Stephen & Elisabeth in England

Friday, 23 March 2007

Friday, Yay!
Mood:

a-ok
Topic: Elisabeth's Entries
Last night, after work, Stephen & I met at the pub, then went to eat at the best restaurant in Woking: L'Aroma. I learned that one reasons why northern Italians resent the southern Italians is that they see them as using a larger share of tax money, while contributing less into the coffers. It was presented to me that southern Italians like to enjoy life, the sun, the beech and food. They like a slower pace of life. And I was told that northern Italians are seen by southerners as being very much a part of the Europe machine...living their lives like clockwork, timed around making money and maximizing effiency. Personally, I hate the culture of money.

I thought this article on cbc.ca was interesting:

Jeremey Kinsman: opinion on Canada/Europe relationship

We're both hungover today (we went back to the pub after dinner...whoops)---Stephen's worse off as he has a 13 hour shift ahead of him, and oh yeah, he has to work with insane people!

This weekend we both have off, and my brother Stephen & his wife Laura will be visiting us on Sunday---hopefully we'll all drive down to Robertsbridge/Battle area of East Sussex to see where my mother's family originated.

And...it's spring! Officially! Although mother nature's reward was to have it snow yesterday...go figure.

Posted by oz/rexcats at 9:04 AM BST
Updated: Friday, 23 March 2007 9:11 AM BST
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Friday, 23 March 2007 - 2:46 PM BST

Name: Greg Piccini

Hey Elisabeth,

All my life I've been aware of this rift between the Northeners (called Polentoni, or eaters of of polenta) and the Southeners (called Terroni, or people of the land). Both these terms are derogatory by the way....

I was still quite surprised when I was in Italy and witnessed these differences first hand. Most of my family in the north was shocked that I actually had a great time living in a place like Rome. I think that these differences pre-date todays capitalist economy though. Italy was assembled in 1860 from a bunch of city-states, territories and regions. Before this happened, I don't think that most "Italians" had much sense of what was happening around them at all and each had their own regional dialects, languages, traditions that varied wildly from north to south.

It seems that attitudes from this period are still entrenched in the mindset of most Italians and although they now share a common language and government, they still seem to have most in common with whatever is closest to them, whether it is another region of Italy or another European country.

Anyways, it's Friday morning and I don't feel like working, I just felt like throwing in my opinion here.

Cheers,

Greg

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Friday, 23 March 2007 - 10:15 PM BST

Name: Stephen

You realy must be pissed off to have used your full name! One really nice thing about the evening that Elisabeth didn't mention was that the owner of the restaurant gave us some of his mother's home-made lemoncello, freshly sent in from Naples. Yum yum! I blame that for the hangover.

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Sunday, 25 March 2007 - 1:48 AM BST

Name: Greg (no middle name) Piccini

Yeah, you better watch out or the limoncello will get tyou every time.

Cheers,

G

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