IST (Italian Standard Time)

If you were to ask me for the greatest cultural difference between Italians & Americans, I'd answer time without skipping a beat. Tempo is Italian for time, as well as tense & weather. The English language has musically appropriated tempo (along with a host of other Italian musical terms) as the pace of a piece. American time vs. Italian time is really more about comparing tempos, like Gershwin to Vivaldi, agitato to adagio.

Concerto in F (Gershwin), III. Allegro agitato


Le quattro stagioni (Vivaldi), Concerto No. 2 in G Minor, Op. 8, RV 315, "L'Estate", II. Adagio e piano


I realize that this a very generalized statement. It would probably be smarter to just use myself vs. Florentine friends instead of Americans vs. Italians in general.

I am American. My pace is cheerful & agitated (cheerful agitation? agitated cheerfulness?) 24-7. So are a lot of Gershwin pieces. I'm happy but I stress a lot. I march from Point A to Point B. If I want something, I'm like a tank with automatic targeting & tracking, barreling down whatever road is necessary. I'll make it a point to be on time. I'm always three steps ahead. I go insane when idle. I hate weekends as they're always the least scheduled time for me. Vacations lasting longer than 4 days give me panic attacks. I do meander, keep weird hours, & tend to be all over the place, but I suspect even those times are subconsciously planned, like the grand piano in Concerto in F. Fast & loud & lots of banging on keys to get my point across.

The Florentines I know are always in a perpetual state of chill, unless there's a calcio game on the TV. Maybe in the privacy of their homes they freak out & have underwear dance parties & make big plans for the next five years. I have yet to witness this.

In addition, everyone lives with their families until they marry, & even then couples might stay in a parent's house. No one is itching to move on or out. The future happens when it happens & it's not something to hyper-plan over.

All stores are closed from 12:30-3:30 so that people can have epic lunches. Sometimes they don't go back to work after said lunches. All stores are also closed during the month of August, as the entire Italian population escapes on vacation.

Nothing is open on weekends. Nothing is open after 5:00 unless it's H&M or a restaurant.

It's normal to be fifteen minutes late to everything. Schedules are irrelevant.

Italian Standard Time (IST), as I call it, works though, as Italians seem to be much more graceful, gracious, & relaxed than their American counterparts (a.k.a. me). Their BPM never hits above 70. As for me, I never drop below 120, thus IST tends to add to my agitation. I cannot count the number of unannounced scioperi, meetings where Italian parties showed up 30+ minutes late, & closed supermarkets that have left me disgruntled.

The only thing is I've been showing up to things 15+ minutes late & am no longer phased when it takes an hour for the waitress to take my order. I guess my internal tempo is changing. Italians, like rational people, say "Tempo al tempo" (idiomatically translates as "All in good time). I personally prefer "A correre e cagare ci si immerda i garretti." (literally translates as "By running and defecating at the same time, you'll get crap on your heels"), which has less to do with tempo, but yet oddly applicable in my head.