Internet for your Italian home

Much like the mystery of the Electricity for your Italian home,  is the internet service for your Italian home... And again, it seems to be system of brokers selling units from the pool of resources available.

You are not limited to some monopolistic vendor (or very short list of vendors) who has acquired the right to use the hard wires coming into your house or who have satellite hardware that is inoffensive to your HOA's peculiar sensibilities. 

There is a long list of Internet service providers, including most mobile phone companies, who offer competitive plans and deals... and you are open to choose any one of these vendors. You are free to choose X mobile company for your phone, and Y mobile company for your home internet... and even if you choose a single provider, there seems to be no bundling... there MAY BE long term contracts depending upon how low the rate you score is. 

I went into my phone provider to check the rates. The guy at the counter asked my address -- by this he can tell if I have fiber (fibre??) in my apartment building, which is used to determine your plan availability. I have fiber (which is apparently a good thing), and therefore a really nice plan was available to me (23 Euro per month, for enough juice to supply me with surfing and streaming aplenty). 

The vendor will need to come to my house to "install" my internet -- basically a modem/router.... and this will take 10 days to 3 weeks to schedule. But in the interim, I can add on for 0 Euros "the little bar of soap", which is a portable hot spot billed against your internet service plan (not against your mobile phone plan).

Within a couple of hours (just waiting for the new customer batch process to cycle), I have internet in my house and in my purse. 

My little bar of soap

Electricity for your Italian home

In Italy, electricity is sold in a  much different way than we experience in the US. 

My experience as a residential consumer in the US is that electricity is a product of a monopoly that is regulated/protected (choose your own verb) by state (and local?) governments. For instance, a rate hike by your local electric company (or gas) must be reviewed and approved by your state legislature. As if! Which leads me to ask -- who benefits from your electricity being delivered to you by a monopoly which is regulated by politicians? 

It Italy, electricity is sold to individuals by "brokers". These brokers offer different plans and special deals to the consumer, to entice them to sign up with that broker. Once you sign up, the electricity you use in your house, as measured by your meter, is billed to you at the rate from your plan through the broker you chose. Think of it like your mobile phone plan. (You can then pay for it online, or at your local tabaccheria, which is a totally different discussion!)

This is very confusing to me, because I can't get beyond the "but how does the electricity get to your meter?" question. I guess all the electricity is in a big pool, and all flows along the same lines, and then the brokers pay the "pool" per unit sold at a general rate.... I guess the gamble is "how much and when will X house use?"

Because, YES, apparently WHEN it's used is a BFD. Late night electricity will be billed to the consumer at a different rate than midday electricity. 

And Europeans take the conservation of electricity (and all utilities and resources) very seriously. Many public service commercials on TV show oafs leaving the light on when they leave a room, leaving the fridge door open while they pour juice, leaving the water running while he brushes his teeth. Oaf-ness is not tolerated in Europe! 

SO, in my apartment for instance, I have my own water heater (rare for a tall building -- usually they have a boiler servicing the entire building) and it has an On / Off switch on the wall nearby... so I can turn off the water heater during times when I won't be needing instant hot water. And perhaps I can schedule my laundry during periods which are most beneficial to my electricity plan.

And so back to the original point -- who benefits from your electricity being delivered to you by a monopoly which is regulated by politicians? 

Iper! Iper! Yay!

Today I went to Iper the first time. 

Iper is a giant upscale grocery store with small appliances (and some linens and hardware). It’s the closest thing I’ve seen to Tarzhay since leaving Charlotte.

I’ll go back there when it’s time to furnish my new apartment. 

Here are some photos from this fabulous store!

A prosciutto tree! 

Prosciutto for slicing, in Italian tri-colore.

Porchettas... cured ham

A whole pig and they will slice it up for you! 

Big breads...

More hanging meat

Easy rider

In Milano lots of people commute to work on motorcycles.

Lest you assume everyone is sporting a Vespa and trailing a scarf in the wind, the typical moto is a medium sized bike like shown below... with an occasional Vespa or Harley thrown in to spice things up.

This moto-commitment seems to transcend all types of weather, much like the US Postal service or Santa.

An interesting piece of gear that I’ve not seen in the US is a heavy “skirt” laid over the lap and shoes, and often tucked around the legs. I think this serves to keep your legs clean during your ride year round, and serves as extra protection again the cold and rain.

And often they simply drive up onto the sidewalk and park.

My Italian breakfast

Italian breakfast is a very quick affair, with none of the fanfare of the average American morning meal. And nary an egg, a potato, or a grit in sight!

Typically you will pop into the “bar” right outside your apartment building, or one convenient to your work.

You’ll order a “caffè”, which Americans know as espresso, and a pastry. The pastry will be called a brioche in Milano, a croissant in Western Liguria near the French border, and a cornetto throughout much of the rest of the country. They come filled with Nutella, chocolate, creme, apple, jam, etc.

And you will stand right at that bar and wolf that brioche and slam that espresso... less than 10 minutes from walking in the door to walking out the door.

While I have started drinking coffee (1 Euro, as opposed to 2.50 or more for tea... and chai? fuggedaboutit), I drink caffè Americano... which is espresso with a double shot of water.

