Tag Archives: hilarious

Real Life Adventures: The Lost Photos in a Blizzard Guy

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[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dmop7EAY1Zg]

Last Friday, I met Todd Bieber, a dude who found a canister of film while skiing in Brooklyn’s Prospect Park. In a male Amelie sort of twist, he developed the photos and set out to find the photographer by making a Youtube video about the contents. The video was witty, honest, poignant in its recognition that this adventure was much too fantastic to continue. Suddenly, it had racked up a million hits and Bieber was swamped with emails postulating on who the photographer could be. After a few months of fruitless leads, a breakthrough: he received an email from the photographer and immediately booked a ticket to Paris to return the film to the girl who had lost it.

This is the tale that Time magazine described as “YouTube’s greatest adventure,” crafted by the person that ABC News described as “a real life international man of mystery.” Like many others, I was forwarded the first video last winter, and left enchanted by the idea that two strangers could connect through the help of millions of good Samaritans on the internet. But was it really true? After all, Bieber is a director for UCB comedy and a writer for the Onion, and the story just seemed too perfect to be genuine. So I mulled over the ploys that people use to get attention these days, and forgot about the video entirely.

Until I stopped by the Park Slope Food Coop one evening and glanced up at a flyer. Film Night: An Evening of Personal Documentaries. Found: Lost Pictures of New York Blizzard. And there he was, sitting right next to me, wearing a red flannel shirt, dark rimmed glasses, and some scruffy facial hair. The standard hipster uniform. He gave a nervous introduction, and it was clear that he was not used to public speaking, but his face brightened as he told us the rest of his story.

So, they met in Paris. They did not fall in love and get married and live happily forever. Bieber had brought his girlfriend along anyway. The meeting was actually kind of awkward.
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Signs That You Are in Italy

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  • “These paintings are from the 17th century, so they are very modern.”
  • You have seen two straight men wearing purple pants in the last four hours. One had a matching lilac shirt and purple moccasins.
  • Voice acting is a serious study; the dubbing is spot on for American TV programs.
  • Coach buses come with coffee makers.
  • McDonald’s is placed next to Roman ruins.
  • You pull to open a door, push to close.
  • Wine is cheaper than petrol.

  • Even though the public water supply is perfectly safe, there’s no water fountains anywhere and if you ask for tap water in restaurants, they look at you like you are crazy.
  • Eggs aren’t refrigerated, milk goes bad in 3 days, unless it’s the unrefrigerated shelf-stable kind that lasts forever.
  • Everyone is super friendly and chats with the person behind the counter. Every queue takes forever because everyone is having a chat with the person behind the counter.
  • Nothing is open between 12:30 and 3:30 pm (4:30 pm in the South). Nothing is open on Sundays. Nothing is open on Mondays. Nothing is open for the month of August.
  • Ginger comes with the label “exotique.”
  • You use plastic gloves to pick up vegetables at the grocery store. Public restrooms have no toilet paper.
  • The prime minister owns the media. The Pope owns the prime minister.
  • Flying to London costs €9. Taking the train to Rome costs €49.
  • Your roommate wakes up in the morning and turns on the TV while saying, “Let’s see if Berlusconi is dead yet!”

Recipe: Potstickers, Politics and Pork

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Photo: Valeria Necchio

Last week marked a new lunar year, so in conjunction with my UNISG classmates, we held a Chinese New Year celebration, with all the Asian-style dishes you can possibly concoct (using the limited supplies found in Italy). There were all the classic, prosperity-bringing foods, like fish and tangerines, along with Thai-style noodles, pork with black bean sauce, and a heaping bowl of deep-fried squid. Yum, bring out the Sriracha!

For the occasion, I decided to make jiaozi (餃子) and nian gao (年糕). Now, I am pretty pro at making potstickers (although I haven’t figured out how to pleat them one-handed yet), but usually I just buy pre-made wrappers. Hey, stop judging, it takes long enough to mince the filling, fold and cook everything! However, in the bountiful land of Italy, packages of jiaozi wrappers are a little more difficult to come by. I could spend the day going to Turin to search them out, or alternatively, make them from scratch. It probably would have taken the same amount of time. In the end, cost won out and I decided to tackle making wrappers by hand.

