That's right folks, my junk has never felt this clean! 'I thought this was a food blog' you're thinking to yourself 'That's disgusting.' Well, sorry. Just telling it like it is.
Today is my third day here. Let me begin.... please... Prego prego. It is so hard to start... how can I capture the beauty of the food and the people, the sound of the language? My first night, jetlagged and rested, feeling like four in the afternoon I'm standing on a candle-lit mezzanine with fifteen young Italians, average age about 27, celebrating Giada's birthday, standing around a table. Close your eyes and imagine a cheap but splentid centerpiece of a raised bowl full of flowers and grapes surrounded buy little things to eat, pastries, roasted zucchinni wrapped around mozzarella with such fresh olive oil all over, speared with a broken off bamboo skewer. Damn! There were beers on the table and a little sable to the side with all kinds of liquor and liquer, lit by a single long taper candle. This is a 31st birthday part put together by a girl who works in a restaraunt and and lives in a special appartment for elderly and autistic people. This is not lavish, this is just a party for young students, kids like me (whose professors are incedentally on strike at the moment). That night I met the owner of a butcher shop, an employee of Italy liasing farmers with environmental government extensions, a girl does environmental cooperation work between Italy and France, and a girl, Eliza, who works for the Time Bank (LOOK THIS UP!) who wants to trade me Italian lessons for massage. I've been giving a few massages and word has traveled fast that there is a Texan who gives good massages and is visiting to eat food in Torino for a month! Anyway, that night, I was feeling nostalgic for that present moment (a strange thing, nostalgia in advance) because the beautiful sound of good friends speaking Italian was just a beautiful sound. I could begin to pick out shreds of meaning from that music, but it was nicer to just listen to them like you listen to the ocean.
Let's seeeee, let me just check in. (Ecohouse knows what I'm talking about) OK, So I woke up at 1pm, needed to sleep off the wine. Luckily I know how to drink enough water. After a cold shower I stretched, and rolled around on the floor (to stretch my back) and thought about things for about an hour, drinking water the whole time. Then I ate a long lunch of leftover cheese (soooooo goooood!) from the party with all the kids in the apartment. After my third foray with the bidet I found my way to an internet cafè. So now that I'm here I feel pretty good, but the coffee I drank (not used to coffee) has got me feeling fidgety and weightless. :) Va bene, tutti bene. Oggi voglio asaggia il formaggio e pane della zona un pò più. Mi piace quello lengua perche ha ritmo è musica, più è casi a stesso al Espagnol.
Ah. I always feel better after checking in. Here's one last thing for ya'll, I don't want to spend my day writing a novel! Last night I went out with the kids in my apt to an aperetif bar, where you get a cup of wine or beer and then help yourself to whatever little noshes that they have out on this table. That was (like it sounds) pretty wonderful. Then we all went back to Giulia's apartment where a few other kids live too, including this Macedonian girl. She talked about how Macedonians drink (a lot) and then she proceeded to drink a lot (of vodka) along with her friend visiting from Macedonia. It was like 8 of us all in this little kitchen listening to songs on Youtube, drinking wine that one kid lifted from his restaraunt job (shame on him). But when in Torino... So of course, I strike up the old SNL hit "I'm On A Boat." Straight Up. It was perfect, the whole room was bouncing and hanging on every word on the screen (they wanted to undersand). That reminds me, It was fairly euphoric to be in a little room (eating olive oil from Puglia that one of the kid's dad harvested and pressed himself) where four or five languages were being spoken-English, Italian, Spanish, Macedonian, and a little French.
There are more incidents and accidents, hints and allegations (only in the best sense) to report. But I don't have the stamina, I hope that this conveys a bit of how I feel. I'm glad to have gotten this down, because Dr. Goldberg says that the first notes you take are the best because you have a keener sense of what is foreign.
Ciao Belle!
Ben
Monday, October 11, 2010
Saturday, October 9, 2010
Late arrival, Late morning & good news
Here I am at last in the great industrial center of Torino! I'm thrilled to report that nobody speaks english, and those who smile and say 'yes I speak english' with excitement in their eyes, speak the worst english. I have plenty to tell, even though I havn't done anything outside of my apartment yet. But I have to keep it short because net cafes are more expensive by far than Peru.
