Cultural differences 5 - trainers and suit!

I remember the first time I spotted "one of them" on  my way to the office.
I was a bit surprised, but then again, "this is London", I thought. "Nothing is too strange in this city".
I had just moved to London and I was aware that this is the city where people can wear whatever they want without  much fear of being judged.

Then I spotted another one. And a few more.
At that point I started to realise that it wasn't so unusual in this city to walk around in your business attire, with running shoes at your feet! 

In a sense it is smart. Running shoes, or trainers, like they are called here, are a lot more comfortable than work/elegant shoes and by wearing them to go to the office you don't have to spend money having to replace the hill of your expensive elegant pair. Once you get to the office you can then quickly change into your  smart shoes and there you go, you have a look more suitable for the office.

No matter how smart it is, however, I thought I'd never do it myself. 

Because it just looks wrong, unclassy. Only those barbarians would do such a thing!

You would never see anyone in Italy in a suite wearing running shoes. We are too concerned with how we look, at all times. We want to look as smart on the train or in our private car commuting to work as when we are at the office.
Back home people are concerned with their look even when going to the local shop to buy the milk.

A few months ago, however, I started doing it. My work shoes were feeling so uncomfortable that day and I had just bought a nice pair of dark trainers.

"They are not as bad as the fluorescent kind that seems to be so popular among commenters", I thought..

I'm not going to lie, I have been doing it almost every day since then.

Oh London, what are you doing to me?

Update 13-04-2017
It looks like I finally came to my senses... Despite being a lot less comfortable, I went back to my black leather shoes shortly after writing the article... I am Italian after all!

Rome "international" airport

He snapped his fingers to call for our attention and then, with a very thick roman accent added "dddde qua", meaning "over to this side".
Hard to believe but that is how a policeman working at the passport control area of an international airport addressed a bunch of international travellers to inform them that they could move to his side as he had just opened an additional booth.

Large international airports are normally cold and impersonal. Sometimes it feels like you could be in any city in the world as they all have a similar feel to them. They could be in London, Amsterdam or New York, with the precise location not so apparent to a traveller based on just queuing to go through security checks or when ordering your breakfast at a cafe.

While the above applies to most airports, there are certainly exceptions. One of these is the "Aeroporto Internazionale di Fiumicino" (Rome international airport). While officially an international airport, it is, in my opinion, among the most "provincial" ones that I have been to.

In any respectable international airport the personnel are professional and respectful. They act in such a way that shows that they care about their job and in providing a decent service. And even if they don't care, they nonetheless carry out their duties to a certain standard so that this is not evident to the passenger.

In Rome instead, many airport workers act as if working there is the last thing they want to be doing. Their interaction with travellers is sometimes border line rude and it seems like even the smallest task is done as a favour to the passenger, rather than expected by their job. 
This can apply to all levels of staff, from the people working at the cafeteria to even the police!

In what other international airport would you find a police officer playing with or watching videos on his iPhone between passports? It's almost as if checking the passport (his work responsibility) is interrupting whatever else he is busy with. Yes, this has actually happened, and not just once or twice!

It seems like all airport staff in Rome for some reason appear to be friends. If travellers understand Italian they would hear them commenting on the new restaurant that has just opened or talking about the new club they need to go to together. They would equally hear the dismissive comments addressed to the poor travellers.
What I despise the most, in fact, is their bad attitude towards foreign travellers. Many act as if they are inferior beings, not worth their time.

I once heard a guy working at a take away restaurant ask a foreign passenger if he needed cutlery. Maybe the passenger simply didn't hear him or, not understanding Italian, he disregarded the question and was about to leave after having paid his bill. At that point the worker tried to get his attention by shouting in Italian (well, in Roman slang), with a mocking and arrogant tone, if he was going to eat his meal with his hands. The worst part was seeing the reaction of his colleagues: they all just laughed as if they were all part of a street gang.

I often struggle to understand how the airport (and businesses operating there) can't find people with a professional attitude and a decent knowledge of the English language... Or at least with one or the two.

