Citizens of the World: A Stoic Podcast for Curious Travelers - Italy vs. America: 12 Cultural Differences

Episode Date: March 8, 2019

Happy International Women’s Day! I never even heard of International Women’s Day until I move to Italy in 2010, and La Festa delle Donne is a pretty big deal over there. So it got me thinking about the cultural differences between Americans. and Italians, and I thought it would be fun to share some of these today. I picked 12, but there are many more.   This episode is not about one country being better than the other — they both have pluses and minuses. I’m just sharing what I’ve experienced as a person who’s lived in both Italy and the United States.    Interested in Italy? I’ve done several Italy episodes, including ones on Rome and Florence.    I’m your host, Sarah Mikutel. Ready to travel? Sign up for my newsletter and get your free guide to cheap airfare.    Thank you so much for listening to this show. I know you’re busy and have many listening options, so it means a lot to me that you’re here. You are the best.   This podcast is brought to you by Audible. Not a member yet? Postcard Academy listeners can get a FREE audiobook and a 30-day free trial if you sign up via audibletrial.com/postcard   This podcast is also brought to you by World Nomads. Need simple and flexible travel insurance? Get a cost estimate from World Nomads using their handy calculator at postcardacademy.co/insuranceDo you ever go blank or start rambling when someone puts you on the spot? I created a free Conversation Cheat Sheet with simple formulas you can use so you can respond with clarity, whether you’re in a meeting or just talking with friends.Download it at sarahmikutel.com/blanknomore and start feeling more confident in your conversations today.

Welcome to the Postcard Academy and happy International Women's Day. I'm your host, Sarah Mikital, and I never even heard of International Women's Day until I moved to Italy in 2010, and International Women's Day is a pretty big deal over there. So it got me thinking about the cultural differences between Americans and Italians, and I thought it would be fun to share some of those today. So this is not about one country being better than another. they both have blesses and minuses. I'm just going to share what I've experienced as a person and as a citizen living in both countries.

Here are 12 ways that life in Italy is different than life in America. I will start with International Women's Day. So International Women's Day, it's about 100 years old, and it celebrates the achievements of women and calls for equality. And in certain parts of the world, people actually have this state. day off of work. My friend Elki in Berlin didn't have to go to work today. And side note, something that I thought was really interesting, is that in Germany, they have different holidays around the country. So different regions have different days off. So Elki, I hope you had a wonderful

time at the museum today. But back to Italy. So International Women's Day is a time for girlfriends to get together, to have fun, have drinks, have dinner, maybe go to the spa. Whatever. guys, you have to stay home and the girls get to go out and have fun. And another part of this tradition is the mimosa cake, which is this citrusy sponge cake with lots of layers of nice cream. And it's sort of based on like the mimosa flower, I guess the color of the mimosa flower, which is this yellow flower that blooms in Italy in March. And on International Women's Day, people give momosa flowers to their teachers and to their wives and to their friends. and it's just a nice tradition. And back, I think it's in 1946,

Italian feminists after World War II chose the mimosa flower as their symbol. So that's why they gave that flower on this day. In Italy, Friday is for friends and Saturday is for dates. So women don't just hang out together on International Women's Day. What I really love about Italy is that they still make time to hang out with their friends. girls end guys. So on a Friday night, friends go out together, they catch up, go to a restaurant, go to a bar, girls see their girlfriends, guys see their guy friends. And then on Saturday, that's when you can go

and have date night. But I just think it's so cool that they prioritize friendships, I think, a little bit more than they do in America. I guess I just, when I'm thinking of people I know back home in the States, a lot of times when people start to have families, they kind of stay in and get a little bit more insular and they don't see their friends as much. And I just think it's very nice and healthy that I think it's a little bit more balanced in Italy, I would say. Another thing that I love about Italy is that older people still go out. They still have lives. And when I'm walking around on the streets of Rome or Florence or whatever, I will see lots of little old men and ladies and they're always dressed to the nines. They always look so

nice in suits and dresses and they just have so much style. But I love that they're out and about living their lives, going to restaurants. One of my favorite things, maybe even my favorite thing about Italy, is that when I go to a restaurant, so many people are older than me. The restaurants are filled with people like 30s and older, a lot older, actually, a lot of the time. And it makes me feel so young and I really love it. Now, the negative side of that is that a lot of, you know, a big reason why there's more older people is that there's kind of an economic crisis that's been going on for a very long time in Italy. And so the young people don't have as much money to go out. So that's a bit sad.

But for us, oldies, it's really fun to have the restaurants to ourselves and to feel young. Okay, so I just mentioned that the restaurants and the older people going out, and everything is one of my favorite things about Italy. And another difference between the U.S. and Italy, you probably know this already, but Italy has so many food rolls and they eat much later than Americans. So lunch is generally 12 to 3-ish and the restaurants usually close. Then a bit later in the day, there's something called aperitiva, which is my favorite thing in Italy, I think, besides feeling younger there.

