Living in Italy
Describe a significant experience from the past two years which required you to interact with someone outside of your own social or cultural group (ethnic, religious, geographic, socio-economic, etc.). How did this impact you? What did you learn and what surprised you?
Life in Italy is a mixture of fun and exasperation. Tourists breeze through during the summer to sample the fun, yet they struggle to understand when those who live abroad complain. You can only live here long-term if you learn to balance the two--I’m still learning. Upon my arriving in Italy I realized I was stepping into an unknown culture. However, after a few weeks of living in Italy I began to fall in love with the language and even though I often fail at speaking the language, I continue to try and become fluent. There is the simplistic cuisine; the wine, the climate, the history, the architecture, the emphasis on family, the generosity of friends, and more generally: the carefree approach “to” life- whereby Italy measures success in humanist rather than fiscal terms, priding itself on the taste of the pasta rather than the efficiency of their work. The romanticized idealism is complicated when the tourist becomes a resident and to accomplish tasks necessary in a land of inefficiency and bureaucracy. It is a general consensus of Italians that laws apply to everyone but them. In my experience traffic signs seem only precautionary and the legal limit for alcohol is .05, though most Italians probably consume alcohol throughout the day. The political environment is complacent, yet when sitting down to a plate of Tagliatelle ai Frutti di Mare the list of grievances seem, for a few hours at least, a world away. One cannot claim to really know Italy until they speak Italian. The best course to loving this country is to know it superficially- through movies, tour books, and television shows. Italian sentences are like symphonies, energized and harmonized by vowels and double consonants. The
Life in Italy is a mixture of fun and exasperation. Tourists breeze through during the summer to sample the fun, yet they struggle to understand when those who live abroad complain. You can only live here long-term if you learn to balance the two--I’m still learning. Upon my arriving in Italy I realized I was stepping into an unknown culture. However, after a few weeks of living in Italy I began to fall in love with the language and even though I often fail at speaking the language, I continue to try and become fluent. There is the simplistic cuisine; the wine, the climate, the history, the architecture, the emphasis on family, the generosity of friends, and more generally: the carefree approach “to” life- whereby Italy measures success in humanist rather than fiscal terms, priding itself on the taste of the pasta rather than the efficiency of their work. The romanticized idealism is complicated when the tourist becomes a resident and to accomplish tasks necessary in a land of inefficiency and bureaucracy. It is a general consensus of Italians that laws apply to everyone but them. In my experience traffic signs seem only precautionary and the legal limit for alcohol is .05, though most Italians probably consume alcohol throughout the day. The political environment is complacent, yet when sitting down to a plate of Tagliatelle ai Frutti di Mare the list of grievances seem, for a few hours at least, a world away. One cannot claim to really know Italy until they speak Italian. The best course to loving this country is to know it superficially- through movies, tour books, and television shows. Italian sentences are like symphonies, energized and harmonized by vowels and double consonants. The