Oh, hey!

:D

The reason why I had to take a pic of something with my name on it, spelled the correct way, is because as a lil kid, I would always want a license plate or tag or scroll or something pretty cheesy that had my name on it... But I was never able to find my name. And if I did, it was spelled "Daniella," which is absolutely incorrect and unheard of in Italy. (Oh, by the way, believe it or not, when I worked in Florida, I met people who had never even heard of my name before.
Them: "Oh, nice to meet you, Danielle."
Me: "Uh. DanielUh." Aside: Damnit.]
Them: "Oh my my, well I've never heard that one before! How interesting now!"
Me: smiles sarcastingly)

My store was across the street from some big ole church...yea, this one:





And what would an Italy blog be without the obligatory kitschy photo of a cappuccino with a heart made out of a foam?

Now my life is complete.

*rolls eyes*

bruises and battlewounds, broken heels, and badass hangovers...

That is a very short list of Thursday night's aftermath. Pure awesomeness.

Now, those of you who know me know how passionate (and picky) I am about electronic music, especially house, progressive, minimal, techno, and some other genres that are otherwise indescribable (honestly) in words, such as the rock-pop-house fusion that I danced to the other night. It had been 2 full months since I last went proper clubbing. I was fiending for a dark space, loud 4/4 music, a crazy crowd and an amazing DJ or two. The reason why I didn't just go solo are mainly threefold: I live outside Milan and all regional trains stop completely between the hours of 1am and 6am; Italian men can be quite bothersome and pesky, especially when their veins have more alcohol than blood flowing in them (which, if you didn't know, gravity pull increases proportionately with the increase in alcohol consumption. Therefore, the blood and alcohol current in the brain decreases but increases in the manly nether regions); most public transportation comes to halt within Milan as well after 12:30am and picks up again around 6am while clubs typically close at 4-4:30am. Sigh. Great logistics for a metropolis, eh? (Yes, I am so spoiled with our 24-7 system in NYC.)

But luckily, through a mutual acquaintance, I was able to meet a fellow clubbing buddy with (obviously) the same musical interests as me...not an easy thing to find here in Italy. Anyway, so Thursday night we went to see Soulwax, 2ManyDJs, and Digitalism at a club/venue called Alcatraz. The prestige and innovation of Soulwax and 2ManyDjs is that they remix familiar pop and rock music, old and new, with modern house beats. Imagine Timbaland versus Wham versus Linkin Park. It sounds crazy and it is-- and it totally works! It's some of the most fun, well-produced, original dance music in the circuit today with through-the-roof energy. People who listen to their sets are ready to jump out of their skin just waiting to hear what insane mashup remix of theirs will come next. They played live, which is not an easy thing to do at all considering the type of music they play. Soulwax played with a full-on 5 piece band while 2ManyDjs with a 3 or 4 piece, just as stellar though. Simply fantastic. At one point, they did play some crazy house remix with the main sample and refrain from Human League - Don't You Want Me Baby. Dan and I were screaming out the words, and I do recall hearing unintelligible English lyrics being yelled out from the drunk Italians around us, which always provides me with a chuckle or two.

And as for the title of this post-- I did indeed tilt my shoe/ankle while slipping on the wet floor of Alcatraz at one point and consequently broke the heel off one of my favorite black Luichiny boots, after which (still on the main floor), Dan took my other boot and tried breaking off the heel to even out the situation, slamming it against the steps of the stage...but to no avail. But that's ok, because yesterday I escorted the broken boot to the Betty Shoe Clinic down the street, where it's receiving top-notch treatment-- albeit a bit reluctantly right now-- but I'm sure it'll thank me when its come out all clean and like new again.

Got back to Dan's place around 4:30 or 5 I suppose (who so kindly let me crash on his couch, seeing as I had no way of getting home at that time, thank you!) and woke up with black and blues on my hip and shoulder, an aching charlie horse in my calf from walking on one heel all night, and a not-so-friendly reminder of the previous night in the form of a pounding headache. Poor Dan woke up worse off than I was, although, minus the black and blues and the charlie horse for him, so I guess we were both pretty much equally out of commission haha.

Did you know Italy has two favorite pastimes? Playing soccer and going on strike.
So lucky for Dan, he was pretty much forced to play hookey and therefore avoided a bruising 8:30am commute without much consequence and I finally ventured home around 4pm on Friday. Why? Oh, nothing, just a nation-wide public transportation strike. Nationwide, people. Planes, trains, subways, trams, and buses. Now get this: In typical Italian fashion, the strike was on from 8:45am til 3pm, off from 3pm til 6pm (i.e., everything was working during these hours), then back on. My, how kind of the Italian transit system to give us car-less citizens a window of 3 hours of potential travel-- as if seemingly ridiculing us, since hundreds of thousands of people (including me) packed ourselves inside trams, buses, subways and trains during those 3 woeful hours to get on with our lives. After taking a tram, 2 subways and a regional train and a total of 2 hours to travel back to Legnano, I got that knot in my stomach. Something, just something, wasn't going to be right when I stepped out of the station. And I was right. My bike was gone! :( Perhaps it was partially my fault because even though the back tire was locked and I threw it in a bush somewhere, I didn't have a proper chain lock. (However, I've decided it was a blessing in disguise. My bike had no breaks.... Anyway, I'm going to pick up a used one in the city soon.)

