I'm sure you'll be proud to know I've increased my phrase knowledge base from: "ciao," (hello/bye), and "bonjourno," (good morning) to include the ever-neccesary: "excusa," (excuse me), "mi excusi," (I'm sorry), "dove il bano" (where is the bathroom?) and "questa?" (how much? I'm not even sure on that one I just kind of mumble it and they scream numbers at me).
Regardless, I really do love it here. Italian culture is one that will take much adjusting too, and I'm sure to annoy my friends and family with my new found lackadaisical ways when I come home in September.
Some wonderful things we've learned the hard way about Italian culture?
1. Public Transportation: Oh, southern Italy. Your heart is in the right place, but you are far too busy to provide any sort of semi-secure/timely public transportation. Without going into too much detail, the aquatics staff decided to take a trip out to Catania (about 15 minutes from base in a regular vehicle) to hit up the flea market and regular market for fresh fruit and vegetables and then a nice trip to the beach. A well-intentioned plan morphed painfully into a ten hour trip, which may have been fine, if 7 of those hours hadn't been spent on or waiting for a bus.
Let's not go into asking for directions via your Italian phrase book, the biggest language barrier of my life (PS, don't let anyone tell you Spanish is similar to Italian. I mean it is, but don't expect your extensive Spanish knowledge to get you anywhere. They will venomously ignore your Spanish attempts are pretend they don't know what you're talking about. They do - ish, they are just offended because Italians are in love with Italy and Italian culture) trying to pay for bus fare (Bus Driver: "Que disastre!" and just walks away without explanation for 15 minutes...), validating tickets, finding which bus goes where, getting yelled at by literally an ENTIRE bus of Italians to get off, screaming god knows what.
Wrapping up my public transportation in Italy rant, the one language that saved our ass was Polish... Well, naturally.
2. The Time Continuum: Italian time differs on many counts. To start with the obvious, there is the wonderful 9 hour time difference between here and home, making most communication really tough.
Next, is the idea that time, or being on time, is important or a pressing issue. There isn't much else to say, other than that being on time is unnecessary and a little gauche. Also, restaurants are open for lunch, then close, and then reopen at around 8:30pm. If you shop up to a restaurant at 8:30p, your food will probably be adorned with spit; no one goes to restaurants for dinner before 9pm, and it is an instant American flag waving proudly above your head. Which I suppose brings me to Italian meals, at minimum a 3 hour affair, the average being around 5 hours. Sicilian meals are 4-5 hour affairs, as every ingredient is hand picked/caught/slaughtered that day and won't go anywhere near a grill/kitchen until you order it (Dear Camas, WA residents, if you haven't already, cease your complaints of Top Burger's wonderful cook to order frozen burger patties. I won't hear it.) There is a restaurant here where the woman leisurely wanders to the garden and picks the food that she is going to be using for the meal after sitting down next to you and reciting tonight's "Menu."
Moral of the story being, don't go to a restaurant under time restraints of any kind. Don't go to a restaurant already hungry; you will suffer. (On the flip side don't go with a full belly. There are baskets and baskets of bread, appetizers to be had, plate 1 of dinner [generally a pasta dish], plate two of dinner [generally a meat platter], dessert, and wine by the liter.) Don't rely on busses/trains/planes to be anywhere near on time, although once they get there everyone drives at least 100Km per hour...
3. Pushy Italian Bitches: The concept of a line and waiting is a widely discouraged idea and when I say pushy Italian bitches, I mean vicious, old Italian woman who will rip your hair out, shove you to the ground, kick your lifeless corpse and rape your mangled body before waiting in a line behind of you. In all seriousness, they will actually slap/hit you if they feel they are entitled to your spot, no gentle love taps here. No one waits in line... In retrospect, at LAX for our Rome flight, the clusterfuck at the airport should have been a surefire sign of Italian's hatred of waiting, but we were young and naive. It took getting taken advantage and screwed over for 2 weeks straight everywhere we went to pull on my big girl panties and start pushing back. These women are NOT frail or fragile, don't let their lies fool you
Once again, I'm far far far too tired to think of anything else. I won't complain, because shoot, I'm in Italy, but say if I did want to complain I would say that I've been up 18 hours, waking at 5am everyday, and am in a continual state of burn and peel. In other news, my first hot shower in a while today! Solid.
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