venerdì 27 giugno 2008

Reflection

I hope that you have learned a few things from reading these blogs. I tried to cover three broad topics so that one could help to get a grasp on how things were over here. For cars I really hope that you learned a few things about cars in general, but more specifically how the automobile culture is in Italy. I hope that the Piazza Navona blog encouraged you to visit Italy’s piazzas, especially this one. Within the piazza blog there were many interesting facts, and a walkthrough on what you should be expecting see when visiting it, on top of that it should provide you with an example of how to size up other piazzas you may be visiting. The food blog was more just for fun than for informative. Upon reviewing my food blogs, you can witness the transgression of loving the local food to the homesickness of American food. As good was the food was, the mere fact that I had to stoop to the low of eating McDonald’s regularly is a testament to the inadequacies of Italy’s meat market. Besides just Rome, I tried to provide information on the other places I visited while studying abroad and compare them to my experiences in Rome. All in all, I hope that you learned some about both Europe, and how my mind works. I tried to make these a compilation of own experiences/opinions, and raw facts; this way you can see how I saw things, but I also tried to provide information for you to formulate your own opinions. Hope you enjoyed the journey as much as I did.

Cafe Walk

Our walk this morning started at Campo de Fiori, while most people got some shopping done, I sat around the statue and conversed with Kelley about our weekends. After about ten minutes or so it was time to commence the walking. The first stop we had was La Tazza d’Oro Carley had suggested that we get a frozen coffee drink, but unfortunately I cannot handle things of that nature too early in the morning without getting food in my stomach first, so I did not partake. The next stop was the Antico Greco Caffe where Kelley also pointed out a talking statue, this particular one was used to converse with the statue at Camp de Fiori whence we started. The last stops were in the Piazza del Popolo. On the left side was the politically left wing Café Rosai, and opposite of that on the right was the right winged Café Canova. These cafes are hot spots with local politicians of their respective political views.

Museum of Roman Civilization...almost

We had some free days to check out sights that we wanted to visit at our own discretion, instead of with class. I had stumbled across this museum in the Eyewitness Guide. I blogged about it previously, but in case you missed it…it has 59 rooms of plaster casts, and scale models of what exactly Rome looked like in the year 400ad. I love the sights that there are to see in Rome, but I always wanted to see what they actually looked like in their prime. This museum looked like it would have everything that I was looking for.
In our first attempt, I never looked to see when it closed, Cole, Josie, and I went out to the EUR to see it, and while we were looking for the address in the book, we came across a little useful tidbit of information…the museum closes at 1:30. It was then 1:45, downtrodden; we got some McDonald’s and called it a day.
The next time we tried to go Josie and I went right after class with plenty of time to spare. We had the address down so we knew exactly where we were going. Upon arriving at the front doors we found that they were closed. We looked around for another entrance, but to no avail. There was a woman near by the first entrance we had tried so we asked her, she informed us that the museum closed at 12:30 that day, and it was 12:35. There was no reason provided for their closure, nor was there any mention of this inside the book. After that experience we decided it was just not meant to be, and canned the trip altogether.

Food: Marzipan Treats

I stopped off at a sweet store in one of the alleyways in Venice, and found tons of candies that looked delicious and were shaped like fruits. They were made out of marzipan, I knew I had heard of this, but I could not remember what it was. I bought a watermelon one to try it, and it turned out to be delicious. Unfortunately, I quickly realized that besides a little artificial flavoring they all tasted the same. Since they are all made out of the exact same thing, I guess that should be expected. So for future advice, do not go out spending a ton of money on buying all the different looking fruits expecting something different from each, keep in mind it is all marzipan so just buy a few.

Piazza Navona: Piazza San Marco

San Marco is apparently the only piazza in Venice. This is a big change from Rome since there are piazzas everywhere. The closest things to piazzas in Venice are the campos. The campos are quite numerous, but are considerably smaller than the piazzas. Piazza San Marco though was also a big change from the piazzas that I have grown acclimatized to in Rome. There were no street performers, and far, far fewer street vendors. The piazza consisted pretty much of just shops, and a few restaurants, quite a change from Piazza Navona especially. All in all, I would have to say that Piazza San Marco is definitely not up to part with Piazza Navona. The really awesome thing that does go on around there is that in the restaurants there are always musicians. Everywhere I went I could hear the Godfather theme song being played, which is always a treat to the ears.

