Cultural Comparisons

I must admit haven’t had a lot of culture shock coming into the country just because I have traveled a lot and seen a lot, but I can definitely still pick out cultural differences between here and Nebraska. One thing about life here in Milan that was different from what I am used to is that Italians eat pasta, spaghetti, and pizza almost every day! It’s crazy! I am just so used to variation in food that it seems a bit torturing sometimes. This caused me to become quite homesick because I’m used to eating a lot of good food. So my goal this week was to go and eat some Mexican food, so I did and that helped a lot! Something I noticed at the end of our meal was that even the proportions at the Mexican restaurant were smaller and the waitress that spoke Spanish and Italian mentioned that this was the reason most females were very thin and very skinny. They do not eat much but man do they smoke and drink. This is also different than what I am used to. Not many women in the United States smoke as much as they do here, I get the sense that it is still something that is seen as an elegant or classy thing to do. This is probably why so many women look so old. Their skin becomes very wrinkly and their teeth all yellow, but hey to them they are so cute and attractive because they’re not fat like most Americans.

Also I Italians don’t seem to see PDA (personal display of affection) is something that is to be more private like they do in the States. There have been many times when we have come across couples that are kissing for long periods of time and are very touchy with one another. I guess people here just kind of mind their own business and don’t care much about what you do with your life. If you chose to smoke, drink, have sex that is very much your problem and in the United States, everyone wants to be in everybody’s business. So this week has definitely shown me that Italian culture is much more different from American culture, it actually really reminds me of the way things are in Mexico, but that's just my personal opinion

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