Scooters and Trumpets?

Since slipping into the chair behind the desk, quietly typing notes and listening to the lecturer became part of my everyday life again, my life seems to have made a full circle. What I did become aware of yesterday, was that I was forgetting to appreciate my surroundings, I was getting lost in the haze of study that was starting to envelop me.

It wasn’t until yesterday, when I was walking down the cobble stone streets, pizza in hand (which I have to say was a special treat for my lunch that day), that Hope and I heard the sound of a trumpet. Over whelmed with the beautiful melody, we thought that someone must be practising in one of the apartments above the street. As we approached the school, we found where the sound was coming from; we spotted a man walking absentmindedly up the street, at this point unusually there were no cars hurtling passed, dressed in normal attire, and with a timeworn hat placed on his head. The melody he was playing had no particular rhythm or order, but the acoustics bouncing off the buildings was anything to make your heart melt and realise (with pizza in hand) that you are actually in Italy. What made it even more cliché, was while we were watching him, a woman came to her window and waved her white handkerchief to the man.

A few times, I’ve seen something and thought “That is so Italian! I have to write it down”, but in truth we’re surrounded by this wonderful culture and as days go by, we’re getting more used to it. What makes me laugh the most, are the people on their scooters. Many times I’ve seen people driving a scooter, with a cigarette pursed between their lips, or even better I saw one with a cigar! Often you catch them coming home from the supermarket with their weekly shopping balancing between their legs. Or even better, I saw a man driving a scooter with a newly purchased curtain pole towering over him! It’s fantastic.

Often we’re found at a café just up the hill from our school, here we’re becoming locals. Stopping two or three times a day, most of the time for coffee or simply for a change of scenery. Sometimes, we’re lucky that not just the barman recognises us, but even the local batty old woman comes over to say ‘Salve’! On our walk to the café, it has been known to nearly get mowed over by mosquito sounding scooters or 50cc bikes driving like they’re racing down the hill. One particular day as we were walking back from our coffee break, I overheard a woman talking to a dog saying over and over again “Patatona! Patatona!”, which in English means big potato. Simple things!

It’s not hard to discover beauty, but having only been walking the same street for the past two weeks, it has become rather like automatic pilot mode.