Thanksgiving turkey, though he's seen them in pictures. He thinks it should be easy to replicate such a feast (especially with the help of me, a real American). He says we can use the kitchen of his friends Mario and Simona, who have a nice big house in the mountains outside Rome, and who always host Luca's birthday parties.
卢卡•斯帕盖蒂今年的生日正好是美国感恩节，因此想为自己的生日派对准备火鸡大餐。他从未吃过肥美的美国感恩节烤火鸡，尽管他曾在图片上看过。他认为复制这类大餐并不难（尤其有我这道地的美国人协助）。他说我们可以用他朋友马里奥和席莫娜的厨房，他们在罗马郊区山上有栋大房子，总是为卢卡办生日派对。

So here was Luca's plan for the festivities—he would pick me up at around seven o'clock at night, after he'd finished work, and then we would drive north out of Rome for an hour or so to his friends' house (where we would meet the other attendees of the birthday party) and we'd drink some wine and all get to know each other, and then, probably around 9:00 PM, we would commence to roasting a twenty-pound turkey . . .
为了准备这顿大餐，卢卡的计划是——下班后，晚间七点过来接我，而后开车北上，出城约一个小时后抵达朋友家（我们将在那里遇上出席派对的其他人），然后我们将喝些酒，认识彼此，而后在九点左右开始烤二十磅的火鸡……

I had to do some explaining to Luca about how much time it takes to roast a twenty-pound turkey. I told him his birthday feast would probably be ready to eat, at that rate, around dawn the next day. He was destroyed. "But what if we bought a very small turkey? A just-born turkey?"
我不得不跟卢卡说明，烤一只二十磅的火鸡必须花多少时间。我跟他说，以这种速度，大概隔天黎明时分才吃得到火鸡大餐。他大失所望。那买一只很小的火鸡如何？一只出生不久的火鸡？

I said, "Luca—let's make it easy and have pizza, like every other good dysfunctional American family does on Thanksgiving."
我说：卢卡——我们弄简单点，吃比萨饼吧，美国的每个病态家庭在感恩节都这么吃。

But he's still sad about it. Though there's a general sadness around Rome right now, anyway. The weather has turned cold. The sanitation workers and the train employees and the national airline all went on strike on the same day. A study has just been released saying that 36 percent of Italian children have an allergy to the gluten needed to make pasta, pizza and bread, so there goes Italian culture. Even worse, I recently saw an article with the shocking headline: "Insoddisfatte 6 Donne su 10!" Meaning that six out of ten Italian women are sexually unsatisfied. Moreover, 35 percent of Italian men are reporting difficulty maintaining un'erezione, leaving researchers feeling very perplessi indeed, and making me wonder if SEX should be allowed to be Rome's special word anymore, after all.
但他依然感到悲伤。尽管近来的罗马也弥漫着一种悲伤气氛。天气变冷了。清洁工、火车雇员和国内航空全在同一天闹罢工。近来发布的一则研究报导指出，百分之三十六的意大利孩童对制作面食、比萨和面包必不可少的面筋过敏，让人对意大利文化忧心忡忡。最近我看到一篇文章，标题令人震惊：Insoddisfatte 6 Donne su 10!意思是十个意大利女人有六个欲求不满。此外，百分之三十五（勃起），令研究人员大感perplessi（困惑），也令我怀疑性是否应该继续作为罗马的特殊用词。

In more serious bad news, nineteen Italian soldiers have recently been killed in The Americans' War (as it is called here) in Iraq—the largest number of military deaths in Italy since World War II. The Romans were shocked by these deaths and the city closed down the day the boys were buried. The wide majority of Italians want nothing to do with George Bush's war. The involvement was the decision of Silvio Berlusconi, Italy's prime minister (more commonly referred to around these parts as l'idiota). This intellect-free, soccer-club-owning businessman, with his oily film of corruption and sleaze, who regularly embarrasses his fellow citizens by making lewd gestures in the European parliament, who has mastered the art of speaking l'aria fritta ("fried air"), who expertly manipulates the media (not difficult when you own it), and who generally behaves not at all like a proper world leader but rather like a Waterbury mayor (that's an inside joke for Connecticut residents only—sorry), has now engaged the Italians in a war they see as none of their business whatsoever.
更严重的坏消息是，十九名意大利士兵最近在美国人的战争（这里的人如此称呼）中，丧命于伊拉克——自二战以来，意军最高的死亡数字。这些士兵的死令罗马人大感震惊；埋葬这些年轻人的当天，全城歇业。绝大部分的意大利人都不想和布什的战争有任何瓜葛。介入战争是意大利前首相贝卢斯科尼（Silvio Berlusconi；这地方的人更常称他为l'diota［白痴］）所下的决定。这个愚蠢、拥有足球会的生意人，以其卑鄙腐败的行径，经常在欧盟议会上做出下流之举，使他的人民同胞感到难堪。他精通空口说白话的艺术，熟练地操控媒体（这一点都不难，只要你拥有媒体），他的一举一动丝毫不像体面的世界领袖，倒像是瓦特伯利市（Waterbury）市长（康州居民才听得懂这个笑话——抱歉），如今让意大利人介入一场在他们看来跟他们毫不相干的战争。

"They died for freedom," Berlusconi said at the funeral of the nineteen Italian soldiers, but most Romans have a different opinion: They died for George Bush's personal vendetta. In this political climate, one might think it would be difficult to be a visiting American. Indeed, when I came to Italy, I expected to encounter a certain amount of resentment, but have received instead empathy from most Italians. In any reference to George Bush, people only nod to Berlusconi, saying, "We understand how it is—we have one, too."
他们为自由而死。贝卢斯科尼在十九位意大利士兵的葬礼上说道。不过多数的罗马人看法不同：他们为小布什的个人恩怨而死。在这种政治气氛下，你或许认为对一个美国访客而言并不好过。我来意大利时，的确预期会遭遇许多憎恨情绪，但却发现多数意大利人都感同身受我们了解你的感受——因为我们也有一个这样的总统。

We've been there.
我们到过那里。