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Back in the shit-hole
We just returned from our 5 days trip to Edinburgh and Glasgow. Pics n vids here: http://fotios.org/node/2039
It felt great to be back in a civilized place again. I was so happy. When we got back to Italy (we arrived at around 11pm GMT+1 last Wednesday), my smile was still there but it faded off in a matter of a couple of hours after the following series of events occurred.
- On arrival and after passport control we sat down to have a coffee as I had to drive home (about 1.5 hours). I then noticed this typical Italian asshole sitting at the bar drinking tea or some shit while intensely staring at me and ogling Lica. I just waited for like 20 seconds or so and seeing that he was not about to let up I turned and gave him the look; you know, that look that says "stop it or I will stuff your mouth with that big mug you're holding"? He did not do it again. Did I mention that while in Edinburgh we were completely transparent?
- When I ordered two cappuccinos the Italian bar-woman gave me a look that I believe would be very close to the one she would give me if I had tried to order coffee while completely naked. I knew why: Italians only drink cappuccinos in the morning and consider ordering a cappuccino at 11pm a kind of cultural sacrilege. I don't give a flying fuck what they think however as I can enjoy a cappuccino any time; still, I did not appreciate the look or the overall attitude.
- We were picked up and brought to the nearby off-airport long term parking by this very polite and friendly Indian guy. The parking was big and included multiple closed parking buildings. I had not paid attention to the way around the parking or tried to orient myself (writing something in my PDA). I mean what can be easier than getting out of a parking area, right? Right, but only if there are signs that show the way out. Signs that say things like "EXIT". There were not! After reaching a number of closed gates, I managed to find the open one. Had there been other cars chasing me it would have been like a game of Pac-Man.
- Driving home I was overtaken, on the highway, by a huge truck while doing 75mph
- Half the way, they had completely changed the road and now there was a fork out where there used to be just one way. Fine. Problem was, there were no signs to tell you which of the two ways to go. It was a 50-50 thing then and I just happened to go the wrong way. The whole deal cost us 20 minutes of delay.
Smile gone!
:-)
I really enjoyed this post Fotios. Especially the capuccino thing.
I am sure it happenned and I guess you forgot to say it, that the waitress repeated: two capuccinos? as if she was asking: are you sure? you want to have a capuccino at this time of the day?
For once, I agree with you:-) [I would avoid some strong words though]
I am glad
Glad to hear it Athanassios - you may not like the one coming up as much though! :)
That's a funny one. I can
That's a funny one. I can really sympathise with the signpost one. I remember being in tears once in my first few months there after being in the car 3 hours trying to do a journey of what should have been about 40 minutes. They just assume that you should know everything (because most people live there all their lives and go nowhere) and they have stupid signs like "autostrada" without saying which autostrada. Also a lot of the roads inexplicably have several different names.
you are right. italy is a
you are right. italy is a real shit-hole full of nazi people. what a shame!
p.s. i'm italian
If i may, i dont believe
If i may, i dont believe Italy is a shit-hole and not only that according to living conditions, Italy is considered to be far ahead of the UK.
oh sorry....
Sorry, I need to qualify that better: Italy is a shithole if you happen to be below "Italian" in the very specific scale of nationality worth that the Italians have established for themselves thus fully justifying all accusations of over the top racism and discrimination compared to other European countries.
Now, coming to the "living conditions" bit by which I take it that you mean what we generally refer to as "quality of life", yes, in Italy quality of life is better than in the UK but then again the same is true in Greece. Besides, there's that weather over the island that makes things persistetly more miserable...
I kind of agree that racism
I kind of agree that racism (against non-whites) in Italy or better yet in northern Italy is a little stronger than in other European countries (except Spain of course) nonetheless top racism does seem out of proportion.
Take Verone for instance, a northern italian city: around 17% of legal non-european immigrants feel discriminated against which means that the vast majority of 83% of legal immigrants do not think italy is a racist country.
Btw, the national average is 20% of legal immigrants that feel discriminated against,
Regards
Well...
If the UN, the EU and even the Vatican (for godshakes) can't convince you over that (see here: http://fotios.org/node/79#comment-6040 and here: http://fotios.org/search/node/racism%20italy) then why should I try once more? Obviously you do not want to be convinced. Your prerogative mate...
