Posted by Haley Topper on Saturday, May 20, 2017 in 2017 Blog post.

While I have faced many challenges here in Cefalú, the hardest has been trying to sleep. My roommates and I live in the apartments right next to the beach, which has its advantages, but we also live right above at least 3 bars and multiple restaurants. While this has allowed us to observe the night life of the people here in Cefalú, it has also made it pretty hard to get some sleep.

On weeknights, the bars are pretty quiet and by 1am I can’t hear a thing in the apartment. However, once Thursday rolls around, it is a completely different story. On the weekend you can hear the people at the bars until 4 am enjoying their time, drinking and having fun with friends. I suppose this is similar to nightlife back home in the sense that the weekend is definitely the most popular time to go to bars, however, everything closes earlier back in the states. In Los Angeles, most bars or clubs will be closed by 2am, whereas here, things are open until at least 4 am, if not later. From our balcony, you can see people sitting outside of the bar and congregating across the street, which is something I have never seen before. Bars here seem to have a different meaning than they do back home, being a meeting place rather than explicitly serving the purpose of providing alcohol to people.

The only people that seem to be up early in the morning are those who are picking up the trash. This has also made it very hard to sleep in because it is so loud when the pick up all of the bottles from the bars. When we put the trash out, the bags are directly in front of our apartment, whereas in the States, we typically have trash bins that are more removed from the house so it is not as loud.

There is definitely a different pace of life here in Italy. You can see it in the pace they walk at, but also in their social life. People in Cefalú tend to wake up late and stay up late, whereas in the States, we have this “early bird gets the worm” mentality. Everyone is up by 6 am getting ready for work, and if you own a shop, you’re up early opening so that you can sell to the people going to work. For instance, almost all coffee shops are open by 7. As we were walking to the train station at 7 am, there were no shops open yet, and you would never see that in America.

The lifestyle is much more relaxed in Italy than in America. Everyone here is calm and relaxed, whereas in the States, everyone is uptight and walking with a purpose. Additionally, people here seem to prioritize family and friends over their work, which (in my opinion) is different from America. Back home, going back to the “early bird gets the worm” mentality, everyone is up early to take advantage of the business opportunities, whereas in Cefalú, people stay up late to be able to spend time with their friends and family.