While I’m on about interesting features of Italian life such as the existential lack of the letter ‘k’, I might as well open another can of worms: the social taboo of women going out on the town without the presence of an appropriate male escort, ie. a brother, cousin or boyfriend. No doubt perfectly acceptable in cosmopolitan Rome, it’s absolutely Not Done in ‘mountain towns’ like L’Aquila.

Now, Kylz – a fellow Aussie like myself – has gone and befriended the only other English speakers in town, a gaggle of brash British girls. Picture the scene when they all – unescorted, no less - enter a bar packed with Italian men, and with hands on hips survey the hordes of staring Italians and announce in posh English boarding school accents ‘Well? Oh my GOD, what the bloody hell are you all staring at, you bunch of bloody OAFS? If we want to get bloody royally hammered then we can bloody well go and do it! Piss off, you bloody perves!’

It was here, at Bar Cavour, that I was introduced to possibly the most brilliant of all Italian inventions, the apperitivi - trays of finger food served free every night at a certain hour. Because the international girls have a certain rapport, shall we say, with the barmen here (two of them actually have cocktails named after them), we ate, drank and were merry well into the wee hours of the morning, and left eventually without having parted with a single euro cent. How Italian bars ever make a profit, one can only imagine.