Americans, I Have Some Bad News For You

When I was in Italy a few years back (I live in the US) visiting family, I was so surprised by the way their common day flows. Mostly because you would never see anything comparable to it here in the states, and frankly I had a hard time trying to explain it to people who have never been to Europe. What I'm mostly talking about here isn't necessarily vacation time or days, but what the Italians do daily with their "siesta". The word itself means "to nap" but in Italy it has been a tradition to close your shops and stop what you are doing for part of the afternoon, to have a long lunch with friends or family, and then return to work after.

This is not anywhere comparable to the 30 minute to an hour lunch breaks people have in the US normally, where you barely have time to finish your food. I was fascinated by this, even though it was kind of annoying if you wanted to shop during that time. But I agree with what the lady says in the text below, it's about quality of life and not working yourself to death. Everyone should be able to have the chance to "stop and smell the flowers" so to speak.

Too bad Italy is getting "Americanized". I hope they never are forced to give up their traditional siesta.

She puts it well:

How many times have you found yourself in a deserted Italian city between the hours of 1 and 4 pm? Store closed, silence all around, or maybe the vague noise of silverware coming from opened windows, in the summer... and Sunday? No way, you have to plan your grocery shopping in advance: everything is closed.

Well... now since globalization has reached Italy: malls started opening in the late-eighties and now little shops with a ten hour business day are blooming (so similar to the delis in NYC that, when I enter one, I automatically start speaking English). But besides these scary hints of an Italian "Americanization", many stores still resist the tide and dutifully place a "closed" sign during lunch hours.

What do the Italians do when they close their stores? Many people think that they go home and take a nap, a siesta (Spanish word, by the way). This is one of the Italian myths we never cared to explain. If you are the owner of a store (granted you can resist the chains, the franchises, the malls and the economic crisis), let's say you have a clothing store in the city center: you open the gate at around 9 a.m. till 12.30 p.m., then you go home, you cook, eat, rest a little (I doubt you'd nap: it depends on how close your apartment and your store are) and then you come back at about 3.30 and finally close for the day approximately at 7 p.m.

That's quality of life: sacrificing the possibility of making some business for the tranquility of having a nice home-cooked meal. I know it's great to be able to buy what you need at any time and it's actually a real pain to realize it's Sunday and the only thing you can do is window shop. But, before moving to New York, that was my life: it's easy to adjust to these rhythms, especially if everybody around you comes back home and cooks and is not out there shopping or gulping a panino during lunch break.

What if your store or your office is too far away from home? Every time I meet my literary agent in Milan we eat out, so I have a first-hand experience on employees during lunch-break in one of the toughest cities in Italy (the most similar to New York when it comes to working, making money and the frenetic pace of day to day life). I loved lunch-breaks there: small restaurants everywhere offer lunch menus to attract the exigent Italian food-lover and you can actually have a civilized lunch experience without food poisoning and making it in time for the afternoon shift. (By the way, Milan is all about efficiency: in the morning a classic Milanese breakfast is espresso in a cold cup, so you can drink it faster... but that's another story, I'll get back to you on that).

So Italian siesta? No Italian lunch at home, something that we can conceive less and less in a fast-paced world where quality of life comes second to career.

The comments stated in the first page of this thread are well said. The end times is near and not just America only, but globally.

Truth_B_Told, I have some bad news for YOU.

It is obvious from your self-righteous little rant that you have not traveled extensively, globally that is. While there are quite a few countries in Western Europe that have higher standards of living than the U.S., there are very few, if ANY countries that offer the same types of freedoms, and deal with the same set of problems we do.

I've had the opportunity to travel, live and work in the Middle East, Africa, Central and South America, as well as a few parts of Asia and Europe. Bad news for you? There is not another place on this Earth I would rather live.

It's easy to sit here and pick apart the United States bit by bit, even more so now that it has become a fashionable trend. I ask where the hell you and those like you were in the eighties and nineties when the same sh_t was just as obvious as it is now. Is it that you were too young to comprehend what is/was going down? Did you not care enough? Were you too scared to speak out against the United States of America before it was the cool thing to do?

