The Mysteries of Italy

Everyone has heard of Rome, Venice, and Florence. But do you know the real Italy? Do you know the Italy that locals experience? The Italian culture is extremely complex and particular. The Italy that Americans experience is something completely different than the Italy true Italians grew up in. In fact, most Americans only know the few, history rich towns like the three mentioned above. However, there are only 35,000 people living in Florence while 35 million visit each year. The ratio of true locals to tourists has completely ruined the uniqueness and beauty of a real Italian city.

Now I am not here to bash on the tourists visiting Italy because in reality I am one; but going on vacation for a few weeks versus living in a foreign country have their obvious differences. I moved to Italy for the Spring semester in January and the beginning was rough trying to adapt to the new culture and learning the do’s and don’t’s to avoid acting like a tourist. I have also learned cultural aspects that would be strange in the United States but normal for Italians.

Do you eat standing up? In American culture, you normally grab a seat and patiently wait for your server to hand you a menu, then pay the bill at the end of the meal and leave. Now that was my first mistake when moving to Italy. In most cafes and panino shops, the correct culture of drinking coffee or eating your food is to stand at the bar and complete your meal before leaving. In fact, most “bars” you see all over Google Maps are cafes. In most cases you will “order and drink your coffee first, then pay at the register”(“Eataly“). If there is no bar to sit at, then you sit on the sidewalk curb right outside the panino shop to respectively finish your fresh prosciutto and arugula sandwich. In American culture, if you do not finish your food you would take the leftovers home with you for later. It is considered rude if you do not finish your pizza and take it home for later. Italians love their food and enjoy providing course after course, however they expect you to finish every single crumb left on your plate. The other day I went to my favorite pizza place and I asked for a togo container for my pesto sauce. The man looked at me with confusion. He ended up filling a full bowl with pesto rather than just a small cup. I now have pesto for the next two weeks.

Family is extremely important in the Italian culture. The reality TV show “Jersey Shore” stereotyped the typical Italian man as a “guido” and a “meatball” that loves his mom and her homemade cooking and constant cleaning. Although it was dramatized to fit reality TV, it is quite accurate. Men and women do not move out of their parents house until they have a stable job or relationship. The statistic agency Eurostat found that “67 percent of Italians aged between 18-34 live with their parents” which is “almost 20 points higher than the European average”(“The Local”). Although the child may have left the nest, family dinner is still a weekly routine. A guest speaker came into my International Marketing class last week to speak about the differences between millennials in Italy and millennials in America. She was a PhD student who now lives with her fiancee outside of Florence. She said when she lived with her parents, it was considered strange if you did not have dinner with your family every night. Although she currently lives outside of Florence, she makes the commute into the city at least twice a week to share a home-cooked meal with her parents.

Lastly, the Italians that live in Florence… do. not. care. As the weather begins to clear up, the amount of tourists on the streets has significantly increased. The roads are already narrow, so hundreds of people trying to squeeze through cobble stone streets is challenging. And you can’t forget about the reckless taxi drivers and fast moving bikes trying to squeeze with you. Why are taxi drivers so careless? After interviewing locals, they claim its just a “blatant disregard for the rules”(The Local). In normal circumstances, if there is someone in front of you, someone will either move left or right to avoid crashing. That is the appropriate thing to do right? Well not in an Italians mind. Italians do not care who or what is in front of them- they will continue walking in a straight line until they reach their destination. They fully expect the other person to adjust their path in order to avoid slamming into one another. This could be from the irritation with all the tourist infested streets, or simply the way they were taught from a young child to walk. Personally, I despise all the tourists – even though I still am one. Even though the weather has gotten nicer, I preferred the gloomier days since the streets would be empty and I could eat my panino in peace while staring at the Duomo.