The people of Italy are wonderful. Everyone we met speaks several languages. Our tour guides easily moved between Italian, French, Spanish and English. Even the hotel janitors, restaurant waiters, and bus ticket salespeople know multiple languages. They don’t seem upset when you don’t speak Italian, they happily switch to English for us. If I compare the average water taxi guy in Venice to the average taxi cab driver in New York there’s no comparison. The water taxi guy is happy to help and speaks whatever you speak. The water taxi drivers look like they jumped out of a GQ magazine. They are in their 20s, dark-haired, and fit. They all wave at each other and seem to generally enjoy being cab drivers. In general that’s how everyone has been. They are happy to help, offer advice freely and seem pretty happy to be doing whatever they are doing.
The lifestyle here is laid back but not to the point where it drives me crazy. In the Bahamas and Hawaii life is laid back but everyone is 15 – 45 minutes late. Here people show up on time and stay laid back at the same time.
The food is good. My Grandma had me worried. She didn’t enjoy the food here and past experiences in London, Denmark, Norway and Sweden have contributed to my concern. In those counties I only wanted to eat at McDonalds. However, everything I’ve eaten has been decent. Almost all of the restaurants are pizzerias serving pizza and pasta. In fact, it is hard to find any other kind of restaurant, we’ve tried! Last night we attempted to find a Thai or Mexican place but non-pizzerias are few and far between. The pizza is very similar to American pizza. I had an Italian sausage pizza a few days ago that was exactly the same as what you would get at home. The meat sauces can be a little different but most of the time there isn’t meat in the sauce so it tastes the same as home. It’s good, we’ve had no problems eating everything put in front of us. For snacks Italians don’t seem to eat a lot of candy they eat gelato which is Italian ice cream. Beside every pizzeria there is a gelato shop. Eric has been loving that!!
The hotels we’ve stayed in have been underwhelming. The hotel we stayed in on our own (not with the tour) is a 4 star hotel. It is a huge room but it comes with a small bed and an even smaller bathroom. The mattresses and pillows on the bed are hard and flat, they’ve taken a while to get used to. Also there are no clocks in any of the hotels we’ve been in. The rooms we stayed in with the tour were described by the Spanish couple as “Renaissance rooms” meaning they haven’t been updated since the Renaissance. Only the hotel in Venice had free internet access. We’ve been using Skype to call home over the internet so having to constantly work to get connected to the internet has been painful since it is so easy and common to do in the US.
The Mediterranean weather is spectacular. Everyday except for one has been gorgeous. The countryside reflects the wonderful weather. A good mix of rain and sun keep everything lush and colorful. There are vineyards of grapes and olives everywhere. They grow wheat, corn, sunflowers, tobacco, all different kinds of fruits – you name it they grow it. The mountains that run from northern Italy to the south right down the middle of the country add interest to the terrain. Some of the towns are built right up against the cliffs of the mountains and the foothills of the mountains. Most of the fields run up the sides of the foothills making drives through the countryside wonderful.
I will always live in the US since my family is there but if I were going to leave, I’d go to Florence. I love Italy. Florence in particular was inspiring. I’d build a new house that has an American kitchen and bathrooms and wireless internet and live an Italian lifestyle in that home. I’d leave the SUV in the states and buy a scooter. I’d take an hour to drink a cup of coffee and would eat every meal outside. I’d learn Italian and Spanish and I’d have a gorgeous tan that makes me look Latin. My girls could be happy here. They would like the food since they could eat some variety of mac-and-cheese everyday followed by ice cream. Life could definitely be good here.
Eric's space 