NEED TO KNOW
Kacie Rose moved to Italy in 2021 and experienced many culture shocks
She says Italian culture emphasizes community and wellbeing, contrasting with the hustle-driven lifestyle she knew in New York
Rose wrote a book about cultural differences and loves how food in Italy connects deeply to history and community
Kacie Rose knew life would look a lot different when she moved to Italy in 2021, but it was the “little funny culture shocks” that caught her most off guard.
The former dancer, now content creator and tour guide, shares that adjusting to the new way of life is still an ongoing process. Rose, 32, lives with her fiancé, Dario, in Florence, after meeting the chef during a solo trip in 2018.
Rose now talks to PEOPLE about a few of the small yet impactful cultural differences since settling in the capital city, compared to when she was living in the States.
“Obviously, there are the big culture shocks, like the language, and just the overall vibe of being here is very different than living in the United States, especially living in New York,” she tells PEOPLE. “But, honestly, the initial culture shocks were really the smaller things that you would never think to Google or you would never think to ask anybody or like look up in advance.”
Kacie Rose
Credit: Courtesy of Kaci Rose
For instance, just days after putting down roots in Florence, it was her fiancé’s birthday, so she went to the pharmacy across the street from their apartment to pick up a birthday card. However, while pharmacy chains in the US, such as Walgreens and CVS, carry more than just medication, when Rose asked the pharmacist if they had any birthday cards, they looked at her like she “had six heads.”
She had a similar trial-and-error experience her first time grocery shopping in Italy.
“Navigating a grocery store is so different, and it’s not because the products are different, but it’s because, for example, in the produce aisle, you have to weigh your produce before you go to the cashier,” Rose explains.
“I didn’t know this, and I collected all my produce, I packed it all up, I went to the cashier, and the cashier was like, ‘You didn’t print off the price,'” she remembers. “I didn’t know what she was saying, because at that point I didn’t speak Italian, and I was trying to be independent, so Dario wasn’t with me, so I had to go back to the produce aisle and get my stickers and weigh everything and get them printed off.”
While those are two instances of small culture shocks, she notes that “the biggest adjustment” has been learning to rely more on others while learning a new language and way of life.
Kacie Rose
Credit: Jamie In Italy
“I’m a very independent person, and you really have no choice but to depend on other people to help you, whether that be people that you know or people that you don’t know,” she says. “You kind of have to accept help, and if you’re a hyperindependent person like me or if you come from, you know, a big city like New York or something like that, where you’re used to figuring things out on your own, it definitely was like being thrown into a cold pool.”
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However, she emphasizes that “this idea of community and village” is “part of Italian culture.”
“It was a long process to understand that, just because I wasn’t feeling like I was losing my independence, it was more about opening up to the vulnerability of accepting help from other people,” she explains.
“It was this beautiful lesson at the end of it of realizing that that’s such a core part of Italian culture. It’s just like helping your community and helping your village. That was another beautiful culture shock, more seriously.”
Despite having lived abroad for over five years, Rose shares that she “still learns things every day.”
“The country is so different that if I travel to Southern Italy, it’s a different world,” she shares.
In fact, just recently, she learned a new Italian slang word that she had “never heard before in my entire life, and it was only specific to a very specific part of Tuscany.”
“It’s little things like that. I don’t think I’ll ever stop learning, to be honest,” she says.
Rose even wrote a book about the cultural differences between America and Italy called You Deserve Good Gelato. She notes that the two countries have very “different ideologies,” specifically around “hustle culture.”
“I come from New York. That culture is very hustle, go, go, go, you pound the pavement, it is this idea of living to work, and I think American culture in general demonizes rest in a lot of ways,” Rose tells PEOPLE.
She says the flip side of that is Italian culture, where you’re “working to live” and “they know the moments to work,” but also when “to pause” and “slow down.”
“This idea of your overall well-being being the thing that’s put on a pedestal,” she says of the Italian mindset.
Kacie Rose
Credit: Courtesy of Kaci Rose
“The ‘American dream,’ at the core, is you work, work, work, and you gain physical things to put yourself at the top. You’re able to get the material items,” she explains. “In contrast, la dolce vita idolizes the idea that if everything else was stripped away from you, your happiness and your well-being are still at the forefront, and that’s the most important thing.”
When asked her favorite thing about living in Italy, she likened the question to “picking a favorite child,” but if she had to choose, it would be the “food.”
“When I say food, it goes with the idea of family and community. Meals are so tied to community, and Italian food is one of the best cuisines in the world,” she shares. “But it goes so much deeper than that. Food is so culturally tied to a place, with history, meaning, and culture inherently tied to it.”
“When you’re able to experience not just the good food, but just what it means to a place, its history, its meaning, I love that,” she continues. “I love being able to share a meal with family or friends or community, and have it not just be like a meal, but have it be something really special that’s shared.”
Read the original article on People