What's the hold-up with the chowdown?

(This article is currently in my University paper, but for those of you that can't see it, I thought I'd pop it up here...)

One of many...Carbonara pizza in Sicily

How can a nation be famous for both indulgent food and world-class catwalks? Pizza, pasta, pastry and ice-cream- they’re the kind of tasty treats that the fashion industry doesn’t always appreciate as much as the rest of us. I know the Mediterranean lifestyle is meant to keep you spritely and bafflingly energetic well into retirement, but with that much dough involved, I simply couldn’t see the logic. So when I arrived in Padova, Italy, for my year abroad, I was suspicious of how the local ladies managed to live in streets lined with bakeries and still look slinky in their skinny jeans. But after a few weeks of careful observation, I discovered their secret.

I admit I arrived in the sunny boot of Europe with plenty of pre-conceptions of our European neighbours- I was sure there would be lots of passionate hand gesturing (true), impassioned accordion players providing the soundtrack to bustling street café’s (true), and was on my guard for slick-haired Casanova’s prowling the piazzas (pleasingly not true). What took me by surprise was one particular mentality, woven as deftly and naturally through the culture as a Vespa through cobbled side-streets: moderation.

Just one won't hurt...Cream and Raspberry Tart, Sicily

Alright, so it isn’t the most dramatic revelation, but it’s a concept that sets the bar classily high for many other countries- particularly for Britain, often depicted as a country of excess. As many statistics remind us, we love a good takeaway (recent surveys show that 45% of Brits enjoy indulging in fast food too much to give it up, followed closely by 44% of Americans), we love a drink, or three, even more and, when it comes to letting off steam, it goes without saying that Saturday night indulgence shouldn’t end until it’s well into Sunday morning- in the UK, binge drinking accounts for 40% of all drinking occasions by men, and 22% for women. When it comes to food and drink, we can’t seem to get enough of a good thing.

All the while, it seems Italians are almost supernaturally resistant to the chocolate-to-face-shovelling and wine swigging that some of us (or, at least, me and a few of my friends) are powerless to resist. For example, whilst in Italy one of my two housemates carefully cut a doughnut into four pieces, kindly offered me a segment, and when each girl had savoured her piece, the last quarter was wrapped in foil and left in the fridge. For three days. This, apparently, was normal. Alien as this concept of...wait, what's it called again..."saving chocolate for later" was to me, I have to say I respected it. I’m quite sure that even if I tried adopting such a sensible attitude towards confectionary, it’s likely that I would end up cheating outrageously by finding loopholes, such as alleged "sleep eating", or similar excuses.

Sugar-coated... Treats at the Chocolate Market, Padova

The Italian powers of self-control also apply into alcohol- it’s one of the few places where people claim they’re just going out for one drink, and actually mean it. That’s not to say Italians don’t know how to enjoy themselves- they throw a mean carnival, and their food markets never fail to excite and delight. Perhaps it’s just that “fun” doesn’t translate directly between our two nations- each with our different ways of using eating and drinking to make ourselves feel good.

Has the Italian influence affected me? Well, next time I find myself with a family-size bag of Maltesers and some spare time on my hands, I suppose I’ll find out…

Goodies- Out for hot chocolate with Tiger in Padova

Don't be shy, step right up! Follow my blog and make my day, or leave me a comment and tell me what you're thinkin'...thank you! Also, all photos in this post are taken by yours truly...

It's the little things

Keeping cosy by the fire...it won't make the headlines, but it'll make you happy

"Whipped-up spray that is rainbow-scattered
And a swallow curving in the sky
Shoes so comfy though they’re worn out and they’re battered
And the taste of apple pie.

So I mustn’t forget
No, I mustn’t forget
To say a great big thank you
I mustn’t forget.  "

~ Estelle White, Autumn Days

The last one. Shit. Knew I should have seen this coming.

I mutter and furrow my soapy brow at my only remaining hair-tie sprawled on the bathroom tiles. Its spring has sprung right out of it, along with its usefulness, purpose and raison d'etre. I'd worn it out, putting it to work with a flippant twist, morning after morning after morning after- oh. And suddenly, it just... wasn't, any more.

