Italophile

Remember like a month ago when I was complaining about it being rainy all the time? Well all that rain has been replaced by a pretty intense heatwave. We’re talking three showers a day, can’t get to sleep at night heat. And in a country that doesn’t believe in air-conditioning (apparently it gives you a sore throat or something), this seriously blows.

Today, however, I found out that the high temperatures have resulted in something so adorable it almost makes me forget about all the sweating and heat-exhaustion: the Rome zoo has started feeding its animals ice pops! All together now: Awwww..

A Roman zoo is feeding its animals a daily treat of frozen fruits to help them cope with the hottest early summer temperatures in 20 years.

Zoo-keepers throw solid blocks of frozen kiwi fruit, melon, grapefruit and apples — prepared by children taking part in a summer school at the Bioparco zoo — into the animals’ enclosure.

Animals eating kid-made frozen treats? I’m pretty sure the only way this story could be cuter is if they threw in fairies and rainbows. And maybe an air-conditioning unit or two.

Photo from Reuters.

Today I finally had a chance to take a trip to Porta Portese (Rome’s legendary, immense flea market). It was pretty great. I managed to get two decent summer dresses, a ridiculous comic-print blazer and what is probably the most amazing hat ever made (it’s straight out of 1983 and totally fantastic) all for a mere 25 Euros!

Anyway, so you know how Italians are supposed to have impeccable style? Well, for the most part that’s true… But they do have one very strange fashion quirk: the tendency to put completely nonsensical combinations of English words together on t-shirts. Hilarity ensues. Here are a few prime examples we found at Porta Portese:

I’m not totally sure what the message of this one is, but it seems pretty depressing. But for some reason it totally reminds me of my favorite thing on the internet, Breakup Letter, Dramatic Reading, so that’s happy.

A little outside my purview, but too good to resist. To contextualize, just Google image search “Naples Trash”. From ANSA:

“I’ve seen many cities in my life and Naples doesn’t seem dirtier than New York,” affirms Georgina Bloomberg. The daughter of the Mayor of New York is in Naples to participate in the final horse race at Piazza del Plebiscito. “I was expecting a devastated city, like what the newspapers and some members of my entourage had told me. But I haven’t seen anything different from other cities like New York…”

Suck on that New Yorkers, your city is indistinguishable from one in which “mountains of rotting trash have piled up in the streets” for more than a year now.

I’m a big big fan of ATAC (the Roman transportation agency). Some dumb guidebook I was flipping through the other day was hating on them and it made me angry because, you know what, considering that building extra Metro lines is very nearly impossible here, I think they do a damn good job of making the city accessible. The buses are (in my experience anyway) clean and pretty reliable and the signs they put up are clear and easily comprehensible, even for tourists. They even reinvigorated the tram system with these sleek, green trams that remind me of caterpillars. As if that’s not enough, last time I checked the monthly passes they sell were multicolored and featured an awesome leaping bunny illustration.

Anyway, the most basic ticket ATAC issues, which lets you ride for 75 minutes, is called a BIT, which stands for “Biglietto Integrato a Tempo.” So the other day I was on the bus, absentmindedly staring at my BIT when I realized the English translation of its name is “Time-Integrated Ticket” or, if you’re one for acronyms, “TIT.” And now I can’t stop thinking of some ATAC ticket-checker getting aboard a bus and shouting “Show me your TITs!”

I know, it would never happen - as if anyone actually checks your tickets here!

For the past few weeks I’d been noticing a lot of strange bike-sharing stations with their posts covered in trash bags and sans bikes…

I was intrigued because my other favorite capital city (DC, natch) is also starting a bike sharing program. So I did a little investigating and it turns out that back in November of 2007 the city decided to initiate a bike sharing program, based on the popular Paris model. The theoretical start date was January 15. Lo and behold, exactly five months later, I saw my first functioning bike station! Yeah, the fact that it took so much longer than expected is a little disappointing but, let’s remember, we’re still talking about setting up a pretty full-scale bike sharing program (about 200 bikes and 19 stations) in less than a year, which I find pretty impressive (for Rome). They’ve even got a spiffy website, complete with an interactive map that lets you check how many bikes are at each station. Anyway, here are the bikes, in all their shiny red glory!

Conventional wisdom is that this is that bike sharing programs are always a good thing (any chance I get to link to the Voice…), but I’m not entirely sure it’ll work in Rome. The city is notoriously hilly and I’d imagine the sampietrini, whatever their historic and aesthetic values may be, probably aren’t conducive to smooth bike riding. Plus, the thought of navigating through throngs of tourists and competing with crazy Roman drivers for room on the road is kind of terrifying. I tend to think there are easier and still environmentally friendly ways of getting around the city (see the picture at the top). I think ATAC does a remarkably good job with the buses and Rome is also extremely walkable - especially the Centro Storico where all of the bike stations are located.

Qualms aside, I’m still pretty impressed. Hopefully some adventurous souls will give it a try (better this than the segway tours, that’s for sure).

Hey internet - nice to see you again!

