Aesthetics in Living Life

Oh hi there. I totally fail at keeping up with this blog! Basically traveling and going to school kind of kept me from taking the time to verbalize my thoughts. Now that the semester is over and I have some time on my hands, I decided to FINALLY write a post!


First off, I will not bore you with any excruciating details of my trip around Italy. Basically, I travelled to various cities in various provinces around Italy for a month, and it was truly an unforgettable experience. Because Mimi and I are art aficionados, about 70% of our trip was devoted to going to art museums and reveling at the sight of original artworks that we often see in art textbooks. I can’t necessarily speak for Mimi, but standing before, say the original Botticelli’s “Primavera” or walking around the Vatican in Rome or the Doges Palace in Venice, brought a consuming and surreal emotion in me that I still can’t quite describe. I guess, in part, I was mesmerized because I was in the presence of a delicate artwork that was created hundreds, even thousands of years ago. Another part was the actual aesthetic experience of looking at a painting / sculpture / monument. The size of the artwork, along with the details and luminosity that comes from recent restoration really appealed to my visual sense. Moreover, knowing a little bit about the back story to why the artwork was create and (to me most importantly) how it was created really taught me about Italian and European culture as well as appreciate the creative genius that was put into it.

The other 30% was spent on actually enjoying the city we were in. After long days of going around to different museums / historical sites, we would often take the time to explore the food and nightlife of the city. It was all good for the first half of the month, and then we realized two things. One: if you are a student and are considering traveling for over two weeks, be economical on food! Yes, it’s great to dine well while you’re on vacation, but a student like me is not made of money and food will take away your money really fast! We kind of figured this out half way through our trip so as a solution, we would try to find smaller places outside of touristy attractions (and I have had some of my best meals at these places!). There were also definitely nights when I ate cereal and milk or ramen for dinner. Yayyy :( Secondly, August is not necessarily the best month to find great nightlife…at least on the Italian peninsula. That’s because by the 2nd week of August the latest, a lot of business, including clubs and bars, are closed for the summer and everyone goes to places with beaches like Sardinia, which is ironically where we were coming from! So if you want to travel around Europe with good nightlife, consider traveling during June or July…or go to a coastal cities during August!


After getting back to America at the end of August, I was immediately occupied with the start of school. During this semester, I managed to move into an apartment with three other amazing girls in Central Square and find a job at a consulting firm that is well known in the healthcare and life science industries. Job in hand and senior year half way over, I can’t help but have mixed feelings. I am both extremely excited to start a new chapter in my life, but at the same time nostalgic and resistant for this current chapter to end. It’s funny how these two opposing motions come together, but when I am aware of an impending new milestone in my life, I can’t help but reflect back on the chapter I am on now. I reflect on all the ups and downs of my rollercoaster experiences at MIT, and I constantly question myself whether I made all the right decisions. Was there anything that I could have done better? I will never know, and honestly that’s the beauty and artistry of living life for me. Experiencing a moment is unpredictable. They can be influenced by the people you surround yourself with, the culture, and your own subjectivity; all these factors fuse together to create an organic, unpredictable experience. Because I think experiences are what shape me, I see myself as some organic, unpredictable work of art too. The fun about reflection is realizing that I am never really the same person with the same perspectives toward life. Recognizing this synthetic process that I am living through excites me about the future because I know that I will be a different person within the next two years, and I am really excited for how I will turn out.

Anyways, that’s a summary of what I’ve been going through for the last four months. Will (hopefully) rant more often now that I have more time! And as a visualization for my thoughts on "aesthetics in living life", I leave you with this amazing painting by Magritte called Empire of Light (which can be seen for your viewing pleasure at the Peggy Guggenheim Museum in Venice :D ).

Italian Adventures- Genoa and Cinque Terre

Sorry for not keeping up with the blog, but it certainly has been a crazy couple of weeks! So we ended work on July 30th. The lab threw us the cutest little party for us and gave Mimi and I really nice, traditional good luck Sardinian necklaces. After work, we partied it up at Il Lido for the last time and left for Genoa the next day.  Don't have a lot of time on this hostel's internet, so I'll give a brief rundown of what we've been up to for our first week of our Italy trip!

