"She is wearing rags and feathers
From Salvation Army counters,
And the sun pours down like honey
On our lady of the harbour;
And she shows you where to look
Among the garbage and the flowers"
L.Cohen
semi-daily quote:
"rubatele pure i soldi rubatele anche i ricordi
ma lasciatele sempre la sua dolce curiosità
ditele che l'ho perduta quando l'ho capita
ditele che la perdono per averla tradita"
De Gregori
sul comodino:
Stranger in a strange land (Heinlein)
Fight Club (Palahniuk)
in playlist:
Lou Reed
Fionn Regan
Grateful Dead
things to do:
sopravvivere all'Erasmus - perdere 10 chili - imparare il tedesco - prendere la patente - imparare a suonare la chitarra - laurearmi (specialistica)
Buongiorno! il nuovo blog è completo (ma quanto sono brava :-P), spero vi piaccia, e spero soprattutto che dopo una prima visita tornerete a "leggermi". Forse conoscete già il mio sito, Quattrostracci. Stavolta gli stracci vengono da Cohen, dalla misteriosa Suzanne. Spero, nel mio piccolo, di potervi indicare anch'io "where to look, among the garbage and the flowers". Se poi non vi annoierete, sarà già un successo :-)
Kisses
la webmaestra
p.s. il sito è ottimizzato per una visualizzazione a 1024x768.
It's pretty amazing how fast a train can drive you to Paris from good old SB, and all you have to do is sit down and do your French homework, wondering how can that 3 years old boy roll his R in such a way. And it's rather a surprise when you realize that you're under the Moulin Rouge with your friends, eating a "crêpe avec nutella et coco". What is not a surprise, is that Andrea was late in giving his keys back to the hostel and that Biagio still has to pack his luggage, but so it goes.
Saturday, Paris
Saturday morning we are charmed by a boulangerie in Montmartre. After getting stuffed with cakes, we go strolling until we reach le Sacre Coeur, then I have to say goodbye to my friends and go on alone. I have a huge town to see in less than 10 hours. I get lost in Les Halles, I reach Centre Pompidou and Notre Dame. Since I've just learned that le Pont des Arts is actually in Paris, I must take a look.
When I arrive to the Louvre, the sun is so hot I can't resist, so I go in, just to look again in the proud eyes of the Venus of Milo, to get lost in the crowd in front of Monna Lisa and to admire another couple of my favourite things (la Radeau de la Méduse, and my Vermeer, which to my great disappointment had been temporarily misplaced).
My feet need some rest at la Toulerie before going on walking on the Champs Élysées and treating myself to some not so expensive shopping. And now I can also show off about having been shopping on the Champs Élysées. After reaching the Arc, it's time for the last postcard spot of Paris, the Tour Eiffel, where tourists obviously can not take pictures of you without cutting the tip of the tower. My tour de force is over, I fetch my luggage and look for Dario.
Dario and his flatmate Benedetta welcome me with a warm dinner, a bed and a suggestion for the evening: an Italian band (the Gentlemen's Agreement). I actually get a kick out of the band, I even buy the cd, although I must say they were much better live.
Sunday morning I've learned the word "bouchon" (meaning not only cork but also traffic jam), for having been stuck in the traffic on a bus for hours. Finally I manage to reach a tanned Simon and a sunburnt Dag in Berck sur mer. The town is small and nice, with colorful houses, huge fields with big white cows and children with striped clothing playing on the beach. We have lunch with Simon's family in the garden and again it's so good to have good warm food. After lunch, we take a nap on the beach, we meet some friends of Simon's and we swim in the sea (first time this season, and I'm so far away from Sicily, it's unbelievable).
For the rest of the day I've enjoyed the nice company, I've tried to speak French, I've played with my camera (a friend of Simon's has showed me a feature of my camera I didn't know, and I couldn't stop experimenting). One of the best sundays ever. The day was closed by a bbq and a stroll in the fields, singing Paolo Conte under a sarchastic smiling moon.
Le cœur bien au chaud
Les yeux dans la bière
Chez la grosse Adrienne de Montalant
Avec l'ami Jojo
Et avec l'ami Pierre
On allait boire nos vingt ans
Jojo se prenait pour Voltaire
Et Pierre pour Casanova
Et moi, moi qui étais le plus fier
Moi, moi, je me prenais pour moi
To my new friends, honest and witty, and to the joy of speaking multiple languages at the same table.
Although it's kind of late, I wanted to keep in mind some coniderations.
