Honeymoon to Acceptance: VLB Students Reflect on Italian Culture Shock
Mia Boykin
September 20, 2024 — Culture shock is an unavoidable part of studying abroad, whether we consider ourselves worldly or not, something will most likely give a student a moment of confusion, stress, or excitement while they are overseas.
Understanding this aspect of travel before studying abroad can prevent students from being blindsided and having their experience not fully live up to their expectations. We spoke to past and present students who studied at Villa Le Balze to get their perspective on how culture shock impacted their time in Florence.
What is culture shock, really?
Culture shock is a complicated phenomenon but can be summed up easily. It is not a linear process, instead, the stages of culture shock resemble an upside-down bell curve.
A student studying abroad would go through these stages, first encountering the honeymoon stage, in which they are excited for new experiences. Anxiety follows as cultural differences force people into the stress of how to act accordingly. Adjustment occurs a few months after being in a new country, where one understands the cultural differences and begins to change their behavior without much thought. Finally, acceptance is when one feels fully comfortable in the new culture.
Culture shock can also be a cyclical process because new challenges can arise as a student reaches deeper levels of understanding. A student may then experience the stages of culture shock multiple times over the course of their stay as they learn more and more about their host country and its local culture.
Food! Food! Food!
One of the most common shocks students reported was simply, the food. Noelle Robinson (CAS ‘25) says, “You can tell the chefs put a lot more thought and care into the dishes they make,” highlighting how meal preparation is more respected in Italian culture than in the United States. Meal preparation and pride in quality ingredients are essential to the Italian cultural experience, and that includes things besides just pizza and pasta.
Lauren Hogg (CAS ‘25) said “I aspire to bring back home the appreciation for fresh ingredients, and the value placed on savoring life’s simple pleasures.” The amount of fresh ingredients that students interacted with is a direct effect of the Italian-born Slow Food and 0KM movements.
These socio-political movements emphasize the importance of local food distribution and encourage Italians and travelers to do their best to ensure their meals come from less than one kilometer away from their homes. The chefs at Villa le Blaze embrace these philosophies, as they strive to have all of their ingredients come from Italy or the smaller region of Tuscany.
Students also said that eating culture differs in Italy, where mealtime is integral to family, friendships, and daily life. “It is an Italian custom to spend hours over dinner talking to friends or family… Food is supposed to be enjoyed for an extended period of time, which is something I want to bring back when coming home even though it’s difficult in an environment like Georgetown, where everything is on the go or in a rush,” Tierra Cunningham(CAS ’25) said.
Compared to the United States, where it’s not unlikely to see workers eating at their desks, or students in Leo’s watching TV on their phones, this could shock Georgetown students. However, Cunningham’s acceptance of this point of culture, and even going to the extent of wanting to apply it back home, is the reason why studying abroad can be life-changing for many. Experiencing a different way of life, even something as mundane as eating, diversifies how a student may imagine their life after coming home.
Time to Relax
Students appreciated the Italian dedication to relaxation, and taking a moment for leisure in between stressful daily activities. In the United States, it’s not uncommon for students and workers to go days without much rest, especially during finals season or quarterly reviews.
However, in Italy, this is not the case. Hogg said, “The laid-back attitude towards work in Italy never fails to amaze me. Unlike in many other places, it’s customary in Italy for people not to eat at their desks, and it’s common for businesses to take a few hours off during lunch, recognizing the importance of downtime.” Though this may seem like an annoying occurrence to Americans if they wish to run errands in the middle of the day, to Italians it represents respecting and upholding the value of leisure time. Robinson had similar insights saying “I love how slow and laid-back the style of life is in Fiesole.”
Students traveling to Italy might find it hard to slow down, as habits of American culture don’t immediately leave when the plane touches down. However, Hogg hopes that when she returns to Georgetown, she can bring this leisurely way of life into her routine. “It’s a quality I hope to incorporate into my life at Georgetown. However, I recognize that the fast-paced and competitive environment at Georgetown may not be conducive to adopting such a relaxed pace of life,” she said.
Better Left In Italy
Despite these beautiful aspects of Italian culture, Villa students have some things they won’t bring back home to Washington D.C. The most striking for the students we interviewed, was the common catcalling and staring they experienced in Italy.
“I was taken aback by the prevalence of cat-calling and overt staring. While these behaviors exist in the US, there seems to be more social stigma attached, and men often exhibit more restraint in public settings,” Hogg said.
Americans reacting negatively to the Italian stare is not unique to our students, though. According to many travel blogs and Reddit posts, many travelers feel uncomfortable with the Italian habit of staring. However, staring is not just targeted toward tourists; it is common in Italian-centered interactions as well. However, one’s ethnicity and nationality can lead to a more targeted experience when traveling abroad.
Cunningham, a Black woman, described some examples in which Italians in Florence had openly mocked her race or asked her invasive questions, which she had never really experienced in the U.S. before.
She said “The amount of staring I received by Italians was an uncomfortable amount to the point that I was fully aware that I was being stared at because I was black and looked ‘foreign’…This is not to say that this is how I view Italy or all Italians, but it definitely opened my eyes to the idea of race and racism in other countries outside the U.S.”
This experience highlights how one’s own identity can drastically change their daily life in a new country. Though Cunningham would like to leave the uncomfortable feelings behind, she says living in Italy during this time did teach her a lesson that she can bring back home. “I think the culture shocks I experienced as a woman and person of color made me more cognizant of my identity, even more so than when I am back home. I think it just made me more aware of social problems on a global scale and not just on a domestic scale.”
Cultural norms around topics such as harassment or racism can vary widely in other countries. It can be an important part of the cultural education process to research and understand those differences before going abroad so that students can mitigate some of the more uncomfortable aspects of cultural shock.
A Better Cultural Understanding
Both negative and positive interactions play an important role during study abroad, adding value to the overall educational experience. Living in any country can be anxiety-inducing, but it takes a real acknowledgment of cultural differences to reach a point of comfort in a different country. Students at Villa Le Balze may only spend a few months in Italy, but they feel the waves of culture shock throughout that process. Those feelings of anxiety are essential to the experience of studying abroad because they push students into a space of cultural discomfort, making room for growth. New cultures bring new ideas for ways of life, a form of education one cannot receive elsewhere.