Dancing in Lucca

Italy, morning

Last night I went dancing with my sister, her boyfriend and a friend of my sister. She said "I am coming to pick you up at 11 and then we go to Montecatini (a place close by)". At 11 sharp they were here and incredibly I was ready (even if I was at the same time getting ready and watching the special on Lorenzo Cherubini and his last album recorded in Los Angeles).

We left here at 11. First stop a coffee place (and I asked them completely surprised "but are we going to dance here????"), a few drinks (for the others, I don't drink), a few cigarettes (for the others), a bit of bla bla bla (this time me too, since I found two of my oldest scuba diving friends). On the move again. Time: around 12 am. In the car again, driving in the fog. By the time we left the coffee place from 4 people we became 7.

We then get to this place in Montecatini, "La Bella Vita". Time we got inside: 12.45 am. Nice place. Full of people. Nice place for a study. I keep believing that if I wouldn't have became a biologist, I would have been an anthropologist. Age range of the people inside: 12-50. Average: 30. Clothing: this is a chapter apart. I will shortly describe it later.

First thing that I noticed. On the top floor of this disco-place, people smoke. I ask my sister: isn't that by law it is now forbidden to smoke in closed public places? and my sister "Yes, but since the emergency door is open, in this way they can say that the room is an open space, thus people can smoke". The open door was a small emergency door, only in the corner of one side of the room. Basically, it would be like you are at home, you open the house door and then you convince yourself of being in an open space.
And then people wonder why in Italy nothing works...pretty obvious I would say. Make a law and in two minutes, Italians will find 100 and more way to escape it.

The music was nice, so I started dancing (actually, I started dancing since I entered the place and I heard the music) among other people just standing, walking, pushing. Not the best conditions to dance. But ok. After two minutes since I began dancing, my sister and I had a crowd of guys around us. I can be pretty unfriendly if someone disturbs me when I dance (I make an exception only for people I know), so those guys left after a few minutes. The problem is that there were too many guys, so once these left, other came. My sister told me that a really ugly guy was staring at me for almost all the time we danced there. Ah, I forgot, my sister likes acting like a match-maker, so she is trying to find a new boyfriend for me when she has the occasion. Unfortunately, beside the fact that I don't need her to find someone for me, we also have completely different taste for men.

And finally, let's talk about the clothing and the men there. I think it is really fashionable for the Italian men to wear a shirt with the first 3-4 buttons completely open, probably thinking that showing some chest hair work as an aphrodisiac for women (which may be for the others, but for sure not for me). The other version of the above described one, is the shirt with 3-4 buttons open and an hair-free chest. I don't want to enter too much in the psychology of the Italian men, but after spending so many years abroad, on the average I have to say that they act a lot, trying to convince the women around that they are the coolest animals on Earth. Of course, once they are out of the dancing place, they run home, where they can find some protection under their mothers' roof. Of course, this on average. Not everyone is like this, otherwise we would extinct pretty soon.
Another extremely interesting character was the hair style. I think the '80 are back also in the hair style for men. Ugly. Ah and I forgot that I always remain kinda of shocked when I see men hugging each other, touching each others etc...but here it is pretty common. I think it has something to do with the animal recognition. You know, some animals smell each other to see if you belong to the same "clan", Italian probably substituted the smell with a bit of touching.
My sister defined the women there "cows", but I think she was a bit too exaggerated...for sure they were not all ladies, but there were some pretty interesting figures too.
Maybe next time I will go out dancing I will bring a camera and some piece of paper to take notes (can you imagine me taking notes and pictures in the middle of the crowd? probably they would call some psychoanalyst to bring me away...)...
But I had fun....