Living in Rome changed the way I speak
I’ve been watching quite a fair amount of videos by Mark Weins, a vlogger that I enjoy watching. He travels a lot to Asia, and I like seeing him experiencing places that I’ve been to. In a way, I can rekindle my memories somewhat.
Like when he went to Langkawi, Penang, Kuala Lumpur, Singapore … all of them places that I’ve been to, and I’ve even already blogged about. I find Mark amusing when he tastes food that he likes by closing his eyes, and tilting his head and saying, “mmm…”
Anyway, out of curiosity I decided to watch one of his older videos.
7 years, ago his voice was deeper, he spoke slower and his accent was distinctly American. Two years later, living in South East Asia, his voice started to change.
In a way, it doesn’t really surprise me. Voices and accents change depending on where you live. Sometimes you don’t even need to live overseas for a long time for your accent to change. I’m sure you find yourself talking differently when you’re talking to different people.
For example, if you were to meet a person of a different nationality – let’s say a French person, you find yourself talking differently to make yourself understood more easily.
Living in Rome, I have to force myself to speak a little louder and enunciate to make myself understood by the locals here. I guess I’m influenced by the environment here because when I go back to Singapore, my friends and family sometimes comment, “Marina! You have an Italian accent now!”
Without realising it, I now tend to intonate certain words like their Italian counterpart when I speak in English like “Really?” (Davvero?) and sometimes I find myself doing direct translations when having to switch from English to Italian and vice versa. Something like, “How many years does he have?” Then I realised what I said and correct myself.
I wouldn’t say that I’m great at speaking Italian, I still have a long way to go to being fluent. Nevertheless, I find the changes interesting.
Looking through my facebook feed, many of my friends have now emigrated (or going to) to different parts of the world. It’ll be interesting to hear them talk again in person!
A new diet
Um …
Cart and I were walking along Lungotevere last night. During the summer, it’s nice to take a stroll here and see the nightlife with the many markets and places to eat while being next to the river.
Cart and I even tried out one of those 5D roller coaster ride at one of the kiosks there – it was quite fun. I couldn’t stand straight for a while but we managed to walk and then we saw this :
Um. It’s quite strange seeing an animal rights poster right beside a grill restaurant.
Day trip to Villalago
Lets do a tutorial!
Experiencing a Carnevale in Viareggio
This is a very backdated post, but I didn’t know what to blog about today so finally I thought that I’d end my procrastination and share some pictures of my experience in a real life carnival.
As you know, in Italy, there is an event called Martedi Grasso which is kind of like a last chance for you to enjoy yourself before the start of 40 days of lent.
So you’d see a lots of children in costumes, throwing confetti around. There would also be a carnival, and I was fortunate enough to experience one in the town of Viareggio.
You could read my experience there on the first day and the second day.
Which brings us to this post, the third day, Sunday. I woke up bright and early, excited to finally watch the carnival up close.
(Not sure if I should keep having bangs)
After having our breakfast, we went back to the cittadella, where the floats were created and stored, for a few last minute interviews – one of them, a Mr Luciano Tomeni with his creation called, “Naviga il mio profilo”.
I adore the name because it’s so witty as “naviga” means surf in Italian and the phrase “surf to my profile” works in this context.
From what I remember, the creator was inspired to create this float as he remembers a time when people had to physically go to places to see artworks and masterpieces. Nowadays though, everyone has become an armchair critic with social media.
After we were done with the interviews, it was nearly noon and we heard news of how there was going to be rain, and that there was a risk that the carnival might be cancelled. The skies was already quite cloudy and I felt a little bit of a drizzle. It’ll be so sad to travel all the way here without seeing the floats!
(Here are the hosts Mas and Seri)
Fortunately the organisers gave the green light and we headed to Viali a Mare, where at that point of time, the entire area was barricaded and there were so many people there, that the seats were starting to be fully occupied.
Aren’t all these floats amazing? I thought that the floats were as all as the hangars, but I realised that once out, the creators could affix more parts to make them even taller!
I love the colourful, festive and lively atmosphere. There were many people dancing around on the streets, on the floats, and cheers everywhere.
In front of each floats will be a group of performers dressed up with the same theme as the float. These dancers for example are dressed up in Italian 18th century outfit.
This group of performers were a little bit scary, with their bells and their whips. The men in the hoods came up to the audience even and smeared some coal on our faces.
All of floats has a back story – many of them politically themed.
But I think that something that I’ll never forget is how Zul, the producer managed to get us up, on top of this float! As you remember, we interviewed the creator the day before. Such a cheerful looking float!
I tried to take some shots from up there, but it wasn’t easy trying balance on a moving vehicle and to snap pictures at the same time. So I guess I just have to wait for the final video to be processed.
(Look at the teacher!)
(Trying to get a selfie but got photobombed by the producer)
(Second try, still another photobomb :P)
At length, we managed to get all the shots needed and I had a quick respite and joined Cart who was already sitting down at the grandstand, enjoying the view.