Living conditions can be seen
Living conditions can be seen as "quality if life" but also: According to World Health Organization (specialized UN agency), Italy has the second overall best healthcare system in the world.
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When it comes to criminality, UK is also far worse than Italy.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1196941/The-violent-country-Europe-Britain-worse-South-Africa-U-S.html
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Obviously that doesnt exclude the fact that in many departments UK is ahead of Italy.
Regards
haha
This made me laugh, cuz really mate, I can't believe how easy you make it for me...
To begin with, yeah, "quality of life" is usually taken to include the quality of health care: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quality_of_life
You're saying that Italy has the second best healthcare system in the world. So, why do wealthy Italians go to the UK and the US (by the boatload) to have operations and stuff? Perhaps then Italy's second best healthcare system is something like that famous healthcare system in Cuba that according to Michael Moore has a better health system than the US. Would you take your seriously ill wife, son, daughter for a critical, difficult operation to Cuba mate? Personally I would avoid both Cuba and Italy. I have to say, I never saw so many incompetent (or completely indifferent) doctors as I have seen in Italy. Then again we should not complain because everyone can see them for free, or perhaps we should complain even more.
While thinking thusly I had the crazy idea to go and verify your story. Indeed, Italy ranks second in WHO's World Health Report of the year 2000 when the study was done (http://www.who.int/whr/2000/en/whr00_en.pdf). Guess, who's third though! Yup, you guessed it, San Marino with a population of 30,000! Hell, this is where I am going for my next surgery and I am taking you with me mate. Coming? But wait, there's more: Andorra is right behind, and the Sultanate of Oman is 8th and Greece is number 14 all above both the UK and the US. ROFL!
There's an explanation. The indicators used for the ranking were reported by the countries themselves. Sound familiar? Yup, that's how Greece got to convince Europe that its deficit was just 3% just a few years ago.
Regarding crime rates, yes indeed UK has a bigger problem than Italy. So does the US and every other trully open, democratic society. Then again anyone who has lived in Italy knows that this is achieved in the expense of crushing personal freedoms and having a police presence (at least in the North) that is certainly not typical of free, open and democratic societies. Freedom has its price mate and Italians have never been brave enough to opt of it.
Unless those truly open
Unless those truly open democratic countries are Switzerland, Germany, Norway... Of course, this is an indictment of UK failure over more than a decade to tackle the deep rooted social problems in it´s society.
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I would rather follow Allianz worldwide care that´s to say: Despite reputations and considerable prejudices, even by many Italians, Italy has an affordable healthcare system and a high standard of medical assistance. Italian doctors are well-trained and very passionate about their profession, and the private hospitals are comparable with any throughout the world.However, there are some state hospitals in Italy that are substandard, providing a comfort level below what most Northern Europeans and Americans would expect. These hospitals are normally found in Southern Italy. In light of this, expatriates, and Italians alike, prefer to consider private health insurance to cover the expensive costs of hospitalization and surgery, and to help combat the long waiting lists to that are common in most state systems.
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Last but not least since you´re giving me a lot of personal opinions rather than true data, i would never trade north Italy (especially the Alps) for UK and i am quite sure many would follow suit. Anyway, even though you may think Northern Italy is not civilized, it´s still very rich. Only Western Germany is superior when it comes to industrial power.
right...
well, for data look at my response to your comment below.
Also, bear in mind that no society is trully open unless it is multi-racial, multi-ethnic and multi-cultural. Very few countries have been so for a considerable time while also reminaing well-functioning democracies and those countries will have the advantage during the 21st century, a century when most other countries will have to deal with the same issues (e.g. immigration) that these countries had to deal with for hundreds of years without reverting to fascism, absolutism and other easy such solutions.
While you think about that, remember that Italy is or rather was until 2007 the only developed OECD country that was not considered a full democracy (ref: http://www.economist.com/media/pdf/DEMOCRACY_INDEX_2007_v3.pdf) and is in the latest ranking of 2008 borderline included in the full democracies of the world with shockingly low scores in "Functioning of government" and more importantly "Political participation". Let's see what happens in 2009.
