Filed under: Read the blog in English ! | Tags: 88 miles per hour, delorean, einstein, erasmus, relativity, short experience, time, Torino, Turin
Einstein once said « Put your hand on a hot stove for a minute, and it seems like an hour. Sit with a pretty girl for an hour, and it seems like a minute, that’s relativity”. Using time to explain relativity was a pretty good idea, as I realized minutes do not always and everywhere last the same 60 seconds.
Indeed it has been almost 9 months now that I settled in Turin and it feels like I arrived about a week ago only. But reality strikes back and it is June now, and I’ll have to head back home soon. Before that, I’ll have to see my other foreign friends leave after a last party. We hope it is just a goodbye-party but we know it may well be a farewell-party.
It is the same weird sensation almost everyone feels when going abroad to study for a year. A proof (if needed) that we spent some great time in here. The worse is that I was aware of this! I had been through this before, when in Milan for a year, it’s not like I didn’t know… I even warned all my friends in Turin “beware the end of the year guys, it’ll come faster than you think!” And still I have been tricked, again.
I usually say that if the whole experience was longer, maybe it would be less extraordinary. I am still convinced of that, but I could have handled a few months more, especially with some people who arrived only for the second semester. But that’s the way it goes. Or I can try and find 1.21 gigowatt of electricity, a bit of plutonium and a second-hand DeLorean…
Filed under: Read the blog in English ! | Tags: Alex Kapranos, book, dine out on tour with franz ferdinand, summer, world tour
Alex Kapranos, Franz Ferdinand’s frontman, may well be one of the most famous Glaswegians. His music has been heard all around the world.
Indeed, during one of FF’s last world tours, Kapranos has taken the opportunity to go back to his first love: food. I didn’t know that he had worked in a bunch of restaurants as commis and sous-chef before becoming a rockstar. Anyway, the thing is: he knows about food and he’s passionate about it.
His book ‘Sound Bites’ is a collection of short reviews of restaurants he had the chance to try during his last tour ; a long journey from Glasgow to Glasgow via Paris, New York, Tokyo, Austin and a number of other exotic destinations. Kapranos’ writing is brutal and rock’n’roll but he’s got style as well.
Clearly the book is a great effort. Your mouth keeps watering, no doubt about that. The added value lies in the fact that you really see FF from the inside and learn a lot about Alex Kapranos. The man may seem arrogant on stage and during interviews but in this book he looks like a pretty normal chap.
Overall, this book is a good investment. Kapranos’ advice are good (yep, i’ve tried the Glasgow one). For an expat, it’s also a good introduction to two specific vocabularies: cookery and music.
Filed under: Read the blog in English ! | Tags: glasgow, meeting, ryanair, scotland, Torino, trip, Turin
About a month ago I had the chance to discover Glasgow and Scotland as we had a wee “uprooooted meeting” up there. Legendary.
First things first, as I know you will ask: it actually never rains in Scotland! 4 days spent there and nothing more than a few minutes of a weak drizzle (the kind that any guy from Brittany would not even have felt). However, it’s been freezing and snowing sometimes. But luck was on our side: while we were in Edinburgh’s Murrayfield stadium for the Six Nations’ Scotland-Wales under a fairly sunny sky, Glasgow was experiencing a rough snow storm. When we came back to Glasgow, the storm was gone and had left a beautiful layer of snow everywhere in the streets and parks.
Scotland is definitely a different culture. I got used to the Italian exuberance but was surprised, in a good way, by the level of politeness shown by the Scots. So much so I was almost embarrassed by people apologizing for the smallest things. Another example; I have heard very few drivers using their klaxon, quite a shock for me, as Italians have, say, a “generous” use of theirs. Neither have I heard about half as many sirens as in Italy.
Also at some point I stopped wondering why Scots sometimes don’t seem to speak English. They have quite an accent.
Different culture, and different cuisine as well. I confess I had a ball: burgers, chips and curry, haggis, fish and chips. However, that’s the kind of diet you can only enjoy for a week and I feel pretty sorry for those who have to live with it. On the other hand, there are hundreds of amazing whiskies. They alone are worth the trip.
Finally and above anything else, Glasgow is about music. Every single night there is somewhere an opportunity to enjoy a night of live music, most of the time for free. I especially liked the “open mic” sessions. Some performances make you laugh, some are impressing and some are really moving, but overall these are the nights where a very special and friendly atmosphere is created from the extraordinary talents of mostly ordinary people. Music is everywhere, and is amazingly cheap as well! £3-record at FOPP… deal!
You got it, Glasgow rocks (you knew already). One last acknowledgement: thank you Christy and Tony Ryan.
Filed under: Read the blog in English ! | Tags: beautiful landscapes, erasmus, Highlands, Isle of Skye, photography, pics, scotland, travel
Now just a few photos I shot when I was in the wonderful Isle of Skye (North West Highlands, Scotland). This is an amazing place and those pics are just an attempt (probably vain as it pales in comparison with an actual trip there) to share the beauty of this place with you. Thank you Erasmus.
Filed under: Read the blog in English ! | Tags: glasgow, town twinning, Turin
Life is full of surprises and today’s inFUNmation Point is one of those times when things turn out in ways you would have never imagined.
The concept of “town twinning” (aka “sister cities”) started in Europe in the 50s and can be defined as some sort of socio-cultural partnership between two or more cities of different countries. For example, Lyon is twinned with Birmingham, Frankfort and Milan where I spent my first year in Italy. That was a sign.
What does it has to do with Turin? Well, Turin which by the way is Carla Bruni’s birthplace is twinned with Chambéry, Lille, Cologne, Esch-sur-Alzette (Luxemburg) and… Glasgow! From Glasgow to Torino is more than ever an appropriate motto. You just can’t make this up…
And we didn’t even know beforehand!
