Guess this is also a kind of culture shock--how helpful people are. We live in northern umbria--very small town for our comune and everyone, almost without exception, has been ever helpful. Everything from getting our strada bianca improved to getting our Carta d'identita' (just got them!) ... even the bureaucrats are nice.
Of course, there are now certain things we just shrug our shoulders at that 2 years ago would have been crazy-making, such as how slow everything is and how many hoops you have to jump through (we just got a second car and it took my husband a week to handle all the paperwork with the dealer and insurance agency--every time he thought he was done there was still 'one more thing' to do). However that just must be part of our adjustment to life here!

-Sada Sat
www.yogaborgo.com

Couldn't agree more about the niceness in small towns.

We're now known here as the Australians with the two weird dogs. Everyone knows us, especially the vigili. A couple of weeks ago, we were having a large-ish bathroom vanity unit delivered. The delivery truck was small enough to fit through the town's gates so that wasn't a problem. It usually is. The problem was that the roadway outside the town's front gate was being relaid. No access. The wee main street is one-way up to the square, and continues, one way, downhill to the town's back gate. And we live on the wee main street.

So how was the truck to deliver our unit? And it was way too heavy to be carried from either gate.

The vigili told the truck driver to meet him at the town's back gate. Then, on his police motor cycle, with light flashing, and honking his horn, he led the truck the wrong way up the wee main street, through the square, and further - the wrong way - down the street to our place.

Bless 'em.

Hey you're in Umbria - so you'll have to join the rest of us in Assisi when we agree on a GTG time, etc..

I've noticed this too. The niceness of the people here.

People here tell me all the time, "Oh Perugini/Umbri are not nice, they are very closed", etc... but I'm finding the contrary. Maybe it's because I'm a straniera (not totally), maybe it's because I'm really open, but I have found people to be very kind and giving and open here in Perugia and the rest of Umbria (quello che ho visto, anyway), and I have made a group of amazing and irreplaceable friends here.

I think that if you're open, people are naturally open too.

Great post!

P.S. I looked at your webpage, and it looks fabulous, what you do!! I'll have to come visit your "yoga borgo" sometime. Very very cool.

My husband and I live in Rome, not exactly a small town!! But we live in Trastevere and it is like living in a small town in many ways! We are part of the community here like no where else we have lived. We don't have a car and walk almost everywhere and I love being greeted by so many people as I walk. When I am out I stop at the pet store where I practice my Italian with Max and he practices his English. At the caffe, they have started putting "designs" in the foam of our cappuccino every day and we have had a lot of laughs! The man at the Questura (where I have gone every month to check on our Permesso's) is always friendly and helpful. Most evenings when we come home the owner or our friend who is a waiter in the restaurant across the street insist that we have a glass of wine and chat for a few minutes and give our dog bits of lamb.

Cibo! I love the food here in Ascoli Piceno, and the price (full meals with wine & coffee for 11 - 15 euro each). A town where you can walk stone streets and sit in a medieval piazza with snow-capped mountains in the background and watch the people go by. We have met only friendly people and many have gone out of their way to help the 'americani'. AP is begin enough to blend in if you want but small enough to be able to get involved.