Ferrara, Italy
In which I discover the real Italy, eat unusual bread and visit the tomb of Lucrezia Borgia.
{Ferrara, Italy}
It’s late in the afternoon on a very late October day when I arrive in the city of Ferrara, in the northeast corner of Italy.
I’ve rented an apartment close to the town center and - because I’ll be here for three weeks - I decide to pick up a few supplies on my way from the train station.
The Coop is crowded with people stopping by on their way home from work to pick up dinner. In addition to the two clerks manning the cash registers, there is one man who is simply there to keep people in the long line, and to direct them to the correct register when their turn comes.
Even though this man is there solely to direct traffic and to manage the crowd, a surprising number of people walk past him, right to the front of the store and put their baskets down on the check-out counter - line be damned. A few actually get away with it.
This is how I know that I’m not in the touristy bit of Italy anymore.
As much as I hate to make sweeping generalizations, I think it’s fair to say that Italians are not the world’s best queuers. The mass of bodies waiting for service at any given establishment is usually more swarm than line…and a certain percentage of the population seems to believe that it is their god-given right to be at the front of that swarm, no matter when they arrive.
It makes me laugh, until it makes me cry. As a relatively soft-spoken and introverted Midwesterner - whose knowledge of Italian is rudimentary at best - I usually find that the easiest course of action is just to go somewhere that no one is waiting. Call me a coward.