I'll tell you what, I don't much care where in Europe you choose to settle down and live, and I wish you the best of luck and fortune in doing so. You are being naive to think Germany or Holland holds the solution to all of your problems. Your rhetoric implies that people are handing out money and that the workweek is like a Disney world vacation. You and I both know that is utter, utter bullsh_t.

While there are many European nations that may be better suited for your style of living, acting like what is happening in the United States of America right now is something NEW or UNHEARD of is just plain naive, ignorant and narrow-sighted. The difference between say, Mexico and the United States is that (and I am hoping here) people will stick around, endure the tough times and struggle together to make a better nation. As a matter of fact, I question the character and reliability of a man who is so quick to expatriate himself, and then comes back in here to "brag" about it. My guess is that you have never been a United States citizen to begin with, and if you have, you are as yellow bellied and spoiled as any child I have ever come across.

I'm not going to change my citizenship for my own benefit. I don't seek a life of luxury. I don't seek a life of ease and money-filled bliss. I seek a life that is spent serving my fellow human beings, and while that used to be done abroad, I am now focusing my efforts domestically, as I would rather suffer with my brothers and sisters, trying to work together to build a better future than to just run away and try to live the easy life.

So I have some bad news for you truth_b_madeup. Not only have you made it painfully obvious that you are a self-serving narcissistic coward, but that your empathy and compassion is limited by what you can do for YOURSELF. It's time to wake up, nothing in life worth doing is EASY.

Before you go calling me a FOX news special, drum-beating patriot (and make yourself look dumb in the process), I am WELL AWARE of the current, past and most likely future situation in the United States of America. It's not pristine and enviable, but it is still salvageable. It's a rough time for our nation, but we have faced them before. Things are bad, but not NEARLY as bad as ATS and other conspiracy sites would have you believe.


A quick example:

Go to most of Central and South America. Spend some time there, not in a resort. Come back to the United States and be glad that we live in a land where you can't bribe every police officer. Where laws (no matter how wrong you may think some are) are enforced and justice is generally reliable. Before you go off on a rant about LEOs and the Judicial system in this country, make sure you KNOW what you are talking about. It's not hard to make someone look real stupid when they make comments like "police state and police brutality are everywhere". I can assure you that 98% of the self-righteous conspiratards who make comments like that have never been within 5000km of a true POLICE STATE.

I am thankful for many of the things in this country. That is why I was in the Army for quite a few years. That is why I went to Afghanistan and Iraq, not because I thought they were the most well thought-up conflicts in the history of man, but because a soldiers serves and goes where his fellow countrymen tell him or her to. That is why I lost friends, brothers and pieces of my own body 200km behind the green zone in the mountains.

It's time to come back from la-la land dude, it's time to realize that running from problems makes you a coward and the worst kind of human being.

I've been all around this globe and let me say this, every time I can't wait to get back to the U.S.A.
I think many other countries are incredible and beautiful but I wouldn't trade where I live for any of them. JMO.

I understand what is being said in the article and would have agreed wholeheartedly five years ago. However all those countries mentioned are going through financial and constitutional hijacks as well. So what I'm saying is "we're all in a pickle" when operating within a global economy such as it is set up.

Also from another perspective, those countries mentioned are not perfect they have their own trade offs in order for their people to live as they do. Both Australia and Canada had instituted laws long before the US on limiting personal freedoms so I don't really see any difference if I was to move from one place to the other, you'll be getting the same treatment.

reply to post by SpaDe_


Actually...

I live in the Netherlands and my vacation days ( 25 ) are all payed for. We usually take 2 or 3 weeks off in simmer and every year we get extra vacation money which is about a month of salary . We pay this ourselves by the way

Originally posted by Shark VA84

Go to most of Central and South America. Spend some time there, not in a resort. Come back to the United States and be glad that we live in a land where you can't bribe every police officer.

That day will come, sometime after the downfall of Rome.....errrr......woops I meant America.....

Where laws (no matter how wrong you may think some are) are enforced and justice is generally reliable.

I thought the point of democracy was to implement laws that the populace want, to protect them and keep them safe. Not to enforce laws 'no matter how wrong the populace thinks they are'.

