When an American has a birthday, they will probably get a happy birthday card or email from their bank.
Love and kisses from,
a ginormous financial institution.
If you are Italian, and you find yourself inclined to conclude that, after all, Americans are just people like you, and we're all really the same when you come right down to it, remember this fact:
When an American has a birthday, they will probably get a happy birthday card or email from their bank. Love and kisses from, a ginormous financial institution.
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In case you are ever inclined to think that Italians are, after all, just people like us, bear in mind that every Italian, whether they experienced it regularly or just once in their life, knows what it feels like to sleep in sheets that are not only clean, but IRONED.
Like planets orbiting in space, there are times of year when Americans and Italians come closer to one another, and times of year when they are farther apart.
In winter the distance is at the maximum. The Italian in Winter bears little to no resemblance to an American at any time of year. What the Italian in Winter does resemble is a nineteenth-century British convalescent from a Henry James novel. You thought you would only read such things in books, and instead you hear them coming out of the mouth of an otherwise cooler-than-you twenty-six-year-old. "I'm going to the seaside," he says, "to take the air. I caught a chill from going around last week with inadequate socks." Yes, in winter, the Italian must wear adequate socks. And a shirt, undershirt, sweater, and scarf. If not, he might catch a chill, obliging him to go and take the air by the seaside or the lakes, palm-tree-lined microclimates smiled upon by the gods and protected from the north winds by the friendly Alps (we won't mention what the gods did to Western New York). Once there, the IiW strolls the beach in his socks and shoes, orders coffee and focaccia at the bar, and sleeps in a cheap and immaculate residence, democratically priced so that no one is excluded from the medicinal benefits of sea air. Nota bene: when it comes to skiing, absolutely none of this applies. You can take all the hits of air in the world with no risk of sinusitis pneumonia as long as you are wearing skis. More magic from... #theitalianinwinter Italians are not like us. They think in ways we do not think and say things we do not say.
For example, my husband and I had a conversation recently in which he concluded, with feeling: "Those two: they were born to be together!" He was talking about grana cheese and prosciutto. Once again I give you pilfered genius. Note: It's not whether they like them or not, it's WHAT THEY SAY. And just think: I get to hear comments like this on a daily basis. If only I had known that nearly all of our most entertaining domestic scenes could have been had through Buzzfeed... Italians will never, ever understand American race category names. In a million years, this will still be an area of WTF. |
AuthorI'm an American living in Italy and making gross generalizations about it. Categories
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