The Chattering Classes

304 · Tough kid

Walking around aimlessly on a random afternoon in Thiene, the small town where I spent all of my youth. As I walked by the kid looked puzzled as to why I would take a picture of such an ordinary place, and I heard him mutter to himself “he must be from another country” – only using the word “paese”, which in italian is used for both “country” and “village”. I’m pretty sure he meant “country”, but around here the word is actually used more to refer to “village”. In which case he’d be right: I’m from a smaller town just 3km north of there.