1. It's freezing. Its absolutely cold everywhere including inside buildings such as my apartment, restaurants, classrooms, etc. I can confidently say that I have never been consistently so cold ever in my life. Its apparent that Italians are rather conservative when it comes to using heat.
2. They speak English. Surprisingly the language barrier has not been too difficult to over come. All the restaurants and stores we have visited have English speaking employees. However, their thick Italian accent carries over in their English making me sometimes wonder what language they are actually speaking.
3. I'm not in Clemson anymore. In fact, no one here has ever even heard of Clemson, and the few Americans that have heard of Clemson mistakenly call it ClemZEN (how rude!!!). How these people go through life without knowing about the greatest place on earth is beyond me.
4. Murses. It is a real thing. Men here actually carry around rather stylish purses on a regular basis. It seems so unnatural to me when I see a grown man toting around a purse that is not much different than the purses I own. This clearly is a European fad that I seriously doubt would ever cross over to our side of the world.
5. The dogs wear clothes. This is a weird phenomena that I did not prepare myself for. Almost all the dogs I see out and about with their owners during the day are decked out in winter sweaters, just as fashionable as the sweaters I would wear! I've actually caught myself feeling jealous at times because I swear some of these dogs strut around in clothes more stylish than most things in my closet.
6. Italian men love to cat call. Apparently yelling sexual remarks at women is totally acceptable here. Ive also come to realize that Italians love to prey on innocent American girls, making it impossible to walk through the streets with my American friends unnoticed (not to mention one of my roommates is a ginger- a huge rarity here).
7. The dumpsters are different. Instead of having typical looking trashcans or dumpsters around Florence, they instead have little metal boxes that are connected to huge metal containers that stay in the ground. The boxes are huge and hold all of the city's trash. I was once lucky enough to witness the emptying of one of the containers and it involved a giant magnet machine pulling the box out of the earth. Never did I think I would ever be so mystified by trashcans.
8. Everything is smaller. Everything. Smaller trashcans, fridges, sidewalks, cars, streets, coffees, portion sizes ..... The list goes on. The differences in the sizes of their cars and streets is particularly interesting. The cars they drive are not much bigger than the smart cars we are used to in America. I suppose their cars have to be so small considering that their streets are annoyingly narrow, which leads me to my next point-
9. Everyone drives like an idiot. After being here a week I have developed a serious aversion to taxis cars. Considering I've almost been hit numerous times I will now forever be fearful of these little white cars. Also, I've noticed that the Italian government has wasted a bunch of money on stop lights and traffic signs-- I can assure you that no one obeys them.
10. Water isn't free. Upon ordering water at an Italian restaurant the waiter promptly brings out a large water bottle for your table to share. It took me a few times eating out to realize this difference, and lately I am wondering if Italians do this because something is wrong with the tap water. Is it poisionus? Guess I'll be finding out the hard way.
No comments:
Post a Comment