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Sari Gilbert Biography

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“... when you can’t read - or hear - the signs that tell you about a Person’s educational level or background, your attraction becomes above all physical. The result? It can be only too easy to get sexually involved with - and possibly married to - someone who when it fines to long-term relationships turns out to be totally unsuitable.”

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Book:My Home Sweet Rome: Living (and loving) in Italy's Eternal City
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“Even when I first visited Italy as a studentessa back in the sixties, our orientation program aboard SS Cristoforo Colombo had included a lesson explaining that whereas in the US a long period of time could elapse between a first kiss and a full sexual encounter, in Italy kisses were considered a nest-immediate prelude to rapport I sessuali.”

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Book:My Home Sweet Rome: Living (and loving) in Italy's Eternal City
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“Preferring confusion to order is not limited to waiting lines but spills over into other sectors of life, at least in Rome and other more southern regions of the country. One of these is driving, an area where stereotypes about Italians, or at least about Romans, tend to be confirmed. Gridlock, here caused by a willful invasion of the intersection, is a daily occurrence. Red lights and stop signs often are viewed as optional. Using la freccia (directional lights) to signal an intention to turn right or left is infrequent, to say the least, or else left to the last minute, that is when the driver has already begun his turn, frequently from the farthest lane on the opposite side of the roadway.”

DrivingRomeItalyDisorganizedItalian CultureItaliansChaotic NatureCrazy Drivers
Book:My Home Sweet Rome: Living (and loving) in Italy's Eternal City
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“It is late afternoon and the daily, or nightly, game of cat and mouse between Rome’s vigili urbani, or traffic police, and the unlicensed street peddlers who set up their portable tables and lamps in Piazza Sant’Egidio where I live, or nearby, is about to start. And, as usual, the mice will win. Not because they are smarter but simply because they care more about breaking the law than the authorities care about enforcing it.”

PoliceRomeLazinessItalyItalian CultureItaliansDisorganizationUnprofessionalism
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“For historical reasons – centuries spent as the subjects of warring city-states with the rule of law often taking a back seat to power politics and family loyalties – many Italians, especially those from points south, have little respect for the law and, seemingly, little understanding of its purpose, which is that of setting the boundaries for civil cohabitation.”

Law EnforcementItalyLaw And OrderItalian CultureItalians
Book:My Home Sweet Rome: Living (and loving) in Italy's Eternal City
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“In Italy, most laws are honored more in the breach than the observance. “Fatta la legge, trovato l’inganno”, goes one saying that means, “pass a law and we’ll find a way to get around it”. You don’t have to spend much time in Rome to realize that stop signs, and even red lights, are often disregarded, as are those reading “no parking or standing”, and even “one way”.”

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Book:My Home Sweet Rome: Living (and loving) in Italy's Eternal City
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“Absenteeism runs rife, with too many unethical doctors willing to supply fake illness certificates. "My dentist was flummoxed when he was asked by a Finanza major to provide his wife with a (false) certificate claiming he’d been performing oral surgery on her on a day she had skipped work. But he did it. “What else could I do? I mean, I might need the guy for a favor sometime.”

ItalyItalian CultureItaliansNo LawIgnoring Rules
Book:My Home Sweet Rome: Living (and loving) in Italy's Eternal City
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“A corrections box such as which appears in many top US or British papers to rectify misspellings, mistaken dates, faulty identifications and so forth, is generally unheard of here... Once I pointed out to Messagero night editor that the first edition he was putting out had misspelled the name of town where the US president was holding a summit. “Oh, no one will notice,” he shrugged rather than change it.”

JournalismItalyAttention To DetailJournalistic IntegrityItalian Culure
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“...until recently Italian institutions were totally unresponsive to consumer needs and concerns, something most people knew, or sensed. Hence their passivity. Nowadays, fewer things seem to be guasti than in the past, but a lot of things that are supposed to work, don’t.”

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“...the seemingly widespread conviction of many ordinary Italians that polite behavior such as standing in line is either a Nazi characteristic or a British folly, one that in any event has no real application to this country. Indeed, although things are now gradually changing, left to themselves many Italians appear constitutionally unable to stand in line. “Where do you think you are, in Bulgaria?” a well-dressed man once snarled at me when I protested that he had pushed ahead of me on the cashier’s line at a downtown café.”

