It is not easy to leave your entire life and then come to the other side of the world without even knowing the people that you are going live with. I decided to come to America because I was looking for something new and I really wanted to affirm my independence. My idea of America comes from a lot of movies and I was sure that there wasn’t a lot to learn because, because of globalization almost all the world is trying to become just like the US. We think that it’s a fresh country, and rich of opportunities. At the end I realized that I didn’t know a lot of things about the United States.

1. Not everybody loves Obama.
Ok, it is true, sometimes we make fun of him but almost everybody, at least in Italy, thinks that he is a good president and a wonderful person. Once I arrived, I realized that in every democratic country there are people that support him, and others that don’t think he is a good president.

2. Americans are never cold.
It can be freezing outside, no matter what, you will never see people wearing big coats or very warm clothes. In my country during winter we forget about skirts and leggings and there is never cold as it is here. In America it is different; girls don’t really care about it and wear short dresses, shorts and skirts even when it is snowing.

3. All crazy for peanut butter.
I have never had peanut butter in my country. For Americans it must be insane because they love peanut butter and they are eating it all the time.

4. Do you have a truck? You are cool.
In my country we don’t have it and here teenagers start being independent when they start driving themselves and I can say that he dream of almost every boy is to have his own big truck.

5. People bake cookies all the time.
I am in love with the big American cookies. I saw that often people bake cookies for birthdays, school events and sometimes even without a reason. If you love somebody you bake cookies for him or her, just to show them that you love them.

6. If you are not in a sport, nobody knows you.
The school system is very different from my country, in fact we don’t have school sports or activity after school. I noticed that here almost everybody is in a sport and that is how people know people. Your team is like your family and your sport means a lot to you.

7. McDonald’s is not the first choice
In my country we don’t know that there are a lot of different fast food places here. We thought that McDonald’s was the most popular one but we were wrong. In fact here you have a lot of different fast food that are more popular with teenagers.

8. The government invests a lot of money in school.
In my school in Italy we have to pay almost $500 for school books and we also have to pay for papers and other things. I was very surprised when I saw that we didn’t have to pay for books and that we work on sheets often and we don’t have to pay for it.

9. Almost all the teenagers have a job.
In my country the economic situation is not so good so for young people it is very hard to find a job because the retirement age is very late. I noticed that here it is normal for teenagers to have a job and sometimes it is the same school that helps you to find a job.

10. Prom is one of the most important days of your life.
Prom is coming soon and I am very excited about it. At the beginning I didn’t take it seriously because I thought that it was like in my country, just the big school’s party. In my country we don’t get asked to go to the party and we don’t dress up, it is just a big party on the beach with all the schools of the city, it is pretty cool though. Here people take it very seriously and they start thinking about it months and months before. I really hope that, as everybody said, it will be a night to remember.