Differences between Europe and America

So I decided to take a good friend's advice and perhaps redirect the focus of my everyday blogs. I am now going to only give a day by day description of all my activities when I travel over the weekends. My other blogs while I'm in Florence will have a particular theme to them... of what you may ask? That depends on my mood I guess!

I thought I might start by talking about some of the main differences between Europe (especially Italia) and America. One thing that me and my friend Cierra noticed today is the road conduct in Europe. The vehicle is KING here. If you are a pedestrian-- watch out! There are crosswalks all over the streets of Florence but if you walk in them you still have to watch your back and look BOTH ways several times to make sure no crazy buses, fast vespas (mopeds) or angry cars charge your way. I am used to being able to walk blindly across crosswalks(practically) in Seattle because the drivers are trained to constantly be aware of pedestrians on the streets and if a pedestrian runs right in front of you and you hit them, 95% the time the driver is punished. This is even if this occurs in a non-cross walk zone. Crazy huh? This definitely not how it is done in Italy...

Also, the sidewalks are extremely narrow here in Florence. You have to practically dodge the people around you to get around them, and almost everyone in front of you is walking at what I like to call a glacial pace. I attribute this to the fact that they are on what we like to call "Italian time" a.k.a no rush, very leisurely, without any cares in mind. Us Americans may have something to learn from the natives of Italia, because they seem to be way more easy going, even if they are "fashionably late"-- to EVERYTHING! The Americans are constantly on the go- we always have places to go and people to see. One great example of this was after my last class of the day, which got got out at 12:40, me and Cierra had some essential errands to run before lunch at one. I had to get money from the atm (I was completely out) and she had to put down a deposit on an apartment that she and her boyfriend are going to rent out for 16 days later in January. The real estate agency was relatively close to school but the lady in the office did not understand that we were in a "rush," and had somewhere to be. She asked Cierra a million questions, took her sweet time, answered a phone call, and wrote up a receipt on her computer which took a good five minutes. Cierra thought she could just drop off her 200$ deposit and peace out. The Italians expect you to stay until the task is done-- in a well ordered and timely fashion. If you have somewhere to go, it can wait. After more minutes than we were thinking, she asked "would you like to view the apartment now?" Cierra and I look each other and she responds (again), "No thank you, we have somewhere to be right now...but maybe later?" Ha ha. We ended up booking it back to our pensione, which was a loonngg walk down Cavour. We were about 6 minutes late and our feet hurt so bad. Both of us are getting shin splints from walking long distances without supported shoes. Our own faults I guess ;)

That's about all I have to say. I am going to go to the library for another two hour study session, and right now I am sipping on my second, delicious caffe latte of the day. If you go to Italy, make sure you say you want a CAFFE latte and not just a latte, because they will give you just steamed milk hehe.

Arrivederci!

PS! The above picture is of me in front of a typical "vespa" that you would see on the streets of ITALY!