In New York, I made a pleasant rediscovery of the American smile factor. You smile at people, they sometimes smile back.
You may think that, in contrast, that all of those "sunny" Italians are not big smilers. You'd be right. It's just not done, not the way it is with strangers in the U.S.
So when I saw a newspaper article the other day, I couldn't help but smile.
The head of the tourist office of Codogno, a small town here in Lombardy, has instituted a "smile campaign."
Continue reading "Smiley (Italian) Faces" »
Italy beat Germany. Whooped thier Allemanic behinds 2-0.
This time, instead of nodding off into a Negroni in New York, I watched the game in Milan's Piazza Duomo.
Jumping along with 50,000 azzurri fans and a small clutch of Germans in a crowd that sang for nearly the duration of the game and saw fit to set off fireworks, undisturbed, every now and then.
All together now...
There was no way to enlist anyone to go with me, though. The web of interlocking superstition ("I can't see it in the square. Last time I did, we lost." or "Sorry, I have to see it with my cousin. I didn't and they lost") kept everyone wherever they were the last time the Italians won.
Continue reading "Allleeeeoooo!" »