I’ve been away on a trip up north (Bologna and Venice - good cities, more on that later. Well, maybe) and busy with thrilling stuff like babysitting and Italian class, but I wanted to write a little something about Bush’s visit before it got too stale.

So, Bush has decided to make his farewell tour of Europe (and I thought “Old Europe” was unimportant..) and, of course, he decided to drop and see his old pal Berlusconi. We started hearing rumors that he was coming up to visit the American Academy on Wednesday night, but they seemed kind of speculative. But, lo and behold, Thursday morning there are police all over the damn place and it turns out he’s going to the Villa Aurelia (which owned by the American Academy and just up the street from the main building. I babysat for a family who lives there last week, natch).

There was a bit of drama because some of the Fellows at the Academy had made and hung some (pretty tame) anti-Bush signs. The police tried to get the Academy to take them down so Bush could drive by unpreturbed, but Pia, the valiant general manager of the Academy, stood them down and the banners stayed up. So, of course, they re-routed the motorcade, lest the President be offended by the “Basta Bush” sign (odds he would know what that means anyway: somewhere around zero). Anyway, here are some pictures:

I didn’t have the patience to stick around until he got there, but my mother did, and reports that a few of the Fellows from the Academy did some yelling as the car passed, but it was generally pretty sedate. Apparently, though, some reporter from an Italian paper ran up to them afterwards and asked them if they could repeat the whole yelling thing cause she didn’t quite catch it.

I was wandering around the center of the city (on Corso Vittorio Emanuele) and around noon his motorcade passed by. Long and loud, I’ll give it that much. Anyway, the whole day I didn’t run into any protesters. Most people just seemed a little pissed that he was screwing up traffic patterns and making so much noise with his helicopters. When I was here in 2004 and Bush visited there were immense protests. So I guess the NYT kind of gets it right on this one.

FAO how dare you try to solve world hunger!  Don’t you know how much of an inconvenience this is going to be for the Romans?  You’re even ruining this poor man’s wedding!

I don’t have the energy to translate now, but I just have to say, the letter’s pretty hilarious.  The gist of it is this:  The guy planned to have his wedding in an area that’s going to be blocked off because of the conference and now he’s pissed.  At the top of his shit list are the city of Rome (for not telling him about it) and FAO (for not preventing this whole starvation business, thus messing with his matrimonial plans).

We’ve all heard of bridezillas (I guess this would be your classic groomzilla) but seriously?  Your wedding is more important than world hunger?  I mean we’re all a little put out here .  I, for example, have to go up to Termini tomorrow and I’m gonna have to dish out money for a cab because I know the 75 bus route is going to be all screwy, but you don’t see me writing indignant letters to Il Messaggero…

This officially seems too strange to be true. From ANSA, “Man throws money at Tourists”:

A unique event livened up the morning of tourists at the Trevi Fountain in Rome, thanks to a coin collector. Roberto Cercelletta has previously made public gestures to protest against the city’s prohibition against collecting coins from the fountain. The man went into the fountain, cutting open his stomach with a knife, and with a shovel he threw the coins into the crowd.

Very, very weird. First of all: did not know taking coins from the Trevi fountain was against the law. Anyone know what the general policy is on this kind of thing? Are there special agencies to pick up money? And who gets to keep it? The city? Also unclear on what cutting open one’s stomach has to do with anything…

So many questions, so much wishing I’d been there to cash in… Instead I have to get my money the hard way: baby-sitting. On the upside, the kid I took care of today lives in Palazzo Pio and, let me tell you, the view of Campo dei Fiori makes playing “I spy” that much more exciting…

Happy Festa della Repubblica everyone! I didn’t go anywhere near the center of the city to day since I figured it would be something of a clusterfuck (I was down on Via dei Fori Imperiali a couple days ago and it was already in full-on parade mode) but I did appreciate the super patriotic airshow!

Anyway, seems to me like the most exciting thing going on here is the UN Food Summit that’s taking place at FAO.  Fun fact: FAO is right next to my old high school! Nothing like learning in the shadows of a big ugly UN building!

Well everyone’s pretty pissed that Mugabe and Ahmadinejad are daring to show their faces. Predictably, there’s a big protest planned. Unfortunately I’m leaving for a short trip up North tomorrow morning, so I don’t think I’ll be bumping into any dictators any time soon… Bummer.

There are a wide variety of reasons why Italy is far superior to the US, but I’ll give you one concrete example that has a direct impact on my daily life: the Diet Coke.  Everything about it is better here.  First of all the name.  Over here it’s “Coca Light,” which sounds about a thousand times cooler than “Diet Coke.”  Then there’s the taste - also a big step up from the American version.  Diet Coke here actually tastes like its somehow related to the calorific original.  It’s got the perfect level of sweetness: not as saccharine as regular Coke, but it doesn’t taste all chemically like American Diet Coke.

As if Italian Diet Coke had not already proven that it’s indisputable better than its American brethern, they went and designed a spiffy new can.  It’s longer and thinner (damn Italians, always skinnier…) and generally much classier.

They’ve even added an awesome nationalistic, soccer-themed graphic to the back:

As soft drinks go, you don’t get much better than this!