1. Elderly people like to walk everywhere and they do this very slowly and choose a zigzag pattern to make sure that they block you from getting past. You would think that this predictable pattern would be easy to negotiate, but it can be slightly erratic and with the high volume of posts, plant pots and bike racks along the pavement, it is quite tricky to get past. They even look at you and see that you are trying to get past, then continue to get in the way even more and on purpose!
2. The last thing on a driver’s mind in Italy is the road or anything happening on it. Not particularly amusing, but quite amazing in a horrible sense.
3. Italian coffee is the best (if your favourite coffee is espresso). Italian coffee culture is appreciated in the UK, but so are other coffee cultures and espresso is considered as a type of coffee rather than “The” type of coffee. I quite like an espresso, but I prefer a good cup of filter coffee where the type of beans and the roast is of great importance to the flavour. I have not met one Italian so far in Italy who even pretends to know anything about coffee beans, so I am surprised they have such a strong opinion on what makes good coffee (those who do know about such things, I am not talking about you!). I have to admit, that product elitism gets my back up a bit. It reminds me of the (rather more geeky) Apple versus the rest of the world argument – Apple stuff is the best and the other 100s of alternatives are not even worth considering. I cannot respect a strong argument from someone who does not have a balanced view I am afraid! For the record I enjoy both espresso and filter coffee, but find filter coffee a more enjoyable (and obviously longer) experience (flavour and all). I also have an Apple iMac and an Apple iPhone, yet Apple partisans knock me if I have any criticism of an Apple product! Apple products are good, as are non Apple products – they all have issues too. Just take a look at the competition before criticising something – that is all I ask!!!
4. It is going to be a while before the locals in the supermarket work out how to use the self-service checkouts efficiently. Some people stand there staring at the machine expecting it to read their minds. The diagrams on the screen are fairly self-explanatory, so there is no excuse!
5. As you start improving in Italian, you realise that a lot of Italians use a lot of swear words! Many foreign languages sound so eloquent when you do not know what the words mean, but I have discovered that many of my Italian friends and colleagues insert as many rude words as possible into the most mundane of sentences!

These points may change over the course of my life in Italy and surely there will be some more in the future. No offence intended to anyone – these are just observations based on a single view. Feel free to comment and discuss or even to put the record straight!

After much deliberation and cogitation, I have decided to make this blog about anything and everything (or nothing as the case may be).  The only regular themes will be humour, anger, elation or all or none of the above.

This first post is the most pointless of them all, but felt an introduction to completely not give you an idea of things to come would be worth doing.

Enjoy your stay!