Taken by surprise

The other evening, I was walking along with my neighbour. We were on our way to a dinner at the local restaurant to celebrate 'Italian Women's Day'. As we turned the corner, I saw a gang of youths huddled in a shadowy corner laughing about something. They stared over at us and, having lived in London, was naturally nervous about their reaction as we approached. One of them stood up, towering about me, dressed in black with his hood pulled down firmly over his eyes 'Happy Women's Day!' he remarked cheerily 'Enjoy your evening!'. His friends nodded their agreement as we passed and one of them handed me a bunch of mimosa flowers -a customary gift for this special day. I was amazed and tried hard to imagine a similar reaction in London - a torrent of abuse and expletives ...if you're lucky!! Well, how refreshing, I thought and proceeded to tell my Italian students this story for the rest of the week.