It was an amazing, wonderful, fun day – and such a feast for the eyes. I had such beautiful memories here and I was quite sad that I had to leave this place. I’d love to come back again.
If you’re ever in Italy during the ‘Martedi Grasso’ period, I highly recommend you to visit Viareggio. It might not be as grand as the one in Venice, but I think it’s getting there!
Definitely I’ll be looking forward to watch Ole Ole Temasya when it comes out in a couple of months 🙂
Delicious food by the beach
What I thought was to be a lazy day, Cart decided out of the blue at noon to have lunch out for Ferragosto – this is a Catholic holiday and you’ll find almost everything closed and everyone on vacation.
Everything apart from eating establishments. As you know, I’m on a vegan diet since January so I was at a loss of where to go – normally people in Rome would go to the beach and have seafood. Luckily I had the happy cow app on my phone and I could quickly check out a place to eat.
The restaurant that we went to is called Pinzimonio which is in Fiumicino. Most people would know the area as an airport, but there are plenty of good restaurants here.
We reached there at about 2 pm, which is actually starting to be late for lunch, but we managed to get a table anyway.
The dining area looks like a typical Italian trattoria and there were a number of families already there having their lunch.
Pinzimonio isn’t a vegan restaurant, but they are vegan friendly and there are ample food in the menu to satisfy any vegan. Being a holiday though, we were given a fixed menu.
For starters we had Polpette di Melanzane. Hummus di fagioli, caponata e filo di scarola.
I loved everything on the plate. Even if you’re a carnivore, you’ll find them delicious too – the eggplant fritters were soft and packed a tasty punch. The caponata, a favourite southern Italian dish made of summer vegetables was delightful – sweet, sour and hearty. And the filo pastry filled with endives … While I don’t normally like bitter vegetables, it was actually lovely.
And then we had trofie with pesto di pomondorini secchi e mandorle
I’m not sure how the chef made this, as pesto calls for basil and pecorino and parmigiano cheese. Instead, almonds were used. This was quite good nevertheless – the saltiness of the nuts and the fresh basil made it taste close to the real thing.
Then we had pasta integrale con zucchine, peperoni, olive e noce
Cart doesn’t like whole wheat pasta, saying that they taste ‘too healthy’. I don’t mind them so much, especially when they are accompanied by a good sauce. Eating them together with roasted bell peppers, zucchini, olives and walnut, it actually went well together.
I was already very stuffed at this point of time, but we were given a plate of parmigiana di melanzana.
The original version was a big favourite of mine before changing my diet – made mostly of eggplants and parmigiana and pecorino cheese, I used to get them whenever I see it in a restaurant.
This particular version tasted very close to the real one, with the meaty-ish eggplants and the sourness of the tomatoes but with the saltiness and cheesiness of the walnuts instead of cheese.
And to end our lunch, we had a bowl of sorbetto made of yellow peaches and plums.
This was so refreshing and sweet on such a warm day. I’m looking forward to getting my own blender so I could recreate tasty treats like this one!
All in all, I enjoyed everything I ate and I had a very happy tummy.
The restaurant happened to be really near the beach and it turned out to be a beautiful day out so we decided to go for a little walk to burn off a bit of calories.
It wasn’t too hot out and I was regretting a little that I didn’t bring my swimming costume along with me. There were quite a number of people at the beach already – sitting on the sand, swimming, playing games…
While Cart and I walked next to them and played … you guessed it, Pokemon Go and Ingress 😀
Ristorante Pinzimonio
Via Formoso, 95
Hello? Anybody?
The NL1331 comes to Rome!
The NL-1331 van arrived in Rome yesterday for their first European tour. If you happen to be in the same area as one, you could get some free swag (normally a card with codes for your Ingress inventory) and you could also purchase the Van badge and kits if you wanted.
These are the swag we got
I would have liked the Van badge, unfortunately it was all sold out two days before the event. Oh well.
The event was held in Eur, near the ‘Square Colosseum’.
Cart and I reached there slightly earlier than the stipulated time but there were already so many people there – both the Resistance and the Enlightened.
I was nice to catch up with some friends, some of which I haven’t met for a long time, like Aldo and Smyx who both transferred out of Rome for work.
Eventually the van drove up. It was so easy to spot out – being all black with large white and silver decals around it. It was smaller than what I thought it would be though.
As I knew that there were going to be loads of people, I took a bit more effort to look nice as I expected that there would be a lot of photo taking.
And I had all the intention to take a lot of photos and selfies with friends – you know how some people take an effort to catch Pokemon? I wanted to try to catch as many agents as I could on my phone.
Unfortunately with a cross faction event, and with the density of the portals here, as soon as I opened my scanner, I was in ‘face deploy’ mode – putting in resonators when the portals are blue or shooting it when green. Boy, do I have a problem! :p
After everything has calmed down a little, was when I noticed that there was a new portal that didn’t exist before :
I’m not sure how long this portal will last but I don’t believe that it will be a permanent one. It took a bit of hacking but at length, I managed to get a key as a souvenir. But looking at the first picture made me glad that I did.
I am very amused.