They'll know you're not Italian

Italian piazzas.  I'm not sure what to compare them to in the States.  They're the center of activity in an Italian town.   Sometimes they're big.  Sometimes they're small.  Sometimes they have a few trees.  Sometimes they don't.  Sometimes they're beautiful--an open square with a fountain in the middle enclosed by a massive stone church on one side, a cafe with umbrellas on another, an arcaded sidewalk on another and il museo civico on the other.  Usually all with peely paint on the colored shutters (that actually open and close instead of the metal ones firmly attached to the houses in the States that function only as bad decoration.) Sadly, some piazzas actually serve as parking lots.  On market day, they're where the vendors come to set up shop.  Every other day, they're where the locals gather to say hello.  Especially on Sunday afternoons.  And in one town in particular, it seems that Sunday afternoons are for the men.  They get dressed up and come stand in a circle and talk.  About what?  I don't know and I probably never will.  But it's nice to look at them in their elegant clothes with their hands crossed behind their backs talking about something.

There's one time of day when an Italian piazza goes dead.  It's at 12:30.  I don't like to be there then.  Well, actually it's kind of growing on me.  I used to not like to be there.  Now that I understand it a little better and I live it a little more, it's kind of nice.  "When in Rome, do as the Romans do."  12:30 is closing time for every small town in Italy. If you're there at exactly 12:30 you can see the shopkeepers locking their doors and pulling down the shades of their shops.  It's time to go home for lunch. They all say "ciao" and quickly head off in their own direction.  Within five minutes the place is a ghost town. And it doesn't wake up again for three hours.

I DO like to be there at 15:25.  All of the same shopkeepers return, say "ciao" again, unlock their doors and pull up their shades.  You can actually hear the town come back to life.  In addition to the shopkeepers coming back to work, the shoppers come back to shop.  It all happens in five or ten minutes and it's as though the place was never empty at all.  Sometimes I'm there for both ends of the process and it's hard to believe it's the same place. If you don't have a watch and you're lost in the side streets of a small Italian town, you can tell the time by the hum of the piazza. You know when it's 15:30.  For sure.

In my opinion, Italian piazzas are only missing one thing. Benches.  In a super small town where the piazza is only about the size of four of my Paris apartments, there are usually benches.  Maybe because the only people left in those small towns are the old people and they won't come out to the piazza if there's no place to sit.  Well, this old lady kind of feels the same.  But, I've decided to break the rules.  And where there are no benches (which is almost everywhere) I sit on the steps.  I'm the only one sitting on the steps. Everyone else is walking by or standing in the middle.  I asked a friend if it was okay to sit there and he said, "As long as you don't mind that everyone will know you're not Italian."  Believe it or not, he sat there with me (as you can see by the photo, he lost his head for a moment) and we listened to some street performers play classical music.  He agreed that it was a nice place to sit, but I'm sure he'll never do it again.  I will.  I guess it's just more proof that I'm growing up.  I used to hide in the corner in a small African village to read my map so the people wouldn't know I was a tourist.  Did I think I could actually hide in an African village?

 

Now, I sit on the steps in Italian piazzas knowing I don't belong there and knowing that everyone else knows I don't belong there either.  I've stepped outside the box.  Why have I always tried so hard to live inside the box when I travel when I'm so happy living outside the box at home?  Maybe this means I finally feel at home in Italy and my friends will have to get used to the fact that when in Rome, Tenley usually doesn't do as the Romans do.