Pandarific!!

I may come up with more when it hits me, but for now, it's 7. (photo's aren't mine)1. They love nutella. I am very serious, you think you’re a nutella fan? Well this is a whole country that loves it! We’re talking 5 kg Nutella, mini nutella’s, nutella spreads (for bread) and your normal medium sized nutella. Oh and not forgetting nutella on the go complete with a small drink next to it.

2. Saldi. This is one word shopaholics need to know, known to the English world simply as ‘Sale’.

3. Espresso, cappuccino. Anywhere, anytime. Coffee lovers, this is heaven for you. You don’t have to go to a certain place for the best, any small cafe promises to deliver a good cup to you. The driver that took us around also used the word cappuccino to tell us that it’s time for a break from driving. Yeah, it’s the Italian version of what we Malaysians love, Milo and mamak.

4. It’s easy to read Italian (most of the time). One of the reasons why I fell in love with this country, because their sign boards are easy to figure out. Farmacia = Pharmacy. Roma= Rome. Internationale = International. And many more easy to figure out words.

5. Football. They love it, it is said that Italians love food and football and spend a lot of their time on both. When I was in the plane and it was dark, mostly, you’ll see lights and cars moving along the highway. Here I noticed football stadiums lit up, and it wasn’t just one. They also have signboards on the road warning children not to play football at this part of the road.

6. Locks. Fine, it was only in Florence but people seemed to put locks in random places. I still have no idea why, but the authorities put up a sign to ban people from doing so. Anyone knows anything about this, please explain to me.

7. Pharmacies. The prominent company would be ‘International Pharmacy’ or in Italy ‘Famacia internationale’. You can find one anywhere, sometimes they even have two on the same street. It was really convenient since my family kept on buying lip balms from them. Other than that, it’s either this company is trying to be the market leader or they just really need one at every corner. However, what I liked about this chain of shops was that, they did have the basic pharmacy layout but they adapted it to the way the place was naturally built. So in some stores you can see intricately carved cherubs or renaissance influence.

As you may have realised or have been told, I went to Italy for a holiday (9 days) and it was really fun and exciting as i've never been to this country before. I'll write about the places i've visited and some things you should look out for if you were to visit it yourself. I'll try to get it out soon, thank God i have a journal to refer to or i would never be able to remember all the details since there's so many awesome things to talk about.