Prossima stazione...

72-6-43

2006-11-27T21:45:00.000+01:00

72 days, 6 hours and forty-three minutes after my arrival in Torino, it’s time to take stock of my situation in Italy.

The language

It’s a bit magic (at least in my opinion) but now I understand quite well Italian and can even express myself in Italian (and be understandable).
I remember, the first day I arrived in Torino, I attend a meeting of BEST Torino, and I didn’t understand anything. There were some Italian people speaking fast, moving, writing some things on the blackboard, but I didn’t understand anything.
When I had to look for a flat, it was a challenge to write something in Italian on a sheet, then call the number of the owner, and try to ask questions and take an appointment for visiting the flat.

The food

I think I can summarize in one word the main food I ate here since my arrival: pasta! However, you’ve to know that Italian food isn’t only pasta-pizza-cappuccino. It’s for sure one of the best (otherwise why would there be Italian restaurants all around the world?), healthiest and the most varied food in the world. But when you’re a student – that’s being lazy, needing some cheap and easy-to-do food – in Italy, the best way is still the pasta.
If I remember well, except during the trip in Firenze – where I ate paninis and kebab -, I ate pasta every day since my arrival in Torino. So, if I can give you an advice: don’t come in Italy for too much time if you’re allergic to pasta!

The newspaper

Yes, you read well: “the newspaper”! Almost every day I read a newspaper (in Italian of course) – it can be useful during some lectures… Of course, because I’m a student – that’s being too lazy to go to a tabbaccheria to buy any newspaper – I read only the most intellectual and international newspaper: Metro!
If you’re not used to read this newspaper, I can tell you that’s the only newspaper where you read that Bush can't send emails, doesn't know Google, that Madonna adopted a child from Malawi but his father didn't really agree, that Italian people prefer sex in the morning rather than in the evening, that Juventus is almost on the top of Seria B (second division), and that there’s a baby boom of pandas in Thailand thanks to the use of porno videos for bears.

Interesting, isn't it?

White night?

And because I want to finish this post with some pictures of Turin, I'll put some pictures that I took Saturday night.

Katy, Lina and Pierre

Nicolas, Lina and Pierre on a balance in the street (what the f*** is doing a balance there?)

Till the end of January, there'll be artistic lights (it's called Luci d'Artista) in several places of Torino.

Piazza something in Turin, not far from Porta Nuova

The same, plus one Italian guy who learnt me some words in Italian "body language"

Italian body language

As you maybe know, Italian people are used to speak with their hands. For instance, I learnt Saturday how to say "we're going" (andiamo), "nothing" (niente), "gay", "continue!", "what does it means?", etc. I hope have the occasion to show it once one this blog.

Firenze : next and end

2006-11-26T22:24:00.000+01:00

Finally I managed to put some pictures of my trip in Firenze! Just look 2 posts before! Enjoy!

"Chi dorme non piglia pesci"

2006-11-21T22:58:00.000+01:00

Hello !

I've a lot of things to write on this blog and a lot of pictures to show, but I didn't find yet the time, neither the motivation to do it. I started today to upload some pictures of Firenze, but everything isn't done yet, so I prefer to put all the pictures before to publish it. Normally it should be done within the end of this week (weekend included).

In the next posts, I'd like to speak about : Italian time, BEST Torino, Firenze, and other hot topics...

You can already have a look to the picture below and dream about holidays...

Palazzio vecchio

Last but not least, a joke :

What have American beer and making love in a boat in common?
> They're both fucking close to water...

Firenze

2006-11-20T23:52:00.000+01:00

Everything starts here, at Porta Nuova station in Torino

Culture is like jam: the less you’ve it, the more you spread it (French expression)

I could tell you how much Firenze is beautiful, tell you who built that building, painted that painting and sculpted that sculpture, speak about the story of Firenze, the Medici and a lot of other academic and tourist things.
But I won't do it, simply because: 1) I don't know who built/painted/sculpted that building/painting/sculpture, 2) you (and me too)'ll get quickly bored.

Maybe, the main (and hopefully true) things that I remember about Firenze are:

it’s a city that was very important during the Renaissance (14th-16th centuries) ; the currency from Firenze was used all over Europe ;
this is the city of the Medici ; even if Firenze was supposed to be a republic, it became more something like an oligarchy/monarchy controlled by this family of bankers ;
all the important families of Firenze ordered paintings, palaces, sponsorised the building of the churches, etc. to show how important they were (today, they’d buy big cars and houses) ; this is why Firenze is full of beautiful buildings and masterpieces

For more information about Firenze, you can have a look at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Florence.

According to me, the greatest thinh of Firenze is that, contrarily of other tourist cities and places, there aren’t some spots with nice buildings and other things to see. No, the entire city (at least the centre) is beautiful! You can walk in the centre of the city and discover wonderful buildings, fountains, palaces, bridges, sculptures, churches, towers, etc. It’s a bit like if you were living in the city 6 centuries ago (of course, you’ve to disregard the cars and Vespas).

The hostel

Fortunately we (Pierre, FX and me) went in Firenze during a non-tourist period. So, it was quite easy to find a hostel in the centre of Firenze. The best way is to look on Internet (www.routard.com, www.hihostels.com,…). However, there were already quite a lot of other students, mainly from Japan, USA and Great Britain when we arrived at the hostel.
The hostel was really nice, well located and not too expensive (21€ by night, breakfast included). Moreover, all the walls of the hostel were covered by signatures, drawings and messages from the previous customers. It gives to the hostel a nice and characteristic “design”.

Some drawings are fabulous...

One of the corridors of the hostel...

For the scientists...

Firenze by day

Panorama of Firenze with the Duomo, the Palazzo Vecchio and the Ponte Vecchio

The same panorama, but you can keep it as wallpaper!

Panorama with the Arno ; Ponte Vecchio on the left

Another Panorama with the Arno

Piazza Santa Croce

Ponte Vecchio

Piazza something...

The Duomo

When the Duomo was built, it was the biggest dome in the world

Palazzo Medici

Palazzio Medici (you can notice that some houses where quite nice to make big parties with a lot of guests...)

