“Ho bisogno usare una telefono… mi sono perso – ah… sono persa?” The gelato girl looked at me like I had thrown up on the floor of her shop. In a way I had; my jumbled, poorly pronounced word vomit was probably akin to nails on a chalkboard for her but I really didn’t care. I was lost and I needed a phone.
After a brief and confusing few sentences something in my terrified expression finally resonated with her and she thrust her phone into my hand. “Hurry. I get in trouble,” she barked.
Ignoring the sting of embarrassment I dialed my professor’s number with shaking hands. It wasn’t ringing. I tried dialing again pretending not to hear gelato girl’s exasperated sighs as I fumbled with the foreign device. Nothing.
I looked to her for help and she snatched the phone from me and said, “Just let me.” I held out the scrap of paper with my professor’s number on it and waited for a hole in the ground to open up and save me from the soul-crushing humiliation of being myself.
We got a hold of my professor and she assured me she would meet me momentarily in the piazza. As I handed the phone to gelato girl and thanked her profusely for her help she said, “You want a gelato, no?” and looked at me so purposefully I just nodded, “yes,” and handed over my two euros.
I now refer to that first gelato in Italy as “the gelato of shame.” I didn’t eat it. I couldn’t. However, since that first day I have learned a valuable lesson about Italy’s lifestyle. By the time my teacher met up with me in the piazza I was on the verge of tears, but she was just happy to see me.
She called a cab for me, got me home to my host mom — who fed me four courses of the most incredible food I’ve ever tasted — and the next day I didn’t even get lost once on the way to school.
Everything worked out just fine. So fine, in fact, that when I took the wrong bus on the way home after a night out just a week later, I wasn’t even worried. I knew everything was going to be fine.
If I didn’t find my way home at 2 a.m., I would just walk around until the sun came up and I’d take the first bus to my apartment. No problem. And, as luck or life or whatever would have it, two police officers drove by and asked if everything was okay before taking me right to my doorstep.
While some aspects of this culture would never succeed back in the States (I’m fairly certain I’ll never get school to start half an hour later on Mondays and stores to close for naps midday, but that doesn’t mean I’m not willing to try) there is one part of their attitude that I hope to take home with me: everything works out in the end.
More so here than in any other culture I’ve ever experienced, people are so assured that life will proceed how it’s meant to. It’s not that Italians don’t care; it’s just that they worry less. They understand that worrying doesn’t help anyone in the situation and at the end of the day, being 30 minutes late isn’t worth the emotional exertion of caring about that.
This weekend, everyone in my program decided to go to Rome and Venice for the long holiday. I stayed behind to try to enjoy my city and planned to go to the beach on Sunday, but after some terrible planning and a failed reservation, I experienced a serious case of FOMO (fear of missing out) and felt like I was just going to spend the holiday weekend bored out of my mind.
But after half an hour with my Italian professor, I suddenly had a reservation in a lake town at a bed and breakfast that was two miles away from a beach I’d never heard of. She sent me off to the train station waving and smiling: “Take pictures for me!”
Life can change at a moment’s notice and Italy has taught me that’s okay. Rolling with the punches and stresses that inevitably accompany daily life is necessary to overall happiness. While it may seem easier for me to say these things with a beach down the road calling my name, I can assure you that no matter where you are, no matter your circumstances, everything will work out just fine.
@katherinekellis