Three Italian Fights

Travelers like to talk about the friends they make while on the road; less frequently do you hear about the misunderstandings, hurt feelings, fights, and outright international incidents they created along the way. We recently returned from a trip to Italy, and despite the fact that we enjoyed ourselves immensely; we did make a few enemies along the way. Three fights:


Bout #1- Our Opinion

To fully understand the context of our first fight, I need to take you back to the morning that preceded it. We had experienced unseasonably cold and wet weather for most of our trip, but on our about day 10, we hit our Waterloo in Siracusa, on Sicily ’s eastern coast. What did Siracusa have in store for us on a Wednesday morning in early March? 35 degrees, wind, and a hard, driving, penetrating rain. The wind was so fierce, that trying to use an umbrella was futile. We gamely tried to see a few sites on Ortygia island- but it was no use- we had on nearly every article of clothing we packed- and were still wet and cold. My wife, Jennifer had the idea to visit an internet café in the hopes of finding some place in Italy where it wasn’t raining, and Rome was just the ticket. A travel agent booked us on a three o’clock flight later that afternoon on Alitalia. A young woman at our hotel wrote down departure times for a bus that would take us straight to Catania ’s airport. Things seemed to be looking up for us- the forecast for Rome was cold but sunny.

I suggested that we go to Siracusa’s bus station and double check the departure times the hotel had given us- something extremely uncharacteristic for me. I almost never double-check or confirm details while traveling; no matter how many times things go wrong or how often I vow to confirm things in the future. So we set off to the bus station in the wind and rain, dodging cars and mopeds that sent waves of polluted water at the few unfortunate pedestrians who ventured out on this miserable day. Much to our dismay, we learned that the hotel clerk had accidentally written down the arrival times instead of the departure times for the Catania airport bus. The only bus that would get us to the airport in time to make our flight and use our non-refundable tickets was leaving in five minutes. The hotel and our baggage were perhaps a 10-minute round-trip walk from the station, and there were no taxi’s around so running was our only option.

We sprinted out of the station, as I cursed the clerk, cursed the rain, cursed our luck, cursed the wind, cursed Sicily, and cursed the world. On the way to the hotel we ran unencumbered by baggage, sprinting with the wind at our backs. I thought we had a decent chance of making our bus if we did an all out sprint both ways. We arrived at the hotel and dashed up the steps to the lobby to grab our bags. There was no time to scold the girl who had given us the wrong information, but as she sat there reading her magazine, I breathlessly blurted out, “yougaveusthewrongtimesthebusleavesnow!!!weneedourbags!!” She just laughed, as we grabbed the bags and ran back down the marble steps and back out into the downpour. Our sprint back to the station was infinitely worse than the sprint that preceded it for three reasons: by now we were out of breath, the nasty wind was blowing the rain right at our faces, and now we were trying to sprint with suitcases- not a fun exercise even at the best of times, which these clearly were not.

I stumbled into a massive puddle, and one of my jean legs clung to my skin like a bloodsucking leech. We galloped on running recklessly through traffic and against the wind and rain, periodically dropping our rolling suitcases as they hit ruts and puddles in the road. We were soaked. We arrived at the station, drenched and out of breath, almost unable to give voice to the words, “airport?” Our driver laughed at the site of us. The bus was empty and although we were technically 2 or 3 minutes late, the engine of the bus was off, and it didn’t seem as though we were headed anywhere anytime soon. But we made our bus, and we felt a sense of (cold) comfort in that.

Due to the infrequent bus service from Siracusa to Catania ’s airport, the one we were lucky enough to catch got us to the airport more than 2 hours early. We were happy to see that Alitalia had an earlier flight to Rome that had been delayed and was set to leave in about 40 minutes.

“We’d like to go standby on the earlier flight,” I told a well-dressed young Alitalia counter-woman.
“Yes, but you have a very special ticket,” she said, looking at us condescendingly as though we were some kind of charity cases.
“What do you mean special ticket?” I asked, already fearing the snobbish woman’s reply.
“You only paid 45 euros for you ticket!” she gasped, once again, looking at us as though we shouldn’t be asking for favors.
“Alitalia only gets 45 euro” she continued, - “the rest you paid was tax and we don’t see that money, that is for the government, and we cannot allow standby for people who have bought these special tickets, that is our rule! I must follow the rule!”

All of this made no sense to us at all. We had just bought the tickets an hour before- how special could our tickets be? Out travel agent had told us that other discount airlines had much lower priced tickets, but none of them had free seats for that day. Even though our clerk was bent on denying us, I had to ask, just to torture myself, if there were open seats on the earlier flight.

