For Hot Guys and Good Food
Created | Updated Jan 28, 2002
Americans commonly know Italy as the place where all the guys are hot and all the food is good. Italians commonly know America as the place where all the guys are hot and all the food is horrible.
Before moving to Italy, I heard many things (good and bad) about it. Hot guys, good pizza, too much pasta (at least for me, you should try moving to Italy and not liking pasta!), and crazy drivers. I (unfortunately) believed all of them, and so I had my most promising expectation proved wrong.
The biggest misconception is that all Italian guys are hot. True, if you see an Italian guy who is hot, he will be REALLY hot, not average, not cute, not hot, but extremely almost blindingly hot. Maybe even hot enough to make a person forget about all of the uglies they have seen before him and will most definitely see after him. The majority of Italian guys have large noses, either a major ego complex or a major inferiority complex, and a strange hair cut (if they are going through that odd stage known as puberty, which it appears that some of them NEVER grow out of).
It is also said in the states that Italy is one of the most fashionable places to live. This is true if you watch the fashion shows on TV, and check out the Giorgio Armani stores, but when you walk down the street you see something a bit different. The major trend right now (January 15, 2000) for the teen guys is the cut their hair short, spike it up, and dye it some funny color. One of the variations on this theme is to spike up your hair around the crown of your head, while having the inside shaved off, leaving them looking like a natural born king ;-). They also have the strange (at least I think so, and I think that most Americans will) habit of wearing tighter pants than many of the girls do (You actually find yourself thinking very strange things about what they have to go through to get them on in the morning.)
The girls on the other hand mostly wear extremely baggy pants (keep in mind, I am speaking generally of teens). Of course there are the occasional one's who enjoy having a seam stuck up their crack and wear pants that leave NOTHING to the imagination. For them there is no set hair or makeup style, just to make the hair look decent and to put as much makeup on as one possibly can.
Older people are seen walking down the street (or commonly riding their bikes) in semi-scraggly clothes that look funny, or very nice expensive clothes that look funny. The only time that one sees the American conception of the fashionable is if they are lucky enough to see a person between 20 and 40 that works or has a boyfriend. In either case, a normal guy wouldn't care, because if she works she probably won't have time for him, and if she has a boyfriend she DEFINANTLY wont have time for him.
Even though we American's did get some of it wrong, we managed to get most of it right. Italians seem to live off of pizza and pasta. I was in the grocery store a few months a go and saw a lady in the checkout line with an entire grocery cart full of pasta!! I think she was stocking up for the Y2K bug. Wow, she must have been disappointed ;-). However, after living in Italy, I am not sure that I will be able to call American food "good ol' American food" ever again. They have even managed to convert me from "pasta hater" to "pasta almost liker".
The traffic here is horrendous. If you hate driving in the states because it is too hectic for you, you would be forced to rely on public transportation here. People go flying past you faster than the car in "Men in Black", and you have motorini (mini motorcycles) flying past you on all sides faster than the cars. Never stop at a red light if no one is coming in the other direction because the person behind you will probably run into you or think that you are a complete jerk and then go home to tell the story to his children about the stupid driver who had the nerve to stop at a red light when no one was coming. If you haven't gotten it by now, in Italy the general thought is that if the police don't see it then it isn't illegal.
To sum it up, Italy is what my English teacher likes to call "organized chaos".
Now that you have read this, I wish that I could give you a generalization of the people, but I can't. There are so many different types, and the saying "you can't judge a book by its cover" is defanatly true here. As long as you don't insult them and make a decent effort to speak their language they like you. But, watch what you say because the majority of them speak some English!!
Before moving to Italy, I heard many things (good and bad) about it. Hot guys, good pizza, too much pasta (at least for me, you should try moving to Italy and not liking pasta!), and crazy drivers. I (unfortunately) believed all of them, and so I had my most promising expectation proved wrong.
The biggest misconception is that all Italian guys are hot. True, if you see an Italian guy who is hot, he will be REALLY hot, not average, not cute, not hot, but extremely almost blindingly hot. Maybe even hot enough to make a person forget about all of the uglies they have seen before him and will most definitely see after him. The majority of Italian guys have large noses, either a major ego complex or a major inferiority complex, and a strange hair cut (if they are going through that odd stage known as puberty, which it appears that some of them NEVER grow out of).
It is also said in the states that Italy is one of the most fashionable places to live. This is true if you watch the fashion shows on TV, and check out the Giorgio Armani stores, but when you walk down the street you see something a bit different. The major trend right now (January 15, 2000) for the teen guys is the cut their hair short, spike it up, and dye it some funny color. One of the variations on this theme is to spike up your hair around the crown of your head, while having the inside shaved off, leaving them looking like a natural born king ;-). They also have the strange (at least I think so, and I think that most Americans will) habit of wearing tighter pants than many of the girls do (You actually find yourself thinking very strange things about what they have to go through to get them on in the morning.)
The girls on the other hand mostly wear extremely baggy pants (keep in mind, I am speaking generally of teens). Of course there are the occasional one's who enjoy having a seam stuck up their crack and wear pants that leave NOTHING to the imagination. For them there is no set hair or makeup style, just to make the hair look decent and to put as much makeup on as one possibly can.
Older people are seen walking down the street (or commonly riding their bikes) in semi-scraggly clothes that look funny, or very nice expensive clothes that look funny. The only time that one sees the American conception of the fashionable is if they are lucky enough to see a person between 20 and 40 that works or has a boyfriend. In either case, a normal guy wouldn't care, because if she works she probably won't have time for him, and if she has a boyfriend she DEFINANTLY wont have time for him.
Even though we American's did get some of it wrong, we managed to get most of it right. Italians seem to live off of pizza and pasta. I was in the grocery store a few months a go and saw a lady in the checkout line with an entire grocery cart full of pasta!! I think she was stocking up for the Y2K bug. Wow, she must have been disappointed ;-). However, after living in Italy, I am not sure that I will be able to call American food "good ol' American food" ever again. They have even managed to convert me from "pasta hater" to "pasta almost liker".
The traffic here is horrendous. If you hate driving in the states because it is too hectic for you, you would be forced to rely on public transportation here. People go flying past you faster than the car in "Men in Black", and you have motorini (mini motorcycles) flying past you on all sides faster than the cars. Never stop at a red light if no one is coming in the other direction because the person behind you will probably run into you or think that you are a complete jerk and then go home to tell the story to his children about the stupid driver who had the nerve to stop at a red light when no one was coming. If you haven't gotten it by now, in Italy the general thought is that if the police don't see it then it isn't illegal.
To sum it up, Italy is what my English teacher likes to call "organized chaos".
Now that you have read this, I wish that I could give you a generalization of the people, but I can't. There are so many different types, and the saying "you can't judge a book by its cover" is defanatly true here. As long as you don't insult them and make a decent effort to speak their language they like you. But, watch what you say because the majority of them speak some English!!
