Realtà

 It was a completely normal day, on the surface. I woke up, I drove to work, I worked, I drove home, I spent time with my boyfriend and I went to bed. But nothing about it felt “normal” in the traditional sense… in fact, everything about it felt fresh, new and extraordinary. Being in Italy continues to hold me in awe.

To begin, I woke up at the luxurious hour of 9:00am. This was improved by the fact that when I woke up, Gio was there, because his school schedule has him out of bed at 6:30 most mornings. After an appropriate amount of coccole, e poi latte e biscotti, Gio had to get studying and I eased my way into the day with some yoga. I headed off to work at the reasonable hour of noon, which is where the snuggles and biscuits end and reality sets in. Most immediately, the reality of driving.

Driving in Italy is an adventure… especially driving almost 60km along a highway around Naples, one of the most notoriously chaotic cities for driving in Europe. People here definitely follow a different set of road-rules than we do in Canada. For such relaxed people at all other times of the day, everyone seems to be a damn hurry whilst driving. Perhaps this is to balance out their otherwise laissez-faire attitude.

Being a timid driver simply does not work in Italy. When merging, changing lanes or going onto a highway, what I would consider an unsafe distance to try to get in front of a car is oftentimes the only distance you have to work with… so you GO GO GO and assume that whoever is racing up behind you sees you and will slow down (just enough) or jerk into the next lane to not lose speed (a far more likely scenario). I am still timid by Italian standards, which is usually okay because people have no problem passing me. Whether it’s in a left turn bay or lined-up in a big row of traffic, certain drivers will simply dip around me (and the entire line of traffic, perché no?), into the oncoming traffic lane, to get ahead. This is a daily, if not quarter-hourly, occurrence.

Another thing that I noticed while driving and being a passenger is that another Italian stereotype holds true even while driving – Italians do talk with their hands, at all times. Even while driving a manual shift and talking on their cell phone. To me it looks like multitasking to the extreme but to an Italian it’s just second nature. While driving with my boss last week, he was telling a wild story and had equally wild hand gestures to match the story and therefore, he was lightly swerving all over the road. Anyone in Canada would have thought he was drunk. This happened to me again while driving myself to Pozzuoli. A car in front of me was swerving all over two lanes of the highway and I thought to myself “it’s 12pm and he’s drunk already!?” But no, upon further inspection, I saw a lively conversation taking place between the passenger and the driver, complete with the necessary hand gestures.

In my two solo drives to Pozzuoli and back, I’ve gained confidence – and a new-found love in my good friend, Signor TomTom, who tells me where to go so I don’t have to drive and figure out the directions at the same time. I also picked up Giovanni from his University earlier this week, which is conveniently on the way from Pozzuoli back to Caserta, and only requires three terrifying minutes of Naples city driving, which I could manage. Being able to “swing by” Federico II University to pick up Gio is a thrilling concept to me!

The second reality that faced me that day was the reality of my new job – teaching English. I had been given: five low-level students for five consecutive hours for four classes in the span of two weeks. I have some experience teaching English, but very casual conversation-based and summer camp experience. I have no certification. However, by this day, it was my second class with the students and having survived the first, I felt more at ease, just like I did with driving. I was given no direction about the class at all (except that they are supposed to “speak”) and the woman in charge didn’t even show up that day, so I had to wander around the school finding a kind Italian teacher to help me make some photocopies. The lesson wasn’t perfect and the students were a bit difficult and tired at times, but all in all, it was a success. We had fun and I had them speaking in English as much as I could. Five hours of speaking for a low-level language student is a feat in and of itself.

The third reality that faced me at the end of the day was coming home. After the drive back, Gio was waiting for me at home, having just finished his own productive day of exam studying. Both exhausted, we decided to go for a passeggiata around Caserta and talk about our days. We stopped at a café and enjoyed prosecco and antipasti. This moment was the culmination of a successful and very real day. We weren’t on vacation, we weren’t on exchange in Belgium, we weren’t visiting one another in our respective cities… we both had a full, busy, and rewarding day that started wonderfully and finished in the best way possible –  together, drinking aperitivi and eating antipasti.

Vancouver is lovely, but there is no way to duplicate the feeling of that day in my own city. I was being challenged by doing “normal things” but with the added elements of being in a different country, speaking a different language and having to decode different ways of driving and working. The fact that this was indeed a normal day made the day extraordinary. 

Comments or questions welcome! I'd love to hear from you, too!