Italy Cliches, Pre-Arrival

When I think of Italy, I see pizza, spaghetti, the leaning towers and coliseums. I see blocks of fabulous people dressed in Italian leather shoes, guys brushing their fingers through their thick, black hair. I see years of being told what to expect, what I might find--piles upon piles on Italian-ish media and Giadda de Laurentiis-style cooking. I think that I can't wait to eat, that the streets should smell like olive oil and tomato sauce. I envision grape vines and hillsides. I envision accents, heavy with hands.

And speaking of hands, I remember my aunt, sitting me down to watch some terrible reality show in which a woman gets her ass pinched by an Italian man. Why? It was a compliment, she told me. It was because he liked her rump. My aunt swears this happens all the time and that it might happen to me too, though I have informed her many times my ass is less than impressive. Still, I would like to go ahead and throw this into the cliches for the pure hilarity of this situation. 

Expectations, Pre-Arrival

My first time being acquainted with Italy was probably in some angsty, children's book--Bloomability, I think but that probably isn't right, where one of the characters was Italian and would talk about the duality of the word "ciao". It was unrelentingly romantic and I feel like, somehow, that book has embedded itself so deeply into my childhood psyche that my adulthood self expects something romantic out of this visit too. Not necessarily in the emotional, loving sense--despite what everyone at work keeps telling me, I do not plan on getting impregnated in an Italian fling--but something beautiful instead, something, and though I dread to say it, magical. I want to walk into Italy and be inspired. I realize that's a sort of American tourist-y thing for me to expect, like I'm entitled to be wowed upon arrival--but everyone around me sets Italy up to be this fantastic, gorgeous place full of life and love and I can't help but to want a piece of that to take home with me.


I suppose I'm expecting Italy to impress me where my own experiences so far have not. When I try to write, I often feel like my own emotional experiences are rather lackluster and the setting is often irrelevant and absent. I want a setting. With that said, realize my standards have been set up as pretty high for Italy so far. We grow up hearing about this place in books, movies. I can't help the ideas I have about it. I suppose my greatest fascination with Italy derives from my interest in art--Florence, home of the Renaissance. I want to see a Caravaggio so bad I would willingly pinch a baby for it--and I hate hearing children cry; it hurts. So I guess as far as physical expectations go, that's what I aim for--a Caravaggio, in my face, immediately. I want it to confirm my worst fears and I want it to make me feel inadequate.