I find it weirdly fascinating that a culture so obsessed with cleanliness would tolerate a stand-up toilet for women—a serious oxymoron happening between the bidet and the turca. There is absolutely no way to pee standing up without spraying yourself. I'd pay to see a woman who could aim her stream directly into that hole without a splash.  That aside, I am always impressed by the Italians proclivity for hygiene, propriety, and order. For some reason—from my perspective as a sloppy American, anyway—it doesn't come across as dictatorial. Rather, one interprets it as the "right" way to go about life, and that one would be foolish to behave otherwise. These habits seem to extend naturally enough to the Italians superior design sense. There's an elegance and ease to the way many things (and people) look and work that we too-loud, esthetically clueless Americans can only admire and approximate. I realize I am writing through an outsider's haze and that there are plenty of slovenly Italians and that the attention to every small detail could become oppressive. Yet...