Another wonderful thing you can get at breakfast in your bar is OJ squeezed while you wait. Sometimes it’s worth going into the bar for the smell alone!

So yeah, sometimes I’d love to have a bacon and scrambled egg bagel, but having a croissant filled with Nutella is a a great consolation prize!

This is the biggest cup of coffee I’ve seen since I left JFK. 

And... no free refills... 

This is from a place called 12 oz Coffee Joint where the schtick is that you can get American sized coffee... still made as Italian caffè plus water, and again, no refills. 

blowing in the wind....

When you go food shopping at the supermercato, typically you bring your own bags. If not, you can buy various grades of bags.... including the standard plastic number which is free in the US. They cost .20 each here (that's .20 Euro, people!).

But these bags are very different from the thin plastic bags you find in every grocery in America (except maybe Trader Joe’s and Aldi).

• They are biodegradable

• They are larger than the US model

• They are strong and don’t come already defective with rips or holes along the bottom seams

• They are biodegradable. Yes, I said that twice, as it bears repeating

The requirement of paying for the bag gives it an added emotional value that will make you think twice before tossing it in the trash. People at the checkout counter actually accuse other shoppers of stealing the .20 plastic bag which they brought with them from home. I myself have been very insistent with a checkout guy that, yes, indeed, I brought that bag from home. (I needed that bag to carry home my 1.50 bottle of wine!!!)

So, maybe this is something to think about. Should it be an inalienable right to receive free, defective plastic (harmful and unsustainable!) bags at the grocery store every time you shop?

Or does it make better business and environmental sense to shift the responsibility of bags to the shopper — simultaneously providing a better product and the desire to reuse?

A grocery store breakthrough

I finally got up the courage (and the grocery store was empty enough)  to figure out how to weigh my own produce and attach the little tags.  

Hooray! Fiber! 

Bike Share in Milano

There are two different types of bicycle share programs in Milano. 

One is called bikeMi and is part of the ATM program, where you can add a nominal monthly fee onto your metro/tram/bus card, giving you authorization to take a bike from designated bike stands throughout the city and return it to another stand. They have this interesting click-into-place system to secure the bikes.  

These bikes also serve as traveling billboards for local cultural events.

Then there are other bicycle shares where you download the app to your phone, and register your "borrowing" of a bike via the phone app. 

These bike share programs (Mobike and OFO) are interesting in that the bikes are not locked into a stand but are considered "dockless". There is a retractable "clamp" that closes into the the back tire, between spokes, and doesn't allow the tire to turn unless someone has 'claimed it' via the app. Steal the bike all you want, but you can't ride it if one wheel won't turn! 

You'll find dockless bikes in the most bizarre places, alone on a sidewalk, in front of the door of the grocery store, waiting for the next rider.  
 

The unsung heroes of ironing

We’ve all heard of futbol, bicycling, art, and Formula One Racing as Italian pastimes... and no one would doubt cooking and eating would fall into this category. But there’s an activity that consumes a huge percentage of the average Italian woman’s time that no one ever talks about.... Ironing.

Italy (and the rest of the world except definitely the US and maybe Canada) do not use dryers for their laundry. They hang it on an outside line, or more likely an indoor rack, to dry the old school way. This is traditional, is environmentally conscious, and is sustainable.

However it leaves the clothes (and towels and sheets) wrinkled and feeling crispy crunchy.

I remember as I child getting up extra early to hang the laundry on the line before school. (This was obviously before I walked the 5 miles uphill through blinding snow, but I digress.) What a pisser for me when it rained during the school day!!! Digression due. I remember from those days that when the towels were dry, they were kinda crunchy, but boy were they absorbent... Much more so imho than those from the dryer.

And so, the average Italian woman has piles of crunchy laundry (her own multiplied by n, where n = (men + children) in her household). Quindi, a good portion of her not-working-not-cooking-not-sleeping time is spent standing over the hot, steaming iron.

Thankfully, these ladies have The Mother of All Irons at their disposal. Ginormous mothers attached by a hose to a reservoir holding easily 2 liters of water. And heavy duty boards to withstand the weight of the iron as well as the resentfully vigorous ministrations of a hero who must spend hours ironing even towels and sheets (wtf!!) while unnamed others watch futbol or Formula One Racing.

what do I know?

Boy! My understanding of this holiday was totally off! 

While very few shops were open, and no banks, the public trans was operating on a weekend schedule and at least 50% of the restaurants were up and running.

And not just in the tourist areas!  I wandered over to Naviglio Grande, which is Milano's three-canal answer to Venice -- where restaurants stand shoulder-to-shoulder for a kilometer, looking over the river, with seating out front al fresco. The streets were filled with people, strolling, enjoying the weather, meeting friends for lunch. 

After my lunch of pizza and two spritz's (count'em! TWO!) I pulled out my laptop and worked on study materials for my classes.  (In the spritz recipe I've linked, David Lebovitz suggests filling the glass "generously with ice"... I disagree with this, as you really only want to chill the drink to make it refreshing. A glass less than half full of ice is perfect.)

Yes, I meant for that pizza to come without cheese. It's a thang here, you wouldn't understand. (And there’s def too much ice in the spritz.)

Saturday at the mercato

You can almost anything you want on the street!!!

Good morning!

 Caffè Americano e Nutella brioche