Culture Shock from Living in ITALY? (Florence)

We interview foreigners on the streets of Florence, Italy to find out what are the biggest culture shocks they’ve experienced since moving to Italy when it comes to the mentality, the food and lifestyle itself. How are Italian people different from people in their country, why it’s complicated to make friends in Florence and how living in Italy has changed them.

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0:00 Intro
0:42 Meet the Foreigners
1:27 Expectations vs Reality of Living in Italy
2:35 Culture Shocks of Living in Italy
4:34 Italy vs Your Country
6:48 Food and Drinking in Italy
8:37 Making Friends in Florence
10:11 Best & Worst About Living in Florence
12:18 What can’t you get used to?
13:06 How Has Italy changed you?
15:09 Advice for Foreigners

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Crew:
Maria Glezelli: www.instagram.com/maria.glezelli (host)
Xasan Habibullayev: www.instagram.com/khabibullayevx (filming)
Marina Iakovleva: www.instagram.com/youtubermarina (editing)

CAST:
Amar (Serbia): https://www.amar.numanovic
Sam (US): https://www.aperilife
Scott (US): https://www.scottshanahancomedy

Filmed in:
Florence, Italy

I didn’t understand is it yes or no because people afraid to tell you the truth what they drank yesterday what they eight yesterday A lot of people live on a superficial level I was like a teenager you know and I had like 60 plus years old man asking me for my number and I was they like what’s going on hello my name is Maria we are here in Florence with dating Beyond borders and today we’re going to talk to locals about the culture shocks they experienced when they moved to Italy let’s go to see what they have to say [Music] hey I’m Daniela and I’m from mova well my name is Maria from Mexico City my name is Scott Shanahan and I am from Massachusetts my name is Tatiana and originally I’m am from Russia my name is Sam rich and I’m from South Florida I’m mat and I’m from Colombia I’m Christina I’m from Germany I’m Karina and I’m from Germany too my name is Omar and and I’m from Florence but I was born in Belgrade in Serbia my name is Dana I’m from Austin Texas how long have you been living in Florence oh gosh I think it’s been like 13 years now 14 years I’ve lived here for 5 years about 5 years almost 2 years 6 months for an arasmus program same same same my parents moved here when I was 5 years old so I spent my whole life here what did you expect Italian culture to be like and how did it live up to that there’s a beautiful feeling here it’s feel feels very free and I think that’s kind of what I thought it would feel like I expected Italian culture to be like really warm and like fun and I think it did live up to that I thought there would be a little bit more chill they can get kind of angry easy Italians that is maybe I then find out the negative sides also of being all warm and fuzzy especially for me coming from Eastern Europe that the culture is more like you know what I’m saying it’s more serious here is more like fun and it’s it’s fun until things don’t work and people still still keep being fun I’m there like no where I come from you don’t get in somebody’s face and yell and here that happens quite frequently tent have a strong character a strong personality sometimes you have to back up a little bit and be like okay maybe they’re not mad one time my dad was here and we were driving in Pisa I believe it was there were these two guys just yelling at they yelling yelling yelling my dad was like man those guys are about to fight and then we passed them again and they were hugging see my impression is they have a tendency to just be very passionate so they get angry and they yell but then it’s over once it’s over what are some culture shocks that you experienced upon arriving here like the buses here are really not coming or coming whenever they want I think that’s a thing you have to get used to I decideed to take a bus today in never P the the buses thing they are worse in Colombia so for me they are like super punctual Americans have a very anything as possible attitude and things are really fast and moving to Florence I notic Noti it’s people are very happy but not as optimistic about possibilities you everything felt at first negative to me now I see it’s just more realistic hly the biggest shock for me here was like older man giving attention to me as a teenager I feel like in my country it doesn’t happen at all and here it was like crazy I was like a teenager you know and I had like 60 plus years old man like asking me for my number and I was they’re like what’s going on so one thing a lot of people think that culture shock is you know see something different in in the country and it just shocks you but really culture shock it’s the little things that frustrate you in the US and in other places I’ve live we have One-Stop shopping so you go to one store and you can get everything you need you get clothes you can get food here you can’t you have to go to a different store to get almost everything and so that can get frustrating if you’re in a hurry or if there’s just something you really need right now but you’re not 100% which store to go to First the safety Factor walking around here feeling safe like having your phone outside and using it all the time it’s really like wow the way it’s supposed to be as I’m sure you know in America sometimes people can get quite casual with their dress I never liked that not pajamas outside basically but here everyone looks so beautiful all the time in fact I can pretty much tell like a tourist from like an Italian or european walking around the streets mediterian culture they very much they open immediately they happy to see you they chatting a lot but then it doesn’t mean that it’s long they can forget you immediately Tomorrow People is very fast taking making decisions and they they getting back into