Not just the coffee...

Huw Williams | 14:24, Tuesday 20 May 2014 | Turin, Italy

I stopped for a cheeky espresso on my way back to the office after lunch. He greeted me like a long-lost friend, handshakes all round, though I had been there less than twenty-four hours previously. These days I have enough of the language to make some smalltalk at least; it was fast, lively and vivacious - about the previous evening's football match here in Torino.

''Un caffè?''

''Sì, grazie.''

A couple of other men were already standing at the bar, and picked up on the football theme - Torino, like many European cities is a city divided by football loyalties - and the conversation was boisterous, full of banter and laughter. Coffees appeared, only a few seconds in the making, and just a few seconds in the drinking. And that was it, the whole thing lasted a couple of minutes at most, and I was out of there and on my way back to work with a renewed energy. Of course the coffee helped, but it was more than that - it was the atmosphere of the place, interacting with other people, the energy with which it was dispensed, the whole experience which contributed to what we completely miss when we simply make a good coffee at home. I think I understood a little more of what we call café culture, and why it is so important to many Italians.

It has taken me two and half years to notice it, but that's the way it is when you are a stranger. Though when those foreign words you hear around you begin to make sense in your head, you can begin to see how they function beyond mere comprehension. Without words and language we are lost in a haze of uncertainty and fear, with them we look out on a whole new panorama of possibility.