Posted by meghan on Thursday, June 1, 2017 in 2017 Blog post.

This weekend my friends and I journeyed to the motherland of Renaissance art and culture—Florence, Italy.  Between the Uffizi Museum, Medici gardens, the Galileo exhibit, and the David, our time in Firenze, as the Italians call it, was simply unforgettable.  Little did we know that equally unforgettable, would be our overall travel and transportation experience itself.

Our travel weekend began with an early wakeup call to meet our private car service outside our apartment at 4:00 A.M. to drive us an hour to the Palermo airport for an 6:30 A.M. flight.  While loading our luggage into the van in the silent, dimly lit street below, a small car came careening around the corner, side-swiped our van, and continued on without pausing for a single moment.  I watched in disbelief as our driver simply shrugged his shoulders, briefly scanned the side that had been hit, and preceded to light a cigarette.  In that moment, we had not yet realized that this baffling situation would both preface and epitomize the remainder of our trip.

The ride to the airport was painfully slow, taking an additional half hour than expected and complemented by a variety of the driver’s unpleasant bodily functions. Upon arriving late at the Palermo airport, we were told that we still had to check our passports at the counter, despite having already checked in, before passing through security and boarding at the gate.  Not only was there a long line at the ticket counter, but the woman attending the passengers was extremely slow in reviewing our passports while failing to scan, write, type, or in any other way document that she had actually checked them.  As we approached the security line we were thankful beyond belief that it wasn’t crowded; however, with this said, the Italian passengers were incredibly slow in moving through the line.  Many neglected to remove their belts and loose change until being told to do so or holding up the line with a personal pat-down search.  Still, others seemed to be nonchalant in chatting away with airport security workers, further prolonging the process.

In short, the remainder of that morning consisted of an airline that charged to use the restroom and sold perfume throughout the majority of the flight, a crowded bus ride to the Leaning Tower of Pisa and back that no one charged us for, and a train to Florence before navigating the winding cobblestone streets to our Airbnb by the river.

The chaos and inefficiencies that I noticed throughout my travel experience to Florence truly demonstrated the stark difference between Italian and American transportation services in such a manner that further reflects cultural disparity between the two populations.  In the United States speed and efficiency are the two most prominent factors that consumers judge any given service off of.  Taxi cabs, fast food chains, airport ticket counters, and airlines themselves pride themselves on quality service based off these two traits along with professional customer interactions and care.  In the US, airports seem to have a more efficient system in all respects that maximizes the amount of passengers able to get through to their destinations every day.  However, in Italy, the airport workers seemed to be much more relaxed, slow-paced, and nonchalant in their interactions with customers.  In general, Italian transportation services seemed to be less efficient and less reliable than those in America.  Italians take a more laid back and individual approach where no one is held responsible except the passengers themselves for getting to their destinations on time.

Overall, this experience reaffirmed the difference in lifestyle and pace that has been a common theme throughout my experience in Italy.  In this case, where time matters, I strongly oppose this approach to life and public transportation services.  Although I will miss the beauty of Sicily’s landscape and its people, I can honestly say that I will not miss its methods of transportation.

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