We are spending our last five days in Italy – last two in Mestre then another three in Rome – before we depart for Singapore this Friday.

When we first arrived, six months seemed like a really long time to spend here but now they seem to have flown away with the fast winds we have been experiencing lately.

Many people ask me whether there will be anything that I will miss about Italy. While I am still here, it is difficult to pinpoint exactly what those items will be. For now, it will probably be the scenary of the countryside and mountains.

For sure I will not miss the cost of living. Things are too expensive for my liking and I figure that even if I do continue to stay here, 10 years on I will still be converting everything back to Singapore dollars.

As usual, I depart the country with no sense of longing or sadness. Instead, I cherish the memories it has given me for the past six months, and look forward to new experiences from here.

Over the past couple of days, the weather in Mestre has been going bonkers.

We cannot speak for the rest of Italy, as we have not been following the weather updates on the television, but the weather where we are at is definitely crazy, for want of a better word.

It can be blazing hot one day, then autumn cool the next. Even worse would be having both in the same day: hot and humid in the morning then cold and dry in the afternoon, or vice versa.

To compound the effect is when rain accompanies the cool weather, causing the temperature to drop further.

For the locals, temperatures between 20 to 25 degrees is considered ‘cool’, not ‘cold’, which is the word I have been using to describe these temperature drops. For them, cold is when temperatures are 15 to 20 degrees below zero, in the winter. Anything above 20 degrees can still be considered warm weather.

However, for someone who spent almost 30 years of life in the side of the world where temperatures hardly drop below 27 degrees all year round, anything below 25 degrees is *cold*.

Further, I am someone who cannot work in an office with the air conditioner blowing constantly at 26 degrees, especially when the temperature outside is a warm and lovely 30 degrees.

Perhaps others will not feel the difference between four or five degree points, let alone one. Unfortunately, I am one of those *unique* persons who has skin that can *sense* temperature changes instantly.

It does not help that my nose also gets in on the act: it goes off on sneezing bouts when the temperature drops ever so slightly, and it throbs with pain when subject to temperatures between 10 to 20 degrees.

The conclusion is that I have been made for warm weather and climates; I am a sun worshipper.

Yet this weather change is not entirely unexpected: this side of the globe is slowly waving goodbye to summer and reluctantly getting used to autumn.

However, the winds and gloomy weather have arrived about two weeks early: there is supposed to be another one to two weeks of bright sunshine all day.

That is at least in the memory of my mother-in-law who is 75 year old this year, and has spent her entire life living in Italy.

Interestingly, my friends in Belgium reported that they did not manage to get much sun in the country this summer, and it seems that temperatures in Germany did not venture much higher than 15 degrees in the past month.

Both the S.O. and I believe that the see-saw adventure the weather is giving us is caused by exceedingly high emissions of carbon dioxide and other acidic/harmful gases in to the environment, thus causing an acceleration of global warming.

The S.O. may not have paid much attention in school, but at least on this count, I agree with him totally. Those of us who studied this, as well as the effects of deforestation and pollution, during Geography lessons in school should understand this phenomenon well.

While I do miss the warmer temperatures of Singapore and Bali, I do not wish for the heat to become unbearable.

If you wish to be more aware of the consequences of global warming, and wish to do something, you can begin by watching Al Gore’s movie, An Inconvenient Truth. Click on the title for more information.

Imagine: this would be the recurring news item, and not the ‘conflict’ in Iraq, in the media today if ‘the next American president’ had become ‘the American president’ seven years ago…

Surely a more relevant and pertinent cause, do you not agree?

For a dominantly Catholic country, which also happens to house the Vatican City in its capital, Italy has the largest number of half-naked women appearing on promotional materials.

You see them on the billboard advertisements, on flyers, on advertisements in magazine pages, and even an opening dance sequence of live entertainment programmes on national television: ladies with bronzed skin, long glossy hair, large boobs, small waist, firm butts, and long lean legs.

As for the outfits, we are not talking about simply hemlines that inexplicably defy the force of gravity even as necklines seem to outdo gravitational pull. Most of the time, the material on these female bodies only sufficiently covers the breasts, the crotch and half of the butt cheeks.

Compare that to the long sleeve, collar shirts and long trousers that the men wear in the same opening dance sequences. Additionally, if a man is used on billboard or magazine advertisements, he only has to give a smouldering look, fully clothed.

What is the purpose of having so many females clad in nothing more than an itsy bikini prancing about on stage or in between magazine pages, when the amount of flesh exposed has no relation to the show or product advertised?

Pure entertainment? Increasing and sustaining viewership of programmes that have no substance or real educational content? Ensuring revenue from advertising?

In the end, Italy has blatantly displayed what is often known but seldom spoken: sex sells.