Al mare

A few weekends ago I went to the sea with one my Italian friends. You should try to go to the sea with Italian friends sometimes, because they have done it many times before, and are experts. They can help you find the perfect place to go to the sea, and then the perfect place to eat, to put your beach towel, to go swimming, etc. Also, they can teach you some important life lessons. For example:

1. Don't go swimming after eating. Seriously, don't let the water get you if you have food in your tummy. I still haven't ascertained exactly what would happen to you, but it's definitely bad.

We have arrived in our charming Ligurian village after a bit over two hours of driving, and have had a coffee and then wandered around, and finally chosen the island opposite as our sunbathing destination, and have therefore acquired some focaccia to eat once we are over there, and have made our way over to the island and snagged some beach chairs. It has been fun, but also we left early-ish for a Sunday morning and I didn't really eat breakfast, and now we have chairs and also focaccia. In my mind, the situation is perfect.

"Wait!" says my friend. "Don't you want to go swimming?"

"Um... sure," I say, unsure what the obstacle to that is.

"Well, then, we can't eat yet! Then we'd have to wait three hours."

Oh, right. I had heard something about that. I grew up thinking it was 30 minutes, but whatever. My friend takes pity on me.

"Are you hungry?" she asks.

"Well, a little," I say, thinking I'm about to get a reprieve, "I mean, I didn't really eat breakfast or anything."

"That's perfect, then!" exclaims she, "this is the perfect time to go swimming. Your stomach is empty. We'll eat after. It's better."

I wrap the focaccia back up.

2. The sun chair must always be facing the sun, exactly. I suppose because otherwise you will get a crooked tan. Either way, you must make this happen, even if it means getting up and shifting them around in a dance-y little circle every hour and a half or so.

3. Thou shalt not stand still in the water. Because then you'll get cold. From standing in the water. Even if the sun is beating down on your back and the water is warm like bathwater.

4. Thou shalt dry thy entire self off immediately upon exiting the water. Otherwise, the sea breeze will get you when you are still wet, and then god knows what might happen. This is particularly applicable for the back of your neck.

5. Thou shalt not let the sea breeze get you past a certain time of day, for the same reason. I suppose at that point, sea breeze becomes night air and then it attacks the back of your neck and all manner of badness happens to you.

On the other hand, you may be surprised to learn of a few things that are completely fine:

For instance, it is considered absolutely safe to jump off of boulders into the sea, even if there appear to be other boulders lurking below the surface. Similarly, you are welcome to slide down a steep-ish slope of rocks and pebbles mixed together and occasionally splashed by water so that some weird kind of scum grows on them and they become ridiculously slippery. This is fine.

Additionally, if you want to let your elementary-school-aged children monkey around on a playground that is sandwiched between a main road and the sea while you hang out on your boat ten minutes away, that's fine too.

And, my favorite: do not worry about the sun. The sun will not hurt you. All it will do is make your skin a beautiful shade of brown. Or possibly lobster red, but whatever. No one will think anything of it if you vaguely dab on a droplet of spf 15 (good luck finding anything stronger than spf 20, by the way) and then spend the entire day roasting under the midday sun on your chaise longue, rolling over periodically so that all sides of you get done equally.

Just as long as the back of your neck isn't touched simultaneously by the evening breeze and any kind of moisture.

Above - bottom left: ridiculously slippery rocks; middle right: San Pietro in Porto Venere.

You can tell...

You can tell you've been living in Italy for a bit when...

• you have a definite opinion re the Adriatic coast vs. the Mediterranean coast and can defend it intelligibly

• you have several "regular" cafes staked out where you have a solito and the people greet you (sometimes even by name)

• the woman in the bakery feels enough confidenza with you to tell you that you should put a sweater on (in June)

• you have strong opinions on where to get the best gelato in your town

• you can not only recognize and differentiate various types of cheese, but you also have preferences as to which ones are best and when and why

• with regards to cappuccino, you've passed through the various stages of "tourist: drink it mid-afternoon, because why not" to "omg, Italians never drink it after 10am so I can't either or else people will know I'm straniera!" (pro tip: they will know anyway) and finally to "I don't give a crap who sees me drinking cappuccino and when, but now I would usually rather have normal espresso anyway..."

• you can use direct and indirect object pronouns in everyday speech without thinking about it

• similarly, most verbs. In fact, sometimes you can get whole sentences out without too much effort, and occasionally even without mistakes.

• running out of olive oil provokes a brief flutter of mild panic

• you've finally taken to salting the water before boiling your pasta in it

• you agree that over-cooking pasta is akin to sacrilege, or, at the very least, kind of gross

• people speaking dialect don't faze you anymore; in fact, you sometimes understand them

• you answer the phone of an evening and hold a coherent conversation (in Italian) with the person all while stirring stuff that you're cooking

• the thought of the frozen "Lean Cuisine" meals you used to eat in college makes you feel mildly ill

• your ability to tell people off has evolved from "angry spluttering in a mix of English and Italian" through "crappy, grammatically horrifying Italian that may or may not get your point across" and "markedly un-eloquent due to lack of grammar finesse" to finish with "able to politely but effectively tell someone where they can shove it - even by phone, and even in the context of work"

• all the other expats are British, so you've started saying things like "car park" when you mean "parking lot", and "brilliant!" has become your go-to exclamatory expression

• you don't get freaked out when suddenly everyone starts speeding around the circonvallazione beeping and screaming; you just look outside and have a glance at the flags - and indeed, Inter/Milan/Juve/whatever have won again...

• similarly, you are no longer surprised to wake up to the sound of people singing "Bella, Ciao" at a so-left-it's-borderline-communist rally in the square near your house

• speaking of hearing things from your house, you don't feel that you've woken up properly on a Sunday until you've heard the church bells reminding you what day it is

• you browse through the newspapers for fun and actually understand what's going on - both in terms of the words and the social context

• the view from your bedroom window feels like home

• you know the smell of the sun-heated cobblestones intimately, and love it

And...

• you are just as excited about the results of the referendum today as you were three years ago when Obama was elected.
Brava, Italia! Today you've made me proud to live here and happy to have witnessed this.