Closing Thoughts

Before I begin this last reflection, I'd like to announce that "the car" has finally been removed. We don't know when exactly this happened because we've been taking a different route to work this Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. But today, we drifted back to our old route just out of habit and noticed that in place of "the car" was just a shadow of dust...

Anyway, yesterday I mentioned the laid-back lifestyle here in Italy, and this leads me to some thoughts.

Italy is commonly stereotyped as being a disorganized place, and to an outsider, things certainly do seem so. Take the streets, for example. Street signs don't seem to be so helpful, parking spots are only seldom designated with painted lines, people drive in a seemingly reckless manner and traffic lights are only a suggestion, and hardly anyone pays for the subway. For someone who doesn't live here, things certainly get confusing.

But for the Italians, things often work better for them like this. Like for parking spots... cars come in all different sizes, so why paint fixed-size parking spots? As I have shown in some pictures on this blog, it seems like people here parallel park as tightly as possible, which makes room for letting more cars park. We have also been told that the auto accident rate here is very low. While the drivers may not seem to follow the rules, this just means they're always aware. It's just like walking down a hallway - if there is more traffic, you're more careful... one doesn't need signs to tell them how not to crash into people. Even the police don't really care if one doesn't follow all the traffic signals. And in the same way, perhaps they don't need signs directing them where to go because - well - they don't need them.

Anyway, I believe that learning to understand these cultural differences is something that you can't get from a short vacation - it really takes a few months living somewhere to do so. And I think this cultural awareness is important both in gaining a greater appreciation for the different lifestyles of people everywhere, as well as improving our own lifestyles.

Well, it's been great blogging this summer (and may I add that this is my 50th post from Europe?), and we'll have to see what happens to it after I come back - but I'm not sure if I'll have anything interesting left to write about!

Tomorrow morning, Fernando and Kristen are leaving for a grand tour of Italy, since they're staying here for another week. I'll probably check out the Queen's Palace downtown, then take it easy for the rest of the day before heading back to New Jersey on Sunday.

Thanks for reading!

Jason

Reflections: Part 1

I have run out of new things to talk about, so I think now it's time for some reflection on my experience this summer. But to avoid boring you with an essay of yadda-yadda-yadda, I've decided to make some top five lists... sorry for the lack of photos!

Five Things I'll Miss

The Italian language - I must admit that in hindsight I didn't improve my Italian nearly as much as I should have, and I think two factors that contributed greatly to this were that 1) most of our coworkers' English was better than our Italian and 2) the three of us MIT students could speak English to each other. Maybe if I had been placed somewhere where nobody really spoke any English, I might have wished otherwise, so who knows. But I will at the very least miss listening to people speaking in Italian, as it is a very pretty language. I do hope to somehow continue learning the language back at home.

The laid-back lifestyle - I'd say that Europeans in general tend to be much more laid-back than Americans. People like to have a simple lifestyle here, which contrasts with the hustle-bustle lifestyle that's all over the US, especially in the cities. There are some things that I do like about the American lifestyle, but people should also take some time to relax. More on this tomorrow.

Lunch at Massimo's - It's interesting how we were able to eat lunch at the same place every weekday and never get bored of the food, and it's because it's kind of like home cooking. Also we have noticed that in many of these cafés, it seems like everybody knows each other, and after a few weeks, we were able to fit in ourselves among the regulars.

Traveling - Here in Europe, everything is close together and especially with the EU making international traveling easier, it's not too hard to make a nice weekend trip. This is different from the US, where places worth visiting are far apart and would often require at least a week. Combine this proximity with Europe's rich history, and we've got something that I probably won't be able to experience back at home. Sure, traveling every weekend ended up getting pretty hectic, but I will miss it once I won't get the opportunity to see these places again.

Italian coffee - MOST OF ALL, because it's just that good. Back the US, I will have to find a place that makes a decent espresso...

Five Memorable Moments

Going to the movies - I'd have to say I wasn't too crazy about seeing Harry Potter, but seeing it in Italian made it worth it. It's just one of those experiences that you need to have in a foreign country (if you can understand the language at all).

Trip to Lyon - In Lyon, an old man looking for something to do that day took Fernando and me around town. We were originally going to just walk around but instead got a full tour! This, in addition to Lyon having some of the best food I've ever had made our trip to that city particularly memorable.

