My good friend René Hernandez, a Medieval Literature super-geek currently living in Padova with his wife Genoveva (and their “stepchild” Juan Pablo Valenzuela*), would agree with me when I say that there’s hardly anything better than a very well ironed long-sleeves white shirt and a nice tie. Yeah, it just can get any better than that!
Today I dressed up formal for work, without the tie though. I love wearing formal attire, with nice well-ironed pants and shining shoes! Tidy! There were some very important people coming from abroad that wanted to have a look at the company and therefore everything, including the guy responsible for foreign affairs (that would be me!), had to be perfect. It’s a funny thing to get so many compliments and charming gazes as I walk on the street dressed formal, here, in Italy, the land of fashion! What is this thing about? Well, back there in Colombia wearing a tie is not a big deal (almost everyone wears a tie for work) but here in Italy, well, at least in Bologna, you don’t do it often. I guess the city is just “the coolest of the cool” and then people hardly dress formal. Jeans and comfortable sneakers rule!
The day I went looking for a job here in Bologna for the first time (a couple of weeks after my arrival, almost six years ago...) I also had an appointment with one of my new Italian students (I was already teaching English then). Silvana is her name and we met at a bar in "Via delle belle arti" for a cup of coffee and some tutoring for her upcomming English exam. You should have seen her face when she saw me! “What the hell are you doing? Are you getting married or something? What’s the tie for?” she said. I told her that I was looking for a job. She smiled and then asked me: “How is it going so far?” She laughed. I told her that I was amazed by the fact that no one had offer me a job though I was telling potential employers that even working in McDonald’s “as a French-Fries expert” (A rather idealized way to describe the sad truth of such a job…) would be OK. She laughed again and explained to me that dressed that way I would never find a job like that in Bologna, that people would think that I was someone so important seeking for a huge salary, etc. I had certainly seen people staring at me and looking kind of surprised that day, even kind of inquisitive to me… Funny! Thanks to Silvana I finally got to understand this “local dress code”. Next day I wore jeans and sneakers, and things got better: I was offered potential jobs in teaching and a job at a hotel. I first took the job at the hotel (making beds, cleaning bathrooms…) and a few weeks later I left it for my current job at the factory and some teaching hours at an English school :)
I don’t know, today I just felt like talking about this.
*I think Genoveva would prefer calling Juan Pablo “Mischievous Parasite” rather than "stepchild". My dear Geno has such a sweet way of telling things...