Inside the Palazzio Medici

Palazzo Pitti

Boboli's garden (garden of Palazzo Pitti)

Panorama from the Boboli's garden

Piazza della Signoria

Palazzo Vecchio

Like a museum in open air... I let you imagine all the Japanese toursit making pictures of themselves with some sculptures in background (ad looking ultra serious)

Sculptures

The David of Micchelange

Persee with Meduse's (you know, the girl with snakes instead of hair) head

Bouh, you're ugly! Bacchus, god of wine

Some personal thoughts about the museums

During our trip in Firenze, we visited some museums, buildings, etc. We visited mainly the
Galleria dell'Accademia (4 hours!) and the Palazzo Pitti.

The problem of those museums is that they’re really too big, and there’re too many things to see. So, at the beginning, you looked at all the sculptures and paintings, but at the end you go quickly through the rooms, trying to find ASAP the exit. It’s like an overdose of paintings!

My second thought about those museums is about the paintings. I think there is a second hint meaning of most of them. There’re a lot of paintings where all the people look sad, even if they should be happy. For instance, several paintings represents the birth of Jesus, and a lot of people are around him (Marie, Joseph, some angels, and other people). All are sad, like if somebody was dead, while they should make a big party to celebrate it!
Some other pictures are quite gore : Jesus on the cross, one Saint with arrows in his body (and looking like normal, if nothing happened), another Saint taking a plate with her nipples (also looking fine), etc.
Thus, in conclusion, I made a theory about that: there’s a second hint meaning of those museums; there’re like an horror gallery, to divert and make afraid the children visiting them with their parents. It’s like the haunted house in Disneyland but from the Renaissance.

Firenze by night

Ponte Vecchio (all the colors of the rainbow, yeah!)

The symbol of Firenze

FX, Pierre (2 French Erasmus) and me

Coda, clienti, processo di Poisson and catena di Markov

2006-11-13T14:09:00.000+01:00

I thought about those weird words during two hours today, during a not so nice exam.

Anyway, before to leave for Firenze, I'll get you 2 nice Italian recipes. (Ab)use it !

Pesto sauce

2006-11-13T14:06:00.000+01:00

There are two ways of doing pesto sauce (that'll eat with spaghetti).

Here is the first one.

The second one is my favorite : go to the nearest supermarket, buy a little box where it's written "pesto sauce" (an Italian brand - Barilla, Bertolli, Corleone, Matterazi, Ferrari, Vespa, Ramazzoti or whatever - is better).
Go back home, open the box : that's done!

Pasta al salmone

2006-11-13T13:51:00.000+01:00

If you don't speak Italian, I guess it'll be quite hard to understand what's this dish. Thus let me explain you a bit what "pasta al salmone" means :
- "pasta" means "pastas",
- "al salmone" means "with salmon".
Now we can start!

Ingredients
(for 2 people, or 1 person very hungry, or 3 people a bit hungry, or 100 people not hungry at all)

- 250g of pastas "Fettucine"
- 1 or 2 tomato(es) (or better : a can of peeled tomatoes)
- 200ml of "cooking" cream
- a bit of olive oil
- onion
- a bit of parmesan cheese ("parmiggiano reggiano") (or something like that)
- 250g of smoked salmon

This is fettucine ; it's like noodles.

During the preparation of the "sauce", cook the pastas (see another post sent a long time ago). You should need about 8.57 minutes, but you can also check the cooking time written on the pastas box. Of course, do it following the Italian way, otherwise it's a waste of time, pastas, water and money.

Nicola (my flatmate) the cuoco (the chef) !

So, let's describe the most difficult part (but not too much, because even I should be able to manage to cook it) : the sauce.
Firstly, take a frying pan, put a bit olive oil and wait 1 or 2 minutes till the pan is hot (it isn't advised to touch the pan to know if it's hot - the goal is to fry the food, not your hand).
Then, cut an half onion in small pieces and put them in the hot pan.
Directly afterward, put the tomatoes (cut in small pieces too - because small is beautiful) and the salmon.
Wait about 2 minutes, and add the "cooking" cream. Don't forget to mix it regularly a bit.
Last but not least, add the cheese.

Maybe it can look like vomit, but I ensure you it isn't ! (you can notice my nice comments related with food...)

Now, the sauce is ready, the pastas too. When you'll have drained the pastas, put them in the pan and mix it with the sauce. That's ready! You made "pasta al salmone". Enjoy your meal!

Mix it all, and that's done ! Enjoy your meal !

"Paese che vai, usanza che trovi"

2006-11-05T22:43:00.000+01:00

Halloween
You know already what Halloween is, thus I wouldn't describe it what it is. On the 31th of October, Francesca, a member of BEST Torino, organised with some friends an Halloween party. Because you know what Halloween is and what a party is, I wouldn't explain you what is an Halloween party. I'll just put a few pictures, you'll maybe laugh a bit (or a lot) when you'll see them (from my point of view, everybody looks more or less stupid - also me -, but this kind of party happens only once a year).
Unfortunately for you, but fortunately for me, you won't see me on the pictures (actually I hadn't a real fancy dress).

Alberto (mix of Goldorak and fairy), Stefano (fairy - the best, according to me) and Thomas (man without head)

Maurizio (mummy)

Martin. Maybe you wonder about his fancy dress? Here is his explanation (quite logical I agree) : "At Halloween, everybody has to look ugly. So, with this nice training suit, I think I look ugly enough, no?"

DJ David ("Hey Mr. DJ put a record on I wanna dance with my baby")

"Tempo, marito e figli vengono come li pigli"

2006-11-03T22:58:00.000+01:00

Hello reader from Belgium, Italy, France, Norway, Chili, USA, Portugal, Spain, Turkey, Denmark, Canada and some other countries that I forget maybe !

L'inverno è arrivato...
Since a few days, the weather totally changed ; before Wednesday the sun was shining (or it was raining too), the temperature was high enough to go out in TShirt. Since Wednesday, the temperature is around 10 (at least I guess, because I didn't bring any thermometer), you can't go out without a pullover or a jacket, but the sun is still shining !
So, everything is OK ! Maybe except the exams that are coming too fast...

