May 4th, 2005 | The lowdown by Jillianne Salaver

La Dolce Vita.

The term 'la dolce vita', or 'the sweet life' is often used to describe the Italian way of living, and after spending four months in Florence, I've definitely found this the best way to describe it.

The people here like to bask themselves in the pleasures of life and go about their days in the happiest and easiest way possible. Compared to the hectic and on-the-go pace of American life, this concept might seem like the best idea in the world. To a student living in a medieval city and having to contend with the chaos of everyday life, it's not all its cracked up to be.

I've fallen in love with Florence and so have all of my friends, but your love affair with this city can easily end once you try to actually live here. There are pros and cons to every place, as there are pros and cons to living the sweet life.

Every night around 7:30 or 8, a wave of Florentines appear on the streets dressed in their Gucci best and take a leisurely stroll along the streets of their beautiful city. Everyone is literally a piece of eye candy, and they slowly walk the cobblestone streets looking into every single shop to admire the new display. Around this time restaurants begin to open and people sit down for hours on end, lingering over their Tuscan meals that just get better and better each time they eat. The food is eaten slowly to savor every bite, and the wine is drunk in moderation because drunkenness is reserved for the international college students. Time is different here, and it's treated as if it's just a foreign word that busy tourists have inflicted on their lifestyle.

However, enjoying all of life's little pleasures is just another way of saying that you don't have to do anything you don't feel like doing. Sure, you can spend all the time you want eating dinner, but that also means the pilot of the plane you're on can spend all the time he wants chatting up the flight attendants instead of actually getting the plane off the ground. If you're dying with the flu, the pharmacist can take all the time she wants to slowly search the back room for the medicine you so desperately need, and anything that is actually on time or even close to it would surprise me.

I've learned the hard way that nothing you do here will ever be as efficient, easy or quick as you think it would or should be. Time does not exist, therefore efficiency and convenience do not either. There is no such thing as a 'line' to get onto the bus, it's just a massive group of people elbowing each other out of the way. Strikes are the norm. This month alone there were nine planned transportation strikes and one unplanned train strike that could have stranded me in Germany.

Well, lesson learned and note taken. Basic lesson of everyday life in Italy: expect the unexpected and go with the flow. It won't be easy, and it can very well leave you stranded in a foreign country, but it's the only thing you can do.