One of the little pleasures I’ve always gotten from travelling
is experiencing the many differences between the new place and my usual
habitats. Of course you expect the big
things: language, driving on the other side and wasting a good portion of your
life in a Kafkaesque bureaucracy but there are many little things that
while generally not better or worse are just plain different. So today I thought I would regale you with
some of the little differences that I didn’t expect to find:
People don’t read on
trains: being a not infrequent train traveller I have had much time to observe
Italian train customs and unlike their British or Australian counterparts the
Italian commuter does not have his head buried in a paperback (or more recently
an ereader.) Whenever I have taken a
journey, be it a long haul flight from Aus to Britain or just a short tram trip
to work I’ve taken the opportunity to get a couple of chapters read (and as I
was generally taking the 86 or 57 tram it was also a good way to avoid any
accidental eye contact with a junkie or general crazy person) here people
seem content to stare out the window.
Table of contents are
at the back of the book just before the index: a little trifling matter but
being used to the whole; front cover, dedication page, table of contents, main
text, bibliography and finally index the Italian (not sure about other
countries, please feel free to enlighten me) tradition of having the contents
page at the back threw me a bit. Yes, I
do find it strange to read the book, get to the end and then find the page
telling what’s in the book but there you go – if anyone can tell me why it’s
like that I would love to know.
It’s not just driving
on the right people walk on the right too: It seems that whichever side of
the road a nation drives on they will walk in the same manner – never noticed
this before. Now I’m used to the left
and here people drive and walk on the right.
As you might expect this causes quite a few occasions where I have to
get out of the way of someone who is adhering to the correct pedestrian
etiquette. Unfortunately I am also used
to stepping aside to the left and the Italians to the right thus resulting in
moments of endless polite shuffling as we both try to get out of each others’
way and continue on ours.
Plastic bags: at my local supermarket I am no longer asked
if I want a plastic bag. I’m one of those people who brings my own cloth
bag. I am very much in the minority but
at least there is an effort to discourage plastic bag use by way of a 10c charge. When it comes to the fruit and veg aisle I find
myself despairing. Let me state my
position these items do not need a
plastic tear if you even look at it bag:
a whole pumpkin – it comes with its own protection, a single apple or any other single fruit,
ginger; that skin will do more than the plastic. While I’m on the rant if the fishmonger has
put your salmon fillets or whatever in a plastic bag, then wrapped the whole
thing in paper and then kindly placed the package in a carrier bag you do not
need to tie the handles together and put that bag in yet another bag.
Toasters: Italian
toasters don’t pop up. Instead of the
pop up mechanism you have to put your bread in a metal clamp like contraption
and lower it into the toaster. Not better or worse just different.
The concealed drip
rack: the most glorious difference, to me one of the greatest inventions and why the hell has no other country I have had the pleasure to
experience got one in their kitchen? No
longer do my dishes sit on the work surface taking up valuable space and
endlessly reminding me that they need to be put away. Now they are carefully concealed above the
sink, not asking to be put away but waiting happily until I have call to use
them again. Honestly I do not wish to
work in a kitchen without one ever again.
That and the marble worktops which now mean I no longer find myself in
the situation where I’m holding a red hot tray straight out of the oven,
burning my fingers because I couldn’t be bothered to find the oven gloves and
am using a tea towel that’s barely adequate all the while poncing around
looking for the damn trivet.
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| The concealed dish rack, a genius idea |
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