Abitando in una casa italiana

Living here in Italy is definitely quite different than living in the States, and a lot of those differences come from living in an Italian household. So, I thought I would write this post just as a list of some small random differences I've noticed living with my host family:

• At night, everyone here has these intense outdoor shades for the windows, both for protection and for keeping the light out. They make a lot of noise when you open and close them, though.
• Here, you put your shoes in a scarpiera, not just on the floor.
• Houses are kept much cooler than in the states, and the radiators are long, metal bars along the wall. In the bathroom, you hang your towels on the radiator so they are always nice and warm.
• The showers are not very user-friendly. The shower head is in the middle of the shower, on the long side of the wall, making it very difficult to maneuver and not get the floor all wet.
• The toilets here are shaped differently, and you push buttons on the wall to flush them.
• "Quiet hours" begin at 11pm. No showers, music, or even flushing the toilet after that if you want to be polite!
• No one has boxes of tissues here. Only the little plastic packages.
• No one has a dryer here either. All the clothes are hung up to dry.
• The tabacchi (tobacco stores), sell much more than tabacco. There, you can but stamps, postcards, bus tickets, lottery tickets, and more. It's the ONLY place that sells matches too!
• There is no peanut butter here :( but the Nutella is great!

Now for some pictures of my apartment:

My room

View from my window

Living room and kitchen

I have also been asked by many of you how the weather is here. Answer: absolutely gorgeous (sorry to all you New Englanders buried in the snow right now!). It feels like spring here, and I have actually had to buy some sunscreen for my face because of all the sun (all my freckles are out, too). We do have a lot of fog here, though. This morning, for example, was the foggiest I have ever experienced. You could barely see 10 feet in front of you! Another beautiful part of Italy is that when the sun rises and when it sets, it turns a brilliant red. So beautiful. A presto!

Learn Italian

scarpiera - shoe rack

salotto - living room

nebbia - fog