An in depth blog about a man out of his depth

The Trevi Fountain is a crock of Horse manure. Don't get mad at me for saying it, get mad at all the people lying about how great it is. The fountain pictured is not the Trevi fountain but ill discuss that in a second.  The Trevi fountain is artistically very cool, sure ill give it that, but ya know what its not. A good fountain. Its got this piddly little stream of water that doesn't even look that interesting. I've seen cooler fountains in Houston and Houston is the armpit of Texas, nothing in Houston is cooler than something else. Its like if one of the paintings in the Sistine chapel was worse than a painting in a high school in Dallas. I feel cheated. Regardless, the fountain to the left i found in a random Piazza in Rome that i can no longer remember the name of but i think that's even more damming, because this fountain was an order of magnitude more interesting. It had better water spouts, I could actually get close enough to look at the carvings, and it wasn...

  For as many times as I've expressed my Sicilian heritage I've never actually made pasta from scratch before, I have made Empanadas from scratch a few times for a reason that still hurts to think about, but that's neither here nor there.  Anyway, It was tons of fun. Not life changing but certainly fun, the type of fun that one has when they learn a new skill like how to work a chainsaw or how to caramelize a Crème Brule.  It also puts into perspective the amount of work and effort it used to take to make a simple pasta dish. Peasants in the 17th century did not have access to Barilla, they had to make every noodle by hand. Which either shows the love of mothers in Italy or the absolute state of boredom they were stuck in to spend this much time making dough into hundreds of different shapes.  Why am I writing about this you might ask? I'm not gonna lie, I don't know. It seems like there's something here but i can't quite find what that thing is. Ya know? Li...

  The content which we covered while attending Sant'Anna was not foreign to me, at least in its construction. I've taken films classes before and the utility of film in understanding the nuance of a given culture cannot be overstated.  From Japanese samurai movies to Italian neo-realism to French new wave to German Expressionism, there is always  something to be gleamed from a honest attempt at creating something beautiful. And so this was my mantra while viewing many of the Italian films we were shown. However, I wont lie. I did not enjoy most of them. Their importance not lost on me, their message as clear as the sky on a Texas winter day.  But, I still did not enjoy them. There were always the brief moments following the films that I considered them enjoyable, But looking back i cannot say this. Its too different. If exposure to other cultures is supposed to make us more open and accepting then why do I find myself more closed off to foreign idea's? I left Texas a...

 This photo is not mine, I scraped it off google. However, that shouldn't matter as this is exactly what the sunset looked like in Sorrento. Their pastel colors and inspiring length, lasting for what seemed like an hour. The sunsets will most definitely be the most difficult thing to part with.  They drag their long faces across the sky like a band that's laggardly to leave the stage. If it was a person it could be said that the sunset cherished every moment of its limited life and this love was displayed in its seemingly unnatural length.  The sun sets every day, across *almost* the whole world. and yet i find myself drawn to the them regardless, they daily are born, and daily die. Each one wholly different from the rest but entirely the same.  If they were as numerous as snow flakes their individuality would lose all beauty except in the curiosity of their appearance.  And if they were any rarer then many would never enjoy their beauty.  So how lucky we a...

 I had the privilege to help at a soup kitchen along the Naples coast recently, a short experience that is certainly hard to quantify or explain, not in the objectives but in the soft aspects. In writing a paper about my experience i had many a moments of self reflection. Looking back on my self and comparing my perception of reality with the truth of it.  And what is the truth of it?  The truth of it is that im a lazy, spoiled, self interested, sorry excuse of a man. I realized that all the things i complain about are not only rather mundane but in fact privileges of their own.  How many times I've complained about a early rise for work not realizing that work is a privilege.  Complained about a large load of school work not recognizing the truly rare thing it is to go to college when you look at the whole history of the world, and even the current era.  All the times I complained about my overbearing parents not believing that their overly caring attitude...

  when I left the house to go visit Bagni Regina Giovani i wasn't sure what to expect but it wasn't quite what i got. I was expecting to experience more history than beach if you know what i mean. But that is not what i got. I saw the young and old enjoying the scenery and the sea, surrounded by ancient history. It was the best historical site I had visited up to that point. To see modern man living and enjoying the same sea and the same view that men and women centuries ago enjoyed, instilled a deep sense of continuity in me. It was unspeakably beautiful, not because it was the most stunning vista but because it was available. Is the painting that's locked away in a collectors basement beautiful? I'd say not, because beauty is in the eye of the beholder. And so this site that could have been locked away as a museum or some other restricted site, is kept open and its beauty is preserved.  P.S.  I saw some nudist and i DID NOT like that, not a fan of public nudity. There...