Hailey Latona, Pitt in Florence, Fall 2025
Between working an internship with a local Florence company and my outgoing personality, I had many interactions with local Florentines. Although I have the look of an Italian with dark hair, dark eyes, and an olive complexion, while attending a business lunch with my boss, I outed myself as a foreigner. As part of my internship, I got to learn more about Italian business culture, everything from how important favors are for relationships to what the balance could be between career and life from an Italian perspective. In October, I met new business partners at lunch, and while everyone shared breads with olive oil and some salt as an appetizer, at the end when a bowl of bread was set out and everyone grabbed some, I didn’t realize that it was solely because they had gotten pasta and had extra sauce in their bowls. I thought I had learned that when everyone else gets bread, I should too, even though I typically only thought of it before dinner. I grabbed a piece of bread and ate it, even though I had just had pitsa (a long, boxy pizza) and I got lots of funny looks and was politely corrected. One unwritten Italian dining rule: no bread after your meal if you ate pizza, that is too many carbs, and your energy will tank after the meal. Whoops!
Italians want you to learn their food rules since after all they are the ones who make such good food! Even though many can be learned from social media or simply observation, many more are nuanced. Slip ups like that helped me remember that I was in a different country and did not completely know the culture, even if the people I was with helped me feel included by speaking English.
A few other moments really stuck with me because they showed me truly how kind and welcoming Italians are from early on in the semester. The first is when my landlord asked if I had tried her favorite dessert yet–tiramisu. When I hadn’t she made up a fresh batch for the house so we could all enjoy! Since we had just gotten there and hadn’t learned how long food lasted yet, she told us when we needed to throw away any left overs since it wouldn’t be fresh to eat anymore. Another moment is from a friendly nonna on the street walking her dog. When I said hi to her adorable fur-baby, she got so excited that before I could bend down and pet him, she scooped him up and put him in my arms like a baby. After some pets, she congratulated me “Brava!” That excitement and happiness showed through even though we did not perfectly speak each other’s language.
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