12 Days to London: 3 Reasons to Leave

The most tiring and stressful moment before departing is to gather all documents. A long work that includes the necessity to refer to bureaucracy. Long queues in various offices, like post office, registry office and other spaces always crowded of people.

I don't like to be in the queue: it's boring. And in Italy queues can take all day long. Fortunately, today wasn't my case. I've lost the pin-code of my prepaid credit card, so I needed to pay and subscribe a new card because shipping a new pin-code took over a week. Anyway, in a hour I did it. This was just the last stage of a long series of queues to prepare all papers.

Things in, things out. On the one hand I gathered all documents in my folder and on the other hand I got rid of some superfluous things, like unused electric cable, old cellphones and other broken computer stuff. I brought them to a communal recycling depot where they gather all same materials in a depository, trying to save and reuse as many parts as they can. It is a free service, but nobody in Italy seems to need it. People prefer to put all waste, whether recyclable or not, in the same bin. That's one of long list of unsolvable problems in this country. Unfortunately, there isn't hope something will happen in the next future: maybe Italy will never move to efficient systems to gather and recycle waste like in the rest of Europe.

Reasons to leave Italy are many and they concern especially job market, public transportation and mind-set.

a) Job: Italy has one of highest unemployment rate in Europe. Over 25% of young people doesn't have job (free stages or underpaid works are not included): a condition that is inconceivable in other European countries. This situation kill every wish of independence and bring people to drop the idea of living alone to remain at parents' house well over 30 years old.

b) Public Transport: at the end of 2012, Rome has still only two metro lines. That's the main difference with other European capitals. For example, Paris has fourteen lines, London thirteen and Berlin ten. A really great difference. Moving from a side to another of the city in Rome can take even half a day: no certainty about buses time transit, long waits even under the rain and stressful trips packed like sardines.

c) Mind-set: no respect for others, every-man-for-himself way of life, slyness against rules and institutions, non-existent meritocracy and favouritism logic, embarrassing politics class and bureaucracy. The list is still long but I prefer to stop. Do you really need other reasons?

I can't live in a country like this. There is no future. I deserve something better and I'll get it somewhere else.