Living in italy has its perks, obviously, I love it here, I would never leave my land and I would never even think about visiting some other place for more than a month.
The humid warm weather
The smell of food
The smell of sea
The greetings from our neighbors that hang out in their balconies 24/7
The constant chattering in the streets
The warmth of my people
The sound of the Vespa (It's an Italian scooter)
Just everything !!!
I'd miss my home too much if I left, I'm used to this, and SO MANY foreigners fall in love with our country but they freak out when it comes to driving...
We organize random hangouts with our American neighbors often, since I live literally NEXT TO THE American BASE, and I always have to be there because yes I'm the only one that actually speaks fluent English....sigh
So meeting and seeing Americans is a daily routine for natives in my town. And let me tell you, we get along, we include them in our family meetings, we invite them over, we have different hangouts, I mean, this is how Italy funcions and this is how we're raised, to open doors to everyone. And our American friends seem to enjoy us and this " DIFFERENT PLANET" as they call it.
What is normal to us natives might not be normal for them though, and it's understandable.
DRIVING
They have constant heart attacks, a lot of them even refuse to drive AT ALL ... most of their cars are automatic while ours are with marches.
I mean, I have no Idea how traffic works in America i've never been there, but I have been told that their roads are controlled all the time, that you literally get your car confiscated if you just pass a red light .... LET ME KNOW IN THE COMMENT SECTION HOW ROADS ACTUALLY WORK IN YOUR COUNTRY ...
Because let me tell you in our country they don't ... lol Unless there is a random patrol that stops random people that might or might not drive fast... they rarely catch someone on speed because the drivers ALLERT EACH OTHER from the opposite side of the road, so you automatically slow down, well this might be common in other parts of the world too i don't know... LET ME KNOW
Anyhows...
It's true that us Italians drive in a very unorthodox way, but trust me, if you understood our habits you'd understand that we're not dangerous, we're not aggressive we usually just stop and cuss each other out then move on. ( YES A LOT OF HAND GESTURES THERE) ...
THE HORN
Our use of the horn seldom signal of annoyance or danger just like in every parto of the world, but also to greet our best friend's 3rd degree cousins wife... When waiting at a traffic light as a favour to the first car in row, who may not have seen the light change from red to green (after 2 seconds NO TIME THERE)..
Sometimes we even comunicate with it
- Two times (most used) : MOVE YOU IMBECILE !!!
- Very long horn : YOU JUST CUT MY ROAD YOU PORK WE ALMOST KILLED EACH OTHER!!!
- Very quick and short ones : YOU'RE BEING SLOW
- A single quick one : GREETING A FRIEND OR FAMILY MEMBER
- Long ones with little breaks in between: SOCCER VICTORY GAMES (this Sunday for sure)
BEING CLOSE
Something that tourists notice as well is the space between the cars in general, its our tendency to do so. I think it's because we have a social disposition. We lay close to each other on beaches, we sit next to other people in bars even if we don't know them, we just like to stay close and we don't mind being close physically...
You must immagine how social distancing was hard for us during the Pandemic...
As a matter of fact, we're known to be catastrophic in traffic, but we're also known to be decent in cooking, dressing and living life, if you haven't tried just add a visit to Italy to your bucket list, you won't regret it...
Thanks to everyone or as we say "Grazie a tutti"
-D-
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