honba za prdopečem 4

Tak jsem tuhle sháněl syrovátku. U nás ji koupíte v každé lékárně, takže na každým druhým rohu, půl kila za dvě piva. Abych obhlíd situaci, mrknul jsem na net - slovník sice nabízel víc výrazů, po chvíli jsem ale zjistil, že pátrám po siero di latte nebo siero del latte. Nicméně bylo vidět, že jí Italové zřejmě neholdujou...

My head is full of beatles

After the Norwegian wood story...i admit i still didn't start reading the book, but once the Pendulum is over... anyway, i kept listening to the Beatles, "kluci jedni zasrany", as my grandma is said to have called them. last week we were about to watch some movie, and Zuzi suggested i watch Across the Universe. Across the Universe it was. The movie is brilliant! Not only that it makes you think about the lyrics of some Beatles' songs. I like that the songs are presented in a different way, often at lower tempo, which is quite tough to deal with. And they dealt with it well. Especially this Sturgess guy. Just listen to the beginning:

I'm not into musicals. Music in movies presented in the theatrical musical way mostly disturbs me, but this time i was simply enchanted. Perhaps also because i know the songs, but, whatever. I like this movie. 

And also until this movie i really didn't know that Helter Skelter was from the Beatles.

Meeting other cultures

Wow, just a while ago i learned that Chinese count to ten with only one hand! i mean the way you show one, two, three fingers, etc...(i know there are some differences, like in the Inglorious Basterds, but the principle is the same). And they have only five fingers on each hand, no cheating!

Choc-au-lait! Shock-lid!

The world can be all different depending on your viewpoint. Let’s focus on food. When you go to Switzerland, for example…potatoes, yes, since war times, but something else…cheese, better, and…of course! Swiss chocolate! Then take Belgium. Beer, then, lemme think, what do we know about Belgian cuisine? There’s gotta be some mussels, then they certainly have some beef specialties, fried stuff, waffles..and pralines! When you move to Italy, you’d say pizza, pasta, seafood, then sweets, like cannolli from Sicily or sfogliatelle from Naples or the renouned tiramisu. You wouldn’t say chocolate. Or at least I wouldn’t. But behold!

This weekend we had a festa del cioccolato in Ravenna! Yes, indeed… the main square was full of stalls with various mostly chocolate-based delicacies.

I’m not a chocolate person…I mean I like it but don’t need it in large quantities or every other day…but this was something. And not just chocolate, simply sweet :)

 

honba za prdopečem 3

Představte si, že vaříte brambory. Nebo třeba květákovou polívku. A nebo jen házíte rybu na pánvičku. No tak jestli to máte představený, tak je dost možný, že v té představě máte i kmín. Jó kmín, to je klasika, jenže ouha. Za dva měsíce v Itálii jsem na něj nenarazil. Naivního gastroturistu by mohl zmást lákavej název cumino, ten je ostatně i v nejednom slovníku jako překlad českýho slova kmín. No, jenže to byste si naběhli, páč se jedná o římskej kmín. Ten se sice hodí, třeba když chcete dělat falafel a tak...ale je to zkrátka jiný koření. K mýmu překvapení a lehkýmu zklamání neznala náš kmín ani paní ve stánku s kořením a nemají ho ani v obchůdku s bylinkama, kořením a spol., kde mají všemožný leccosy... Takže honba za naším kmínem pokračuje.

A tuhle jsem si koupil kus hovězího srdce (italsky cuore di bovino). To já moc rád, jen tak uvařit a pak ho baštit samotný třeba jen s jablíčkovým křenem nebo nějakou zeleninou. No, srdce bylo výborný – musím říct, že když jsem ho posledně vařil doma, tak nebylo tak šťavnatý a bylo tužší – asi mladší lepší italská kráva. Jenže ten křen, to jsem zas narazil.

Norwegian Wood Effect

There’s always a sequence of events that leads to some points in the present which make us realize these subtle chains of more or less recent history.

I’m not talking about the way i got to Italy, which could for example begin by the fact that at one university in Netherlands they had bachelor courses only in Dutch some years ago..

This story is connected to a package i received on Friday. It was unexpected, since in the info e-mail i was told it will arrive by the end of November. A pleasant surprise. I always like these white envelopes or packages with the stamp of Royal Mail. Because there’s always books in them :)

Fsechnospatnyjepronecodobry

as the saying says...actually i dunno how that one is in English, but the meaning is that you can find good things even in events and things that don't seem good to you...or are not.
The motto of the optimists and a very true one indeed. it's all just by the way you look at it. After coming back from Georgia i suffered from a tough...digestive distortion, let's say. And i really didn't enjoy that. But when the bathroom is your second home, you can get bored...which led me to finally start reading the Foucault's pendulum from Emberto Eco i got from my cousin Ivan. And, damn this guy, it's a piece of reading! I supopose that Mr. Da Vinci Code Brown has read this one as well :) But what i really enjoy is the language. Okay, i'm not reading it in original, i remain with the English version, so i certainly get a partially false impression, but the variety of the language used is so wide, so many for me unusual words (also for the first time after watching the Beavis and Butthead movie some years ago i encountered the word "bunghole"), phrases...a bit like in rushdie's books. Opening the beautiful possibilities of treating and playing with the language.
Well and all this thanks to probably some not-cooked-enough bit of Georgian food. ain't it beautiful?
And since last week i also know how to say "finger" or "stitch" in Italian. Good i already know how to say "head", for example :)

Looking back and forth, speaking too much and saying nothing

Well well, and here comes the good old November again. Next week it will have been two weeks since i came to Italy. Hehe, first time in my life i really used future perfect outside a classroom. Let's hope i used it well. So, two months, time for some recap, for evaluation...last time i've been here for three months and it felt like a long time, i've done a lot of stuff, done some work...the fruits of which i am to harvest now.