ItalyPolitenessDisorganizedItalian CultureItaliansStanding In LineImpolitenessBritish Folly
Book:My Home Sweet Rome: Living (and loving) in Italy's Eternal City
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“I notice that nowadays few drivers in Rome automatically stop for you unless you have the courage to stride forward, arm outstretched, palm up in a dorky “stop-right-now” gesture. Another Roman habit that takes getting used to is that in many areas of town, such as Trastevere where I live, people seem to prefer walking in the street even when sidewalks, however narrow, exist. They seem convinced they are invincible and often don’t even look before crossing the street.”

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Book:My Home Sweet Rome: Living (and loving) in Italy's Eternal City
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“My friend Mimmo, who owns three men’s shops in Rome but who comes from Naples where his father was in the same business, says that nowadays, after two days in Naples, he can’t wait to leave again. “Life in Rome is not easy, but at least there are some certainties. In Naples, forget it. The only thing that counts there is prepotenza,” roughly, bullying or arrogance.”

RomeItalyNaplesItalian CultureItaliansCapital City
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“The fact that the policemen didn’t know their stuff didn’t really surprise me. Not long before, I had asked three different Rome traffic policemen, or vigili, how old a child had to be before being able to ride in the front passenger seat of a car and had gotten three totally different answers. Not so hard to understand, I guess for two reasons. First, if you get your job through pull and not merit then you don’t really need to get good grades on a qualifying exam and, second, if Parliament changes the law every few years it is understandably difficult to keep up.”

DrivingItalyPolicemenDisorganizedItalian CultureWork CultureItaliansUnprofessional
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“Until the beginning of 2003, Italians smoked everywhere and considered it quite normal; they lit up inside stores, including those which sell fabric or paper goods, in the airport, ignoring repeated loudspeaker announcements that no smoking was allowed, at the greengrocers where cigarette ash dangled perilously over the zucchini and the cherry tomatoes, and even in hospitals, although from time to time crack Italian Carabinieri units called the NAS, set up to enforce health standards, would appear, unannounced, and hand out hefty fines to all the doctors and nurses they found in flagrante. Once I even had blood taken by two white-coated doctors who took my vital fluid with cigarettes dangling from their lips, an open window their only concession to my passive smoke concerns.”

SmokingItalySmokersItalian CultureItalians
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“Indeed, don’t be surprised to find yourself in a taxi in which the right-side window doesn’t work or is missing its wind-down handle. The driver has done this deliberately to keep himself from getting a draft on his neck that will give him problems al cervicale, the cervical spine. He is also likely to eschew air conditioning on the grounds that it will give him pneumonia.”

DriversItalyTaxiItalian CultureItaliansTaxi DriverUnprofessionalism
Book:My Home Sweet Rome: Living (and loving) in Italy's Eternal City
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“According to a study done in 2011 by the welfare department of the CISL trade union, in the three-year period from 2006 to 2008 it could take as long as 540 days to have a mammogram scheduled (Puglia), 90 days to get a bone-density scan done (Veneto) and 74 days to see a geriatrics specialist in the generally well-organized Tuscany region. I myself know someone who had to wait seven months to get a heart bypass, and one of my next-door neighbors here in Rome waited almost a year for a hip replacement. Of course, this is not unusual for a country with national health; all the Brits I know decry their own system violently and even in Sweden, once a model for such things, there is considerable disorganization. The fact remains that the Italian national health system is often more virtual than real, forcing people who can afford it to look for an alternative solution.”

SocialismHealthcareItalyItaliansLong WaitNational Health ServiceHealth SystemsWealfare
Book:My Home Sweet Rome: Living (and loving) in Italy's Eternal City
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“And there may be some connection, too, with the Roman Catholic Church’s somewhat flexible attitude towards sin and thus, in general, towards wrongdoing. Otherwise, how to explain that 137 years after Italy became a modern nation-state, so many people still choose simply to ignore laws they don’t like. Maybe other nationalities would be the same if in their countries, too, law enforcement were considered an optional, even by the people charged with that task.”

