Entry 1: Introduction- Culture and the
Environment
So, now I’m in Florence. Not too much has changed, I’m
still sitting here at the kitchen table on my laptop just like I do all the
time in Santa Barbara, listening to the same songs I listened to last
quarter. Only, when I look down the
hall, I see a giant fresco on the wall of arched columns framing a view of the
green hilly country side. When I look out the window, I’m looking through two
6ft tall glass sheets with wooden frames and this intricate metal latch you
have to turn and jiggle just the right way to swing open the tall windows. If I
look through the windows I’ll see pigeons bumping and snuggling each other on
the roof across the way. They actually
coo pretty loud, not my favorite bird but I mean hey, they were here first. A
lot of people were here first actually. This women Daniela who showed us all
the tricks and charms of our apartment also told us that our building was built
in the fifteen hundreds. So five hundred years later, here I am. I can’t even
begin to image the people who lived here before me, how different our
lifestyles and clothes and cultures are, and all the things that had to have
happened in history for me to be sitting here right now. But it has, and five
hundred years later, I have almost exactly the same view walking down the
street to get to class as the people had that lived here during the
renaissance. Maybe it will look the same for the next 500 years as well, and
the future people living here will be imagining how I lived the way I do now.
The point of this daydream is that culture is fluid.
Culture is a way of life of a group of
people--the behaviors, beliefs, values, and symbols that they accept, generally
without thinking about them, and that are passed along by communication and
imitation from one generation to the next.
People’s way of life, behaviors and beliefs are
continuously changing as a species, by country, by family and even on
individual level. But why do we do
the things we do? How do everyday
practices become the norm? I’d like to
challenge the definition above by saying culture is something we should think about, especially before
passing it on. The main purpose of this
blog is to document my experiences abroad, and to compare the differences I
observe between American and Italian cultures that have environmental
relevance. I will also cover other cultural differences if I find them salient
in my trip, as well as observations, experiences, and advice that may be helpful to future
students studying abroad or people traveling to Italy. I don’t have a schedule of what I plan to
write about, so if there is something in particular you all are interested in
knowing about, by all means make my life easier and comment your ideas!
I look forward to discovering
with you,
-Jasmine
Entry 2: Grocery Shopping 101
Wow, time
flies. I’ve been here a few weeks now, and I am finding myself in this surreal
environment here where every Monday (today’s Monday) people meet up for
cappuccinos during our 20 minute break in Italian class and ask each other what
they did over the weekend. People tell
stories of going to Venice, Milan, Amsterdam, Barcelona, Prague, you name
it. And the people who are listening are
completely absorbed in the stories, taking mental notes and trying to
prioritize which destination they most want to see, and when, to go, and who to
bring. And I myself have become one of
them. It is crazy when I stop and
realize, holy crap, I am actually sitting here deciding if I prefer to go to
Athens or Lisbon, Munich or Dublin. Who
the hell am I?
And the craziest thing of all is that I have spent
almost weeks in Florence and I still have so much here I want to do. But I am getting the hang of life here now, and
I have noticed quite a lot of cultural differences. Today I’m going to talk about one of the
first things that someone who has recently arrived in Florence will need to
know about: grocery shopping. (duh duh duhn).
At UCSB I probably go grocery shopping about twice a month. In Florence,
I pick something up from the store about every other day, but at least twice a
week. The way the stores are here it’s
impossible to things buy in bulk the way I usually do (shout out to Costco).
Everything is in hilariously small portion sizes compared to the U.S. Also, most Italians DON’T USE
MICROWAVES. So you need to cook things
fresh on a daily basis and eat it all, because reheating over the stove usually
doesn’t work well. Believe me, I’ve
tried. Even though daily cooking is
somewhat of a pain, eating all of this fresh food means huge reductions in the
amount of processed foods that are normally a pretty regular part of my
diet. I stop at this fruit and veggies
stand on my way home from class and stock up about twice a week. They only have the veggies that are in season
and from the looks of it, it appears that they sell local produce (I need to
figure out how to ask them this in Italian).
If this is true, buying food from places like this not only helps support
the local economy, but also discourages far away shipments that produce a lot
of fossil fuels. One last thing to know
about grocery shopping is that you are expected to bag your own groceries. This can be stressful, especially because
most of the time they don’t wait for you to finish before they start checking
out the next person in line, and then that person winds up hovering over you while
you fumble with your bag, making sure you don’t accidently pack up their cheese
with your food. But the interesting
thing is, they usually don’t ask you if you need a bag. They expect that either you brought one, you
don’t need one, or you’re going to ask for one yourself. And they NEVER ask you how many you
need. You are given one, and you have to
make do with that one or really speak up and do some hand waiving to get a
second. I just bring my own bags because
it’s way less of a hassle, and way better for the environment. But I think the whole mentality about the
bags is very different from the U.S., where they double bag things without asking. Here with bags Italians seem much more
sparing, and much more sustainable!