Filed under: Read the blog in English ! | Tags: eating out, expatriation, going out, qype, time out, toursim, web 2.0
Qype is a website hosting a community of people sharing good places to go out. There’s no specific guideline about what kind of place you can speak about. Therefore, the reviews varies from the classic restaurants, pubs, bars and clubs, to shopping centers, theatres, museums, touristic attractions, random shops, football stadiums… and maybe even launderettes (haven’t checked that, feel free to be the first one to review a launderette). It’s quite well done and easy to use. You get points for your reviews and the more point you have the more goodies you get.
Qype is great for us expat to have an overview of where to go out, and read “real” people’s points of view, especially when we’re just arrived and we don’t know anything about our host city.
The “fits in your pocket part” comes from the fact that they’re launching an Iphone application (God I wish I had one of those…). OK, I acknowledge that the cost of the Iphone makes it way more expensive than a lonely planet, but you see where I’m coming from don’t you?
However, Qype’s is still a “young” service and as it’s fuelled with user generated content, there are still a lot of places that haven’t been reviewed yet… and that’s exactly where the expats save the world once again!
Two reasons for that:
· we can usually speak more than one language, and therefore write our reviews in two or more languages making more people able to benefit from them
· as a matter of fact we live in a different place than our hometown and we can therefore review places from two or more cities (with more insights than just tourists)
But “with great power comes great responsibility”, so rush to Qype and share your knowledge of great places to go out!
Filed under: Read the blog in English ! | Tags: awesome food, best junkfood ever, glasogow, scotland, snack
Scottish cuisine offers a wide range of excellent dishes, like Cullen Skink, Lochmuir Smoked Salmon, Aberdeen Angus Beef Burger and Black Pudding. This is Scotland at its best: fresh local food, simple recipes, awesome taste.
But it’s a completely different type of food that has become my Glaswegian favourite: “chips and curry”. A portion of chips with salt, vinegar and curry sauce, simple and terribly good. You can get this for about three pounds and sometimes less during the day. This snack can be eaten at any time, but I’d say it really is amazing late in the night, when you get out of a pub.
If you paid attention to the photo, you probably noticed that such a recipe implies a specific logistic: chips being all covered in curry sauce, a little plastic fork is provided to be able to eat properly. They just think about everything!
Filed under: Read the blog in English ! | Tags: glasgow, most underrated cities in the world, nice cities with industrial past, Turin
Glasgow and Turin are not often said to be part of the most beautiful cities in the world. No, only Rome, London, New York or Paris get this privilege, due to their amazing and rather obvious beauty.
“Glasgow? It’s a big industrial city isn’t it?”
“Even Liverpool is nice compared to Glasgow”
Yeah, that’s the kind of things I’ve been told before moving here. After a few months, I could really see that those comments had been made by people that never actually came to Glasgow, because this city is truly remarkable.
The city centre is famous for its shopping venues, but it is also full of beautiful open areas like George Square or the smaller Royal Exchange Square. And it’s in the West End that Glasgow really becomes unique. This old part of the city gathered big historical buildings (like University of Glasgow, or the Kelvingrove Gallery), nice lively streets like Byres Road or Ashton Lane, and beautiful parks such as the Botanic Gardens and Kelvingrove park, quietly winding around the river Kelvin.
This city has no unity and logic, as vestiges of its industrial history have not really being integrated to the newest buildings. The M8 highway, for example, literally cuts the city in two halves. There is an overall feeling of chaos here, mainly created by all the constructions works that can be seen everywhere. Guess what? Curiously enough, this mess is great, and gives Glasgow even more charm.
“Turin, it’s a big industrial city isn’t it?”
“Why are you going there? It’s ugly and there’s nothing interesting!”
There you go; the same unfair treatment for Turin. Unfair because this city built by the Romans has superb squares, filled with a number of magnificent statues of ancient Kings of Savoy. Greenery is present in the city as well, mainly with the giant park “Parco del Valentino” or with the gardens of the Royal Palace, close to the atypical “Palazzo Madama”. The architecture style is pretty much “à la française” and the river Pô adds some class to the city, even though its banks could benefit from some further development.
The main avenues are rectilinear and long; so much so you may sometimes find it difficult to evaluate the distances. The posh areas in the east part of the city are very nice, and it’s on those hills that you’ll probably find the best viewpoints of the city, the Mole Antonelliana and the Alps.
However, Turin has not always been that beautiful. It has been a big grey industrial city for a long time (Turin is the home of the FIAT car manufacturer) and it’s only since the city held the Winter Olympics in 2006 that it has born again, with a full cleansing of the city center and the construction of a brand new subway. Nevertheless, there are very few nice areas once you get out of the city center, and you might even end up in some dodgy places.
But Turin’s balance scorecard remains very positive.
Filed under: Read the blog in English ! | Tags: accessorize, kiss at midnight, mistletoe, new year, traditions
Wow. That’s a catchy title today!
End of year festivities are approaching, and I bet you’re all preparing yourselves to the big moment: kissing someone at midnight. However, one question remains: how to know exactly where the mistletoe is going to be?
Well, Accessorize has a quite convenient solution to that issue!
All you have to do is to get this little hat.
Now get the closest possible to the most beautiful girl / boy of the evening and slightly bend over him/her. Here you are! Under the mistletoe! Repeat the maneuver as many times as you wish.
We do have the mistletoe tradition in France as well, but I’ve never seen such an artefact before. I acknowledge marketing is everywhere and sometimes too intrusive. But this is fun, so let’s go.
