On the Chopstick Trail: London

I'm becoming a blog slacker! I'm disappointed in myself. It's been too long (despite the fact that I know exactly who my blog audience is, and how very few you are, I like to write something every week). Anyway, I can try to explain my absence by using London as an excuse: last week Rosa played hostess for 5 days and was an extraordinary London guide. While I gawked at the amazing shoes parading around, and ate Korean food at a constant rate (on 3 different occasions), she managed to ensure that I saw a great deal of British culture, too.

We saw a great play. We also saw some great museums, in particular this exhibit at the Tate Modern. We randomly happened upon a collection of gold pillboxes, among other things, at the Gilbert Collection. That was cool because museum-goers are provided with an enormous magnifying glass to inspect all of the microscopic decorations.

This is Rosa, using her glass to look over something-or-other.


Because Rosa has the good fortune to live in a neighborhood nicknamed "Little Beirut", off the Edgware stop, I was able to convince her to come to a hookah bar with me. Don't worry, Mom, it's not addictive. I don't think.


I made sure to enjoy as much non-Italian food as possible. That included a trip to Borough Market, which is basically an endless array of food samples. We indulged in many things that I cannot find in Bologna, such as cheese-y potatoes:


And pickle juice (there are pickles in there, but they're pretty much overwhelmed):


Rosa particularly loves the marinated garlic cloves, which really don't leave an aftertaste - they're a miracle:


But, if I'm really going to get into a food discussion, I should say that the Korean food really hit the spot. Particularly Asadal, which took three days to get into. (on Thursday night, a 2 hour wait!) However, we were given lots of love despite the fact that in my language confusion I accidentally responded to the waiter in Italian. (My English was at times painfully error-filled throughout this trip, which is depressing, considering that my Italian is not anywhere near perfect!) Our waiter seemed baffled by the fact that we knew how to order and eat our food - do British people not appreciate Korean food enough? I finally got into his good graces by ordering cinnamon punch, which is one of my all-time favorite beverages.


After laughing in disbelief, he brought not us only cinnamon punch, but two free Korean cookbooks! ("If you love Korean food so much," he said, "you should learn to make it.") I need to get started. If only Italian supermarkets sold things like soybean paste and Chinese cabbage.

Ice Cream Parties

It's cooling down here, but that's no reason to stop eating gelato. We have remained loyal fans of Stefino, our nearby gelateria with all-natural gelato, and our relationship with the shop grows all the time. A few weeks ago, we had a much-anticipated party at our house to mark the arrival of our new roommate, Francesca, and to celebrate the cooking skills of Massimo's parents. (Their skills are considerable.)

Massimo embarked on a month-long campaign to invite the employees of Stefino to our party. He called this his "feminine" technique. Instead of aggressively issuing one invite as a man would do, he reasoned, it would be better to invite the "Stefini" every day until they got the message, as a FEMALE would. It's so nice to live in such an emancipated household.

Well, regardless of Massimo's method, we were overjoyed to see the owner of Stefino (named Stefano, surprisingly) at our door on the night of the party, along with a various coworkers whom we've come to know over the past few months. (One is a Brazilian woman who's in training to become a pilates instructor - we're going to do an English-pilates exchange. I can't wait!) We also made a special lasagna delivery to Stefino for the girls who were working that night (including Stefano's girlfriend), and we were given a huge tub of gelato.

Stefano and Maurizio, the gelateria's male representatives, had this bright, oh-so-Italian idea: they wanted to be photographed with the gelato and all the women at the party. We obliged.

I am holding my favorite Stefino item, a chocolate granita with whipped cream. It actually came from our freezer, where it had been waiting to be consumed - the Stefino employees were much amused to see their product emerge from our freezer on command. Francesca is the auburn-haired girl to the left of my granita-arm. Stefano is the semi-balding brown-haired man all the way to the left, and Maurizio (also of Stefino) is the man with the orange classes.

