The most interesting ones are written by these people.
So I have chosen the ones I like more and I am following, finding them most of the time very amusing and above all caring.
(By the way I laughed since I did not want to get mad , not with the nice lady, but with the train company and many other things not functioning at all in this moment).
I want to help you to understand Italy a little better, mind I am not an a teacher and I do not want to give any lesson to anybody, I simply want to help people who want to understand us better ( again don’t forget I am Italian)
Few points.
Point one
Italy is a relatively new country : it became a united country only in 1861, and next year we are celebrating our 150° anniversary.
Before 1861 , what we called Italy was divided in many small states ( there are millions of books and articles about this subject).
Italy in 1494
What I always found interesting is this sentence, allegedly written by one of our founding fathers“ Fatta l’Italia bisogna fare gli Italiani” that means literally “Now that we have made Italy we must make the Italian citizen).
After 150 years this most impossible task has not been achieved.
Point two
Well, I can assure you , that as a category “Italians citizens “ do not exist but on the paper.
Very few time, and very few people when introducing themselves to you will say I am Italian …they will say I am from Torino, Alba, Venezia, Bologna….. Rome , Naples and so on.
There are many reasons for this behavior , but again I do not want to give any lesson, I just want to point out, that the "Italians" differences are not only dialects, characters, food, culture but are buried deep in every people whatever part of Italy they live..
Maybe that is the reason why up to now we haven’t been able to have a stable government and are so unruly.
I assure you I am not making this up.
Try to envision the difference between people who live in Milan and in Venice ( I have already gone through both experiences quite a few years ago)
Generalizing to the extreme : people in Milan are always work and business even having fun is becoming a work.
In Venice people are compelled by the nature of their city and land to move slowly , to take their time and eventually life is more slow.
Point three
Italians by nature cannot stand rules, sometime I think we were anarchist even before the term was invented.
Try to write down a rule of any kind and unless you force it down to our throat and make it respect with heavy and expensive fine , nobody will abide it, since we all things rules are made for others not for us.( well there are very few exceptions)
Examples: it is quite a few years since they apply a new Street code with speed limits ( different from normal roads and highways), I paid my due at the beginning than I decided that I did not want to lose my driving license and I did not want to give away money without reason , so now I am a very sedate driver, I respect the speed limit everywhere.
Result : Now I feel like an Idiot , other drivers blow their horns, blink their lights like I was the one doing wrong.
Point four
Italy is populated by about 60milions of independent individuals and I stress the word independent .
I think this is enough to help you to understand that even if you try to generalize it is impossible, we are unique in bad and in good deeds.
Point five.
There is no Country such as ours ( actually there is one but I do not want to mention it) where religion is so intertwined with politics and culture and this is a big drawback.
Well I made only few points but I thing that those are the most important ones to understand who we are.
Most commons places
Italians are loud ( it can be true somewhere and somehow) , but try to go and visit Piedmont that is by the way a very fascinating Italian region, there people speak slowly and softly, using their hands very little.
Italians do not work ( ahahahahaha) we have to and we must, at the moment we have event to invent works, since thank you to the situation ( but I refuse to talk about politic) there is very little work.
Italians are all “ cuore , amore, mamma” come on… some …but the times of” Oh Sole mio” are long gone by.
Italians love arts, this is such a big issue that I will reserve it for another post.
Italians are always trying to cheat tourists : some of them, it is true, but the same happens in all Big European touristic cities ( I could write quite a few funny stories about it)
Italians are all nice and funny..please since when?
Do you know that I even found a web site about all the common places about Italians?
I could go on for hours, but I spare you for now, I found some new one quite funny, and I report in the next few days.
At this point , the few who are so nice to read what I am writing would probably wonder why, I consider my life here a long vacation.
Easy I do not think that there is another place in the world where I would like to live… while , I want to be able to criticize with good reason all the things I do not like at all.
Beside I am lucky , I can make comparison and I truly live in a small paradise.
…….
Revenge
Driving from my village( Laterina ) to Arezzo through a road called ” Sette ponti” that together with HighwayA1 and another state road Called “Vecchia Aretina or State road 69” connect us to Arezzo, I was driving behind a truck- since in that part of the road is forbidden to overcome any car in front of you- suddenly a car behind me darted past me ,past the truck , past another car in front of the truck and … it was stopped by the police immediately after .
I restrain to blow my horn since is forbidden.
I would be more than happy to receive any comments from someone out there
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