Welcome

Friday, February 11, 2011

Greetings!

When you walk into a place of business in Italy, either large or small, the first thing you do is say "Buon giorno" and the last thing you say when you leave is "Grazie mille" or "Buona giornata" or some kind of farewell greeting before you go back out into the world.  In particular in places where folks know you, you can easily spend a good half hour before doing anything you intended to do on your visit into the store, and I remember fondly a bar on our street (the Italian cafe', no liquor, just goooood coffee), one of the owners, Marco, who waved his arms around and yelled, OH CIAO!!!!! each time we entered.  He knew exactly what we wanted, and then there would be discussions about life, the weather, the last soccer game, or whatever came to mind.

Here, invece (on the other hand), it takes days, weeks, months, who knows (quote from my favorite lonely donkey Eeyore), to maybe get lucky enough to strike up a conversation with someone in the store.  The occasional barber (one of the last nods to local business) or maybe the librarians (more on public libraries and their awesomeness in a bit), or often I find that folks who were not born in the US are in this same way, and used to waving hands around and yelling, WELL HEY THERE!

Not to say that yanks aren't friendly.  It's just well they keep their distance a bit....what do you think?

Oh yea, CIAO!

Being allowed to screw up

There's a small problem that we can't seem to get used to:  the expectation that we need to be on time to everything.  Now I understand appointments with doctors, and important interviews.  Concerts that start punctually I like a lot.  But it seems strange after living in Italy for 8 years where there is a 15 minute (at least) window that is allowed, agreed upon, in informal settings, that when invited to someone's house or for coffee you are chastized severly (this can vary of course according to the amount of type-A stuff in the invitee's blood) for arriving a wee bit late. 

I've learned from my time in Italy to invite folks in your home, make them feel welcome, offer a drink.  When meeting friends there is room for screwing up, being a tad late.  In Rome, it's true that really there are more things out of your control that easily make you lose time (and these are things that most frustrate the daily lives of Roman citizens) but still don't we need to allow some grace, some room for breathing, some moments when we're struggling to get a 6 year old's boots on, or the cat puked on the rug, or some schmuck has parked in front of your car. 

I think one of the best lessons I learned in Italy is to allow some grace, to allow some room for screwing up because we are human, and well...these things are part of what make life what it is.