I’m not sure what to call this blog, usually I come up with a specific pun title but honestly this one’s kind of nonspecific with regard to subject matter because I didn’t really plan it beforehand, and it got kind of long and rambling and eventually it just turns into me talking about milk while I wait for the internet to come back so I can post it and get it over with

Last semester I tried to give every blog a theme – but last semester I only did about 5 blogs, and now that I’m planning on doing one a week I realise I’m not creative enough to do that. Which leads me to the alternative – updating you all on what I’ve done during this past week. But then I realised I’m not interesting enough to do that either. Don’t get me wrong, I did stuff this week, but it wasn’t interesting cultural stuff. It was stuff like reading, and going to the shops, and watching Mad Max: Fury Road. Not my usual blog-worthy trips to floating cities and Incan citadels.

But Alex! I hear you cry. I instinctively grab the shotgun I keep under my bed and tell you to get out of my room and also to stop crying. You oblige. But Alex! you cry again, this time from the corridor. The sound is muffled because I’ve closed the bedroom door in the hope you’d maybe go, and now I can barely hear you. I grudgingly open it a crack, and ask you to repeat what you said. My voice is cordial but you sense I’m only talking to you out of courtesy. But Alex! you cry again – more softly this time – your life is already a thousandfold more interesting than ours are, by virtue of its currently taking place in a foreign country! We would love to hear about what you’re reading, and what supermarkets are like over there, and whether you understood what they were saying in Mad Max: Fury Road! Please tell us!

I’m flattered by your silver-tongues – and also rendered slightly uncomfortable by the fact you’re all speaking in unison. It’s quite discordant and you need work. To prevent you speaking again, I resolve to tell you everything about my past week. Everything except for the fact I watched Mad Max: Fury Road in English. Of that I am ashamed.

I did, however, go and see Logan at the cinema, and it was in Italian. I won’t pretend I understood every word, but I understood enough to glean that it was a very good film. Interestingly I understood more of it than I did of Suicide Squad, which I watched in Spanish around three weeks into my stay in Peru. Whether this means I’ve taken more quickly to Italian, or whether over the course of the last six months I’ve just improved in the blanket skill of understanding other languages in general, I don’t know. The complex relationship Juan and Giuseppe share remains a mystery to me. Could it be that they’re working together? Is it possible that they will one day settle their differences and live together in harmony? Is their constant bickering just to cover up the romantic feelings they have for one another, #giuan, #juaseppe? I don’t know, I’m just a pair of trousers. Nonetheless it’s a positive, and given that cinema tickets are just €3 on Wednesdays I may be spending a lot of time there. Pipe down Sistine Chapel, you can wait in line with Juliet’s balcony and Lake Como while I watch Lego Batman.

As for supermarkets in Italy – well, let me tell you that yeah they’re exactly the same as supermarkets anywhere else in the world. The one I go to is called Eurospin, which despite sounding like a casino is at the opposite end of the scale of financial viability. It’s like the Italian version of Lidl, except it’s not because Italy also has Lidl. In fact Eurospin is probably worse than Lidl. Eurospin is to Lidl is what Lidl is to Tesco. I never thought I’d miss Lidl, but I often find myself wishing I still shopped there – and I wish a lot more these days what with all these wishbones you get in Eurospin’s ‘salmon’. (That was a joke, it’s not that bad. Eurospin I mean; the joke was terrible.) I might go to Lidl next week. I’m sure you guys would love a reprisal of this fascinating theme of supermarket comparisons. Assuming you’re still reading. I did say I was struggling for blogworthy material.

To be honest it’s not really that bad. Here are a couple of pictures which for me really stood out from the Italian shopping experience.

Like this one. This one confuses me. On the left you have goat’s milk – thus the picture of the goat. On the right you have cow’s milk – thus the picture of the cow. This raises serious questions about the nature of the milk in the middle. I know the Italians are big on seafood – you can buy an entire frozen octopus from Eurospin. But given the widespread availability of cows and goats, not to mention our shared terrestrial proclivity, it seems a bit unnecessary – almost ungrateful – to go trying to milk a seal. If I was a milkmaid and in lieu of a bucket and stool my employer handed me a wetsuit and a snorkel, I’d probably resign. Besides, Wikipedia has nothing about seals producing chocolate milk. If a seal is producing chocolate milk there’s clearly something wrong with it. And I know better than to buy a product if the seal is broken.

