I recently met a lovely Canadian lady who was complaining about the lack of air conditioning in Sicily. I had totally forgotten why Sicilian’s and Italian’s in general are so anti artificial cooling systems in the summer. I have passed through so many humid summers it must have fried my memory when it comes to this point.
The real reason why is that Italians are really afraid of it. There are literally dozens of urban legends of poor sensitive Italian souls who have gotten a chill from the cold air and have died a terrible death that the collective Italian conscious avoids air conditioning.
My very Italian husband is always repeating the fate of a friend of a friend of his who drank an icy cold beer on a terribly hot day and died at the age of forty. I insist the poor fellow probably had some kind of untreated heart condition. It seems Italian’s really believe this kind of crap.
I wonder what Italian’s would say about those crazy Australians who not only scull freezing water in the scorching antipodean summers but also put their glasses in the freezer to make their drinks colder still, surely all Australians would be extinct at this rate, including myself?
So my dear friends don’t expect to get a cold beer or find good strong cold air in the Italian summer. You’ll be sweltering with the rest of us. Yet you will be safe from a deadly chill related death.
Images from Google
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