Random Things I Didn't Know About Italy

1) I thought the idea of Italians eating nothing but pasta and pizza was just a stereotype. It's not. I eat pasta and/or pizza (quite often and) every day. It is always delicious, but sometimes repetitive. Italy simply doesn't have as many international foods as America. I do love me some prosciutto and artichoke pizza, though.

2) Italian children get out of school at 1pm and go home to have lunch with their families. Sounds nice, right? It probably is, but they also have to go to school six days a week, so it's a trade off.

3) Italians walk really, really slow. Ironically, they complain that Americans walk too fast. I must admit, I do love walking up and down the street at night with all of the Sansepolcrans. It is a quaint, relaxing daily ritual.

4) There are vast differences between Italy's many regions, and even more between Italy's north and south. Regional dialects are very prevalent. In fact, several of the people I know who were born here in Tuscany and Umbria said that they can't even understand people from Venice or down south in Naples because they speak in completely different dialects and also have very heavy accents.

5) Sicily is controlled by the Mafia. For real. It's because in the past Sicily has been controlled by many other countries and never had a very solid government. The mafia grew to compensate for this, and was never really dealt with when Italy became a unified country.

6) Italians are obsessed with espresso. They drink multiple shots of it throughout the day. I can't quite handle it myself, but I do like sipping a cappuccino after a long day of classes.

7) I don't think there are any school buses. Italian kids just use public transportation or walk. Every time I've ridden a bus or train in the afternoon there were swarms of tweens and teens hopping on and off on their way home from school.