French vs. Italians

It will be a while before I get all my pics back from our delightful trip to Italy and France, so the big ol' blog will have to wait. In the meantime, though, I'm sure you're all chomping at the bit to hear a little about our trip.

As The Onion says, "Stereotypes are a real time saver." So to tell you a bit about our trip and to save you all some time, I've decided to list some gross generalizations that I made about Italians and the French during our trip.

Italians:

Drive mopeds. Like assholes. (But they are still not as bad of drivers as Russians.)

Love Tweety Bird. And Johnny Depp. And Mr. Bean. And Tootsie.

Drink espresso like it's going out of style.

Don't know how to efficiently use subways. Rather than file through the entire car to make more room, they would rather fully press their bodies together to fit more people into the 3 square feet in front of the door.

Really enjoy making out in public. The more people see you with your tongue down your boyfriend's throat, the better.

Make unbelievably good pizza. It could only be a crust and some chopped-up tomatoes. Doesn't matter, it's still mouth-watering. Wasn't impressed by the pasta though, for the most part.

Are baffled by clean-cut men. Jonathan got stared at a lot because he tucks in his shirt and shaves and gets haircuts regularly.

Make the best friggin' gelato.

Never eat anything but croissants and cappucino for breakfast. Even McDonald's doesn't serve anything for breakfat except croissants and coffee.

Speaking of McDonald's, Big Macs in Italy don't have tomatoes on them. Which is really weird, because Italians have incredible tomatoes, and they put them on everything else.

Only about 1/3 of people in Italy are Italians. The place has been completely taken over by tourists.

French people:

Are NOT snobby. Even the waiters. In fact, we found them to be much friendlier than Italian staff. Probably because there are way fewer tourists to get on their nerves.

See their tourist attractions as much as out-of-towners. We heard French everywhere we went. In Italy we mostly heard English.

Have VERY aggressive trinket salesmen. Within the souvenir shops, they leave you alone, but the guys on the street will not take no for an answer. They will even try to put a bracelet on you or stuff something in your pocket to force you to pay for it.

Eat a lot of goat cheese.

Are highly diverse. I've never seen such an integrated society. I mean, in the US of course there are people of all ethnicities, but they seem to stay in clumps. In France it seems like people mingled much more. Which is strange, considering all the talk about how difficult it is for immigrants to assimilate. Speaking of which,

They take potential conflict very seriously. We were there during the elections, and we saw busload after busload of geared-up riot police heading out to protect polls, monuments, the public, etc. Those guys are ready to rumble.

Smoke a lot. The trendy youth seem especially partial to rolling their own.

Look good in flats. The women, I mean. I saw almost no women in high heels the entire trip. It's an entire nation of women in ballet flats. Every woman I saw seemed to be a descendant of Audrey Hepburn- delicate, light on their feet, completely unaware of their casual beauty. The men, too, were easy on the eyes. Of course some would say that about Italians; but, as you might have concluded with the above description of my husband, I prefer the clean-cut look. French men are very crisp. I'm a fan.

Ride bikes everywhere.

Love, well, French people. Not in a snobby way, but an honest, self-confident way. I like it. I think I'm finding myself becoming a Francophile.

So that's my round-up of French and Italians. I hope it painted a picture in your mind. A picture with wide, exaggerated brush strokes.