Italian vs. Spanish

[explorator]

When I started to learn French, It took me sometime to decide if I should learn French or Italian. I decided to study French only because I didn't like eating pasta. Today I'm learning Italian too, and I'm not sure if it is closer to French or to Spanish. Anyway in the French education system, the Spanish is the first option as a second foreign language.

[explorator]

The election of an Italian American as a new Pope has brought to my mind my old feeling of discomfort about the way how the American people with Italian ancestries, try to establish a difference between them as "Latin" but not "Spanish" American. This contrasts strongly with the mutual sympathy between European Spanish and Italian, and specially with my own experience across Europe where usually the Spaniards are identified earlier as Italian than as Spanish. One more paradox of the perception of the Spanish people around the World.