So Apparitivo is when you go and pay like 10 euro or whatever. And then there's this, in the best aperitibo places, there'll be like a nice little food spread. So you'll get like a free drink and this food spread. So not free, 10 euro, but it comes as a package deal. So you're at Apperativo. You're having some wine with your friends, maybe a mixed drink. Usually it's like Kampari or Aparole and having some nice snacks. And then it's time to go to dinner.

So restaurants would open back up for dinner between like 7 and 11 will be open generally. Now for me, this is so late. My Italian friends like to have dinner around 9 or even later. And for me, it really kills me. I can generally go with the flow when I'm in Italy. But I'm friends with a lot of Italians in England. And so for me, I'm like, oh my gosh, you guys, this is like practically breakfast time for the next day.

In fact, some of my friends came to visit me and folks did the other weekend, and it was beautifully sunny and crazy warm. We were walking around with no coats on the beach and walking and having like the nicest day, but I was starving by like two, and we still hadn't eaten. But that's the thing about Italians. They're not hungry until they're like starving. So We go like all day eating nothing and then are like racing at 4 o'clock to go have lunch. And we had a very nice lunch in Foxton, a pub lunch where everything comes on one plate as it would in the U.S. But in Italy, you get your food in courses and you don't have to get every course. I think back in the day, restaurants may have gotten mad when tourists only wanted to have like a plate of pasta,

but I have never experienced this problem. So don't feel like you have to go in order. order every course. It's just not the deal anymore. But they don't mix food on their plates in general. And when I go and have lunch at a friend's house, I will make a little bit, I'll make an announcement like, okay, I know this is weird to you, but I'm going to put like pasta and salad on my plate at the same time. And generally they think it's pretty funny, but they do not follow. They don't follow my experiment. So, yeah, you would generally have, like, soup or some sort of antipasti, and then your pasta,

and then if you were a meat eater after that, you would get some kind of meat dish, and then after that, maybe salad, and then after that dessert. And you would maybe have an espresso at the end or something to digest, like, all the food that you just ate in Italy, you wouldn't. have a cappuccino or like a milky coffee that's generally a breakfast drink. Italy is not a tipping culture and most Italians don't tip in taxis or restaurants. Servers in Italy get paid a real wage and they are not dependent on tips. If you wanted to leave a tip, you could leave a euro, a person if you wanted to do that. You would never leave a tip if you were

ordering a drink at the bar. So don't go crazy overboard with tipping. It really drives locals nuts when tourists leave extravagant tips because it sets an expectation that they might not be able to meet. They, you know, it might be a real treat for them to get to go out to a restaurant and then to sit next to an American who's just like throwing down a 20-year-old tip. It's just not how their culture is. And it's just sort of, it was just setting a precedent that other people can't live up to. So if you want a tip, leave a euro or two, but don't go crazy. And when your bill comes in tourist areas, you might see service charges of 10 to 15%.

But the service charge actually needs to be stated on the menu. So if it's not on the menu, you should not have to pay any kind of service charge. So hopefully nobody's trying to play any sort of scam on you. Finally, you'll likely be given a basket of bread. and will be charged for this, and this bread tax is called Pane and Coperto, and the region of Rome officially banned this practice in 2006, putting bread on your table and making you pay for it, even though you didn't ask for it. But most restaurants still do this, so expect you pay one to three euro a person for this and just consider that your tip, because that's what it's going to most likely.

And here are a few more random charges that you might incur. So breakfast in Italy is generally a coffee and a pastry of some kind. If you want to hear the best kind of pastry, go back and listen to my Florence episode with Tony. But know that if you sit down in a cafe, you're generally going to be paying extra for this, sometimes even double. And that's why you see so many people standing at the bar drinking their espresso because it's just, just a cheaper way to do that. They can just throw back and then head off to work or whatever they're doing. But of course, if you're there on holiday, I mean, I would just sit there and relax if that's what you want to do. I think one of my favorite things in the world is sitting outside in a cafe

and staring out to space and drinking coffee. But just now, you'll pay extra for this. And then one more unexpected charge, perhaps unexpected charge, is the water is fine to drink in Italy. In fact, if you're in Rome, you're going to see fountains everywhere and you can fill up your water bottle and the water is totally fine and good to drink. But if you're at a restaurant, nobody drinks tap water. It is just not done. So when they ask you what kind of water you want, they'll say natural or sparkling, then they mean like paid water, not tap water. They're probably not going to give you tap water, so just accept that water is something you're going to have to pay for. And in restaurants, people are generally drinking either water or wine or both, sometimes beer,

but generally it's water and wine. Italians hate being alone. If you are from a culture like the U.S. or England or Germany, you're a little bit more independent. You might like your alone time a little bit more. not Italians. They like to be together all the time. I remember a trip that I took to Cornwall in the UK a few years ago with some friends. I was the only American. Everyone else was Italian. And one of the days we were in this tiny little town. It was really cute. And they wanted to go to a pub,

but I saw a cafe that I thought it looked really good. And I think they had a veggie menu or something. So I was like, oh, I'll catch you guys later. I'm going to go get a sandwich here. And it became this whole ordeal because they were like, well, you can't eat alone. We want to go to this pub, da, da, da, da. And I'm like, that's totally fine. You know, go to the pub. I don't mind eating on my own.

