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The Florentine
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
My mother-in-law likes to tell my children the Tuscan joke about the cat that waited for the mouse to emerge from its hole in the wall. For three days, the cat sat outside the mouse's home, waiting, waiting, waiting. When eventually the cat barked ‘bow wow,'
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.
