The Old Country

Paris was a week of wandering the streets with baguete in hand and a bottle of wine capped in my bag sometimes with a destination othertimes seeing where sandy city paths would take me. Cheese grows on trees in France and timeless pieces of art are a dime a dozen in Paris. Parks are groomed like poodles and the metro is basically free if you can hop a turnstyle.

Avec les Parisiens, j'ai dû changer mon accent. Chaque fois que je disais un mot, les Parisiens auraient dû la repeter avec leur accent pour mieux comprendre. Avec temps, j'ai réussis à diminuer le "hein" et à augmenter le "onh".

I stayed with the loveliest of people in Paris and we did some beautiful cooking a couple of nights. They made me Soufflé! - the simplest and most delicious of my life.

Les Européans sont obssedés avec la simplicité. La petit déjeuner en France et toujours compris d'un café et un baguette avec tartinade, riens de plus. Après l'avoir essayer, enfin, on peut voir que c'est la meilleure façon du monde à commencer une journée.

Ryanair was brill. I don't know what people have against it. It was a short flight but all the same I fell asleep and when I woke up we were arriving -early at that! Best value ever!

Italy was scary at first, sitting outside hotels and caffès to better steal an internet connection, hopelessly searching for rooms that don't require a year long inhabitance. Calling up numbers with the fuzzy signal of my burner trying to convince people in broken Italian that I wasn't a bad guy. I eventually learned a few key phrases that would help me hustle my way into an abode:

"Posso pagare i prima 3 mesi adesso. Sono Canadese con un lavoro in Canada sul' internet." Finalmente, sono arrivato qui: una camera piccola con bagno a 300 euro. Passo degli giorni sul balcone, studiano l'italiano e cercano un lavoro sul' internet


Young Italians have a stigma in the rest of the world for living with their parents, often into their thirties. Children sleep in the same bed as their parents and families are tightly knit. This matter is a question of necessity and has little to do with maturity. It is so difficult to find a job, let alone a job that can support an adult life, that parents are forced to keep their children close to keep them under a roof.

L'italia ha paura degli stranieri e con il crisi economica chi sta crescendo, che posso fare come un straniero? Tutti gli annunci di cucina dicono sempre, "deve essere italiano."

I have witnessed three police chases since I arrived. All of them fraudulent merchants fleeing busy piazzas with trinkets, watches and sunglasses. Generally, they get away. Perhaps if the systems of power put more money into creating real jobs and spent less time chasing those that are forced to create their own work, the economy wouldn't be going down the tubes.
La mozerella di buffalo fatto di giorno è la cosa il piu delizioso che mangievo nella vita. sul' una pizza fatto di farina dura italiana, con passata densa di pomodori, speck profumato di ginepro, e un buon vino rosso gassificato, beh, potrésti benissimo morire.

Markets are a big deal here which helps me feel at home. I'm eating only fresh local produce which makes me happy. it is interesting to see what Italians like to eat. It is so specific and yet so complex. Supermarkets only have small greenish brown lentils (like dupuys), but they have maybe ten different types within that category. You don't buy a zucchini unless the flower on it is intact, full of colour, and ready to fry. Peaches come in so many delicious varieties. 4 aisles of pasta types but not a jar of peanut butter!

Till the next!