We may think that Italians are similar to us but they're not! They are 100% different and I've definitely realized that living in rome. For my CAS 492 class we take a bunch of tours around rome but we also have to do a presentation on many different topics and mine was on Italian Culture so I figured I would spend a blog talking about Italian culture. One of my classes ADV 334 with our group leader, Tom is really helpful because he relates how the differences of italian culture relate to advertising internationally which is really helpful considering I'm an advertising major!

One of the major things we've talked about in class is how much the Italians value family. They value their family more than the government! You can only imagine how that creates problems. Long families also live really close to each other. Italian males will live with their moms until their 30 yrs old! They usually don't leave the house until they get married. Can you say momma's boy? There's actually a term for that it's called mammoni....except it's not a bad thing here. Moms are the dominant role in the household too. Their children are the #1 priority of their life. You can imagine how that relates to advertising because advertising for kids won't work since moms make all their decisions whereas in the U.S. our parents raise us to be independent, here they don't allow them to have sleepovers or go on any trips! Businesses are also mainly family run. This also creates a problem because Tom told us that 40% of Italians are dentists because their parents were :/ Good thing I got my teeth work done before I came here! Same thing goes for engineers. Ohhhhh italians.

Another difference is that Italians love their dogs! I see far more dogs around than in the U.S.! There are also a lot more pet stores around haha. One bad thing is that they just let there dog poop on the sidewalk and don't clean it up! There's barely any grass, it's all sidewalk so you always have to watch out because you might step in dog poop! ewwww.

Italians also drive like craaaaaaazy! Seriously, I don't know how they don't have more accidents than americans. They never look both way, they barely stop at stop signs, go before the light turns red, it's hilarious to watch! Also dangerous because I've almost gotten hit by a vespa/car a million times. They just don't care! It's awesome.

Italians also have very different daily lifes than us (duhhh). Their business hours are so weird! They have a 3 hour napping/quiet time from 1pm-4pm, which means all the stores actually close down during that time! Including businesses! They also have NATIONAL quiet hours that start at 10 pm and go till 7 am. This means no house parties, no yelling in the streets, no loud music. You can imagine how this has posed as a problem for 31 college students from the U.S. We come alive at night! but of course we try to be as respectful as we can...

It's crazy how laid-back their culture is. And yet, at the same time they are very expressive about their feelings! It's not uncommon at all to see italians yelling at each other in the street. It's actually really funny. That's all about italian culture, hope it was interesting!