A couple of good friends I met here are from the "Sicily of France" or "Sicily of Belgium" or "Sicily of the world" - every country has his own "south". That means they can understand how I feel. Or they are from a civilized country like Sweden, but they understand my concerns. And they understand I can't hear anyone being so much soaked in stereotypes about the South. We are poor, we might have more problems. But we are smart. We have always been. Generations of teachers from the south have been teaching to northern Italians. My accent is so good because I've been breaking my back about it. My parents work just as well as parents from the North, if not more. Our universities are cheaper, because otherwise nobody would attend them. It's no surprise people go away to attend their University: we seek something better.
But I'm not feeling bitter about having to discuss about that, I'm rather happy about having new good friends who can understand me when it comes to such topics. They feel my pain, and that's all you should ask to a good friend. And I'm so happy to have found such good friends here.
I don't know how many of you are familiar with the story of Noemi (they already call her our new Italian Lewinsky), who calls Berlusconi "daddy". I find it hilarious.
But what I find even more hilarious is the photos they published to show that the presence of Berlusconi at Noemi's birthday was something totally friendly and cristal clear, and not (as others like Mrs Veronica Lario said) "the final straw by someone who likes to hung around with underage chicks". The first think I thought was "they look kind of fake". And now a blogger ( http://brindaconpapi.blogspot.com/ ) is hosting the most hilarious photoshop projects (Here you find my favourite)
Thursday afternoon: demonstration against tuition fees at Saarland University. Thursday night: Garage with Simon and Dag, way too much booze. Friday afternoon: a long long walk in the woods. Friday night: a very nice evening with Svetlana and Ian, with a tasty dinner and delicious muffins. Saturday afternoon: laying in the sun with friends and guitar at the Deutsche-Franzosiche Garten. Saturday night: Erasmus (but not only) party at Simon's, and a long long night at the Garage.
Italy
Tuesday: 18 years old wannabe showgirl Noemi Letizia shows off about her "special relationship" with Berlusconi (she calls him "daddy"). In the meanwhile, word on the street is that a number of showgirls is on the lists for the newcoming elections. Berlusconi's wife, Veronica Lario, calls her husband's plan "shameless rubbish in the name of power". Wednesday: Berlusconi reacts by excluding the showgirls from the lists, and by assuming that his wife's judgment has been biased by left-wing press. The father of one of the excluded showgirls threatens to set fire to himself in front of Berlusconi's house in Rome. Saturday: Veronica Lario declares she is seeking divorce.
the ones who have been imagining me living new international adventures will be unimpressed when reading that I'm dealing with the laundry. Nevertheless, living on the 4th floor without a lift, this can be a rather challenging task, because 1) the older washing machine (the one which is usually free) does not tell you from the very beginning how long it will take, so you have to come back and check; 2) every time I go downstairs to check, and then upstairs again, I run out of breath (you know I'm a couch potato); 3) I have to wash all my stuff in the same afternoon, because the token for the washing machine lasts 3 hours; 4) I only have one cloth hoarse.
Just to keep myself busy, I've applied for a course of self-defence, a French course and the traditional German course. Plus the department's courses: semantic theory, psycholinguistics, statistics, semantik von tempus und aspekt (my first course in German!). Is it too much? Wasn't it supposed to be some kind of holiday? "Holiday"? Apparently, no matter how hard I try, this word does not belong to my vocabulary. In the meanwhile, I'm trying to force myself to start doing serious research work again, but I keep putting it off. But I have to start working on it, if I want an experiment to be done by the end of June.. of course I've masochistically found a way to make it worse: if I convince my teacher here, it might become a part of my psycholinguistic exam. If I have to lose my face, I like doing it at an international level.
I've been feeling as homeless and stateless as ever. I live in a room that gives me the impression of living in a hostel (shared kitchen and facilities included), I'm waiting for a guitar to ease my pain (although my boyfriend would be better, but it looks like guitar are easier and cheaper to ship). I'm looking around for phd positions, but I'm feeling kind of pessimistic (why should a cool institution as a MPI want me as a phd student?). And.. I've been meeting new people. So far so good, although I don't know this people for a long time, so it's not (or not yet) like in Pisa, or like here last year. A few ones I feel closer to me, and those I want to thank because they're really helping.
It's not that I've been lazying around, not even on the social point of view. Some shameless shopping, a few parties and heimbar nights (some better than others), a very nice Schwenker party, a trip around Saarland. And a night at Perspektive 1, my favourite pub in town.
Tonight, more heim D heimbar, more loud music and crazy people dancing. I haven't found anyone to share this type of pain with yet. Neither have I learned to dance, you guys know it's just not my cup of tea.. I guess I just need someone more interested in drinking some beer and in shooting the shit than in house music.
P.s. For the ones who are interested in pictures of my social life, you know you can check out facebook. Maybe when I'll feel less lazy I'll put some on the blog too.