“Yes, there are seats, if you want you could buy one!” the nasty clerk said, in a tone that meant- but cheapskates like you will refuse to pay!
She wanted something like 150 more euros each for new tickets. Instead of just giving in, and checking our bags for our later, scheduled flight, I asked to speak to a supervisor and was pointed to a line of people across the way. Jen appealed to me to give up my quest- pointing out that by the time we waited in the other line, we’d miss the earlier flight anyways. But I was undeterred, there was nothing to do in the Catania airport anyways, and we had time and anger to expel from our systems.

As we stood in a line to speak to a supervisor, I thought about an article I had read earlier that week which said that Alitalia workers were planning one of their very frequent strikes for that Friday. The article also pointed out that the airline loses something like 1 billion dollars per year, or some such absurd figure. I thought about how I would work these items into my speech to the supervisor as my rage built. The supervisor was a middle-aged man with a bushy mustache and the air of a college professor. He seemed bored with life, and bored with me. My preamble was all about how every other airline in the known universe allowed travelers to fly standby- no matter how much they paid for their tickets. What did it matter to Alitalia which flight I took, there were free seats on both flights? The man listened passively; I felt I had made an unimpeachable case. He answered my speech, simply, and arrogantly by asking:

“Why didn’t you just buy a ticket for the flight you wanted to take?”
I had no answer to this question- I was not about to tell him about the rain, the wind, the infrequent buses- so I changed the topic.
“Well, you see,” I began, “it is that kind of customer service which is the reason why your airline is always losing millions of dollars!” I said, eager to hear his response to this.
“Well that is your opinion, but it is only an opinion!” he said, looking at us triumphantly as if he had exposed some flaw in our argument.
“It’s a fact that Alitalia loses money, not an opinion!” I said.
“Yes, and you are American- how many of your airlines go bankrupt- is this because of customer service, I don’t think so!”
He seemed to want us to know that it wasn’t only Italian airlines which failed. He then went into a long soliloquy regarding: a) how incredibly special the tickets that we had were, b) the tickets were so very special, that they could not possibly let us fly standby with them due to Alitalia rules, and c) how these rules must be followed at all cost. What could I say in return?

“Sure, all kinds of airlines, go bankrupt, Italian, American, fine- the point is- all of these airlines allow customers to fly standby! Let us on this flight!”
The supervisor then launched into another long diatribe, taking several sentences to basically assert two things: a) everything I said was all opinion, not fact and was therefore uninteresting to him, and b) Americans have too many opinions, which they share with others too frequently.

I eventually walked away from the desk, wishing the supervisor a pleasant strike as a final salvo. The supervisor continued his diatribe for the benefit of his co-workers and the others standing in line as we left the counter. We walked away, defeated and headed back to the baggage check in counters- resigned to checking in for the later flight. I saw the same nasty, arrogant woman- she could tell from the look on my face that the supervisor had backed her up. I didn’t want to give her the satisfaction of letting her check us in for the later flight, so I went to a friendlier looking, pretty woman two rows down from her.

“You are checking in for the 3 o’clock flight?” she asked, smiling at us.
“Well, we wanted to take the earlier flight, but Alitalia, for whatever reason, does not want us to,” I whined, and Jen abruptly cut me off, “Dave, please give it a rest!”
“You want the earlier flight?” the clerk asked, and I hesitated before sheepishly saying yes, I was sure she was toying with us for the benefit of her angry colleague.
But a few taps of her keyboard, and moments later her machine spit out boarding passes for the earlier flight! No arguments, no questions asked, no special ticket, no speaking to supervisors, just- you want a ticket- here it is.
As we clutched the boarding passes I almost did not know how to react. I felt like the little boy at the toy store who cries and cries until he finally gets his toy and then doesn’t know how to smile once he gets what he wanted. I wanted to bring the boarding passes over to the supervisor and flaunt them in his face, but thought better of it, and just quietly boarded the earlier flight.

