LIGHT MODE
DARK MODE
Most popular
The Florentine
Linda Falcone, an English-speaker and an Italian-thinker, is the author of three books with The Florentine Press, and others with Jane Fortune for the Advancing Women Artists Foundation. She has lived, taught and written in Italy for almost 2 decades.
Way back at the beginning of the second millennium, I was teaching English at a Florentine school whose floors were as scuffed as their blackboards, which-originally white-had turned gray with grammar lessons. The classes were small and the staff was smaller: Karen, a rainbow-bright
Inconveniences aside, there is something about a blizzard that gives you time. Unexpectedly, there's time to wait as energy-saving light bulbs grow bright enough to light something more than a Neanderthal cave. Time enough to notice how quiet the world looks while wearing white. And there's time
One should never ask anything after a party. It is enough to keep a front-row corner of the couch and get full view as your hosts dissect the unfortunate guests who've already gone. Last Saturday when the last of the festa crowd pulled the door closed, the curtain
On a trip home for the Christmas holiday, I met up with a Florentine friend in San Francisco, where the rogue moved two years ago for a short-term photography gig and a girlfriend whose infatuation for him lasted much less time than his newfound love for the Bay area.
Love is something cherished and rare, but for me, falling in love is as unavoidable as tripping on uneven cobblestone. And it’s not my fault. For those who have ...
There is something about Peter Pan that moves me. It may be the way he knows how to wink. Or how he can laughingly fly into a sword fight. Or perhaps I'm simply struck by the very genius of him, comforted and reassured by the immovable conviction that he
The whole world is full of cultural investigators, and today, it's just you, me and the fencepost trying to figure out why people do the things they do. There are tons of signs to scrutinize along the road to cultural understanding and they all point to how a population
For some people ‘sorry' is a sour word, too tart to keep inside the mouth, for even a moment. For others, ‘sorry' is like a cough-drop, slightly menthol-flavored and meant to relieve, not heal. And then there are those for whom it's not about words
If you ask Francesca why she became a tour guide, she'll tell you about having to inventarsi una professione after her university degree brought her nothing but harrying waitressing jobs during high season. In the end, guiding suits her. Francesca's ability to look a complaining client
This morning, a newspaper whose name means ‘read' printed a headline that I've been trying to get my head around. One Italian in 10, it says, suffers from stress da rientro, a form of the blues that stems from one's disgruntled return to work and sudden withdrawal
Italians rarely have middle names, but if my friend Paola had one, it would be ‘Intimidating.' She realizes I feel this way and doesn't mind it in the least. I truly like her, and she knows that, too. So different from my own phlegmatic nature, capable people impress
Living abroad is an exercise in acceptance. When you stop craving chocolate-chip cookies and consider Cantucci a satisfactory dessert instead of a jaw-breaking stone-age fossil, you're in. When the memory of sales tax becomes as faded as a tricolored flag left hanging since the last
In the movies, workers sit in cubicles and wait for the day they'll be asked to pile their picture frames into a topless box and take their bedraggled desk-top plant elsewhere. This happens in real life too and it's called ‘being fired'. If you are an
The little black dress was invented to make fancy hotel dinners bearable, even when the table is too wide to attempt to talk across it. Parties like these are called ‘functions,' and diners usually butter up their nearest neighbors rather than buttering their own bread. If you're a
Italians usually pooh-pooh precision, brushing off Anglo exactitude as neurosis pure and simple. Minutes matter little; promises are more symbolic than specific; plans evaporate as quickly as boiling water in a pot. And, hey, I get it. The hour hand on my watch hasn't worked for a century
Move frequently and you'll realize that a handful of strategic people have the power to transform a new city into a new home. A trusted fioraio is one of them. Neighborhood vendors who sell things that grow are great friends to have; humans, like plants, have growing seasons, too.
April is naughty and sweet. On its very first day, jokesters look for ‘fools' who fall for harmless stunts. Afternoons get sleepier and the sun suddenly obeys the mandates of Daylight Saving Time, which Italians refer to as l'ora legale. The thought of the ‘legal' hour
‘If my grandmother had wheels, she would be a wheelbarrow.’ That’s what Italians say when they want to interrupt your rambling hypothetical scenario. After all, if a rolling granny doesn’t ...
Some come to Italy to cram for an exam at a university-villa and others come to dig up their roots in a countryside comune. Some arrive for adventure and others stay for love. And those who were born here are curious to uncover our reasons: ‘Come mai sei
