Before & After Torino: Right Side of the Po

At the Cinema

  What's playing at my local cinema right now is so typically Italian. The sexy movie star, the chef, and the love story.

MTV Days Line Up: My favorite Picks

   MTV has arrived to my Piazza Castello for their annual summer 3 day concert. If you are in the area come check it out it's FREE! Link to whole line-up here. Some of the artists that I am excited to check out are:

FEDEZ: An Italian rap artist whose song Faccio Brutto means ulgy face. To continue the theme he chose to have "ulgy women" in his video instead of the usual rap video booty girls.


HEIKE HAS THE GIGGLES: They sing in english, lead singer has been influenced by Gwen Stefani without a doubt. I put aside my hate for teenagers because I love this song!


BENNY BENASSI: This song is my new favorite summer tune!!

Before & After Torino: Left Side of the Po

San Giovanni Bonfire

  What a whirlwind weekend! Between the parade, bonfire, music, Italy-England Euro Cup game, and the fireworks, it's been a packed 2 days! The parade went well, Italy won the game, I needed a thunder shirt for my dog during the fireworks and here is the bonfire.

BTW, the Toro fell from the fire towards Via Garibaldi which means good fortune for the people of Torino for the rest of the year. Hooray!

Before:

After:

San Giovanni Parade

  Once again it's time to celebrate the patron saint of the city at the San Giovanni Festival, I love June in Torino! One of the very best parts of the fest is the parade of the nobles from each provence. There are costumes. There are horses. There is music and there are flags. Hell of a parade!

If you want to see more pics from the parade, check out my Flickr!

Know Before You Go

  This small square plot of land is a privately owned beach. If you go to the beach in Italy, 99% of the time it will be a private one.You must pay to get in. Then you must pay extra to rent a chair, umbrella, towel, cabana or buy a bottle of water, lunch, or sunblock. It's an amazing money maker because everybody wants to go to the beach. You could spend between 5 and 30 Euros per person but your entrance fee covers you for the whole day until closing time. But don't leave, there is no re-entry. Also, No dogs allowed.

The one good part about a private beach is the cleanliness. The beach is maintained and clean with no trash in sight and the bathrooms are clean.

Before & After Torino: Borgo Medievale

Torino Gay Pride Parade 2012

That's Me on NPR!

 
  This weekend you might have heard my voice on National Public Radio, #ohmygodohmygodohmygod!

On the TED Talks Radio Hour episode: The Future of Our Cities that aired on Saturday, June 16th, 2012, I can be heard introducing the sound bite that I recorded of the Toro soccer hooligans as the "Sound of Torino". Last month NPR put a shout-out to listeners to record a sound sample of something that represents their city. I sent in my recording of the soccer hooligans singing and celebrating a huge win in Piazza San Carlo. Lucky me I was one of 5 they choose to use in this weekend's show! #imawesome!

Sounds of your city starts at minute 17:10 (That's my voice at minute 17:50 for about 5 seconds). #almostfamous!

Robert Newwirth's story is terrific and all of the city sounds were fantastic,  Click on this link to catch it!

NPR Player with me!

Best Burger in Torino

   I've done it! I have found the best burger in all of Torino, period. The Burgheria grills up a mean American style beef burger with Italian ingredients that has won over this expat's stomach. I know I live in Italy, the Mecca of good food. But every once in a while I miss a few homeland favorites. I've tried many attempts to fill that void including a horrible encounter with a BAD burger ordered at a bowling ally which someone told me later that it could have been horse meat, but that's another story. There is always the McDonald's which I've talked about on this blog before but it's just been a average substitute. Burgheria is a tiny place. They have normal burgers as well as a daily special with experimental ingredients like mashed peas or creamy of artichoke sauce. They make everything fresh when you order it. I ordered a regular hamburger and then sat back and watched them put the meat on, cut the lettuce, slice the tomato, cut the fries (with the skin still on!), and fry 'em up. I was impressed and it tasted like, well the best burger in Torino. They have a fabulous and unique wall with framed pictures of people (real customers) eating burgers and enjoying it. Like I did.

So when you're in Torino and you're pasta-ed-out, a burger at Burgheria will set you back 4 to 6 euros and fries are 2.50. I would have paid more but don't tell them that.

Burgheria
via Del Carmine 24F, 10122 Turin, Italy
http://www.burgheria.it/

My Travel Guide for The Academy

 

 A Big thanks to Isa and her inspiring blog The Noisette Academy for inviting me to write a Torino travel guide post!

