Culture Shock: An Americans' Guide to Getting Around (and Getting Along) in Italy
Timothy R. Adams
Introduction
In January 1999, my girlfriend and I saw a $399 round-trip airfare to Rome advertised on the internet. The deal was offered for late March. We had both wanted to return to Italy for quite a long time. As the Nike ad says, “Just do it!” We did.
Since then, we’ve been back eight times and plan to return again and again.
On each trip we study a different aspect of ancient, medieval or renaissance history, or religious art. We do our own planning and book our own reservations via the computer or fax.
Italy is fascinating because it offers a wide variety of cultural history and diversity, all in one package. Before Italy was unified in the 1870s, it was of a series of individual regional governments and city-states, all with varied histories. There is still a sense of strong regional identity.
Over the centuries following the fall of the Roman Empire, individual regions were conquered and ruled by outside governments. Southern Italy has a lot of French, Spanish and Moorish influence in its architecture and local customs. The art in the Veneto region in the northeast, has a distinctly Byzantine influence. Occasionally, individual city-states would go to war with each other over issues of the day. This would be like Wisconsin taking control of one of our counties, and Skokie going to war with Evanston.
On each trip, I notice differences between our cultures. These pages document observations in
(Florence, November 1999)
More photos are displayed at http://timothyadams_1.tripod.com.
