I've been back in Italy now for almost 2 weeks and in that time I've only left the house a handful of times. It always takes me time to wrap my head around being back here. To re-adjust my expectations. Everyone always says how envious they are of me because I live in such a beautiful part of the world. This is a beautiful place but keep in mind that nowhere is without it's challenges. And believe me, Italy is an incredibly challenging place to live.
As tourists, you come here for a week or two, take in the culture, eat amazing food and drink fabulous wine. Then you go back home. Any inconvenience you may have encountered in that time you just attribute to your travel experience and laugh it off. But what if those experiences were a continual part of your daily life? Not so funny now.
A couple of my trips outside the safety of my home were to the grocery store. I've been very spoiled in the last year living back in Vancouver as I live above one of the best supermarkets in the city. I got very used to just grabbing my canvas shopping bag (because I'm good like that...and I get extra Save-On points), heading down the elevator and walking 500 ft to the grocery store. I would just buy what I needed for that particular day. No need to shop for the entire week. Here, a little more planning is required as I don't want to drive to the grocery store every single day.
So on my very first trip out of the house I headed to the grocery store. Now there are things I like about the grocery store here and things that drive me absolutely mental. Let's start with the thing I like. The grocery store chain I go to has a hand held bar-code scanner that you pick up at the entrance and it sits in a handy holder on the shopping cart. In Vancouver we have cup holders on our shopping carts as god forbid you go anywhere without a cup of coffee. The bar-code scanner allows you to instantly scan your purchases so you breeze through the checkout. I love this feature except for the 1 time out of 10 when you have to unload everything just to check that you're not scamming the system. The other thing I like.......ok, there isn't any but at least there's one.
Now as for what drives me mental. In every single supermarket here you have only one point of entry. Imagine going to Safeway and being forced to enter at one door. No big deal you say. Well, you're wrong. The problem with this is that you have everyone concentrated in one area of the supermarket. If you have one annoying shopper you're stuck with them until the store opens up enough for you to lose them. And in my case, if they haven't showered in a while, you're stuck with that stink bomb while picking out your produce. (because the produce department is always the first area you go through). This happened to me both times I ventured to the supermarket in the last 2 weeks. Which brings about the question, was there a memo about not washing due to some environmental crap? Like, let's not wash for a few days so we can save water and stop polluting with soap. One lady was particularly ripe. And, as luck would have it, she was shadowing me in the produce section. At one point, I had to reach across her to grab my lettuce. By now I was so disgusted that I pinched my nose with one hand, grabbed the lettuce with the other and muttered 'stinky stinky'. Whether she heard me or not I don't know because I saw an opening and got as far away from her as possible.
Now that was my second unpleasant encounter of that particular shopping trip. Italians are not a tactful people. More often than not when I venture out I'm stared at like some alien being. Why? Because I'm tall. But I'm really not all that tall but here they look at me like I'm a giant. Perhaps it's because I don't slouch and I carry myself with purpose. Or maybe because I take the time to put on make-up and make myself presentable. Who knows. What I do know is some days I'm really not in the mood for it and that day was one of them. Just as I was entering through that one gated section of the supermarket, some man stops and just stares at me. I think his mouth gaped open a bit too. Real subtle. Not being in the mood for this nonsense, I asked him if he'd gotten a good look. He turned away rather quickly. This isn't the first such supermarket encounter of that nature that I've had. I actually had one man follow me around the supermarket, stand in front of me various times and just stare, 3 times to be precise.
How I miss the anonimity of Vancouver. I love being able to go about my business without being scrutinized. This just isn't possible here. It's a small town and I stand out. So, that's why it takes me time before I'm comfortable venturing out again. In the meantime, I'll hang out at home with my cat watching tv. Much less stressful.
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