Here's where I will respond to the comments at the top of the page:
"I could hear your voice as I read your coments. How is the transportation? What do you do in your free time? Take care :)"
I read literally everything other people write in their voices, which I find amusing. The simple things in life, eh? Just to be philosophical for a moment here, Marcel Proust wrote that people have different voices (i.e. lexicon, diction, etc.) when they write versus when they speak, and one of his characters was friends with a famous writer and himself wrote some articles for Le Figaro or something and adopted this writer's speaking voice instead of the writing voice as you would expect. I sort of feel like my writing voice is generally much more intelligent than my spoken voice, so maybe I can ride my own coattails a bit.
Transportation is pretty convenient here actually. Going long distances is much easier than in the U.S., as you can take a train from Bologna to Milan, Venice, or Rome without much hassle. Local transport is a bit more expensive I think - the bus is 1,50 € for 75 minutes of travel, but you can also get bus passes that make it cheaper to use it a lot. Mostly I just walk, because Bologna, like many European cities, I imagine, is very pedestrian friendly, especially in centro.
In my free time I mostly do shopping or head out. There are like ten zillion restaurants, bars, cafés, etc. per square kilometer here, so there is no shortage of places to go. Bologna is a quite bustling city
"Alex you do make me laugh! It sounds like you're having fun."
Thanks, Marm! I am indeed having a good time. Everything is molto bene.
"I think the name of the blog is awesome, complete with a matching picture. It's very interesting to read about the differences between AMURIKA and Italy. Only wish I had enough monies to fly myself over there and visit you during spring break or something. Ah, well. I shall await your return in June (or was is July?)!"
Conveniently I had a picture to name the blog after! I guess bits and blogs would be a more punny name, but so be it. The main difference I notice is that the people here aren't really in a rush to do anything. I might even go so far as to call them apathetic about most things. Hence the political system is completely screwed up despite the people being generally intelligent and hardly the sort of people "evil" enough to be Fascist (though it's been some 70 years since then).
Perhaps if you spend enough time at Dunkin' Donuts this semester, you will have enough specie to pay for a ticket :P 'twould be well worth it I assure you
Also, heads up America, the hope of the states returns June 5th - my dad's [29th] birthday!
"BACON SAUCE...How do we NOT have BACON SAUCE here in the States?"
Honestly, this befuddles me. What could be more American than the aptly and simply named bacon sauce. No gimmicks, just bacon in sauce form. I guess we'll have to make due with baconnaise until Heinz gets its priorities in order
venerdì 8 febbraio 2013
domenica 3 febbraio 2013
For the record
Earlier this week I went to a record store here in Bologna (specifically the Ricordi Media Store on Via Ugo Bassi), which was a very enlightening experience, giving me a good opportunity to talk about the kind of music Italians seem to listen to.
One thing that may be a bit surprising is the fact that Italian radio stations play as much English/American music as Italian music, so there's really a mix of both varieties here. Of course, many don't know what the words to songs by the likes of Maroon 5 and Taylor Swift mean (they don't know what they're missing), but this doesn't seem to hinder their enjoyment too much.
Why is this? I'm not quite sure - there are plenty of Italian pop singers, but maybe the sheer volume of English and American imports creates a market for itself.
While one would think that the inability of most Italians to understand English music would decrease the quality of the music that was popular here. After all, the difference between 2 Chainz and Kanye West, for instance, would be almost non-existent. Surprisingly, though, Italy is not just a land where catchy American music thrives. Indeed, the record store I went into had a bafflingly random and respectable selection.
Generally, it's broken up into a few sections - there's a pretty large opera section, an Italian music section with the likes of Afterhours and Vasco Rossi, and a section filled with English music. The contents of this last section are as follows:
- Typical older music: Michael Jackson, Bob Dylan, Rolling Stones, and David Bowie, but...