So here are some pictures from the best weekend I've had in Italy yet: (why is it that I can never remember to take pictures before my 3rd drink?! Sigh..)



Dan + Dan. (Can you believe this gentleman is actually single and not gay? Yeow!)


Soulwax.



Who needs a comment for this one? (No clue who this guy was, but his face is priceless!!!)



Yes, we all had to try on Mr. Paris' awesome hat. :)


You know what would be awesome? If I could stop making stupid faces in most pictures. [But we all know that's just never gonna happen.]




Ah, sweet surrender. I can't wait to do it all over again!

Stupid Italian shit...

I now present to you....a package of freshly sliced coconut:





.....



Ok, I give up. C'mon, Italy, it's 2007. Wake the fuck up and for god sake, Use. The. Internet!!!

I mean, isn't one of the beauties of modern technology & globalization the fact that pretty much any information we yearn to know is readily available literally at our fingertits? Or are we supposed to believe that the people who came up with a brand name like this actually 1> don't use the internet 2> don't know any English whatsoever (this one is actually perfectly believable) and/or 3> don't know anyone who does speak a moderate amount of English; namely, enough to let them know that the word isn't Titbit but Tidbit???? Jesus H. Christ, you people. Pa. the. tit.

(...or maybe I'm being naive and this is a just a crude joke by some Italian marketer who wanted some tongue-in-cheek revenge at his company?? Disney's The Little Mermaid, anyone?)


Need I say that there will be tons of similar posts to come..?

Speriamo che sia femmina...

This has to be one of the best commercials on Italian tv as far as class, elegance, and intrinsic meaning goes. It's also very touching. A bit of background first. A traditional (and very sexist) thing for people, usually men, to say during an Italian wedding is to shout out "Figli maschi!" (Male sons!) during the wedding speech (or just yell it out classlessly.) Basically that's the short form for "Speriamo che sia maschio," which means "Let's hope it'll be a boy" obviously regarding future children of the newlyweds.

(Oh and by the way, Mom, if anyone does that at my wedding-- if I have a proper one-- I will murder that person.)

Anyway, this company called Calzedonia, which makes hosiery for women, came out with this commercial recently:




Ahhh... :) Wasn't that fantastic? (And yes, it worked for me. I have 3 items from Calzedonia, nice heavy cotton winter stockings. And they're really cool, too.)


And while we're on the subject, here's another favorite of mine, not just for the cinematography effects but more so for the song in the background.



I can't stop saying "Hey, wot heppen to dee band?"




...boom pacha boom pacha boom!

Thanksgiving Day....Italian Style.

So about a month ago, on a day trip with some Italian friends, peanut butter comes up in conversation. One girl asks me if there's anything you can possible do with peanut butter other than eat it straight from the jar as she had been doing for 6 months while living/studying abroad in Scotland. I rhetorically exclaimed "Is there?!" and rattled off a bunch of PB recipes. Suddenly pumpkin pie came up from another friend. ...I knew where this was going... Then a proposal for a Thanksgiving dinner from another. In true Italian form, I heartily agreed to cook up a storm and have everyone divvy up the total costs spent for an all-American Thanksgiving dinner...in Italy.

A 10 pound turkey was ordered from the butcher and of course, everyone was calling it "The Beast." I called it "The Bambino" and confessed experiencing Thanksgiving with turkeys up to 23ish pounds. As suspected, jaws hit floors. Grand! But true.

So, with the bambino (complete with 15 hour brine composed of 4 gallons of water, 1 pound of salt, a huge jar of honey, an enormous bottle of maple syrup, a cup of peppercorns, 12 bay leaves and not 1 bay leaf more), mashed potatoes, home-made dinner rolls, stuffing, 2 pumpkin pies and a peanut butter cheesecake later, this 2-day adventure picture-story goes something like this...


Grazia works as a secretary at my high school.


We sang Italian songs and kids' nursery rhymes while cooking. =)


Yes, that's my hand. Rubbing rosemary-garlic butter under its skin. It was strangely cathartic, I must say.


Shortly after this picture, they told me I should stop.


Armida, Grazia, and Paige.


Bye bye, birdie!


Paige is another girl in my program, working at a high school in Busto Arsizio, the next town over from Legnano. She's from Montana. Montana's bigger than Italy. Just sayin'.


Better slice those carrots right, or I'll slice ya fingahs!


Paige's traditional family dinner roll recipe.


Making deviled eggs. Try explaining that recipe name to Italians. They liked 'em!


This alternative potato masher was friggin' awesome. It was the adult version of the Playdough spaghetti-maker. I swear, we've never had so much fun mashing potatoes in our lives!


If you ever wanted to know what 2 kilos (or about 4 pounds) of rice looks like, this is it. (Such a burning question, I know.)


What, you didn't think I'd nearly blow up the house? Haha! Now, kids, this is what happens when you let olive oil drip onto the bottom of the oven with a temperature of 350°.


Oven change!


Ah, much better.


Herro!


