One other totally random thing we noticed that is every different here than in Germany is the attitude towards jaywalking. In Germany, to walk when the little green man was not visible was strictly forbidden, on pain of audible tsking from those on the sidewalk (who of course know better) and immediate branding as a culturally-insensitive American tourist. In Italy, the rule seems to be as follows: jaywalk as often as possible, even if it means crossing the street when you have no other reason for doing so, and preferably at a time which poses the maximum safety risk to you and everyone else in the immediate vicinity. This is possibly the best-loved sport in Rome after football. Upon reflection, we think this may be due to the Germans' national reverance for their cars (explained to us by Tobi), which may result in them avoiding any behavior, such as jaywalking, that could potentially result in damage to an automobile.
Our time here in the Cinque Terre has been just wonderful. We hiked through the other four towns and everything is so postcard-beautiful. Today it rained all day and, as it is expected to rain the rest of the week and there is little to do inside here, we briefly considered spending the rest of the week in Pisa or Siena but decided to stay put instead. It's so relaxing and we love our little apartment so we don't want to leave any earlier than necessary. Tomorrow we may take the train into the nearest city (or at least large town) to see War and Peace (in Italian) at the movies! Ed is especially excited.
Our only real challenge here has been grocery shopping. We're trying to save money by shopping instead of eating out so we stock up on cereal, bread, fruit, nutella, and other essentials at the tiny (only) neighborhood groceria. The problem has been in attempting to order sandwich meat at the deli counter from a disgruntled woman whom we suspect does in fact know how to speak English but chooses not to. We've encountered this situation with her twice so far and it usually goes something like this (please imagine a line of people already waiting behind us as we try to figure out names and prices of mystery meats):
Us: buon giorno
Disgruntled woman: hm.
Us: uhhh... Prosciutto cotto (cheapest thing we can find)
DW: si (starts slicing). Quanto? (How much)
Us: uhh... Half... Er, um, mezzo kilo
DW: mezzo?? Un mezzo kilo?!
Us: um, si
DW: mezzo kilo?? For two people?? (Her only English phrase so far)
Us (now embarassed since apparently no other two people in Italy would think of consuming that much prosciutto cotto): uh, si
DW (shrugs): ok... (Lays 0.25 kilos on the scale) Ancora? (Or something similar meaning "more?")
Us: si, mezzo kilo
DW: (adds a few slices so it is 0.32 kilos) ancora?
Us: si
DW: (makes it 0.39) ancora?
Us: no, grazie
We have yet to make it all the way to a half kilo, though we request that every time, since we eat ham sandwiches for two meals a day. At this point we dread going back, especially after two other embarassing incidents, one of which involved a pile of apples accidentally rolling on the floor at the front of the cashier line, and the other an accusation of attempted theft from an 80-year-old man (for the record, we were not trying to steal chickpeas).
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