Me, You - Group

by Magdalena Gorzawska (Poland)

Making a local connection Italy

- Me, You – group, okay? (Read it with Italian accent and imagine a stranger guy pointing at you and staring intensively into your eyes). This is exactly how this journey starter, but it was many kilometers away from where we are now, also some time ago… Since then I got to know them pretty well. And by them I mean: them particularly, their families, friends, friends of their friends, country-mates and even cats! Now we are eating gelato and ineffectively trying to explain Paolo’s parents that after pasta, barbecue, cheese, bread and fruits, I’m absolutely full and cannot eat anything more (no, they do not care – obviously, but are quite surprised with the limited capacity of my stomach and a little bit worried that maybe I’m sick, hence not hungry). He’s just graduated, worn his laurel crown, we drank sparkling wine and his father made hundreds of pictures just to make sure not a single second is missed. Later it will appear that half of photos is blurred, because focused on the top of the head of random guy. Few days after that I joined the graduation party in a seafront restaurant, where I was the one and only not Italian person. I wasn’t speaking Italian well and the guests weren’t really speaking English. - Ooops… - You would think. – That needed to be awkward. Well, nope. Not at all. You just speak, gesticulate, drink, laugh and all over again in repeatable stages – like in agile approach, you don’t know where this sprint will take you precisely but you are definitely eager to try. Actually, concept of language barrier do not really exist in South, beside they use dialect most of the time anyway. Like that time when I was in a car with my friends and they have noticed that I understand Italian much more than it looked like … But coming back to parties, did I mention that this time I started my holidays with birthday party of Mayor of the city? True story – he just organized a feast in old city of Bari with music, food, birthday cake and beer. I mean, why not? And he is a pretty good dancer I must admit, although I did not have the pleasure to dance with him personally. Somewhere in the meantime I met Stefano, what an interesting young man! He is just 3 years younger honestly, but his energy requires some refined words. He has just published his second book and it happened between PhD studies (yes, civil engineers have a romantic soul), sport trainings and national exams. His friends call him bombon perkiat which in dialect means smart friend. It’s hard to disagree. During my free-from-friends day I’m visiting my fav Polignano a Mare where I meet lovely homosexual couple while sunbathing on the rocks. Matteo appears to be perfect match for taking holiday pics and small talk about how Puglia can make you happy. We eat panzerotti, drink prosecco and I definitely feel again what dolce vita is. Just imagine this – sun, delicate wind, on the right teens are jumping to the sea, on the left some people are just enjoying the day. Every 15 minutes boats come across and you hear melodic Italian voice of tour guide singing: “Volare, oh, oh … Cantare, oh, oh, oh, oh”. You look behind and see the sculpture of author of the song Domenico Modugno with his hands raised up to the sky in ecstatic gesture of what I would call ‘bring it all to me’. Soon we will be departing to Tuscany. Around 10 hours long car trip during which we will listen to “Bella bionda” around 10 times, it will still sound inside my head long time after that. They say it doesn’t count that you have visited region if you haven’t slept there, but I completely don’t care when I’m looking at Vesuvius from car window. Last days of my stay I don’t forget about goodies I want to have back home. A piece of caciocavallo, coffee, oregano and orecchiette – fresh pasta sold by old ladies in one of the old city street. Passion, chaos, exaggeration. Me, You – group… Damn, little did I know at that time…