A few weeks ago, coming back from Rome, I was lucky enough to see another great display of respect and great service towards an Indian-looking passenger at an airport restaurant.
"Only pizza? What about a drink?", the girl working at the restaurant asked. "A juice", he replied.
After a long minute of silence she finally understood what he meant by "juice" (specifically it was an orange juice that he wanted). At that point, wanting to know what kind of orange juice he wanted, she asked him if he wanted a bottle or "spremuta", expecting a non-Italian speaker to know that the latter means "freshly squeezed". Maybe not to disappoint her, or simply scared by her aggressive tone and look, he humbly went for the more familiar bottle.

My first encounter with Irish travellers

I was out with some friends I meet quite regularly, at one of our usual pubs. 

I thought that England-Uruguay is what would make it different from the standard night out. I guess I was wrong...

Walking into the pub, I noticed a big table outside with a number of loud and rough looking blokes. They seemed already drunk at 6:30 pm. 

Very unusual, I thought, given the quiet atmosphere normally experienced at this old English pub near the Barbican. 

Sitting at our table inside we couldn't help but notice the girls at the table next to us. 

Some of them very attractive, wearing kinky clothes, loads of make up and unusually flashy wigs. They looked like they were from a trashy TV show.

"It's a hen do" we thought. But why in this Italian-managed English pub the night of World Cup football?

More and more of them kept coming, giving us a much more interesting show than Gerrard, Rooney & co..

At some point, while at the bar waiting to be served, I could not help but notice that we were surrounded by the above mentioned loud aggressive blokes. 

"English hooligans" I thought. 

Though they did not seem to be following the game at all. 

Not long passed until we started to see that a group of these guys outside were starting to get very rowdy. Excitement turned into something a bit bigger and before we knew it, the manager was on the phone with the police.

No more than five minutes later a police lorry pulled up outside the pub and a few cops came out. And then a few more. And a few more.

Word spread quickly that it was a group of "pikes". I didn't know much about them at that point, other than from what I'd seen on Snatch and My big fat Gypsy wedding.

Before we knew it, the pub was packed with cops, heading towards the above mentioned half naked ladies with their flashy wigs. 

 

It was only at that point that we realised the connection between the two groups. 

The girls were there with those guys that were outside.

They were all a large group of Irish gypsies.

They are very different from the gypsies we get in Southern Europe, Italy included. The ones we have in Italy you would never find in pubs drinking. If anything they would come in to try and steal a wallet or two.

And the women are not dressed anywhere as "fancy" as the Irish gypsies we saw. Can you tell who is who? 

The ones you find in the UK and Ireland  are a very different breed.

Nevertheless they can be trouble. A lot of trouble. I guess that explains the 20+ cops that were sent to escort them out of the pub.

Thanks to an Irish friend (and google) I learnt that they are often referred to as "travellers". Other terms like "tinkers", "itinerants" or, pejoratively, "knackers" are also used. Some of these terms refer to services that were traditionally provided by them.  "Tinkering", for example, being the mending of tinware such as pots and pans, and "knackering" being the acquisition of dead or old horses for slaughter.

Their culture these days consists of having no sources of verifiable income and yet being cash rich, fighting, making youtube callout videos for said fights (one of the many, here http://youtu.be/wL6aDrzs3Fs)... and a bit of more fighting.

It was a very different first half of the game, which I'm sure my English friends appreciated since it distracted us from the game and Suarez's successful attempt at the English goal.

Apparently they wouldn't be let into pubs in Ireland, at least according to my Irish friend. 

I guess after last night there is at least one place in London where they will no longer be welcome!

I heard the manager has just ordered this sign, for outside his pub:

 

Planning an event with friends in London

I have been living in my garden flat since January and although I have had people over and had the occasional BBQ, I have not had a proper party yet. It's a pity since the garden has "BBQ and drinks with friends" written all over it!

So the other day I had a quick chat with my partner, selected a few dates and sent a message with the proposed dates to a group of friends. 

