La sua piscina personale June 16, 2008

I just saw the cutest thing while walking home from school today. It was a route I’ve taken before but never really looked around very carefully. Today I saw a woman who had stopped and was looking at this fountain, somewhat obscured by parked cars, that was in a nook in the side of a building. I stopped also because I thought maybe it was a really special fountain or something, but when I looked into it, I saw a little dog swimming in the fountain. It was the cutest thing ever. It was deep enough so that he was doggie paddling to and fro. I asked the woman if he had a swim every day, but she told me he did it only when it was hot outside. Since his fur was long and black, I could see his reasoning. Anyway, he gathered quite a crowd before he decided to get out of the pool.

Forget all the monuments and historical buildings in Rome. That was the moment in which I most regretted not having my camera with me.

Gli ultimi viaggi May 31, 2008

I don’t have too much to say about my latest trips to Dublin and the Amalfi Coast. If you want to see some trip photots that I uploaded with comments, you can view them at my flickr site www.flickr.com/vivsun.

Didn’t have enough time to really explore Dublin as I was only there for a day and half but I spent the most time in the Temple Bar area (ate a ton for lunch at their farmer’s market) and the Guinness Storehouse. And I spent a little time walking around Phoenix Park, which is apparently the largest park in Europe? I remember reading that somewhere. I would like to return at some point and have more time to explore the city, and some of the smaller villages in the surrounding area. One thing I noticed was that Irish people were really nice and friendly, so that sterotype held up.

The Amalfi coast was as beautiful as I expected, reminiscent of Cinque Terre (at least to me). We stayed in Sorrento, but visited Capri, Amalfi, Ravello, and Positano as well. Coastal Italy is really interesting in terms of city planning. The cliffs are so steep and there’s not a lot of flat land so a lot of the towns are built vertically. And the road that winds between the towns is really narrow and curvy. Seriously, the bus drivers there are rock stars. Because the road is so narrow in parts and only allows one car to pass at a time, when you reach those points, you have to honk to let the people coming from the opposite direction know you’re there, and coming through. Usually the bus gets the right of way, but once the other car had already come halfway along, so the bus driver, in the dark, backed the bus up at least 30 or 40 feet on this narrow, windy road. I was pretty impressed.

The other notable thing is that that area around the Amalfi coast is well known for their lemons. So in my 3 days there I ate everything lemon flavored that I could get my hands on. Lemon granite and lemon gelato you can get in Rome, but I also tried lemon spremuta (fresh lemon juice. I somehow expected the lemons to be sweeter but no, I had to add sugar to it), lemon tiramisu, delizia (sponge cake covered in a lemon whipped cream, maybe the thing I was most looking forward to eating initially. Unfortunately it was a bit of a disappointment)), and the famous limoncello. You can get that in Rome too, but I guess it’s more famous in Sorrento and that area.

It’s a 3 day weekend in Italy because on June 2nd, they celebrate the day when Italy became a republic, so it’s like their 4th of July. I don’t think BBQs are as common here, or fireworks, but hopefully I’ll see how they celebrate it, since I’ll be in Rome for a change.

Il clima e’ pazzo May 29, 2008

Yesterday it was over 90 degrees, just boiling hot. Today it was raining as hard as I’ve ever seen it rain in Rome. The weather here is so schizophrenic these days, it’s amazing. It really does make me appreciate our mild weather back home (yes, the grass does in fact appear greener on this side). Is it too much to ask for a little bit of moderate weather between all the highs and lows?

Le cose che non si vedono a San Francisco May 29, 2008

Grandmothers and business men in suits enjoying a gelato. Parents taking their high school kids to school on the back of their motor scooters. Two normal, everyday things you wouldn’t normally see back home, but that make Rome, Rome.

Se io abitassi a Praga, avrei una pancia di birra… May 14, 2008

This post will be about my trip to Prague, but first I have to say that I just realized that my Italian has really gotten better. Before when I did my Italian post titles, sometimes I’d be unsure of words or prepositions or sentence structure, but it has really gotten easier. I still make mistakes but it all comes a lot easier now. I guess I should have expected it after almost 8 months (!!!) here.

But anyway, enough about Italian, let me tell you about Prague. I’d heard a few things before I went, things that set my expectations somewhat high. It’s supposed to be one of the most beautiful cities, if not the most beautiful, in central Europe, mainly because it was the only capital city left relatively undamaged by bombing from World Wars 1 and 2. The other thing I heard was that they brew the best beer in Europe. Having recently come from Germany and tasting the beer in Munich, another city famous for their beer (maybe not so much for the quality as for the spectacle that is Oktoberfest) and not having been too impressed, I was skeptical. But Prague lived up to the hype. Therefore it will remain in my mind as one of the most photogenic cities I’ve ever been to, as well as the city in which I would most likely grow a beer belly.