-Jasmine
Entry 3: Street Smart (or Not)
Ciao tutti! I’m back and I’ve got some catching up to
do. First thing to note is that I can feel spring coming. Temperatures are slowly climbing and it’s
consistently around mid-50s now. Coming from Santa Barbara, It’s surprising to
hear myself being excited about that, but I am. The sun sets later, it rains pretty often, (in
a spring showers kind of way not thundering and wind kind of way), and I see
little flowers popping up when I manage to escape the completely paved over
city center of Florence. I can now finally
make use of the balcony in my apartment, from which I am writing this
blog. Sitting outside I can hear a live
band playing and birds chirping in the last light moments of the day (it’s
6:15pm). It feels like the city itself
is waking up, what an appropriate time of year to be in the city of rebirth
(the renaissance).
Today I am going to talk a little generally about
things I’ve noticed walking the streets of Florence. As I mentioned briefly, one thing maybe not
immediately noticeable that becomes strikingly obvious in time is how little
greenery there is in the city center of Florence. You won’t find the ornamental trees planted
in rows on the sidewalk that is so common in the U.S. There are no bushes, no
grass, no nothing, unless you go to visit a garden, many of which have an
entrance fee (like boboli gardens, which I highly recommend visiting). You have
to actually walk a couple miles to get out of the city in order to find open
parks, and drive/bus around 30 minutes into the countryside if you really want
to see the rolling Tuscan hills. Having
a paved city leads to a couple of problems.
One is that Florentine’s love their little dogs, and you will constantly
see people out walking them, but these pups have no grass to relieve themselves
in. Don’t get me wrong, Florence is one
of the cleanest cities I’ve lived in, and everyone is excellent about picking
up after the dogs. However, there’s only
so much you can pick up of certain messes if you catch my drift. So someone
walking on Florentine city streets should always have an eye towards the ground
if you want to keep clean shoes. I think
this could be particularly be an issue when it rains. Consider, all of this waste is washed off of
the sidewalks and is carried away into the water system. And dog poop isn’t our biggest problem here,
just maybe the most obvious example.
Lots of other more toxic things can be picked up off the street by
rain. For example, cigarette butts. In Florence, and in Europe as a whole, it is
more socially acceptable to smoke. People commonly start smoking at a very young
age (my Italian teacher said around age 13) and often continue throughout their
lives. Therefore, you see people smoking
in Florence just about as often as someone tries to sell you a selfie
stick. It is everywhere. The resulting
toxic cigarette butts are also picked up in the rain, along with oil from
cars/busses/vespas and any other residue from the streets. Much of this runoff likely goes directly into
the Arno River. I personally have seen
marine mammals living in the Arno river (I’m embarrassed to admit I didn’t
recognize it, looked like a really small beaver but wasn’t an otter!) If they live in the Arno then there’s an
aquatic ecosystem living there, and who knows how much of this water pollution they
can handle? What happens if we eat
animals exposed to these toxins? Make no mistake, this is a problem that the
U.S. struggles greatly with too, and it is extremely difficult to compare which
country is more sustainable when it comes to toxic runoff. For example, Italy
has more cigarettes, but the United States uses more cars per household, and
tire shreds and car fluids contribute greatly to toxic runoff. I can say generally that ways to reduce toxic
runoff include having vegetation that can provide as a sort of filter for these
toxins, as well as reducing our use of them!
-Jasmine
Entry 4: Here, There, and Everywhere
I can’t get a grasp of how fast time has gone, I’m
down to my last week in Italy! The second half of my study abroad experience I
have done much more out of country traveling. I have gone Germany, Amsterdam, and
Portugal all in the last month. I also went to Palermo and Agrigento, knocking
Sicily of the list of cities I’ve seen in Italy. In Italy I’ve now been to
Florence, Venice, Rome, Bologna, Siena, Naples, Palermo, Luca, San Gimignano,
Pisa, and Milan and lastly Palermo and Agrigento. After seeing these places I must expand on my
evaluation of culture a little. I have
learned that Italy is a relatively new country, (was not unified until the 1870’s)
that before was broken into competing regions.
Many of these rivalries still exist in half-jokes between the
cities. Each time I took a tour in a
different city, they asked where we were visiting from, and then throughout the
tour did their best to show us the ways in which their city outshines Florence.
My point is that through these rivalries I have realized that the cities still
have cultural uniqueness. They each have
their own specialties, traditions, and so forth. This also holds true from
cities in America, consider the differences between the Northern and Southern
regions, for example. I just want to
clarify here that the comparisons I make can’t be truly representative of the
entire country, which is why I try to choose general topics to talk about that I
think are most likely to be applicable across regions in the same country.