Cars: Gondolas

In Venice on Thursday Josie and I took a gondola ride. This was certainly a different means of conveyance than we had been used to in Italy. The original price was 80 euro, but we got it down to 70, because that is all we had on us. The gondolier was obliging, but said we would have a half hour, instead of 40 minutes. It worked out though because he gave us the exact same tour as we would have gotten for 80 except he was just rowing faster. Where it really paid off at was since he was rowing so fast we caught up to another gondola going at the normal slower pace, since we were stuck behind them we got the last quarter of the trip behind the other gondola going at the normal pace. So for anyone planning on riding in a gondola definitely do not be afraid to either haggle, or get a discounted ride since a lot of them go on the same trip; you get the same tour, just sped up.

lunedì 23 giugno 2008

Cars: Country of Origin

While I was on the plane for Switzerland, I partook of the magazines they had available. One of the magazines had an article that gave me some startling information that I had not realized. The article was about how a man in India, I believe, bought Land Rover and Jaguar from Ford for $1.3 billion. I had never realized that Ford owned them at all, and was still under the impression that they were British. The article goes further and explains that as of now, England only has one domestic make and it is a small city car, like the Smart car. Apparently Bentley is owned by BMW, as with the Mini. Aston Martin is owned by several different European companies, and Rolls Royce is owned by another company that is escaping my memory at the moment (possibly Chinese?). So for future reference, be careful of what your buying, because it may not be what it seems.

Food: Zurich

The food in Zurich was a blessing to say the least. They had eggs available for breakfast at our hotel. On top of having a somewhat normal breakfast again, the food the vendors had was fantastic. There were huge hot dogs, bratwurst, and many other great meaty foods that I have been missing sorely. One night I had some of the Swiss fondue, it was unfortunately not as good as I had anticipated. The cheese that they used was Swiss naturally, but they also put some kind of liquor in it. I do not mind Swiss cheese, but the taste of the liquor mixed with it really killed the meal. An item that caught me off guard to see on the menu was chicken noodle soup inside of a light, fluffy potpie type bread. I had to give it a try, and it turned out to be some of the best chicken noodle soup I have ever had. So, when in Zurich get some bratwurst, and chicken noodle soup, and if you get fondue ask for it without alcohol.

Also, the Swiss chocolate lived up to all of its hype. The candies their are fantastic. I personally recommend the truffles, but you can't really go wrong with whatever you pick. Lindt is everywhere, and always a safe bet, but for the best Swiss chocolates you need to find the homemade ones.

Map of My Walk


mercoledì 18 giugno 2008

Site I Have Not Been To Yet #2

Galleria Doria Pamphilj
One of the reasons that I picked this gallery was because it is right next to school, yet I still have not been in it. While reading up about it, Rick Steves says that it is one of the most unappreciated galleries. Inside you can find several works by Carvaggio, Raphael, and Bernini. Another very interesting thing about this place is that the prince who still owns it, uses some of the rooms to this day. So, on top of checking out some art, you get to walk through where a prince lives!

Site I Have Not Been To Yet #1

Museum of Rome Civilization (Museo della Civita Romana)
This museum has 59 rooms filled with plaster casts, and scale models of what exactly Rome looked like in 400AD. What really got me interested about this place was that I could see what all of these old ruins would have looked like when they were new. It is great to see places like the Forum now, but I would kill to see what it actually did look like. Instead of just walking through piles of stones, and broken pillars, I want to see what these places looked like in their prime. This museum is located in the EUR, on Via Dell Arte.

Directions-Rest & Recreation

Start at Piazza S. Pietro, follow Via D. Conciliazone to the Tiber. Walk north along the Tiber until you get to Ponte Regina Margherita. Cross the bridge and climb up from Piazza del Popolo into Villa Borghese. In the park there you can rent bikes to ride around with, and sight see. With the bicycles, you can cover a lot of distance quickly. Instead of having an itinerary for this, just ride around and enjoy what you see.

After cycling, head back to the Piazza del Popolo. Go south on Via Di Ripetta, and it will become Via Della Scrofa. At the intersection where the San Luigi dei Francesi is, make a right. This will drop you off in Piazza Navona, take some time for a leisurely stroll throughout, and watch some street performers, caricature artists, regular artists, and any other fun things that may be going on at that time. Piazza Navona is a great place for street perfrormers. Some of the best that I have seen come to this piazza. Avoid eating there though, because you will find that anything around that area is more expensive than the less touristy areas.