Another thing I will remember about Prague is how freaking hard and foreign the language is. I’ve been to other countries where I don’t speak the language, but at least I can somewhat pronounce the words, and the sounds are familiar. But Czech is the most difficult language I’ve encountered. I am totally discounting Arabic, with its different alphabet, where I have zero chance of seeing a written word and knowing how to say it. With Czech, I would look at my map and be like “Okay, I want to go to the Old Town Square” but all their signs that direct tourists to famous sites are in Czech, so I’d consult my guidebook and see that in Czech that’s Staromestske Namesti (that’s without all the accent symbols they have over certain letters). So I’d follow the arrow for Staromestske Namesti. But when I’d get to the next grouping of signs, maybe 2 minutes later, I would have already forgotten the name I was looking for, so I’d have to pull out my guidebook again. The same thing would happen with street names. I just couldn’t seem to remember them, even 2 seconds after having just read them, just because the sounds were so unfamiliar. Needless to say, I always had my map at hand in Prague.

It was a pretty whirlwind trip since I arrived on Friday late afternoon and left Monday morning, but I saw everything I wanted to see. My first night I just wandered aimlessly and found myself on the Charles Bridge at dusk. Pretty much around every corner in Prague there’s a photo opportunity. In SF, maybe you’ll see a building and think “Wow, that’s an amazing building” but in Prague it’s like every building evokes that sentiment. Honestly at times I felt like I was walking down Main Street in Disneyland. It was just so picturesque with the cobbled streets, the cleanliness, and the pretty buildings, but in Disneyland it’s all a facade. In Prague, it’s real life, but set in a place that is fairy tale beautiful.

(If you want to see a few more of my photos from Prague, you can go to my flickr site, http://www.flickr.com/vivsun)

Anyway, those are my thoughts on Prague. Well, one thing more. Seriously, if you know of a place in SF that has Pilsner Urquell on tap, tell me! I tried it in a can but it wasn’t the same. Okay, enough about the beer. Next stop, Dublin… I promise I won’t say a word about Guinness.

Perche sono felicissima adesso April 19, 2008

My friend Ann is in town and she was awesome enough to bring me fixings to make this certain type of pho. You don’t understand how much I miss Vietnamese food. My mom was here for the past 3 weeks, and we actually found a Korean restaurant that is really good, but I have yet to find a Vietnamese restaurant here in Rome. Anyway, Ann knows how much I miss it, so she carted all the ingredients here in her backpack. And they were heavy! So we made it tonight and it was so, so, so good. And the best part is, I have enough to make it again and again. Ann, when you read this, you’re the best.

Amore nuovo per Roma March 11, 2008

For those of you who think you know what the title means, nope, don’t get your hopes up. What I mean is that I’ve fallen in love with Rome again. I’ve been here for over 5 months now and yes it’s been great, but not anywhere I considered staying for longer than a year. Recently I made a fairly insignificant change in my life here but it really has changed my outlook on living in Italy.

Some of you know that I moved last weekend and even though the apartment itself is only about a 10 minute walk away from my old place, it’s like everything has changed. The new area is much more “Roman”, much less tourist-central, although it’s still very convenient to school. I’m sharing the apartment with an Italian woman instead of renting a room with a family, and it feels much more like home, even though I’ve been here for a really short time so far. It helps that I have internet access here so I feel like I can be much more in touch with friends back home than I’ve been able to previously. And the last thing is that it’s much more convenient to run here. That sounds weird, but where I lived before, there were so many factors that made it hard to exercise, the crowds, the cobblestones, the traffic, but now I’m right near the river and less than a 5 minute run to the Circo Massimo, which in ancient Rome was the largest stadium in the world. If I have to run around a track, at least it’s a track with some history! Until I went running today I didn’t realize how much I missed it, and how good it feels for it to be part of my life again. Life feels normal again.

Anyway, all this stuff combines to make me feel more like a resident here instead of a perpetual tourist. And even though I doubt that I’ll extend my time here past the year mark, it’s nice to think that my next 6 months here will be even better than the first 6.

Egypt photos February 25, 2008

Working on a blog post but until I get it done, you can check out some of my photos on Flickr.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/vivsun/

Gong xi fa cai February 7, 2008

Happy Year of the Rat!! In honor of Chinese New Year I searched all over the “Chinatown” area of Rome (just an area with a lot of Chinese businesses, but not really “Chinatown” like the one in SF) to try to find a Chinese bakery, but no luck. But I did find some Chinese supermarkets so I bought some stuff that I think is traditional for Chinese New Year. And I’m going out to a Chinese restaurant tonight for dinner. So yeah, it’s a Chinese day in Italy for me.

Stai attento agli uccelli January 29, 2008

There are these flocks, scratch that, there are these GINORMOUS flocks of birds that fly around Rome at dusk. It’s actually kind of cool to see because they resemble schools of fish in that they change direction all together but instead of swimming in unison they’re flying in unison.

Anyway, I was just standing at a bus stop with a friend and there were a few birds hovering around nearby trees. Then something must have startled them and literally hundreds, maybe thousands (I’m no good at estimating numbers. Maybe thousands is pushing it a bit) flew out of the trees and took off. Then I heard what sounded like rain. Yes, if you’re thinking that it was “raining” bird poop, you are correct. It was disgusting. I think I managed to evade getting hit but my friend didn’t, and neither did many other passers by.

A couple months ago I saw a car covered in bird crap and I was thinking “Man, that car must’ve been parked here for months” but after today, I realize that could’ve happened in 1 minute if those birds happened to pass by.

Now I’ve got to go home and lay out the clothes that I’m wearing just to make sure I did get through the bombardment of poo unscathed.