Other Observations
Driving
It's true what is said about Italian drivers. Living in a small town in
particular has made me realise that the drivers seem to have their own set
of rules, often appearing out of nowhere to take you by surprise. It
never ceases to amaze me how close drivers come to having accidents!
Not only that, but pedestrian crossings tend to be ignored by anyone at the
wheel of a car, so
much so that I now understand its important to be brave when crossing the
road, traffic waits for no one! Who Dares Wins takes on a whole
different meaning in this part of the world!
Getting anything
official done
really does take ages!
As I try and learn the secrets of getting anything done around here
I am faced with the prospect of having to wait .. and wait .. and wait with
many different people telling me many different things. First of all I was
told that being a British citizen I wouldn't need the document Permesso di Sorggiorno
in order to find work, I would just need a Certificate of Residency.
It seemed relatively straightforward, that's until I discovered I wouldn't
be able to get Residency until I either had a job or got married. At
one stage I was even told another option would be to open a bank account
with a certain amount of funds to show I am able to support myself.
That's until the bank said I couldn't open an account without having
residency! I therefore have to wonder on if anyone
actually knows anything around here!
The only clear fact in all of this is that I'm able to stay here without the
risk of being hunted down and put on the next plane back to Britain!
Dialect
Every region in Italy has its own local dialect, and this also extends to
each town. In Trani therefore, Tranese is spoken, mainly by the older
generation who often speak dialect better than they do Italian.
Tranese is spoken fast and sounds something like very strong Cockney mixed
with Italian words that have been shortened. It can therefore be
rather
tricky learning Italian when the locals speak in dialect and look at you as
if you have two heads when you obviously haven't a clue what they're on
about!
Hand Signals
Italians have a wide range of hand signals that mean different things.
The problem lies in trying to identify the meanings when someone is rapidly
signing something to you whilst you look at them in a perplexed manner.
For example, the signal for 'come here' is hand down with fingers facing the
floor before you move your fingers rapidly as if building a sandcastle,
therefore the opposite of what the British use for the same thing. I
tended to ignore Felice for a while when he was doing this to me until one
day I decided to ask him what on earth he was doing and subsequently
understood!
Going out with friends
Ever since arriving I have noticed that when the weekend is here,
friends eagerly meet up to plan the night ahead. The usual meeting time is around
10.00 to 10.30 pm and they all gather round talking for at least an hour if
not longer before actually
deciding which bar or club to go to. This decision has been known to
take anything up to an hour! So that's two hours of hanging around
chatting. I've began to realise that this is what happens with large
groups of friends. They all have different ideas about where to go and
it therefore takes a firm decision maker to persuade the majority!