Why do I live here?

Someone asked me today...'I know you have probably had some great experiences in Italy - are there any memorable ones? Or anything day-to-day that really stands out as "this is why I live here"?'

Well, today might not be the best day to ask that, since it is 100 degrees F. out and climbing. But I will try. The air conditioning is working flawlessly and the apartment is cool, comfortable and humidity-free.

The morning starts with a great cappucchino and an even better brioche at Cafe Tubino. We run into our language teacher from 2004, Enrico, who is glad to see us. We are his success story, i due Americani who came to learn Italian and returned to live in Verona.

We take a giro (a small walkabout) and run into more friends, Roberto and Francesca, and have a short chat with them. The semi-annual sale season is here, so we window shop.

We stop at the shop of my friend Agnes, and Angel tells her how much fun he had watching the 7th Stage of the Tour de France, in person, and how great France is. She loves that. Angel goes on home, and I stay to hang out at the shop for awhile. Agnes' oldest son, the pilot, comes in and we laugh and talk. Agnes' helper Olivia, who is Swiss, sits down to share yet another story with me about the lack of customer service at a shop in town, and we laugh about that.

I head back for the apartment. I stop in to the travel agency on the ground floor of our building to let them know that the older gentleman they helped yesterday, when he collapsed outside on the street, was now alright and that I wanted to thank them for providing him with support until emergency services arrived. He and his wife are friends of ours. They are happy to hear he is doing better.

I arrive at the apartment, full of warm and fuzzy feelings of community and friendship for all. OK, that is overstating... it is miserably hot and airless out, and the primary feeling I have is 'thank God the A/C isn't acting up, like it did last summer'.

However, my morning today is one of the great things about living in a small manageable city that just happens to be in Italy. The slower pace allows a lot of interaction. The fact that we live in the Centro Storico means that we are in a microcosmic neighborhood, where we can know a lot of people. Going out of the apartment, there is always someone to whom to say hello, a smile, a 'Buona Giornata'. That is a completely different morning than the one I would have had living in New Jersey, and it is a morning that I wanted to find. Looks like I found it. And the day is only half over.