GENOA

Day 1: CINQUE TERRE. We spent the whole day at the Cinque Terre, which is composed of 5 fishing villages that are practically etched into the tall cliffs in the city called La Spezia. This area is protected, so people can only access this area via train or by foot. We started off at the furthest city from Genoa which is called Riomaggiore. We then hiked for 30 minutes along "Lover's Lane" which was cute into the next village called Manarola. People put padlocks or somehow make their mark along the walk! After Manarola we hiked for an hour to Corniglia, which is the one village that is not set by the sea. Instead it's  set up really high on the hills...so that was fun to climb. Afterwards, we were tired and took the train to the next two villages called Vernzza and Monterosso. Each village kind of looked the same: colorful buildings in close proximity to each other. There were very cute restaurants and shops that cell local handicrafts. We ate the best pesto dinner at Monterosso. And while we were eating dinner, a hotel manager invited us to drink some of his finest Ligurian white wine with appetizers at his hotel overlooking the sea. It was kind of random but SO AWESOME!

Day 2: Genoa the city- to be perfectly honest, there was nothing extremely special about this city. It was pretty in that there were pretty, European buildings....but everything was big and the monuments weren't that great. We even paid 4 euros to look into Christopher Colombus' teenie tiny house. Everything was too big, and the city was NOT planned out well. It's laid out in concentric circles and finding the metro station took us 30 minutes from the train station. yay! However, we did eat the BEST SEAFOOD PASTA EVER in this tiny restaurant we found hidden away in some tiny alleyway before we left Genoa for Torino.

gahh ok the time for the internet at this hostel is ran out so I have to run! Hopefully I can update you about Torino, Milan, and Venice some other time!

Road Trip to Arbatax, Tortoli

We went to the unspoiled beaches / grotto this weekend, and it was glorious. The entire trip was actually very fun and relaxing, but making our way up there was a bit stressful...for Mimi. We found out in the middle of last week that the city of Nuoro is no where near Arbatax, which is the port that the boat leaves to takes us to these aforementioned beaches. So we chucked our previous itinerary out the window and decided to rent a car instead of taking an ARST bus up to Arbatax. We went  to a nearby Hertz station on Thursday and rented out probably their only automatic car they had, which was a cute Toyota IQ. We picked up the car on Friday night and took it to go to Marina Piccola, a small pier on Il Poetto, to go watch the free summer concerts on the beach! We saw some famous Italian singer (can't really recall the name right now). He was pretty good...he had a lot of classic rock and blues influence. Mimi and I came back from the concert at around 1am, and took our time resting and getting ready for Arbatax.

On the fine hour of 4am we left our apartment and embarked on our road trip. Mimi was wonderful and volunteered to drive the 2.5 hours to Arbatax on no sleep. I merely held the GPS system and told / pointed in the direction she had to go to while I passed in and out of sleep. You have to pass through several impressive Mediterranean hillcliffs to get to Arbatax, and as Mimi drove up in the morning we saw dawn with these impressive hills in the background. It was quite breathtaking! We arrive to Arbatax at around 6am and decided to sleep for an hour before we go to our boat, which left the port at around 8am. With some minor confusion as to where the boat was located, we finally board the ship and left Arbatax for the unspoiled beaches!!!!

The beaches were truly spectacular! These beaches were beside impressive limestone cliffs and had clear blue and green water everywhere. The only downfall to these beaches were that instead of sand they had pebbles. It kind of hurts to walk and lay out on them. Otherwise, we had fun swimming into small grottos, jumping off rocks into the water, looking for schools of fishes, and overall taking in the awesome environment. We also visited Grotto del Fico, which is one of the largest grottos in the area. It was a nice break from the humidity and it was great seeing the different rock formations, stalactites, and streams that went through this. We spent the whole day going to three different unspoiled beaches plus grotto. While in transit to another beach we would chat with this very nice German family or with our captain Sirgio. The crew was very friendly and helpful, and they even gave us a two course lunch + mirto + wine. Two thumbs up for them! Once the boat landed back into port we headed home. I drove this time, and we had a great time taking in the scenery that passed by us, since we didn't really get a chance to see it on our drive up here. Mimi went a little crazy with my camera and took a lot of pictures on the car ride back, but I'm glad she took them!

Here are some pictures that we took during the trip!

Le fine di settimane

Wow! It's been a while since I've posted and certainly a lot of things have happened since then. I'm gonna be a little lazy and give you a list of the most interesting things that have happened in the last few weeks!