Since we are talking about comparing different
regions, I’d like to dedicate this entry to talk about transportation. As I’ve stated before, I have been fortunate
to get in quite a bit of traveling in the last couple of months. I have taken busses, trams, shuttles, metros,
trains, cars, and planes, and done a huge amount of walking. The majority of my trips have been within Italy,
and consisted of taking a high-speed train to another city. I pack whatever I need in a weekend bag (I
highly recommend buying a portable battery charger to bring with you) and walk
about 10-15 minutes across the river to the train station. I purchased a Eurail pass before arriving in
Florence which allows 10 days of train travel anywhere in Italy for a fixed
price. There are several variations on
the passes you can get and which countries they are valid for. I have saved money with the pass, but I also
knew I wanted to visit a lot of cities in Italy, and you will only save money
if you intend to do the same. The train
system is incredibly efficient. Trains travel at over 200 miles per hour and get
you quickly to your destination. From
there, typically you can waive down a taxi to take you to your hotel, hostel,
or air bnb, or you can be a little more adventurous and go for the public
transportation. If you get a taxi, be sure to ask ahead of time how much it
will cost. Often times the prices are
set and there isn’t the tracker in the cabs that gives you the cost as you
drive, so if you don’t ask how much it is upfront you might get an unfair
price. Ultimately, I found that it is often just as easy to take the metro from
the train station to get to wherever I was going.
There are few cities in the United States I can
imagine having the same accessibility with public transportation. I can say
confidently that when traveling in between cities in California, driving is not
only preferred, but is sometimes the only option. Being able to drive down the highway by the
ocean in a drop-top, or with the windows rolled down is actually glamorized
often-times. I remember one time taking the Amtrak from Santa Barbara to
Sacramento area. It took much longer
than the drive would have taken, and I had to stop and make a lengthy
connection somewhere. In Italy, you can travel much faster using public transportation
than you would by car, and had much quicker connections, if any. Ultimately,
the accessibility, efficiency, and affordability of public transportation in
Italy is significantly greater than in the United States. By creating a culture that regularly utilizes
public transportation, a great amount of car fuel and therefore fossil fuels
can be reduced. Additionally, by using
public transportation, car fluid leakages and tire/break pad dust can be spared
from roads, reducing the amount of toxic runoff that enters the waterways.
-Jasmine
Entry 5: Wrap Up
I am back in the United States now. The last 11 weeks
have been an incredible adventure that I will surely never forget. For my last
entry, I wanted to wrap up with a mixture of things I have noticed and
recommendations I have now that my time abroad has come to an end. First, I
wanted to talk about water usage. A big
difference that might be surprising at first is that you have to pay for drinking
water in restaurants in Italy. Often
times in Florence, people stand outside their restaurants and try to get you to
come eat there by offering free wine. By
the end of my time there, it was a running joke that if one of these
restaurants would simply offer free water they would be the hit of the town
(with American’s at least). Water is always offered as either plain or
sparkling.
Although we as
students didn’t have to pay water our water bill, from asking around I gathered
that the water in Italy is more expensive than in the U.S. It is possible that
having people pay for drinking water, and having generally higher water usage
prices, can encourage water conservation.
However, I also noticed that many tourists wound up purchasing huge
amounts of plastic water bottles for the house instead of drinking the tap
water (which is said to be fine for drinking).
Before leaving for Italy I purchased a filter from REI that went inside
my reusable water bottle. This allowed
me to fill my water bottle with tap water and still drink filtered water easily
and without producing all of that plastic waste. It was definitely more affordable as well!
Another heads
up has to do with laundry. In Italy,
clothes are typically line-dried, instead of dried in the dryer. This made for some cold, wet, chores when
trying to hang laundry in the winter. It
also can take multiple days for the heavier clothes like jeans to dry all the
way. However by line-drying the clothes, you are reducing energy use and are
also helping your clothes to last longer.
Italians typically buy expensive, high quality clothing, so it makes
sense that they would want them to last a long time! Buying high quality
clothes less frequently is another way to reduce waste.
Lastly, I’ll just say I’ve found that Italians can be
incredibly approachable or incredibly off-putting, depending on the day and
your demeanor as a tourist. Ladies, if
you make eye-contact with a man outside and smile at him, there is about a
99.9% chance he will take that was an invitation to talk (and perhaps walk!)
with you. For me, having a friendly
expression was a surprisingly difficult habit to break, but the safest option
is to give people you don’t know a blank/straight expression. If, on the other-hand,
you take too long to pack your groceries, chose your gelato flavors, or take up
too much space on the sidewalks, and you are destined to get some unhappy Italians
gesturing in your direction. There is a learning curve. It takes time to adjust
and get the lay of the land and there’s not much you can do about that except
to remain vigilant and respectful. I recommend picking a place to get coffee or
gelato regularly. The locals will
eventually begin to recognize you and you can have the opportunity to start to
get to know each other. I remember at my
coffee shop a man would come in most days with a bulldog named Judita that was
often dressed in different color sweaters. Eventually it became a part of their routine
to stop and say hello to me, and he would let me pet Judita. Little things like
that is what helps to take you from feeling like a tourist to feeling like a
regular. I recommend taking walks around
and finding your own favorite places of the city, and meeting local people. Doing things like this is how I feel I’ve
been able to gain a deeper understanding of a culture other than my own. Connecting this to themes of sustainability
has allowed me to gain new perspective of how and why I interact with the world
the way I do. Gaining global perspective and taking the time to assess your own
ways of life are critical components to adapting to a more sustainable future.
I feel incredibly thankful that support from the Benjamin Gilman Scholarship
has allowed me to have such an incredible experience traveling abroad, gaining
this viewpoint of the relationships between culture and the environment, and
the motivation to create a platform to share it with others.
-Jasmine