Awesome day at work - Our day at work a few weeks ago started off well enough, with a trip to the test track. But it became many times more awesome when our boss told us to take the day to go sightseeing instead of - well - working. Sebastian drove us around, and in addition to seeing some beautiful places, we got to bond with one of our coworkers.

Getting music from Fabio - My supervisor was really excited to find out that I liked the heavy metal music he listens to because he was the only one at work who listened to that kind of music. Probably from his excitement, he brought his CD collection to work one day to share with me!

"I'll break your nose!" - Of course, how can we ever forget this odd, crazy, and funny incident in Paris? The story is too long to recount here, but you can dig back a bit to the Paris posts to find it. Generally I'm not a fan of inside jokes, but this has kind of become one for us. But now that I think of it, a joke is only an inside joke if you don't explain it to other people... but I'd be more than happy to tell this story to my friends!

Five Things I'm Looking Forward To Back in the US

Change of scenery - Everybody likes a change of scenery, and even though I'm in beautiful Italy, I also feel ready to go back home, and then off to grad school. Of course, after a few months or weeks of grad school, I'll be dying to go somewhere else again, but that's life, isn't it?

Air conditioning at home - OK, once you get used to it, being without air conditioning is not so bad as long as you have ways to cope with it, such as a window, a cold drink, or being able to take off your shirt. But at times, one of the things we looked forward to when coming to work was having a bit of A/C. Maybe this will make me appreciate the joy of having a cool bedroom - at least for the few days before I head to school.

Catching up with everybody - I must admit that I have never really been the type of person to maintain old friendships, but I think this trip helped me put things in perspective. Unfortunately, the time difference here was not so favorable, so I am looking forward to spending time with the family and catching up with my friends once I get back home.

Food - Italian food is really great, but I am also really craving a nice steak, some Chinese take-out, and homemade Filipino food. The food here certainly hasn't gotten boring, but I do miss other kinds of food.

Grad school - I will probably take this back after not too long, but right now I am very much looking forward to grad school, just like I look forward to anything new. Sadly, the situation with finding funding is looking cloudy... I have been in contact with a professor, but we have not been able to schedule a time to talk, as he is traveling. So unless I can get the situation sorted out by the beginning of next week, I may end up having to pay for my first semester, which is clearly undesirable. I am definitely looking forward to many things about grad school though: the campus, my coursework (believe it or not), visiting some new cities, and taking up martial arts again.

Tomorrow will be not be my last day in Italy, but it will be my last day with internet access. Stay tuned until then, where I will finally wrap up this great summer with a little cultural commentary. Ciao!

The Twilight Zone?

The city is emptying up really quickly, and if the fact that more and more of the stores are closing up isn't enough evidence, take a look at how much parking there is on the streets!

Usually, one would be lucky to find a spot on any street. Some of the streets were still pretty filled, but there were areas that were emptier than I've ever seen them before.

It feels like one of those episodes from The Twilight Zone where the characters are in a ghost town.

To make things even more surreal, check out what we saw on the way to work yesterday!

Is it some kind of spaceship? Who knows... anyway, we've finally lost internet at home. They probably shut it down because everyone's on holidays, so it wouldn't be worth the money for them to keep it running. But it kind of stinks for those of us left here. The town is basically shut down so there's not much to go out to do either. Even the TV programs are notorious for being particularly bad at this time of year!

Anyway, we'll have to figure out things to do for our last few days here.

As a side note, MIT is spotlighting the MISTI blog on their front page today. A good handful of students have submitted their stories to tell, and a couple of my posts made it on there too, so make sure to check the site out!

Running Low...

You might be hoping to see some more cool and interesting things from Italy, but the truth is that I don't have any to write about. This isn't to say that aren't anymore cool things here, because there are actually plenty... it's just that I don't think I can write about them in a way that would be interesting enough to be appropriate for this blog.

One cool thing we ran into though is this copy of Technology Review, which is MIT's magazine. It turns out that not only do they publish in Italy and in Italian, but that in addition to having articles translated from the American publication, they also have some articles that focus more directly on Italy and Italian technology.

The headline articles:

- Will technology save the economy? Energy and computer science, to revive [economic] growth in the US

- In search of research: Six Italian scientists interview each other about the current difficulties of asserting themselves

- Dark matter: New hypotheses from the Antarctic projects about cosmic rays

- Communicating with freedom: The defense of anonymity on the Internet

- The origin of life: Synthetic biology responds to an ancient question

Hopefully I'll find something to blog about for the next few days... mostly this comes down to getting some nice new photos. But if not, I'll probably just write some kind of wrap-up to this excellent summer before going home on Sunday!

