Both my wife and I grew up in Italy and moved to US in 1996. I recall myself during the first 2-3 years of living abroad to continously making comparisons between my new and old lifestyles. I missed the good food, friends and walking to some places without the need of driving.
Then I started to get used to the comfortable living in the States, the large roads, the grocery shops always open and the efficiency of the public services. During my trips back to Italy I became more and more aware of differences that I didn’t notice when I was living there, because they were part of my everyday life, if I liked them or not.
Part of the fun of travel is discovering new cultures on your own. But knowing ahead of time some of those cultural differences may save you some time, possibly money and disappointments.
We expect to cover key topics such as driving, transportations, calling home, food, accommodation, but feel free to let us know if you’d like us to blog on something specific.
Ciao Francesca e Paolo! I have a question I cannot find the answer to regarding Scheda Telefonica, Carta Telefonica – prepaid telephone cards.
Instructions say one of the corners of the card has to be cut off before I can use it. Why?
Andrew, the schede telefoniche in Italy have to be physically inserted in public phones to work. A card that has been previously used will have a cut corner, whereas a new one is mint. It’s a visual way to find out if a card is brand new or used. The difference with US phone cards is that in US you have to scratch the card to find the secret code. In Italy there is no secret code, there is a magnetic band on the card that needs to be read by the phone.