1. Italian coffee is superior to American. Can we all agree on this?
2 America has better avocados (Haas).
3. Church bells sound better here: sonorous, deep, basso, compared to American lightweights;
Steinways vs. uprights.
4. Some people, here in Firenze, are vicious about cutting store lines. Not even a quick glance at the 8 people
already waiting.
5. Little old ladies are the same all over: frail, silent, wool-coated, carrying a shopping bag, watching their $$.
6. Americans are louder.
7. Television is dumb everywhere.
*2/16/13: Italian tv offers better global coverage. Newscasts here are much more inclusive of diverse cultures: regularly covering political, socio-economic and gender issues from Asia, Africa and the Middle East in depth.
8. Most Italians drink their wine with meals. Stopping in for a little pick-me-up here means coffee.
9. The same old game of Chicken between pedestrian and driver goes on here too. Cars in Italy are tiny however, and Vespas are so cute that pedestrians sometimes feel a misguided, possibly fatal advantage.
10. Italians smoke, not racked with guilt, as do many Americans, but con gusto, with a sense of having God's blessing.
11. For all the hype, Italian males are not particularly interested in 'babes'; they prefer their own for everything but. Male bonding here far outsizes anything seen in America, aside from perhaps, rodeos.
12. The cell phone is a bane now, everywhere.
13. Good public toilets in Italy are now better than those stateside, bad are still worse. I've encountered flushing holes in the floor here. . . tricky when wearing anything long, unused to aiming.
14. Pharma mania has yet to hit Italy: no TV ads, no prescription drive-thrus, no lines to drop off scripts, no visible, bulging A-Z bins of white bags awaiting pick-up at the pharmacies here, many of which still close for lunch and seem to sell mostly beauty creams.
15. The weakness of the dollar against the € is distressing and embarrassing. US financial pundits spin it as something positive for exports, but for the casual tourist, it is not. I remember 1€ = 86¢, and I miss that. . .
*updates as necessary