What a better start for a road trip than getting stuffed with food at Cracker Barrel? After a huge brunch we are of course too sleepy, but anyway we hit the highway again. The maps printed out the night before turn out to be pretty useless, but anyway after 7 hours we manage to arrive in Memphis at 7 pm. The Red Roof Inn here is not as cool as the one in Chicago (it actually reminds me of the motels in David Lynch movies, but I might be biased), anyway the King size bed is always surprising, and we'll have free donuts for breakfast. Just right after leaving our stuff there, we head downtown to see the famous Beale street. Despite the pricey parking, the famous music district is surprisingly affordable: live bands are playing all over the place, and it is allowed to stroll carrying your own cup of beer (but you can't go past Beale street). The expert (Mike) suggests the BB King joint (it's actually owned by BB King), and the house band is really awesome. To complement the music, I must try the famous ribs. A little bit over the budget, but they were sooo good. After another walk around, I can't help but buying a souvenir tshirt, and then we come back to the hotel because we're totally exhausted.
The morning after, as scheduled, we get up early, have breakfast, pack our staff and go to Graceland, house of Elvis Aaron Presley. It's the usual tourist trap, but the audio tour is rather interesting and.. well, you can't go to Memphis without seeing it! At least there's no Elvis lookalike to welcome us. I've taken way too many pictures there, so you can enjoy the simple and elegant taste (or maybe not) of its interior design. In the afternoon we wander a little bit around downtown, because it's a beautiful day. After checking out a couple of hippy vintage clothing shops and a cool bookstore we decide it's time to drive to Nashville, hitting highway 40, the "music highway".
Before getting there though, and not without thinking we're getting lost in the middle of nowhere, we stop at the Loveless Cafè, suggested my Mike's flatmate as her best restaurant in town (she's from Nashville). It's kind of out of town, but in the end we manage to get there. It's saturday, and the day before Easter, so we have to wait. It's definitely worth some of your time: the food is delicious and reasonably priced, although the famous fried green tomatoes leave me kind of disappointed.
Going further on highway 100 we reach the Holyday Inn, where some young girls friends of Chris' are performing. Chris himself plays a song on the stage, and after that he joins us and he drives us downtown, where we meet some people and visit a couple of nice and typical honky tonks with live music. Once again the music shows us the spirit of the town: people dance, and a guy with a cowboy hat sings "save a horse, ride a cowboy!".
The morning after is another sunny day, Chris cooks us omelettes, and we we eat them and play in front of his house. Then we go to the Country Music Museum and Hall of Fame, where we spend a few hours to visit the permanent exhibition and a temporary one on the Williams' family. So we call our Tennessee experience complete, say goodbay to Chris and hit the road again. Unfortunately the weather gets worse, and the trip back home is not as pleasant as the others. The huge trucks and the rain together are actually kind of scary. Anyway, we manage to get home safe by midnight.
As for my last days, I haven't done much, just some more shopping, packing, and being kind of sad because it was time to go. Just after my landing, when I've seen Chicago skyline from the window, for the first time I've realized that my American holiday is over, and I've feelt terribly sad about it.
Now I'm in a rainy Saarland, to start a new part of my life, almost from scratch. And not sure I like it..
On Sunday I've been busy with a new challenge: cooking the so-called "arancine" (lit. "small oranges"), i.e. Sicilian deep fried rice balls with beef filling. They're kind of tricky to cook, but in the end I can say it's been a success. Here you find a photo report of the event:
On Monday the weather was so nice that I have asked Mike's mother to drive me to the Shelter Insurance Garden. Actually it was snowing, so we haven't spent so much time in there, but rather we have checked out a couple of cool shops, and a cafeteria with extremely cool paintings on the walls (and tasty food, just to stick to my low-fat diet). Speaking of low-fat, on Tuesday evening Mike has driven me to Flat Branch, the local beer brewery, and the beer was awesome. I've had a pint, but also tried 3 more samples, and as a result I couldn't drink anything more for the rest of the night. We met Nick and Bob for dinner, and Bob cooked some very tasty chicken for us. Two more friends of Mike's joined them, and we've been to a stand-up comedy show, but then my listening skills had already gone lost.
On Wednesday, my touristic tour with Mike's mother has lead us to the historic village of Arrow Rock, on the Lewis and Clark trail, where I've learned about famous Dr. Sappington, who cured malaria with quinine. Then we had lunch on a nice winery on the Mississipi river, and the day ended in a typical boots shop, where I have been tempted by boots and cowboy hats.. although they were a little expensive. And I'm not proud to say I've had bbq for dinner again. Ops, I did it again.
Today's been quite slow, but tomorrow we're off to Tennessee. You guys have a happy Easter, and I'll be back soon!
"She is wearing rags and feathers