with this decision how do you find Italian people to be different from Mexican we are really different you know in Mexico for example when you have a like a birthday a Mexican is going to route you like this you know in Italy is like tanty AI you know happy birthday ay a ay in Mexican is like oh blessings I hope you can you know all the candles of the cake we are I hope I don’t know I I want to ask you Italians are like can you make this for me yes or not Italian friends really love to leave me very long vocal messages on WhatsApp and it drives me bananas I’d much rather just read it especially if it’s in Italian I am in probably 50 WhatsApp groups and I don’t want to be in any of them but they people just add me to these group chats and I generally have no idea what’s going on in them men send me kissy face emojis which is also quite a bit different not something I was quite prepared for um but it’s something that’s fun I actually now send kissy face emojis myself in Eastern Europe again people are more like feel like more direct and more serious well here people are like oh Bella Bella you know like you can just go to the grocery store and spend like 30 minutes because the cashier keep telling you Bella Bella you know what I’m saying okay I like it sometimes other times not so much but hey that it’s fun I used to live in Norway Sweden and then I moved to Italy Italy and Norway it’s absolutely opposite and Russia something in between we can be noisy and we can be loud because Norwegians are very quiet and Italians quite quite loud that’s why it’s kind of balancing Italians I would say it’s very like soft AG people you know like soft age they try to make everything very like soft with no very hard answers for example if you ask something should we meet there should we go there should we do this first years when I moved here I didn’t understand the the answer in Italian tiu sap means I will let you know in general f SA or I will let you know that means 80% no in first years I didn’t know this meaning and it was interesting like I didn’t understand is it yes or no because people afraid to tell you the truth because in Russia we say if we say yes it’s yes if we say no that means no some of the culture shocks too I was surprised that Italians eat at different times than we do in the US we tend to eat a lot earlier but again here in Florence people will eat you know dinner around 8 or 9 whereas in home like 9:00 is the earliest I’ve when I visited there that you’re going to eat dinner having every meal together that’s not something that I’ve done but it’s so normal here waiting for someone to arrive to eat I come from a culture where you’re like okay dinner’s on the stove you know and here it’s like nope we’re going to wait uh my partner does spear fishing so in the summer like the whole family is waiting for him to come back from the sea and so then I get really mad I’m like oh my God I’m hungry I’m hangry dinner time in the states is I worked at a Steak House dinner starts at 4:00 it’s like even TV shows like best shows will come on after dinner Sano it’s like you’re watching it at 1 a.m. on a weekday and you’re like what the whole country is awake right now Italians tend to drink more but get drunk less does that make sense in in the US when people drink they they have a tendency to drink to get drunk okay and I don’t actually don’t drink uh but when I was younger I did and when I drank I drank to get drunk and you don’t see that in Italy I think I I’ve been here 5 years I’ve probably seen 10 people that were really like sloppy drunk they’re very chill about how they drink they just have a glass of wine with their dinner or after dinner or or epero or something like that but then that’s generally about it they eat later at the evening I think they drink a little bit more than in Germany I’ve heard most of my Italian friends complaining about the fact that in Italy they talk mostly about food and plants what they drank yesterday what they ate yesterday A lot of people live on a superficial level is it hard to make uh friends in Florence when I first moved here I was told florentines are very closed it will be hard to make a tie in friends but I have found in several instances where that’s not true yes with Italians and no with International people I feel like Italians especially if they come from like small towns it’s harder to make like connection with them maybe they travel as much or maybe feel like they’re more like traditional ah in Florence it’s really hard to make friends it’s really hard to make friends especially if you’re a foreigner if you do not speak their language because most of my Italian friends they haven’t changed their habits since we know each other since we were teenagers they have moved maybe from the the universities and the school to the workplace but then their their habits are are always the same and Florence it’s a really close system that if you are not florentin and if you do not speak it Italian fluently you are going to really have a hard time to make friends because I had a lot of people complaining about that if you have always been with the same people surrounded by the same people everything Foreigner seems just strange to you but also we have to include that Florence is a city that went through a massive touristification and a lot of the locals are bored with tourist Florence is very specific City it used to be very closed community in general I would say I have not so many Flor people but likely Florence is very International City and for sure I have Italians but basically all these Italians who is my friends they from south of Italy but I have few Florentina friends as well what is the best and worst thing about living in Italy oh gosh the best I think it’s the beauty I’m surrounded with every day what a question well one of the best parts is like you can travel you can take train you can take bus and