"About six years ago my secondary school organized a student exchange with a secondary school in Salzburg, Austria. So for two weeks my family and I had, in our home here in Rome, a nice Austrian girl who was thinking of studying Italian and who would be inviting me to her home the following month. I said a "nice" girl -- except for one thing. When she entered the house, she immediately took off her shoes and walked from room to room in her socks as though it were the most natural thing in the world. Now, as anyone knows (well, anyone born and raised in Italy), socks stink. Even if they are washed and perfumed every day, at the end of the next day they stink. It's normal. It's human. If you walk through the house in your socks you simply spread germs and odors around. Common sense will tell you that! Well, common sense here in Italy. My mother did everything she could to explain to our guest these very simple things. But our guest didn't speak Italian yet and these ideas did not seem readily understandable to her. My mother bought her slippers, for which she showed great gratitude by putting them and their gift wrapping in her suitcase to take home. And she continued to wander though the house in her smelly socks. When I went to stay with her family in Salzburg I forgot the slippers incident and entered the home with my shoes on and walked about everywhere, just as I do in Rome. Suddenly I noticed that the family was looking at me in a strange way. For them it was worse to bring into the house, on the soles of my shoes, the dirt and germs I might have picked up outside, than to walk around the house in my socks, spreading my personal dirt and germs around."
(reported by Italian male student)
http://www.worldenough.net/picture/English/tn/400_sortedout.htm
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