Submitted by Annie Tompkins on the 2019 summer session program in Italy sponsored by the Department of Behavioral Health and Nutrition…
We arrived in Rome on Monday and right off the bat, we were kind of culturally shocked. I’ve been to Spanish-speaking countries, but never to a country where the vast majority doesn’t know English. I took Spanish in high school so that made those trips easier for me conversationally, but here I have had a hard time being able to fully understand, though most Italian words have similar roots so that has been helpful!
This program so far has had the most incredible views – unforgettable! We did a walking tour around Volterra, where we have stayed for the past six days in rural Tuscany at SIAF, an international school. This tour was helpful in understanding cultural barriers or differences that we have from the population of Italy, or at least this region of Italy. The woman who led the tour was once an American college student living abroad. She fell in love with the town and found her husband and has never looked back. She knows so much about the town and so much about the history, it is quite interesting to think about all she knows. She said that the kids here go to high school until they are 19, for five years. They practice many trades and work in them, then when they graduate, they decide whether they want to go on to college to master their trade or if they are going to take the risk of working in their trade straight off the bat. I found this to be interesting because in America there is definitely a pressure to go to college and not as many people practice trade jobs anymore.
Dinner time in Italy is 7:00 pm, at the earliest. Lunch is at 1:00 pm and stores close around 12:30 pm and re-open around 2:30/3:00 pm so that they can have lunch, etc. There are many rules we have learned about manners and etiquette as well as cultural norms. For example, you are not supposed to order milky coffee, i.e. latte, cappuccino, caffe con latte, after 1:00 pm. This is meant to be a breakfast drink. Past 1:00 pm, people here only drink espresso. And they sure do drink a lot of it! Even the gas stations here have espresso bars. The food has been amazing and authentic, and I am going to miss the coffee and food so much in two weeks when this program is over – but lucky me, I get to stay with visiting family for an extended ten days on the coast! Would not be possible without UD.