Later that night, Massimo and his best friend from high school, Saverio, entertained us with guitar-playing. Saverio also whipped out a bazooka, which he played for us proudly.


Stefino employees entertained us by dancing.


And force-feeding gelato to party guests.

(That's my friend Arash, who's a John's Hopkins MA student. Maurizio, the Stefino employee who's abusing him, told us that he has been stopped on the street by irate Italians due to his glasses frames. Apparently an ancient Italian woman once grabbed his arm and said, "What the hell is wrong with your face?")

We are now planning for the next party. It will commemorate the end of the gelato season, and partygoers will be required to attend in costume. First prize: gelato.

Language, Vulgarity, and Some Questions

While I procrastinate about the newest blog entry (which requires me to upload various photos onto my computer) I've decided to do some thinking about language. Language and swear words, in particular. The past two months in Italy have taught me a lot about swearing, probably because I've been working full time with other young people. These young people also happen to be male, and therefore swear more often, which is something I'll get to in a minute. Also, since I figure that I know everyone who reads this thing, I can actually discuss this. It's interesting!

Over the past few weeks I've noticed that various vulgar phrases have somehow ended up in my Italian vocabulary. It's interesting, since I have (obviously) a better command of English, I think that I'm less susceptible to these influences when I'm surrounded by different types of English-speakers. In Italian, since most of what I say is learned through repetition, hearing something frequently is the best way to memorize it. This is how I've learned all of the normal verbs for general bathroom/bedroom behavior that in English are known to all.

The other thing is that a lot of these Italian expressions are tied to gender. Take, for example, the constant discussion of male genitalia. A person who annoys you is "breaking your balls". In fact, anyone or anything that gives you a hard time is "breaking" - or "on top of" - your balls. This statement varies in strength depending on the vocabulary used, because naturally there are many many different ways to say the same thing, and many different tones of voice can be used. In my opinion, nothing beats the commonly heard wish or promise - "I'll do it once so-and-so is out from between my balls". What imagery! This ranges greatly; I've heard it used to refer to girlfriends, which has some degree of sense. It made less sense when one of my choir-mates told me, "I'll start having fun once high school is out from between my balls". Oh well, the idea is clear.

I do wonder at the fact that these words, coming from the mouth of a female, are either jaw-droppingly vulgar (especially from the point of view of an Italian man) or just nonsense. How can you successfully curse someone out by referencing body parts that you don't have? And why is it that any sentence stronger than "devo fare la pipi" (in English this can literally be translated as baby-talk: "I have to go pee-pee") is not permissible for me to say outside the most intimate company?

I don't like the idea that women should be more classy than men by not swearing. And since when does swearing make or break someone's class, anyway?

Some Place Called Abruzzo

I spent last week traveling through a region of Italy called the Abruzzo. It's right in the middle of the country, closest to Rome (which is in the bordering region, Lazio).



I went with these people:


L to R: Tiziano, Andrea, Sara, Guido. They are not posing in this photo. Poor Guido was entrusted the main leadership of the journey, which is probably why he looks so devastated in this photo (though everyone else looks pretty desperate too). This trip would've been impossible for me without them. Though there were moments when they couldn't understand the locals' accents any better than I could.



This was a work trip. For reasons that are complicated and related to business and politics, we were assigned to do a research project on a certain part of the region known as the Valle Roveto. The idea was, we'd go there and come back with an idea of its feasibility as a tourist site. While isolated, the Abruzzo has been gaining fame as a tourist destination because if its amazing scenery (wildlife, basically), cuisine (lots of sheep's cheese and meat) and religious traditions. It's supposed to have a lot of unique stuff going on because of the isolation of the mountains, meaning that the Catholic church couldn't check up on the way everyone was behaving. This is great news for a region with poverty issues. However, the Valle Roveto has not gotten the memo about tourism. When we began our pre-trip research, I was assigned to call the tourist office in the regional capital, L'Aquila, to ask about options in the Valle.

