Wednesday, July 05, 2006

An essay about America

I was thinking that after almost 3 months spent in America it was time to summarize the main points, positive and negative, about this strange country! Now that I moved in another continent (Australia) I can write some personal ideas about America...

Positive points:
- good period for travel since I've had sunny days 95% of the time, weather almost similar to the italian one (it depends where you are)
- perfect to expand my network: I've met so many new friends and it was great to have seen again cool people as Chimene, Andre', Susan, Marina and Jackie again!
- new stuff discovered, starting from material things as myspace.com (a service used everywhere in America) and craiglist, to indescribable other stuff which improve my knowledgement and make me more rich about experiences. For example, I've notice that if you wanna start a business, in America is the perfect place: many times I've tried to create a small company in Italy to repair computer or create website but all the time I haven't done anything since the burocracy is too complicated....instead here is really easy and simple, in few days you have a company with 20-30 dollars!
Also, wherever I've been, I've drived a car, and many times I've had "meeting with policemen" for many reasons, fortunately all the time everything finished well (only once my friend in Miami received a fine since he was hooking in the centre withoud a good reason!)
- people are really friendly, wherever you go, completely different from the cold english population, instead, much more similar to italian and spanish!
- Puerto Rico and the Hawaiian islands: those two countries are considered American states but they're completely different for the rest of America. Those two island are amzing, too much fun, I'm very happy to have visited them.

Negative things:
- different phone systems, not really understand yet if it's better or not than the european way....some people pay a flat rate and they can call wherever they want and that's a good point, but also there are other contracts where you pay to receive a call, and that's not acceptable!
- is not allowed to drink outside bars and clubs (perhaps you must be 21 years old, but this wasn't a problem for me!), that's so stupid since at the end people get drunk anyway, so way?
- no VISA no job, there is no too much to do! The american policy is to find first another american guy for a kind of job, and only if the company can proof that you're better than anyone else, then you can apply for that position!
- no really good life: I've seen many families with big problems like unhappy, always fighting, nobody eat at the same time, random talks, really strange....I prefer much more the italian way, but I repeat, this is a personal point of view!
-air condition everywhere: this should be a good point, but is not if you have to wear warm clothes in the summer just because the air condition is too high and generate cold areas, come on (perhaps I don't wanna know how the american can find the electricity for all those conditioners)
- 50% of the time I was sick, I don't know exactly why, maybe fot the previous point (ari condition) or it was just me that I'm too weak, I don't know, but of course be sick didn't help me to enyoy this vacation...
- American Airlines seems more like Ryanair than the main airline company....10 times better British Airways or Quantas!!
- people here are racist! Yes, there is no excuse: I've seen many cases where people make distinction and they always have bad opinion against other cultures....that make me feel really sad, a huge country as American must be an example, and instead all the latin-american and mexican people are considered to be one level down...and if you can here for a while you can really see and feel those different levels!! A simple proof is showed seeing all the dinstrict in the big cities: the chinese town, the japanese, the mexican, the italian one, the indian one, the turkish one, and so on... they don't mix each others as much as in Europe.

If I think something else about America I will modify this post...at the same time I would like to receive some comments about it, I would like to know your opinion.

Ciao ciao

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Dear Andrea,

I found your blog to be really interesting. It seems that I was correct you would have a great time in Hawaii! I think we both had a similarly great experience there.
Your 'Essay about America' was very interesting and I can understand your points of view. I must also confirm that many members of the population (not all) are racistm, as can be seen by the treatment of African Americans throughout the 20th century.
Keep having fun, and I spoke to Glenn who said you were leaving Melbourne tomorrow, is it true you are coming straight to Hong Kong, if so that is great and we can go out together!!

Take care,

Tim