As one American writer who moved to Italy once said, “ I am the first person to admit that life in Italy is not always a bed of roses. Or rather, it is a bed of roses, but someone neglected to remove the thorns. So, just as you get comfy and cozy on this sweet smelling bed, you get pricked, and it hurts. Then, you curse the bed and the whole idea of the bed and whose idea was it to lie down in this stupid bed anyway and why can’t it be like all the other beds and why isn’t it like my old bed back home? But this isn’t any old bed. It’s made of roses, after all, and that don’t make beds like that where you come from. And that’s why you laid down in it.” (Elizabeth Heath, 2021)
Being an American moving to Italy myself for six months, at the age of eighteen, I couldn't agree more. I assumed living in Europe was how it looks in the movies, Italian boyfriend, aperitivos with wine and cheese in the afternoons, and riding around the old city on a moped. None of these were the case, well maybe they were, but with some thorns in between. I traveled across the world in order to experience new things, and I did, but there was a lot of adaptation involved. Living in Italy, let me tell you, is not like the movies. I learned to be a chameleon in my new environment as everyone else moving here has to do, learn the language, the people, and the culture.
I will use this blog to explain why living in Italy is not always a bed of roses by partially criticizing myself and Americans, in general, living in Italy, but also criticizing the Italian culture as a whole.
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