July 2011
4 posts
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comparisons: view coming out of the metro in...
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the first moments in a new place...
So, I don’t speak German. Perhaps I should start there. Like, I don’t speak any.
Which constitutes quite a big change, in itself, from living in Italy previously, apart from all the cultural differences. I hadn’t realized I guess how much I had adjusted to Italian culture, even though it still felt “foreign” to me and I don’t think I changed myself to fit into...
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a different take on new & old architecture in...
This is the first view you’ll get of Frankfurt as you step out of the central train station, the “Hauptbahnhof,” and it pretty much sums up my initial impression of the city, at least in terms of its physicality, its architecture. There’s a mix and a contrast of an old European city, with low-level buildings, in a classic style with decorative facades (some original and a...
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a bit of a change...
Since my last post, about a month ago now, I have actually had the opportunity to move for a new job. So I find myself now in Frankfurt, Germany, once again back at square one in terms of having no idea what the people around me are saying! A little bit overwhelming, but also quite an adventure so far…
I still have a lot of pictures and stories of day trips and so on in Italy, so I’ll...
June 2011
1 post
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gagosian gallery: made in italy
Though I have been here for a while, I am still very American when it comes to certain things. One of them is that I leap at the chance to see any modern or contemporary art, particularly by non-Italian artists, here — while for most Italians “art” is synonimous with all their amazing Renaissance and Baroque paintings and there’s no point arguing that it can get better or...
May 2011
2 posts
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blending the old and new in italian palazzi
I try to see as many art and design exhibits as I can here in Italy in small galleries and palazzi (old buildings build for aristocratic families in centuries past), because I am often disappointed by the larger museums. A great post on another blog about the incorporation of contemporary art into chateaus in France made me think about one of the aspects of these small galleries that I like the...
9 tags
notte dei musei
Last night Rome held it’s annual “Notte dei Musei” — Night at the Museums — where a long list of museums around the city are open from 8pm to 2am, free of charge. I took the opportunity to try to see some of the museums I still hadn’t visited, including the Mercati di Traiano (Markets of Trajan), a part of the Roman Forum.
I also went to see the an exhibit...
April 2011
6 posts
7 tags
easter in a catholic country
Villa Borghese is kind of incredible: How many city parks have such an amazing skyline view?
It’s odd for me spending Catholic holidays here in a place where they are so ubiquitous: even though most young people you ask would say they aren’t Catholic, literally everyone celebrates these holidays with their families, so they have a much stronger impact than any holiday (except maybe Christmas)...
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farmacia santa maria novella
La Farmacia-Profumeria di Santa Maria Novella is a small, very chic chain of perfume shops in the major cities of Italy (and a few around the world), but the one you must visit if you get a chance is the original in Florence, touted as “the oldest pharmacy in all of Europe.” It has been running continuously for at least 4 centuries now, though the earliest recorded iteration of the...
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day tripper in siena
Siena is a small city in the hills of Tuscany, incredibly popular with tourists because, within its walls, it is completely preserved with all its medieval architecture: narrow streets, imposing stone walls, little shops everywhere selling all the classic items — leather, silk scarves and ties, lithographs and prints, antiques, artisinal foods. If you want to step back in history, this is...
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style and the italians
It’s pretty easy to tell Italians from tourists in Rome in April… The Italians will be those dressed still for winter, long coat, boots over their jeans, maybe even fur, while tourists (let’s face it, particularly Americans) treat the 60 degree weather as spring in shorts, t-shirts or polos, maybe a sweater in tow for the evening when it gets a little colder.
The Italians of course have a...
March 2011
1 post
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I think I have a problem...
With this whole language learning thing, I mean. First I started off with Spanish, studying it in school, then majoring in it in college and even going abroad with it to Barcelona (although of course the study abroad thing might have been part of why I did the major…). Then I decided to move to Italy to teach English, despite not knowing anyone here, not having any Italian ancestry or...
February 2011
1 post
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madonna
Along with mamma mia, which never seems to lose its novelty for me, one of my favorite Italian expressions is madonna. It means basically wow or gee, in either a positive or negative form.
For example, “Madonna, what a beautiful dress” or “Madonna, I can’t believe the pizzeria is out of margherita.” It’s usually accompanied by one of several delightfully...
