American Life In The Summertime #23 - Italy

You know the type. He walks into the dorm with cocky anticipation, dumps his gear on the bed and looks around. Noticing it's only you in the room as well, he looks slightly disappointed, looks around again to ensure he hasn't missed anything, and reluctantly says hi. Then, as soon as he can, he brings the conversation around to his true interest - "Have you met anyone else in the room?". What he's really asking, of course, is "are there any girls staying in the room?" in the hope of bagging an English slapper or experiencing some efficient German sex. On this occasion I found myself in one of those moods and informed him that there was a group of Swedish girls around earlier, but they looked a little drunk & went out to a bar about an hour ago. Almost before the words were out of my mouth he's asking if I know where they went, and, generously, I gave him the name of a bar I remembered from the guidebook as the preeminent gay-friendly establishment in the area. Some hours later he returned with quite a troubled look on his face. "How'd you go?", I ask.

With a slightly quavering voice he replies "Nah man it was a sausage fest".

"Bummer".

Quite.


Buongiorno from Italy, home of pizza, pasta and poofy guys falling over dramatically on a soccer pitch when their opponent so much as breathes heavily in their direction (you may have won the World Cup, boys, but you'll get no respect from me until you get sandwiched by two 100kg second rowers and have to get straight back up pretending it DIDN'T hurt). You get lost in Italy, a lot, and directions are rarely helpful because every instruction to any point in the country always involves the words "at the church". There are, conservatively, around 900 churches on every developed block in Italy. The largest, of course, is St Peter's in the Vatican City in Rome, spiritual home of the Catholic Church, residence of the Pope, and smallest independent nation in the world. The Vatican is littered with priceless marble statues and monuments, most of which are in the "natural" style popular at the time, which means nude. A few hundred years ago the idea of so many exposed members in close proximity to so many priests caused the Catholic Church some distress (although the opposite is now true) and so the Pope of the day chiseled all the penises off the hundreds of statues within the Vatican grounds. Their modesty was restored with fig leaves, reminiscent of the garden of Eden, but I like to think there is a secret room in the Vatican Museum - a peniseum, if you will - in which these liberated organs are stored, lined up in neat rows on a table for their sins like recalcitrant schoolboys on detention, where the Pope would come when fancy took him and play headmaster: "Stand up straight, Johnson!".

But by far the most absorbing, the most challenging, the most unique experience in Italy comes with the simple act of taking a train. On Italian trains, everyone gets to the appropriate platform and simply stops in place, creating a bottleneck at the entrance while the remainder of the platform remains empty. They then proceed to abuse, with much flapping of hands and enthusiastic gesticulation, everyone else who is still piling onto the platform as being complete idiots for doing exactly the same thing as they have just done and further choking up the platform. When the train arrives, there is no waiting for those already aboard to get off, everyone urgently pushes on as if they are concerned they may miss a meal if they don't get on before the train has even fully stopped. This of course only makes the entire process longer and Italians then stand around in genuine puzzlement and frustration as to why the train will not now depart immediately, despite the fact that people are still pushing past them trying to get off. This is made worse by the fact that everyone has chosen to try to cram onto the one carriage that happened to stop right in front of the entire mob, rather than any of the other 10 carriages that are also connection to this train.

Then, when everyone has settled in and all those who have managed to snag a seat are looking smugly at those left squatting on their bags in the corridor, (who are, in turn, looking waiting for anyone foolish enough to get up and walk around or go to the bathroom or otherwise break contact with their seat, at which point they will swoop in like a seagull on a chip), the real sting in the tail of the Italian train system makes itself apparent. In Italy, it is possible, but not compulsory, to reserve a particular seat. However it is apparently not required, or even common, to sit in the seat you have reserved. So for the entire journey you have people pushing purposefully down the aisle, through & over those scattered on the ground, to arrive in front of a particular seat, which is always occupied by someone pretending to be asleep or deep in conversation with The Lord or otherwise studiously trying to avoid looking at the person who has just presented themselves in front of them. There follows more enthusiastic gesticulation, the gist of which is: I have reserved this seat, so get out; accompanied by animated pointing at the ticket and then the aisle. This immediately prompts the reply from the current occupant of the seat that what does it matter, as long as we all sit somewhere?, which seems a reasonable response except that the person trying to dislodge you was clearly not quick enough to get their own seat or they would not be here now trying to obtain yours. Guards are summoned, more tickets are pointed at and hands flapped in exasperation until finally the person without the ticket for that seat departs, with more animated arguments and questions relating to the legitimacy of the birth of everyone within shouting distance. You don't normally see such behaviour from a nun, but things are done differently over here.

The vanquished passenger must then take their place with the rest of the masses in the aisle, in the space left by the person who is now making themselves comfortable with great satisfaction in their former seat. Except this "space" has long since been greedily absorbed by the mob, meaning that the former occupant must now drag themselves and their gear through the crowded corridor all the way to the end where there is space. Unless, of course, they did reserve a seat but just took their chances & grabbed the first one they could get on entering the train in the hope that nobody else had specifically reserved *it* (a reasonable gamble at the time), in which case they will stride purposefully down the corridor to dislodge someone else, and so it continues for the entire journey like a giant, inconvenient game of musical chairs. Naturally, I loved it. Italy is beautiful, passionate, unordered, enthusiastic, easygoing, and easy to like. It has more ancient history and riches existing side by side with modern life than anywhere else I have been, and it was the country where I spent the most time so far, before heading back through southern France and Monaco into Spain. And so, before some Italian nun comes and tries to push me off the computer seat, it is time once again to remind you 'til next time: take care of yourselves.....and each other.