Head back out the way you came in, except make a right onto Corso del Rinascimento. Then make a left onto Corso Vittorio Emanuele II, make your next right onto V. Arenula, and it will drop you off at the Tiber. Go down along the river and check out the riverside shops, restaurants, bars, and many other places of interest. Sit down to relax with a nice meal, and some chilled wine along the river, your journey is over. This opening of the stores only occurs during the summers here. So if you come here, and they are open consider it a treat. They have little shops selling all sorts of things, from home made candles, to Sicilian chocolate, to movies. On top of the shopping you can enjoy food along the river, as well as lounge/bar areas complete with DJ's and couches to relax on.

domenica 15 giugno 2008

Boys' Town: After Visiting


The one place that really jumped out at me from Boys' Town was their church. The stained glass that the kids there had made was exceptional. Also, the fact that all types of religious services go on there, and Catholicism is not forced on anyone. A unique feature that I noticed about this church was that the roof was shaped like a sun dial. Unfortunately I forgot to ask any of the employees there if it was an actual functioning sun dial. If it is then that would be awesome, although you could not see it regardless.

Piazza Navona: Angels and Demons w/ Tom Hanks

On Friday night Tom Hanks was filming for Angels and Demons in Piazza Navona. I have never read the book, but I was told that apparently in the book, someone gets drowned in the large fountain in the middle. The only problem with the murder being there is that the fountain is under construction. I think that they will probably just rebuild a fake one somewhere for that scene, so keep your eyes peeled for the Piazza Navona scene when it comes out. Another thing I also realized was how tedious it really is to make a movie. My friends and I made one last year, it was an hour long and took us about ten months. I thought that was monotonous, but watching them shoot in the Piazza was driving me nuts. For the hour that I was there, they shot the same scene four times. Between each take they would have a 20 minute break where it seemed that nothing was getting done. Regardless, I now feel obligated to go and watch this movie whenever it is released just because I watched them film some of it in my blog spot.

Cars: Stolen Hood Ornaments

If you look around carefully at cars that have (or should have) hood ornaments, you might notice something missing sometimes. I have observed that many nicer cars, Jaguar, Mercedes etc. have theirs gone. I am assuming that they have been stolen obviously because I have yet to witness the event in person, but that is the only explanation that makes sense to me. I had friends that used to it as well. So when you are walking around the streets try and pay attention to see if a car is missing the emblem on the front. The newer Rolls Royce, in response to this type of thing, actually have the emblem on a switch that will lower the angel into a compartment so that when you are not with the car the ornament will be safe from thievery. I have actually always wanted to steal one, specifically a Rolls Royce angel, and put it on the nose of my skateboard...this would cause a hindrance for tricks, but it would look awesome to have a Rolls Royce skateboard!

mercoledì 11 giugno 2008

Boys Town: Currency

While researching about Boys Town, I discovered that they had their own currency. This can be given to people showing good work, and usually given as an achievement bonus. The money can then be used to buy things within their own community. The thing that came as a shock to me, was that apparently this currency they have called the Scudo, actually retains a true monetary value outside of their town. According to the website, as of right now one Scudo equals .01 Euro. This really caught me off guard, because even though I had heard that they are a self governing community, it never dawned on me that they would have their own money system. I am very intrigued to see what this money looks like, and what types of designs they have imprinted on them.

martedì 10 giugno 2008

Ostia Antica


This is a picture of the bath that the people used to use. I read the thing about it and I believe it said that they heated it up from underneath with a fire so they could make a hot tub out of it basically. I thought that was really awesome, and the design on the floor of it was better than any bathroom/tub tiling I have certainly ever seen. This would have been the ultimate bath. There are designs of dolphins, horses, a centaur (I think) and other soldier looking men. For any of those who missed it, it was across the first bridge on your right, which looks like it would lead you away to a road, but there is a sign up explaining this area there.

Food: Pizza

Without a doubt I find that the best pizzas are not in restaurants at all. You need to go to the small pizzeria places to find these gems. I had a slice today by the beach right after you get off the last train stop and it was phenomenal. He had put in slices of potatoes under the cheese and used a white sauce...exquisite. The other thing that makes these places so good, is that they use thick crust. I am quite tired of the restaurant pizzas with their two centimeter thick crust that just turns into a piece of charcoal after baking, and they give you a butter knife of all things to cut it with. I do not know about how you might feel about your pizza, but I am a thick crust man all the way. So for future reference whenever in need of having a good slice of pizza, go to a small pizzeria and forget about a sit down restaurant or else you're going to get the same old blackened thin crust that you have to saw at with a butter knife, and probably end up splintering the pizza instead of cutting it.

domenica 8 giugno 2008

Piazza Navona: Or Lack There Of

In Barcelona, they do not have piazzas anywhere, and I very much missed that environment. Out of the things that I will miss most about being in Italy is their piazzas. Barcelona just did not have some local hang out spot that the piazzas provide. Instead there are just long streets completely packed with people in every nook and cranny. There is no spot to just comfortably sit around at and absorb the environment. Without these spaces, no one can congregate well and the sidewalks and walkways just become completely congested when people try to watch street performers. Piazzas are definitely one of the best aspects of Italy, at least you know when you are bored you can always head out to them and something will always be going on. I think that Barcelona would have been much more tolerable if they had such establishments.

