When I was younger I had quite the Americanized idea of the Italian man: Joey Tribbiani. Well either Joey or Al Pacino — definitely one or the other. As I watched more and more movies however my stereotype grew to include romanticized visions of attractive young mo-ped-riding men scouring Rome for women waiting to be swept off their feet. Or perhaps Italy is full of tranquil older men in white tank tops tanned and wrinkled from years of working in their backyard vineyard.
Needless to say I was extremely excited when I had the opportunity to study abroad in Florence and see Italy’s romance first hand. But as it turned out my naive stereotypes were a little off base. (Luckily “Jersey Shore” hadn’t aired yet — that would have really messed me up.)
I soon figured out that Hollywood is such a tease. She parades these men all over the silver screen artificially crossing cultural boundaries leading us on for years but when it comes time to get swept off into the sunset on the back of a mo-ped what do we get? A near death experience that’s what. Those mo-peds oh-so-romantic in the movies are vehicles of death in real life aiming for pedestrians like it’s a sport. Italians 50 points each. Americans 100.
And those cute old men? Almost nowhere to be found. They were probably hiding out on their vineyards because the only old men I encountered during my first few weeks were the ones that crept up to me in a tunnel while I was on my way to the gym cutting across my path to ask “why Americana why are you wearing shorts in October?”
After weeks of trial and error I finally found my quintessential Italian man. And to my great partiality I found him at a coffee shop.
Café Libertà is the Florence program’s go-to café around the corner from the villa where we got free breakfast on weekends. This is also where I first fell in love with the cappuccino.
Café Lib (as we so dubbed it) was always buzzing with Italians at the front counter shouting out their orders reaching over each other for a packet of sugar quickly gulping down their shot of espresso and then pushing to the register to pay before heading out the door again. Between the throng of espresso-craved Italians we passive-aggressive American students tried to inch our way to the front to order our own morning coffee.
This is where I learned how to be aggressive — elbows definitely speak louder than words. Every weekend I fought my way through the crowd all in the name of the cappuccino. And despite the black eyes it was always worth it. Not only did I get my cappuccino but I also got to talk to my favorite Italian man: Cappuccio.
Cappuccio of course was not his real name. I actually never found out his name. But every time I was able to scrap up to the front I was greeted by Cappuccio’s beaming face. And despite his 60ish years he was always energetic and extremely efficient with the orders.
“Buon giorno. Posso avere un cappuccino?” I’d always ask for the cappuccino with my horribly American accent.
“Si!” he’d say with a huge smile. “Un cappuccio per la studente!” he’d then yell to the barista. I always wanted to use his slang and order a “cappuccio but I was fearful of the surrounding Italians’ glares if I butchered their language.
Less than a minute later, right before the crowd swallowed me again, Cappuccio would always look up for my face and call out un cappuccio per flow-er!” He’d then show me the flower design the barista made with the milk and espresso and repeat “flower for a flow-er!”
Weekend after weekend Cappuccio and I had this same simple exchange. And despite our cultural barriers we were able to bond over this same simple cappuccino.
Cappuccio though he didn’t quite fit the Hollywood mold I had formed in my mind showed me that there are other more important cultural bridges that actually translate — and what better way to break those cultural barriers than over a cup of coffee?