This picture is far less confusing. It clearly demonstrates that the Italian toilet paper industry caters to people with ultra big foxy asses. As someone with an ultra big foxy ass, all I can say is it’s about time too.

The other interesting thing that’s happened to me is my classes, which, in retrospect would probably have made for a better blog. I’m considering squeezing a bit of info on them in here at the end, but I can probably get enough material out of it for an entire blog if I flog it hard enough. I also might have a bit more of an explore of Ferrara and its culture, so all in all I’m hopeful next week’s blog might actually be quite easy to write. Unlike this one. This one’s been like getting milk from the proverbial seal.

Interestingly during the course of my research into this blog, I discovered that pigeons produce milk. Which, being pigeons, they secrete in a sac in their throats and then throw up into the mouths of their young. This information has further solidified my belief that pigeons are disgusting. I’m only writing this paragraph because the internet here is terrible and won’t let me upload the blog yet, but it’s back now.

No, wait, it’s not back now. I still can’t upload photos. Feel free to stop reading though, I don’t really have anything else to say. I’m basically just writing information from the one tab I actually have open right now. Did you know that a wallaby can feed two different joeys of different ages different types of milk from different nipples? And there’s a farm in the Netherlands that sells cheese made of pigs milk for $1,200 per pound. Also scientists only know the milk compositions of 5% of mammals living today. What the hell scientists. Get it together.

Apparently the reason the pig milk cheese is so expensive is because pigs are really difficult to milk. Which sounds to me like they aren’t trying hard enough. Particularly when you consider here in Italy they milk seals. I was going to end this blog with that ‘getting milk from a seal’ line. I thought that was pretty good. Now it’s just going to peter out. Like this. Yeah.

Thanks for stopping by ferraread. Ciao!

 

Breaking the Habit

Some of the more psychologically-minded of you (as in “those of you who are interested in psychology” – I am aware that minds are by definition psychological) may have heard of a book called “Thinking Fast and Slow”. Its author, Daniel Kahnemann, expounds the theory that the brain operates on two different levels: a faster level, based on instinct and habit, which he terms “System 1”; and a slower, more logical level, which he terms “System 2”. The idea is that as we go through life making decisions, each decision we make uses one of these two levels. If you find yourself making a choice impulsively without taking the time to think beforehand, your System 1 is responsible. Whereas if you address the problem in a rational manner, basing your decision on logic, it’s due to System 2’s input that you arrive at your answer.

For example, if you are in a foreign country and you are aware that in order to be understood you will need to speak a foreign language, your System 1 will identify the foreign language you are most accustomed to using and at which you are most proficient, and very helpfully send it straight to your tongue. So sharp and ready is your System 1 at doing this, that you may have completed an entire sentence in Spanish before your System 2 cranks into gear and alerts you to the fact that, while there was nothing wrong with the Spanish you spoke, you are, infelicitously, in Italy.

That’s right, after my many months free of confusion between the two languages I speak – months in which my Spanish improved leaps and bounds – I have now returned to that situation, and to a country where my knowledge of Spanish isn’t just useless, but actively detrimental to my language-learning ability. We’ve been for dinner in our Italian neighbours’ flats a couple of times and they’re very nice about it, but it’s nonetheless not exactly a great way to make friends when you bring the conversation to a grinding halt whenever you open your mouth.

 

In order to better illustrate the problem I’m facing, I’ve come up with the following analogy:

There are two men, Juan and Giuseppe, and they live together. In many ways they are quite similar. Their ancestors spoke Latin, they’re both overly keen on using the subjunctive, and they like to go to sleep in the middle of the day. In other ways, however, they are very different. For example Juan can’t fathom Giuseppe’s proclivity for putting unnecessary z’s and e’s in otherwise perfectly functional words, while in turn Juan’s propensity to talk about completed actions that happened in the distant past in something called “the preterite” drives Giuseppe up the wall. However there’s no reason why they shouldn’t be able to get along just fine, so long as they spend some time outside away from each other, and give one another a bit of space. But here they run into a crucial problem. The law of the world which Giuseppe and Juan inhabit dictates that it is forbidden to leave the house without trousers. And Giuseppe and Juan only own one pair of trousers.

