Steve, I still find very strange that devotees may behave in a way so similar, or worse than, materialistic people. Maybe those cases you cite stand out just for that and I hope they are an absolute minority.
Serena, right, as supposedly spiritual people we should definitely contribute to a more friendly social environment and just ignore those 'me first' examples, maybe laugh about them.
mccoy my experience with devotees is that they run the gamut of behaviors from saintly to demonic. Yet what you usually find is that those who claim to be devotees and have difficult behavior problems to contend with usually are not spending a lot of time at their spiritual disciplines/techniques. They often are also newer devotees on the path this life.
Not sure if you would be exposed to many devotees close up in Italy. The internet has brought a whole new dimension to meeting others with similar interests.