Directions: Borghese Gallery

While in Piazza Venezia, look for a big main road called Via Del Corso. You can see down the road extremely long, which has awesome shopping and a great environment. It will give you a real feel of the city. It is much easier to walk rather than take public transportation because there is not a close bus station, making buses less convenient. Plus, you save a euro. Take Del Corso all the way to Piazza del Popolo. About half way there you will pass a church called San Carlo al Corso on your left. Continue up the Corso through Piazza del Popolo to Piazza Flaminio. You may have to walk up a winding hill to get to this specific piazza which is at the foot of Villa Borghese. In order to get through the museum, take a stroll through Villa Borghese following Viale del Murotorto. This winds through the park, as you will pass Galoppatoio and come to Piazzele Brasile. Continue in the same direction down Via Pinciana until you get to Viale dell’ Uccelliera, and make a left. This will take you right to the Borghese Gallery.

In order to be able to view the gallery, reservations are mandatory. To find out more information about reservations and cost, visit http://www.ticketeria.it/ticketeria/borghese-eng.asp. In the gallery, the amazing art you will find is divided into two sections: a sculpture collection and picture gallery (collection of paintings). A few of the more important works included here are Bernini’s David, his Apollo and Daphne (his most famous sculpture), and Titian’s painting called Sacred and Profane Love. Within the two hours you are allowed here, Rick Steves suggest to spend at least an hour and a half in the ground floor sculpture gallery.
Within a four mile circumference in addition to the gallery and many other attractions, there is a zoo and schools of archeology. It may be quite enjoyable to cover this distance with a nice bike ride (bikes available to rent in the villa).

Directions: Pincio

: From the terminal follow Vie L. Einaude around the traffic circle straight and it will become V. L. Rissolati. On Vie L. Einaude you’ll pass through the Piazza dell Republica. On your right on V. L. Bernini you’ll see the S. Maria di Vittoria. Rissolati will naturally curve to the right and become V. V. Veneto. On V. V. Veneto on your left you’ll see the Casion dell Aurora. V. V. Veneto will lead you directly into Monto Pincio.

Directions: Piazza Navona

Piazza Navona Directions: Follow Vie. L. Einaude up through the traffic circle and make a left onto V. Barberini. On your left you’ll see the Pal. Barberini, V. Berberini becomes V. Del Tritone. About one block down the Trevi Fountain will be on your left. Make a left onto V. Del Corso, this is where all the nice shopping is. Make a right onto V. Del Plebiscito, follow it about five blocks and make a right onto Corso Del Rinascimento. Go down a block and Piazza Navona will be on your left.

Once at Piazza Navona get something to eat, it doesn’t really matter where, the food is all good. The real magic here though is at night. The street performers are some of the best in Rome since this piazza is very popular. There is everything from guitarists/bands, to artists, to clowns. On top of the fun to have there the fountains are also beautiful to see.

Cars: Lack of Ingenuity

Europe is sorely lacking when it comes to ingenuity in their car production. I had thought that maybe since I was in Rome, the vehicles were tailored to that horrific driving environment. I am quickly realizing though that this is not the case. Almost every car looks the exact same....completely lack luster. For example, the most abundant domestically made cars that are in Europe are the Ford Fiesta and the Chrysler PT Cruiser. Not even the people who drive them in the United States even want to be driving those pieces of garbage. Those are the kind of cars you get for your kid when they turn 16, because you know they are going to beat the crap out of it or crash it.

Food: Barelona

The food in Barcelona was not quite what I had been expecting from Spain. Though there were some good native dishes there was not a lot of it. This very well may have been since Barcelona is very touristy and it seems that most of the food was all Catalonian...whatever that means. For the most part though they seemed to have more food that you would see in the States than Rome. Their paella dishes were good, but besides the foreign name, you could just go to the freezer section of a Giant or other grocery store and buy a stir fry pack and have the exact same thing.