After calling me back repeatedly, the director of the regional tourist office finally gave up. "Don't go," she said. "There's nothing there. It's pointless for tourists. No services, nothing. It's better if you just rent a car and drive through it."


(This is a photo from a day in which we spent hours looking for a place to eat.)

Obviously this was not an option, since we had to complete our project. But it was an ominous sign.



Perspectives did not improve upon our arrival. We reached Capistrello, our home base, and were quite depressed at the surroundings. Try to picture northern New Jersey, but transplanted into Italy. Sad! It quickly became clear that not much was going on in the Valle Roveto. We noted that in Capistrello the nightlife enfolded thusly: there were two bars, 10 feet apart and open on alternate nights. One was called "My Bar", the other was called "The First Bar" (jokes about His Bar and The Second Bar abounded). Activities included playing other regions' folk music for free on the semi-decrepit jukeboxes, card games, and arguments. By our second day, we knew the name of the local barfly: Monica. Heavy drinkers would have a ball, though. We bought fourteen drinks for $20. Plus potato chips. (To my mom: fourteen drinks for five people, three of whom are over 5'10", is not that much!)



The truth is that we saw a lot of gorgeous stuff during the week. But we had a lot more fun observing the locals, both humans and animals.



First off, all secondary roads (including the regional highways) were a hazard to drivers. The herd of cows walking uphill should've been a decent sign.




However, we were totally unprepared for the horses we came upon, grazing (??) in the middle of the road. Not to mention the villagers who were keeping horses in their garage.


(Tiziano running a horse off the road - a major road, may I add - so that we could go on.)

Other bizarre sightings included horses lying down asleep (also partially in the road!!), with absolutely no fear of cars. There was also the particularly eery sight of a field in which EVERY SINGLE COW was sitting or lying on the ground. Have you ever seen a cow rest its chin on the ground? Neither had we.



We took this to be a metaphor for the depression of the region. Even the cows can't be bothered to stand up.

This was taken even further when we drove through a town and saw a dog lying down in the middle of the central 4-way intersection. Our only possible conclusion was that he had been overcome by the lack of food and other facilities in the area, and he was aiming for a quick death under the wheels of a truck. Unfortunately, the place was so empty that there weren't even any big vehicles.

We enjoyed ourselves, though.



This wine bar will live in my mind forever because I was very embarrassed to find myself locked in the bathroom. The proprietor had me pass the key under the door so that he could save me. It only takes one glass of wine for me to lose my door-opening abilities.

I took lots of photos.



This photo confirms the stereotype of perpetually cool Italians.



Finally, we ate a lot.



We ate too much, actually. Too much meat in particular: Abruzzo is known for hunting. In five days I ate SEVEN different kinds of meat (beef, veal, lamb, chicken, wild boar, roe deer, and stag). Don't ever eat stag. But boar is good.

Fall Foliage?

I miss fall in New England! Within the space of a few weeks, Bologna got chilly and sunny, just like home in the fall. And every time I step on a leaf and hear it crunch, I get a pang of homesickness. I realized that despite all this Italy traveling, I've never missed a fall on the East Coast. Oh, apple picking . . . pumpkin carving . . . hot cider.



No complaints about Italy, though. A fourth addition to our house just arrived: Francesca, from Puglia. She studies international marketing and is finishing her thesis. I'd forgotten what it was like to live with three other people in my house - I've gotten too accustomed to Massimo's tortured love life. But now it looks like the various players at Via Avesella are in place. Somehow, after seeing 14 apartments last November in search of a normal, clean, non-smoking place, I have ended up as the only non-smoker in my house. How did that happen? I'm prepared to wage war, though. Here is my question: why do smokers think that non-smokers can't smell the remnants of their surreptitious smoking? I always know when someone has been sneaking around.

