snapshot of yesterday

I met a Brazilian friend for wine yesterday before we headed to the Festa Europea della Musica. It was a musical festival that had 15 stages set up all around Siena’s medieval center. We made it to 5 of them. It was fantastic!

The evening was warm, there were swarms of cheerful music loving people, the music was superb and diverse–opera, traditional Italian music, Brazilian and American jazz, and hip-hop blasting during an organized game of street basketball even!

The picture above is a nice little snapshot of life in Italy: International friends, good cheap wine, cell phones exhausted from too much use, bottled water, an ashtray, the bistro table, and slate roads.

The bar where we met serves wine for only €1 a glass. I’m in Tuscany afterall* so even the cheap wine tastes just fine to my rather ill-refined palate.

For the price of a glass of wine, you can also buy bottled water. The price of bottle water is much less here than in the States. At the supermarket, I can buy six 1.5 liters of water for €1.60. Europeans, and Italians in particular, have a contagious fear of tap water. However, I’ve since returned to drinking from the tap after reading this book review in the Times. The price of water is low here, but the environmental impact of the plastic that holds it is large.

Since the smoking ban for bars and restaurants took effect just a couple of years ago in Europe, people smoke with a certain proud defiance out in public places and in doorways. Their rebelliousness reeks more aromatically than their asthma-triggering cigarette smoke. There is something about a clinging to How Things Were that Italians do admirably well, even if the tradition they are clinging to is cancerous and stinky.

—-

* As I feistily wrote in my last post in my personal blog, “if inasmuch, whatnot, aforementioned, whencesoever, thereafter, and nevertheless are legit words, then I hereby proclaim “afterall” a real word, too. From thenceforth it is now such!”

—–

I’m sitting outside of my neighborhood bar (Italians call cafés “bars”, so don’t think that I’m a drunk!) and no fewer than 10 people from the neighborhood (3 senior men, 2 senior women, 2 mid-aged men, and a man and 2 women in their 30’s, like me) have joined me. They’ve arrived one-by-one and some in pairs. They are sitting loosely to 2 other tables, and I am well attached to another via my computer. I look up every now and then and a nod or smile is exchanged. After 3 months of “Buongiorno!”, “Ciao!”, “Buonasera!” and “What did you call me?” I think I’m finally accepted as a member of their community. I couldn’t be happier.

~ Janelle Renée

Share|