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Return to Rome (Day Two)
If there are two things Italians love to tell you it’s “Non c’e’ problema” (No problem) and“Ci penso io” (I’ll take care of it). You never want to hear an Italian say these two things.
They say these two phrases a lot and it is all so reassuring and you can just sense how in control the Italians are in any situation — until there IS a problem — then they hit you with the many reasons there was no problem until __________ (fill in the blank) happened and how they were is control of everything until some unforeseen thing cause whatever was supposed to happen not happen. This is very Italian and if you’ve had any significant experience with the Italians in Italy you’re laughing right now because you fully understand this.
This was one of the first things I overheard this morning as I was enjoying an early caffe latte and cornetto, laughing to myself that I wasn’t on the receiving end of that non c’e’ problema.
Today was the first full day in Rome and I was going to meet up with a couple of my main friends from back in 1989 who are both Roman to the core. I wasn’t going to meet them until later that day so I had time to start the day at Pincio, a terrace overlooking Piazza del Popolo. The cool thing about Pincio is you can get a good sense of the layout of the city from up top from Piazza Venezia to the Left all the way to St. Peters directly across…
