Re-envisioning Italia

For a long time, I had no interest in traveling to Italy. I grew up in an Italian-American family, with parents and grandparents from Italian neighborhoods in Brooklyn, NY. This video is at once caricature and realistic depiction of the Italian-American childhood that I know: Kelly Ripa and Bensonhurst. (By the way: Kelly Ripa is Italian. Who knew?)

I'm used to loud people, "insults" that no one means as insults but think are hilarious, and childhoods filled with women doing the cooking and cleaning while men sit around smoking, drinking wine, and being loud (to his credit, my dad did eventually take up gourmet cooking and would make wonderful meals, though he never did embrace the clean-up, always leaving a massive mess for the rest of us to clean up).

I'm always used to "Italian" food, which is full of heavy tomato sauces, meatballs soaked in sauce, sausages soaked in sauce, leftover hardshell blue crabs in the sauce...you get the picture.

I hate tomato sauce. I always have, as far back as I can remember. The smell is nauseating. I like pizza well enough, I can tolerate chopped tomatoes in guacamole, but those heavy pasta sauces? Gross. Seriously.

So, Italy has never really appealed to me. Even more of the hyper-masculine, patriarchal, loud culture that I found so alienating as a kid, coupled with food that I find disgusting? Please, no.

Then, my friend C decided she was going to spend a month in Florence. She has a job that allows her to do that. I couldn't take a full month, but I was able to take two weeks, so I saved up the leave and planned to join her, because what the hell. Italy wouldn't have been my first choice as a vacation spot, but I won't turn down an opportunity for international travel, particularly with a friend with whom I travel so well.

The view from my new home. 

Five days ago (or was it four? Jet lag is a bitch.), I got on a plane in Boston, she got on a plane in DC, and six hours later, we met in Paris. I was ridiculously excited about this. We went to Paris last year, and I love that city. Even little touches on the Air France flights were exciting. Airplane food is better when the French do it. Flight attendants are more handsome when the French are involved (seriously, there were handsome French speaking men on both flights and I could get used to that). One of our flight attendants cracked us up when he was baffled by the phenomenon of Americans wanting ice in their drinks. He knows that when a plane is filled with Americans, he needs to load up as much ice as he can on his drink cart, and he'll still run out before he's even halfway through the rows, which is exactly what happened. He was not critical of this at all; simply smiling and baffled. C's American seatmate won major points when he then turned to the flight attendant and, totally deadpan, asked for two cups of ice. But I digress...

I've been in Italy for three days now (or is it four?). This country is nothing like my childhood. The people I've met have been friendly and warm. The service industry appears dominated by (handsome, lovely) men who couldn't be nicer. No one has given us a hard time about Trump.

The view while sitting in front of Pitti Palace.

Yesterday, we ventured into a shoe store (Calzature Frencesco Da Firenze) which is really more cobbler workshop than retail store. It's run by a (lovely, polite) man who makes the shoes by hand in the back. I fell in love with some high leather boots which fit perfectly in the foot but not up around my calves. I couldn't zip them. I tried a different style. I couldn't zip them, either. Our new best friend immediately said he would stretch them out for a few days, and to come back. No discussion of cost or obligation to buy. They'll work for me or they won't; I'll buy them or I won't. He's simply trying to make it work because this is his craft. This, my friends, is how you buy shoes.

As for the food, well, so far that has been nothing like my childhood, either. No disrespect to my parents' cooking, but if we had food like this when I was growing up, I would love Italian food. I haven't seen a single thick, heavy tomato sauce yet. The tomato sauces I have seen have been light and simple. In fact, all of the food has been straightforward, made from simple, fresh ingredients, and has been full of flavor, typically accompanied by very good, very inexpensive wine.

I could get used to this.