St Joseph the Shirker

May 1st is the feast day of St Joseph the Worker. I have a great devotion to St Joseph, so I had lofty plans of spending the day in the center of Rome to celebrate his feast day.
May 1st is also (fittingly) Labor day for most of Europe. These two things converging made my day much different than what I had anticipated this morning.

First, as I headed to the bus stop I noticed there was some commotion happening at the church, so I decided to stop in and check out Mass. Mass ended up being extra long (but beautiful) because it was a Confirmation Mass for the teens of the parish. I was very happy to be there, as I have a real heart for teenagers.

Once Mass ended (about an hour and a half later) I headed to the bus stop, and noticed the same people sitting there, as when I passed before Mass.

Curious.

I asked around in very poor Italian if the bus was, in fact running despite the holiday. Everyone I spoke to assured me that the bus was coming, soon even.
So I sat. And sat. Some people left, others came. People asked if the bus was coming, in spite of the holiday. They were promptly placated. I sat some more.

After sitting a bit more, a middle aged man asked me a question, when I informed him that I don't know much Italian, he began speaking to me in nearly perfect English. After discussing that I am from Texas, and that he is from Rome I thought we had exhausted our conversation.

I was wrong.

I think he just wanted to practice his English skills because he began just telling me "facts", he owns many stacks of VHS tapes, he once restored an entire church by himself, he met some Amish people once.
Once he finished telling me all of his legitimately interesting stories, he asked me to grade him on his English. I thought spoke great English, and told him as much.

My loquacious friend took this moment to offer his services to me as an Italian tutor. He could have me speaking wonderful Italian quickly. We just need to meet twice a week, for two hours at a time, every week for three months. Oh, and he charges 45 Euro an hour. Would I be interested?
I answered (obviously) that I just cant afford that sort of financial or time commitment right now. He said that I am rich, because I am American (good news), but if I don't need lessons maybe I know someone who does and to pass his info along (anyone need an Italian tutor?).

(A group of teenagers (ragazzi)came to the bus stop, saying they saw online that the bus is coming soon. I believed them.)

To change the topic, my buddy told me that "It is a scientifically proven fact, that Italians are the lowest class of all Europeans. I can say that because I am Roman." Now I am sure you are dying to know what scientific experiment determines how classy a whole country is, I will tell you. Newspapers. He says that Italians read fewer newspapers than anyone else in all of Europe. Newspapers are very important indicators of how classy one is, I am told.

(The ragazzi used an ipod with speakers to provide a soundtrack to our wait. The playlist is a vast array of American music including: "Juicy" by Biggie, "One Less Lonely Girl" by Justin Beiber, "Changes" by Tupac, and "Party in the USA" by the incomparable Miley Cyrus.)

In an effort to participate in the conversation (novel, I know) I tell this highly qualified Italian tutor that Americans are reading newspapers less these days as well. In fact, many newspapers are doing poorly financially.

By his reaction to this, a passerby might surmise that I had stabbed him. He was furious. He yelled at me that I am wrong. "That makes no sense at all! Newspapers are very important! If there is an important political topic in the news for example, you can just cut it out and put it in a dossier. You could continue to do this for day, or weeks. If someone disagreed with you about this topic later, you could just present them this dossier to prove that you hold the correct position."

I told him, that people in America (and I am sure everywhere with internet access) do still read, and read the news. Just not in newspapers. A lot of people find news online. "The internet cannot be trusted!" The increasingly crazy Italian tutor shouts. "Wikipedia is full of lies and you know it!"
I tried to reassure him that there are reliable sources on the internet, in fact, most newspapers maintain websites that have the same stories that they print.

Upset, but comitted to the newspaper cause, and trying to persuade me that in fact everyone reads them, the Italian tutor pulls out his Ace. "What about the Cinema!" He explains to me, that the newspaper has advertisements for new releases, a list of what films each theater is showing, and even reviews of the movies. It is impossible for the internet to have all of this information. It changes too often. He announces to me, quite smug that he knows more than this American girl.

By this point I had grown quite tired of the conversation, so I didn't contest his latest point.

With this victory under his belt, my acquaintance decided he was tired of waiting on the bus, and would walk the three (!!) blocks to his final destination.

Once he left I looked to check the time, and noticed that I had been waiting on the (purported) bus for over an hour and a half. In this time I had not seen ANY buses, so I decided to just give up.

I walked up the street for awhile in an effort to find a bar, or a restaurant to eat at in honor of St Joseph's feast day. After walking for 20 minutes along a road filled with businesses, but not spying a single door open to customers, I decided to just call it a day and head home to write this blog post. Clealy Italans do not celebrate the feast of St Joseph the Worker by actually working. But does that really suprise anyone?

(Also I met another friend during my long bus wait, but that story can be told another time, this post is already very long.)

Sorry this post is so long, I didnt want to forget how weird today was, and I hope you think it is as funny as I do.