Hor d'oeuvres anyone?




This is Paolo. Originally from Messina (Sicily), transferred to the region of Lombardy 7 years ago.




Funny how similar to my mom at Thanksgiving time this is. (Oddly enough, she usually wears a brown sweater, too. Freudian slip?)


Birdeh.


The crew.


The goods.


Arrrrr!!!


Ok, this picture definitely is scary.


Put a fork in us, we're done.


This picture is so awesome!! That's Daniele, my student.


Uh, I think you forgot to ask for whipped cream with that.


We even had prosecco with the pies.


Cake and merriment.




Fine.

Musings of a dilettante

Disclaimer: I'm far from any sort of philosophical logician (I refused to take Logic in college, it's like math with words and god knows math hates me), and this is just from the weird, crinkly layers of my mind, so bare with me.

Since I'm a bit obsessed with sociolinguistics (or, how the study of a language manifests itself through and/or reflects the society and customs of that particular culture), I recently stumbled upon something interesting in my mind (somewhere you definitely do not want to be.) Just as an interesting observation, though (in my humble opinion), for example, I thought about this phrase:

English: What's the problem?

Italian: "Qual è il problema?" meaning "Which is the problem?"

German: "Wo ist das Problem?" meaning "Where's the problem?"

You might think, "What the hell is the difference?" (and possibly, subsequently, "God, who gives a flying f%"k?!") Ah, but you see, I think there is a difference, and it's huge. Thevarious 'sfumature' or nuances of these three utterances give a whole different frame of understanding of the situation and possibly of the big picture overall, culturally and therefore linguistically (if you believe that a nation's culture and language are superglued together, as I do.)

The connotation of the English utterance "what's the problem" may suggest a few things: mainly, it refers to the the recognition of the problem: 'yes, there is a problem, I don't know what it is exactly, please tell me what it is.'

The Italian saying "which is the problem" recognizes that there is not only one problem, but many, and a need to distinguish and specify which problem is to be given attention by the asker.

The German version does not recognize the immediate existence of a problem. The interrogative pronoun 'where' automatically registers as a word used to find a specific location of something. Now, if you're needing to find something and asking where it is, then you obviously don't know where it is in the first place. And if you don't know where the problem is, can you be empirically sure it exists in the first place? No.

So are they really all the same question? Or is there a deeper, more complex meaning here?


*Obligatory chin scratch*

Luna Park

Luna Park is one of my favorite words in Italian. (And it's really only half Italian. Luna means moon.) Anyway, there was a huge fair/carnival type deal going on in town for the past 3 weeks (it ended two days ago actually) and I stumbled upon it as I was going to the nearby park for a bike ride. So here are some pictures for you to see some similarities and some interesting contrasts on how they do things here.


The loneliest bike trail in the world. It lasts a whole 4 blocks:


I just think these trees are weird. Like pitchforks with scraggly/shaggy pointy ends called branches.


'member I was talking about the Palio in Legnano? This is an official "contrada" sign, designating that if you live in this area, you must root for San Magno during the Palio.




Going to Kentucky, going to the fair, gonna see the signorita with the flower in her hair!


Flutes!


Lots of awesome, superfattening foods. Eh? Oh, nope, no Omega-3 fatty acids here though.


Rolling out the lard. She's the lard-roller-outer.




Every child's dream. Every parent's nightmare.


Lots of things (including half the supermarket) are in German. Wannabes.


One of the few places you'll see popcorn in Italy.




Most people (especially the women) are dressed in their Sunday best, which, effectively, would be any day of the week. (I was by far the most underdressed, with my chucks and a sweatshirt on.) Notice how the girl who works the carnival rides is dressed. (Oops, caught!)


Here's a picture of nothing that I took to make the woman think I wasn't being a weirdo and taking a pic of her when I actually was. Not too sure if that worked though.


Fairs here also present pet shops with disposable critters (the fine print on that cage says "Warning: the buyer consents to purchase of fuzzy friend, who will most likely die in 2 days, 5 max.")


I knew I was getting old when I took this pic and got dizzy just looking at that ride. Ugh.


Americans have that weird hit-the-base-as-hard-as-you-
can-with-a-sledge-hammer-game. Italians have the kick-the-soccer-ball-as-hard-as-you-can game (duh.)
(Oops, caught again! Wish I had a better picture of this guy-- he was so orangey from the tanning salon, he looked like a human-carrot hybrid.)


Nice hair and outfits, doods. In this region of Italy, these kinds of people (basically, Italian versions of guidos/guidettes and ghetto kids) are called "tamarri."


Superpunchout.


I cannot believe I bought and ate chestnuts from those dirty ass hands.


See the NY license plate?


Smurfs!? Holy shit!


There are also games for adults; namely, the throw-a-plastic-loop-around-a-glass- that-contains-the-thing-you-want-but-you-have-to-get-the-loop-
around-the-square-base-holding-up-the-cup-which-is-virtually-
impossible-hahahahah-dealer-always-wins-ya-sucker game.


Purty!


My mom likes these. Torrone or nuget bars.


Crappy cannolis... Just kidding. "Krapfen" is the German word for doughnuts or crullers.