Italy
- Thread starter sufi
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shakahislop
Well-known member
yeah it is. the worst is when you're in the tourist bit of wherever you are and all the jaded locals know exactly who you are and classify you along with the rest. you start to act the way that you're treated, fit into the box.
it's better when you know why you're there. being somewhere without an answer to the questions you're raising can be bit of a drag. for me 'seeing what it's like' is a good enough answer. and then if that's really what you're there for, then it changes where you go. the way i started to do it is to go to one side of the city and then walk straight across it to the other side. seeing how the place fits together, the different bits and neighborhoods. you can get to that tired euphoric stage coz of all the walking. its good for thinking and a good time to get into tunes as well.
shakahislop
Well-known member
i didn't do that in bologna though. i was with a couple of old friends, we walked around, talked about talking about the book one of them was writing about neoliberalism, talked about afghanistan, talked about our problems and feelings. we went to little restuarants, the advantage being that one of them is into that sort of thing and could be bothered to think about where to go. it's hard to get sustained time with people like that. waking up in the morning and having to chat for two hours in a cafe coz there's no excuse not to. then one of them collapsed in a restuarant, fainted, due to past trauma basically, and two weeks later covid came and we were all on lockdown
shakahislop
Well-known member
that's only coz of your eurocentricism. there's no reason to draw a line between asia and europe. where does it come from? it's a religious line essentially. the dividing point between christianity and islam. all the other continents are obviously continents as can be seen from a cursory glance at a map. 'europe' is a denial of reality. it's the edge of asia. but it got to make the rules.
I went to Genoa yonks ago. Staglieno Cemetery’s amazing, made me actually want to die. The old town’s covered in political graffiti (ie circled As/crosses) (Genoa’s where the cops shot Carlo Giuliani in 2001) and you can touch each side of the street with your arms outstretched, it’s so narrow (with people still bombing past on scooters).
I had a night out there with a bunch of blokes from Fincantieri Shipyard, two of whom had spent their teens in London and never got over it: one had a Hammers tattoo and said that the UK was brilliant because Pizza Hut pisses all over authentic Italian pizza (true). I also bought a tub of Genoese pesto from a wrinkly old woman for about 3 Euros and flew it home, and it pissed over every other pesto I’ve had before or since. I feel like crying just remembering it. There was also a mod shop staffed by this insanely hot skin bird with a Chelsea cut, selling Oi! CDs, ‘SAMPDORIA BOOTBOYS’ scarves and a T-shirt of Snoopy in a bomber jacket and DMs (which I now wish I’d bought).
I also took a 5-hours-each-way train to Livorno, chain-smoking in the carriage with a nun.
It was alright, though I really should have brushed up on my Italian before I went. Genoa FC vs Sampdoria is (was?) the big football rivalry up there, but I couldn’t work out when/where they were playing. Regardless, they all seemed to hate southern Italians. It’s also weird because they spend 5-10pm eating and then open the bars around 10.30pm, and seem to make a half of lager last until 3am.
I had a night out there with a bunch of blokes from Fincantieri Shipyard, two of whom had spent their teens in London and never got over it: one had a Hammers tattoo and said that the UK was brilliant because Pizza Hut pisses all over authentic Italian pizza (true). I also bought a tub of Genoese pesto from a wrinkly old woman for about 3 Euros and flew it home, and it pissed over every other pesto I’ve had before or since. I feel like crying just remembering it. There was also a mod shop staffed by this insanely hot skin bird with a Chelsea cut, selling Oi! CDs, ‘SAMPDORIA BOOTBOYS’ scarves and a T-shirt of Snoopy in a bomber jacket and DMs (which I now wish I’d bought).
I also took a 5-hours-each-way train to Livorno, chain-smoking in the carriage with a nun.
It was alright, though I really should have brushed up on my Italian before I went. Genoa FC vs Sampdoria is (was?) the big football rivalry up there, but I couldn’t work out when/where they were playing. Regardless, they all seemed to hate southern Italians. It’s also weird because they spend 5-10pm eating and then open the bars around 10.30pm, and seem to make a half of lager last until 3am.
sufi
lala
I spent a night in Genoa in the 90's it was scary and grim, we parked up underneath the famous flyover (since collapsed with multiple fatalities) and all our stuff was robbed out of the car, then got the ferry to Sicily (since sunk with multiple fatalities) as soon as we could.
It was breakfast time and the dolphins we saw looked like they would be good on the grill
sufi
lala
that's a common postcolonial academic perspective, but completely out of touch with reality. In fact Luka is closer to the mark. a Turk totally understands Italian and even Serbian mentality, but can never respect British and French mentality.
tbf it's all the shias fault, if we want to go back far enough. they should have just submitted to umawiyya I's centralising tendancies. no primitive anarchism kufa! Then we could have ground the crusaders into the dust and then from the gates of Israel to the river thames, the geography would be a single islamic state.
luka
Well-known member
they are in thrall to london the italians, and for good reason. when i came home there was an italian, late teens or early twenties, just saying, in reverential fashion 'london, london, london' as he walk down the gangways at gatwick
luka
Well-known member
the muslims never really had a chance in europe. too weedy physically. never going to overcome the burly germanics let alone the nords.
luka
Well-known member
yeah, this is interesting i agree. the religious line is important but there's massive aesthetic similiarites between eg turk and itie.
luka
Well-known member
i think splitting with the pope was the best thing england ever done. it's exactly why europe needs us. as i said in a drunken satori state, if england didnt exist europe would have to invent it.