1) We partied with the NATO navy. We were spotted at Il Poetto one Saturday afternoon and a navy officer came up to us and handed us free invitations to their party. The crowd was....interesting. Mimi attracted two very fine navy men, in which they competed for her love while another random navy officer showed off his incredible salsa skills lol. While this was all happening, I was having a wonderful time watching all this happen with three nice gentlemen who are now some of our good friends :)

2) We went to Oristano twice. The first time was a disaster and we found out that nothing is open on Sundays the hard way. Needless to say, we couldn't see Tharros (where some Phoenician ruins are) or the Sinis Peninsula, so we meandered our way to Torregrande via hitch-hiking....twice. The first time was from a super sketch-borderline homeless dude with a suspiciously nice car and the second time was from a hotel manager. The people here are a bit xenophobic, and did not welcome our presence. According to Mimi, this mindset comes from the fact that Sardinia has had a history of being constantly conquered by foreign countries.

3) We went to Oristano again during the 4th of July weekend. This time we went on SATURDAY...and with Manisha, an MIT '10 who was working at the Bank of Italy in Rome. We didn't manage to see Tharros again (according to the ARST bus driver, we can only see in on Sundays....wtf?!), but we did get to go to Is Arutas which is a part of the Sinis Peninsula. This beach had gorgeous QUARTZ white sand and incredibly blue waters. I wish I could live there!

4) We went to Il Lido, Cagliari's local and most popular discoteca during the 4th of July weekend as well....A lot of interesting / hilarious stories came out of that night. Key words: sand and locker rooms.

5) Last weekend, another batch of MIT friends visited us. We took them to Villasimius, and this time on a wonderfully sunny but HOT day. We also showed them the Castello district, our favorite bar Mojito and Kubrik, and of course Il Lido. Again...many hilarious stories. There is only one key word: sand.

6) Last week was the kick off to the summer sales! All the stores had wonderful signs like "in offerto!" (on sale!) or "30-60% off!". My favorite and most expensive purchase I've made was on a pair of Italian 4-inch heels. They are black peep-toed pumps and I bought it for 90 euros, when the original price was 170 euros. I think that's a good buy no?

I know that wasn't very detailed....but if you would like more details, please feel free to contact me! Next up: Nuoro. This town is apparently notorious for offering any strangers or tourists drinks which you can't refuse or else they'll take offense to it. We also plan on going to an unspoiled beach near Nuoro which you apparently have to swim 300 meters to get to this concentrated paradise. Thanks for reading! Peace.

Villasimius

Saturday, June 19th was quite eventful. It started off by going to Villasimius for the afternoon! The weather here has been funky here in Cagliari, and there were thunderstorms and rain throughout the week. On Saturday, we were a little apprehensive to go to Villasimius because it was a little windy and cloudy, but we decided to go anyway since we saw some sun which was a welcome change to the rain. We headed down to the ARST station, which was also conveniently located next to McDonalds! Who knew that their soft-serve ice cream and Big Mac ever tasted so good? We then boarded the bus and began our one and half our journey.

The ride to Villasimius was unexpectedly gorgeous. Cagliari and Villasimius are separated by a patch of hills. Going through this patch of hills was such an awesome experience, and it left me excited for what other parts of Sardinia (and rest of Italy) has to offer. These hills were rocky, and they formed towering cliffs along side the clear blue Mediterranean Sea. The hills were inhabited by Mediterranean vegetation like cacti, low shrubs, and bushes. Almost etched into the cliffs were idyllic summer homes that complemented the color palette of the hills like muted yellow and orange facades and terracotta roofs. Once you get closer to the ocean, we found gorgeous, vibrant orange honey suckles along with bright magenta and yellow flowers. The drive back was even more beautiful because the sun was starting to set, and you could see some of the sun’s rays piercing through the patch clouds. The nearby beach town to Villasimius was also really cute. It was about a ten minute walk from the actual beach, but this town had trendy boutiques and restaurants along with local and touristy souvenir shops. The beach itself was beautiful (not to mention the beautiful life guards) even with the cloudy weather. Soft white sand contrasted with the very clear Mediterranean water. I probably went out into the sea where the water level was up to my chin, and I could still see my feet and the white sand below me! I wish it was sunnier so that the pictures that I took from that day could show how beautiful this beach is. We will definitely be coming back in the future, so hopefully I can show some better pictures! But for the meantime, you can see some below.

