My American experience, lasting 2 and a half years, has led me to reflect on some differences in the daily life of the people in these two countries. America definitely lives everything on a much more technological level than ours, while we rely on old techniques for many things, more obsolete and sometimes less effective, but in some respects with more fascinating traits.
Let's start in the home. In Italy there are still many comforts that are considered things for rich families, while in America they are the bare necessities to buy a house. We talk about things that can make our daily life easier, such as using the dryer instead of the classic garden rope for drying clothes. I can definitely tell by personal experience that the dryer allows you to have perfectly dry clothes and without the risk of running to the garden if it starts to rain and having to start again, but it is true on the other hand that the natural method saves on electricity and the smell of sun-heated laundry is unbeatable.
We talk about the precious ice, which in America it is considered as the best friend of man and trying to serve a drink with little ice seems to challenge the opponent to a duel, but in Italy ice is fundamental only in a few circumstances. Generally there is the idea that drinking too-cold drinks is bad and therefore avoided. While having an ice-making refrigerator in the US is perhaps more important than having the doorbell, here we rely on molds that after hours of waiting, before that the water has undergone the magical transformation, gives us a few pieces of ice and then the waiting begins again. In these parts, owning a refrigerator that makes ice from the door I assure you is something for the rich and that intrigues every guest who enters a home for the first time and sees one.
Still talking about cold, another factor that draws a clear line between American living from Italian is the use of air conditioning. Again for reasons linked to consumption, many families do not want or cannot afford the purchase of this marvel of technology and therefore we equip ourself with fans or vintage folding fans that move the air, convincing us that there is fresh air. In contrast, in any self-respecting American house or residence, the A/C is never absent, and as much as it allows you to live the house pleasantly, you risk never to let a window open and live in natural air; of my experience in Florida I remember the abuse of this technology in every place, from the bus to the mall. Every enclosed space was completely refrigerated creating a considerable temperature change between the inside and the outside and therefore the risk of getting sick in the middle of June.
All these differences exist in private places, but they are also repeated in public places. If you think of restaurants on the beaches in Italy there is no closed environment with air conditioning, but there will be terraces with a view of the sea and you can eat caressed by the sea breeze. This example serves to better explain that in Italy we rely more on what nature can give us and as much as possible we avoid the close link with technology. We resist this also so as not to become addicted to machines and no longer be able to live outside and in nature with everything that makes us available.
A less recent motivation for these differences can be found in the 1950s where all this technology in Italian private houses showed itself for the first time and arrived precisely from America where the possibilities were greater, while in Italy one lived with simplicity and the only one goal was to work and give a future to our children. We focused little on comfort, but perhaps because no one had shown it to us yet and until then we had done what we could with what we had.
This mentality is still found today in corners that have become tourist spots in the midst of the countryside or hills and that offer the foreign guest the chance to live by nature and its precious fruits. Initially it will certainly be a challenge for those accustomed to every kind of comfort, but in the end you will have experienced the best vacation of your life and increased your ability to adapt.
