Traveling and living in Italy has naturally taught me a lot about Italian, and European culture that are vastly different from North American culture. Many of these things i had no idea about until i had come here but It would have been nice to known before hand (instead of wondering why my coffee and sandwich costs 2x as much because i sat down outside).

Bathrooms. In North America, they are everywhere, they are generally pretty clean, have a toilet seat, and don’t smell of rotting feces. Nor do you generally have to pay for them. especially public ones like train stations, airports or shopping centers. I think this is one of the most bizarre things to me in Italy, is paying to use public restrooms (generally never more than 1 euro, sometimes 50 cents). Not only paying for public restrooms, but paying to use unkempt, dirty, smelly bare minimums washrooms. I can understand in private establishments such as cafe’s and restaurants that you need to be a customer to use them. Some of them have a code on the receipt you need to get into the washroom, and i respect that choice as a business manager; but public washrooms are named public washrooms for a reason. To be used by the public, not charging everyone 50 cents because their bladder is telling them it needs to be emptied. Using the washroom is a basic human need in my opinion – You can’t really help doing it. This also may explain why the cities smell like urine and feces.

Cafes is another oddity to me compared to North American culture. Its much cheaper to stand with, or sit inside a cafe than it is to sit outside or sit in general; and i mean for the exact same thing. Say you want a coffee – inside or standing that would be maybe 2 euros. Outside on the patio it would be 4 euros. If you want to sit outside they charge you a service fee – weather you get service or not ( they don’t even let you just carry your coffee outside and sit with it). Apparently prices are regulated by the government if you stand, but as soon as you sit down they can charge you whatever they please – and especially in large tourist cities it can be a lot. Its a hard concept I think for many of us to get our head around because why should i pay extra for the same thing when i just want to sit somewhere else? if its that price, it should remain that price, no? I have worked in the restaurant industry for years, so i can understand where they might justify this but that should only be for true service charges. If i have gone to the counter and payed for it and brought it outside myself.