Culture shock, something I never really got affected by much. However, I must say that the adjustment to the Italian way of conservation has been a bit of a shock. If America and Italy were in a debate against who was better with conservation, Italy would surly win. Yes, as an American I do my part and recycle...and sometimes turn out my bedroom light when I'm not in it...and try to remember not to leave the water running while I brush my teeth, but coming to Italy has put me to shame. When I first arrived and stayed at my first hotel in Rome, it took me a minute to figure out how the lights worked! They were engineered in such a way where it took more effort to leave the lights on than it did to have them turned off. Let me explain, in the Rome hotel I stayed at my first night, there were no light switches. There was a little key card slot in the wall where you would slide in your card. If you slid in your card and then took it out the lights would stay on for only about 3 minutes. I was proud of myself for figuring how to turn the lights on finally, but was surprised by how short of a time they stayed on for. I knew the Italians were conservative, but this, this was about to get annoying. How was I suppose to charge anything with the electricity turning off every 3 minutes? Was I suppose to get up ever single time to slide in and out my card so the lights would come on again? No, I later realized, in order to keep the lights on I would need to insert my key card into the card slot in the wall and keep it there. If I were to go to bed and needed to keep my computer charging over night, I would need to keep my key card in over night and turn off the lights with their appropriate light switch next to them all. If I needed to leave the room, I would then turn off the electricity as well because I needed my key card to get back inside the room, and the electricity would've stay on without my key card. So you can see it is quit the little system that makes it difficult to waste energy, especially for a tourist who is in and out of the hotel all the time. In America, it would be easy to leave the lights turned on and waste energy, but not in Italy, it is more difficult to figure out how to keep your devices charging while you leave like some sort of unsolvable math equation. I will say I did have roommates and therefore usually one out of the three of us would leave a key card in the wall if necessary for charging devices. Other wise we were all hyper aware of the Italian way and their conservation habits and therefore took our key card out of the wall when unnecessary to keep it in.
As my travels continued, I noticed that air conditioning in Italy wasn't much of a thing like it was back in America. If I were back home, I would go into any public building such as a restaurant, or the mall, a movie theater, anything, and the air conditioning would be on making people revert back to their winter sweaters in the middle of summer just to keep their body temperatures at a stable state during their time in the building. This is the complete opposite for Italy. The more I experienced hotels, and public buildings in Italy such as restaurants, I realized that all their windows and doors were open and the air conditioning was off. Italians would let the natural temperature of the environment outside control the temperature inside the buildings as well. If it was hot outside, instead of turning on the AC, they would open their windows and doors waiting for a breeze to blow through, cooling them off. Although this was strange to me, it was very similar to what I was used to at home. Typically my parents home would not have the air conditioner or heater, depending on the season, on very high. For example, if it was 80 degrees outside, it would most likely be 70-75 degrees in the house. If it was 50 degrees outside, it would typically be 60 degrees inside and so on. Even so, I was used to going out with my friends back home, escaping my too hot or too cold house and finding refuge in a building that had the AC on or heater blasting, but in Italy, there was no escaping the temperature. Whatever the weather was outside, was what the temperature would be inside as well. The only exception I should say to this temperature rule is some of the hotels. Usually they had a little air conditioning unit that would help, but as my body adapted to the environment I was in, the less I used any form of temperature stabilizer such as an AC. And by the time I got to my apartment in Italy, my windows were open just like any other Italians during the day.
Every day I continue to find unique things Italians do that seem to make them number one in conservation. For example, they take recycling seriously. They have trash cans for regular trash, packaging, and plastics. This means that in my apartment we have three different trashcans that we take out every time it gets full rather than one or two like back home. In the apartment we also have two light switches next to our bed, one to turn on the light and one for a different outlet to charge devices on. When you are not using the outlet that charges your devices, you turn the switch off. Every little detail matters here in Italy and I love it. The fact that Italians walk everywhere, sometimes it might take an hour to get somewhere and they walk anyway. There are more walkers I see during the day than cars. Back home it is switched. Italian transportation system with the railway system is conservative as well. Rather than everyone having their own car which puts twice as much fossil fuels into the air, a train can hold tons of people a day and therefore minimizes the amount of fossil fuels due to the fact that trains carry multiple people at once. These little changes to help the environment, in hindsight, really are not that hard to do or carry out on a day to day basis, it is really starting the act of intensified conservation that I believe to be the hard part. With my experience I hope to take back some of the habits I am learning in Italy and help the planet more than I was before.
As my travels continued, I noticed that air conditioning in Italy wasn't much of a thing like it was back in America. If I were back home, I would go into any public building such as a restaurant, or the mall, a movie theater, anything, and the air conditioning would be on making people revert back to their winter sweaters in the middle of summer just to keep their body temperatures at a stable state during their time in the building. This is the complete opposite for Italy. The more I experienced hotels, and public buildings in Italy such as restaurants, I realized that all their windows and doors were open and the air conditioning was off. Italians would let the natural temperature of the environment outside control the temperature inside the buildings as well. If it was hot outside, instead of turning on the AC, they would open their windows and doors waiting for a breeze to blow through, cooling them off. Although this was strange to me, it was very similar to what I was used to at home. Typically my parents home would not have the air conditioner or heater, depending on the season, on very high. For example, if it was 80 degrees outside, it would most likely be 70-75 degrees in the house. If it was 50 degrees outside, it would typically be 60 degrees inside and so on. Even so, I was used to going out with my friends back home, escaping my too hot or too cold house and finding refuge in a building that had the AC on or heater blasting, but in Italy, there was no escaping the temperature. Whatever the weather was outside, was what the temperature would be inside as well. The only exception I should say to this temperature rule is some of the hotels. Usually they had a little air conditioning unit that would help, but as my body adapted to the environment I was in, the less I used any form of temperature stabilizer such as an AC. And by the time I got to my apartment in Italy, my windows were open just like any other Italians during the day.
Every day I continue to find unique things Italians do that seem to make them number one in conservation. For example, they take recycling seriously. They have trash cans for regular trash, packaging, and plastics. This means that in my apartment we have three different trashcans that we take out every time it gets full rather than one or two like back home. In the apartment we also have two light switches next to our bed, one to turn on the light and one for a different outlet to charge devices on. When you are not using the outlet that charges your devices, you turn the switch off. Every little detail matters here in Italy and I love it. The fact that Italians walk everywhere, sometimes it might take an hour to get somewhere and they walk anyway. There are more walkers I see during the day than cars. Back home it is switched. Italian transportation system with the railway system is conservative as well. Rather than everyone having their own car which puts twice as much fossil fuels into the air, a train can hold tons of people a day and therefore minimizes the amount of fossil fuels due to the fact that trains carry multiple people at once. These little changes to help the environment, in hindsight, really are not that hard to do or carry out on a day to day basis, it is really starting the act of intensified conservation that I believe to be the hard part. With my experience I hope to take back some of the habits I am learning in Italy and help the planet more than I was before.
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