Italia dreaming vs moving to Italy...show me the difference

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Hello Gadders readers! Are you going to travel to Italy for your first time? Or you just made your first steps in the country few days ago?

If you have you been waiting for this moment for years...stop for a moment and read this post first!

Today we have the pleasure to share with you the thoughts and tips of an authoritative Italy's blogger and expat! Sarah Mastroianni on her blog "Not just another Dolce Vita" says she's always been in love with Italy and, indeed, at her 20's, after a master of Arts in Italian studies from the University of Toronto, she decided to move from Canada to Italy!

Sarah noticed that many people come to Italy with high hopes and wrong hopes. She's been fascinated by Italy ever since she can remember and she too had an idealized vision of it, until she finally experienced it! So, she decided to write this post...

"How can hopes be wrong? They’re personal! You disagree.

Ok, let’s call them unrealistic hopes. Unrealistic expectations. That better? Good.

Ricominciamo da capo. Let’s start over.

People sometimes come to Italy with unrealistic expectations and are sometimes sorely disappointed when the Italy of their dreams isn’t quite the Italy of their reality. Starry-eyed travellers thinking that vintage red Vespa is everyone’s principal form of transportation here and that they’ll be the only ones in Rome trying to throw coins in the Trevi fountain at 10pm on a Saturday.

I hate to break it to you, but no.

Dream vs reality

Not all of Italy looks like Tuscany, you won’t magically learn Italian in two weeks and you’ll probably never escape the hordes of other tourists at major sites.

But how will I know this if it’s all new to me? You ask. How can I be realistic if I have no idea what to expect?

Here are some pointers:

Do. Some. Research. Use your Google machine. Talk with other people who have been to Italy. It’s no big secret what Italy is like. People have been there before you and they’ll probably be happy to tell you about it.

Really though, it’s not even so much your expectations that will determine whether your time in Italy is magnifico or orribile, it’s your attitude towards things when your expectations aren’t met.

Scenario: You order a pizza in Italy and it doesn’t have globs of gooey processed cheese all over it like at home. You like globs of gooey processed cheese and were really craving those cheesy, gooey globs after your long day of sightseeing. You look at your practically naked (cheese-wise) pizza and you have two options:

1. Complain, turn your nose up, whine and be a general nuisance to your travel companions and anyone within 50 feet of you. Snivel, pout and ask God why he just can’t make the Italians do things like you do back home. Especially the pizza! Refuse to eat it. Fantasize about that cardboard, cheese-laden pizza from home. Go hungry in Italy.

2. Cut your pizza, stick it in your mouth. Chew. Repeat. Enjoy it for what it is: different from the pizza you’re used to at home, but probably marvellous in it’s own right. 

Now, which do you think will make you feel happier?

If you chose answer #1, just stop reading here. You’re a lost cause. If you chose answer #2, bravo!

Take it from me: you need to start off your trip to Italy with the general expectation that “everything will be different“. But even that little maxim needs an “and I’m OK with that” chaser.

Add in a touch of “and if things aren’t as I expect, I will be open and flexible about it” and really you can’t go wrong. Control-freakishness does not lead to happiness. Not just in Italy, but anywhere. Mi raccomando! 

If you honestly think you can’t stomach that, then stay home per piacere, and leave the Italy-enjoying to the rest of us. Really. The milk here doesn’t taste the same. McDonald’s doesn’t taste the same. Coca Cola doesn’t even taste the same. Brands are different. Systems are different. Chaos is the prevailing form of organization. Customs are different. Ideas are different. Traditions are different.

But that’s why you wanted to come to Italy in the first place, isn’t it?

So when your shower suddenly turns icily cold after 15 minutes and you’re used to 40-minute showers at home, steel yourself against the frigid water (or turn it off quickly) and think “this is what I came here for”.

I’m not talking about the cold shower; don’t be too literal on me. I’m talking about difference. That’s what you came here for. To see how other people live. To see how other people, in my humble opinion, live pretty well."

Thanks a lot to Sarah for sharing her post with Gadders! You can read her original article on her blog here!

What about you? Did Italy break your dreams when you visited it?

If you have lived this experience and you want to share it with Gadders too, leave a comment or contact us through our social networks pages!

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