Last night it was already very dark as the plane began its descent into turin. Out of the plane I bought a bus ticket for the train station downtown conveniently located across the stree from where I live now, 17 Via Nizza. Dad, thanks for looking that info up for me, strangely I didn't have to fill out one single scrap of paperwork to enter Europe, and nobody was hanging around trying to ask me if I'd been on any farms abroad offering to wash my shoes... Seems sensible... My mind is wandering.
Well, so it was nighttime, I borrowed somone's phone in the airport to call vanessa, she had made plans with friends to party all night and she was across town somewhere far. I'm a zombie and numbly write down directions to use the metro to get to where she's gonna be. Only then did she specify that it was going to be a out-till-dawn type of thing in the same breath as scratching all those plans, 'Oh darling, you are very tired of course, you want to sleep very much. I will come to the train station and let you into the apartment, you go to bed, that's it.' The zombie lucks out. I would be in such a bad mood if I'd tried to stay up late last night, not least in a club.
As it turns out, I slept until I couldn't sleep anymore no matter how hard I tried, took a shower, did some stretching, ate sardines from a japanese grocery in NYC for breakfast, wrote a bunch, and generally organized my mind. The whole time I had no clue of the time. The sky is gray and it's looked exactly the same as when I woke up all day. I only just learned that it's 5:30pm. So I probably woke up around 2:00.
As far as my neighborhood and the place I'll be living for the next month, I really really like it. I had to warm up to the apartment, but this morning I had to warm up to life. After breakfast I was feeling warmer towards life than I can really remember. And I was ok with my digs. The neighborhood is pretty remarkable, there are tons of Africans that live here, a guy from Somalia sat and chatted with me last night helping me call Vane and get my bearings. He's one of sixteen kids, between three moms, his dad has a lot of kids in a lot of place to keep track of. He's a refugee. Everyone--Everyone--I approach is so so friendly, noone speaks english, and everyone hopes that we'll meet again perhaps.
That's all I've got for now, I just walked two blocks down the street to this internet cafe and that's all I've done outside today. I'm just going to keep walking east on this street until I want to turn around, that way I wont get lost, but I might branch out. Someone gave me a tourist map of Turin today which was hella refreshing after buying a map for $4 in NYC.
Later!
Last night it was already very dark as the plane began its descent into turin. Out of the plane I bought a bus ticket for the train station downtown conveniently located across the stree from where I live now, 17 Via Nizza. Dad, thanks for looking that info up for me, strangely I didn't have to fill out one single scrap of paperwork to enter Europe, and nobody was hanging around trying to ask me if I'd been on any farms abroad offering to wash my shoes... Seems sensible... My mind is wandering.
Well, so it was nighttime, I borrowed somone's phone in the airport to call vanessa, she had made plans with friends to party all night and she was across town somewhere far. I'm a zombie and numbly write down directions to use the metro to get to where she's gonna be. Only then did she specify that it was going to be a out-till-dawn type of thing in the same breath as scratching all those plans, 'Oh darling, you are very tired of course, you want to sleep very much. I will come to the train station and let you into the apartment, you go to bed, that's it.' The zombie lucks out. I would be in such a bad mood if I'd tried to stay up late last night, not least in a club.
As it turns out, I slept until I couldn't sleep anymore no matter how hard I tried, took a shower, did some stretching, ate sardines from a japanese grocery in NYC for breakfast, wrote a bunch, and generally organized my mind. The whole time I had no clue of the time. The sky is gray and it's looked exactly the same as when I woke up all day. I only just learned that it's 5:30pm. So I probably woke up around 2:00.
As far as my neighborhood and the place I'll be living for the next month, I really really like it. I had to warm up to the apartment, but this morning I had to warm up to life. After breakfast I was feeling warmer towards life than I can really remember. And I was ok with my digs. The neighborhood is pretty remarkable, there are tons of Africans that live here, a guy from Somalia sat and chatted with me last night helping me call Vane and get my bearings. He's one of sixteen kids, between three moms, his dad has a lot of kids in a lot of place to keep track of. He's a refugee. Everyone--Everyone--I approach is so so friendly, noone speaks english, and everyone hopes that we'll meet again perhaps.
That's all I've got for now, I just walked two blocks down the street to this internet cafe and that's all I've done outside today. I'm just going to keep walking east on this street until I want to turn around, that way I wont get lost, but I might branch out. Someone gave me a tourist map of Turin today which was hella refreshing after buying a map for $4 in NYC.
Later!
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