I found this article on the Net and thought some people on this site would find it interesting

To bring people to my site, I hang out in online forums about travelling and living in Italy, answering questions where I usefully can. It's been an education for me as well, in American attitudes towards Italy.

One young woman bemoaned the fact that in her travels in Italy, and especially in Rome, she had not found the "real" Italy that she expected. Her vision of the real Italy apparently included (only) beautiful people beautifully dressed, spotless streets, and women who make pasta from scratch every day while singing along to Verdi and Puccini. She was sadly bewildered to find Rome full of immigrants ("Bulgarians and Chinamen," as she phrased it), rude people, and young people kissing on park benches (she was of the opinion that this sort of behavior should be heavily fined - really, what planet was she from?).

Come to any country looking for a stereotype, and you're bound to be disappointed, especially when your picture is based on the rose-colored memories of emigrant grandparents, or the more recent "live the good life in Italy" stereotype created by well-heeled foreigners who move to Tuscany, renovate a villa, and then write a book about it.

A recent post on Zoomata.com bewailed the removal of crucifixes from Italian classrooms (due to a court challenge by the Finnish mother of an Italian child); another on Fodors.com was upset over a bit of news reported in the US, that in Treviso a school's nativity play was replaced with "Little Red Riding Hood." Said the Fodor's poster: "I love Italy. I thought I knew Italians, being American Italian myself."

These two people, a Canadian and an American, both mourn Italy's "becoming" secular rather than remaining Catholic. As second- or third-generation emigrants, they have skipped over several generations of Italian history, and apparently don't realize that the separation of church and state in Italy was established in the Constitution (strongly modeled on the American one) in the early 1950s.

The Catholic Church still has influence in Italian life and politics, but that influence is waning (though not going down without a fight, I admit). The Church's presence in daily life is nearly non-existent. Most Italians are still baptized etc. and would claim to be Catholic if you asked, but only about 10% (I'm guessing) are practicing Catholics.

There are still devout Catholics of course, but even they are puzzled by the attitudes of their non-practicing compatriots. One of my colleagues who is very active in his diocese told me: "These people show up wanting to marry in the church or baptize their kids. We've never seen them before and it means nothing to them, so we have to wonder why they bother." If forced to think about it, these people might answer that it's traditional, and/or that they want to please an older relative.

Italy still maintains many of the outward forms of Catholicism, but even those are being challenged, as in the above-mentioned cases of the classroom crucifixes and nativity play. Like most modern nations, Italy is wrestling with large-scale immigration and how to integrate new people, religions, and cultures into the existing culture and society. These are not easy issues, and the best answers differ even from community to community within a country. Some parts of Italy have found effective and interesting ways to bring their newly-multicultural communities together, others are still working on it. In most cases, the result will not look like the Italy that many Americans think they know.

Thanks Giacomo - a really interesting post. It's all too easy to view a life in Italy through rose coloured spectacles, but a dull, rainy day in Tuscany is still a dull, rainy day. Italy has it's beauties, but also it's problems, the same as anywhere in the world, and language difficulties, missing famiy etc., mean that the "dream" isn't always as expected - not a nightmare, but not a solution to everything.

Every culture has it's good qualities and it's bad qualties. Some are just more insteresting in a certain person's eyes. For me I find more good qualities in the Italian culture than lets say the French culture.

I never expected Italy to be perfect. There are rude people all over the world, including rude Italians.

Sicily was how I expected it be with the exception of there not being a tourist area where you could learn about the traditions of Sicily. However, I was expecting it to be perfect. I was expecting it to be nice, but not perfect.

When I was a child I thought Italy was Paradise. Now that I'm an adult it's just a nice place to be in general.

I disagree. I'm going to continue to live in my fantasy world. Its what keeps me sane. ;-)

As i always say, a crappy day in italy is probably better than a good day here at work!

A bad day in Italy probably is better than a good day at work in the USA. Work is just one big nightmare in the USA. There was only one job I liked and it didn't pay well. I had to get a second job that payed better but it was a nightmare to work there. I was so happy when I was able to quite that job after moving here. I worked as a cashier in a store. During the beginning of the second week of my 2 week notice one of the managers made me extremely angery so I told her off, threw lots of clothes on the floor so she would have to pick them off, and told her I'll be going home now and I won't be coming back. It felt so good to do that. lol

But ya, even the good days weren't so good, so unless I'm about to be sexually asulted or murdered then I would have to say in general a bad day in Italy is probably better.

But I still don't think it's Paradise. I think we have to wait until we are dead to be able to see paradise. At least I hope so, because I don't want to think being a good person in such a bad world is a waste of time.

Los Angeles, California, New York, New York, Little Rock Arkansas, Kansas City and other big cities
in the U.S. are worse or just as bad. Paris the samething. Just like anywhere you got to get out of
those big cities. Mio Dio have you ever been to Hollywood California? Or how about Venice Beach in California?
Talk about weird. I've traveled the world over and haven't seen anything as bizzare and bad as Hollywood and Venice Beach, California.
Imagine somebody wanting to see the real Hollywood. They would not find the real Hollywood they expect to. Perverts and homeless
on every corner and in between. The weirdest looking people you can find anywhere in the world all bunched together.
Oh, and Skid Row in Los Angelse. Santo cielo! There has been several articles in the paper about how other cities take their mentally
ill down there and just dump them off. Mamma mia! Ave Maria Purissima!
Outside of Paris I found some nice little places just like outside of Rome lo stesso.

Oddly enough you put New york twice, and little rock and kansas city.....but forget the 3rd largest city in the country.

La la la la i can't hear you la la la la

That is exactally why we live about 30 minutes out of Amsterdam. My husband grew up in Amsterdam and is very proud of being an Amsterdamer. He wanted to get a house in the city. I told him there is no way I'm living in a city. I told him that I would be much happier living in a town that is close enough to the city so we could visit his parents more easily and his grandmother when she was still alive.

There are some pretty odd people in New York City. I enjoyed visiting New York City, but there is no way I would pay so much money to live there. I wouldn't feel safe.

I think Philadelphia is more dangerous than New York. It was reported in the news every single day that people were killed there. Also, it seemed like everytime I went there a fight broke out somewhere. I was always scared that someone would pull out a gun and start shooting and I would be in the cross fire. After I while I got too scared to go to Philadelphia anymore.

New York is a state. New York, New York is the city.(New York City allora) So I didn't put New York twice. So let's throw
Chicago the 3rd largest city after Los Angeles in there along with Philly, Miami, Atlanta, San Francisco, Detroit(Murder city)
and anyother big U.S. city you want to mention.

"I think Philadelphia is more dangerous than New York. It was reported in the news every single day that people were
killed there. Also, it seemed like everytime I went there a fight broke out somewhere. I was always scared that someone
would pull out a gun and start shooting and I would be in the cross fire. After I while I got too scared to go to Philadelphia anymore."

Che errore!! America really is a dangerous place to live in! Much more dangerous than Italy! LOL!!