Filed under: Italy | Tags: Bevande, Beverages, Coca Light, Diet Coke, Italia, Italy
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!
So the Church of San Carlo al Corso is kind of strange to begin with – the mock-marble inside is really like third- or forth-rate (really stripey, not at all convincing) and Via del Corso is kind of an odd place for a church (what better place to remind you that greed is still a cardinal sin, I guess). When I walked by the other day, there was something else compounding all this weirdness: break-dancers! Anyway, I thought the contrast was entertaining.
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On a related note: my new favorite wiki!
So there’s this little church pretty close to the Spanish steps I just found and it’s my latest favorite thing. It’s called Sant’Andrea delle Fratte and it was a collaboration between Borromini and Bernini. But the coolest part is that it was built for the Del Bufalo family so there are all these bufalo decorations everywhere. Check it
You can’t really see it all that well, but they’ve even got one up at the top of the bell tower:
Plus there are two amazing Bernini statues inside and some awesome artwork on the dome (there was a monk hovering around so I couldn’t really get any pictures). As if that’s not enough, there’s even a mini orange grove on the side of the church.
Coolest church ever? Very possible.
So the reason I get to be here is that my mom has a two month residency at the American Academy, which is basically this big villa up on the Janiculum that gives American artists and academic types a place to stay in Rome. It’s a pretty nice set-up and it’s in just about the exact same neighborhood we lived in before, so everything’s pretty familiar. We’ve got our own apartment overlooking the courtyard – small but tasteful – and they serve lunch and dinner during the week (the food’s pretty good – the head cook is a former student of Alice Walters, so they’re very big on the whole slow food thing). I’m auditing an Italian class at John Cabot University about the history of Rome and doing odd jobs around the Academy (babysitting, bookbinding, caligraphy, etc.) and in my free time I’m doing a good deal of wandering, in the company of the inimitable Georgina Masson. Anyway, here are some pictures of the Academy (more over on my flickr):
Since we’re living on the Janiculum, getting pretty much anywhere in the city requires a trip through Trastevere. Not too bad since Trastevere is super awesome. All this walking through the neighborhood has made me realize they have some pretty cool stencil work. Here’s a sampling:
So, I’m finally in Rome, which is awesome! However, it’s been unseasonably rainy ever since we got in on Monday. We’re talking downpours here. The entire city seems water-logged. Case in point: the Tiber.
See those trees? They’re planted on a walkway. Alas, no Tiber-side strolls for a while I’m guessing. It certainly makes me appreciate the embankments, though (I say there are enough flood markers around the city as is). Anyway, I’ve been cheering myself up with this awesome interactive map of the waters of Rome – at least we’re not anywhere circa 800 BC, eh?