After five hours at Villasimius, we came back to Cagliari at around 8pm. We then got ready to go out for dinner. Mimi and I are trying to save as much money for August by staying in and cooking most meals during the week, but we agreed that we can “live it up” by going out to one nice restaurant every Saturday night. This week, we ate at the Tex-Mex place I mentioned earlier called “El Dorado”. The décor of the place deceives how delicious their food is. We bought ourselves a medium (we thought it was a large at first) Sirloin steak for dinner because all we ever cook during the week are light pasta stir-fries, and we were dying for some red meat. The sirloin steak definitely hit the spot, and we came out of dinner feeling very content.

Shortly after dinner, we got ready to go out and explore the nightlife of the town. We started off by checking out the trendy bars on top of the Bastione di San Remey and ended up at Piazza Yenne at the end of the night. We finally met cute Italian boys, and it was fun hanging out with them. We came back to the apartment at 6am, and as a result had a very lazy Sunday. Peace.

Andiamo alla spiaggia!

This week was the most laid-back so far. For one, we didn’t get to work last Thursday and Friday! We were going to take TEM images at the medical campus later in the afternoon on Thursday, but it turns out that the professor who was going to help us take the images landed herself at the hospital! She thought she was able to come back on Friday, but turns out she couldn’t get out. But that was good news for us because we didn’t have to work!!! So on Thursday we finally went to Il Poetto (closest beach) in the morning. It was a little windy and cloudy in the morning, but the heat / humidity balanced out the dreary morning. We arrived to Il Poetto at around 10am and left at around 12:30pm to go to lab (at the time, we didn’t know the TEM imaging session was cancelled). Il Poetto is definitely the beach everyone goes to. Even on a Thursday morning it was quite crowded! Mimi and I didn’t fully enjoy it until Saturday afternoon. It was a sunny, cloudless day and it was also pretty humid. We rolled into the beach at around 2pm, and it was prettier than the first time we came! The Mediterranean beach was blue, and you have rocky cliffs of Cagliari in the background to your right and left. There were people playing paddle ball, sailing, swimming, and definitely tanning. It’s kind of funny because the men here take tanning as seriously as the women! The beach isn’t as pretty as some other beaches I have seen though, but it is sufficient enough to meet our beach needs for the summer. Il Poetto is also where all the discotecas are located, so I feel like we will be coming here more often. Next week, we plan on going to a nearby city called Villasimius. There, the beaches may rival the ones in Culebra, Puerto Rico. Supposedly, there is fine white sand everywhere and crystal blue Mediterranean water!

On Friday, Mimi and I finalized our tour of Italy we will be taking in August! From July 31^st to August 28^th, we will be travelling to the following cities: Genoa (and the nearby Cinque Terre), Turin, Milan, Venice, Rimini (and nearby Bologna, Ravenna, and San Marino), Pisa, Florence, Rome, Syracuse, and Naples (and nearby Pompeii and Capri Islands). I AM SO EXCITED. Planning this trip also made me realize that I may need to go over budget. By a lot. Oops.  