An initial "sounds good" was followed by a "I can't mate, I am off to xxxxx that weekend" and a "cheers but I have plans already".

"But I could on DD/MM if you guys are around then?" one of them added.
After checking my calendar and double checking with my partner, Happy with that new date I proposed it. But this time around somebody else could not make it. So I proposed one more... And an additional one.

When it came to the point that the date I was about to propose would have been more than 2 months away, I got frustrated and gave up, thinking that it was just not meant to happen. 

I'm not saying that all plans in London are unsuccessful like this one, but they are similar in the sense that they require consulting a calendar and they seem like people are trying to schedule a business meeting, not a social event with friends.

Planning an evening with friends in  Rome was quite different. All it took was a text suggesting meeting up the coming weekend (the following weekend at the latest), or even a message the day of.  And if you pulled out a phone to check your calendar when planning a dinner or an evening at the pub, people would make fun of you for months.

Back home the only events which require planning well in advance are weddings, graduation ceremonies, baptisms or holidays. And it makes complete sense. If you want to plan a trip somewhere, then you need to book the flight, the hotel and all sorts of things that require advance planning. But again, these are rare events!

When I first moved to London, since I was new to the city, I was eager to do things and had loads of time on my hands. 

However I noticed right away that even planning a simple night out for a few beers would work out to be a super complex negotiation. 

Initially I thought I would just "play the game", as I couldn't force people to meet me sooner than their busy schedules would permit. But I really intended to try to be as available as possible for "spontaneous evenings", as I was in Rome. 

But then things started to change. I started to meet more and more people... from work, from football, friends of friends, etc. And with all the people came more plans.

I started using the calendar on my phone more and more and before I knew it, I had become one of them... The same ones I initially criticised!

These days I often receive an invitation for the coming weekend and while there are still times when I can go, I have to take a rain check more often than I would like. I really hate it when I have to counter-propose a date that is more than a month away. 

Why does this city change people like this? Is it just because London offers a lot more than most cities? Or because the high concentration of people means that events book up quickly and you need to plan far in advance? Or maybe people in London tend to be more sociable, ending up with multiple groups of friends?

I don't have an answer to this. 

All I know is that although I disapprove of this madness, I ended up adapting to it and, if anything, I'm even contributing to it! Oh London, what have you done to me?

Facciamoli Azzurri!

Thursday's Gazzetta dello Sport was blue in colour (as opposed to the usual pink) and had a fascinating title: "facciamoli azzurri". 

"Facciamoli azzurri" or "let's make them blue" is a play on words which is based on the Italian saying "facciamoli neri" (let's make them black, meaning let's beat them) but replacing the colour black with blue, which is azzurri in Italian, since that's the colour of our football shirts and also the nickname of our national team ("gli azzurri").

Let's make them black could be interpreted as a racist statement, but it is not. It simply refers to making your opponent black with bruises.

Yet, this did not stop Tuttosport, an Italian sports newspaper, from using that same expression in a different contest, after Balotelli's two goal vs Germany in the 2012 European Championship.

We made them black, read the title, with a picture of our world class player Mario Balotelli. 

I remember seeing this on twitter and thinking "Oh my god, this is a fake surely".

In a country like the UK, a title like that would probably lead to people protesting in the streets, the newspaper receiving a massive fine and the top management of the newspaper having to resign. 

Not in Italy though. Here there were some talks, some people thought it was a bit extreme, some labelled it as racist, but overall the reaction was relatively mild.

Is that because Italians are racist then? 

I could write pages and pages on this topic, but in a nutshell I would say that surely there are some who are. But they are a relatively small proportion of the population (at least I want to hope).

Unfortunately those idiots exist everywhere.

We then have another category of people, who are the result of ignorance. People who grew up surrounded solely by other Italians and who had very limited exposure to people of other ethnicities. These kind of people sadly represent a very large part of the country. These are people who simply do not know any better. They grew up in a country where people with a different background are the ones illegally selling you necklaces and bracelets at the beach. The ones who bother you trying to sell you a €1 rose every time to dine out.

Sadly they just live in their small world.

