DRIVE YOUR ITALIAN HOSTS CRAZY #3: THE WORLD CUP EDITION

The world's heaviest Ferrero Rocher

Usually, I don't watch soccer. The reason being that 1) I never really cared and 2) I was scarred forever when in 2004 the general manager of my local team, Venezia, was caught by the police with a bag with €250,000 IN CASH received for intentionally losing a match. Venezia was then punished by having to play forever somewhere completely inoffensive like the Baby&Tots Itsy-Bitsy Soccer League for Fun, Fun, Fun. Or something like that.

However, every 4 years my soccer soul awakens and stirs like that of a moulting cicada in DC. I resurrect from my soccer slumber and for a month straight I live and breathe World Cup. This frenzy is shared by all my fellow Italians, of course, which brings me to the third rule of the Drive Your Italian Hosts Crazy series.

Rule #3: When the Italian National Team is playing, praise or just shut up. 

I'm sure you're thinking Rule #3 applies to most countries, and of course you are right. However, the degree with which Italians love their national team is rather unique. In fact, I will state that the national team is the only thing that brings Italians together and makes them feel like a true nation. If this comes as a surprise, please remember that Italy is a relatively young country: We became unified only in 1861, which is 85 years AFTER the birth of the United States. Before that year, Italy was a sorry mess of a geopolitical puzzle of hate-filled mini-states and kingdoms, who only came together as one country because it looked so damned cute on the map.

The result is that today Italians still hate Italians from any other area, region, province, city, town, neighborhood, street, floor, etc. Except... when the Italian National Team is playing. Then we're all together, waving the tricolor flag you will never see us waving at any other occasion. We're finally patriotic, just like you Americans, or, what the heck, even the French!

For an Italian, the national pride is surprising and intoxicating, like discovering your family loves you and will also leave you a fortune in inheritance one day. Now that I think about it, it does really feel like family... A family where Italians are all proud parents of 23 wholesome athletes who can do no wrong... Well, except losing a game, of course. Then united Italy and its flag can go fuck themselves.

Look at our boys, all grown up!

THREE THINGS TO REMEMBER ABOUT ITALIANS WATCHING SOCCER

Superstition

From keeping your fingers crossed to actually praying, from holding tight on your genitals at any mention of possible negative outcome to replicating ad infinitum whatever you were doing when Italy scored, Italians believe (truly) that Lady Luck is looking at each and every one of us to decide if the Italian team is going to win. As an American, you're allowed to roll your eyes, because everybody is looking at the screen anyway. But no sighing, unless Italy scores while you're doing it. Then sigh again, now!

"Tifo Contro" 

Americans, you will despise us for this, but we do rejoice when our adversaries lose, are expelled, and yep, fall. And yes, I know, this is the little, seemingly innocent bud of stadium violence in Europe. (I promise I'll try to keep to a fun, not-too-mean level in front of my children and others'.) Our "countra-cheer" is directed at the team we are playing against and at the French team, our arch-enemies.

No Food: We're Busy

American might prepare immense, decadent food spreads or organize a full BBQ to watch your sports. In Italy we don't really eat during games, except for a bowl of chips and a few cans of beer (cheap, crappy, often room temperature). We try to schedule our meals before or after the game, since for 90 minutes our eyes will be glued to the TV screen. Also, you don't want to be holding a hot bowl of penne when Italy gets close to the box. There's a lot of sudden jumping from the couch when Italy plays. The only recipe that Italians might associate with the National Team is frittata di cipolle, or onion frittata, popularized in a 1976 classic Italian comedy (the recipe will soon be on this blog).

Drive Your Italian Hosts Crazy #2: Demanding Privacy

As promised, here's another look at the unspoken rules that govern Italian life. In this post, I'll discuss privacy, or personal space, which is really the fundamental, inalienable right that makes every American proud to be American. You Americans treasure your privacy, you defend it, you make time for it no matter what. We Italians, well, we don't even have a word for privacy, we instead ended up saying "privacy" in English, just like you (the Italian riservatezza is used for legal privacy or reserve). So here is the second rule:

Rule #2: Italians Stay Together All The Time

When Italians go on vacation or otherwise decide to spend time together, they almost never ask for breaks to enjoy a little solitude. It doesn't matter if they are going to the beach for the afternoon or spending a week in a tiny mountain cabin crammed with 30 other people. They are going to be all together all the time and plan every meal and activity so that everybody is always included. Even on a relaxing beach vacation where there's nothing else to do other than lying down in the sand and getting up to take the occasional swim, Italians just lounge and chat and eat together for the entire length of their stay.