And please don't make the mistake of attempting to claim that I am talking about letting killers loose or some ridiculous comment like that. You know very well what I mean.

Before you go off on a rant about LEOs and the Judicial system in this country, make sure you KNOW what you are talking about. It's not hard to make someone look real stupid when they make comments like "police state and police brutality are everywhere". I can assure you that 98% of the self-righteous conspiratards who make comments like that have never been withing 5000km of a true POLICE STATE.

Have you? Because if you haven't then I find it hard to believe that you can claim you don't live in a police state when you have nothing to personally compare it to.

I am thankful for many of the things in this country. That is why I was in the Army for quite a few years. That is why I went to Afghanistan and Iraq, not because I thought they were the most well thought-up conflicts in the history of man, but because a soldiers serves and goes where his fellow countrymen tell him or her to. That is why I lost friends, brothers and pieces of my own body 200km behind the green zone in the mountains.

That's quite possibly the stupidest reason I have ever seen for going to war. I hope the people you killed haunt you for a long time.

It's time to come back from la-la land dude, it's time to realize that running from problems makes you a coward and the worst kind of human being.

Cowardice? Worst kind of human being? I tend to apply those observations more towards people who go to war 'because a soldiers serves and goes where his fellow countrymen tell him or her to', maiming and killing people just because 'their country told them to'.

Disgusting.

reply to post by Truth_B_Told


It's not that long of a read, and really worth the time and effort.

Possibly you don't want to wake up from the Matrix?

reply to post by Sinter Klaas


I think in Italy they do something similar to that. That is why we went there when we did, because it coincided with our (Italian) family's annual summer vacation time. That, again, was bizarre to me in comparison to the US. I wish my family in the US could get some simultaneous vacation, instead it never matches up and it's hard to stay in touch because of that.

We could make Mondays a national holiday. Everybody wants the four day work week, anyway. Every third Monday of the month could be a 'gift giving' national holiday. To spur the economy.

I know a fellow who purchased a condo on the coast of Thailand. He had a Russian housemaid for fourteen dollars a day and night. Seven dollars if only for the day. Except for tusnamis, life is great there, he tells me.

Originally posted by Chai_An
Both Australia and Canada had instituted laws long before the US on limiting personal freedoms so I don't really see any difference if I was to move from one place to the other,

Such as?

If you are referring to gun control laws, personally I sleep better at night knowing that there isn't at least 20 guns within a hundred meters of my house - any one of which could be picked up and fired at someone by a crazy nutjob.

Originally posted by Shark VA84
nm. not worth responding.

edit on 1-12-2010 by Shark VA84 because: (no reason given)

That would be the post referring to me as an idiot? Several times? Completely against the Terms and Conditions of this website?

Just wanted to make that clear to all reading this, in case people found your post confusing.

reply to post by SpaceJ


Sadly enough, America is ground zero for the New World Order..........where people are treated like cattle, very little worth.

Unless the entire planet wakes up and resists this tyranny, one by one all the countries will fall into line.

For now, I have several friends that live in France, Italy and Japan and yes they would not live in America if given a house and job.

Americans are deluding themselves and choosing to remain asleep, the red pill is too big for most Americans to swallow.

If I and my husband were younger, yes we would be seriously considering immigrating to another country.

America was once great, but like Rome, her time has passed. She was eaten from the inside out by corruption and greed.

Originally posted by Kryties

Originally posted by Chai_An
Both Australia and Canada had instituted laws long before the US on limiting personal freedoms so I don't really see any difference if I was to move from one place to the other,

Such as?

If you are referring to gun control laws, personally I sleep better at night knowing that there isn't at least 20 guns within a hundred meters of my house - any one of which could be picked up and fired at someone by a crazy nutjob.

Personally, I'm happy there are over 20 guns in my house so I can off those crazy nutjobs... you on the other hand will just have to hope they're nice and don't kill you, rape your wife and kids, and rob your house.

reply to post by Kryties


My previous comment was based on the OP and the "this country is better than that country" mentality. What's happening here is people assume they can escape the wild ride of the global economy collapse by running to another "global" setup. I'm saying brace yourself no matter what country you're in because none of them are perfect.