January 2011
9 posts
4 tags
culture notes: on olive oil
It’s been sort of a battle, me and olive oil. Or a resistance, to be less dramatic. When I first lived abroad, in Spain several years ago, I became convinced that olive oil just didn’t agree with my system. And I may have been right in a sense — I was living with a host family, so eating home-cooked Spanish food that was made with a lot of olive oil. So when came to Italy, and...
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if there were an age i could go back to...
it would be when you’re first visiting colleges, spending long weekends taking tours and trying on different lives, different possibilities for your future. In America at least, or where I’m from anyway, that’s when you really feel you’re starting to plan your life, and it feels big and monumental , you’re not quite sure you’re ready yet, but you feel clearly...
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what we miss when we're taking pictures
Another unexpected, unexplained memory: When I was a kid, I spent a few summers at one of those cabins, hiking trips, swimming in a lake kinds of summer camps. Only this camp was run by sort-of-hippies, and what I mean by that is we didn’t celebrate the 4th of July because of the oppression of Native Americans, and instead we “observed” Hiroshima Remembrance Day. I’ll let...
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memories flooding back
I don’t know whether it’s that I’m far from home, or I miss my family, or just that I’m getting older in general, but recently so many memories have been randomly coming back to me — visceral memories; clear, vibrant images. And in most cases they’re not even of home, but of other places, other trips I’ve taken, other memories I now know I’m lucky to...
5 tags
Isn’t it nice when you meet someone who, talking to them, reminds you that there are interesting things about you too? The conversation touches so many different things, you remember how much you do know about, all your interests that normally lie dormant.
It can be really nice talking to other ex-pats, even if they’re from a country very different from your own, because you...
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happy new year
The first thing I do each new year’s day is look at the pictures of the celebrations from around the world, fireworks over Big Ben, the Sydney Opera House, that kind of thing. I don’t know why this always brings me comfort.
Now it is time for brunch (chocolate chip pancakes) and perhaps pondering a list of resolutions…
May it be a very lovely year for us all!
December 2010
3 posts
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the most wonderful time of the year
I think this, in fact, is the most wonderful time of the year — that lull between Christmas and New Years, a week that always feels to me like time without time. Especially as a non-Christmas-celebrator myself (By the way, that takes a lot of explanation in a Catholic country, even though just about everyone you meet quickly tells you they’re not Christian, they’re atheist. Yet...
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What can possibly cheer me up on yet another of...
Taking refuge in a warm bookstore, instinctively drawn to the colorful section of travel books, where covers with jaguars and incredible architecture, and vast sunsets jump out at you. Picking up the ones for the cities I already know, as if visiting an old friend. Looking up some of the places I used to love to go, and their history, those famous names that went to the same cob-webbed bar, down a...
November 2010
6 posts
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of paris, i will probably always remember
the simplest of things, I couldn’t say why. A lunch at a sidewalk restaurant on the Champs Elysses (cliche), of which I remember most strongly the green bottle of Perrier, glowing bright as an emerald in the warm spring sun against a crisp white tablecloth. I remember a simple lunch: baguette with jambon de pays and a little butter; finished off with an exquisite cafe noisette (espresso with...
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How loving Roma helps me love NY too
A few evenings ago I got onto a crowded city bus to come home, and was pressed all the way to the front window, just another sardine in the can. It turned out to be the most amazing way to see the city, even the familiar commute home — from the middle of the street, a few feet up, gliding effortlessly like the swooping aerial shot at the beginning of a movie. It was kind of magic, and though...
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coffee, first dates, day of the dead, and...
Every cappuccino in Italy is like a work of art. I never get tired of looking at it, the way the cream swirls with the coffee on top, marbling. I want to write haikus to my cappuccinos.
I don’t even care that it’s a total foreigner (staniero) move to have a cappuccino for anything other than breakfast, and god forbid with any food that’s salty rather than sweet. “News...
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October 2010
2 posts
waking at 5.30am, when I should be deep asleep
isn’t so bad afterall: because it made me aware of just how many dreams my head really is swimming with, the ones it’s easy to forget or overlook in our conscious, long days. For one, a dream to see my name on the glossy page of a magazine, writing profiles of important or artistic people. Letting my mind wander — is there any way to tiptoe towards that, writing about the film...
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staying in place, but still searching
I’m still sort of searching for the right answer to the question “Why did you want to move to Italy from New York?” (The way this question is invariably phrased in Italian is “Come mai,” which adds a dash of incredulity, as in “Why on earth?”) Nothing I’ve come up with when asked has seemed to satisfy anyone so far.
