quick rambling about living space

i decided to make some blog posts about things that i think are different about living in italy. of them will be serious or even true but i think there are some fun or silly things that make life here so-not-"american." i don't mean to demean or offend anyone, i say that just in case. just because there are differences doesn't mean i think america is in any way superior to europe or anywhere else in the world. because in a lot of ways i think they have it right.

i'll start off with space. people try to conserve space. many people live in apartments (some of course live in really nice houses) and everything in the home is usually functional. there are plenty of people who are well-off who live in apartments, so it's not just like everyone in italy is poor so they have to live in a tiny little space. and besides, homes and apartments here, are just as expensive and often more expensive than places in chicago.

i really like my apartment, and gabriele and i are considering buying it when our contract expires in four years. it's a goodsize for us now, and we have one and a half extra rooms for when we have kids. a lot of families i know in europe have lived in way smaller places, so right now i don't see why i would need a house and i consider myself blessed to have what i have. the location is great, it's a nice and calm neighborhood. we live on via delle scuole, which means the street of the schools. so yeah, we have the kindergarten, elementary school, and middle school on our block right across the street. i like it.

i never understood why people need so much space. but it's not really the space that concerns me, it's the use of resources. big house, big use of energy. i'll talk about energy in another entry. but over the years my mind has changed about living space and today i legitimately ask myself whether or not i would want a bigger place in the future. if i had plenty of money to choose, would i live in a big house? if i have more than two or three kids i'd probably have to consider it. but right now i think an apartment is the best for me and for the environment.

i think there's often a misconception that if you're really successful then you'll leave your dinky apartment to move into a real house. i'm not saying houses are evil, i'm just saying that they're no better than apartments. having lived in different places, i feel extremely blessed to have what i have. and i haven't even seen the world. so i don't know exactly what i intended with my words, but i think we can all afford to take up a little less space.

on very not serious note, i love these pictures:

this is how we buy toilet paper sometimes. in america, this is what happens to toilet paper rolls if you accidentally step on them....in europe it's calling space-saving. :)