Americanata

Americanata is a word that the Italians use to describe things that can only be American ... the best example I can give is in movies. When things that aren´t logical happen just to basically improve the plot. Its been a pretty fun word to throw around. I have used it a couple times when I have seem some obvious American tourist pass by or attempt to communicate with the locals, by which I mean no attempt at all.
On the topic of Americans, I have asked several people I have met about their view of us. This has mainly been Europeans, South Americans, and Australians. I thought I would pass on the review and it isn´t too good. The worst I have heard are: we are viewed as believing we are open minded but in actuality close minded, we are war mongering continually in a ¨conflict¨with someone, and the worst I think is that Americans were likened to German citizens during Nazi Germany. The public ruled with fear so that the general population goes along with the flow. Pretty sad picture but of course this has only been a small population of people. And of course the conversation always involves that this is just the impression and not really a reflection of every American and everyone has been very nice. I guess it just puts things in a bit of perspective.
My last week of class started. I am a little excited. I completely underestimated how much of my day would be absorbed by class. When I go out to lunch with someone from class, which has been quite frequent, I usually am moving on to my next thing around 4 pm. I am ready not to be in class during the day. This week we did get some new students, two Americans (Austin and New York) and a girl from France. We have been studying a lot of grammer and it is fortunately starting to make a bit of sense. Still haven´t really done any studying though ... too busy. I am sure I will get to it ... at some point.