Italy: What to expect.

Italy was my dream country as it was in my bucket list. I finally got to go to Italy last March for two weeks with my family and visit my Italian sister who we hosted in 2015. We visited few cities which include Milan, Rome, Florence, and Venice. Each cities gave us different kind of experiences. Some are sweet, and some are terrifying. Italy is a beautiful country and I'm pretty sure a lot of people know a lot about the beauty of Italy. Based on my experience, let me tell you a bit of what to expect other than the beautiful buildings and delicious authentic Italian food when you’re travelling in Italy.

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1. Expect people to stare at you

Yes. We got a lot of eyes looking at us. Maybe one of the reasons was because of our headscarf since we noticed that there weren’t many female Muslims during our journey in Italy. Just like how Malaysians like to stare at the mat salleh. Another reason would be because of our coloured contact lenses.

In Malaysia, coloured contact lenses are very common among the society since it’s considered as a trend and Malaysians would know immediately if the coloured eyes are fake. However in Italy, that’s not the case since coloured contact lens is not common in this country thus we got a lot of people asking us if our eyes are real – since my sisters and I wore same coloured contact lens. It was pretty fun when people thought that our eyes are real and we got tired of having to explain about our contact lens and we would just say ‘thank you’.

2. Expect thieving and cursing

It’s pretty well-known that Rome is where thieving happens a lot since it’s a very touristy city. Two kids tried to snatch our bags in metro and one was caught trying to steal our wallet from our pocket. Focus at the word ‘kids’. Yes, expect the unexpected. We were ready if there would be any men tried to steal from us, but we were not ready for kids.

Do not be surprised if the thieves would curse at you when you caught them and other people would only watch the situation and do nothing about it. Thieving is too common that the people in Rome do not really care about it. Thieving is like an occupation in Rome. So, just be extra careful when you’re in Rome! and try to avoid from bringing a backpack if it’s not necessary.

3. Expect racism

Who ever thought that we would experience a lot of racism in Italy? We were totally safe from racism when we were in Milan and Rome. I would guess it’s because of the multicultural people who live in the cities. As for Florence and Venice? Oh my.

Florence is a beautiful city. It’s well-known for its stunning Duomo di Firenze. Unfortunately, we experienced racism every single day in Florence. We were ignored by the taxi drivers. In Florence, you must queue in order to get a taxi and wait for your turn but when it came for our turn, almost all of the taxi drivers avoided us and we had to ask several times before we got one. Other than that, two restaurants that we went to did not entertain us so we had to find other places to eat.

As for Venice, it is supposed to be a dreamy romantic city with its famous gondola ride. I’ve always wanted to go to Venice the most because of the story Merchant of Venice that I learned but it ended up to be a frightening place for us family. On the 3rd of April, which was supposed to be the “Punish a Muslim Day” that went viral in UK, we were still in Venice and we were called as terrorists many times. Because of that, it made us afraid to walk around at night.

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Despite all of the bad situations that we encountered in Italy, we would still want to visit the country again. Do not worry, there are many good people in Italy. We had quite a lot of great experiences that could make us forget those thieving and racism that happened to us. Yet, it’s not a waste to be prepared for the worst when you’re planning to travel to a country that’s very foreign to you.