Anyway, I can still be happy when I saw the pictures from Estonia that Martin and Raido (two Erasmus students here) sent me.

The nice weather in Estonia...

Snow isn't always so "cool"...

Che ora è?
After those meteorological consideration, I'd like to speak about another fundamental problem that I discovered a few time ago. As you don't know, I've a nice panorama from the balcon of my room.

Panoramic view from my room. Every morning/midday I see that ; I love it! BTW, you can see how was the weather today, since I took this pic today.

As you can see, there's a church and a bell tower. So, every hald hour, I can hear the bells and know what time it is. However, I was a bit in trouble a few days ago when I heard the bells only once. I thought it was 1 pm, but actually it was 12:30 ! So, could somebody explain me how to know, by hearing the bells, if it's 12:30, 13:00 or 13:30 ? That's my current existential problem...

Low Lands Meeting... already 2 weeks ago
And the end for today : a picture of almost all the participants of LLM in Eindhoven. OK, maybe we were a bit less than 170 people, but it's still amazing.

"Campa cavallo, che l'erba cresce"

2006-11-01T22:58:00.000+01:00

As usual, I'm in late for this blog. So, just imagine to read this paragraph almost one week ago, Friday 27th of October.

Since the Low Lands Meeting, I didn't go out anymore with some Erasmus from Sponta Verde, one of the residence of the university. So, I was really happy to meet them one more time. It was a good occasion to try Finnish candies (the first and last time of my life), Hungarian palinka (neither the first, neither the last time), to go in the parc Valentino by tram during the night.
Tulinen Pippuri : try to remember this name and never taste it! It's a "candy" (at least from the Finnish point of view) dark, not sweet at all, maybe salty, and the core is awful.

A wagon of the tram only for Erasmus...

Helene (Sweden), two Polish girls (sorry, I don't remember your name right now) and Gabor (Hungary). Only by the way of drinking, you can guess the nationality of them : Helene drank only a very little bit of palinka (strong alcohol from Hungary and Romania, stronger when it's home made), while Gabor and the two Polish girls drank at least three shots of palinka...

In a bar along the Po

Bridge on the Po

"A chi dai il dito si prende anche il braccio"

2006-10-29T18:18:00.000+01:00

Today, nothing special... except a cultural and musical paragraph! So, here you are some links to nice (free AND legal) videos :

Boten Ana (basshunter) : song number 1 in the Scandinavian and Dutch charts ;
Los Angeles (Malibu Stacy) : song number 10000 in the Belgian charts, but really good (IMHO) ;
Ordinary life (Liquido) : Liquido, you know, the German rock band who made Narcotic ?

Jag känner en bott, hon heter Anna, Anna heter hon
Och hon kan banna, banna dig så hårt
Hon röjer upp i våran kanal
Jag vill berätta för dig, att jag känner en bott

"Morto un papa se ne fa un altro"

2006-10-27T20:14:00.000+02:00

Hello !

After a great travel to the Questura (for the third time), I got my residence permit (it's like a sheet with some nice colors and stamps) . Yeah!

What else ? I wrote all the text about LLM, and started to upload the pictures. I hope to finish it at the end of this weekend. Buono fine settimana!

Low Lands Meeting 2006 in Eindhoven

2006-10-22T22:38:00.000+02:00

Before to start to explain you the Low Lands Meeting, I'd like to write a few numbers :
3 (days : from friday to sunday), 2 (nights), 7 (hours of sleep during those three days), 170 (participants), 10 (Local BEST Groups : Eindhoven, Ghent, Leuven, Brussels (VUB and ULB), Louvain-la-Neuve, Liège, Paris (Ecole Centrale and ENSAM), Nancy), 40 (cents, the price of one Hollandia).

Now, I can start !

Thursday 19th

Once upon a time, I left rainy Torino (thursday 19th) for still more rainy Bergamo, going to a youth hostel - good and cheap BTW. There I met another Erasmus (a Spanish guy, from Saragossa, but studying in Viena) and spent one night before to go to the airport of Milano-Bergamo.

Nice view of Bergamo, from the railway station. You can't see them, but in the back there are green hills. It's really beautiful.

Friday 20th

The Alps mountains. I think (but I'm not sure at all) you can see the Mont Blanc.

A big lake somewhere between Italy and Switzerland (one bottle of limoncello for the one who gives me the right name).

In the morning (friday 20th), the weather was still cloudy in Bergamo, but anyway I was leaving Italy and going to Netherlands, where the weather was - exceptionnaly - better (i.e. not rainy and even a bit sunny !).
So, arrival at the airport of Eindhoven, travel to the station, lunch, and trip to the Technical University of Eindhoven (TU/e).

The main building of TU/e.

The Netherlands, the country of the bikes...

In the main building of TU/e, you can easily find the BEST office : just ask to somebody, or look at the messy office downstairs. Actually, when I saw it, I thought about my sister's room during exams (that is a lot of mess, not easy to imagine). You can find almost everything there : computers, fridge, chairs and divan, maps, deodorant and several kind of alcohol (and Hollandia beer of course !).

The BEST office of Eindhoven...

... where you can find (almost) everything!

A trolley full of Hollandia. Now, you mutliply it by a huge factor, and you get the amount of beer for the LLM.

Initially, the participants coming by train (or by plane as me) had to go to the Eindhoven station, then take a bus till the middle of nowhere, and then call an organiser to pick up them from this bus stop and bring them in place called "rukbunker".

The rukbunker

Tents close of the rukbunker (there was not enough place there for 170 people).

Dear reader, because this blog has also an educational goal, and also because most of you don't speak Dutch (or not well enough) I'll explain you what "rukbunker" means before to continue this story. Open the brackets.

In Dutch from the Netherlands, when you want to speak about a place in the middle of nowhere, you add "ruk-" before the name of the place. So, "rukbunker" means "the bunker in the middle of nowhere". Actually, it's not really a bunker, it's a kind of farm, but very rustic ("back to the basics" was a part of the slogan of the LLM...). For instance, there was only three showers for all the 170 participants, and I won't speak too much about the toilets...