I could be one of them today, if it wasn't for some evolutions in my life which brought me to different places, made me meet very diverse people who opened my eyes and made me a better person.

Part of the reasons why we have the above situation is our lack of colonial history, which didn't make our population diverse enough. However things are slowly changing and more and more foreigners are starting to integrate in our society. Thanks to them, hopefully one day not too distant from now things will change and we will not see such titles in our newspapers and our country will be a lot better!

You must come for dinner!

I have seen it a few times in the past couple of years. Some people posted it on facebook. Some tweetted about it.

Articles were written about it.

It's the famous table to help us Europeans translate the most common phrases used by the Brits. 

It's not clear who came up with it. 

Some say it was commissioned by a Dutch company to help its employees understand the Brits and facilitate working relationships.

The first time I read it I found it quite funny. "Oh, yes that's true", I thought as I went through the list. "I have so heard that one before". "Yep that one too".

Most seemed to make sense.

If you hear a Brit say I'm sure it's my fault, they are clearly stating you are the one to blame. 

Us Italians would be a lot more direct. We would be pointing fingers without any hesitation!

If someone is a bit disappointed he's truly upset. 

If someone considers your proposal to be brave, then there is something clearly wrong with it.

However there is one expression that didn't quite make sense the first time I read the list. Or the second or the third time.

You must come for dinner.

What else could it possibly mean, other than they want to invite you for dinner??

This was until I experienced it directly.

I consider myself lucky to have met quite a few nice English people who I can call friends. This is not too common for someone living in such an international city.

We meet up quite frequently and the most usual place is the pub. That's where social interactions happen.

It's a bit different from our way to socialise in Italy which usually involves a meal either at a restaurant or at someone's place.

Several of these friends have, at different stages said the famous words "oh, you must come for dinner". We must have you over for a meal. We need to cook for you.

I can count at least 4 people.

And from some of them, the "invitation" came quite a few times.

Well invitation for me... Maybe in their mind they were just being polite? 

Is that so?

Hard to believe to be honest, given that I feel I know the people well enough that they do not need to be "polite".  

And I have also been invited by the same people to many other events. So it's not like they don't want to hang out. 

Nevertheless,  they can't escape from using this extreme expression of Britishness... Oh well you've got to love the Brits!

Cultural differences 4 - five a side

I must admit I didn't play football much in Italy. Surely I did a bit growing up at the beach or in parks, but never regularly. Maybe once every 2 years.

However when I moved to London I thought football would be a great way to meet people. So I started playing with some people from work and some other friends who played in an amateur league.

Things over here are a lot different from back home. Not as much in terms of how football is played, though there are some differences there too.. for instance think of the low wide goals.

 

Or the fact that in some instances people play on a pitch with no throw-ins or corner kicks.

What I'm referring to is more about what happens after the game.

At the end of a game in Italy, people go back to the changing room, take a warm shower, dry up using their bathrobes (see http://italianinlondontown.blogspot.co.uk/2014/04/bathrobe-in-changing-room.html?m=1), blow-dry their hair (see http://italianinlondontown.blogspot.co.uk/2014/05/macho-culture.html?m=1), put some gel on and they are ready to hit a pizzeria, where they would go for

pizza and a beer. 2 maybe if you want to be wild.

Over here instead, most people playing 5 a side play in low level leagues, with not many facilities, often without showers. In my case, my friends and I play at an elementary school and therefore while you can get changed in one of the toilets, you cannot shower after the game.

That is not a big concern and at the end of the game, the team would often hit the pub. Outfit? Astro trainers, shin pads, shorts and a football shirt! :) If it's a bit cold you will see people wear a jumper on top. That's about it. 

An Italian in that situation would wear long trousers, a jumper and a coat.

So, a bit sweaty and dirty you approach the nearest pub and I can assure you that nobody looks at you as you walk through. You could be wearing a toxedo, a suit or your football kit, people will not turn around.

This is the country of fancy dresses after all!