It was posted today, read it here and tell my what you think!

First the Earthquakes and Now a Tornado!

  Tuesday morning a rare tornado hit Venice! Amazingly some buildings were damaged but no injuries were reported. It's been non-stop raining, last week an onslot of earthquakes, and now a tornado...weirdest summer ever...and it's only June.

It's the Last Day of School

  Teens celebrate the last day of school with a traditional water fight in the city center. It's one of my favorite traditions of Torino!

Flavor of the Month

  The Grom gelato flavor of the month is Bitter Cherries with Dark Chocolate Chips in Sweet Cream. This flavor is right up my ally. A mix of sweet with sour and chocolate. Cheerries are in season now and so the timing is perfect. A clever taste for summer.

The Uffizi Just Got Bigger

From The Florentine:

     "Ten new rooms are soon to be opened on the main floor of the Uffizi gallery. The rooms will feature the works of painters of the sixteenth century, with an emphasis on Tuscan painters, including Andrea del Sarto, Rosso Fiorentino, Pontormo, Bronzino and Vasari. Expected to be opening in June, the new spaces also include a gallery devoted to sculptures of Hellenistic culture, including four sculptures from the Museum of Archaeology: Apollo Citaredo, Dionysus with a Panther, and statues of Niobe and Ariadne. These sculptures will become part of the Uffizi’s itinerary for the visually impaired, called Uffizi da toccare, Uffizi by touch. The 10 new rooms join the 8 already opened in a ceremony with Renzi last December, featuring such foreign painters of the sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth centuries as Goya, Velasquez and Rubens."

 This is in addition to the New Uffizi Blue Rooms which have been recently opened and display works of art by foreign sixteenth and seventeenth-century artists, Spanish, French, Flemish and Dutch.

So if you are traveling to Florence this summer lucky for you, now there is so much more of The Uffizi to love. BTW, "uffizi" means "office" in Italian.

The Turin Horse

  A movie about an event that happened in Torino is opening in the US. It's called The Turin Horse and not only did it take place in Torino but it took place next door to our house! It's made by an Hungarian director, inspired by an event in Torino, and involves Friedrich Nietzsche. It's black and white. It's short on dialogue. It's artsy. The French will love it. Will you? Check out the first few minutes here:

Il Padrino

  Il Padrino is what The Godfather is called in Italy. Italians love the movie too, even if it can paint Sicilians in a shady corner. When it is shown on TV all of the voices are dubed using famous Italian voice actors.

A few 'rough'  translations
"No Sicilian can refuse any request on his daughter's wedding day.": Nessun siciliano può rifiutare qualsiasi richiesta il giorno del matrimonio di sua figlia

"Leave the gun. Take the cannoli.": lascia la pistola. si prende il cannoli.

"I'm gonna make him an offer he can't refuse." : Feramo un'offerta che non potré rifiutare

"It's a Sicilian message. It means Luca Brasi sleeps with the fishes."  E 'un messaggio siciliana. Significa che Luca Brasi dorme con i pesci.

"Some day I will call upon you to do a service for me." Un giorno mi appello a fare un servizio per me.

Here is the wedding scene where you can here just about everybody's Italian dubed voice.  

Before & After Torino: The Chapel of the Holy Shroud

We are Gelato Spoiled

  No matter how many gelaterie open up in our neighborhood, they are always busy. I can think of 10 gelaterie just steps from our house in any direction. When Piu di Un Gelato opened up my friend Jen and I went to test their flavors against the others. Has to be done.

My first time at a new gelateria I have to try the dark chocolate plus one unique flavor that I have never tried before. If they are any good their chocolate with be delectable and I will be impressed by the creativity of the unique flavor. On this day they were so busy that many of their flavors were SOLD OUT. So I stuck with the chocolate and it was good. Just good.

Busy line that went out the door.

The first flavors to sell out in Torino are gianduia chocolate and pistacchio. For good reason too, next time you are in the area give them a try and taste what the locals love.

Italy Rocked It at Eurovision 2012

  Nina Zilli brought the heat at this years Eurovision song contest. I love that she sang in both english and italian.


Alas, she didn't win but here is the winning song from Sweden, Loreen.


Some other noted favorites:

RUSSIA (most traditional)


IRELAND (cheesiest)


GERMANY (um, hello...best hottie)