The seasonings that they used for some of the food though was welcomed and very good. I had some of the best cannelloni I have ever had in Barcelona actually. I also had a steak there which was really good, and I could not figure out the seasoning to save my life. That could be said just as much though for other restaurants back home for that matter. All in all though I would say if you want authentic Spanish cuisine DO NOT go to Barcelona.

domenica 1 giugno 2008

Cars: Palermo/Mondello

It is strange how much the car cultures can different so much between Italy and Sicily. Well Rome and Palermo to be more specific. In Palermo and Mondello there are almost no Smart cars or Vespas. The roads are also much larger, longer, and paved. I was in awe just to see a four lane road that stretched for miles. Which, is also why there is a much less significant presence of the vehicles mentioned previously.

Also, you actually see a pride in people's vehicles here. In Rome everyone drives like a nut job and half of their cars are all banged up as a result. In Sicily I have noticed many cars are polished up, had some custom work done to them, and you can tell that they want their car to be unique. This was refreshing to see since most of the cars I have seen in Rome were garbage, even the ones that could look alright would never receive the care necessary for them to.

Piazza Navona: Vs. Piazza Mondello

Piazza Navona is much bigger than Piazza Mondello, but the things that Mondello has that Navona does not is the hometown local charm. The places where we often go in Rome are riddled with tourists and people trying to make money off of them. In the Piazza Mondello, you see more of the local hang out, there are teenagers with their significant others, the elderly, everyone, and not one of them speaks English. This was a nice change since the usual Piazzas we go to are quite the opposite. We got to see the Sicilians in their element, without any interference from anything, just their every day lives.

The Piazza Mondello though was lacking in fun in comparison to Navona. Navona has street performers, artists, and more, while Mondello reminded me of the Arnold's (Happy Days reference) of Sicily. There are no gimmicks, no touristy price tags, and most importantly almost no one stares at you for obnoxious periods of time! So, although Navona has that big appeal with all the hustle and bustle, and entertainment, if what you are looking for is to see what normal Italians do in their piazzas where no tourists are, then go to Piazza Mondello.

venerdì 30 maggio 2008

Food: Absolute Best Meal Of All Time

Josie and I are spending the weekend in Palermo and today we went to the Piazza Mondello which is the piazza of Mondello Beach. The beach is absolutely gorgeous and while walking around we found a great restaurant with a sweet deal. It was a bottle of water and a bottle of wine, six appetizers, two first courses, one of two choices for a second course, a choice of either orange or melon for desert, and either coffee or some drink we never heard of all for 25 euro! Every single dish was phenomenal and unlike in Rome everything was not subtitles in English, so we took a gamble because we did not know what half of the things were, but the gamble definitely paid off.

The staff there was incredibly friendly, and catered as best as they could to us barely speaking any Italian. The appetizers were, a seafood pasta, which consisted off octopus, shrimp, mussels and calamari. Then a plate of fried calamari (exquisite), then a plate of mussels, a plate of salad in a garlic-lemon seasoning with shrimp, then a plate of (it is hard to explain because I have never seen this before) fried mashed potatoes and bruschetta, then a plate of the absolute biggest oysters I have ever seen in my life. After that it was time for the first course, which consisted of rice and clams in this sauce that I could not quite put my finger on, but it was great all the same. Then a plate fettuccine in blush sauce with shrimp. Then for the second course we got a fish (head attached and all) with four huge prawns. We could barely finish everything and actually had to leave some of the plates unfinished. Then we wrapped everything up with a cantaloupe and the drink we had never heard of which turned out to be a shot that tasted somewhat like a lemon drop.

All in all, if you want the best meal for the best price, then go to Sicily...in specific, this restaurant in the Piazza Mondello.

(Will be posting pictures up later of the meals and the establishment)

mercoledì 28 maggio 2008

Food: The Black Duke Restaurant/Pub

While meandering around the city looking for something to eat Josie and I stumbled across the Black Duke, which was an Irish establishment, but had a mixture of Italian and American/Irish food. The prices there were very good, as well as the food. They have several "menu" selections in which you can pick a meal (usually either 2 courses and an appetizer with a course) and a drink for a predetermined price. For 15 euro I got lasagna, a chicken cutlet with french fries and a drink (the menu Black Duke). Both of the courses were very good, so if you are ever in the mood for a little taste of home, and a little taste of Italy the Black Duke is where to go. They also have great appetizers that you do not see anywhere else, like deep friend broccoli and cheese poppers. Aside from the menu deals, their individual dishes are priced well and portions are much better than what I have encountered with the local Italian places. For the two of us to eat and get drinks (and left stuffed) it cost about 30 euro, which is a sweet deal for me because to leave one of the Italians places as full as I left the Black Duke I could probably spend 50 euro+ easy. For anyone interested the Black Duke is about one block north of the Pantheon, if you are looking at the front of the McDonald's, follow the path going north to the right of it and you can't miss it.

