Real Life

I have done a great deal of thinking about the reasons I was happier and more content in Italy than I have been here in Germany. Some things are obvious: I am familiar with Germany and it does not have the same sense of "newness" to it that Italy had, and certainly, I did not connect with anyone here in Germany as I did in Italy.

But it's more than that. While Rothenburg is lovely, colorful, pristine, and cheerful, it has the feeling of being a stage set. I have the impression that if all the visitors were removed from within the high stone walls, the rest of the town could be dismantled, folded up, and loaded onto trucks to be transported to the next locale. The sleek, shimmering horses would be unhitched from their brightly-colored wagons and loaded into trailers to save their feet the long walk, and the Night Watchman, rather than giving nightly tours, would remove his costume and be put to work packing up pieces of the stage that is Rothenburg. Yes, there are many people who live here fulltime, but many, many of them are employed around the tourist trade, operating shops and restaurants and the multitude of ferienwwohnungs and zimmers (vacation apartments and rooms for rent) which are crammed into this tiny village. I don't feel as if I have ever seen real life here.

In Cortona, although there are many tourists, there is a feeling that the town is one, big, passionate, and sometimes dysfunctional family. If all tourists packed up and left town, things would pretty much continue on in the same way. The lady at Bar Signorelli would still be fussing over baby Matteo; the mammoni (mama's boys) would still meet for their evening aperativi; the man working on the church roof across the street from Maria's house would still be buying his daily panino (sandwhich) at Molesini's, consuming it as he wandered between Piazza della Repubblica and Piazza Signorelli; and the porchetta man would still be slicing pork for customers at the market. Life would continue unabated. I loved sitting at the bar each morning with my caffe' latte and watching all the regulars come and go and listening to the friendly greetings and conversations which signal the rythm of life in this small village. The greetings I received, and the shoulder rubs were a small way to make me feel just a tiny part of this rich, flavorful life. I miss that.