However, in Flemish (i.e. the Dutch from Flanders, the Northern part of Belgium), "ruk" is coming from the verb "rukken" that means "to masturbate". So, I let you translate "rukbunker"...

I thank Jan for this explanation, that permited me to understand the little subtilities existing bewteen Dutch and Flemish.

OK, now we can close the brackets and continue the story. On this beautiful friday 20th of October, all the public transports were working well, except - of course - the buses from the railway station of Eindhoven till the LLM place because of a short strike. Now, you can maybe understand why I want a car when I'll finish my studies!

Anyway, as I said before, I was in the BEST office of Eindhoven, where I staid at least three or four hours. What could you do there? A lot of things, like :

drink a Hollandia from the fridge,
try to prepare a bit the BEST Knowledge Transfert by mail with Salua,
prepare the 170 survival guides and welcome packs.

Just to print and to staple the survival guides, we (Sjoerd, Rudy and myself) spent at least one hour. The kind of thing everybody should do at least once in his/her life to enjoy more the life afterward.

Sjoerd (Dutch) and Rudy (Austrian) busy with the magic machine, spending about 1 hour for making 170 the survival guides...

After all this great moment, it was time to leave Eindhoven and to go to the rukbunker. There, after a - unexpected - good dinner (pasta, nothing very different than my current Italian diet) and the arrival of more or less everybody, we were ready to start the party (and also to prepare the trainings, case studies and knowledge transfer sessions of the saturday) till early in the morning (around 5 or 6 a.m.).

Let's start the party!

Céline (LLN), Jean (LLN), Jan (Bxl), Emilie (Bxl), me, Shreg (LLN)

Saturday 21th

As usual in BEST events, the moto "work hard, party hard" was respected. In practice, it means firstly : wake up, shower and breakfast at 8 a.m.! Then case study about how to organise a Summer Course (easy : just be sure that there are enough old and experienced members ;-), followed by a travel to TU/e. There, BEST knowledge transfer (i.e. explaining to the newbies how works BEST), lunch and presentation of one of the sponsors of the event.

BKT session (yes, we don't party all the day!)

Afterwards, something more interesting (I agree, I'm speaking like an alcoholic, but I'm not) : the drink with the representants of the sponsor company.

The drink after the presentation of the company

The afternoon was already almost finished, but we had to wait for the bus bringing the second group to the rukbunker.
But what can we do after a drink ? Another drink for sure ! This time, it was without the representants of the company, in front of the BEST office. Let about 50 BESTies together, cheap beers and wait at least one hour. At the end, you can hear sweet songs in the TU/e building, and also in the bus (look at here and here).

BESTies from Eindhoven, providing the beers during the second drink.

Xavier (Fr), Nicolas (Fr), Jeannette (Finnish), singing some unfamous Finnish/French drinking song during the second drink...

Finally, we arrived at the rukbunker, ate some fries, had a speaker corner (I write it in a few words, but actually arrival+dinner+speaker corner last two or three hours) and started the International Evening (IE).
The principle of an International Evening is quite easy : everybody brings typical food and drink from its country, you play some music and that's all. It's the most famous evening in BEST. Almost every BEST event has an IE.

International Evening !

Louvain est là, chalalalala!

DJ Egbert!

Sunday 22th

Like on Saturday, wake up, shower and breakfast around 8 (maybe 9) a.m. Unfortunately for me, it was already time to say goodbye and to go to the airport. The end isn't very funny : flight Eindhoven-Milan, bus Milan airport-Milan central station, train Milan-Turin.

I know, it was maybe a bit expensive (in time and money) to spend only one weekend at the LLM, but I can ensure you that you should go there to feel what I felt!
Thanks again to LBG Eindhoven for this weekend!

Goodbye Eindhoven !

"Tutte le strade portano a Torino"

2006-10-17T01:25:00.000+02:00

Italy is the best country of the world, Turin is the most sunny city of Italy and that's why all the roads are going to Torino. Don't try to find some meaning for this sentence, there's no meaning ; it's just another meaningless sentence in this blog...

Il mercolato della Porta Palazzo
On saturday, I went to the "biggest open-air market in Europe" (sic)! So, how is it? Boh, it's like a market, but big, with a lot of shops, fruits and vegetables. BTW it's really cheap and open all the week except on sunday, so if you're gonna in Torino go there !

Because an image is worth one thousand words, and also because I don't know what to add, I put here a few pictures...

How to learn Italian if you speak French ?
This paragraph is designed for the Frenchspeaking people who'd like to switch easily from French to Italian and look interesting and intelligent by telling some words in Italian ;-)
So, I'll write it in French...

Comme vous le savez sûrement, le français et l'italien sont des langues latines. D'où pas mal de points communs, des mots fort semblables, environ la même syntaxe grammaticale (wow, comment ça le fait quand je commence à utiliser des mots savants !) et des conjugaisons assez proches.

Le français et l'italien, c'est un peu comme les équations différentielles ordinnaires et les équations différentielles partielles (allez, j'en rajoute encore une couche !), la transformée de Laplace et celle de Fourier (bon, ça suffit maintenant !), la Carapils et la 365, un cours de Rollin et un cours de Magnus (tous les deux aussi incompréhensibles), le champagne et le spumante, Ozone et Bassunter, la compil' Top Hits '95 et Top Hits '96.

Mais le français sans l'italien, c'est comme la mer sans les vagues, c'est comme les vagues sans l'écume, c'est comme l'écume sans le sel, c'est comme le sel sans le poivre. Bref, c'est comme l'amour sans amour ; et l'amour sans amour ce n'est plus de l'amour!

Enfin, je m'égare, et j'oublie la leçon de français-italien! Cette leçon c'est plus quelques observations faites sur le tas. Donc n'espérez pas être parfais bilingue après les lignes suivantes. Tout au plus vous pourrez essayer de deviner un mot italien à partir d'un mot français.