Italy still has its industry at least, but it is becoming less and less competitive and if the EU ever falters - the EU that gives Italy an easy, priviledged outlet for its exports - then Italy, already drowned in debt and deficit, will fall under the weight of the huge percentage of unproductive, lazy and indifferent Italians whose only ego-feeding consolation for the time being is immigrant intimidation and abuse.
And let´s not forget that the
And let´s not forget that the civilized Glasgow is the murder capital of Western Europe.
Well...
Well, it may indeed be so but as someone who has lived for years in both places, let me tell you: Glasgow is indeed a dangerous place and I know it first hand having worked as a bouncer at a bar there for some time. On the other hand, one finds there people that are welcoming, open minded, bright and interesting.
As a foreigner, I was welcomed, given a job, found people who would listen, got to feel I was part of the hood and was offered a sofa to sleep in by people who had just met me. I learned from them and they learned from me. In Italy this simply does not happen.
Regardless, let me make a bit clearer what low murder rates may mean about a place. There's places in Northern Greece that have not had a murder in a hundred years - perhaps more. Yet, no Greek wants to go live there. You do find the occasional fruitcake tourist who goes to live there though. In most cases having assumed too much based on mere statistics (e.g. low crime rates, HQ health care) they buy land and go to live there, only to run away in a few years. You see it only takes a few years for cheese and manure to enter your skull and start rotting there.
Also, all the links you
Also, all the links you provided me point to the fact that Italy has it´s racism issues but do not offer any data, in fact they only give some generic preaching about the fact that racism should be eleminated. Anyway, i´ve never said that Italy doesnt have it´s racism issues what i said is that top racism is out of proportion (now, one need far more than generic lines and personal views to prove such point - an overall good review need solid data).
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The UN usually criticizes for it´s harsh immigration law, little people know that Italy´s immigration law shares a lot of common trais with Denmark and UK immigration law.
There's plenty of data
There's plenty of data on this site if you care to look around - there's studies, statistics, texts, political statements and even videos of Italian phenomena that are simply unacceptable by any standard (e.g. search the site for "racism" or "fascism") and to give just a sample of raw data, see here: http://fotios.org/node/2117
Just consider this: would the Vatican, itself in trouble because of its known tolerance for pedophile priests, ever complain about racism specifically in Italy if the phenomenon was not at a particularly nasty phase? Remember, the Vatican is itself circumscribed by Italy and staffed by mostly Italians.
According to the 2010 quality
According to the 2010 quality of life index Greece(28) is worse than UK(25). There´s also a lot of interesting data regarding Health care, freedom, economy and so on...
Not surprising
not surprising given all that has been going on in Greece since 2009. Then again it serves to show you how little all these indexes mean. Nothing beats actually going and living in a country and seeing for yourself.
Bigotry
The bigot Italian pretending to be a German is now banned as he once more made - surprise, surprise - bigot, biased and idiotic remarks that show his obviously low level of education. In all cases, the lower the level of people, the higher the percentage of racists, fascists and other such sad creatures.
Any bigot like you is still free to start their own blog and freely express their views - no matter what these views are. This freedom comes from centuries of struggles by people very different from you. German or Italian you have a long way to go before you even begin to understand the meaning of either democracy or freedom as well as the nature of humanity.
There is a question I wanna
There is a question I wanna make to you:If Italy is a shit-hole (very funny told by a greek) why you keep and force yourself to live there? Stop causing yourself so much pain and go elsewere,showing a bit of coherence.
I am not in Italy anymore
Yeay! I am gone! Away from the shithole for good! Been out of there almost a year now. You on the other hand, whether in Italy or not, will forever be in the shit you were born in and learned to love to eat without even realizing it.
You can never leave the shit
You can never leave the shit behind you.
Shit is with you.
Shit is inside of you.
....
(dude wrote more rambling shit like that forever - that shit even rhymed sometimes)
well...
well, from a shit Italian loser like yourself what else is to be expected than writing about shit. I feel sorry for you. Like I said I can escape but you obviously can't - you don't have the balls to do it. You will spend your life hating people that are better than you and die ugly and deformed, in the same place and probably house you were born, by that hate you hold in your ugly, by cowardly choice, heart. Ciao mammone! Ciao from a much better place - the world!
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