Cultural Comparisons

The study abroad program taught me how different the cultural differences are between the US and Italy. The food was great I have always had a love for Italian food, pizza was one of my favorite foods while growing up, however I learned that in Italy Pizza is way different for instance it is uncommon for them to use pepperoni as one of their toppings, some pizza’s only contain tomato sauce, seafood such as tuna is a common pizza toping and their crust is thin unlike the US. Another food custom I learned is that Italians drink wine or water with most of their meals. Water Fountains are not common for instance we tried to look for one at the university but they said they only use bottled water. The water served at restaurants comes in a glass container and is very pure. The transportation was also new to me growing up in a small town we don’t experience different types of transportation other than vehicles. In Milan however there is a wide variety of transportation such as the underground metro, trains which we rode to Venice and back to the Malpensa airport, bus, we also saw people use motorcycles, bikes, and European cars are very small. The education environment also differs from the US in that for one the price to attend is a university is cheaper, the environment is more relaxed, for example many students smoke on campus, and they do not have a dress code, students are allowed to use their cell-phones during class and exams, teacher’s are not allowed to take a student’s cell-phone because it is considered their private property. The teacher’s go by their first name and are not called a Mr. or Mrs. On one of our field trips we went out to eat with our professor Guido and he stated it was common for students to have lunch with their students. I enjoyed learning about all their cultural differences and it was easy to adapt to them also. I forward to returning back to visit someday.