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March 20, 2008
Those darned Italians!
I may have been here almost long enough this time - or not quite long enough.
I'm having one of those week of little annoyances that add up. For instance, I'm walking around this week just certain that people on scooters and motorcycles are revving their engines at stop lights just to annoy me - and then peeling out to maximize the noise. Come to think of it, I'm not sure the latter isn't true. By the way, I learned this week that the old joke about vehicles like this being chainsaws on wheels may be true - Husqvarna makes motorcycles! I never knew.
Then there's the insouciance of neighborhood shops. So I need something best bought as a casalinghi - kind of a hardware-for-the-home store. Not a hardware store, really, but all that other stuff. So I go back to the shop a block away where I bought my door mat and they're closed. Now I knew they were the kind of place that still closes for lunch and riposo - it's tiny, they're elderly, I'm fine with that. But it was already 3 p.m.! And do they have their hours posted where you can see them when they're NOT there? No! It's a neighborhood shop, after all - everyone knows when they're open, don't they?
GRRRRR!
Posted by CrankyProfessor at March 20, 2008 4:18 PM
Comments
Michael--
My advice, as the snow flurries dance outside my office window on this Holy Thursday, is for you to close your eyes someplace relatively quiet, and repeat softly: "I'm being paid to live in Italy. I'm being paid to live in Italy." My fervent hope is that this will help to calm your mind.
Posted by: Bruce at March 20, 2008 6:06 PM
Husqvarna also makes sewing machines.
Posted by: grey at March 21, 2008 6:42 PM
Husqvarna makes chainsaws? Who knew? Anyway, I hope things get better for you. The irritation of foreign mannerisms is probably a significant reason more people don't travel much. But when you come home, maybe you'll find you miss other things that you loved about Rome without fully appreciating them at the time.
.....Oh, I always do - mainly food products and architecture - but I've been here for almost 3 months - and about this point in every long stay I start to realize how very American I am. --MCT
Posted by: Shelby at March 21, 2008 6:45 PM