Ciao, America!: An Italian discovers America
by Beppe Severgnini
Overview
From the Publisher
"When Beppe Severgnini and his wife rented a creaky house in Georgetown, they were determined to see if they could adapt to a full four seasons in a country obsessed with ice cubes, air-conditioning, recliner chairs, and, of all things, after-dinner cappuccinos. From their first encounter with cryptic rental listings to their back-to-Europe yard sale twelve months later, Beppe explores this foreign land with the self-described patience of a mildly inappropriate beachcomber, holding up a mirror to America's signature manners and mores. Succumbing to his surroundings day by day, he and his wife find themselves developing a taste for Klondike bars and Samuel Adams beer, and even that most peculiar of American institutions - the pancake house." The realtor who waves a perfect bye-bye, the overzealous mattress salesman who bounces from bed to bed and the plumber named Marx who deals in illegally powerful showerheads are just a few of the better-than-fiction characters the Severgninis meet while foraging for clues to the real America. A trip to the computer store proves just as revealing as D.C.'s Fourth of July celebration, as do boisterous waiters angling for tips and no-parking signs crammed with a dozen lines of fine print.
My thoughts
I was going to lay off the travel guides for a while but then I reached into my pile of books and this one was on top so I thought, well, OK! One more travel guide before I switch gears! It's not been disappointing! What a fun book from a different perspective than what I've been reading recently!
I've read so many books where Americans have travelled to other countries but I've never read a book from someone coming to America. I've laughed so many times at the idiosyncracies of Americans, and I've gasped a few times at things the author has found surprising that I wasn't aware were unusual! Overall it's been a very fun and surprising book to read!
Favorite Passage
You don't go to America. You go back, even if it's only your first trip. Our brain is so full of American information that the country offers a never-ending sequence of deja vu sensations. Every panorama looks as though you've already seen it. You feel as if everything you do, you've done before. America's sheer familiarity is unsettling. Only the noises sound as if they are really new. They're different. American noises.
It's a distinction you notice at night, in particular. The wood of the houses broadcasts a concert of creaks and groans that, taken together with the crime statistics, is more than a little disturbing. Anyone from Europe will need time to get used to it. For example, the reinforced concrete of Italian homes induces a crypt-like silence, which is heightened by the impenetrable darkness produced by shutters over the windows. America's not like that at all. Every night, in the bedrooms of this country, a kind of son et lumiere show takes place. The yellow lights of the streetlamps shine in through the windows, punctuated by the glare of headlights. The pipes, which are fitted externally onto the walls, emit sharp knocks and mysterious squeaking noises. And from this point of view, our house in Georgetown is particularly lively. The wood of the floors breathes. Bathrooms gargle. Windows thrum. Invisible avian visitors shriek like children and the crickets never shut up. Our neighbor, the allergy specialist, from whom only a thin wooden wall divides us, listens to classical music and dreams of new hypersensitivity disorders.
