How the young people have fun in my country? It’s a difficult question. I feel to belong already to an old generation in comparison with the actual and then, from my memories, I can describe with some nostalgia the games that I did with my group of friends in the beginning of 1990s until the first years of 2000, period in which I have firmly lived in Livorno, my native city, before beginning to move around the Italy with my family.

Also if the TV has been a great presence in my life, the place where all the children played it was essentially the park. The places more attended of my city were and are, probably still now, Villa Fabbricotti and Villa Mimbelli, the two greatest parks at disposition of the children and the boys of my city, full of games, attractions, trees to climb and places where to hide. And if we didn’t want to reach the park, the road under house, at that time less dangerous compared with now, could become a perfect field for a match of Soccer, game always present in the life of every Italian, children or also adult.

Then the games of my infancy have been mainly these: “Calcio” (Soccer), “Nascondino” (Hide-and-seek), “Rubabandiera o Cattura la Bandiera” (Steal the Flag or Capture the Flag) and all that games that our imagination could create in a park or in the middle of the road. If we didn’t want to play, walk around the city or take the bicycle up to the sea was always valid alternative solution.

When I was at the elementary school, we played a lot 1-2-3- stella (1-2-3-star) a very simple game that keep us entertained for hours at a time. One person is ‘it’ and has to stand facing a wall with his/her eyes closed and ‘it’ says out loud ´1-2-3- stella´. In the mean time all the other kids have to stand away from the wall (5 meters away was usually the starting point) and move quickly towards it, while ‘it’ is counting. Once the word ‘stella’ was said, ‘it’ could turn and open their eyes while the other kids had to stop and stand still in whatever position they were in when ‘it’ said ‘stella’ and turned. Anyone who couldn’t stand still had to go back to the starting point. The game ends when someone can touch the wall.

He/she is the winner.

Then when I grew up was the moment of the gold age of the videogames and the games of society that personally I love still now very very much. They are currently my favorite fun for me and for my group of friends with wich I spend whole days trying to find the most fun and interesting game for the next time.

Monopoly and Risk ruined my life for ever.

During the years the typology of games and the way to play it’s changed and in some cases it’s changed radically. The toys have become more complex and more sophisticated. For as it regard the children the situation, as it regards the way to have fun, is, more or less, the same. The great presence of TV and telephones between that, has reduced some of the time outside, preferring to stay in the house looking at cartoons or playing with the telephone. The bicycle remains a system to have fun very appreciated, also for the whole family, and however it’s still very common to see children play in the park at the same games to which I played 20 years ago.

Where the situation is mostly changed, now it’s among the boys, those between the 12 and the 18 years.

While before, for my opinion, they way to think was more next to the kids, therefore the way to play and to have fun was fundamentally the same, maybe with just some small variation given by the difference of age, now the boys of that age think about being more adults than children, therefore, they prefer to stay at home the afternoon and go out with group of friends in the evening, to go to dance or to pass the evening in the bar or in the pubs, maybe not the children from 12 to 13 years, but already toward the 15/16 years is a normal thing to see.

In my city we also have an expression for the boys of that age: “Si divertono anche solo facendo le vasche per strada” (They also have fun just making the tubs on the road) It serves to say that often at that age they simply have fun going around up and down in the main street of the city with their groups as when we go to the swimming pool.

In every case for the boys of that age it’s also normal and amusing spend the time in group finding some special or common places where to meet as cafe, bar, associations or shops. Also extra activities as the Sport (Kick, Tennis, Swimming pool, Dance, Martial Arts or Rugby) are way to have fun very appreciated.

In the summer the situation, at the end, it doesn’t change so much. All the games that we do in the city during the year in the summer we do these game at the beach, public or private or in the swimming pools. For the people, Iike me, that don’t love too much the sea, go to mountain for a trip or to ski, in the case there is the possibility, it’s a normal way to have fun.

As it regards the boys of my age the situation can change really a lot from person to person. The fun at our disposition are so many that we often decide to choose nothing. Our leisure time is above all the evening, moment in which we decide to go to eat out and then to pass the after dinner in a cafe or in a pub to tell us the events of the day, of the job or of the university. When instead at the end arrive the days off or the weekend,  is we go together out for special event, concert or sport or cultural activity.

One of my favorite way to have fun with my friends, for example, is to go to the cinema.

The truth is that in Italy the fun is with the people with which the fun it’s shared. We are people that love the loneliness and the calm of their own house but that, when we are out, we simply love to be together to drink or to eat something in company, that is a juice or an ice cream for the younger or a beer for the older, or to spend a day together, as we say in Italy, speaking of nothing until the sun it’s disappeared and even after.