Now, if the same thing happened in Italy, at least in Rome, everyone would stare in disgust. "What are they wearing?", they would whisper in dissent. But not here.

It actually happened no longer than 3 hours ago. We walked into a pub after playing footie on a rainy May day. We were completely soaked. Shirts, shorts, socks, hair... Nevertheless, we were welcomed like any other guests and nobody seemed to notice how wet we were. That is an aspect that I'm loving more and more.

Once inside forget the pizza.. After all this is a country with a developed drinking culture and underdeveloped eating one.

Here you would have 3-4 maybe 5 pints. And what about the food? Nah, screw the food. Who needs to eat? "Eating is cheating" some people over here believe.

That is why what could be a quiet Tuesday five a side evening, often means  getting a bit tipsy and having some dodgy takeaway on the way back home, trying to walk straight.

The evening normally ends with a tube trip back home, wearing the same football outfit... Needless to say that you would never see anyone on the tube in Rome wearing a football outfit. But hey, this is London!

Cultural differences 3 - Macho culture

One thing I have noticed throughout my stay in the UK is the predominant macho culture.

So many times have I found myself doing or saying something which over here is interpreted as "so European" or, from the less politically correct "so gay"...

A few random examples? I remember when I asked my colleagues where they plugged their hair driers since there were no sockets in the bathroom of the flat where I was staying when I first moved here (and it's apparently the same in all houses in the UK).

They all looked at me in shock, both guys and girls, and asked why the hell would a guy need to use a hair drier in the first place. When I tried to point out that it was winter time and a bit cold and wanted to avoid getting sick their reaction was even worse. Why would I think that? Bloody southern European! :)

Men are different over here than they are back home. Men don't go shopping. Or at least if they do it, they don't enjoy it. Or that's what they try to tell people :)

Buying clothes is something that ladies enjoy. Men just rush into a shop as quickly as possible and this only happens if you really need to buy something. 

If you have a girlfriend, chances are that she might be the one buying clothes for you. Otherwise maybe you can buy things online.

This is completely different from back home, where growing up it was completely normal to phone up a friend, and ask whether they would be interested in meeting up to go do some shopping together.

"I need to get some new jeans, if you are not busy would you like to come with me?". "Sure, I need to see some shoes too", would be a normal conversation.

And we are talking about perfectly hetero individuals (not that I have anything against homosexuals, in the least!).

Whenever I share these stories with people over here, they are not impressed. The most common comment is: "that's so gay".

An Italian friend of mine who lived in London for many years used to say that if you go out shopping in London you see: 1) ladies 2) some tourists 3) gay men.

No trace of heteros! They are probably all in the pub drinking beer and watching football :)

This fear to be taken as "gay" expands onto other aspects.

You take too much care of your self? That's gay.

I have had arguments with British men who insisted that going to a spa is gay. They would never let anyone massage them. They would not enjoy it, they say. Seriously? I just can't understand that point of view as I love going for a massage (though I admit that having a male masseur would put me off a tiny bit). 

Even the way men interact with one another is different.

When two men greet one another in Rome they would shake hands and then kiss on the cheek (it might be different in other parts of the country). That's a normal way to greet a friend when you meet them and as you are saying goodbye. Over here a handshake is more than enough.

I have once almost greeted someone over here "the roman way" and you can imagine their expression of fear :)

The funny thing is that I am starting to get accustomed to the very little physical interaction between men and when I go back home I am not a big fan of the roman way of greeting a friend anymore. I might still do it but it just feels weird.

Oh boy, am I slowly changing and  becoming more and more British every day?

Cultural differences 2 - Perceived hygiene?

Every time I go to the gym here in London I feel the same way.

After my workout I walk to the changing room, go to my locker, get the gym bag and after taking off my socks and running shoes, I carefully step into my flip flops. 

Why? Because it's the right thing to do... if you are from Italy.

From the very first day on this world we are told so. If you want to avoid fungi or any infection don't walk around barefoot, especially at the gym/swimming pool.  

So, walking barefoot on a muddy dirty floor where people walk around wearing outdoor shoes before and after their gym session does not seem like the right thing to do. It actually seems completely wrong. 

