Reflective Blogging

Skype Exchange

As I did not have my own blog before, this is my first reflective blogging. I really enjoyed the skype-exchange with the students of the Tulane university of New Orleans. Last time, I talked to a very nice girl and she knew a lot of things about recycling. She told me that most of the people in the United States do not make the effort and do not take the time to separate their garbage. After the hurricane government put all the garbage and material in an open space in the outskirts of the town and this is not really a save place.

Personally, she recycles when she can, but it is not always possible, for example there is no way to recycle plastic at university. She said that people’s attitude towards recycling is different in the north and south: generally, in the north more people recycle than in the south.

However, we also talked about other things… She told me that she is from South Carolina and that she has been studying in New Orleans for two years. She studies psychology and is doing this Italian course because next year she would like to study in Florence. She asked me some information about Italy and in particular Florence and we started talking about the differences between Italian cities and cities in the United States. We realized that our idea of distance is completely (!) different. I told her that Padova is quite far away from the capital Rome, that is it takes more than four hours to go there and she started laughing and said that is she wanted to go to the capital she had to take the plane and, even so, it is a very long journey.

I enjoyed the exchange because I had the opportunity to speak in English (unfortunately my exchange mate did not want to speak in Italian) and I learned a lot about recycling in the States. It is a great opportunity to compare two cultures and to enrich one’s cultural knowledge. Unfortunately, last Monday I had to go to another lesson but I am looking forward to the next exchange!