Embarrassing Moments (1) --- Persistent Papagallo

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In 1965 I and a friend of mine visited an Italian girl in Naples we’d got to know in London in a language course the year before. We knew nothing about her family, we only had her address. In 1965 mass tourism wasn’t such a phenomenon as it is now. Besides, it was only March, the holiday season hadn’t begun yet. We were conspicuous: two tall, blonde and pretty young German women, obviously an overwhelming sight for the Neapolitans. Respectable, elderly people (men and women!) came up to us and touched us! Hordes of papagalli* followed us including a young policeman (*literally ‘parrots’, the nickname for young men who follow young women, whistle at them and suggest hanky-panky). We were embarrassed, nobody had warned us that the reception in Naples would be like this. We were glad when a single young man approached us and asked politely in English if he could help us. He asked us about our friend. He was smart. After a while, we were convinced that he knew her. We got to the house and discovered that our friend’s father was a physician. The maid who opened the door hadn’t been informed about our visit and ushered us into the waiting room. We didn’t know what to say, our new acquaintance took over and explained that ‘we’ had come to see the daughter of the house. When our friend appeared together with her father, they wanted to know who the young man was. The cheeky fellow said that he was our friend. We denied that fiercely and told them that he had pretended to know our Italian friend. Father became furious and threw him out. All prejudices about blonde German tourists keen on Italian males were verified for him. When the intruder had been sent away, we sat down to lunch. My friend and I had never eaten spaghetti at home. We knew nothing about Italian meals. Well-off families don’t eat only pasta for lunch. They have it as a first dish, the second is meat or fish (or both) with vegetables followed by dessert. The family was well-off. When a maid put a bowl of spaghetti in front of us as the guests of honour, we both heaved a big amount onto our plates. We were hungry. The family stared at us in disbelief. They knew that the main dish was still to come, we didn’t. And then the fight with the spaghetti began! We were sweating, blushing, feeling like oafs. The family was oh so polite, they didn’t laugh or help us. They just looked away. An embarrassing start of our stay in Naples! --- If you want to read about more embarrassing moments, click on the green line above the title of the post. ---