When I was growing up, I lived in a small town so therefore the biggest aspect that I had to adjust to when arriving in Rome was the population size. While this isn’t necessarily a cultural difference (compared to America), I did notice some slight differences in Culture while living in a large city like Rome. The first difference was in restaurants. When eating in a restaurant, most of the time, families and friends ate three courses. The First course was usually antipasta (appetizers), then primi (pasta), and then for the third course people were served secondi (usually meats and fish). In America, we just have appetizers and then the main dish which usually includes either a primi or secondi dish (not both). The other adjustment that took getting used to was proximity. In America, I usually drive to everything but in Rome, walking is very popular.
To share my perspective on the cultural differences, I never usually ordered a primi and secondi dish and restaurants. Most of the time, one of those dishes was plenty of food. In restaurants, it felt like dinner experiences are meant to be longer so people are able to eat all three courses. With proximity, there were times where it was quicker to walk one mile than it was to drive one mile. This was often due to traffic and the streets in the neighborhood.
I felt as if people from my host culture of Italy just viewed my friends and I as tourists. Italy is a very beautiful country so it receives a lot of tourism, especially from America. By these standards, whenever we interacted with people from our host culture, it just felt like they treated us as such.
I think that the reason the hosts viewed us as tourists stems from a misunderstanding. I think that to solve this, as visitors to a foreign country, we need to express genuine interest in local communities. This involves being interested in their food, culture, and history. Most misunderstandings result from a lack of communication. If we communicate better as people, then we can avoid misunderstandings, both at home and abroad.