Erin Miller

I am leaving Italy in about two weeks. I am sure that big cars on big streets driving to big supermarkets will all be migraine inducing when I return home, yet, over the past couple of weeks, something completely unexpected has happened. I have begun to look forward to going home. While this may have something to do with having my bag stolen literally right from under me while I was writing a paper at an Internet cafè, I have also actually become appreciative of some of the aspects of American society. Despite all of the problems with discrimination in American society, the discrimination here seems much stronger and more deeply rooted, at least compared to my narrow experience in the American ‘west.’ Most notably, however, I miss the respect that I receive in America as a woman. (Even though I occasionally do feel discriminated against on that basis.) I have gradually become completely fed up with men leaning into my ear until they touch my face and saying ciao as they pass me in the street. I am sick of being stared at so intensely everywhere I go that I feel like I am being undressed by the eyes of men. Italian women, and women of other nationalities, such as those from Latin America, don’t seem to experience this as intensely. I am told that I stand out for mocking because I appear so American. I am told my American appearance is due to my blond hair (which I have always considered brown) and white straight teeth.

These American aspects were pointed out to me by some friends I met in
Santa Margherita Ligure last weekend; they were amazed by both my hair and
teeth. I met them through one of my friends from Perugia. She took me up there
to introduce me to her friends, most of whom go to University in Milan. They
fed us a pizza dinner and showed us around their town. The money we saved
eating pizza went to the expensive, classy bars and clubs. Santa Margherita is
only a couple of miles from Portofino, one of the wealthiest and snobbiest
towns in Italy that regularly fills up with American movie stars. The first
club we went to cost 16 euros but while we were dancing one of the kids from
Santa Margherita leaned over and said, ‘that guy behind you in the white shirt
is on TV.’ The club doubled as a fashion show, and as far as I can tell the new
fashion for Italian men is a white collared shirt and blue jeans, but I think
that the people in this club managed to pay at least 100 euros for their
outfits. After the classy club we headed up the hills, past a more industrial
part of town and went to a free disco that was more our style, full of
students.

Hag Sameach – Happy Passover. My other big experience in the last few
weeks was a Passover dinner. The Jewish students in our program pulled their
resources and crated an amazing, nearly kosher, Passover dinner and invited
their non-Jewish roommates. It was one of the most fun and educational cultural
experiences I have had here. A few kids from Israel showed up to join in and
help us with the details. Two were Israeli-American and one was Israeli through
and through. The ‘true’ Israeli read through some of the Hebrew passages very
quickly explaining that ‘in Israel we go very fast so we can eat.’ Now there
are a few Jewish students trying to stay Kosher in a society that only eats
pizza, pasta, and bread. I wish them luck.

Despite my new found appreciation of some aspects of American society, there are so many things I will miss about Italy and Perugia. I thought I’d share some of them with you guys, just to give you a slightly better picture of
the best parts of Italy. I think I will miss the Italian concept of
time the most. Life is truly slower here. Most people first experience this
when their bags get lost during their flight in. Italians just don’t understand why
anyone would be so anxious to have their bags right that minute. They will get
them to you in about a week. The Italian response is to tell you to clam down
and go enjoy a glass of wine. Dinners last for hours and hours, often going
well past midnight, and everyone takes a long nap in the middle of the
afternoon when the stores close for four hours. I will also miss the sheets
drying in the wind, and sometimes in the rain and cold, because no one can really afford to dry their clothes. I’ll miss the friendliness of strangers, the people that will let you sit on the back of their boat and travel the extra distance to the nicer island for free, and the people in the cafè that will let you take your cappuccino and gelato even if you don’t have enough money because they trust you to pay them back tomorrow. And I will miss my Italian friends Andrea, Matteo and Michele. They took us out to dinner at a little known Umbrian lake around here last week. For ten euros we ate all the fried seafood
anyone could ever want, a torta al testo (like a baked sandwich), and wine. We
are going to play soccer with them again this week. Someone had the brilliant
idea to suggest Americans vs. Italians, I think we’re in trouble. I’ll miss
sitting on the steps of our main cathedral and drinking a glass of wine in the
sun while staring at the fountain that was constructed in 1278. I’ll miss our
Duomo that doesn’t have a dome. I was told our Duomo doesn’t have a dome
because we were stealing the stones from the cathedral of neighboring Arezzo
during a war, which we were winning, but then we lost the war and never got all
of the stones needed to complete the project. I’ll miss smart cars and candy
stores that are filled with alcohol, and the complete lack of liquor laws. I
will even miss the crazy women that works in the Tabacchi near our school. She
has a small head and wears big glasses and is as likely to mouth off to someone
that speaks perfect fluent Italian as she is to mouth off to one of us trying
to speak in nouns and incorrectly conjugated verbs. I will miss the small,
overpriced grocery stores where only the wine, pasta, sauce, cheese and bread
are cheap. I will miss markets full of fresh fruit, chocolate filled crepes,
cappuccinos, gelatos and getting pizzas at places where everyone orders their
own. I will miss people directly traffic (poorly) while talking on their cell
phones, and the random scioperi (strikes) which never seem very effective for
the workers but do create a lot of confusion. Lastly, I will even miss the
Italian government. The country has its regional and national elections in
different years so they had a right prime minister (the infamous Berlusconi)
overseeing a left government, which created the biggest governmental crises in
five years (since the last time there were elections). Since the end of World
War II, not a single government has ever made it a full term without reforming.
So Berlusconi was forced to resign, which he did, but since he was still the
last person to be legitimately elected into the position of Prime Minister, the
President of the republic invited him to form a new government and reinstalled
him as Prime Minster. Despite Italian democratic participation over 80 percent,
Italians don’t trust their politicians at all, and I find the whole thing
slightly amusing. I mean, they elected a person that owns every method of mass
communication in the country — TV, newspapers, publishing houses, etc. as Prime
Minister, in an attempt to rid their government of corruption.

In preparation for leaving the city we went on a Perugian Pub Crawl. We went to
ten pubs, all rarely frequented by Americans, and all around the outskirts of
the city. Explaining what we were doing, and why we only needed one quick drink stretched my Italian conversational abilities. Once, when the subject of our Americanism came up at the bar one of the Italians leaned over and said, in
accented, though perfect English, ‘God bless America – without George Bush!’ I
nodded and finished my beer.

Una Bella Passagiata – There is this old man who lives by our apartment.
He has a white dog with black spots that looks a bit older than him. I finally
miss my dog so much that I decided to go start a conversation with him
(man, not dog). One day when I saw them out for a walk I came up to the dog and patted it on the head and said, una bella passagiata. Passagiata translates loosely to an evening stroll. The fact that I knew this slightly slang word
meant to the man that despite my white teeth and blond hair I must be nearly
fluent. He began mumbling to me in old Italian man speech, the kind that
doesn’t even involve actually moving one’s lips. It took me ten minutes to gain
anything from our conversational exchange, but I enjoyed what I was finally
able to get, so I’ll share it with you. He said that Lila, the dog, is old, 13
now, and that they use to go up the stairs right there but now that is too hard
for Lila. So they just go walking into the center of town. “Continiamo,
continiamo, (we continue, we continue) until one day, when we won’t continue
anymore.”

Il giorno di liberta. Tomorrow is National Liberation Day. One of the
biggest parties in Italy, the celebration of the resistance forces kicking the
Nazis and Fascists out of several towns in the North, in 1945, largely without
allied help. No one has work on Monday (expect for us, I have an Italian final)
and the Italians have been partying all weekend.

I love you all.
Ciao ciao ciao ciao ciao.