Stuff That's Different in Italy

Part of the fun of taking a teen to Europe, and especially to a country where she loved all the food, was seeing the world through her eyes. A number of the items below I already knew, but I found it interesting to watch her notice them. Here's some stuff that's different in Italy. We saw...

Smart Cars everywhere. One dealership (photo) had them stacked ten high. On the streets, sometimes if people parked their cars far enough apart, a Smart Car driver would pull in and park his or her vehicle between them--sideways. Motorcycles everywhere, too. Men and women buzzed between cars in Rome, their heads mostly unhelmeted. Driving little vehicles makes sense, as the streets are narrow and crowded, and gasoline costs about twice what it runs here.

Boots. Very tall boots. The blue pair and the white pair you see both have price tags of sixty-nine euro (sign: €69). One euro right now equals about $1.50 U.S. Consider that the average Italian makes in the mid-$30,000 range. They generally buy few items of quality clothing as compared with our multiple items of relatively cheap clothing.

Teeny elevators and other stuff. One elevator in our hotel had a four-person maximum, but let me tell ya, those four persons would have to be the size of my daughter. Or smaller. But then we rarely saw overweight people. Too much walking for that. When the three of us arrived with our luggage, we had to use two elevators to get to our room on the fifth floor of the Hotel Giobarti, where I had the joy of explaining to my daughter the function of a bidet. What we would call the second floor is the first floor in Europe. Gelato. Everywhere. We heard the pistachio is fabulous, especially if it's a nasty green color. The nastier the better. We didn't have the guts to try it though--not when we already struggled to decide between flavors like tiramisu, carmel chocolate, double chocolate, and chocolate rum.

Few children, welcome children. Italy is in a negative-population pattern. When we had Chrissy's kids with us, people would smile and welcome them. Her husband said their friend with a bunch of kids had someone stop him on the street and tell him, "Good for you!"

Tiny napkins. The pastry flakes got all over me. I needed two paper towels to clean up the mess whenever I ate brioche. I even found tiny pastry flakes on my laptop keyboard when I got home. But in the photo with the girls at the bakery, you can see the napkin dispenser. (Click to enlarge.) That dispenser is small, and not very full. The Italians generally need only about one paper per person. Chrissy thinks little Italian kids must learn to hold pastries close to their bodies and limit themselves to a one-napkin mess at an early age. Paying one euro to use a toilet. Sometimes we'd go in a "bar" (their word has a broader meaning than in the U.S.) and order a cappuccino, which was the same amount it would have cost for potty rental if we were non-paying customers. The only problem was, thirty minutes after you down a cappuccino, you have to "go" again. I'll spare you the photo, but often commodes had no lids on the seats, and sometimes the potty was a ceramic hole in the ground. Nice.

Dead fish with eyeballs. Apparently people buy them. Oh, and if you happen to buy produce, do not touch it. That insults the vendor whose mentality is, "Of course I will select the very best for you. You do not have to hunt for it yourself." No squeezing the avocados.

Shiny bubble jackets. With and without sleeves. Men and women alike wore them, and usually they were black. Whereas we tend to have neutral-colored home exteriors and wear bright ski jackets and sweatshirts, the Italians had orange or yellow homes and wore black from head to boot. Our white tennis shoes marked us as Americans. I believe the reason I found a white bubble coat and a pair of white boots in the windows was because nobody actually bought the white options.

Multiple currencies. The Brits don't do euro, they do pounds (sign: £). The Swiss will take euro, but they give you change in francs. We ended up carrying dollars, pounds, euro, and francs by the end of a week.

Multiple languages. The official language of Switzerland is German. Why isn't it Swiss? Also, we sometimes saw awkward English, like on this sign we saw painted on numerous otherwise-classy tour buses. But I must clarify that I am not complaining or criticizing. Their bad English is far better than my Italian. What Italian, you ask? Precisely. Churches everywhere. We saw steeples at the center of every village, town, and city, and we heard church bells mark the hours. But we were surprised, considering Europe's Muslim population, to see and hear no minarets or calls to worship. Justin, and I don't mean boots. Our girl was glad to see Justin Bieber's face plastered all over European teen magazines. Apparently teen heart-throb tastes are universal.