In a country that respects the fundamental and simple pleasures of taking time to live life, it is inherently touching to experience the unanticipated audible drama of excitement that seems to explode from within the Italian people. The slowness of time, the indelible passage of it is respected here, but it is intrinsically clear that the Italians relish in the sweet and at many times poignant moments of life.
A few weeks ago, as I walked back home through the regaling streets of Perugia, lethargic from too much chocolate, I experienced one of these charming moments of life fully lived, a theatrical burst of joie de vivre.
Through the entrance of Via dei Priori, a crowd began to heave and mold into a circle, enclosing a band of musicians. It was as if the band of cheerful men had activated a magnet, for the crowd began to swell and draw nearer to these beguiling gentlemen, bedecked with cumber buns and disorderly tuxedos, their stately dress and boyish demeanors indicating a show for the record books.
With the abrupt pulse of a drum and the undeniable blasts of a trumpet, the mass yelled out with enthusiasm and sang

along with the liltingly raucous music. The band grew increasingly giddy as they passed around an unlabeled bottle of wine,

their lips stained burgundy with energized inebriation. The explosion of laughter from the crowd in tandem with the ebullient

music reverberated against stonewalls and arch ways of Via dei Priori. One cannot help but feel happy at these rare and bizarre

moments of sheer togetherness, of warm camaraderie.