Things I've learned this week...#2

Another week of living in Italy has passed and I thought it would be useful to again share my embarrassing moments/realisations/lessons learnt so that anyone visiting Italy doesn’t have to learn the hard way like I am. See, I’m taking one for the team!

• PDA. Public displays of affection are definitely a thing in Perugia and maybe Italy as a whole. Don’t be surprised or disgusted if a couple sat a foot away from you start, you know, really going for it. It seems to be the norm. Ah well, they do say Italians are passionate, don’t they?
• That when it rains, it rains. Huge claps of thunder, lightning flashes that light up the whole sky, and rain that ends up dripping a bit through my ceiling (yay).
• How to catch a bus to the shopping centre 40 minutes outside of Perugia. Now, this might not seem like a big deal, and I’ve got the same bus with other people before. But having never caught a bus by myself in England (yes, really), it surprised me how easily I could do it in a foreign country. Perhaps not one of my biggest achievements, but I’m going to count it as an achievement nonetheless!
• That everyone is feeling very festive this year?! My Twitter feed is full of Christmas tweets and pictures and with the bad weather last week leaving me flat-bound, I resorted to watching Home Alone and have since been feeling extremely festive. I have a separate post to go up on what I’m looking forward to at Christmas, so for now I will just say I am EXCITED.
• To not let men you don’t know into your flat. Sounds so obvious but with a mixture of being half asleep, language barriers, not knowing how things are done in Italy and being home alone, my judgement was a bit skewed. Luckily I didn’t pay them the 90euros they tried to convince me I needed to give them…
• I’ve also noticed that there’s an amber traffic light for pedestrians as well as vehicles. What a good idea?! You know when you go towards a crossing and can’t work out how long it has been a green or red man for, and whether or not you can risk it? Well, that problem is solved in Italy! Even though people seem to just wander across regardless…

So, in the last couple of weeks I’ve managed to cut myself, get glass in my foot, trap my fingers in doors twice, had a leaky flat, nearly got completely conned, and continued to struggle to understand lots of Italian… Let’s see what next week brings!