What the hell is this?

What the hell is this? I can hear you saying. A plastic cup of weeds and some red thing that looks like a cooked red pepper? You would be only partially right! This is not just a bad picture of some weedy flowers, no this is the aftermath of a typical Italian meal! Notice the almost empty wine and water bottles, the stained table cloth? Yes, table cloth even though it is out doors, Italians love to eat in style as it were. The silverware, dishes and of course the white table cloth. Fine dining in the great outdoors, it civilizes the meal! and as we all know, the Italians have been the great civilizers after all! Think Rome! Running water! Toilets! And I am sure back then they had the ever present white table cloth! What else were they to wipe their hands and mouths on?
I recall going to the beach with my in-laws for a weekend. At the time they had reserved a spot in this campground for the summer. They would go every weekend, my mother in-law would go to the beach and my father in-law would ride his bicycle all over kingdom come. They went prepared, with a table and chairs, electric stove, silverware, china, essentially the entire kitchen including fridge and yes the ever present never forgotten, table cloth. Funny, my mother in-law had two on this table, a flowered vinyl table cloth which stayed on the table at all times, and the white cotton cloth which only appeared magically at meal times. I don’t know if she had the self cleaning type or a stash of clean ones but every time she pulled it out it gleamed bright cleanliness in the sun. Who would have thought camping could be so civilized?
Of course in Italy, camping is quite the different experience. Within the grounds there is a restaurant, a bar, a place for music and gathering and huge bathrooms with immaculate white tiled walls and floors that are lovingly cleansed daily, twice even! Often there is a gelateria as well. The Italians aren’t much for roughing it, as I said Rome and civilized and all that. But sleeping in a tent is pretty rough, especially when your air mattress deflates and you don’t have a way to patch the hole because it is eleven o’clock at night and the little store that carries everything just closed! Damn! Just grab a couple table cloths and make a bed, you’ll sleep fine!