Règle	Exemple
tion devient zione	information devient informazione
ct devient tt	optimisation devient ottimizzazione
y devient i	dynamique devient dinamica
xp devient sp	expression devient espressione
bs devient ss	observateur devient osservatore

...	se prononce ...
c + i/e	tch (ex : ciao se prononce tchao)
c + consonne ou o/a	k (ex : ecologia)
ch	k (ex : dinamiche se prononce dinamiké)

Cucina italiana : lesson 1 : how to cook spaghettis ?
Thanks to this wonderful blog, I'll try to give you all the knowledge about kitchen that my Italian flatmate try to teach me! I think it won't be easy, but hopefully I'm here for two years!

So, let's start with the basics of Italian cooking : how to cook pasta ?

First of all, you've to know that Italian people don't put oil in the water. Never do that in front of an Italian person, (s)he could (almost) kill you. So, how do they manage to cook pasta without oil? They just put big salt when the water is boiling. Then they put the pasta, wait a few minutes and that's all.

PS : student (but not Italian) trick to see if your pasta are ready : take one spaghetti and throw it on a wall. If the spaghetti sticks to the wall, it means that your spaghetti are ready!

"In bocca al lupo"

2006-10-12T23:43:00.000+02:00

After "une bonne petite gueule de bois" (a headache) this morning (due to the chupitos and Venezuelian shots abuse), two hours of course (so much ;-) and a running of 13 kilometers (I don't feel my legs anymore), I'm ready to tell you the fabulous story of my life in Torino! Hum, in other words, I'll still use this blog as a personal therapy to throw all I've in my head.

The chupitos... ahh, my head

So, today, I'll speak about : tiramisu, Belgo-Colombian meeting, spaghetti carbonara, beers, Low Lands Meeting and Italian TV. Let's go!

Spaghetti carbonara, tiramisu and Belgo-Colombian meeting
Yesterday I invited Luz and my flatmate Nicola (an Italian student) to try my experimental cooking for the lunch.
Maybe you're wondering who is Luz (maybe not, but anyway I'll tell you who she is). Luz is a Colombian girl, who arrived in Torino three years ago for an exchange program (like Erasmus but with South America) and started a PhD two years ago. I met her in Lödz, in Poland, about two years ago, with about twenty other fantastic people, during a BEST Summer Course - where we learnt a lodz of things, but I only remember how to say in Polish "you've beautiful legs, especially the left one"). It's so great to meet again somebody you met such a long time ago!

For this historical South America - Europa meeting, I cooked a beautiful tiramisu and spaghetti carbonara! Yeah! You can't imagine how proud I was (after four years of mainly frozen pizzas/lasagne/kebab/petits plats de Maman as meals)!

Tiramisu (already partly eaten...)

The end of the beers at 80 cents ;-(
One month and a few days after my arrival in Torino, I can start to think about the advantages and disadvantages of Torino compared with Louvain-la-Neuve (LLN). I won't enumerate all the good points of Torino, it could be too long (and I'm also lazy now).

Even if I wasn't used to go out very often in LLN, I see a big disadvantage of Torino compared with LLN : the quality and the price of the beers. Italy isn't famous for its beers, so I won't speak about the quality of the Italian beers compared with the Belgian ones. Hopefully, about the second point (the price of the beers), I'll have a temporary solution : Low Lands Meeting (LLM) !

*Low Lands Meeting*, by LBG Eindhoven
The Low Lands Meeting is an internal (i.e. only for BEST members) BEST event. It is a Regional Meeting (RM) who gather BESTies (BEST members) from Belgium (there are six local groups, with about twenty members per group), the Netherlands (one local group in Eindhoven) and North of France. So, more than 150 of crazy people will meet during one weekend (19th-21st of October) for discussing, following trainings, discovering what's BEST, having fun and... drinking Hollandia !

As you fortunately don't know, Hollandia is the name of a cheap dutch beer (as Cara in Belgium, but a lot worse). Actually the only good point of this beer is its price. So, instead of expensive but not-too-bad Italian beers, I'll get very cheap but not good beer during three days.

Anyway, as I wrote before, it's gonna be a lot of fun!

The Italian TV
Have you ever wondered how could be the TV of the country of Leonardo da Vinci, Dante Alighieri, Michelangelo, Ciceron, Machiavel, Ovide, Umberto Eco and a lot of other exceptional personalities ?
Actually, Italian TV is : shitty and machist. Shitty because I don't count all the stupid reality TV shows happening now, even on the public television (la Rai). Machist, because in almost all the shows (not yet in the TV news) there's a cute woman, in bikini, doing nothing. She is there only to be seen. OK, I don't say that I don't like it (even if I'm not watching TV very often, there are so many better things to do here) but I think it's quite stupid...

"Tra il dire e il fare, c'è di mezzo il mare"

2006-10-08T23:54:00.000+02:00

Hey everybody !

This time, I've more inspiration : I can see the sun of Liguria, feel the water of the Mediteranean sea and the sand of Savona, hear Elsi voice, smell the Italian kebab and taste the spumante of the Lidl! That was more or less the program of my last Saturday...

Il sabato a Savona
After a hard wake up at 8 am and a little rush in the station of Porta Nuova to buy the ticket and get the train, I finally take a seat in the wagon with Pierre piccolo, Pierre grande, Elsi, Katrine and Lina. Destination : Savona, in Liguria, in the South of Torino, on the Italian seaside. Let's leave rainy Torino and go to sunny Savona for one day, doing... nothing.

Look as we are happy to leave rainy Torino !

After more than two hours of train and a short lesson of Finnish (for your culture : cheers = kippis, thank you = kiitos, hi = hei/moi/terve/päivää), we arrive at the station of the wonderful city of Savona! The program is quite easy : look for the beach, go to the beach, stay on the beach, and that's all! I know, it could seem so boring (actually it's what I thought before), but when you've Elsi with you during a whole day, it can't be boring. I don't know at all what the Finnish people eat, but I believe there are a lot of vitamins and other energetic stuffs in their food.

So, after a very busy morning, an awful kebab and another busy afternoon (with walking in the unhistorical center of Savona, visiting of the local Lidl, spumante tasting and sitting on the beach), we meet other Erasmus (Nicolas, Jennifer, Delphine, Gabor, Attila, Petra). At the end of the day : sitting one more time on the beach, drinking some no-so-soft drinks and eating.

