Daily Life in Italy

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For your enjoyment, here's a fun list of things I've been noticing 'round these parts lately.

Italian potato chips taste like the Kitchen Cooked brand in the U.S., and they come with little sticky tabs to keep the bag closed.

50% of the motorized population rides motorcycles, and 100% of them wear helmets.

Nutella to Italians is like peanut butter to Americans.

Fashionable older women ALL wear ankle-length fur coats, some with hats to match.

Italian bread contains no salt at all. In fact most things have almost no salt. It makes me wonder if this is normal and American food is overly salty, or if Italians just don't like it.

Wine is less expensive than water in restaurants. You have to ask for water; it isn't just sitting on the table. Ice is also very uncommon.

Whenever we ask Florentines where a nice but inexpensive place to eat might be, most of them immediately reply that there is a MACdonald's at such-and-such location, thinking that's what we're looking for. Italians are clearly under the impression that Americans go out for a nice dinner at McDonald's all the time. Ummm, no.

Coffee shops charge you more for your coffee if you sit down to drink. Stand, drink, and pay less -- sit, drink, and pay more.

Most of the TV stations air American shows dubbed in Italian. I watched Futurama the other night. It was hilarious, but in a different kind of way.

Church bells are always ringing somewhere.

You have to bag your own groceries at the market.

It's never colder than about 40 degrees, but most Italians are always bundled up to the ears as if about to face a blizzard. Being an experienced Midwesterner, it makes me laugh.

If you ask an Italian a question, any question at all, be prepared for a 30 minute answer.

Maps make Florence look huge, until you look at the scale of the map.

For the first time in my life, I actually WANT to be up in the mornings to make the most of the daylight.

Most people have the same ringtone, so when one person's phone goes off, there's genuine confusion.

Euro bills only come in 5s, 10s, 20s, and 50s. Ones and twos come in the form of coins. I love the pocket change.

There is no tax -- when it says 3 euro, it means 3 euro only.

Italians do not ever drink to get drunk. They drink heartily at every meal, but with little apparent effect. I admire their tolerance.

Foreign keyboards cause many ridiculous typos.

Most sidewalks are only wide enough for one person to walk comfortably.

A very friendly policeman is guarding something down by the Arno. He stands around casually chatting with passersby and other policemen, but he's holding a machine gun. It's a huge oxymoron, but I want to know what he's protecting.

Most people don't have dryers and hang their laundry out their windows to dry in the sun. We have a clothesline outside our back window, but we've hardly used it because our washing machine is from the stone age and is impossible to figure out. I've also discovered that I hate powder detergent.

The TV in our living room has a broken volume control, and it blares at top volume whenever it's on. This has one of two effects -- it makes everything ten times funnier, or it makes watching TV really, really annoying. Commercials are hilarious by the way -- watching them is like playing a riotous game of charades.

My typical breakfast is a bowl of cereal and a banana; lunch is a toasted sandwich from the school cafeteria or nearby cafe and an orange; dinner is usually some form of pasta, homemade or at a restaurant. All Italian noodles are perfectly al dente, just the way I like them.

After spending a full weekend here, my friends and I have realized that if none of our other travel plans work out, no one will be disappointed to spend more weekends in Florence. In fact, most of us have already nixed a lot of our crazy travel ideas, simply to spend more time in this city. It's why we are here after all.

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Photos

Piazzale Michelangelo
My friend Kim & I hiked up to the scenic piazza overlooking Florence. Che bello!

Sunset Above Florence
I'm living in a postcard.

Comments

[tyler]

funny
most of my family is from italy and almost everything i have read on here is about right about italians lol they do really think that we eat mcdonalds every night haha