Worse, changing in and out of the trousers is an incredible hassle. It takes over a month. So in order to save time, Juan and Giuseppe decide to wear the trousers together. If Giuseppe wants to go to a pizzeria, Juan is dragged along behind him; and Juan can’t go to the bullfight without Giuseppe in tow. Consequently, when Juan’s amigos want to talk to him about tapas or flamenco dancing, sometimes Giuseppe will mutter something in reply; and when Giuseppe’s amici want to argue about pizza toppings (or sometimes just make incomprehensible hand gestures at one another), Juan will chip in unbidden with his thoughts.

Clearly the situation can’t continue. Juan and Giuseppe are at loggerheads, constantly hindered by the other’s presence. Until one day, Juan snaps, and locks Giuseppe in his bedroom. For six months he keeps Giuseppe trapped there, feeding him on a diet of Peruvian (and latterly Colombian) cuisine, which is Giuseppe’s kryptonite. Even the South American coffee is like poison to Giuseppe, for he only drinks espressos. Giuseppe feels himself wasting away, turning stale like an unwanted pizza crust while outside, Juan is enjoying himself.

For Juan, these six months are the greatest of his life. He improves greatly as a human being. He drinks the finest pisco, travels to Machu Picchu, and some Mexican girls try to teach him to salsa.  He can now speak to his friends with ease, and sometimes when he’s at a restaurant he even understands what the waiter’s saying to him. One day, he finds himself sitting in a tapas bar in Madrid, eating fried prawns and dogfish, and the rest of the things my google search for “typical tapas foods” came up with. He’s wearing a poncho, and a smile plays at his lips as he reminisces about the past six months. It’s early February, and as the door of the tapas bar opens a chill breeze, still lingering from the winter, sends a shiver down the back of his neck. He turns around just in time to see a scrawny, malnourished man with slicked-back hair, wearing only a blue football shirt and a pair of Gucci underwear leap at him with a cry of “Mamma mia!”*

It’s Giuseppe! He’s escaped!

“Giuseppe!” Juan cries.

“Your time outside is over!” Giuseppe yells, forcing his way into the waistband of the trousers. “It’s time to pasta trousers on to me!”

“It’s not time tapas the trousers on to you!” Juan retorts. “They’re mine now!”

“You’ve had your six months! Now I want a pizza the action!”

“They’re nacho trousers and they never will be!”

“It’s time for you to find out how it feels to be forgotten! Honestly it’s cannellonli.”

“I hoped it might have tortillu a lesson!”

That’s as far as the story’s got so far, I’m afraid. The fight is still going on. Giuseppe seems to be winning though, slowly but surely. They’ve since rolled away from the tapas bars and into several pizzerias, and Juan’s inputs are becoming more and more infrequent. Hopefully soon Giuseppe will be able to force Juan out of the trousers and lock him in his bedroom for five months. I’ll keep you posted.

Incidentally for anyone who is confused, in this story I am the trousers.

I’m pretty sure I must complain about the issue of learning Spanish and Italian to everyone I meet, and probably in most of the blogs I write. But it has long been the bane of my life, and given that it’s recently surfaced again, like a horror movie sequel, I thought I’d address it. And throwback to the beginning of this blog when I was talking about psychology and some of you thought it was going to be intellectual. Not today, you fools. In fact I’ve only read 14% of that book, according to my kindle. Also do I have to reference it? The student in me feels like I should reference it.

Anyway, all is well in Italia, and I will struggle on. Thanks for stopping by ferraread. Ciao!

*they do actually say this

Me wearing a disguise to avoid doing any work

Kahnemann, D. (2011) Thinking Fast and Slow, London, Allen Lane

 

Ferrarival

Yep, after my many months away I have returned to the freezing climes of the northern hemisphere. It was quite the journey. Together with my trusty companions – my PUCP rucksack, my backpack and my enormous suitcase – I’ve crossed oceans, traversed cities and leapt turnstiles on my way from Bogota to Lima to Miami to Madrid to Bologna and finally, to Ferrara. My suitcase is definitely feeling the strain from being dragged down so many cobbled streets and airport travelators, and started to make a strange and somewhat melancholy whining noise as I moved it – but I guess when you leave a country after that long, it’s normal to have some emotional baggage.