Actually, you can see only 4 people on those 2 pictures, but we were about 10 in a whole wagon ; I let you imagine the mess it was ;-)

Finally, we go back to Torino (arrival around midnight) - surprise, the travel is still longer than in the morning ! -, make a picnic in the train (the ticket inspector didn't seem to like it a lot).

One month ago...
I arrived in Turin! I knew a bit Italian but never had never spoken Italian, I knew pastas but had never cooked it well (i.e. according to the Italian way), I went in Italy but had never been in Turin, etc.
Actually, I don't remember all the things I did/didn't do before Turin, but it's quite hard to realise that I arrived here only one month ago. It's paradoxal : on one hand everything is going very fast (you spent one week as it was one day), on the other hand it looks like I arrived here six months ago.

Anyway, I'll use this occasion to show you something a little bit more interesting that my life : Superga! I went there one month ago, with Katia's father.
As its name doesn't tell it, Superga is a hill nearby Turin, with a beautiful basilica. When the weather is nice (and when there is no smog), you can have a nice view on Turin.

Il Bellini
After a long time of thinking (30 sec), I managed to reduce the size of the video of the Bellini (you know, this nice cocktail bar on via Po). So, here you are the video.

Short Italian course
Cazzo! I've ancora forgotten to go to the lectures! Però, it wasn't davvero a problem, perché I was too much sleepy this morning. Cosi, I could sleep more, quindi I'll can go to the party tonight!

The goal of this stupid paragraph wasn't to describe any possible student situation, but to try to show you how much some little Italian words can change the sound of a sentence. According to me, Italian sounds like music, and I think this is partly due to those nice (and not so nice also) little words.

"Hum, hum" (I really have no imagination today)

2006-10-06T23:14:00.000+02:00

Buonasera !

OK, today I'll try to focus on the main reason I'm here : to study mathematics (hum, hum) !
So, I propose you to go quickly here to remember some basic mathematic formulas (merci Mark pr le lien) !

After this little reminder, let's continue with unscientific facts. Yeah !

I'd like to prevent you that I use Google Analytics, a tool like Big Brother that can tell you that the number of visitors of this website is growing exponentially : from zero to nine visits in four days ! Yeah ! It's a growth of about 9*100/4 = (hum, where is my calculator?) = 225 percent !
I can't resist to show you the graph ;-)

OK, there were only three visitors on Thursday, but who cares ;-) ?

Still about totally useless facts, I discovered a few days ago how to make panoramic pictures with my camera ! So, here you're two wonderful pics :

The nice view I can see from my balcon...

Some Erasmus students...

And for the end, here you're a nice picture that will finish this disastrous paragraph without any imagination...

Helene (Sweden), Coen (Netherlands), Pierre (France), Matthias (Sweden, hidden by Pierre), Anne (Switzerland), me, Pietjan (Belgium), Gerlinde (Belgium), Erik (Norway) and Steven (Belgium). Thanks to Steven (and Pepe Jeans) for his hospitality !

"Dare a Cesare quel che è di Cesare"

2006-10-05T21:37:00.000+02:00

Il Bellini
If you've the occasion to go in Turin, and to stay at least one night there, I advice you to walk along via Po. Why? Firstly, it's a nice street, starting from the center of Turin (Piazza Castello, also really nice place) and ending on the Po.

Secondly, as several typical Italian streets, there arcades ; useful in case of rain !
Thirdly, via Po ends on the Po, more precisely on the Murazzi. It's an area with a lot of bars and discos (with free entrance, but not free at all exit !). So you'll maybe have to follow this street if you want to go to some discos.

Last, but not least, you'll find the best cocktail bar I saw till now in Torino : the Bellini ! As I said already a few days ago, the cocktails are quite cheap but very good there. Moreover, the barman is realy good. The best way to be convinced is to look at the video !

"Chi troppo vuole, nulla stringe"

2006-10-02T00:39:00.000+02:00

Buonasera !

Finally, it seems that this blog is becoming a real blog, i.e. updated more or less every day ! Today, a lot of philosophical thoughts about life, Italian spirituality and architecture.

No, actually I think I'll just put some pictures and add a few comments... Anyway, enjoy !

Language mixing theory
It's the first time in my short life that I've had the occasion to (try to) speak four different languages during only one day :

French (motherlanguage),
English (learnt at school, spoken and improved a lot in BEST),
Italian (learnt last year and spoken here),
Dutch (learnt at school and unfortunately almost never practised in the real life).

As you can guess, Italian is the language of... Italy ! So, all my lectures are in Italian (that's quite hard when the teacher speak normally - i.e. fast for me), and it's the main language I speak with my flatmate, Nicola (student of Polito too) and when you ask some infos in the street (like "Vorrei andare a...", "Dov'è ...", "Quant'è ?", "Grazie", "Ciao", "Sono uno stupido studente Erasmus, e non parlo bene italiano", etc.)

I speak French mainly with the French and Belgian Erasmus students here, but also sometimes with a few Italian people learning or speaking French.

English is naturally the most used language with the Erasmus, and also sometimes with my academic advisor.

Sometimes, I try to speak also Dutch (or Flemish, it's the same) with some Belgian Erasmus. I said "try to speak", not "speak fluently". Indeed, it's a pitty (or maybe a shame), but I'm not able to really speak the motherlanguage of the half of the population of Belgium !
Anyway, after a lot of courses at school but a lack of practice, I still remember the basics and I'm able to express myself ;-) However, sometimes I need a lot of concentration to find some words. So, this kind of conversation looks like :
"Hello. Last day, I ... went to Piazza Something, because... ... (you can notice the double "...", i.e. a long while, due to the difficult sentence construction in dutch after because-omdat) I wanted to visit that thing"

Moreover, as I said before, some days I switch from French to Dutch, then from Dutch to Italian, and finally to English. I can ensure you that it's very hard, and it happens (especially in the morning when I'm still sleepy) that I use some English words in a Dutch sentence.

