Notes from the Cheap Seats

Flying with Italians – The Italians are an emotional breed of people. They also happen to be very superstitious. One of those wonderful moments where you get to see their emotions at their finest is when you fly with them. The slightest bit of airline turbulence will most certainly generate a few moans, signs of the cross and a “Mama Mia”! Nothing is better however than the moment the wheels touch the runway upon landing. When a plane ends its flight, the entire plane erupts into an applause normally reserved for the encore at an Andrea Bocelli Concert! Its as if the entire plane is genuinely surprised that there has been a safe landing! If nothing else, certainly thankful…

A Dieing Society – I have mentioned in the past that its tough to be an Italian. The cost of living, especially here in Florence is suffocating and doesn’t seem to be getting much better. This affects all parts of life and perhaps the most important one to a society, that of reproduction. Italians simply cant afford to have children it seems.

We know many married couples who have no children and have told us that its simply too difficult. I actually only know of two Italian families that have more than one child. Believe me, it’s not because they don’t want to have children either! It’s simply a matter of economics. The result is a society that is factually shrinking in size, as there are more Italian deaths each year than births.

The size of the population is not shrinking as a whole as there are many more immigrants arriving in Italy to fill the gaps. Many people think that Italy will become a land of immigrants in the next few decades, with the Italian people taking a back seat to showing off their culture.

We are already seeing this in restaurants and hotels, where a great many of the chef’s and working staff are from foreign lands. Kind of sad when you think about it, an Italy where Italians are the minority.

Parking "Italian Style" – The only way to describe the parking situation in Florence, is that of total chaos with absolutely no regard for parking laws. The combination of ridiculously limited parking and Italians penchant for working the system (Referred to as “Being Clever”) makes for some of the more creative parking that you have ever seen! People park on sidewalks, in center dividers, on blind curves, in the middle of cross walks, you name it!

“The Game” is to park illegally and not receive a “Multa” (Ticket). As they say, when it Rome, do as the Romans! Within a few weeks of being here, parking on the sidewalk became normal for me. Up until mid March, we had managed to avoid the infamous “multa” handed out by the local police authorities, then Nicola Albini came to town!

Nicola is our good friend from Santa Monica, who was born and raised in the Florence area and whose family is solely responsible for about half the happiness that this year has brought us (His mom found us the castle, introduced us to Alex and has provided us with numerous other bits of advice).

One night, Anna, Felicia, Nic and I went to dinner in the city center and as usual were having one hell of a tough time finding a parking spot. “Park here in the middle of Piazza Santo Spirito. It’ll be fine.”

Three hours later we walked up to the car and not only did we have our first parking ticket, but we had a boot on the back tires! “Shit, shit, shit” I wanted to make it through the entire year without being caught! Its like a big game and I just lost.

The good thing is that we had Nic there to negotiate getting the boot off so we could get home quickly. Total damage….86.00 euro