Final morning in Italy

Sleep evades me at 4am each morning, without fail. I'd managed a total of 3 hours that night and after hours of waiting, crept into the BnB kitchen at 7:15am to make some coffee. I'd coordinated breakfast at 8am with the host...but I neeeeeeded caffeine. Of course, the range wouldn't light on the first few attempts, and the rapid "click-click-click" of the ignition switch caused the host to sleepily but angrily burst into the kitchen. The short, 40-ish Iñigo Montoya look-alike whirled around and started making coffee, figuratively slapping my hand for touching the stove.

"We agreed upon 8am, guests are not to use the kitchen...why are you awake?!"

Of course, I apologized profusely and asked about a typical Italian schedule and how mine didn't seem to fit. "You're awake until 1am every night?" I asked. "Geez, what time do you start work? I mean, you work later because you take a two-hour lunch from 2-4, right?"

"No way...what are you talking about?" His annoyance finally balanced with humor. "That's the Spaniards." Suuuure.

We talked through Italian work day and a few social norms in Trieste. This is the most eastern city in Italy, as the Slovenia border lies basically at the southern and eastern city limits and Croatia is just 19 miles further south. The port city is chock full of history, as it was the fourth largest city in the Austro-Hungarian empire (after Budapest, Vienna, and Prague). In WWII, a nearby factory, Risiera di San Sabba, was used primarily to sort and redirect Jews to the larger concentration camps. The Jewish population dwindled from the thousands to a handful. After WWII, it took nearly eight years for "the powers," as Alessandro called them, to decide if the city would belong to Italy or Yugoslavia. I'd recently listened to A Little History of the World by E.H. Gombrich. When you pack a few thousand years of intellectual progress, societal movements, leadership influences, and war into 9 hours, it becomes unequivocally clear how many times greater Europe, specifically Italy, changed hands and spun in circles. This eight years of waiting, though probably painful at the time, was a drop in the bucket compared to the region's past times of turmoil.

We talked about Italy's unemployment issues..."For young people, it's like one-third unemployed...there aren't enough jobs...so people live at home with their parents until they are 40. Or they leave the country. We have actually just quit having children. University is too expensive, so we are often just stuck." He talked about how the Italian government is supporting Syrian refugees better than it's own citizens, which further enrages the younger generation. How much of this is true, I'm not sure, but he spoke with conviction in his perception. But, "the news mostly talks about your new president in the US..."

He asked about my past, and I mentioned the military, receiving four years of free university and the honor to serve five years as an officer. Alessandro said that when he was of that age, Italy required one year of service in the army. But, this meant you'd give up a valuable job and would not have it to return to after a year. If you wanted to be a conscientious objector, you had to apply for two years of comparable service and also would suffer similar job loss. So, Alessandro, being a member of a rock band at that time, "faked crazy" with his fellow band members. "We were really good at tricking them into thinking we were crazy, my friends and me... we were in the hospital a long time, but it was fun."

This was the fourth time I've visited Italy, and this would be my last day this time around. I was greatly impressed by its hospitality and warmth. Locals were inviting, friendly, and accepting of my lack of fluency. But, having avoided the larger tourism hubs completely, I gained a better understanding of how border cities may struggle with identity, unshrouded by a tourism industry.