Chiuso Per Ferie

"Closed for the Holidays." That's the story of yesterday and this coming week - my last - in Italy. The holiday is a sacred time for Italians, meaning that nothing can stop anyone from interfering with one's vacation plans. In many cases, people take all of August off to go on vacation, typically to southern Italy. For those of us left here, this makes it difficult to find places to eat or buy things. Fortunately for us yesterday, Lingotto was open and we found that there were some places to eat still open. But today is Sunday, so the chances of finding something are lower. Wish us luck!

Anyway, let's continue our journey from yesterday. There are some nice things to see around Lingotto, which is near the areas where the indoor Olympic events were held in 2006, as well as this park, which was the site of the Italia '61 exposition.

I couldn't find much on what the Italia '61 expo exactly was, other than that it was in Turin and commemorated the 100th anniversary of Italy's unification. The park runs along the Po river and seemed to be popular among those seeking a relaxing bike ride.

Here's the view from a pedestrian footbridge that I think is also used for marathons here in Turin. Across the river you can see the Lingotto area and some construction on the National Automobile Museum, which Fernando and I had previously tried to go to, not knowing it was closed for renovation.

At the south end of the park is the Palavela. This cool-looking building was originally built for the Italia '61 exposition, but was also the building used for ice skating events in the Olympics. It is closed for renovation now, as it will also be used for the World Figure Skating Championships next year.

Right next door to the Lingotto building is an interesting place called Eataly.

It reminded me of Ikea in style and layout, except with the furniture replaced by food. In the front there were a Trader Joe's-esque grocery, but in the back there was a vegetable market and a food court that confused the heck out of us. Each of the counters had a different theme (one was for cheeses, one was for meat, etc.), so we had no idea how we could sit down and have a regular meal. We were confused enough to just find a place to eat in the mall next door instead.

But this place was cool! Around the corner from the food court was an inclined moving walkway (which very much reminded me of Ikea) that led to a wine and beer cellar.

Again, wish us luck in finding something to eat today!

Lingotto

I didn't expect to have internet access today, as the administration here said the internet would not be available starting August 1, but I guess they might be running late on things. Anyway, today, Fernando and I went to Lingotto, which used to be the Fiat factory here in Torino. By the way, I only just found out that Fiat is also the owner of Alfa Romeo, Lancia, Ferrari, and Maserati, in addition to now being part owner of Chrysler... what a powerhouse!

To get back on topic, this huge building used to be the Fiat factory until they moved to an even larger venue not too far away. The layout is interesting in that cars were manufactured going up in a spiral around the building, until they finally reached a test track on the roof. Here, we can see part of the building on the right side.

Now, Lingotto is home to a mall on the first floor (which, remember, is the equivalent of the second floor in the US), an 11-screen cinema, a museum, and some offices.

The inside of the building has a nice industrial look for reasons that should not be hard to figure out. The mall has mostly clothing stores and eateries, but we were also able to find a bookstore where I purchased Italo Calvino's Cosmicomiche.

I figured a book in its native Italian language would be a nice souvenir for me, even if I'll eventually struggle trying to understand. Fortunately, it's a book of short stories, so it might make things a little easier.

At one end of the building is a huge spiral, which is presumably where the newly-made vehicles exited the factory after being tested on the roof. Shoppers can now walk along the spiral as they enter the mall.

Near the other side of the building is a footbridge that goes across the train tracks. This bridge was constructed for the 2006 Olympics to allow pedestrians to walk between Lingotto and the Olympic Village, which is right across the tracks. The bridge itself has a cool look, and is cable-stayed from what is known as the "Olympic Arch."

Lingotto has its own train station, but these tracks run farther down to Porta Nuova and Porta Susa, which are the larger train stations in the city, with service across Italy and Europe.

In the afternoon, we went to the cinema in Lingotto, which had a really fancy three-floor layout (nice seats, too). Here, we watched The Hangover, but I guess there's no real translation for that word in Italy, since they changed the title to

which literally means "a night as lions," but from some internet research is kind of an idiom for "a crazy night." Yeah, the translation's a little weird, but we think it sure beats the French version of the title, which we saw on posters back in Monaco.

Anyway, the movie was really funny, even in Italian!