- No Beatles, The Who, or Led Zeppelin
- An oddly large variety of options from The Pet Shop Boys, of whose songs I can name none
- Even greater selection of Iggy Pop, who seems to be very popular here in Italy. They had multiple copies of Raw Power as well as solo albums like The Idiot and Lust for Life, and multiple people that I've met here in Italy are fans. Granted, he's fairly well liked in the U.S. as well, but it's not like you ever hear "No Fun" or "Nightclubbing" on the radio
Among the ranks of these artists was also a large selection of '90's and 2000's British music (most of the music there actually), which is a score for me. Here's what I found:
- Multiple copies of Oasis' (What's the Story) Morning Glory? and a couple copies of Heathen Chemistry. I almost bought a copy of the latter, but considering it's the album where they jumped the shark in trying to be like The Beatles, I thought I'd wait till I had a copy of the more deserving Be Here Now before getting it, because Oasis cares what order I buy their albums in
- Every single Coldplay album
- Radiohead and, shockingly, Kasabian albums
- Massive Attack, because Italy evidently has very eclectic taste in music
- and The Verve's Urban Hymns, which I bought (it's pretty solid - more similar to A Storm in Heaven on first listen than I expected)
- Then in the vinyl section they had Primal Scream's Screamadelica and Pulp's Different Class, although the vinyl section tends to be more out there - in Providence I went to a record store that had a vinyl copy of Slowdive's impossible to find last album, Pygmalion
Basically, Italians listen to American music but are also apparently all about that recent British alternative. I've got to admit, I'm kind of impressed and amused by their taste.
One thing that may be a bit surprising is the fact that Italian radio stations play as much English/American music as Italian music, so there's really a mix of both varieties here. Of course, many don't know what the words to songs by the likes of Maroon 5 and Taylor Swift mean (they don't know what they're missing), but this doesn't seem to hinder their enjoyment too much.
 |
| To them, every song is the macarena |
While one would think that the inability of most Italians to understand English music would decrease the quality of the music that was popular here. After all, the difference between 2 Chainz and Kanye West, for instance, would be almost non-existent. Surprisingly, though, Italy is not just a land where catchy American music thrives. Indeed, the record store I went into had a bafflingly random and respectable selection.
Generally, it's broken up into a few sections - there's a pretty large opera section, an Italian music section with the likes of Afterhours and Vasco Rossi, and a section filled with English music. The contents of this last section are as follows:
- Typical older music: Michael Jackson, Bob Dylan, Rolling Stones, and David Bowie, but...
- No Beatles, The Who, or Led Zeppelin
- An oddly large variety of options from The Pet Shop Boys, of whose songs I can name none
- Even greater selection of Iggy Pop, who seems to be very popular here in Italy. They had multiple copies of Raw Power as well as solo albums like The Idiot and Lust for Life, and multiple people that I've met here in Italy are fans. Granted, he's fairly well liked in the U.S. as well, but it's not like you ever hear "No Fun" or "Nightclubbing" on the radio
Among the ranks of these artists was also a large selection of '90's and 2000's British music (most of the music there actually), which is a score for me. Here's what I found:
- Multiple copies of Oasis' (What's the Story) Morning Glory? and a couple copies of Heathen Chemistry. I almost bought a copy of the latter, but considering it's the album where they jumped the shark in trying to be like The Beatles, I thought I'd wait till I had a copy of the more deserving Be Here Now before getting it, because Oasis cares what order I buy their albums in
- Every single Coldplay album
- Radiohead and, shockingly, Kasabian albums
- Massive Attack, because Italy evidently has very eclectic taste in music
- and The Verve's Urban Hymns, which I bought (it's pretty solid - more similar to A Storm in Heaven on first listen than I expected)
- Then in the vinyl section they had Primal Scream's Screamadelica and Pulp's Different Class, although the vinyl section tends to be more out there - in Providence I went to a record store that had a vinyl copy of Slowdive's impossible to find last album, Pygmalion
Basically, Italians listen to American music but are also apparently all about that recent British alternative. I've got to admit, I'm kind of impressed and amused by their taste.
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