Neapolitans want to know if foreigners like Naples. And it seems like they always assume the worst. They cannot understand why someone would want to come here from the U.S. After my first pick-pocketing experience yesterday (R.I.P. my wallet), I took some time to think about why exactly I love Naples, in all its gritty glory.
I've been living here for almost three months now, and for me, the most striking thing about Napoli is that it is really just a great big village. It's like the metropolitan area grew to 4.2 million overnight and no one noticed. Naples is actually one of the oldest continuously-inhabited cities, so maybe its inhabitants are a little stuck in the past. Either way, this huge city of millions somehow continues to operate like a tiny village of 200.
First of all, everybody knows everybody. You cannot walk down the street with a Naples-native without stopping every five minutes to talk to someone. I thought living in a big city was supposed to make people more anonymous, but here it seems to just increase connections exponentially. It's unreal. Human interactions are more important than deadlines and appointments and ambitions. I can't help but compare that with my experience in Korea. People genuinely want to be around other people. I've only been here a few months, and I already know more people here than I did after a whole year in Korea. I haven't made any major changes in my life, so how does this come about?
Well, #2: Everybody talks to everybody. I take a bus into the city center two or three times every weekend. That's an average of about five bus rides a week if we're talking round trip. I've been here for 13 weeks now. Let's call it about 70 times I've waited for a bus in Naples. I would say about 40 of those times I have had conversations that lasted at least two minutes with fellow travelers. I CAN BARELY SPEAK ITALIAN. Sometimes, the other person doesn't even realize I can't speak Italian until ten minutes into the conversation. Usually, it doesn't slow them down one bit when I do tell them. Once, I waited 20 minutes and rode the bus for 20 minutes with an old man who NEVER realized I wasn't Italian. He talked for 40 minutes straight to a complete stranger. He showed me pictures of his family he had in his wallet. Oh, AND after talking to someone at the bus stop or waiting for the girls at school, they invariably remember my name (and use it!) the next time I pass them walking down the street. If I was in America waiting for a bus and someone tried to talk to me, I would be apprehensive, but here: it's weird if people aren't talking. In fact, the only time I've heard Italians truly silent is if the Napoli soccer club is losing a match. Silent Italians are scary. You could have heard a pin drop when we lost to Rome. Terrifying.
Another less convenient implication of the village mentality is that shops just open and close whenever they want. It is impossible to predict store hours. The local grocery store was closed because it was raining the other day. NOTHING is open on Sundays because the Neapolitans have big family lunches. (I know never to invite my Italian friends out on Sundays. It is just not happening.) The privately-owned stores open late, close for a pausa in the afternoon (the hours vary store-to-store of course), and close early at night. The only exception is restaurants, which open whenever they goddamn well please. Oh, and everything closes early on Thursdays. They don't even try to make up an excuse for that one.
There's no website or guide book that can tell you when something, even a museum, will be open. So you just have to pack a snack in case and cross your fingers whenever you leave the house. But then you run into someone on the street and they kiss you on each cheek and ask about that book you were reading last week or how your work is coming along; and it doesn't even matter that the store you wanted to go to is closed because your friend heard about an awesome concert or was just heading down to the sea for a drink; and just like that you end up in an African dance club all night or eating pizza on the steps of a 15th century church or in a room full of Spanish students ridiculing the mayor of Madrid or eating sushi with a Japanese girl and a bunch of Italians or drinking beer with an opera singer from Holland and students from Poland and the Ukraine; and who cares that the store was closed anyway, because you can't plan for Naples. It just happens.
Because at the end of the day, Naples is a village of millions. Everyone stays in when it rains and crowds around the TV when Napoli S.S.C. has a match; people share their life stories with strangers, kiss the butcher hello, and see their grandmothers every weekend; there's mini-reunions around every corner and plenty of wine and pasta to go around. I'm not sure when the people of Naples are going to realize how big the city has become, but I really hope they can hold out for at least another year, because this is one seriously cool village.