What if it hadn't been a spindly old hairband that had snapped into uselessness in an unexpected instant? (...can you see where I'm going with this yet?). What if it had been something else round, ancient and pretty darn essential? Tenuous link, I know, but go with it...what if Mr Harold Camping, of Family Radio, had actually been onto something with reckoning the End-of-the-World-as-we-know-it would happen around dinner-time last Saturday? What if he had seen us stop sniggering as he and his followers floated up to the Big Guy in the Sky, as the chaos began below? And what would you have thought when the streets started to rumble forbodingly beneath your feet?

What memories would have flickered behind your frozen gaze, before the lamplight cracked and was lost to the thundering shadows? 

As the "Autumn Days" assembly hymn used to teach our primary school selves, it's not just the big deals that make our world what it is. Thing's don't have to be rare to be special. So I wanted to make sure I remembered what makes my day, every day.
Yeah, this sounds cheesily twee now, but I'll bet many a dinosaur wished they'd taken time to savour their favourite watering hole/tufty gress/Stegasaurus-steak house, as they spied a meteor suddenly casting its mercilessly speeding shadow over the plains...

It's those lazy morning breakfasts...

...and watching the evenings drawing in

Kicking off the sandals for sunbathing...

...but sloshing through the slush too

Hours well spent celebrating with friends...

...or just keeping a book company.

Eating (pizza)  in...

...or eating (pizza) out.

In fact, there's a lot to love about Italia

...like the view from my room

...and my fly (definitely legally obtained) ride, for spinning about town...

There's always the canal-crossed paradise a train-ride away

But the homeland will always be where the heart is...

...with beautiful views of its own.

Knowing that family, and its furry friends, are important, every day.

I've let the pictures do the talking for me, but to summerise: there's a lot that I have to love. And a lot to look forward to. When the lights go out, I'll know what I've been lucky enough to live.

What will you remember?

(Don't be shy, step right up! Leave me a comment and tell me what you're thinkin'...)

"I was 'ere...are you?" - observations on desk graffiti

A view on the walk home from uni...what else are you walking away from?

Dashed and weathered by the tides of pens, pages, coats and elbows, their corners buffed into curved polish, their grains ground up with inks and dents of procrastination past.

The raring expectancies of lives beginning lies in these boards- illustrations of the subconscious, thoughts left too long un-tethered in those fragmented pauses between interest and understanding. Like the murk of an evening skyline, the harder you squint, the more biro constellations rise up through the blotted layers. Some wet black with fresh passion or distraction. Some softer- etches waning and wearing away; void and forgotten like the emotion, long since spent, that carved it there.

There are lessons learnt here, offered to us to make our own- it’s odd, both how often the word ‘time’ pops up, and how much there is etched out in English. A lolling scrawl simply suggests, “Take the Time”, another preaches, “time is something in your hands”, while here is scratched the sullen mumble, “kill the time that’s killing you”. There is an excitable, and as far as I can make out from the Italian, fairly derogatory comment about Gwen Stefani, and a few regulation doodles of penises. Some sketches are cruel, some are merry, some loving, some pondering, some make no sense at all- and why should they?



Except...I’m drawn (no pun intended) to a certain few patches of bleached scribbles- despite their age, and their bolder gel-pen successors, I find myself dwelling on them. Wondering if they hold on, in dull defiance, because they hold true, even now, though their authors long since left these pews behind. Their tattered messages are distant, but held here in purgatory, with dogged insistence. Do they stay loyal, somehow, to a dream never realised, a passion never chased, a love left untold? What do they say that their owner could not?



What have you written? Or, more importantly, do your thoughts live on, spectre-like on some desk gone by- shady reminders of a bottled desire? And don’t you think it’s time you let those laboured lines fade away....