We also have gotten to familiarize ourselves with Italian culture. Here are some things we’ve learned: (1) No on eats dinner until 8pm the earliest, and many restaurants even open until midnight to serve you dinner. We went out to this cute Italian restaurant on Saturday night, and we came at around 8:30pm only to realize that this restaurant was fairly empty. We look over at their hours and it says “Open from 20:00-24:00 for dinner”. Seriously, I don’t know how Italian eat dinner so late! I was starving by 8:30pm! (2) Italians have an EXPENSIVE lifestyle. Not only is a typical dinner quite expensive, but so are the clothes. There were so many times when I really wanted to buy some cute heels or a pair of pants, but I had to refrain myself from buying them. Today (Sunday) when we went window shopping, I purposefully didn’t bring any cash with me so I wouldn’t be tempted to buy stuff. Grr, I hate being on a budget. I just keep telling myself that the money I save now will let me enjoy my August trip more. Can you believe that Mango, Zara, and Miss Sixty are relatively the cheaper stores around here? Seriously?!?! (3) Nightlife does not start around until 11:30pm the earliest. And Cagliari wins the award for having a variety of bars. On Friday we found this pretty cheap, but fun bar called Foghorns. They have these awesome specials everyday (like Mexican Mondays!) and pretty cheap drinks. The quirkiest thing about this bar is that they give you an unlimited supply of peanuts, and they WANT you to through the peanut shells on the floor. Walking through that bar was definitely…crunchy. On our way to Foghorns, we also discovered a cheap American / Mexican place. I almost cried tears of joy. Recently, I’ve been craving either Mexican food or sushi, so finding this place was excellent. Later during the weekend, we also found an advertisement for a sushi restaurant, and I almost cried tears of joy then too. Though I don’t know how well Italians can make these types of food. I say this because we went to another bar last night called the Kubick lounge, which advertised itself as an American bar. We immediately ordered familiar drinks: amaretto sour and a long island ice tea. When we ordered, the Italian bartender just gave us confused looks, and had to look at the menu to figure out what were in these drinks. He did a good effort, but these drinks were definitely not up to par with the ones you can find in real American bars. (4) Bars or pubs are structured a little differently here. There are very few places that are “bars” in the American sense. Instead of a place where many people pack in to buy drinks, hang out with friends, and start a conversation with a random person, here most bars are outdoors and not necessarily conducive to meeting random people. Because it’s summer time, most bars have an outdoor seating areas / tables in the piazza where your party can enjoy the weather and your drink. While this is nice, the only downfall is the meeting-random-people part. However, this wasn’t necessarily a problem for us because (5) most Italians have never seen an Asian person in their life. I don’t know whether to feel like a celebrity or the bearded woman because every time we go out I can always catch a passerby saying “Woahhhh that’s a Japanese / Chinese person!” or the ever annoying phrase “Nee-how!” There were already several instances when we’ve been approached by strangers to take pictures with us and/or ask us if we really did come straight from China. It’s funny to see their faces when we tell them we’re actually from America lol. 

Thanks for reading. Peace.

Shopping

I went shopping near there today :) There is this one street in Cagliari where all the nice shops are, and it's called Via Manno which eventually turns into Via Garibaldi. The street passes by Bastion San Remey, which is pictured above (thanks to Google images). Peace.

L'isola di Gelato

Right now I’m eating a vanilla gelato with coconut, caramel, and nuts mixed into it. This is the fourth time this week I’ve eaten gelato after dinner. I can’t help myself!!! Piazza Yenne is down the street from my apartment and there is this fantastic gelateria called “L’isola del Gelato” or “Gelato Island”. I mentioned this place during my first blog, and that time I estimated 20+ flavors of gelato. WRONG. I actually counted today and there are about 50 different types of crazy gelato flavors you could choose from, including yogurt options for those of us watching our beach figures. I don’t really know how a yogurt gelato is supposed to taste like, but it just seems odd to me. Who wouldn’t want this creamy deliciousness?!?! The unique thing about this place is that all their flavors are crazy…there is no normal vanilla or chocolate gelato in sight. They have nutella flavor, Ringo, Kit Kat, coconut, raisins, gummy worms, and other assortment of sweets mixed into it. I think I’ve gone there so frequently this week that one of the servers even recognizes me. “Eyyyy! You’re that girl from the US! I remember you!” he would exclaim as I order my gelato of choice. If I’m in the mood for a plainer flavor, I go to the place next door.
I haven’t ventured out to try any authentic Italian dishes just yet. Not only am I trying to save money on food by cooking, but I’m also still hooked on the most basic types of food Italy and Sardinia has to offer. Dinky slices of white bread we normally use for sandwiches? They’re for WIMPS. The bread here is so fresh and there are so many different kinds to choose from! They’re so soft on the inside, crunchy on the outside. Any type of cheese is delicious. And when you go to any market, the vegetable selections are (in my opinion) better and cheaper than what you could find in the states. Their pastries, pizza, and sandwiches you find in most bars are also awesome. Interestingly, the more popular type of pizza is called pizza a taglia, which essentially looks like flatbread folded in half with tomato sauce, basil, and mozzarella stuck inside. Oh! I almost forgot to mention that Sardinians, at least, are mildly obsessed with either espresso or nectarine juice. Haven’t tried their espresso yet, but in almost any building I go to, including my lab, you can always find some elaborate vending machine that makes many different kinds of coffee you want. This machine even pours your sugar, cream, or milk, and it even gives you a little stirring stick mix your espresso. I did try their nectarine juice, and it tastes like heaven. They are literally freshly squeezed from nectarine because it’s not as watery as most juices, but thick and awesome. Can you tell I’m eating a lot here?
 Peace.

