Patience and letting go

It's one of my weaknesses, maybe my biggest (thanks Dad). But I have to say, and I'm open to other opinions here, but I think Italy has helped me enormously on this front. I realized after maybe 3 months that you will be miserable living in Italy if you can't take a deep breath, pause, and also let it go. The tricky thing about Italy is that you think it's developed, you think 'hey, they came up with democracy, art, etc.' this place has got to have it down, and then you encounter your first what would be in America a run of the mill exchange, let's say for fun - returning an item to a store that is faulty or calling a plumber. In Italy this is not a one off exchange, but often a ten to twenty off exchange - and if you don't accept it, stay calm, be patient, breath out, you'll never last or at least while you're lasting you'll be miserable. And what I can say is that throw an Italian into another country and they'll always be pleased about how fast, efficient, helpful people are (if they speak the language of said country where they're at). The lesson here is expectations - Italy has taught me to expect the worst, and then I'm always prepared (in campana) and pleasantly surprised when things do go right, which is a great way to pave happiness in the rest of my life. Thank you Italy for teaching me the art of breathing and letting go - let it go, let it go....one thing that makes patience an easier medicine to swallow in Italy is a plethora of mozzarella. Let's see how my newlearned patience goes away from all that buffalo milk....

Food rules

I know, am I really going to miss them? After 4.5 years trying to learn all of them, being exasperated by them, and not getting the logic - I will, I will miss them. I've spoken here before about how I love Germans for their predictability about complaining about certain things, and while most people would never equate Italians and Germans, there is something comforting about once you finally learn the rules of Italian eating and know what you're up against. And while I poopooed a lot of them and still think they shouldn't actually be 'rules' but maybe just advice, I do now see the value in 'some' of them (be clear I did not say all). After trying eating pasta with shrimp or pasta with clams without parmesan, I can tell you I get it. It's true the cheese does overpower the light seafood flavor that is much better on its own. And while I do often sneak a cappuccino mid-afternoon from the vending machine so I don't have to embarrass myself/enrage the coffee bar about wanting milk after lunch, it is true that after a heavy meal an espresso does go down easier than a lot of milk with your coffee. And this whole business about having to have a tablecloth to eat or at least a rudimentary 'American' placemat, I get it. Eating on raw table makes a mess, that is much easier dealt with if you can whip said covering out of the way and 'shake it off, uh oh, shake it off'. And a much easier rule to adopt was no mixing of sweet and savory, because frankly most of the time it misses the mark. Yes I will admit that stuffing I made for Thanksgiving with panettone was weird. So let's just say, I will miss the rigor with which you view digestion and respect the individuality of flavors and I promise to take your lessons (not rules) with me, and respectfully break your rules when it suits my fancy, I'm still American after all.  

Verbal noises

In my second post of 100daysofRoma, I'm truly going to miss the Italian verbal noises. I'm sure I could write each day about an aspect of the Italian language that I'm going to miss but the noises come first.....So what am I talking about when I say noises? It's hard to give an English equivalent, but to give you some sort of reference imagine 'hmmmm', or 'ugh' or 'huh', except that in Italian there are about a thousand. Some of my favorites include (spelling refers to English pronunciation):

-euuuuwww (no way!)
-uffa (ugh)
-bo (oh well, heh)
-e moh (so, not actually sure what this one means exactly)
-c'e (now while c'e actually means 'there is' it is also used to just fill in a sentence like 'umm' or 'like')

When I first moved here I thought but I don't get it why are they saying c'e when they don't mean there is, or what is this 'bo' that seems to come after every other eh? And now when I walk around it's part of the music. Italians use these sounds about as often as they use actual words so it's like a fine organ of euwww/uffa/bo/e moh.....you can hear it right?