You know, I can go read a book or something. And then they begrudgingly came with me to my cafe. And I was like, you guys don't have to be here. Anyway, it was just like a cultural misunderstanding. But that can happen. Yeah, Italians like love being together and I think that's really nice, but it's something that you have to get used to, especially if you're traveling. And I guess that's something for everybody to consider, no matter whether your potential travel partner is Italian or not. it's a very good idea to have a good understanding of what your travel partner's travel style is.

So if you go on a trip and one of you likes to go to bed early and likes a little bit of alone time and the other likes to party and always wants to be together, I've seen a lot of friendships just, you know, not fall apart, but on the holiday, it causes kind of some unnecessary stress. So if you can travel with somebody who you're likely to be in sync with. Italians are obsessed with the sun. They love the beach. They love just being in the sun all the time. I love the beach myself. But for me and other Americans I know, we like to sit under umbrellas, we're putting on the sunscreen.

Not my Italian friends. They want the bronzes tan that they can possibly get. I just think it's so dangerous for your skin, but they love it. And here in England, whenever it's gray, the Italians are very sad. And when we have a sunny day, they are outside marching around so happy. I will, when I'm with my friends, like, I'll walk in the shadow and they're just walking down in whatever, like, sunny path they can find with their face, like, right up at the sun. And so they love the sun, but they really hate air conditioning. I was on a group tour with a bunch of Italians to Jordan. So it was quite warm.

And they, none of them liked air conditioning. They all thought it was really bad for you. I used to not like air conditioning either, but I've come around. Like, we don't need it here at England. But in Jordan, yeah, I was like, oh gosh, please, can please turn on the air? But yeah, nobody wanted that. on a side note we camped outside in the desert in a place called wadi rum and if you have the opportunity to do that ever in your life i think you should so we went to petra which was incredible but what i thought was even more special was wadi rum and just sleeping in these huts under the stars and having it be really peaceful and not using our technology at all And on that same Jordan trip, one night I was going to go to bed with a wet head.

I had just taken a shower and I was tired and I was going to go to bed. And we're all like sharing rooms with multiple people, some of the time. And so some of the girls saw me and they're like, what are you doing? You can't go to bed with a wet head. You're going to wake up sick. You're going to have like a sore neck. No, no, no, no. And one of them had actually been traveling with a hair.

dryer and so she gave it to me so i thought that was very sweet but yeah like people think italy doesn't have rules but they really have so many rules and like old wives tales and so anyway i blow dried my hair that night and another one is you cannot go swimming until an hour after you eat um but i've also heard or an italian told me i was going to take a shower once after lunch and she was like, oh, no, you have to wait an hour. So I just went in Rome. So if an Italian invites you over to their house, it's customary to when you're at the door, say, Permiso, which just means, can I come in? And then they'll say, yes, of course, come on in. And then you take off your shoes, but they don't want you to ever walk around with bare feet

in the house. So they will probably give you some slippers. Yeah, bare feet are forbidden. I've tried that a few times and it really freaks them out. They are just worried that you will catch your death, which is very sweet. So I will put on the slippers. And homes in Italy are very comfortable and really well made in general. And a lot of them have blackout shades, which I love. It helps you sleep so much better. But a lot of my friends, Italian friends here in England complain about the houses here because some of them can be very drafty. And in Italy, even the homes that are hundreds of years old on the inside, you know, they do a pretty good job of keeping them just really nice and comfortable. So I like the Italian homes quite a bit.

Oh, and upon entering the home, Italians love compliments, but then they act like it's no big deal. So if you walk in, they'll say, oh, so what do you think? You know, what do you think about the house? And you'll say, oh my gosh, it's great. I love it. They'll say, oh, it's nothing simple. It's so simple. It's nothing luxurious. But they love their compliments. So when you go into somebody's house, just tell them how awesome it is and they will love you. In Italy there is a feeling of hopelessness when it comes to jobs and the economy. Most of my Italian friends in Italy are unemployed or underemployed, which is fun for me because

when I'm there, we can hang out with their moms and eat good food. But they're really smart, really educated people and they want to be working. But the economy is just not that great. And that means that people stay in jobs that they hate for a really long time because they are too afraid to start something else. Like, what if they get a new job? And then that place lays them off like a few months later. And so there's just a lot of unhappiness when it comes to work and a lot of people afraid of trying new things. Whereas in the U.S., you know, we might have our problems. But one thing that we do have is a candy spirit and hope and innovative people who think that they can strike out on their own and make things happen. And I love that about the U.S. I remember when I first moved to Reggio

