One of the things I enjoy the most about traveling to another country is seeing how other people live, cultural differences, fashion, food, etc. I find it fascinating how some things are very different in another culture and others are uniquely human and therefore, they are similar and relatable. The first time I came to Italy, we were in Milan and had some time to kill before dinner. We walked through a park and sat on a bench near a playground. This was before we had our son so we were non-parents strictly observing the toddler and preschooler world. We quickly saw that a universal human experience was that within this setting, inevitably it ended in tears for many of these little guys. Either someone got a bruise or mom and dad said it was time to go home. Boo hoo!
It has been 24 years since my first trip to Italy! Much has changed in Italy over the years, as they do everywhere. I see more and more integration of Italian and American culture, and likely other cultures I’m not as familiar with, to create a new norm. I’m not sure how I feel about this! One of the things I love about Italy is how it appears more homogenous in its food and culture, unlike our American melting pot. Homogony was a nice change of pace. We’re so used to getting virtually any cuisine from around the world. In Italy, there used to be very few alternatives to Italian food and I liked that!
As time has marched on, I have found new things in Italy that amuse me or delight me! Europeans seem to have a love of anything related to Michael Jordon, many years after his heyday and Dream Team win in Barcelona. Therefore, Chicago Bulls gear reigns king to this day. I did see a very odd t-shirt at an outdoor market on this trip. It made no sense to me! If you can figure out what it was supposed to mean, please tell me.
In addition to the love of Michael Jordan, they love the Lakers, or maybe just Lakers gear. Maybe this is a Dream Team and Magic Johnson reference. You also see a ton of people, mostly kids and adults under 30, wearing baseball hats with the NY Yankees logo. I suspect that this is a symbol of New York City, or America in general, for Europeans versus the love of the Yankees baseball. Baseball just isn’t played in Europe so there isn’t much of an appreciation for my favorite sport here.
As far as American fashion influence goes, many years back we spread the wealth of blue jeans, particularly Levis. An up-and-coming fashion item is cowboy boots! Now, theirs look a little different than ours usually do. The picture to the right was a less detailed pair but I have seen some with metallic accents as well.
During this trip, I found that Italians have recently embraced some of our comfort foods! I happily found brownies in a couple of pastry shops in Florence. And I even found a peanut butter brownie at a small bakery! This bakery also had peanut butter cookies and chocolate chip cookies. (I later was told that the owner’s wife is American.) Chocolate chip cookies and muffins have made their way to the grocery stores so they must be fairly commonplace now. You see a plain muffin stuffed with Nutella everywhere!
The other comfort food I saw was fried chicken. You can buy chicken nuggets at some shops and the grocery store. There are burger joints as well. This is not entirely new but they are more prevalent than just a few years ago and have moved beyond our chain stores. American food is not the only foreign cuisine available. I saw a Mexican restaurant and the place below that sold quesadillas, empanadas, and burritos. Both of the two places below were near each other where I believe there is a strong university crowd so that may be the reason for their locations. I popped into the empanada place and it looked like the real deal but I didn’t have anything. These places were all found in Florence. International cuisine is not readily available outside of the larger cities.
to eat the chicken!
The neighborhood I stayed in while in Florence was called San Frediano. It’s known as a kind of hip neighborhood. They had so many sushi and Japanese restaurants! Who knew Japanese food was a hit in Florence?
One of the best discoveries, besides the peanut butter brownie, was that some gelato places now have arachidi (peanut) gelato. It is not peanut butter flavor so it’s a little more subtle than a peanut butter ice cream. It was quite good and I need to find it again and pair it with chocolate gelato, of course!
