray my British roots, I just took pictures of the spectacle.

Not sure what was going on, I asked the teacher liaison at today’s school. She wasn’t sure either. Apparently this kind of religious thing happens each year. She tells me she’s not very religious. And being Italian as well.

This information was about the most I got from the liaison (Marie) all day. She seemed to specialise in not saying very much, which doesn’t bode well for her students taking higher grades, where there have to converse readily with me. In a rare treat, this week, I’m being picked up each morning from the hotel to travel for 20 minutes buy car to a village on the side of a mountain. The views are tremendous, but the small talk leaves much to be desired.

As you can imagine, spending 20 minutes in a car requires some sort of conversation, especially from someone like me, and so I thought I’d start with a conversational gambit about the weather:

Ben: It’s a lovely day today!
Marie: Yes. [stop]

Waiting for more and getting nothing, I thought I’d try again, this time being more complimentary:

Ben: The countryside here is beautiful!
Marie: Yes, it is. [stop]

Enduring a few more minutes’ silence, I thought I’d try one more time, this time being a little more specific, trying to indicate particular interest and therefore particular comment about the local environment:

Ben: It seems to be quite agricultural round here...
Marie: Yes. [stop]

There were a few more attempts like this that also failed and also on the journey back to Benevento with equal success, or rather lack of it. There’s bound to be an ‘in’ somewhere, which will generate conversation but I have clearly yet to find it. This has no become my challenge to be overcome. I’ve three more days or journeys there are back again (totalling 120 minutes) and I feel I must be able to strike up a conversation somehow. I’m sure it’s never this difficult when I’m drunk and getting a dodgy minicab back from central London.

So, this is Benevento. There’s actually more to write about but as time is limited, that’s all for today’s instalment. Look out for some more tomorrow!

10. Capri sun

Saturday 24th was a day of sun, and being it a Saturday, it was also a holiday. To celebrate the day off in the sun, today's featured sunglasses are these particularly stylish ladies' ones known as Fashion Capri Suntanbrown which can be bought on sourcingmap.com. Just the thing to complete that summer look for all those aspiring young women out there.

So with the sun behind me, off I set to Capri, the famous island of film stars in the sun. One of the candidates I was examining told me that it's where all the "important people go". Upon clarification, I learnt that 'important people' included Brad Pitt. Good to see where priorities lie.

I'd tried to get to Capri the week before but was unsuccessful because I slept in and had a very leisurely breakfast instead. I think the same fate may have befallen me if it wasn't for the fact that I was in company this time and was obliged to make an early breakfast of 08:30. And what does the 'O' stand for? The pair I was travelling with were another examiner (Ann) and her friend who'd flown in from Syria, Jules. You can see us on our walking tour, which took in a good part of the island.

The tour itself was know to Ann, a hiker by hobby, as one which had only recently opened and was supposed to be the talk of the hiking community. Being told that it was only an hour in length, Jules and I felt quite up to the task. Four hours later, we were less convinced. Suffice to say, we walked around half the island and were desperate for beers at the end. The walk just went on and on at and our mouths, having used up our meagre supplies after a couple of hours, were dry as you like. It got to the stage of feeling like Ice Cold in Alex. So when we did finally get to the end of the route and discovered a bar, we weren't slow in drinking 3 beers each and some water. So, 9 small bottles of beer in total and a bottle of water: the price? €50. Of course, it's holiday town and prices are reflected accordingly. However, because of the extreme thirst, €5 a beer was a small price to pay. Perhaps more alarming is the fact that I was wearing shorts. I coped but I'm sure I put a few locals off their paninis.


Interestingly for me, the walk took in five old British forts, which were taken by Napoleon's forces in 1808. I knew a little about the forts and the battles when the forts were taken and started to enlighten my companions. While I can say that my enthusiasm for the topic carried them a certain way through my tale, I had hardly got onto Governor Hudson Lowe when their eyes started to glaze over. I thought it best to leave it there and let them get back to children and accessories, with a special focus on bags and rings. I just can't understand why they weren't more interested. Quite strange.

