A walk in the past
My tour of Italy has finally brought me to my hometown Napoli. I had not been here in three years now. Not spectacular as leave of absence go but considering that we used to come here two or three times a year, this felt like really long. Something had definitely got lost that needed to be recovered.
This morning I set up early enough to enjoy my favorite activity, going to the hairdresser! I left the apartment where I grew up around 8 AM, and I started walking to my destination following a slightly longer route just to look around a bit.
Walking is of course what you do in downtown Napoli if you want to get anywhere. All around me there was a full buzz of activities of all kind but I was particularly touched by the kids being walked to school by their moms. All polidhed up with their pink or white or blue school overcoats, exactly the same that I used to wear thirty years ago. The same cartoons backpacks full and heavy of books and homework.
Some kids are walking with their moms others are walking with their dads but they all look happy and unaware of the danger of crossing high traffic roads more or less wherever they feel like. Regardless of zebra paths and traffic lights. I give it a try too, for the sake of old times and I see that I have not lost my touch.
It is amazing how little has changed, and yet things have changed. In the bright colored overcoats you can now see kids of all colors too. This is something that I definitely do not remember of my youth. Immigration has heavily hit Italy in the past fifteen years, not long enough for people to get used to it. But children don't mind and they are all the same, they all hate their overcoats as much as I did thirty years ago.
I look around some more and I see that many of the private small shops of my youth are also still there in spite of globalization, media markt and H&M. It makes me feel good!
Yesterday I stepped in one of these small boutiques which I still remembered from my early twenties. The two ladies who own it immediately recognized both me and my mom, they gave a couple of screams at the cuteness of my kids and then the whole familiar shopping experience started. I tried fabulous item after the other and by the time I was done I had bought six dresses eight tops one pair of pants and one pair of sunglasses. All this mixed with many remarkable compliments about my shape after two kids and about the good looks of my husband. When I left I felt happy and incredibly stylish, with one only worry in the whole world: how am I ever going to bring all this stuff back?!?
This walk down memory lane does not only include shopping and socio-cultural observations. It is also about a great culinary experience which does not do anything good to my diet but it simply has to be lived! But the only way to do justice to this topic is to give it its own post.
If you are foodies, stay tuned!
This morning I set up early enough to enjoy my favorite activity, going to the hairdresser! I left the apartment where I grew up around 8 AM, and I started walking to my destination following a slightly longer route just to look around a bit.
Walking is of course what you do in downtown Napoli if you want to get anywhere. All around me there was a full buzz of activities of all kind but I was particularly touched by the kids being walked to school by their moms. All polidhed up with their pink or white or blue school overcoats, exactly the same that I used to wear thirty years ago. The same cartoons backpacks full and heavy of books and homework.
Some kids are walking with their moms others are walking with their dads but they all look happy and unaware of the danger of crossing high traffic roads more or less wherever they feel like. Regardless of zebra paths and traffic lights. I give it a try too, for the sake of old times and I see that I have not lost my touch.
It is amazing how little has changed, and yet things have changed. In the bright colored overcoats you can now see kids of all colors too. This is something that I definitely do not remember of my youth. Immigration has heavily hit Italy in the past fifteen years, not long enough for people to get used to it. But children don't mind and they are all the same, they all hate their overcoats as much as I did thirty years ago.
I look around some more and I see that many of the private small shops of my youth are also still there in spite of globalization, media markt and H&M. It makes me feel good!
Yesterday I stepped in one of these small boutiques which I still remembered from my early twenties. The two ladies who own it immediately recognized both me and my mom, they gave a couple of screams at the cuteness of my kids and then the whole familiar shopping experience started. I tried fabulous item after the other and by the time I was done I had bought six dresses eight tops one pair of pants and one pair of sunglasses. All this mixed with many remarkable compliments about my shape after two kids and about the good looks of my husband. When I left I felt happy and incredibly stylish, with one only worry in the whole world: how am I ever going to bring all this stuff back?!?
This walk down memory lane does not only include shopping and socio-cultural observations. It is also about a great culinary experience which does not do anything good to my diet but it simply has to be lived! But the only way to do justice to this topic is to give it its own post.
If you are foodies, stay tuned!
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