Il Laboratorio

Working in Professoressa Baroli’s lab for the past three days has been interesting so far. The walk from my apartment to the lab is at least an adventure. The lab is situated on top of a hill next to the Castello district that overlooks the entire city, while my apartment on Via Sassari is pretty much at sea level. This hill can be as steep as those in San Francisco. I would have to walk about ten to fifteen minutes to get to the lab every morning, and during that time my legs are certainly getting a good workout! I forgot to mention that I will probably get hit by a car at least once by the end of this summer. Many major intersections lack traffic signals or signs, so you would have to start walking through a street and hope that cars will see and stop for you. There have been many instances when I almost got hit by a distracted driver or by those darn vespas that whiz past you while you’re walking on Cagliari’s narrow sidewalks.

Once you get to the lab, I try to greet Professoressa Baroli in her office before I go into the lab, which is next to her office. Professoressa Baroli is extremely nice and way too elegant to be a PI. For instance, while I was finishing up some administrative paperwork with her this morning, I noticed how nicely she dressed: nice light blue Chanel blouse with her Chanel reading glasses, YSL sunglasses delicately perched on top of her head, and gigantic sapphire ring that glistened from the sun. Not only is she very elegant, but she is very personable. Every phone call she receives or visitors she meets, she carries out fairly lengthy conversations that are full of laughter as well as business. Professoressa Baroli is definitely someone I had imagined when I think about Italian women. Signs of a researcher can also be seen. She wears the mandatory jeans and close toed shoes, and less noticeable, she is very meticulous, direct, and organized which is the personality I’m normally used to seeing from all my biology professors.

After I greet her, I go into the lab and help Carla or Marianna with whatever they need to get done for the day. Carla speaks better English than Marianna, but both are very nice and try do a great job of explaining what they are doing or making casual conversation. We tentatively set up a system where they would speak to me in English and I would speak to them in Italian, so that we can both learn and become better at speaking each other’s languages. There’s actually more down time than I expected; the Italians really do work slower! But that’s not necessarily a bad thing. The people who I encountered with so far really take the time to understand everything that surround the experiment, and are very meticulous with everything…almost a little too meticulous. For instance, we spent the whole day today taking nearly perfect electron microscopy images of nanoparticles. I am so used to having to run, on average, 3 different experiments on a given day for my UROP that sometimes I lose track of what I’ve done or make silly mistakes during an experiment. Then again, I guess it’s a question about efficiency: on one hand, you work slower and will probably produce fewer results over a certain time period compared to someone working faster. On the flip side, the chances of you making unnecessary, maybe time-consuming mistakes are lower when you work slower than when you work faster. This sounds like a 14.01 problem….Anyways, for now, I’m still running on an MIT schedule, so working this slow is slightly discomforting (sadly), but by the end of the summer I will probably welcome the slower pace. The question could also apply to the pace in which we go through life. For me, I guess I never really bothered to stop and smell the roses. I should definitely try it during senior year. That’s it for now- more to come later!

Ciao!

Oops, I was gonna post this on Monday, but I forgot. Here you go!

Wow, it’s been a while since I’ve written on this blog- so sorry! I’ve been caught up with school and work that I couldn’t find the time to write a reflective blog. Now that school is over and summer has started, I definitely have more time to reflect and enjoy life to its fullest. This summer, I will share my experiences in the beautiful country of Italia. Thanks to Serenella Sferza and the MISTI program, I have the great opportunity to work with Bianca Baroli at la Università degli studenti di Cagliari. Professor Baroli worked under the Langer Lab for 3 years a while back, and she is continuing her work with anti-cancer treatment with nanoparticles in Cagliari, Italy.

