01.09.06
Newsstands
One thing that Heidi and I have found enjoyable about living in Italy are the newsstands. I suppose the have them in big cities in the US, but you can’t walk 10 blocks here in any city without running into one. Newsstands here sell way more than just newspapers. They have every type of magazine imaginable. They have bus tickets, lottery tickets, train tickets, postage stamps, toys, movies, games, and a hundred other things. Unfortunately, since Italians are quite open about nudity, shopping in one can be a case of Oh be careful little eyes what you see… But they are full of great language learning tools!
There’s one just up the street from our house. They recently remodeled it into a little hut that is enclosed (most newsstands are open air). The people who own it know who we are, and will often hold things for us if we are out of town. We were surprised last week to come back to Perugia after being out of town, and to find out that they had a gift for us - Herbie: Fully Loaded on DVD in English and Italian. It was a burned copy of a DVD, by I guess it’s the thought that counts!
I remember once in language school we were talking about how cool we thought newsstands were. Our teacher shrugged her shoulders and asked us how we get our newspapers and magazines in America. We said that often people get a subscription, since it’s much cheaper. She laughed and said there was no way that Italians would trust the post office to send them something on time every month! And besides, if we just subscribed to everything here, that would be one less Italian family that we could get to know - and perhaps a few less illegal movies as well! 