Piano, Piano

Its often said that Rome’s a great place to visit, but a frustrating place to live.  I agree.  We just have to remember that we’re not in America anymore.  To people reading this, you may be saying “duh...”.  But really, it’s harder than you think.  We’re surrounded with such beauty, art, food, wine, history, that you assume everything’s perfect.  You walk around awestruck and in a daze, head in the clouds, - until a motorino almost hits your stroller as you’re walking on the sidewalk.  The nerve of you to walk on the sidewalk and enjoy the local architecture...  Don’t you realize that it’s the motorino’s lane when he wants to get around the heavy traffic in the street to save five seconds...

Italians are proud of their history and heritage.  As such, they’ve been slow to incorporate many of the standards of living us Americans take for granted.  An example is air conditioning.  Roman apartments don’t have central HVAC units.  They think air conditioning is bad for the lungs (but smoking is ok).  Luckily, the American Embassy disagrees and installed two localized units in our apartment - one in our living room and one in our bedroom.  

Also, because they are so proud of their heritage, many of them don’t speak another language.  Once you get out of the tourist part of town it’s difficult to find anyone who speaks English.  The language barrier is often the most frustrating part of living in Italy.  I don’t find this as frustrating as some of my coworkers do, because I keep in mind two things:  first: whenever I’m trying to get my point across I turn it into a game and talk like an american-italian and wave my hands all around and speak with an accent.  it’s fun.  second: i remember I’m a guest in their country, and that most americans (including myself), don’t speak a second language fluently.  I am brushing up on my ‘restaurant italian’ - just enough to order good food.

The big challenge is getting ‘set up’.  It’s been over two weeks, and we still don’t have internet at our house.  Italians are very patient people - Americans are not.  This is the culture clash.  The other day someone from the internet company called to set up an appointment.  The problem is we didn't speak enough italian, and the woman on the phone didn't speak any English.  She got frustrated and hung up on us.  So... I've heard from others in the office this happens regularly.  They say we'll eventually get someone on the phone with enough english skill to get through the conversation and set up a technician appointment.  We have friends that speak italian.  The problem is we can't call the company to set up the appointment.  The company randomly calls us at times inconvenient and when there are no italian speakers around.  If we miss their call, they may not call back for weeks.  We're not surprised by this, as it's the average level of Italian customer service.

Getting set up is an iterative up-hill process.  The italians have a phrase for this they use often: ‘piano, piano’, which loosely translated means ‘one step at a time’.