A perennial expat muses about her recent move from Zurich to Munich and her travels around Germany, Europe, and the world. Currently: bracing for Oktoberfest.
My four weeks at TravelBox on Slate.com are coming to an end. Here's a round-up of all my posts over there, for your reading pleasure:
Italy
A culinary layover in Milan
There's more to the Veneto than Venice
Austria
An Easter weekend in Vienna
Seeking out wine in Vienna (or Wein in Wien)
Switzerland
Switzerland's answer to Groundhog Day
Switzerland's off season
Germany
Discovering Berlin's divided past
Dresden rising
After filling up on the artsy type of culture in Padua, Ali and I hopped on a train and headed to Vicenza for an afternoon of passegiate, aperitivi, and shopping, all of which also clearly qualify as cultural activities in Italy.
Vicenza is a small city whose center is a large walking district of narrow cobblestoned streets sprouting out from the main drag, Corso Palladio. It's insanely fun to wander around here, especially in the afternoon when the locals are out and about to provide you with some excellent people-watching.
If you sit down for a drink at an Italian cafe during the afternoon or early evening, your beverage usually comes accompanied by some sort of snack food. In Milan this is taken to the extreme, with several bars offering extensive hot and cold buffets that could easily replace dinner entirely (not that you'd want to skip a meal opportunity in Milan). In other cities (such as Padua or Vicenza), you usually get some potato chips and, if you're lucky, a dish of green olives. I usually hate potato chips, but for some reason they become mighty tasty when accompanied by a negroni.
After plenty of window shopping, cafe sitting, and wandering, it was time to move on to the main event: dinner. We attempted to go to a restaurant that my local friend swears is just amazing, but alas we were turned away for being foolish enough to show up without a reservation. Luckily a suitable alternative was soon found at Osteria Il Cursore. I had eaten here once before, and was happy to be back. We had the same surly but entirely likable waitress, who recited the antipasti, primi, and secondi of the day in fast but clear Italian (no written menu here, so pay attention!). Everything was fresh, simple, and delicious. I passed on dessert (and by "passed on" I mean "nibbled on everyone else's") in favor of a cinnamon after-dinner drink which I remembered fondly from my first visit to the place. Mmmmm... Italy.
OK, so where was I? A couple weeks ago I spent a few days in
When we weren’t watching Italians spread food substances on each other, we actually managed to take in a little culture on this particular trip. First there was the Scrovegni Chapel, a fresco-covered room painted by the master Giotto in 1303-1305. Much like at Da Vinci’s Last Supper in
We also paid a visit to the Basilica di Sant' Antonio. St. Anthony is one of the Catholics' most favorite saints, so he has been honored with a particularly fabulous church, even by Italian standards. Although I declared myself all churched out years ago (a non-life-threatening condition reached by people who have visited too many Italian churches within a short amount of time), this one was actually worth breaking my abstinence for. Every square centimeter of the place is ornately decorated. And, in addition to housing the tomb of Anthony himself, this basilica boasts quite a collection of other dead saint parts, too (they call them ‘relics’ and display them in custom-made decorative vessels; don’t get too close if you’re easily queasy).
Hungry for more art, we also took in the De Chirico show at Palazzo Zabarella. I was disappointed to not see my favorite work by him (Melancholy and mystery of a street, which looks exactly like the street I used to live on in Bologna, only creepier), but it was an awfully thorough and enjoyable show nonetheless. It’s on through May 27th, so quick, plan your trip to the
Walking around Padua (Padova in Italian) last week, Ali and I happened across the graduation celebrations of a few university students. The first indication that something was up this day were the big signs plastered up along one side of a piazza. These each displayed a crude caricature of one of the graduates, along with a long and detailed narrative written by the grad's so-called friends.
A little farther ahead we saw some of the actual graduates, each surrounded by a small crowd which would occasionally break out into song: "Dottore, dottore, dottore del buso del cul! Vaffancul, vaffancul..." I believe the lyrics touch on how proud they all are of the graduate for all his or her hard work and academic achievement. Yeah, that's it...
Each scene was a little different, but mostly they looked like this: the graduate, wearing some ridiculous costume prepared by her admirers (a giant diaper, a hula skirt, a funny hat) stood on top of a bench which someone had thoughtfully covered with plastic sheeting. The grad would occasionally take sips from a bottle of cheap champaign, which may or may not be duct-taped to her hand. Every couple minutes, someone from the crowd would approach the grad and apply some variety of food substance (ketchup, raw egg, unrecognizable goo) to some part of said grad's body. The grad's mother stood somewhere in the crowd, holding the traditional wreath of laurels and beaming proudly.
There were of course many variations on this scene, such as the grad who had his feet tied together and was being made to hop through the streets while his blow-up-doll-toting, cross-dressed posse beat him repeatedly with inflatable bats. But the overarching theme was clear: public humiliation.
I really liked the idea of hazing someone at the end of his educational career, rather than at the beginning as it's traditionally done in the US (as is my understanding from watching movies such as Animal House). It seems less, what's the word... evil. Even the grads seemed to be enjoying themselves, as if it were clearly a privilege to have an egg stuffed into and broken inside one's giant paper-towel diaper while standing on a bench in the middle of town.
But I couldn't help but wonder what happened to those grads who didn't have many friends. Who humiliates them on their graduation day?