Next week I'm going with some coworkers to the Abruzzo, a region a few hours south. It's very rural. I'm really excited, actually. This article helped me. There are various political work-related motivations behind this trip, which for me translates (among other things) into lots and lots of photos. But I think it'll be fun, too, since 5 people under the age of 30, with a car and a credit card . . . well, we can't go wrong.



My choir has re-started with a bang. We have about 5 concerts this month. The nicest moment, though, was the reappearance of a beloved tenor, Elio. He's known for his eccentricity (he frequently fixes my bike during rehearsal, so that I begin my journey home and find out that my tires have been pumped) and his penchant for throwing hard candy at us while we're singing (the sopranos sit right in front of him). We appreciate it, since it's good candy. Anyway, he was hospitalized in late July for an aortic aneurysm, and it was extremely extremely serious. He was back and healthy yesterday, though - even if he's moving a little bit slower. We gave him a deafening round of applause, and he responded by throwing a whole bag of candy at our conductor. I knew he was himself when he offered me a perfectly yellow banana in a shoebox lid (being used as a tray, I think) at the end of practice. "Are you hungry?" I was! It was a good banana - I ate it during work today.

Party, Commie Style

It’s still August and the city hasn’t gone back to normal. Lots of stores are still shuttered closed, as their owners are still away on vacation, and there’s no line at the supermarket. For those of us who have seen the entire month pass here, it does seem a bit livelier. This week, the leftist coalition (Italy has a gazillion political parties, divided into two coalitions) is holding its festival just outside the city. It’s HUGE. Tents selling cars, furniture, plants, and regional food were filled by crowds of people. We entered a raffle – run by a tipsy, jolly Tuscan guy who looked like a young Santa Claus – to win 10 bottles of wine. No win, even though my roommate’s sister was randomly chosen from the crowd to do the drawing (this was indeed very random, since we didn’t even know that she was there).




These photos, though, are from the festival held by the Communist Party a few weeks ago. It was much smaller but equally happy. At times it’s hard for me to wrap my head around the idea of party-based festivals like these (especially the Communist one) because I can’t imagine this ever happening in the States. I do remember when the Democratic Convention was held in Boston, the city repaved a lot of roads in Jamaica Plain. But that’s not quite the same thing.

Even the place mats are festive.


Other than work and yoga, there are basically two edible things that I live for these days in this empty city. One is a chocolate granita with whipped cream. Granita is sort of like shaved ice, sort of like a slurpee. It usually comes in fruit flavors, but about 20 meters from my house, there’s an all-natural, all-made-on-the-premises gelateria that makes my flavor. Aside from the gelato (which comes in creative flavors like rum-cream-vanilla-bean), and the homemade whipped cream (which is free), the granita is killer. It’s made with dark chocolate and they add a little bit of orange peel and cinnamon, which sounds strange, but makes it amazing. And I adore one of their employees, a punk girl with a half-shaved head who won my affection by remembering what I get and always giving me extra whipped cream. Massimo, meanwhile, gets along better with the guy who makes the ice cream in the back of the shop - this is good for me, because it means we always get updates on what flavors are being made and what's being added.



The other recently-discovered passion of my life is the caffe estivo (summer coffee) - pictured above. It’s an espresso with chocolate syrup and cold whipped milk on top. The cold milk whippers look like old fashioned milkshake-making contraptions (with the big metal cup). I want one!

The August Exodus

Time for a break from Korea. I've been back in Bologna for three weeks, and have been trying to combine work and summertime. So far that's meant one day at the beach, another day at a pool in the hills, and lots of days spent staring at a computer. Oh well. The culture of summer here is somehow more frenzied than in the States. Because of obsessive beach visiting, everyone is extremely tan. Proof: not only is sunscreen exorbitantly expensive, but the SPF system is skewed. My SPF 20 is marked as "high protection", whereas SPF 6 is seen as "adequate". SPF 20 is not high, and any self-respecting recovering sun worshipper like myself knows that SPF 6 practically worthless. All this aside, I'm conscious of the fact that compared to everyone else, I'm white as a ghost.