After a long thinking time (ten minutes), I discovered a new theory about languages. Here you are this wonderful theory...
Normal people can learn without too many difficulties two, three or four languages. Unfortunately, as in a computer hard drive, the available space easily and quickly accessible is limited. I drew a little diagram illustrating this idea.
However, when they have to use all those languages in a short while, their brain becomes totally messy. They start to mix several languages, and have some problem to stay understandable. So, to avoid this problem, their brain throw out one of those languages, in order to let more easily-and-quickly-accessible space for one or two languages.
That's my theory. I don't know what do you think about that? Is it some brain-specialist reading this insignificant blog ? If yes, could (s)he give me some comments ?

Torino's night life

Piazza Vittorio Veneto

Piazza Vittorio Veneto (2)

Bridge over the Po. At the end of the bridge, there's a church (Gran Madre di Dio) built to save de bridge from Napoleon

Me, Pierre (France), Katrina (Austria), Vincent (Belgium), Erik (Norway), Mathias (Sweden), Steven (Belgium)

Another group picture, with also Elsi (Finland) and Pierre (France)

Helene (Sweden), me, Delphine (France), Gerlinde (Belgium), Mathias

Church nearby Piazza della Repubblica

Nearby Piazza della Repubblica...

"A buon intenditor poche parole"

2006-09-30T20:44:00.000+02:00

Ciao! Today, I found some pics and I uploaded them, yeah! I think some Chinese guy told "one picture is worth one thousand words", so today you'll have the occasion to read a lot in this blog!

La cucina italiana
I'd like to speak about a few typical things that you can find in - almost - every italian kitchen.

First af all, the pastas. It isn't a secret anymore, Italian people like pastas! At every normal meal, you can have pastas. Usually, Italian meals are composed of three or four dishes :

primo piatto : pastas or rice with some saus
secondo piatto : meat
contorno : vegetables (cold or warm)
dessert

Then, another Italian tradition : the coffee machine ! Italian people are coffee lover and coffee addicted, and I understand why. Indeed, their coffee is really small, but quite strong and very tasty...
But I'm still wondering why they use this old coffee machine at the era of automation, electronics and whatever.

Another ingredient typically Italian : the Nutella! I didn't know it before, but Nutella is from Italy! OK, I'd have had to guess it during the international evening of the PM, when the Italian BESTies brought Nutella (I won't tell you what they did with it, I prefer to let you guess)...

And last, and least, cultural shock of the Italian kitchen : this brilliant place where you put all the plates without having to dry them !

"Chi pò, non vò; chi vò, non pò; chi sà, non fà; chi fà, non sà; e così, male il mondo và"

2006-09-26T23:36:00.000+02:00

La notte
Finally, I managed to find some time to speak about an important aspect of the Erasmus life : the night life ;-) ! Here you are a few facts about Torino by night.

First of all, from a (stupid) material point of view, making parties and going out in Torino is much more expensive than in Louvain-la-Neuve. You can forget the beers at 80 cents... A good solution is to make a pre-party, at somebody's place, to drink a little bit/a bit/a lot (choose your option) and then to go out.

Till now, I went out with Erasmus students and/or BESTies. Thanks to them, I discovered a very nice bar, the Bellini, where you can have cheap and very good cocktails. If I remember well, at the beginning the BESTies of Torino showed us (Raido, Martin - two Estonian guys - and myself) this bar, and now we're trying to convince as much Erasmus as possible to come here.
But the most interesting part of this bar is to look at the barman, Alessandro, making the cocktails. I hope to put a video here to show you that ASAP.

All the parties occured mainly around via Po (one of the most beautiful and touristical street of Torino) and in the Murazzi, a street along the Po (the Po is the main river in Torino).

Yep, I forgot another problem : there isn't public transport anymore after 1 a.m., so you've to go back by foot. Anyway, it's quite funny to come back at home when you're a little bit drunk and when you're not alone. It's like a city rally in an empty city : you pass through desert places illuminated only for you ! I really missed my camera at this time...

Well, I notice that all this paragraph really needs some pics ; I'll try to add them next time ! Ciao !

"Se non è vero, è ben trovato"

2006-09-25T23:12:00.000+02:00

Hey ! After almost one week without any news, I found a little bit of time to write again some - amazing, of course - facts about Torino.
So, let's start !

La pioggia (the rain)
Brussels (and Belgium in general) and Torino have - at least - one point in common : the rain !
Yes, even in Italy, this (supposed) sunny country, it can rain ! Indeed, since I'm here (i.e. about three weeks), it rained already twice...
However, the rain in Belgium lasts usually maximum two or three hours, but in Torino it seems to rain during one or two days ! To conclude this
very interesting paragraph, I'd like to say that Torino isn't the ideal city for depressive and sun-addicted people ;-)

La Questura
Another amazing point for me (you can notice that I'm quite quickly amazed) was the Questura.
But before to explain you what is the questura, I'll ask you a question : according to you, how long can stay an EU-citizen in an EU (Schengen) country ?
Maybe you'd answer that every EU citizen can stay as long as he wants in a foreign country that belongs to the European Union and that has ratified the Schengen agreement - at least it was my first answer before to come in Italy...
Actually, you can't stay more than 1 months, otherwise you've to go to the immigration office, Questura in Italian.

Well, why am I telling you this uninteresting facts ? I was only trying to start to explain how to spend a (or 2) wonderfull afternoon(s) in Torino : just go to the questura for taking your residence permit !

First of all, take several bus/tram and walk to arrive - at the opening or even better before - to the questura. Once there, take a ticket, and wait for at least one or two hours... You can't imagine how funny it can be ! It's like waiting a bus in the middle of nowhere, during a long while, and thinking about all the - other - great things you could do during this while.

Secondly, if one afternoon isn't enough for you, you can do the same as I did : go there one hour before the closing, notice that there isn't any ticket anymore, meet another Estonian Erasmus student (waiting for his turn already since two hours) telling you that you had to arrive
at least one hour ago, speaking a little bit with him and finally meeting another Erasmus student from Louvain-la-Neuve. Then you can go back and thinking about the shortness of the life...