Cagliari is the capital of Sardinia, one of two islands of Italy. For those of you who don’t know where Sardinia is, it is right below the French island called Corisca (where Napoleon Bonaparte was born!). Cagliari is on the southern tip of Sardinia, and it takes less than 20 minutes by bus to get to the beautiful Mediterranean beaches. I haven’t actually been there myself yet, but hopefully this weekend will be the first of many trips. As far as the city itself goes, it definitely has character! Cagliari reminds me of Old San Juan, Puerto Rico with its narrow winding streets and colorful, aged buildings. You can feel the tension between Cagliari’s past and present. While the outside of buildings may look like a dusty ice cube, the inside may surprise you with modern, chic “negozi” or “trattorie”. It reminds me of Koreatown in LA.

The food so far is great. Fresh bread, meat, and juicy fruits abound in almost any small markets you go to. Surprisingly, there are a lot of pizzeria and gelateria stores around. I had this idea in my mind that pizza and gelato was “fast food”; they are not something special to eat, but more of a convenient food you would eat during late night study sessions or after a good night out with your friends. Instead, I found a pizzeria in almost every block I passed by, and over half of them are nice restaurants where you would use a fork and knife to eat it. I only went to one of these restaurants so far, and I had a delicious slice with “fruiti al mare” as my topping of choice (in other words, shrimp, squid, baby octopus, etc.). The same goes for gelato. There is one in almost every block you pass by and every Sardinian eats one after lunch and/or dinner. I had my first gelato today at a gelateria in Piazza Yenne, a bustling center where lots of high-end shops and restaurants reside. I found this gelateria from this handy book called “Let’s Go- Italy” (thanks Edna and Werewolf dancers!!) which is a travel written by students for students traveling on a budget. The store owner of the gelateria, Giuseppe, and the rest of the staff, was extremely charismatic and nice. There were approximately over 20 different flavors to choose from. I decided to try the orange cheesecake gelato, and it was definitely a nice dessert after my afternoon snack. It even had real orange zest in it! Yum.


Now lets talk about the people. The population is more diverse than I expected. Though the majority of the people in Cagliari are Italian, I have seen Indian, African American, and Chinese people who speak fluent Italian. These people are really friendly, especially if they see you make an effort to speak Italian. Also, if you go to the same store more than once, the store owners will become your best friends, and they will start calling you by your first name within a day or two. For instance, I currently don’t have internet in my room so I’ve been going to this dinky internet/fax/photocopy/money transfer place on Via Napoli to use the internet. The second time I came back to check my emails, Mario smiled widely and made light conversation with me as I bought my 30 minutes on the internet. Within 10 minutes, we talked about where I was from to if I liked his new shirt he was wearing. Mario was wearing a clean white button-down short sleeved shirt with dark wash jeans, and I told him that his outfit was perfect.

Speaking of outfits, Italians certainly know how to dress nice! As I was walking to work this morning, I see all the men with their crisp suits or work-appropriate outfits with their briefcases while the women were dressed in nice neutral pants, blouses, and heels. Of course both genders sported their (real) designer sunglasses. Some of them look like they came straight out of Fellini’s movie 8 ½. Italians who are closer to my age seem to dress as if they are modeling for an Express or Armani Exchange catalog. The one thing I noticed, to my dismay, is that most Italians like to dress in darker or more neutral colors. I, however, love vibrant and sometimes loud colors, so I have been sticking out like a sore thumb. Oh well!

For the past two days I’ve been trying to adjust to the new time change, which means my sleep schedule was, and still probably is, all over the place. If I’m not sleeping, I mainly cook or stroll along the main part of Cagliari to acclimate and orient myself to the neighborhood as I find my way to a market or a store. Today, I managed to walk through the medieval Castello district with one of the grad students named Carla on our way to lunch. This district is practically carved into a hill and overlooks the entire city. The Castello district housed several Argonese churches and Piemontese palaces, which are now occupied by University offices, bars, and restaurants. Several entrances into the district had remains of a wooden barricade that you would see in Lord of the Ring movies, which I thought was pretty exciting. I’ve never been around so much history, especially one that dates back earlier than the eighteenth century! That’s all I have to say about Cagliari so far. I am currently stuffing my face with these awesome cookies called “Ringo”, which are like Oreos but made with lighter cookies and have a nutella filling. I guess my beach body went out the window just now. I’m also watching one of two English TV channels: MTV2! They are doing a European top 10 countdown right now, and some top 10 songs include “Rude Boy”- Rhianna, “Fireflies”-Owl City, “Telephone”- Lady Gaga, and “Rock Your Body”-Black Eyed Peas.