I've started to look out for wrinkles, but somehow Italians aren't really more wrinkly than we are. How is that possible?

This is one of the most famous meeting spots in Bologna, at the Neptune Fountain. I loved it the first time a friend told me to meet her at the "culo di Nettuno" - Neptune's ass.


All the photos on this entry are from a photo assignment that I did for my boss - to be used for future photo assignments, I had to prove that I could take a picture. So I was asked to create a photo study of Bologna, in a way that would appeal to tourists (as this would ideally be my job). It went well, though it's still unclear (this being Italy) what photos I'll be taking in the future. It was great to get a chance to take photos of Bologna - it's something I haven't done enough, and it helped me see how gorgeous this city is.

This is San Luca, a church perched on the hills outside Bologna. It was originally a pilgrimage site, and you can walk here all the way from the center of the city - and be covered by a portico the whole time! There are 600+ arched porticoes on the way, some with little altars inside. It's beautiful - especially because it becomes a reference point as you enter and leave the city. At night, as you approach Bologna, you know you're getting close when you see the lights of San Luca glittering in the hills. It's visible from the train, the highways, you name it.


The portico walk:


There is some news, which is that I have two new roommates. The first is Massimo's new girlfriend, Paola. By "new" I mean that they got together a few months ago; he promptly asked her to move in. Their relationship is so, so much less dramatic than the Massimo-Lucia scene of a few months ago that I'm really enjoying my peaceful home. Paola's job is also super interesting (to me, at least): she's a lawyer and recently has been concentrating in immigration law. In Italy right now, being an immigration lawyer guarantees you a lot of work and almost no pay - Paola usually asks her clients to pay her around €100 for every job she takes (some may last for weeks or months). It's been really fascinating for me to be able to ask her questions about the legal process for immigrants in Italy - I've also translated some documents for her, which was both riveting and depressing - they were asylum applications for two Nigerian kids who had had some terrible experiences.

In September, a new roommate from Puglia will move in. Her name is Francesca. Thus the household will go back to its original state, with 4 inhabitants. It hasn't been that full since March.

August in Bologna is super empty, but it's been nice to see a different side of the city, and spend time with new friends. Since most of my close foreign friends are away on vacation, I'm getting an intensive dose of Italian culture. This has mainly been demonstrated through dramatics - for example, debating driving methods with Massimo after he declared that he "has never once braked while driving" due to his excellent stick shift skills. He still refuses to back down. Does he really think that he doesn't use his brakes? I don't want to get in a car with him ever again. Massimo also moped around the house telling me and Paola that his mother may have had a stroke. We felt terrible. Later it turns out that she swam 10 laps in the pool, for which she is too old/not fit enough, and had a moment of dizziness. That's all. His mother continues to do her laps.

One of my favorite new characters is Paola's coworker, Pau. She recently bought a new yellow Vespa - it's gorgeous. However, she's still lamenting the loss of her old Vespa, which she'd had for years. It was named Camilla. After a few gin and tonics, she told us this story of Camilla's demise:

Pau drove Camilla to a metal impactor (?? is that the right name??). It was in a basement, and Pau got upset when she smelled the moldy, stale air. She had to leave Camilla in a dark corner. As she left her, Pau got teary-eyed. The owner, trying to comfort her, told her not to worry - Camilla would be reborn. He said (as Pau quotes): "One day you'll open a can of tuna and hear it crying, 'Hello Pau, it's Camilla!'" Apparently this pushed the already-vulnerable Pau into a real emotional crisis and she started sobbing. The owner, who didn't understand why she was upset, repeated the tuna can line a few times. Pau left in tears - and almost cried while telling the story! But she looks at every tuna can differently now . . . I suppose it's possible that she'll see Camilla in another form, right?