Cars: Traffic Patterns

Over the days that we have been here I have slowly adapted to the fiasco which is called traffic in Rome. I have noticed that one tell tale sign that someone is a tourist is how they act when trying to cross a street. The looking into the drivers eye approach has worked for me very well, and I encourage anyone that is not doing that yet to get on it. I want to try and soak in as much of the culture here as possible, so if it means stepping out into oncoming traffic, then so be it. Someone also informed me of one interesting tid-bit of information regarding pedestrian and automobile relations. If you get hit by someone when you are on foot, on top of having to pay for your medical expenses, they also have to pay you 45,000 euro. Once I found this out I have been taking crossing the street much less seriously as I had previously. Now I am not jumping out in front of moving cars trying to get hit, but I just make sure that if I do cross a little more recklessly than usual that the vehicle is not moving fast enough to kill me if they were not to break. I figured that all of the natives cross quite sporadically, so I might as well join in with the culture and at the same time take a gamble at making 45 grand (by the way that comes out to $70,650) with an estimated exchange rate of 1.57. So get out there and jump in to some money, by jumping into traffic!

Piazza Navona: Clown Performer

The other night we saw a silent clown performer doing a bit on the south side of the piazza. I am not much one for clowns (especially silent ones) but he was actually pretty funny. It was a fresh thing to see for once instead of the same caricature artists and musical acts which play the same songs that everyone in the world knows. The clown first started things off by grabbing a kid from the audience (probably five or six years old) and made him put his fingers up by his head to represent horns. He then pulled out a red cloth and motioned for the child to charge him, he did this several times in the fashion of a matador, but for the final one he placed the cloth right in front of one of the metal trash cans. The child actually did charge him but the clown stopped him before he struck the other side.

He also thought quickly on his feet because he adapted to the crowd around him and the passers by. At one point a person was walking by with a tiny dog, and next thing you know he's got this novelty sized plastic bone and throws it to the dog. Unfortunately though he also did not notice an elderly woman walking near where the dog was and the bone struck her. This was somewhat funny and horrible all at the same time and got a mixed response respectively. After that though before he got into his next act a couple attractive females were walking past and he immediately ran over to them, fell, and motioned for mouth to mouth. I liked this because he was not sticking to one planned out routine, but would drop what he was doing to do a quick little thing like that to mix it up.

For his finale he grabbed a female from the audience (late teens I'm thinking) and motioned for her to mimic what he was doing. So they go through a couple things, lift a leg, spin around, touch your nose, etc. His final motion though is him lifting up his shirt to get her to flash the everyone. She had on two shirts though and lifted up the first, which was unexpected and funny on her part. He then took out a fake gun and grabbed the kid he did the bull routine with, and put the gun to the kids head insinuating that if she did not flash him he was going to shoot the kid. All together it was a nice, new, and entertaining experience that you do not see too often (at least I haven't) around the piazzas.

domenica 25 maggio 2008

Food: You Do Not Get What You Pay For

One thing that I am starting to realize in Rome is that you really do not get what you pay for here for food, in quality or quantity (especially quantity). I have had my fair share of touristy places and small local places where you could not find a tourist and they barely spoke any English. Believe it or not, I have found that you get the best deal with the touristy places because they know what kind of food we are expecting and cater to that as best as possible. The small local places give out the absolute worst portions. I am trying to figure out where the stereotype of Italians eating tons of food at their meals came from, because I have yet to see anything even remotely close to what I have been brought up to think. I am dying for a Maggiano's type dinner where you get obnoxiously huge portions that taste fantastic and are moderately priced. I have only had one meal here so far at a restaurant that left me full, but that also was probably because I had an appetizer and the bread with olive oil, and then my meal. I have a firm belief that there is absolutely no one plate meal in this city that could fill me.

sabato 24 maggio 2008

Piazza Navona: Annoying Tourists

While I do recognize that I am a tourist myself but this surge of tourism is starting to drive me nuts. I heard that it is still going to get worse and that June will be the time for the most amount of them. The individuals touring are not that bad at all, but when they get into these huge groups or the guided tours is when it gets very annoying, very quickly. They make it impossible to walk around anywhere, and seem to do everything possible to get in your way or cut you off. I have observed that foreigners have absolutely no concept of other people when on foot also. They will be walking past you and then get right in front of you and then stop abruptly without a second thought. Another past time I have picked up on is that when they are walking side by side they will not break their line for anyone and if you do not get out of their way they will plow right into you. This gets annoying when you have three or more people walking shoulder to shoulder taking up the entire sidewalk coming at you. Americans may have a stereotype for being loud, fat, arrogant, etc. but at least we learned how to walk.