The obvious thing to say is that...
September 2010
1 post
culture shock
I’ve been completely remiss in posting, not even because I’ve been busy, but because I think I’ve been having culture shock. Yes, even though I’ve been here for many months now.
I guess some people think that culture shock refers to the initial “differentness” you notice in everything when you move somewhere else, but it’s actually, as I understand it at...
August 2010
8 posts
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the changing caffè culture(s) of italy
When most people think of European “cafe culture,” they probably think of spending long hours sipping coffee in old-style cafes, filled with little wooden tables and chairs that spill out onto the sidewalk, perhaps even a fancier cafe with waiters in white coats dashing about. But this is really just a French style of having coffee. Italians will almost always have an espresso, a...
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diamond for a nickel
What do they think they’re up to, here? Well, there is the official answer; preparing themselves for life which means a job and security in which to raise children to prepare themselves for life which means a job and security in which. But, despite all the vocational advisers, the pamphlets pointing out to them what good money you can earn if you invest in some solid technical training...
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ecstasy
A feeling I’m sure is not foreign to the people of this great city.
Santa Teresa in Ecstasy sculpture by Bernini; Santa Maria della Vittoria church
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pencil tapping against the desk
The first foreign language you study for years without using it, seemingly in a vacuum, wondering if it’s completely pointless. Those years that are like a waiting room for real life, spending countless hours learning things they say you’ll need later, learning slowly, thoroughly.
Now, the next language you’re learning all in a hurry, literally as you go along, out of direct...
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letting the quiet in
Let me be like a little light, a little flame that grows, stronger, steadier and brighter.
I’m not religious (nor am I even Catholic to begin with), but I do like going into churches in Europe when I can; I like finding one in a city I stay in for a while that can start to feel like “mine.”
There’s just something incredibly peaceful about it. Walking the length of the...
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just something that's been on my mind lately...
“My first days were painful. I spent hours upon hours behind my desk trying to figure out what I was supposed to do. Every time B had his back turned, I called my best friend, who was a journalist, and way smarter than me, and she explained everything to me with more patience than I could believe. …
What happened because of this first experience is that I realized that I’m capable...
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santiago de compostela
Background: A few years ago, when I was just starting my year abroad in Barcelona, after a week of settling into our apartments and host families there, the university program organized a trip for us all to go to Santiago de Compostela. On the other side of Spain, in Galicia, the city is still the destination for thousands of pilgrims (religious and athletic now, frankly) who walk there from as...
July 2010
7 posts
3 tags
film studies
I’m not really sure why I wrote this, or why I’m posting it. But I found myself watching clips of one of my favorite movies, La dolce vita, the other day, and thinking about this article from New York magazine that I read (and that had been blogged about a bit), and where the ideas intersect. And I couldn’t stop thinking about it, so I started writing it down. I don’t know, maybe I’m trying to...
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youthful vanity in bloom
I read yesterday that Orlando Bloom has gotten married. And I’m waaay too old for this, but it made me sort of sad. I liked indulging this feeling though, even though I should really know better, because it took me back to 16, when we really felt these things, and it was ok to go with them. To be upset, dreams dashed, as if we had a chance in the first place.
How is it we seemed to believe...
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and i worry: is this me?
“She belongs to that sect most swiftly, irrevocably trapped by New York, the talented untalented; too acute to accept a more provincial climate, yet not quite acute enough to breathe freely within the one so desired, they go along neurotically feeding upon the fringes of the New York scene.
Only success, and that at a perilous peak, can give relief, but for artists without an art, it is...
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peace
Away from the monuments, the art, the fountains, this is the part of Rome that made me fall in love with it when I first came here, just to visit, several years ago.
Just a few steps away from Piazza Navona, down some dark winding streets, lies Via della Pace, and its namesake caffè, Bar della Pace, Bar of Peace. An old stone palazzo covered in creeping ivy, with art-nouveau-era wood panelling...
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I went away, just overnight, for my birthday, thinking it would be better to be alone somewhere beautiful than just alone. In the end, it was still fairly lonely. But the things that caught my attention, in that strange sort of mood, were a telling surprise.
I found myself endlessly fascinated watching a small private boating club along the river. Early morning rowing lessons, sleek skinny...
