Because I have nothing better to do??

I'm sure I mentioned that my dad gave me permission to go shopping. Well, first off, I got lots of nice new clothing and that was really exciting. But second, there is something about Italians and shopping that I want to let you in on.

Living in Italy is expensive. It's really expensive. Minus buying food at the grocery store (at least in my opinion - I just bought tons of groceries for 16 euro, but maybe the Italians think it's expensive.) They used to go out to the pizzeria once a week. Now, maybe only once a month. The children don't leave home until about 30-40 years of age, because otherwise they'd have to pay for a place to live, and that's just too much. That's typically when they get married. They might move out to a different city for college and share an apartment, but they usually return home afterwards. (Interesting fact - it is pretty much illegal to have a job if you're a teenager, and most people don't get they're first job until somewhere between 24-26.) The birth rate here, if I remember correctly, is less than one child per couple. You can have half a child. The reason you don't have more than one is because having a child is expensive, and living is expensive, and your first child is typically born when the woman is around 35. After that, we all know about the ticking clock. So if you were thinking that the Italians have big, happy, loud, lovable families - you were wrong, change that idea.

Now if you're thinking to yourself, what the heck is Jessica going on about, none of this has anything to do with shopping... well, that's what I was going for! Because the thing is, that with it being so expensive to live and so expensive to have babies, you would think that they would not want to spend a lot of money on clothes. That is SO not the case. Would you like a new pair of sandals? I would, and they're really cute over here. Would you like to spend 135.oo euro on them? I wouldn't either, but they won't have a problem with it. Apparently, the one thing they aren't economical about it shopping. Bags, 40 euro. Shirt, 40 euro Shoes, 100+. Pants, bam, you're out of cash.

It's expensive to shop here. But the month of sales are fantastic. 70 euro boots? Now they're 19. So you feel so justified, spending half the money you were going to because it's the month of sales. But the reason it's sale time is because of the new collections coming in. And then you just spend so much.

I saw the cutest pair of sandals. They go in between your big toe and the toe that is next to it and they have a little strap that goes up to the ankle strap. The strap was decorated with beautiful cute blue bows and I wanted them. Almost 200 euro, were they? Yes they were.