I have mentioned before about the Italians need to ‘change the air’.  This is a requirement from birth, I think.  Si, bless her, no longer opens the window first thing in the morning, in the office, because I am there.  She used to come in, open the window, go and have a coffee, and then come back and close it.  I only learnt this fact this week.

I said it was fine to do this as long as it’s not winter, not being a person who can stand the cold much.  However, she still hasn’t done it since.

However, whilst we were on the subject of differences between Italians and British (and by that I include Northern Irish), she explained that they are taught, at school, not to have any plants in the bedroom.  Obviously, I don’t remember being taught this at school and I’m pretty sure we weren’t.  For me, having a plant in the bedroom would be fine but for Italians (and she asked around to make sure it wasn’t just her) it is a definite no-no.

When she talked about the changing of the air thing, I did point out that it seemed pretty pointless to me, given that, once you open the windows in Milan, you let in a huge amount of smog, which makes it debatable as to whether it is actually worth it or, even, healthy.  She found that she couldn’t disagree.  But what she didn’t realise (and it would have been far too difficult to explain) is that that logic would actually apply to the whole of the Lombardy plain.

I remember last summer, when we were in the foothills of Tortona, on holiday, you could look out over the Lombardy plain and, what did you see?  Well, a sort of yellow haze that covered every town, village, house for as far as the eye could see.  Hmm, not that much fresh air to change for the air inside, in my opinion.

Still, on the other hand, Si was telling me about her first trip to the UK (I guess with school) when she stayed with an English family.  She was absolutely horrified when they did the washing up.  For the family did not rinse the dishes and that, as far as Italians are concerned, is quite insane.  In fact, when she learned this, she got together with her mates and they discovered that this was common.  Of course, my parents did exactly the same and so did I – until I met V, who, also being from a different culture, made me change the habit and so, now, I always expect to rinse dishes after washing and couldn’t imagine otherwise.

A few of us also had quite an interesting conversation over lunch about the differences mentioned above.  It also included the fact that I don’t keep in touch with my family and, in fact, don’t even know where they are any more.  I realise this is strange even for the UK but here it is unthinkable.  The family is the one thing that it is impossible to escape.  Most people spend their summer vacation (or at least some of it) with their parents, if they don’t live with them, particularly those who live here, in Milan, when their parents live in the south.

We may all be Europeans but we do have more than language that separates us.