giovedì 22 maggio 2008

Cars: Vatican Car Show








So I finally got to see a couple super cars today, one was a Lamborghini police cruiser and the other was a Viper designed for circuit racing. These cars were absolutely gorgeous! I think that possibly the my best experience with the Vatican was on my way there and back when I had the privilege of checking out some fine automobiles. On the way back from the Vatican we passed by the Lamborghini again and I just had to get a picture of the engine. So I hesitantly approached the police officers who were in it earlier and now standing next to it and requested that they pop the trunk for me. I got the impression that they almost were not supposed to but they could not deny themselves the bragging rights so they agreed that they could just for a few minutes and the second they did the entire crowd came rushing over to get a look at it. So I hope you enjoy these photos as much as I did, but they do not do the real life vehicles justice. I wanted to get a better look at the Viper but there was not anyone around it that looked like they could help me with that. On top of the super cars on display they also brought out some antique Alfa Romeos, and some new military vehicle. All around it was a very cool experience.

mercoledì 21 maggio 2008

Cars: Exotics

To put it mildly, I am sorely disappointed in the lack of exotic cars that I have seen thus far. Now I was not planning on Rome being the capital of Ferrari and Lamborghini but I had expected to see certainly better than this. Needless to say the dominance of Smart cars has left me somewhat perturbed. To date I have only seen one Maserati and two Bentleys, and Bentleys do not even look that good to the eye the only thing that makes them worth mentioning is the price tag. I was not hoping to see expensive luxury cars, I wanted to see cars that could melt the pavement. Naturally also the man that I saw driving the Maserati was middle-aged at best, and was reminiscent of the typical mid life crisis men you see driving around in Corvettes daily back home. Also, Fiat, Alfa Romeo, Lancia and even Opel make some nice cars and it is driving me nuts that I have yet to see any. I have seen a couple higher end Alfa Romeos but the only people you see in those are the diplomats with their bodyguards. If anyone has seen any actual cars worth writing about, or if anyone knows of any hot spots for finding such cars please let me know as soon as possible. In the meantime I am going to have to say that my vision of Italy's car culture was sorely mistaken and exaggerated. On a side note you just do not see much custom work done to anybodies cars, every model just looks like a cookie cutter version of the next, I want to find out more about the culture here with that and would like to write about it later, anyone with incite on that feel free to respond.

Food: American Delicacy

Now I am not one for fast food at all, in fact until yesterday I have not eaten any fast food in many a year. But when I sunk my teeth into a McDonald's cheeseburger and fries my taste buds exploded! I am a man who enjoys eating dead animals. I have never eaten a salad and never will, but I eat a beef or chicken product at a bare minimum of one meal per day back home. As much as I love Italian cooking they just are lacking when it comes to the carne part of their diet. I usually try to order things with meat on or in them like paninis, pizzas or pastas and even though they do have some meat in them they do not know how to pile it high like we do back home. The two things that I miss most (besides family and friends) would be our style of food preparation and video games. Given the fact I can not get my fix of video games anywhere here I have to work on finding the places that serve food a little more my way. Unfortunately McDonalds is the closest thing to that, and I have to honestly say I am whole heartily enjoying fast food now. I am still eating Italian food a lot but I stop in and hit up the Euro menu every now and again when I need a quick fix. You can only eat pasta and pizza so many times before it starts to get old. So if anyone has that feeling when they crave some good old fashioned, steroid injected, gene altered, slaughtered animal then a McDonalds is your cure-all.

Piazza Navona: Standing Still Street Performers

While eating a meal in the Piazza I could not keep my eyes off of the standing still street performer people and wondered where they got the ideas for their outfits. One of which was a Statue of Liberty but for some reason was all white, the other being a pharoah wrapped in gold. There was a moving person who was dressed as Charlie Chaplin but he was not the most interesting out of them all. While watching the pharoah guy he never moved unless you put money in his bucket thing and then he would bow to you. It blew my mind how he had the control to not move whatsoever for such an extended period of time, I would get so incredibly bored doing that and he must have been boiling in that outfit because it was early afternoon and the sun was beating down on the piazza. His gold wrapping must have been functioning as an insulator as well and I could only imagine how he must have been sweating bullets. Oddly enough though after some time he took off the costume, picked up the money and walked away leaving everything behind. After about five or ten minutes another person (and it was definitely another person, different clothes, skin tone etc.) came in and took the place of the original guy as the pharoah. So we discussed then for a bit if they were employed by someone else maybe and not just self employed street performers. The reasoning behind that was that it seemed like it was a shift change, and if people were doing that in shifts then that would explain them behind hired to do such on a separate wage pay. Of course I guess it could just be two guys working together as street performers employed by themselves and they just give eachother breaks when necessary but that seems like a bit of planning just to be standing around motionless in a piazza dressed ridiculously.

