They say heaven is where the cars are German, the lovers French, the Police English, the cooks Italian, and all organised by the Swiss. And they say hell is where the police are German, the lovers Swiss, the cooks English, the mechanics French and all organised by the Italians! Given the recent events I have witnessed here in Italy I could not agree with this statement more!
As Verity, Carla, Sam and I all ventured into Castellina, expecting a leisurely afternoon in our local town, watching Harvey and his school music class perform their orchestra for the year, we were all hoping with bated breathe that the Italians would pull it off this time….
Harvey and his class mates had been practicing for months, learning their musical notes at a painstakingly slow rate. Although we were quite horrified to hear that Harvey had only learnt three notes by the end of the semester and even more troubled by the idea that we would be turning up to a concert where the children only had three notes in their repertoire to play with!
And in true Italian fashion, just as we all had hoped wouldn’t happen, the Italians made a complete shambles of the whole affair! Not that the Italians seem to mind or even notice of course! But as Verity, Carla, Sam and I waited patiently in our seats for something to happen, it quite simply didn’t!
As we sat patiently in our seats, having arrived timely to allow plenty of time for Harvey to organise himself amongst his class mates and calm his nerves we were quite perplexed to find that nothing had been set up in the concert hall with only half an hour before the concert was supposed to begin.
As I turned to Verity, with one of those looks that we give each other when we realise what we have got our selves into, yet again, she said quite fittingly “Italians couldn’t organise a piss up in a brewery, even if they tried!” The thing is I am sure they could, but it would just take weeks of organising and 20 odd people arguing about where the tables and kegs should go before anything actually got done or any beer was actually drank!
So as we somewhat impatiently sat in our seats watching as the Italians got to work trying to set up PA systems and all the important electrical equipment needed to put on such an extravaganza, we yet again felt cheated and annoyed that our precious Sunday afternoon had been wasted on ‘Italian time’! With the concert starting two hours after the so called scheduled start time, we painstakingly endured a procession of songs consisting of the three musical notes which the school children had learnt, with trumpets and violins being played in typically poorly fashion, all sounding like a hungry cat had just been let out in a bird cage! But of course, we endured all of this with a smile on our faces to make sure Harvey was allowed that sense of achievement which all children crave from such special events.
It’s these kind of experiences that really do make we wonder how anything gets done in this country, but also why I love it so much. Truthfully I actually loved siting and watching as the chaos of the Italianess unfolded in front of my eyes. The passionate yet laid back attitude of Italians may be incredibly frustrating at times but maybe we should all take a leaf out of the Italians book. Maybe we would all be better off for a siesta every now and then and a carefree approach to time.
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