I’ve been in Ferrara for a couple of weeks now, and it’s a lovely city – very different from Lima. I think this is very aptly summarised by transport. Ferrara is known as “La citta delle biciclette”, or “the city of bikes”, and having been lent a free bike by my landlord I’ve found it a convenient and enjoyable way of moving around within the city. You can cycle from one of the city walls to the opposite wall in about fifteen minutes, and so for me getting from home to the uni or the city centre tends to take a fairly leisurely seven minutes or so.

Compare this to Lima, where a bus from my house to Miraflores could take anywhere between forty-five minutes and two hours – it’s just that little bit more convenient. And – well, I was going to say I wouldn’t have been seen dead on a bicycle in Lima, but to be honest that’s probably the only way I’d’ve been seen on a bicycle in Lima. I fondly remember Lima’s roads, but only from the safety of a bus, any blow to be cushioned by the several dozen Peruvians wedged in there with me. To be honest I’d almost forgotten what it’s like to live in such a place of such tranquility and accessibility, and it’s very refreshing to be back in Europe.

As I said, Ferrara is a lovely city, but it differs from many other such lovely Italian cities by being off the beaten track a bit. It’s tucked away in the northeast of Italy beneath the lip of the boot (don’t know if lip is the technical term, I am not a cobbler), surrounded by better known destinations such as Venice, Verona and Bologna. But the relative lack of tourists means it feels more quintessentially Italian. The enormous moated castle is currently the standout feature (I say currently, the cathedral might offer some competition were it not for the fact that it’s going to be covered in scaffolding for the foreseeable future), but there’s a very relaxed feeling about the place, with its narrow, cobbled streets, its cafes and pizzerias, and of course the bicycles. The main square is usually filled with people, and offers plenty of places to stop off for a cappuccino and a prosciutto-filled croissant, but if you wander off down one of the many alleyways it’s also easy to leave the crowds behind and find some peace and quiet.

As ever the university has been a bit difficult to organise – due in part to the fact that they chose to hold their welcome week two weeks before the semester started, and so I missed what appear to have been quite an important two days of it. There’s been a lot of queuing, and I must have printed enough study plans, learning agreements, certificates of arrival and certificates of attendance to wipe out a small copse, but it all seems to be working out. I’m currently enrolled in modules in philosophical logic, moral philosophy, and aesthetics, so it’s a bit more cohesive than the psychology-law-metaphysics shambles of bygone semesters.

Of course, I’m hesitant to lay the blame entirely at the feet of the uni because usually my administrative woes are at least in part my fault. I probably should have used my one-and-a-half months in Colombia to prepare for this semester, but I had such a good time out there enjoying the culture, basking in the warm sunshine of Santa Marta and Medellin, that Italy just felt, well, nine thousand four hundred and three kilometres away. And of course, I wasn’t sure I was going to make it back at all, what with the crime in Colombia, and Rodrigo and his ladrones lurking out there waiting to harvest my organs and steal my laptop. However fortunately there was no sign of him. It was only in Medellin, Colombia’s second city and former home of former drug lord Pablo Escobar, while I was trying to get my hands on some more of that sweet, sweet coca that I so desperately crave, that I found out he’d been arrested there by four Americans and their dog. He would’ve got away with it too, if it weren’t for those Medellin kids.

I’ve still made some time for travelling in Italy too. Last weekend a group of us went down to Venice carnival, which was incredible. I’ve never been to Venice and of course it was absolutely heaving, but I think the number of people who went is testament to the brilliance of the event. Everywhere I looked there was something bizarre or beautiful to look at as the floating city was invaded by gallimaufry of masks and costumes, ranging from those attired in traditional masks and 18^th-century clothing, to Pinocchio and Batman, and even the characters from Inside Out (who were NOT AS GOOD AS WE WERE). We embraced the Italian spirit with pasta, coffee, gelato, mulled wine and pizza, and even found time to (very spontaneously) go to a Vivaldi concert – in Vivaldi’s church. I’m sure you don’t need me to tell you to go to Venice, but if ever you do get the chance, go to Venice.

Me with my idols, not doing any work

I think I’ve made enough abysmal puns for one day, so I’m gondolierve it there. I’ve promised myself I’ll be a better blogger 4 u guyz this semester, so the plan is you’ll only have a week or a fortnight of eagerly awaiting the next dollop of my witless ramblings. It feels a bit strange not to be able to thank you for perusing. I guess I’ll have to find another way of thanking you for stopping by for a read.

Anyway, thanks for stopping by ferraread.

Ciao!