Amelia back in 2010, I had just moved from New York and the people I would meet would just think I was crazy for moving to this small-ish town in Italy. And they were like, why are you here? You know, you could be in New York City. We don't have anything here. You know, I wish I could go to, you know, some other place and have this new experience. And I'm thinking, you could do that. Why aren't you doing that? Why do you feel like you can't go anywhere? And actually, there's lots and lots of Italians in England who came here for economic opportunity. But there are still, but there are a lot of Italian people who feel stuck in Italy. And so that's really sad. And there's a term called Mammoni, and that means a mama's boy essentially in Italy. So there's lots of guys who are in, like,

in their 30s, 40s, still living with mama, still getting like fed really well and having all their laundry done and mom is doing everything. And there is not the equivalent of that for the women. I think the women are taking care of themselves and they're kind of like the movers and the shakers. But yeah, again, so part of it's culture and part of it is the economy. People are just living at home longer and longer. But on the plus side, they do have universal health care, which I think is really important. It's nice to know that if something really bad happens to you, your country is not going to just turn the other way or try to ruin your life through bankruptcy. And universities are cheap or free, not as free as they used to be.

The only thing is they don't give student loans. So that's another difference. So you can work your way through university. It might not be able to get a loan, but you won't be strapped with massive debt for decades and decades. This one is kind of random, but you have to bag your own groceries in Italy and you have to weigh your own fruit and vegetables and label it with a sticker and the price before you're going to the register. And this just really threw me off when I first lived in Italy. I was so confused about what's going on and my Italian was not that great at that time. So for some reason, this caused me a lot of stress. So anyway, just know if you're going to go buy some apples in an Italian grocery store, there's a little scale. You punch the numbers.

put the stickers on it and then when you go up and pay for it just expect to bag your own groceries and you'll have to pay like five cents or something for the bag and also this is huge for some reason I've never been able to figure it out it's such a big frigging deal if you need change like if you pay for I don't know even if you pay like 10 euro for something that's five euro I feel like they make a big deal like don't you have five euro exactly and if you don't it's this huge drama so that's another difference the customer service is not the same as the u.s i have to say i will give u.s credit for that we have got good customer service and if you need change in general nobody's going to make a fuss in Italy they will

but hey if you don't have exact change for them they're going to have to give you change so That's just how it is. It seems like every town in Italy speaks with a different dialect. Italy actually didn't unify until 1861, so that actually makes it younger than the U.S. Of course, there was the Roman Empire, but after this, there were a bunch of independent states, and they developed their own food and cultures and ways of speaking, and they were occupied by different groups. And so, yeah, so all of these different dialects formed. And I thought it's so different from Italian.

Like sometimes I can't understand it. I was in my friend's kitchen and just listening to her and her mom talk. And to me it sounded like French. And so it's just, yeah, it's so interesting to me how diverse. Italy is just so different, especially from north to south and the different foods that you can try. and, you know, like I was talking about on the e-residency episode, we had mentioned that, you know, we think of countries as if they've been around forever,

but they haven't. Borders shift all the time. I've even read an article saying, you know, our future is going to be run by cities and not by states. Whatever happens, I hope that places around the world can retain their culture. There have been quite a few articles recently about how, tourists and the tourism industry is sort of sanitizing places around the world and making everything the same so people just have all of the comforts of home and it's sort of transforming cities and you know

I notice this sometimes when I'm traveling around where you feel like you could be in any city you know everybody has got their avocado toast everybody has got their hipster cafe and I don't think that is necessarily a bad thing because locals like that stuff too. It's not just tourists bringing that stuff. But I think there has to be a balance where when we go to a place, we really want to enjoy what the locals have to offer and not make demands and not just force our way of life on where we're going. I know you would never do that because you are the type of traveler who wants to experience things.

the way locals actually experience them, and to actually get to know the people who live in the places where you're going, I really strongly believe that travel is the best form of diplomacy that we have. When we get to know other people around the world, it's just going to make the world a much safer, happier place. And that's all I have to say about that. So I hope you enjoyed this episode. If you are looking to book some travel yourself, you can download my free guide to finding the best airfare at postcardacademy.com slash airfare.

That's all for now. Thanks for listening and have a beautiful week wherever you are. Do you ever go blank or start rambling when someone puts you on the spot? I created a free conversation sheet sheet with simple formulas that you can use so you can respond with clarity, whether you're in a meeting or just talking with friends. Download it at sarah micotel.com slash blank no more.