General Observations

Ciao!

After being in Italy for a little longer than two weeks, you start to notice things--mainly, Italians don't really do anything. An example of this happened today when my Contemporary Italian Art teacher said, "Do your reading, because I'm lazy and I don't want to lecture you on material you should know." But here are my observations in a nutshell: Italians are extremely inefficient, they happen to be the fastest drivers (inefficiency and fast driving may seem to be contradictory--I will elaborate on that in a bit), this country runs on a restaurant/bar economy, the only food you can find is something from the bottom category of the (old) food pyramid.

Italians are inefficient*:

I cannot begin to stress how inefficient this country seems to be. Maybe that's why there is a huge financial crisis here... Literally, people get to work at 11, they then work from 11-1, at 1 they shut down their shops till 4, and then they are open till 8. The streets are literally empty till like 10 in the morning (besides American students going to class). People literally sit in bars (=cafés) all day and read the paper, then take a two hour lunch, and then have a three hour dinner. It's unbelievable.

Need for speed:

I don't know what it is, but the second an Italian gets behind the wheel of a car or on the seat of a moped, s/he absolutely needs to get wherever they are going in the fastest way possible. It's as if his/her life depends on it. I don't know what changes between the four hours they are sitting in a coffee shop sipping espresso or wine, and when they get behind the wheel. I'm open to suggestions and would be willing to conduct a psychological study on the matter.

Food Inc.:

This country has an almost purely based restaurant economy. If you walk down the street of our humble little city (with one of the biggest churches you have ever seen smack dab in the middle), you'll notice that upwards of 99% of the stores you pass are restaurants*. This might be a reason why efficiency is so low. Also, if you are walking around and you don't pass a restaurant, there is a high chance you are passing a bar (remember, bar = café + alcohol). Bars are where people do their daily newspaper/book reading, hang out with friends/family, or just sit and think. The nice thing about bars in Italy is that you can run in, stand at the counter, order an espresso (similar to the word express), and be served in under a minute--the only example of Italian efficiency.

Atkins:

If you are on the Atkins diet, don't ever step foot in Italy. I ate my first piece of fruit yesterday, and I've been walking around this city for two weeks. Fruit can only be purchased from a grocery store--never a bar or restaurant. Literally, this entire country is running off a very high carbohydrate diet. It's amazing that people here are thinner than the US of A.

Other observations:

In order to get into a building, you push the door--which is not the case in America because of fire codes; People will open their windows and air out their windows--even in sub-zero weather. Also, I joined a gym yesterday around the corner from our apartment. When I signed up, Giovanni (the man who owns the gym), said, "Thanks for becoming member. My name is Giovanni. Nice to meet you. If you have question, come find me. If you have problem, I can't help you." A woman then walked in and they had a brief two minute exchange. She left and he turned to me and said, "Fuck her! I hate women..." He also proceeded to say, "Tell me I'm the fucking greatest!" He's quite the character. I will probably devote the end of each blog post to a Giovanni quote.

London tomorrow.

Ciao for now.

*Note: This is obviously a generalization. Not all Italians are inefficient. However, it really seems as if no one does anything here.

**Note: The number is probably around 50% depending on the area you happen to be.