Here Be Dragons.

Any time I see anything on t'internet about and/ or for expats living in Italy, I always click on the link and join straight away, whatever it is. I therefore get spammed on a regular basis by expat journals a 6th former would get ridiculed for and have yet to find something that really reflects my experience of living here. Maybe I am just too old and cynical, however my take on it is that actually I have travelled alot more than many people and crucially, have actually lived in alot more countries than many people, so feel more qualified to comment than most. I heard a quote the other day from Somerset Maugham, 'One never knows one's own country until one has lived in at least two others', which I feel is entirely true. Studying Antropology at University, one of the very few things that got through my fuddled, addled, above all, young and inexperienced, brain was that you should never look at things through your own cultural spectacles. You must always try to see things through a local's perspective.

I try to bear this in mind living here but I find that all the things that drive me potty also drive our friends here potty too which is somewhat reassuring. Some of them. Well, a couple of them. But at least I am not alone. At least my other half agrees with me. For instance, we met a very good friend of ours today with his son and daughter at the tennis club. We had arranged to go to see some other friends and to let our kids play together, it being lovely weather. Turns out that the lovely weather was the problem. It was too hot. The children would SWEAT, for the love of GOD what were we thinking??? Our friend started low and then carried on complaining until it got to the point where he just couldn't cope with it any more, scooped his daughter up and took her to the car. Got her settled, then came back to fetch his son, who was by now very dirty and sweaty. Which meant that he was wide open to 'get sick'. I tried - not subtly at all because I was incredulous by this point - to inquire what form of illness sweating during a hot day playing with little friends could take, but he was incable of coming up with anything other than, 'well, he'll get sweaty and... well, we're off, you always choose rubbish places for the kids to play'. The latter comment was because the last time we arranged to meet up was at the Piazza del Duomo when there was a 'do' on. There were too many people and too much noise on this occasion. And a couple of gypsies and have you heard that a child was found in a supermarket toilet with its' hair cut after being stolen by a gypo so it wouldn't be recognised? Actually, I've heard the same story repeated as truth in the UK, Spain and now Italy. I keep meaning to check out Snopes but have yet to get round to it.

The point is that this is one of the many great bloody irritations of living here. Your choices and actions are always commented on and an opinion is freely expressed whether it's wanted or not. And generally the opinions are negative ones. For every, 'what gorgeous little boys you have,' you can bet there will be at least two, 'you're sending them outside in THAT?? But they'll catch their death/ get too hot/ develop a severe speech impediment if they go outside like that!!'. We were dicussing this with friends, all Italian and local, yesterday and they were also coming up with 'advice' they'd been given, or heard from other parents to their kids. They ranged from the classic, 'now go and play but don't sweat'!, to the surreal, 'Mario! Mario! Shout quietly!!!!!'.

This along with the incessant traffic, ubiquitous smoking, triple-price everything seems to be my experience alone because every other expat I read appears to be meeting charming, cultured, interesting locals. We clearly got landed with the crappy end of the stick because frankly, our part of Italy sucks and I feel that finally I am able to speak my mind without fear of someone accusing me of not having given it a chance. I have given it a chance and now I've had enough, thanks! We are all - including my Italian, local born and bred other half - longing to get away from here and be able to breathe more freely again. Everything we do is noticed and commented on. And not in a good way. All these bloody glossy, glowing views of Italy just aren't true - in my experience. Yes, the food is great, but the people are generally opinionated and in Rome and around Rome at least, just plain rude. I suppose if they were Yorkshiremen, they would say they 'speak as they find', but we are not in Yorkshire, Toto, and I have had a bellyful today. Can you tell? I think I am hiding it quite well...