An "un-European" experience...

Recently got back from my trip to Italy... surely I can go blah blah blah over the beautiful places and things I saw, but most striking thing during the whole of trip was , what I call, an "un-European" feel of Italy... From whatever small number of countries I had seen in Europe, I had formed an image of typical European city and people. And to my surprise, Italy was far too different in many respects from this image I had, of Europe, in general...

People in Italy look much different from other parts... In fact, they themselves have their typical appearance. Most of the girls are way too tanned, hardly any blonds (mostly black hair),men with their broad forehead, with a characteristic frame of specs (which almost every Italian seems to wear). By the way, Italians seemed to me far less innocent or peaceful looking (or may be I was trying to search Don Corleone in everyone :P). Actually, the sound of Italian language is also one of the main reasons for this. Italian seems way too rough with strong accents (similar to Spanish), and I didn't like the sound of it... On the other hand, French, Dutch and German seem much softer to hear.

All over Europe (well, the Europe I have seen), people respect the traffic rules heartily and pedestrians are given top priority on the road, with people in cars being extremely polite to pedestrians. But this was not the case in Italy, where I got a kind of "Indian-ish" feel with regard to traffic ! :D . All throughout Europe I had seen far too less number of two-wheelers (well, except you count bicycles in two-wheelers) on road than that in India. In Italy, however, I saw much more two-wheelers than those, say, in Paris or in my city, Lille.

And , in a great coincidence, just when I was thinking about it, a friend showed me this video on Youtube, which quite supports what I saw... Well, not as exaggerated as shown here, but to a certain degree, yes, sure ! And it is made by an Italian... :P. Here it is :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t1kjKtCnD6g