you are in 3 hours in in the south of Italy in an Iceland or you know like in C in Mexico we don’t have train anymore it’s probably the food I mean it’s the it’s the best food on Earth the B fantina is so good Papa Pomodoro I love all the tusin dishes there’s no bad food here okay the best thing is basically everything um I don’t even know where to start just open your eyes in the morning and look outside and that’s all you ever need when you live here there’s just such beauty around you you can be a woman and be out in the weekend or even in week around and you feel safe the best part for sure it’s very nice weather but the only problem like um I didn’t I still didn’t get used to the houses which is very cold in the winter every winter I’m so freezy inside of house the absolute worst thing besides maybe the traffic is the bureaucracy being a Mexican is not like a shock because we have the same there but bureaucracy is part of the culture bureaucracy and taxes you know for the self-employed people you know what I’m saying trying to get residency getting your ID card getting pero SoJO it’s all very complicated and very uh very frustrating I was living in Norway and Sweden they they did this process in three four months and in Italy takes one year and lat Le with of Florence it’s doing two years and half your documents and you take it it’s already expire expired it’s very yeah it’s terrible no there’s no getting used to it because every time you do something it’s different you know um when I go to get my pero dieso joural they tell me okay you need need this this this and this and then you give it to them and then the next time they you bring the same thing the next time they say no no no now you need this it’s so yeah you can’t get used to it it’s impossible is there anything that uh after 13 years you can’t get used to it uh gosh eating pasta every day I can’t I know Italians eat pasta like every day for lunch it’s like a tradition whatever I can’t all the garbage we receive a lot of visitors you can see people throwing the cigarettes like like flowers you know being an American I’m used to like certain things being taken care of really fast and I think here sometimes things are taken care of very slow like as far as like if you’re internet doesn’t work or your toilet’s running or you don’t have hot water not speaking the language is really hard when I need to deal with stuff like that if you are trying to live a healthier lifestyle I don’t think Florence is the right place because most of the people go out just to drink and even me when I used to go out with my friends we used to go out in the afternoon and we used to drink where are we going have a glass of wine but yeah okay it’s nice to drink but you just want to drink how has living in Italy changed as a person wow that’s a that’s a good question how is I think I think I am a little calmer it’s funny because I did say that they get angry and they you know they explode but also you have to be patient so or you’ll you won’t make it here if you’re not patient first year I was very much disciplined very sharp very even like I was living Norwegian or Russian or Swedish style in Italy but then I saw every every time when I’m trying to be very very sharp and precise people around me not what they precise and I just get I discover the secret if you take half a glass of white wine during your lunch you get you get more relaxed like Italian does and then and then you take easy everything the main rules you need to take easy the situations and not to stress in so much about anything it’s what is it it’s kind of like that I am a happy person I will say that I’m blessed to live live between two countries I spend half my time in New York half my time here being a flight attendant I am your happy flight attendant on the flight you know I’m relaxed Italy definitely has done that I used to be like a you know like a crazy New Yorker taxi person you know when I had people walking too slow or something you know like I’ll be like get out of the way and like now I’m just like it’s all right I you just enjoy looking at that building you know if in Moscow or New York or big city you choose money and you work hard and then you have no time to rest in Italy they quite opposite they choose time and they enjoy the free time they choose more free time than money the way people view work family community is very different here people seem to really appreciate sitting to meals together they leave work and they go get up fortivo together and it’s really important to them I mean the energy is so different here it’s slower paced but in a very good way since I’ve moved to Florence I feel extremely just just happy all the time I think I found the place that I fit into because I always was not fitting quite into American culture as far as like work work work do you have any advice to give to someone that is planning to move to Italy yeah get a lawyer if you are not a EU citizen because you’re not going to be able to navigate the the immigration process on your own do not send anybody money for an apartment you have not seen do you have any advice to give to someone that uh is planning to move to Italy are you sure I mean Italy it’s a beautiful country but Italy it’s the fastest shrinking country in the world the most touristical cities are like open museums the main industries are tourism Florence became one of the most expensive cities in the world I mean in Italy at least you have to conform to Italy Italy is not going to conform to you you can’t be upset that you know they might not respond to your email it’s like oh this so it goes Coy there’s still little little rules of Italians which I I cannot get used but I I still do it in my way I do cappuccino when I want I like pizza with ananas I’m breaking the rules I taken tiramisu with green tea and you know it’s all little rules which Italian don’t do but we do [Music]