Bout #2- The Hands in the Pasta

The Italians have a wonderful figure of speech- le mani en pasta- having one’s hands in the pasta- which means having a connection. When I noticed a restaurant bearing this catchphrase in Rome, I knew we had to pay it a visit. The place was crowded and the food was excellent, but our waiter seemed shifty and I developed an immediate distrust for him. He seemed disappointed to the point of irritation that we wanted to split one salad, one appetizer, and one entrée. Instead of presenting us with a bill, he laid down on the table a scrap of paper which simply had the numbers 40 scribbled on it. Nothing else. We knew that we had not ordered anywhere near 40 euros worth of food, and he seemed to understand English, so I called him over and told him I wanted an itemized bill.
“No, no, this is the way we do it in Italy - this is the bill!” he insisted.
I told him that this was not our first meal in Italy, and that we wouldn’t pay without an itemized bill. He stormed away from our table, furious, and a busybody American woman at the table behind us called out to me,
“We know these people, you don’t have to ask for a bill here!”
“Well our bill is wrong, and we’re not about to pay more without an accurate bill,” I said. Later on, I cursed myself for not handing her the bill and telling her to pay it if she was so sure it was accurate.

The waiter returned less than a minute later. This time he brought us an actual receipt with the restaurants address and logo on it. But there was still nothing itemized- he had merely just brought us a blank receipt and again written “40” on it. Again, I demanded an itemized bill, and this time the waiter exploded, getting right in my face- menacingly cursing me. Another waiter saw him and rushed over. He had to physically push our waiter away-, as he was ready to punch me. I was much calmer, surprisingly calm, because I knew that he could not justify the bill. I explained the situation to the other waiter, as our waiter cursed and shouted in Italian. Waiter #2 asked us how much we thought we owed, as most of the restaurant looked on to our dispute. I told him I thought it was close to 30 euros, and waiter #2 suggested we pay that amount. Jen interrupted him, “look, this is not a negotiation, we just want to pay what we owe- bring us a real bill!” I happily agreed with her, because I perversely did want to see how they would add up our bill- I knew that they’d have to be very creative to reach the 40 figure and I wanted to test their creative accounting skills for my own amusement.

Both waiters went back into the kitchen for some time-obviously scrambling to put together a bill that would total 40. They finally emerged with a bill in which everything was 1-2 euros more than was advertised on the menu, and they also charged us for 2 pasta appetizers instead of the one we ordered (and split). The two waiters tried, gamely, to explain that: a) the English language menu was old and the prices had gone up but they hadn’t had time to change the menu, b) they thought we ordered 2 pastas, and c) the fish they gave us was extra big so they had to charge us more. We didn’t buy any of it, and waiter #1 continued to curse us. I told waiter #2 that while some restaurants may try to rip you off, most do not employ waiters that physically and verbally threaten you. He apologized and then told us that we should not pay for the meal at all. Suddenly, we felt uncomfortable; we didn’t want a free meal. Jen wanted to leave some money on the table, but I didn’t want to, so we just left with a bad taste in our mouths. It was your classic cross-cultural dispute: we left feeling angry and cheated, and they no doubt were cursing us as ugly Americans.


Bout #3- Sexy Boxy

Our last Italian fight was actually a series of fights we saw on TV, and not one I engaged in personally. The good news is that the combatants were women in thongs and bra’s. The show, which aired on national Italian TV, was called Sexy Boxy, and featured nubile, scantily clad young women boxing in an actual ring, to the delight of the men who stood ringside cheering each kick and punch. I thought that the premise of this fine show was outstanding, but Jen could not help but wonder what kind of men would allow themselves to be seen ringside, enthusiastically cheering these girls on?

Due to the cold and the rain, Jen and I watched more Italian T.V. than we’d care to admit, and one of the nice things about Italian T.V. is that you don’t need to understand Italian to know what is going on. Nearly all shows are variations on the same theme- middle aged men who pontificate about nothing, flanked by either very hot or very made up Italian women in short skirts and cleavage busting tops. All of this, and creative camera angles which would never be allowed on American TV. I remember one variety show where- under God knows what pretext- a very busty woman in a halter-top was put on a treadmill in front of a studio audience. First they turned on some kind of high powered fan which blew at her short skirt, as she stepped away on the treadmill, then they rained down buckets of fake snow on her- all to the hoots and hollers of an adoring studio audience. But, perhaps most provocatively, they kept alternating to a –get this-overhead camera that was aimed straight down at her boobs from high up above the stage. This was on a Sunday evening, on national, prime time TV.

We watched Sexy Boxy and had a good laugh. It wasn’t that sexy, and the boxing was not exactly Thrilla in Manila or Rumble in the Jungle quality, but what was comforting about programs like Sexy Boxy was that they proved to us that we Americans have no monopoly on tastelessness, we did not invent crudity and we are not the only people in the world with a penchant for mindless entertainment. And, after all of our American/Italian disputes- several of which had turned into nationalistic conflicts much to our chagrin- that made us feel pretty darn good. Yes, we are Americans, we fly standby when we want, and we demand itemized bills. But we don’t’ have Sexy Boxy.