Sometimes you really do need to smell the coffee. Arriving in Turin recently I made straight for the nearest bar and ordered a caffe macchiato. A charming woman served it up. I drank it standing at the counter. It was perfection. It cost EU1. Then I had another. The bar was absolutely ordinary, with fading tablecloths and some pensioners doddering in the corner. Such a cheap moment of happiness, obtainable in its pure form only in Italy, gets you wondering: are things really so bad in Europe? Life here is better than you'd ever know from watching TV news.
有時候，你確實需要來上一杯咖啡，清醒清醒頭腦。不久前，我一抵達意大利都靈，便徑直前往最近的咖啡館，點了一杯瑪奇雅朵咖啡。一位相貌迷人的女子將咖啡端上柜臺。我就站在柜臺前品嘗。咖啡味道絕佳，且只要1歐元。于是我又點了一杯。這間咖啡館普普通通，桌布已經褪色，一些老人在角落蹣跚而行。這種廉價的幸福享受只有在意大利才最為“正宗”，它讓人深思：歐洲的境況是否真的那么糟糕？這里的生活遠比電視新聞呈現的畫面要美好。