Life in Italy..

I´m still messing around a bit and have decided to give myself the start of the year to just travel and enjoy life. Career stuff can wait.

Having been in Italy for just under two weeks, it would be presumptuous of me to claim any deep knowledge of the culture, society etc. Nevertheless, these are some of my initial thoughts about Perugia, Italy etc.

Perugia is a very ancient city. It's in the Umbria region, about two and a half hours North of Rome by train. It has a population of around 170,000, although you wouldn't know it because the central city is quite compact.

A fairly typical street 

This is my first time in Europe and I'm already struck by feeling that I'm in a place full of history. Everywhere in the world has a history I guess but Italy brought the world the Renaissance, the Roman Empire, Da Vinci and the Mafia! Would we have had fantastic gangster movies such as The Godfather and Goodfellas were it not for Italy? These days Italy is well known for many things including Berlusconi in all his baffoonery, fashionable clothing and food. 

The centre of the Perugia is perched atop a hill and at the highest point of the city you have a stunning vista of the surrounding valley. It's winter now, which was a shock to my system after being in roasting 38 degree heat in Perth.

These days Perugia is known as a University city, with a number of language schools established to teach foreigners the Italian tongue.

Some thoughts:

Italian: a musical language with hand gestures galore:

We've all seen the stereotypes - Italians are passionate people and they flap their hands about a lot.

A view from the top

When you walk the streets and see and hear them talking you get the impression whatever they are chatting about must be important. Even if they were talking about collecting laundry there appears to be a gravitas to what is being said. The New Zealand accent sounds very pedestrian in comparison.

Narrow streets lined with houses:

Most of the streets in the city are scarcely wide enough for two lanes of traffic. The average road is lined with multiple story stone houses that are joined to one another. The cars are mostly European, which I guess is no surprise and they are a lot smaller than say on Australian or New Zealand roads. Wimmy pointed out that most Italians don't wash their cars. As strange an observation as that is, it's quite unusual to see someone driving a new BMW or Mercedes that is filthy. 

Wimmy and I 

Beautiful architecture:

There's a grandiosity to the Churches and buildings around the centre of the town that you've just gotta love. The intricacy of the brickwork or the detail of the statues, roman aqueducts, crumbling walls.. just great. Perguia is a maze of a town with little curling alleyways, steep streets and stairs everywhere. 

Wine flows like Water:

So far I haven't seen too many drunks roaming the streets but that doesn't mean there aren't any.

You can pick up a bottle of quite tasty wine for less than a Euro, beer is similarly cheap. I've heard that the Italian attitude to drinking is a little less "let's get fucked!" and a bit more "how about some alcohol with dinner?"

Cost of Living:

The Italian economy is pretty rubbish at the moment. They have very high unemployment and a typical wage is 5-7 Euro for basic jobs such as at a bar or in retail. Electricity and gas are pricey so a lot of Italians are reticent to turn their lights or heating on. Room sharing is common.

Food is cheap, most items at the grocery store are around one euro or less, so you can do a decent shop for about 20 Euro (35 NZD). 

 Ridiculously attractive women on TV

Not just in the terrible soaps but presenting serious news.. Berlusconi owns a large chunk of the Italian media including news stations and if you know anything about him, he likes attractive women. Most of the women presenting the news wear revealing tops.. (so what you say?) Well - I certainly don't get offended (quite the contrary) but as a British man said of living here "sometimes you wouldn't know the feminist movement had happened."
 

Rather silly business hours:

They say when in Rome... Right?

Most businesses open at 9am and then close at 1pm. They have three hours lunch break and reopen for an hour at four. The exception is cafes and restaurants. Apparently this comes from a time when a woman would go home at lunchtime to cook a meal for her family. That's nice and everything but a bit difficult if you are trying to get things done. Italians REALLY love their food.

Damn multilingual bastards:

While Italians may not be the greatest at English in the European Union, most of them have a basic grasp of the language. Having dinner with eight Europeans and an Indonesians reminded me of my own linguistical inadequacy and how many Westerners only speak English. I can speak about one and a third languages. The average at the table was three.

Delicious Food:

No surprises here, right? Pasta features heavily but so do olives, tomatoes, olive oil, delicious sauces, cheeses, breads etc... Wowww. I spent three months in Australia eating a staple diet of baked beans, tuna, eggs, plain pasta and microwave food (because I'm a lazy cook) and this is a welcome change.

The birthplace of fascism and a bloody legacy.

I haven't discussed this topic with any Italians as of yet but I find it intriguing that although this country was part of the Axis in World War 2 and had their own brutal dictator in the 20th century - Benito Mussolini, it doesn't carry near as much stigma as Germany. Under Mussolini, Italy was a police state. Mussolini and Hitler had a lot in common (such as ruling out other political parties, heavy use of propaganda, killing opponents, wearing military uniform all the time, hand salutes etc). Near the end of the Second World War, communist partisans captured Mussolini and his mistress and shot them. Their bodies were taken to Milan where they were hung upside down from meat hooks at a gas station and crowds threw rocks at the bodies.. A bit of crowd justice aye? 

So this is just some stuff I've thought of in my first week. Hopefully I'll get a much deeper understanding as I live here for a longer...

I´ve still got Rome, Florence, Milan, Venice and Naples to check out!

Future blogs will look at
: Berlusconi
Amanda Knox Murder Case
Rome
Venice

EXTRA STUFF::::: 

                                                                                  
Recent Murder in Perugia
Remember the Amanda Knox case?  This was huge international news in 2008. 21 year old Merideth Kercher was murdered at the end of 2007. Kercher and Knox were flatmates both learning Italian at the Universita Per Stranieri (University for Foreigners). Kercher was raped and stabbed in the throat in her flat and Knox and her Italian boyfriend (a medical student) were accused of the murder. Another African guy was convicted of the murder and testified that Knox and her boyfriend were playing some sort of weird sex game with Kercher.

The Knox case was featured in international media (even on Oprah) and there is a mix of opinions over whether she is guilty or not. Knox has appealed and her family accuse the Italian police of being corrupt and tampering with evidence. Whatever the case, Knox's has been in prison for a couple of years already.