What do you think about my country ?

[John Connor]

I guess Tuscany is really nice. Just Google Tuscany and see it!

 

[IronWing]

türkiye

That was my thought when I read the title. 126 posts is a long lead up though.

 

[MaxPower83]

There are highs and lows just like every country.
The problem is that (especially here) the bad things overshadow the good things.
We are killing ourselves with our own hands.

On one side we have great museums , great food and really wonderful landscapes. (take a look here http://www.visittrentino.it/)
On the other side , the inefficency , the corruption and the slow burocracy don't let my beloved coutry grow, leaving it in a limbo.

 

[SolMiester]

France>Italy.

Sorry.

Was the other way around for me, cant stand the french!

 

[Captante]

Do they have free Ipods?

 

[slayer202]

That was my thought when I read the title. 126 posts is a long lead up though.

:biggrin: haha ya, I still couldn't resist though. never gets old

 

[piasabird]

My father was stationed to Rome Italy and Ciampino air base for 3 year from around 71-73. When I first got there, I was in the 9th grade and it was the first time I had ever been in Europe. We lived in one villa for a while that was situated between large vineyards. I had the time of my life and met many wonderful people. It is a country as old as time and as beautiful as a dream. It has a mix of the ancient, the old, the modern and it is still a laid back country where a person can relax. You have to get off the beaten trails and tourists traps to really enjoy it.

 

[norseamd]

Would be a great place if it didn't have all those Italians hanging around.

lulz

Hope they are not as bad as they seem like. Wondering what the Veneitans and Tyrolians are like?

 

[Perknose]

It has a mix of the ancient, the old, the modern and it is still a laid back country where a person can relax. You have to get off the beaten trails and tourists traps to really enjoy it.

^^^ This.

 

[etrigan420]

We lived in Sicily from '00-'03. My oldest son was born there. Multiple trips to Rome, Naples, Siena, Florence, Amalfi Coast, etc. etc.

All in all we had a great time.

Perk hits the nail on the head, the touristy areas are rife with generalized shadiness, just like similar areas in any given country.

But no country comes close to the hospitality and kindness we encountered when we ventured off the beaten path.

 

[zinfamous]

Italy is wonderful but I would never, ever, never live there.

 

[Perknose]

Italy is wonderful but I would never, ever, never live there.

Grammatically, you remain steadfastly open to the idea. Is that what you meant?

 

[crashtech]

Does that really count as a double negative? Inquiring grammar nazi wants to know.

 

[DigDog]

italians like to cry. about everything.
except they don't actually like to do anything about their problems. they complain about the economy, taxes, and corruption, and then they vote for berlusconi.

so, what greenman said.

 

[crashtech]

^Italians sound much like Americans, if that is true.

 

[DigDog]

they are completely different. americans are ignorant of the problems they have, italians know them well - but they have this culture of hopelessness and self-defeatism, that it makes it impossible for any of them to stand up. you are never going to hear an italian up in arms about his rights, freedom or pursuit of happiness, but they will mope constantly about the status quo, how things are they way they are, and that nothing can change.

 

[JulesMaximus]

Never been there but I do own an Italian motorcycle and they do make some extremely fine automobiles. Love the food too. Oh, and my wife is Italian... Well, she's really an American but her ancestry is Italian.

I guess you could say I'm a fan.

 

[JulesMaximus]

they are completely different. americans are ignorant of the problems they have, italians know them well - but they have this culture of hopelessness and self-defeatism, that it makes it impossible for any of them to stand up. you are never going to hear an italian up in arms about his rights, freedom or pursuit of happiness, but they will mope constantly about the status quo, how things are they way they are, and that nothing can change.

Here we just argue about it and nothing ever changes.

 

[alcoholbob]

Isn't Italy the dumping ground for refugees thanks to Hilary Clinton's Libyan War?

 

[Jodell88]

Depends, is Mario Balotelli Italian or not?

 

[norseamd]

Depends, is Mario Balotelli Italian or not?

Looks like it. Not originally the guy I was thinking of as I was thinking about Chef.

 

[Grooveriding]

Great place. I've seen most of the major cities and some of the smaller areas in the south. Excellent food and friendly people. Too many let their experience of Italy amount to going to Rome, eating at the tourist trap restaurants and never getting an idea of anything else there.

My preference is southern Spain though and I plan to move to Malaga when I retire.

 

[KeithTalent]

No opinion. Wouldn't mind visiting, but it's very low on my priority list.

This.

türkiye

Lol, my first thought as well.

KT

 

[olds]

Got lost in Austria once and almost ended up in Italy.

 

[Murloc]

it is still a laid back country where a person can relax.

as a tourist, you can relax in any country.

If you work, you're probably more relaxed in northern europe than in Italy.

Public transportation in Italy is a nightmare and commuters and city dwellers are definitely not relaxed and don't like the rush every morning and coming home late because trains get suppressed randomly or have huge delays. They also aren't very strict on daily working hours so employees are sometimes left stuck at work (private sector of course).

As a man travelling alone you won't encounter many problems, but each of my blonde, female colleagues that went there for a congress or customer visit got harrassed the moment they walked out onto the streets. Lega Nord is a facist party with a lot of followers there, the poorer South knows quite a lot of corruption, and in the EU only Greece has a worse debt to GDP ratio (which is of course because the government handled the economy so greatly). Even if the EU can throw Greece out of the Euro we'll still be stuck with the rest of the Southern-European countries.

I'm a bit dumbfounded by that thing about the blonde colleague but I guess it varies regionally.
I've never seen this in the north.

Lega Nord has nowadays caught many votes of ex-fascists but traditionally it wasn't fascist at all, just right-wing. And it's nowhere close to Republicans.
It also has like 10% of the votes or something (now that they pander to pseudofascists and right wingers as well instead of just northern autonomists).

Calling it the land of fascism and sexual assault is simply wrong. They also have too many antifas (communist vandalizers). I'd call it a land of extremes, that combine to form perfect immobility.
Sexual assaults committed by natives do happen but many are committed by foreigners belonging to a different culture regarding respect of women just like in the rest of europe.