Not only did the walk take in the forts, but also the famous Blue Grotto [pictured] and a variety of stunning coastal views, including numerous little coves with folk in boats frolicking in the sea and sun. All very jolly.

All spent, we returned to Naples, only to discover that there'd been riots / clashes with police over the rubbish problems <http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/7418558.stm>. I don't know, go away for a day and look what happens.

Either way, I have left the city and its waste disposal problems behind and have gone 70km north east to Benevento. Restaurants, arches and religious processions all feature in the following blogs...

9. Urban Hymns

We’re going undercover today, meaning that today’s featured sunglasses are designed to make you blend into a typical Italian suburban crowd while picking up all that goes on around you. That’s why I’ve gone for the sunglasses with secret bilateral cameras brought to us by chinavasion.com. Guaranteed to make you look as Italian as the next man (as long as they’re wearing the same sunglasses) and a snip at €255.22.

But onto business. A rather industrial blog today. After failing 70% of my elementary candidates today (a rather higher percentage than normal, which I in no way put down to a bad night’s sleep) I thought I could do with a bit of a pick me up and so reached for a beer from the mini-bar. Lovely. As I was opening it, I cast an eye out of my hotel window and glanced over to a secluded spot behind the railway shed that my window happens to overlook. To my surprise, there were two youngsters indulging in more of a pick me up than a beer from the mini-bar, as you can see. The zoom was on max and my window was a little dirty, but you can certainly make out which punter has just been shooting up (his arm is extended). The other one looked rather anxious and was searching the ground for some time, seeming to have lost something valuable. After a while, his friend helped him out with something and they wandered off.

While ‘people of the street’ often get a bad rap for being degenerate, uneducated and generally unpleasant, there are brighter sides to the story. While passing some time reading in a sun-lit piazza recently, I noticed this gentleman [pictured] sitting opposite me. He had a huge bag of collected newspapers (surely the only person collecting any rubbish in Naples at the moment) and was taking his time going through them all, carefully folding up and keeping the interesting articles and discarding the ones he didn’t like into a third bag, presumably to be thrown away. All this while listening to an old transistor radio set playing classical opera. The batteries were almost out and the reception was a touch on the dodgy side, but this was advantageous as it meant that out of a radius of 2 metres, you could barely hear a thing. Melvin Bragg would be proud.

And onto trains, or at least the underground. As you will know, the underground in London has some strict protocol: stand on the right, let others off the train before you board, move down between the seats, etc. Having started to use the Neapolitan underground again, I’m reminded of the protocol here: shoulder barge people out the way in order to get onto the train first. This experience, while at first appearing quite aggressive, has the bonus of being quite liberating. You don’t have to apologise, as no one else will, and you don’t have to wait. If you like, it’s a kind of survival of the fittest. The downside is that it does take longer to board a train as the people trying to get off don’t have a clear lane and the people trying to get on just get jammed while crowding on. A blurred, action picture of one such underground train, looking to all intense purposes like a normal train, can be seen here.

And then there are other forms of transport in the city. I won’t bother you with buses but will jump straight to the funicolare. What might that be? Well, according to the directions to get to one school, it said I had to get one and being unsure I checked in my Italian/English dictionary. The translation: funicular railway. This didn’t help much. I don’t know, maybe I was just being dense, but as it turned out, it was a kind of train on a big escalator. See the picture. Quite convenient when you don’t want to walk up a hill. Anyway, this and other forms of transport can all be had for the sum of €1.10 for 90 minutes on any combination of local public transport. What London Underground’s excuse is for £3 for a single, I can’t fathom.

Anyway, time draws on and it’s time to celebrate it being Friday. Many of the local examiners are off tomorrow morning so we’re off for a tasty bite to eat and plenty of delightful red wine. I’m sure that’ll be a fine way to relax, but if not, at least I know there’s the railway shed across the way for extra resources should they be needed...

As for tomorrow, weather and inclination permitting, it'll be a trip to the island of Capri, where I hope to visit the world famous car factory.