Florentines view American visitors with ambivalence — as one student found to her cost

First, let me start with an admission of guilt. It might be morally reproachable to use Twitter storms in lieu of entertainment. But watching the commotion around a viral article about an American exchange student’s experience in Florence has been as satisfying as a season of Succession.

Last month, Insider published an op-ed by NYU journalism and international relations student Stacia Datskovska, titled “I’m an NYU student who studied abroad in Florence. I hated every aspect of my semester abroad”. In the short piece, Datskovska painstakingly details her grievances: her resentment of her American classmates (busy pursuing “exhausting forms of escapism” such as travelling and eating paninis); her frustration with locals (“hostile, inconsiderate, and preposterous”); and her “verbal confrontations” with Florentines, whom she said she provoked by wearing outfits she “knew they’d hate”.

A tsunami of ridicule followed. Twitter users suggested Datskovska should abandon her hopes of working in international relations. Some readers wondered whether the piece was a sophisticated form of parodic self-satire, or a marketing stunt pulled by the publication at the writer’s expense. Conspiracists even hypothesised a Florentine plot to keep Americans away from their city.

As a part-time Florence resident, I know that the city’s relationship with Americans is complicated. The Association of American College and University Programs in Italy counts more than 35,000 students all over the country. Of these, almost half are in Florence, where at least 40 American universities have campuses.

But Florence’s 380,000 residents have mixed feelings towards its American visitors. Many Florentines are frustrated by increasingly inaccessible housing in the city’s microscopic city centre (which measures under two square miles) and by rocketing prices in grocery stores and restaurants.

Sara Bimbi, a digital marketing account manager who lives in Florence’s central neighbourhood of Sant’Ambrogio, says Americans make up the majority of tenants in her building and members at her local gym. She loves the international edge they bring to her city. But she recognises that their “incredible concentration” means Florentines, whose average monthly salaries are estimated at €1,100, get priced out. The rise of Airbnb, the surge of wealthy foreign buyers snapping up local property and of short student lets have all played their part in this. Others I talk to echo this sense of being priced out of their own city.

Another widespread complaint is American students’ drinking culture. Italy’s relaxed attitude to alcohol presents US college students — used to a legal drinking age of 21 — with a newly acquired freedom that they take full advantage of. “At their age, I’d have done the same,” says Riccardo Svelto, a Florentine photographer. “But it’s undeniably unpleasant for residents and business owners.”

So when Datskovska writes that locals rolled their eyes at her, I wholeheartedly believe her. Just as I agree with her description of Florentines — “hostile and preposterous” (Italian literature offers a number of nicknames illustrating the personality quirks of Tuscans, “the most litigious of the peninsula”).

Reacting to her essay, American novelist and Tuscanophile Edmund White explained how Italian politeness differs to the US version — especially when it comes to service, for which Italy favours a reserved demeanour, vastly different to America’s relaxed and chatty style.

Plus, if being homesick is normal, says Ilka Gleibs, associate professor in behavioural psychology at the London School of Economics, it “may be part of getting to know oneself” — which is exactly what Datskovska hoped to achieve during her semester in Florence.

Datskovska’s viral lament remains a disheartening, if amusing, read. What’s certain is the NYU student won’t be the last person whose life, and career, Florence has upended — much like a manquée Elizabeth Barrett Browning, or a Gen Z version of Lucy Honeychurch in A Room with a View.

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