Slightly less insightful graffiti, on the Literature Faculty wall

 (if you're bored, leave me a comment below. because...well, I like them :) )



Dustless Centuries- Padova University

So when I discovered a book I needed was in the Palazzo del Bo, the historical seat of the University, I got all geekily excitable, rooted about for my camera and wrote off the next hour or two as Tourist Time. Built in 1493, the place makes old-school look like a nursery fresh off the blueprints, as you can see:

 Track down your text in these leather-bound miniture files...

 The gateway of ancient intellect with a hint of, "I've only gone and lost my bloody parking ticket, haven't I?"

 As you walk through the main gate, pillars and stone wall carvings await...

 This statue of Palinurus was made in commemoration of the University's role in the Resistance, for which it won the Gold Medal for Valour. Padova 1, Resistance 0.

 The paintings represent birth and development of humanity, culture and science, and the multi-coloured stairs jazz things up a notch.

The main doors of the Palazzo are forboding, but remembering the University motto, "Universa universis patavina libertas (Paduan freedom is universal for everyone), originally chosen to show its independence from the Catholic Church, still seems inviting today. It seems, the gate an eddy of footsteps and chatter, the University of Padova is still raring and relevant, wise but fresh, despite its years. Book in hand, I totter past the carvings solemn gaze. Nothing like centuries of composed strength in the snarling, battling face of adversity to make you get your reading done on time.

(leave me a comment below, if you fancy/are bored. ooh, go on.)

Slow Start

It's a bit ironic really- I'm sat, sub-face-pack, in a beautiful, fashionable country shaped like a boot, while fixated on books/sites about beautiful things, like boots, worn by people packing some serious fashion face.

Don't give me that- you try being doped up on volcanic meringues and deepest-fill jam tarts from down the road, and then attempting wistful insights. Too much of Mama's 'special' home baking is making me just that. When's your Dumbass Day?
So, before we go skipping across the cobbles, tramlines and sheened store floors of Padova, I've got a few screenshots instead of snapshots. The focaccia made me do it.

Will Cotton

Mr Cotton has one of THOSE jobs. One that makes you take one scornful look at your snowballing university debt and dog-eared lecture notes and think, "Someone had to earn their living making delicious mess, big bucks and an renowned name for themselves from crafting big heaps of cake- why the Bicarbonate of Soda wasn't it me?!". Astounded jealousy aside, this man has his cake and sells it, recently to none other than Miss Katy Perry, who hired him to design the set for 'Calfornia Girls' video, and to paint her 'Teenage Dream' album cover.

Elie Saab (http://www.eliesaab.com/)
If a particularly diva-ish strain of the Ancient Greeks ever chanced upon a time machine, they would sashay aboard, tailors in tow, and head straight for the runway of Elie Saab, as they RSVP-ed to those amphitheatre premiers with a smile. Hopefully said time machine would break down enroute, somewhere in or around my kitchen. Stand aside chiffon, it's thigh time.

Marc Quinn

Down a street here, over a canal there, and in no time the Furby and I found ourselves lost in Venice last weekend, something which we didn't have a problem with at all. 'Lost' doesn't seem quite the right word. 'Lost' would imply a certain emptiness, a bland loneliness, and that there weren't bakeries, spritz bars, trinket shops, mask stands, glass stalls, gondolas, balconies, bridges and abounding quaint crumbling gorgeousness absolutely everywhere you look. In fact, I don't think I've ever found so much whilst claiming to be 'lost'.

During our rewardingly aimless wander, what should we find but a painting I've never seen by a forgotten favourite- Marc Quinn. Known to favour kitcsh, riches and risk (he once made a live-size sculpture of his own head, "Self"- using 4.5 litres of his own blood, created Roman-style statues with people with disabilities in place of gods, and designed a golden sculpture of Kate Moss in a pretzel-like yoga pose), it was just a little bit cool to see this intriguing mind set to canvas. Even as a self-confessed Modern Art Anarchist, the Furby was taken by it too.
(Couldn't find the exact painting...but here are some other nice ones. The one that got away was better though, promise.)

(Technorati claim: 48FCQDD9DGND)