Overseas Briefing

Author: Nicolas Emery

Recently I had the opportunity to travel to Paris with a planeload of Italian tourists. Now I'm sure most of us are familiar with the stereotypical American tourist, and I dare say may have even participated in propagating that notoriously ignorant and obnoxiously loud stereotype throughout the world. Interested in comparing the Italian variety to what I know of the Americans, I observed them closely during our journey together on Ryanair from Milan-Bergamo airport to Paris-Beauvais.

As far as I could tell, I was one of two Americans on the flight to Paris. Fortunately, this allowed me to observe the Italians in their natural habitat, without outside contamination. We sat awaiting our plane at the designated gate while the time for departure approached when an announcement shook me from my furtive observations. There had been a change of gates. A collective cry of indignation and sheer outrage immediately rose from the masses, quickly followed by a torrent of raised voices spouting unintelligible Italian. The herd galloped to the new gate and clustered around the one poor, poor woman manning it. This woman had the pitiless job of dealing with a mob of indignant Italians on vacation. Needless to say, Italians do not form lines. They simply cluster around their objective point like a swarm of bees around the queen.

Eventually the chaos subsided and resulted in everyone happily seated onboard the plane. We landed in Beauvais airport after an uneventful jump over the Alps and soon I was picking up my bag at the baggage claim. There I noticed how helpful everyone was to each other - more often than not, complete strangers would help others heft their bags off the conveyor belt. Nobody hesitated to ask others for help and nobody hesitated in assisting. I have noticed this impressive quality in many other aspects of Italian life as well. Italian university students commonly ask to photocopy each other's notes if they're missing a few days or weeks of class - and this doesn't happen just between friends, anyone is fair game.

When everybody's bags were sorted out we found that an hour and a half ride on a bus separated us from Paris. Another mob formed around the one working the ticket machine, and after 15 minutes of heated discussion interspersed with shouting, everyone had figured out the French ticket machine and migrated outside to find six busses lined up. After considerable confusion regarding which was the correct bus to the city, the horde was safely seated on the bus and en route.

The Italians, of whom I had grown quite fond of at this point, ooohed and ahhhed in chorus at the shockingly yellow foliage of the trees in the height of autumn and the lush green fields in the French countryside. Meanwhile, I put on my GianMarcoVenturi sunglasses and smiled, thinking how glad I was to feel a part of this crazy group of Italian tourists on their way to Paris. The Italian man behind me said, "Do we speak English now? It's all different here..."