Page 12 of My Italian Love Affair

The noise here isn’t just sound; it’s life.

It spills out of cafés where people linger over their hot cups of coffee instead of clutching tightly to paper cups on the go.

It winds through cobblestone alleys where old friends stop to chat without checking their watches.

It drifts through the air on the scent of freshly baked pastries and rich tomato sauce, inviting rather than demanding.

All around, it doesn’t seem that people are just killing time before heading home. Here, they’represent; laughing and smiling and fully living in the moment.

They sit together, dressed casually in linen shirts and flowing dresses and sipping wine because they enjoy it, not because they need it to unwind. They talk with their hands, with their whole bodies, animated and unfiltered.

The people here don’t just exist between meetings and deadlines.

Theylive.Theypause.

They take up space without apologising for it.

And judging by the laughter echoing from the nearby piazza, they’re much happier for it.

The streets are impossibly charming, like something straight out of a film. Terracotta buildings with wooden shutters, balconies overflowing with potted plants and locals chatting animatedly as they pass by on scooters or linger outside small shops -

And me?

Well.

I’m just trying to walk without looking like the lost tourist that I very much am.

I keep my phone in my hand, mapping my way towards a small supermarket that’s apparently just a five-minute walk away.

Of course, that estimate doesn’t account for the number of times I’ll stop to gawk at my surroundings or nearly trip over uneven cobblestones.

Priorities, though - as I have to keep reminding myself.

Food first, sightseeing later.

I push open the glass door of the littlealimentari- the word I’ve quickly learned meanscorner shop- and immediately feel like I’ve stepped into another world.

It’s nothing like the soulless supermarkets back home. This place is small but packed from floor to ceiling with fresh produce, crusty bread and rows of pasta in shapes I’ve never even heard of.

It even has a deli counter where a serious-looking older man is slicing prosciutto with the precision of a surgeon.

I grab a basket and begin wandering through the aisles, trying to make sensible choices. A loaf of bread, some cheese, a bottle of olive oil that looks fancier than necessary but feels like the right thing to buy.

Then I arrive at the wine section.

It would be rudenotto, wouldn’t it?

I scan the labels before finally settling on a bottle that looks decent and isn’t outrageously expensive. A woman next to me - probably in her fifties, wearing a stylish linen dress - glances over and nods approvingly.

"Buona scelta," she says.Good choice.

I blink. "Oh. Uh,grazie!"

She smiles before moving along, and I have to stop myself from fist-pumping the air like a child who just got a gold star.

Did I just pass my first unofficial Italian test? Am Iblending in?

Probably not - but it’s the little boost that I needed, anyway.

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