But I'm realising more and more that not everyone feels the same about it.

Every single time I wear my flip flops I feel... different!

Why, you might ask. Well, it's because I am always the only one in the whole gym with such "useless" item in the gym bag. 

The other people do not mind the dirty, wet, (potentially) infection carrying, muddy floor. They seem to be fine walking around on such filthy surface.

Who's right? Who's wrong? Am I just exxagerating? 

Well I have no idea, but this shows a different level of perceived hygiene in Italy and the UK.

The key word here is "perceived". Because at times it's all down to what we consider to be right or wrong, good or bad, healthy or unhealthy.

I must have argued so many times with one of my office mates from my old job, on whether it's right or wrong to place a donut on your desk, without using a serviette/napkin.

In my way of seeing things, that is totally wrong! Who would do that? A desk is dirty. I would not do it on my table at home, let alone on a filthy office desk which gets cleaned once a month.

However, in his (apparently) well informed way of thinking, the cold flat surface of the desk is a lot cleaner and more hygienic than a filthy serviette from the cafeteria. 

Could it be that he's right and I am wrong? Yes, that could possibly be the case. I would actually love to see a scientific case study on this. But even if I saw such evidence, I would still find it hard to place my greasy sugary moist donut on a germy desk. That just seems wrong. And I am sure most people from my country would agree with me.

But he has an amazing way of looking at things. His answer to any such arguments is "it's not going to kill me, is it?". It's hard to argue with someone who thinks like that..

Whenever there is an office birthday celebration in Italy, people would bring cakes or sweets, exactly like it happens here in the UK.

But most people would actually be mindful enough to provide napkins, especially if the cake is of the kind that is likely to get you all messy, with jam or chocolate dripping all over the place. 

Well, not here. I have seen people grab pieces of cake with their bare hands and quietly take it to their desk. No napkin being used in the process.

Who's right, who's wrong? Who's more hygienic? Does it matter?

One last example comes from how sugar is served in cafés and restaurants in the UK and in Italy.

In Italy a new law was introduced in 2004, making it illegal to serve sugar in sugar bowls like this:

Why? For hygenic reasons obviously. Because as you start digging in, to get your required teaspoons of sugar, anything could fall in the bowl. Hair, dust, you could cough, sneeze etc...

 It seems a bit extreme, but it makes sense if you think about it.

Based on this, you might understand my level of shock when, during my 3rd or 4th day in London, I went to a small independent cafe in Covent Garden, and since there weren't any sugar bags left in the small container on the counter, the "barista" was kind enough to pass me a few sugar cubes... Using her bare hands. True story. I was in shock. 

Using my office mate's motto, "that's not going to kill me" and as a matter of fact it didn't. I'm still here to tell the story.

But it still leaves me in favour of the rationale that "the more hygiene the better"!

Cultural differences 1 - Bathrobe in the changing room?

It all started one day at work. All it took was wearing a bathrobe in a changing room at work.

Quite an ordinary thing to do back in my home country. Quite a laughable matter instead here in the UK.

In italy, if you go to the gym or the pool, what are you going to pack in your bag? Surely you are going to have a bathrobe. Most people would take one. Some would go for the puffy one in cotton, similar to the one you would use at home, while the more sport savvy would go for a microfiber one instead.

But in the UK, what you really need is a towel. Leave the bathrobe at home, where it belongs, in the bathroom. Because make no mistake, the bathroom can only be found in someone's home (unlike in american english, where they call it bathroom, whether it's at home or in public place).

So it all started that one day at work. I had just played football with some colleagues. After the shower I wore by bathrobe. I will never forget the look on my colleague's face. He observed me, trying to be as discreet as British culture demands. Yet, it seemed like he was looking at an alien. When I asked him if he was okay, he couldn't help but smile and say "what are you wearing mate? What's that?".

That got me thinking. How could something so normal back home be so strange over here?
From that day on, I started noticing all the small and big differences. And believe me there are quite a few!