Today, for the first time since I arrived in Italy (nearly four years ago) I was able to take a bus, with a pram, without having to fold it. Has anyone else noticed everyday improvements that make their lives easier?

Official websites of things like INPS and the Polizia Di Stato ..... and even though many of them are still far too complicated - you can sometimes find an answer to a question without the hassle of having to ring up - explain yourself - and wait for a long and complicated answer that leaves you more bewildered than before.

Cheaper flights backwards and forwards ........ but that doesn't have much to do with the Italians though as none of the cheap companies are Italian.

Still - it's a great advantage - I remember paying an average of £200 to get home and that was just for a ticket for myself !

Competiton for Telecom Italia !!!!!!

Round our way there have suddenly sprung up a few public toilets.

They comune have been resurfacing the roads round our way. (Thats not the improvement) and when they have repainted the parking spaces they have made them big enough for a normal car. Doesn't mean people take any notice of them though

I have been thinking about this and it kind of saddens me but doesn't surprise me to say that I can think of more things that haven't changed for the better in the last several years.

Hi Lorna - I think that's true wherever you may live - whether it's Italy, UK, Australia...or indeed anywhere else in the world. Things have changed and generally NOT for the better (I am in a negative mood today - can you tell??!!)

I love living in England but this morning I woke up and it is blowing a gale and the rain is currently lashing down on my window - it's mornings like this that I yearn for Rome!! Hope things are good with you and yours.

well I'm coming back to the UK next week and hoping that a heat wave hits England . lol

Have to agree with Lorna on this one - we left Italy in 89 and returned in 2003 - convinced that things must have got better during all those years - but I have to say that I haven't noticed many things that have drastically improved. A friend of mine who stayed here all those years insists that things are much better - I don't know - maybe I'm just a cynic ??

well I think I am a natural born cynic - and sceptic - and non believer and anything else -but I do declare how happy I am to notice that Pats writes " got" instead of the all American "gotten" !!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Call me a cynic !

Oh dear! you really do seem to have an Anti-American obsession.

Is sceptic the Brit spelling of skeptic?

still wait up to 3 hours to see the doctor, still turn up to a private health appointment to find that another 16 people have been booked in at the same time (and yet you still have to pay 100 euro), still crap tv, still have the bloke at the town hall that uses 1 finger to type, still have to run for my life when crossing the road, still have pay a fortune in car/road tax that is equivalent to one month's wage, have yet to hear someone say please or thank you, still get stared at like an alien because i have two pet dogs, still see no-one abide by law and wear seat belts and a helmet (and yet vote they for the fascist party), still see families of 5 on motorcycles, still see children in passenger seats (with no seat belt), still hear talk of food, food and food, still berlusconi...

italy changed? nah!

not an obsession at all - just observations.

Glad to hear it's not an obsession. but your observations based on US servicemen and tourists is hardly representative.
Perhaps if you were a little less narrow focused you might find the average American isn't much different to yourself.

Personally I prefer to judge the individual rather than their nationality.