Since I’m planning on going to Arezzo this summer with the college of education, I did a little research using the list I made on things important to learn and here’s what I found:
(According to Google Translate) how to say:
“Please”- “Per Favore”
“Thank you”- “Grazie”
“I would like “- “Vorrei”
“I am lost”- “Sono perduto”
“Do you speak English?”- “Lei parla inglese?”
As far as how the food differs from “American” Italian food, here’s some online info I found:
-Italians usually dress their own salad with Olive Oil, salt, & pepper, so don’t think about ordering “Italian dressing”
-Pepperoni pizza doesn’t really exist unless you’re in a super tourist-y part of Italy (I doubt Arezzo falls into this category); and actually, their word for bell pepper sounds a lot like pepperoni, so if you order this they’ll most likely bring you out a pizza covered with bell peppers
-They don’t usually serve chicken with pasta (no chicken alfredo).
-Only drink water or wine during a meal, because they take the flavor of the food very seriously
And a bunch of other really useful info!
Finally, as far as customs that I probably need to know about:
-Italy is a very cash-centric country, so I probably won’t be using my card for a lot of things.
-Not really a custom, but it is apparently one of the countries where pick-pocketing is extremely common, so I’ll need to be careful.
-Waiters tend to leave you alone during a meal, so don’t think they’re being “rude”
-They also eat dinner very late
-They do not tend to show much skin with what they wear, so I might want to cover up more so than I usually would in the summer time.
-Tipping your waiter is apparently not necessary
-Dates are shown as day-month-year and times are in a 24 hour format
I could go on, but the gist of this post is I have about a million things to learn about Italy before I travel there! This has made it seem so real to me. I’m so excited!