Face Stuffing

Before I stop posting about Korea, I obviously have to create an entire food posting - I mean, I practically went to Korea for the food itself. That was the idea behind this entry. However, I started having problems when I began the photo editing process and realized that I had too many food photos for just one blog. Therefore, this is not complete. My Korean-Korean-food photos will never end. (Nor will my love for the food itself.) While double-checking spellings for this entry, I found this insane Wikipedia article. It is definitely more informative than this blog entry.

Living in Italy, I often feel as if I’m surrounded by the most obsessively food-loving culture in the world. I still think that’s true in many ways – Italians put a degree of passion into their food discussions that I can’t imagine anywhere else. However, food in Korea was unforgettable. While we were never subjected to lengthy conversations centered around food topics, we were fed dishes so good (and endless) that we often had to stagger away from the table. Going through my photos, I realized that there are two characteristics to Korean food that I really, really love. First, the concept of banchan, the many many little side dishes that arrive at your table in restaurants (and homes!) during a meal. They’re constantly refilled and infinitely varied. There are countless types of kimchi (which, as you should know, is a pickle marinated in red pepper, anchovy paste, garlic, ginger, and other yummy additions), including cabbage, cucumber, radish, bean sprout, sesame leaf, broccoli, and eggplant. Or you might have dried fish, fresh or fried vegetables, dry or wet seaweed, marinated black beans or peanuts, potato salad and/or acorn jelly. Because of banchan, the table always looks overloaded, as it’s covered with many little white dishes displaying their goodies. The photo below is a good example: the tray on the table is holding JUST my food. It was more than I could eat, obviously.


This is illustrated again in the following photo, which is a dinner we had after visiting the amazing Hainsa Temple. It was truly overwhelming.


The other characteristic of Korean food that I love is the do-it-yourself dining experience. In the US I’d had Korean barbecue before, and it’s great – little did I know that you can also make your own stews and fry your own rice and ramen (? I know) at your table. Here are some examples.

These are two photos from the craziest meal I had in Korea. This is a barbecue spot that Tony found on Jejudo. For roughly $10 dollars, we got free soda, unlimited side dishes (including an amazing potato salad that was so mayonnaise-y that it had arrived in the shape of an ice-cream scoop), endless meat, which was to be barbecued and wrapped in lettuce and sesame leaves, and duenjang chigae – and that was just the first course! After the meat and chigae had been cleared away, we were each expected to finish a massive bowl of cold buckwheat noodles with shredded cucumber. (That was impossible.) It was delicious. Of course, the after-effect of the barbecue is that we exited the restaurant smelling like we had turned into smoked meat. It’s absolutely worth it, though. See the barbecuing process below. And then there’s a close-up of the meat (it may not look so great in the photo, but it was very tasty).





Near the end of the trip, Jean’s younger cousin Minjung brought us, and her best friend, to a restaurant in Taegu that’s very popular with young people. The specialty is fried rice and ramen, and you do it at your table. This was some seriously spicy food, and very entertaining to watch. The adolescent male waiters keep tabs on all the tables simultaneously, adding the different components of the meal in stages.

Here’s the first stage.. The steam from the cooking meat was DEADLY, because of the spiciness of the sauce. You can see Minjung covering her face in the background.


And here she is (on the left) trying to escape from the vapors.


Now he’s adding the rice.


Time to eat!


This spider wasn’t for eating. Instead, she was being raised by the owner of a restaurant on Jejudo. That brown leaf-like thing caught in the web is a moth that had been delivered to her as we ate our meal a few feet away.



We happily watched the killing and mummifying process.


And this is the table set for lunch at Jean’s uncle’s house. While it was obviously terrific to eat out at a restaurant, I was always awestruck by the fact that it was possibly to create so many different dishes at home. At this meal, Jean’s aunt must have served us more than twenty different items that she had made herself.


It’s no surprise that sometimes all this good food made us a little crazy.