An Italian forced to enjoy solitude in the United States. A risky experiment.

On my first American summer vacation, my husband (back then, my American boyfriend) and I were joined by another couple. One morning, the couple announced they were going surfing, and immediately jumped in their car and came back later in the evening after dinner (theirs, not ours). That night, and for the rest of the vacation, everybody was relaxed and grateful to have had a day to spend according to their own desires. Conversely, in Italy this would have caused heartbreak, then rage, then an epic fight, and then the end of the friendship, followed by eternal sh*t-talking about each other.

Do Italians love being together all the time? I'm not sure, actually. As you can imagine, such proximity has the potential of driving everybody crazy, and that happens often. I suspect the real reason we stick together is that we think it would be rude to behave any differently. It would imply we are ungrateful guests, uncaring hosts, or selfish soon-to-become-ex-friends. It doesn't matter if we then end up hating each other's guts for the rest of our lives. Etiquette has to be maintained at all costs.

So, what should you, American tourist, do when you visit your family or friends in Italy? Of course, you could simply go ahead and be yourself: a happy, well-adjusted American who can enjoy solitude and make independent plans. But really, if you want to keep your hosts happy (host that cook very well, remember?), I would advise you suck it up and let them take possession of all your time, individual needs, and thinking abilities. You're on vacation, after all.

Drive Your Italian Hosts Crazy #1: Disrespecting Mealtimes

The rest of of the world views Italy as a weirdly-shaped peninsula whose inhabitants live without the least concern for rules, responsibility, or noise levels. As an Italian, I must admit that is exactly how we see ourselves, and proudly, too.

Do you want to know the truth, though? Everybody is wrong. Italian behavior is actually regulated by a myriad of rules concerning each and every aspect of life. The words we say when we enter or leave a store, the body language we use on a crowded bus, the formalities in making a phone call before dinnertime, the good wishes we express to a friend: All need to follow specific and accepted ways, and any variation will most certainly cause an anxiety attack. The only reason we still consider ourselves adorable anarchists is that all of these rules are unspoken, and we discover their depth only when we live abroad for more than two years (FACT).

In this series, I'll go through some of these unspoken rules so that you, my American friends, can learn to understand our panic and, if you care, prevent it.

Rule #1: Italians eat only at mealtimes. 

This seems normal enough, but what I really mean is that Italians do not deal well with the idea of a lunch or dinner that does not happen at designated times. Here are sample mealtimes for Northern Italians*:

TIME	ITALIAN MEAL
7—8am	Breakfast
12—1:30pm	Lunch
4pm	Snack (only for kids, really)
7—9pm	Dinner

What happens when an American comes to visit, though? Well, let me tell you about my personal experience with yet another handy table:

TIME	ITALIAN MEAL	AMERICAN GUEST	ITALIAN HOST
7—8am	Breakfast	Drinks an espresso.	Drinks an espresso, eats a small breakfast.
10am	(Not a mealtime)	Asks for a second espresso and a ham sandwich.	Drinks espresso, orders small sandwich, fears lunch appetite is ruined.
12—1:30pm	Lunch	Refuses lunch, prefers sightseeing.	Represses hunger pains, dreams about pasta.
4pm	Snack	Asks for a snack, preferably savory and local. Or, massive gelato.	Eats small gelato, fears dinner appetite is ruined.
7—9pm	Dinner	Takes shower.	Feels moderate hunger pains, wonders when dinner might be.
9:30pm	(Not a mealtime)	Demands a pizza and has plans for wine, appetizers, and dessert, too.	Eats a Margherita, pleads with waiter to delay mopping the floor with bleach until drunken guest is done with frozen tiramisu.

As you can see, the natural Italian sense of hospitality allows our American guests to have his or her own dream vacation—which is actually a total mirage—while the Italian host's metabolism and emotional wellbeing become severely compromised. It's a failure on all fronts.

So, my suggestion is: Let your hosts be the guide of your meals and do not trust them when they politely ask what you would like to eat. You don't know what you want. They do.

*Geography affects mealtimes considerably. In the Austrian Alps, it is common for restaurant kitchens to close at 8:30pm ON A WEEKEND, whereas in happy Sicily dinner may not happen before 10pm. I'm from Venice, so I'll write about what I know.