Sunday, November 7, 2010

Spotted in the Supermarket...

In supermarkets, among other places here in Italy, I have noticed an amusing marketing trend used on some food products, in labeling them as "American style." This is amusing to me, mainly, because I wouldn't imagine this label to be big selling point here in Italy...I have noticed most Italians have, and are quick to voice, the opinion that American food is over-processed, oversized, and unhealthy to the extreme. My favorite example of this comes from a lesson during our teacher training course in which a male Italian student was asked to name some different food vocabulary words for cuisine of different countries...Italian, Chinese, Spanish, etc. When asked to name American foods, he gave his best eye-roll-of-disgust and produced two foods, "T-Bone steak. It-ah make-ah you ah-fat. McDonalds. It-ah make-ah you-ah even fatter." (That said, there are tons of McDonalds here, and they are always overrun with Italians). It is also amusing to note that the items which recieve the American-style marketing makeover are often completely random, and more times than not, laughably un-American. Basically, the process works like this: a company chooses a product, then slaps the label "American"  in big letters across the front... decorates the packaging with some red,white, and blue stars and stripes, and hopes for a big seller. Here are two I've seen recently:

The "Big Americans" pizza: a combination of salami, prosciutto, peppers, mushrooms, and corn, lovingly displayed before an American flag. Also, a combination you're highly unlikely to ever find in the States. Corn on a pizza? I don't think so.

American sandwich bread. Also known as white bread, no different from any other loaf of white bread sitting in the bread isle, aside form the patriotic packaging of course. At least there is no corn inside the sandwich on this one.

Monday, November 1, 2010

Parking In Rome: A Comedy

I have decided to dedicate a new feature on my blog to what has become one of my favorite pasttimes here in Rome: spotting ridiculously bad parking jobs around the city. Parking in and around Rome is, essentially, a joke. There don't seem to be any rules or regulations for what actually constitutes a parking spot here. Sidewalks, curbs, pedestrain crossings...fair game. I think the mindset must be - If you can get any portion of your car into a small vacant area, consider it parked. Creativity counts! Parking tickets exist, but not in the abundance we would expect in the States or in the UK...which leaves me with plenty of material for this new column! I'll leave you with a few classic examples to begin, with more to come as I will inevitably stumble across them.


This person couldn't be bothered to parallel park in the open spot, and instead opted for this classic "half on sidewalk" option.


And this driver took it a step further, undoubtedly unable to find parking, and took the "I'll just put this here on the sidewalk and hope no one notices" approach.


And last but not least, the "Screw it, I'm sure no pedestrains will need this crosswalk" method, very classic among Italians regardless of the time of day or night.