domenica 18 maggio 2008

Food: Service

I had my first altercation with an Italian at dinner...our waiter. When we sat down for dinner we ordered a salad for antipasti and then our entrees. The salad never came though and we just got our dinners and assumed that he had forgot about the salads. When we were done eating though we asked for the check and when he brought it out we were charged for the salads. We had debated for a bit whether to argue the charge or just pay it, since we felt we didn't speak Italian well enough to explain to him the situation. We ended up telling him that we did not receive the salad and upon hearing this he argued back that we did order it. Unfortunately there was a break down between the languages and he wasn't comprehending that we were agreeing with him that we ordered the salad but just saying that it never came out to us. To my surprise he started yelling at us and throwing a fit, I tried to call him over to explain it to him calmly but he stormed off and came back with the salad crossed off the bill. I felt bad since the entire scenario could have been avoided if we could have gotten what we were trying to say across, but needless to say we won't be going back there again.

Piazza Navona: Street Musicians

I was in the Piazza Navona again and the awesome guitarist was there as well. This time though I did watch him for a bit, but decided I should probably check some other things out and find something new. As I approached other people playing music I found that almost everyone had the exact same set list. Though obviously in different order, every musician inevitably played the classics that an American audience would go nuts for. On top of my expectations that their music was driven towards an American audience to get the most money since the Piazza was a pretty touristy place, I also realized that a relatively sized chunk of the listeners were not actually American but still knew all of the classics that we grew up with. I hope as the weeks go by though the set list of the performers will get a little remodeled or else I'm going to be listening to Stairway, Sultains of Swing and Hotel California every night (not that I'm complaining) it just does get a little repetitious eventually.

Cars: Camaro

So last night I ran into a guy that had a 1970 High Output 350 Camaro in beautiful condition. I asked him to pop the hood and we discussed the engine for awhile. For some reason he did not speak english very well except for when he was talking about the engine. It had a four barrel carb and the block was in immaculate condition. After this run-in with the Camaro I was pondering about my previous blog and how they had not heard of Pontiac or Firebird and yet here was this guy with a mint condition classic Camaro. Pontiac and Chevrolet are both General Motors companies, so therefore at some point I realized that GM made the conscious decision to market Chevy over here (because I have seen other Chevy models here) and exclude Pontiac.

sabato 17 maggio 2008

Food

I have noticed here that the portions are much smaller than we are used to having back home. On the menus though they always say first course, second course etc. So I assumed that the smaller portions were due to Italians eating several courses for the dinner, though I have yet to see anyone else eating at these places order more than one course and even though the portions are a little smaller I don't think they're small enough to constitute ordering more than one entree. Also, they never really use any or much garlic at all, which was quite the opposite of what I had been expecting especially since I love garlic and my Sicilian side of the family puts garlic in absolutely everything. When they have meat listed also in platters such as pasta they barely even use enough to constitue having the word meat involved with it.

Piazza Navona

Almost every night you can catch me at the Piazza Navona between 9 and 11pm. Everything going on there is awesome and great to watch. There was this one guy who had an electric guitar hooked up to an amp playing fantastically, he was going nuts with the guitar and played some Stairway to Heaven, Pink Floyd, Tom Petty and the Eagles. In between songs he would shred some of his own solos which were as equally awesome as his set list. I've seen him there twice now so if anyone is interested head towards the Piazza Navona closer to 10 and you can't miss him if he's there. He also sells cd's which I am most likely going to pick up in the next time I see him.

Cars

The other night I ended up talking cars with a couple of Italian guys and I was pretty surprised by some of the things that I got from the conversation. The first thing was that I was trying to tell them what I drove (Firedbird Formula 350) and they had never even heard of a Firebird let alone Pontiac. They also kept inquiring me about automatic transmissions also and though I couldn't understand exactly everything they were saying, what I got from it was that they were under the impression that America either didn't have manual transmissions or that they were very rare.