~ Ease of access: Namely, the ability to park your car where you want to! With the exception of LA, I really have never had problems parking in America. For example, I have never had to parallel park except for my driver's test, and getting around LA for a few days. Seriously...if I don't want to bother with parallel parking, there is always another option somewhere down the road! Especially now with the new, more strict regulations of driving around the center of Firenze, parking seems to always be an issue. Even if you aren't near the center it is an issue! To find a legal parking place is like finding the Holy Grail. Most of the time Italians just park where they want (many times double parking for a few minutes while they run into a store), and hope the carabinieri don't happen to see them! Sure, it's easier for everyone with a motorino or bike. But with a 4 year old who can't ride either, the car is essential for transportation at this point. Well...we used the bus a lot, but I'm speaking more about independent ease of access...it's just an issue in Italy with kids. Period.
~ Grocery stores: Basically, Esselunga was the bane of my existence in Italy, and seeing as our refrigerator was equivalent to what college dorm rooms contain, we had to go shopping at least 3 times a week. Esselungas are similar to grocery stores in America. Except they're crowded, with tiny aisles, very small selection of items, and at the check-out you never see a happy person. I don't know where you live, but most cities I've lived in have pretty decent grocery stores. But the Italian version is just sad. The lines are always long, because at anytime of the day there are only 2 people at the registers. So the lines stretch back into the aisles, people bump into you, and heaven help you if you forgot to put a tag on your produce! You have to go all the way back to the produce section yourself, (no price checker will do it for you) weigh the item and put the silly sticker on yourself....all the while the long line of Italians behind you are not so quietly muttering under their breath all kinds of obscenities you are happy you don't really understand! Don't even think about handing your money to the cashier...she will grimace at you and look at a little plastic tray, indicating she would rather get a Staph infection than take your money out of your hand. So you must place it in the plastic tray or else the muttering begins again! Then the mad rush begins to start bagging your own groceries and you better get out of the way before the next person steps up to the plate. Maybe it's because I don't like grocery shopping (or consuming much food in general) but it really is a pain to go shopping, no matter what time of day in Italy. It would be different if we lived right in the center, and could go to Mercato Centrale, but even our open-air mercatino was a 20 minute walk. Alright, alright, I'll be generous and give one thing to Esselunga: the fact that the shopping carts are smaller, and have wheels that move in 4 directions...I do enjoy those wheels that roll sideways. I wonder why we don't have those here in America? Well, I'll take a cashier who bags your food with a half-smile on her face anyday in America.
~Familiarity: It goes without saying that living in a foreign country means there won't be a whole lot of familiar things. But this is just one of those things about growing up in America...for the most part, you feel like you know what you're doing! And even if there is some legal problem, or you can't seem to get a package in the mail, or just want to try something new, there is usually someone you can ask and you'll get a straight answer on what to do. Not so in Italy. Along these lines also comes the inability to understand how to appropriately react to certain circumstances. It seems there are many unmentioned codes of conduct that Americans would have no idea about, unless an Italian told them to you. Many times I felt as if I were doing or saying the wrong things according to a particular situation. Personally, being very sensitive to appropriateness, this was a big struggle for me.
~Humor: This goes along the same lines as above. I get American humor. I can make some small pun or relevant joke when it comes my way. But Italian humor is something I'll probably never get, even if I master the language. What they consider funny is just baffling to me. Additionally, the one person in my life who thinks I am genuinely funny, and who I can always make laugh, is my sister. If she's not in Italy, I'm probably not making anyone laugh. And I wish I could do that in Italy!!
All these things are just a little glance at the other side of the coin...
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