Italy--Day Five. Monday August 30

The whole crew (B's parents, her sister R, and us) drove into Agropoli to stock up on groceries. Heinrich maneuvered the car expertly through town, which was crowded with Italian drivers.

Italian drivers: I'd been expecting high-speed insanity, but what I saw instead was a low-speed insanity. They just kind of ignore whatever the rules "are" and judge each situation second by second. But nobody ever gets into a wreck or kills anyone! And they're flexible. If you're trying to back out of a space on the curb, they let you! Try that shit in Vienna and you'll hear the horn.

Scooters whiz by all the time, passing you on the left or the right (and if they could do it, they'd pass you on both sides simultaneously, I'm sure) but somehow it all works.

We got to the supermarket. There, another example of southern Italian non-functionality.

The shopping carts are locked together with chains. To release a cart, you stick a €1 coin into the slot and the chain releases. When you bring the cart back, you plug the chain in and your coin releases. This encourages shopping cart order (and I wish we did this in the US, but you'd probably have to require a $5 deposit because no American will waddle 50 feet out of his way to put a shopping cart where it belongs just to get a measly dollar back.)

We tried several carts before we found one that would actually release the chain when you stuck the coin in. A fat Italian woman helped us with this, kind of shrugging her shoulders and muttering quietly---I could imagine her saying: "It never works the first or second or third time. Sometimes the fourth. Sometimes more. Eh!"

Inside the market, jibber-jabber! I love listening to Italian. If they said: "I'm going to eat a plate of cockroaches and worms," it would sound like a love poem in its cadence and melody, whereas even the most romantic phrase uttered in German sounds like somebody's being scolded.

At the meat / cheese counter, all the old ladies were babbling about that salami or this prosciutto and the workers were moving like crazy trying to keep up with everyone. I wandered over to the pasta section and was astounded to find shapes and sizes and names of pasta I couldn't even imagine----and I've taken mushrooms several times. I'll give you a dollar if you (honestly) know 10% of the names of the pasta presented in the link above. Mind-blowing.

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B and her parents first came to Agropoli when she was 13, which was, uh, back in the day. The parents continued to visit more or less annually, though B kind of found other things to do in the meantime. The parents habitually rented a small cabin during their stay.

And next to that place is the Casa Vienna, run by a woman whose parents were Italian, but who was raised in Vienna. I'm not sure what her nationality is, but she's been living in Agropoli for years, running her small apartment house. Anyhow, she and B's folks are friends, so after the supermarket trip, on our way back to Paestum, we drove by to say hello.

Heinrich parked the car, got out, and shouted up to a open balcony door. Pretty soon the woman stepped out, recognized him, and came downstairs. Then her son Enzo joined us. He lives up north but was down for a visit.

We sat outside and the lady poured us some bottled iced tea. I realized it's been a couple of months since I had iced tea---Europeans just don't drink it for some reason. Enzo speaks perfect Italian and German and pretty good English, and when they found out I'm American they said: "Ah! We have another American staying here."

Michael is a guy about 50 who used to live in Connecticut but moved to Italy in May. He stood there in khaki shorts, shirtless, casual, like a lot of guys I see in Italy. Relaxed with things, unhurried.

"Was it difficult establishing residency?" I asked him.

"No. My mother is Irish and I have dual citizenship so I'm here on my Irish passport," he said.

He moved to Europe because he thinks the US is going down the shitter and he's had it with the place, politically. I wondered if he was a rich guy, but then he mentioned he has to get much better with his Italian so he'll have a better chance of getting a job when he moves to Trieste, which is his goal at the moment. Something about Trieste appeals to him.

Unfortunately, we had to cut our visit short because Heinrich was afraid the groceries would go bad in the hot sun, so I didn't get more details of Michael's story. But I find it interesting a guy that age would make the decision to just leave his home and move to a foreign country.

It's something I've thought of, too, but not necessarily because of my problems with American politics. I have the feeling the entire "civilized" world is about to experience a series of very painful kicks to its figurative nuts, and maybe several bitch-slaps, too. That being the case, I'm not sure it matters much where you live---if it ain't Problems 1 - 1000 in Country A, it'll be Problems 1001 - 2000 in Country B. Same-same. Fasten your seatbelts.