Italian Living: Lessons Learned in the first 3 months

Before we left the States for our great Italian adventure, I had a lot of perceptions about Italy, having never lived here before.  After three months, I have come to understand some of the Italian customs a BIT better than I did before.  Here are a few lessons that I've learned for other inquiring minds!

1. Italians are crazy drivers.   Italians are crazy but Neopolitans are WAY crazier!  There are two situations in which I am normally terrified when driving around town. 

1. The traffic circle leaving my office.  It's the entrance to the airport and the exit of everyone who works for the US.  The general rule when entering the circle (and this is just my understanding of the rule) is that you sneak your nose in and then when someone else is trying to get in, drive with wreckless abandon, don't make eye contact and don't even think of touching the break.  This defies every instinct that I have about driving in traffic circles, especially considering that I took a week long seminar in design traffic circles before I came out here.  [Insert jealously over the level of awesome of my coursework here] 
2. Turning onto my street.  Two weeks ago, our street was completely empty.  I drove with the leisurely joy of being back in the States in a normal, cobblestone street.  I looked at the boats, the relative smog and my ability to see Capri and sang along to my 1997 Dance Party mix with joy.  Oh what a difference two weeks make!  Now cars line both side of the street, all of those on the left, illegally.  But it's also a two way street.  So, we are now up to 4 lanes of traffic in what would typically be one way with parking on one side in the US.  I just keep hoping to not take off someone's side view mirror!!

2. Always carry travel sized Kleenex tissues - I was told this early on, with the note that Italian bathrooms rarely have toilet paper and pushed it aside as mere guidance.  Oh Lynne, that was foolish.  Street vendors sell them for 1 Euro in super touristy places, though the guys that stand in the street to wash your windshield will give you a wash AND tissues for less than a Euro.  Bargain!  The same theory applies to hand sanitizer...

3. Window Washers - At busy stoplights, there are window washers that will race up to your car, plop a psuedo-clean squeegy on your windshield and start washing.  It's not dissimilar from TJ, if you've crossed the border in the last 15 years.  I've heard that you can give them somewhere between 30-50 centi (the Euro change) for this service OR to avoid it, you turn on your windshield wipers when they are approaching.  If you turn them on WHILE they are actively plopping the squeegy on your windshield, they get pretty pissed!   

 4. Italians clothing is... different.  I haven't been overly impressed by the styling habits of most of the Italians I've seen on our street.  Granted, I see some people and think "Wow, they look really nice."  But, I have noticed a lot of:  monochromatic styling (purple shirt?  Purple pants go perfectly!!!), strange combinations (lilac shirt?  red pants go perfectly!!), muffin tops (oh the humanity!!  muffin tops everywhere!), affinity for spandex leggings, affinity for those clear plastic bra straps that were really popular in like 1996 and of course, things being about 2 sizes too small.

5. PDA - it's not just the old term for SmartPhone.  Public displays of affection among angsty teenagers in the US always annoyed me.  Really?  You had to make out here?  But Italian PDA puts American PDA to SHAME!  SHAME, I say!  The level of making out is so advanced, so unabashed, so unapologetic that I often want to break the make-out session up to provide both parties with a piece of gum and some Blistex.  "You'll thank me later."  Or provide them with a helpful lecture about the time I got mono after making out on a band field trip when I was 16.  I'm a cautionary tale, really... 

6. Italian Phrases that I didn't know but now love and use frequently:

• Mamma Mia! - It's amazing.  I use it SO often!  Something tastes good?  "Mamma mia..."  Something's not going your way?  "Mamma mia...."
• "Basta!"  - This means "that's enough" and like "prego" can be used in multiple situations.  Ordering food, when you're done ordering = basta.  Getting food heaped onto your plate, when you're done = basta.  When the waiter tries to bring you MORE food, "No, no, no... basta!!" [pats belly to show fullness].  And my favorite: A baby crying on the train, the dad looked at him and yelled "BASTA!"  I wanted to start crying for the child, though I've tried this technique on my cats to see if it's more effective than saying "stop it!"
• Buona Sera or just "sera" - This means good evening and covers pretty much any greeting from 4 pm until you leave at night.  I love it!  I say it to random old people on my street, hoping that they will think I'm adorable and make me food.  Still keeping my fingers crossed that this plan will pan out, but for now, I'm hopeful.
• Not so much a phrase, but if you take your index finger and kind of wiggle it into where a dimple would be on your cheek, this means "It's SO delicious!"  When words fail and delicious has overcome my ability to speak, or my mouth is so full of said delicious food, or if the mere memory of something delicious comes to mind, this comes in incredibly handy. 
• "Aspetta" - Silvana in my office ALWAYS says this!  She's adorable and laughs at me all the time and is just super sweet.  But when people start talking too fast or bug her, she'll just say "aspetta!" 
• I don't use this, but it's been very helpful: "sciopero."  It means: strike.  I hear this word on the radio ALL the time to let people know who's striking and when.  The strikes are very well organized and pretty well publicized, if you can understand more than zero Italiano.  Mostly it's gas stations, buses or the maintenance people who started a picket line that wouldn't allow vehicles into the base for a few days.  That was fun...
• "Allora" - this is one of those filler words and means anything from "so..." to "well" to "ok"  My Italian TA in college used to sigh and say "allora" whenever he was ready to change the subject and I find that it's probably because he spent any serious amount of time here that he learned it.

7. The Camorra is no joke.  People warned me that the mob is pretty prevalent in Naples and I laughed it off thinking "Yeah and the Godfather was based on truth."  But, being married to a guy from Jersey, my southern naivety seems to shield me from the fact that there is very much a mob above the Mason-Dixon line and that the Italian mafia is pretty legit.  They control the trash which is the biggest reason why Naples has trash everywhere!   While it isn't quite as bad right now as this picture would lead one to believe, there is a lot of trash on the side of just about every road, with the exception of our neighborhood, which is apparently rich enough to have the trash taken out regularly.  I think we've had the only empty trash can in a few mile radius...  Or maybe we live in the mob town.  I'm not really sure, but I do like that my trash goes away on regular intervals.

8. Surefire signs that you're American: You're wearing running shoes.  You're wearing un-decorated flip flops.  You think Ashlee Simpson is a style icon. Hats, fringe, Pat Benatar inspired shirts, pockets hanging out the bottom of jorts.  All of these are no-go's.  You look foolish.  This may be my general feelings about apparel, but it's doubly true in Italy! 

9. Italian water makes my hair feel like straw.  That's just a fact.  I don't know why.  In multiple parts of Italy the water has not improved my hair situation.

10.  Buying a device with a European outlet does not insure that it will fit in a European plug.  My hair dryer is the prime example, it has the two weird plugs but I have to plug it into an adapter to have it fit into the wall.  Our refigerator, microwave, and my cell phone charger all have adapters to fit into the correct plugs.  And they are all EU specs!  It's weird.  I think there may be a side-post that discusses the importance of reading power maximums on every electrical component, but that's for another time...

11.  There may not be room for dessert, but there is ALWAYS room for limoncello!  I remember having limoncello back in the US and actively thinking "why would you drink that after a meal??"  We even went out with a group of Americans who had not been here long and they took their limoncello as a shot and then did the "ooooo it burns face" that you do did after taking a shot of Aristocrat in college.  Limoncello is so delicious and sweet, though, that it's MUCH better to just sip it while it's still cold.  Even as it warms up.  Just sip it, silly!  This is one instances where "basta" should only be used sparingly. 

12.  Everyone is best friends with or is related to someone with one or more of the following:  Gianni, Gino, Ciro, Guiseppe, Mario, Maria and Lucca.