Italy

[sus]

just left yesterday. never been to turin. i was thinking about staying another day and banging down on the train but had to get back here for work

Turin's good I think, perhaps my favorite Italian city so far. Perhaps beautiful than Rome, almost zero tourists (least this time of year; haven't visited other times). Beautiful river, surrounding hills. So much interesting architecture. Lots of green, lots of parks, everyone's easygoing and friendly, good university presence, good museums.

 

[sus]

in a town called....i can't remember....they had these street decorations which were exactly what they have in the little italy tourist hell. not a surprise. but these continuities between america and the old world live on - i guess the right metaphor is echoes. the world takes on a different sense of time when you see things like that. there's a way of looking at Nyc as having a chunk of southern italian dna. in the aggression i think. and the driving

Pretty sure half of Italian food was invented in Brooklyn or New Jersey, anyway.

 

[shakahislop]

the tourist centers in europe have really changed. it's one of the places you can feel europe's weakening from the richest bit of the world to....well still a bit which is a bit rich, but not head and shoulders above the rest of the planet. central milan underneath that glass walkway thing and the big ugly cathedral was people with more money from all over the world. and these girls made up in their clothes doing videos. you get the sense that these bits of town have been ceded to someone else. it genuinely didn't used to be like that even in the tourist centres. there's just loads more people with the money to travel now and it's not europeans on the whole

 

[shakahislop]

similar-seeming European historic centers.

was thinking about the baggage of these places. are these buildings really that beautiful? they're starting to look like toys, the big centrepieces at least. my taste is getting twisted by big brutal america. but then it was already twisted by the UK imagination where we equate summer holiday trips and this very deep received wisdom of what a beautiful building is. they feel like someone else's idea of beauty. oxford always feels like that in particular coz they're buildings made for the richest 18 year olds. they have a childish thing about them if you can wipe away that preexisting notion that old=beautiful

 

[shakahislop]

Pretty sure half of Italian food was invented in Brooklyn or New Jersey, anyway.

america has the worst food on the planet. that is one thing that europe nails, especially italy. seems like it's escaped the factories

 

[shakahislop]

people keep saying that all the good stuff in europe only exists coz of some invisible moral failing. in america it's the idea that it's only coz the americans cover our defence bill. on the nu-left it's coz of colonial exploitation. it's hard to get your head around all these strands and work out what's going on. how do you put all these international threads into your understanding. how do you look at it with all the lenses at once.

 

[sus]

america has the worst food on the planet. that is one thing that europe nails, especially italy. seems like it's escaped the factories

That's so not true. Shaka!

 

[sus]

I agree that in continental Europe you can get far better basics—bread, cheese, alcohol—than you can in most of the States. For some reason America's never figured out how to make decent bread at scale. You can certainly eat incredible pastries, cheeses etc if you're willing to pay for it, but in the States, it's priced as a luxury good, imported or else from some family-run upstate farm that gives pedicures to the pigs. Here it's just a cheap staple.

 

[sus]

I do think that in the US food has gotten much better the last 1-2 decades. I genuinely think Trader Joes is one of the best markets in the world. You can get very delicious, and often rather unique, premade/easy-prep meals, with often quite interesting or unconventional ingredients, for very cheap prices, with seasonal rotations and such. I don't think I've been to a grocery story in Europe that matches up to Trader Joes.

 

[sus]

I think US produce is slightly better than continental Europe, probably because of California and Mexico.

Overall diversity and quantity of market goods somewhat higher in US.

Restaurants I don't know, I don't go out in the States, can't afford it.

 

[shakahislop]

I do think that in the US food has gotten much better the last 1-2 decades. I genuinely think Trader Joes is one of the best markets in the world. You can get very delicious, and often rather unique, premade/easy-prep meals, with often quite interesting or unconventional ingredients, for very cheap prices, with seasonal rotations and such. I don't think I've been to a grocery story in Europe that matches up to Trader Joes.

this is a bit like when mixed biscuits spends all night with a whiteboard and nescafe working out the perfect thing to say to wind up mr tea

 

[sus]

What British grocery do you possibly choose in a matchup with Trader Joes. This is absurd.

 

[sus]

If I could only pick ten institutions from the 21st century to preserve—in current form; in memory; in text or ice—TJs would be one of them.

 

[sus]

Brits eat Greggs I'm sorry—American food is bad? What?

 

[shakahislop]

one thing i noticed about sicily was that compared to last time i was there five years ago the african migrants had mostly gone. they were all over the place last time. time moves on and the issues of the day recede, and then no-one talks about them.

 

[version]

I thought one of the main reasons for American food being bad was because they put a load of shit in it that's illegal in the EU. They've a flipped safety procedure where you have to prove something's dangerous whereas in Europe you have to prove it's safe.