The Politecnico
As you guess, the Politecnico is the Engineering school of Torino. It seems to be quite famous in Italy, because I've met already
several students from the South of Italy coming here for their studies. I took a picture to let you imagine a little bit the building
where I follow the lectures :

Yes, it looks like a prison !

The courses have already started since one week, right ? Hopefully, during the first period (there're four periods in one academic year)
I've only two courses, and about 12 hours per week (who told TIME was hard ?;-) - that's not too much, right ?

The first course is more or less "Stochastic Modelisation"(mais en nettement moins chiant, pour les mataps qui lisent ce blog... ou pas) and is quite interesting, right ?

However, the second course is about the interaction between electromagnetic field and the matter ; I let you imagine how it's boring, right ? Till now, the only two things I remember about this course are :

I'll try to find ASAP another course instead of this one ;
the teacher says always "right ?" (giusto ?) at the end of his sentences.

OK, that's unfortunately all for today. Not because I don't know what to add (actually I should really skip those not-so-interesting infos and focuse on the main business : the city and the night life !) but rather because I've not enough time...

Buonanotte !

"Chi va piano, va sano e va lontano."

2006-09-19T00:43:00.000+02:00

After one week in Torino...
... what could I tell you ? I don't know, there are so many things that happened since my arrival in Torino. Well, I'll try to think about Torino, to order a little bit all the things that pops up in my mind, and then to write it.

Torino ?
After a long time of intensive searchs (30 seconds max), I'm now able to explain you a little bit the history of the city of Torino, aka Turin. So, let's start the quotation marks and give the word to a famous anonymity : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turin.
Now we can close the quotation marks and thank a lot this nice guy/girl for having share all his/her knowledge !

To summarize, you should know about Torino that :

"Torino" means "little bull" in Italian (it's why the symbol of the city is a bull) ;
the automobile company FIAT (Fabbrica Italiana Automobili Torino), the vermouth Martini and a lot of other things are from Torino ;
Torino hosts the Winter Olympics in 2006 ;
Torino is the capital of Piedmont ;
almost 1 million of people live in Torino ;
Torino is an industrial city, but I'd like to add that it's however also a beautiful city.

Finding an apartment
That's for sure the most difficult part when you arrive in Torino. There are several ways to (try to) find a lodging in Torino :

asking a room in one of the residences of the University : because there aren't enough rooms for all the students, it's more than probable that you'll have to find a room by yourself...
advertisements on the walls of Polito (corso Duca degli Abruzzi, 24)
Sportellocasa : a kind of free agency for the students, that can help you to find a room
torino.bakeca.it : a website where you can put and read some advertisements for flats, rooms, etc.

Moreover, because the accommodation are quite expensive, a lot of students live in double
rooms ("camere doppie"), but you can also find some single rooms ("camere singole") as we're
used to have in Belgium.

By the way, I'd like to thank another time Katia and her family for their hospitality. It
really helped me a lot !

Filling all the administrative forms
As usual when you go abroad for a long time, there're several administrative stuffs to do. I guess it's a kind of way to make busy the foreign students who arrived before the start of the lectures ?
However, don't worry for that : at the arrival meeting you receive a survival guide well done where you can find all the informations needed. Actually I didn't expect a so good organisation, at least with regard to the adminisrative things.

Eating
First of all, I can ensure you that the italian food (cucina italiana) is one of the best of the world ! at least IMHO...
OK, even if italian food is very varied, I have to admitted that I ate already so many pizzas here that I can't remember how many I ate already in 1 week.

Hopefully, for the lazy and quite bad-cooker students as me, God (or the Italian people) invented the Mensa ! "La Mensa" is a restaurant/canteen of the university, as it exists in Belgium and in many other countries, but with a huge difference : here the food is good !
Moreover, there is a discount for the foreign students. In conclusion, you can find good and
cheap food, so what should you cook ?
However, because I'm not always lazy, I really want to (and I will) learn how to cook some Italian dishes (no, a frozzen pizza isn't considered as a real dish) during my 2 years here !

Another important thing to know about the food in Torino is the "aperitivi" (aperitifs). OK,
I'm sure you'll tell me that it exists also in your country, but the idea here is a little bit different.
Firstly, the aperitivi here aren't peanuts and chips : it's several dishes of pastas, vegetables, meat, seafood and fruits.
Secondly, if you come during the evening in some bars in Torino, you pay a drink (around 5€) and you can eat as much aperitivi as you want. So the aperitivi are also a good and cheap way to eat here !

The strike (lo scioppero)
After one week in Torino, I wasn't lucky : the day I had to move in my new apartment, it rains all during the day and - last but not least - there was a public transportation strike ! Yeah !

Parli italiano ?
If your motherlanguage is French (or any other Latin language, Spanish for instance), it shouldn't be too difficult to learn Italian ! If you don't know an Italian word, you can just use the French word and add "o" or "a" at the end. In this way you find, with a probability of 50%, the right Italian word !

Personally, I followed last year an Italian course, and I'm quite surprised of my Italian level. The biggest problem is that the Italian speak really fast sometimes, thus it becomes quite hard to understand anything...

Otherwise, Polito (Politechnico of Torino) provides an Italian course for the foreign students, but - at least from my point of view - it isn't really useful ; the only good thing is that this course is a good way to meet other Erasmus and foreign students...

OK, I think that's all for today. The next times I'll try to speak about the cities, Polito, the night life, the LBG of Torino and I don't know yet what else.

Welcome !

2006-08-25T23:47:00.000+02:00

Hello dear visitor !

Here you are my first message on this blog. I don't know at all if I'll have time and courage to write something everyday (I really don't thik so), but I hope to post some news sometimes.

The main goal of this blog is to put some pictures of my exchange program in Turin (Torino) during the 2 next years, but also a lot of other funny pics made in different places in Europe. After a few BEST events and some touristical trips over Europe, I start to realise that Europe isn't so big, the European countries aren't too far and it's really easy to make friends all over Europe - that's the goal of organisation like BEST and exchange programs like Erasmus and TIME, no ?

Anyway, let's start this blog and to present a little bit myself !