ItalyDisobedienceItalian CultureItaliansRoman CatholicismNo LawIgnoring The Rules
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“The mainstay of Italian coffee lore, la tazzina del caffe, or an espresso, as served by one’s local bar and during the day consumed - generally - standing up, is another one of those things about which Italians have very strong feelings. The purists want is very dense, ristrettissimo, which is the way they serve it in Naples...”

CoffeeItalyEspressoNaplesItalian CuisineItalian Culture
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“.. Italian journalists (like members of the Italian parliament) are among the best paid in the world. ... By law, all journalists get not only the extra 13th month bonus in December, but a 14th month paycheck in June. When you start out, you nevertheless get 26 vacation days a year...plus five days of personal leave. After five years, your annual vacation days increase to 39 plus five days, and after 15 years to 35 days (plus five). Abs if you work for a lifetime, which means 35 years of social security contributions to INPG, you’ll end up with a pension that is pretty close to your final year’s salary.”

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Book:My Home Sweet Rome: Living (and loving) in Italy's Eternal City
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“But they {journalists} are still viewed as a rather privileged category. True, they no longer can ride buses free or go to the movies for free as was the case in Mussolini’s day. But they can still get into most museums or exhibitions without paying. If you’re a smooth operator you can get complimentary tickets for shows or the opera. Until recently, you could get a 30% discount on all domestic flights (now it’s 15%). And if you have trouble with any of your utilities,the utility company’s press office will be glad to give you a have in working things out. In addition, since many Italian journalists have a different sense of what constitutes a conflict of interest from what we do in the United States, they often accept any manner of gifts or paid vacations from companies they regularly cover.”

JournalismItalyAmerican CultureCultural DifferencesJournalistsPrivilegesItalian Culture
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“Second, and contrary to what some foreigners seem to think, not every pasta dish should be doused with grated cheese: you must not sprinkle cheese on pasta with any kind of cheese; ... and most Italians would rather die than put grated cheese on pasta made with fresh tomatoes.”

CheesePastaItalian FoodItalian CookingItalian Cuisine
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“By the way, although nowadays your average waiter will no longer flinch when an American or a German asks for a cappuccino after or even with dinner (he knows what side his bread is buttered on, be advised that he thinks it’s pretty disgusting). No Italian would ever drink cappuccino with, or immediately after, a meal and finds the idea repulsive as, at this juncture, I confess, do I.”

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Book:My Home Sweet Rome: Living (and loving) in Italy's Eternal City
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“...here, just as everywhere else, many men are far from skilled Latin lovers that legend would have them. ... In some ways, of course, Italian men are different and in my opinion got - and deserve - their reputation because of their extreme warmth, actively affectionate nature and sentimental romanticism, not necessarily because of their sexual bravura. ... They also appear to be less “generous” than men from some other countries. ... Italian men love being on the receiving end of oral sex but generally shy away from giving it. “Oh, there are a few older guys who like it,” says one male friend, “but most men think it’s kind of icky.”

Men And WomenRomantic RelationshipItalian CultureOral SexSexual RelationshipsRomantic RelationshipsItalian MenLatin Lover
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“could it be that they [Italian men] care more about romance than sex, especially when they are on the receiving end? ... ...I was on the lookout for some good sex, an attitude that led colleagues with whom I then shared an office, Federico and Gerardo, to say that I was “the only maschio in the room”. Both claimed that they only care about sex and want it when they are in love.”

RomanceItalian CultureSexual RelationshipsRomantic RelationshipsItalian MenRomantic MindsBeing In Love Again
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“Sometimes, in fact - and I’ve heard others say the sane thing - I have to read a story about developments in Italy in the foreign press to get a good, quick overall view of what is going on. And this is particularly true if you’ve been away and missed the first few days of coverage; Italian news stories rarely give you any background.”

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“And there are those who prefer cappuccino, which in turn can be served in several varieties... . Some want it scuro, with less milk, some want it chiaro, with note milk, and some prefer it workout foam, senna schiuma, and there is generally a shaker of cocoa powder somewhere available for those eager for a bit of chocolate. Caffelatte, a hot drink we Americans mysteriously have dubbed a “latte” (which in Italian simply means “milk”), comes in only one variety and is a morning drink, as is a cappuccino.”

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