So, I skyped my mom and asked her for a wrapper recipe. Now, you have to understand that when you ask Asian moms for recipes, they tell you something like, “Oh, that’s easy. First, you take two spoonfuls of X and a bag of Y, then you mix in some Z and add a cup of water, then steam it until it’s done. Is that clear?” Wait, what do you mean a spoonful? Is that a tablespoon or a teaspoon? And a bag, how much is that? “Oh, I mean a Chinese soup spoon. And you know—a bag! The brand of flour I always buy, I just use the whole bag.” Whoa, hold on, so when you say a cup of water, what kind of cup is that? “Oh, I always use this cup [gestures], the porcelain one with the flowers on it.” Um, okay, what about the steaming? How do you steam this? “What do you mean, how? Don’t you know how to steam things? Ai-yah, college-educated and brains are still empty!” At this point, we both throw our hands up in dismay.
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Escape from Heathrow Hell

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This tale is getting published about a month later than I had anticipated, but I figure everyone likes listening to a good yarn of travel woe, so here it is.

Like most disasters, this one started out with a quiet whimper buried amidst the lull of complacency. True, I had checked the BBC the day before, and the headline story was about “severe weather disruptions” and cancelled flights at London’s airports due to snowfall. However, the amount of snow that had fallen (4-5″) was piddling by North American standards, and the article seemed to indicate that everything would be functioning normally by the next day. And so, I happily hopped on a flight out of Turin to London, where I would transfer to a connecting flight to New York. I was returning “home,” whatever that word meant after seven months of expat life in Italy. In Turin, British Airways staff boarded the flight with nary a hint of distress. Naturally, while we were in the air, my connecting flight out of London was cancelled.

When I arrived, the scene at Gatwick airport was a madhouse of stranded travelers—part refugee camp, part crisis counseling center. Behind me, an Italian girl wailed into her cell phone, crying, “Non ci sono voli, niente! Niente!” (There are no flights, nothing!) I resolutely joined the customer service queue to rebook a flight to New York. In line, I soon made friends with Maddie, who had also just flown to London from Turin. Her dad was frantically trying to find a new flight for her online, with no luck. After 90 minutes of waiting, the clerk gently informed me that the earliest flight I would be able to take would be the evening of Dec 23rd, four days later.

It was now about 5 pm. I was homeless, flightless and my cell phone was very low on credit and battery. On the plus side, I had all the time in the world. Dazed, Maddie and I trekked to the internet lounge on level 1, where she tried to buy a Boingo pass for wifi access, but the servers were so swamped that nothing was loading. There were three workstations off in a corner, and on a lark, I sat down at one and opened a browser. Much to my surprise, it did not ask me to pay for internet access. Concerned that this lifesaver could be yanked away at any moment, my fingers moved at hyperspeed, posting pleas on Facebook, Twitter and Gmail to please let me know if anyone could house me in London. In short order, my plight had been publicized everywhere from Argentina to the Couchsurfing SOS list. Meanwhile, it was slowly sinking in that I was going to be here for a while. “You know,” said Maddie, “they’d planned a welcome party for me tonight.” I winced and tried not to think about my dashed plans for a triumphant return.
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Bad Ass Racing: Alba’s Palio degli Asini

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What’s furry, recalcitrant, and represents a medieval middle-finger? The Alba Palio degli Asini donkey race, of course!

You see, in 1275, the Piedmont towns of Asti and Alba were at war. On August 10, the feast day for Alba’s patron saint San Lorenzo, Asti attacked Alba and laid waste to the fields outside the city walls. To further cement their victory and humiliate the people of Alba, Asti’s army held a horse race around the Alba city walls. According to legend, the residents of Alba simultaneously held a donkey race inside the city walls, as a thumb to the noses of their aggressors.

Fast forward a few centuries, and Asti began regularly running its famed palio horse race in 1929 after a few decades of hiatus. However, jockeys from Alba kept winning and tempers flared, so in 1932, Asti decided to withdraw their invitation to Alba. In response to the snub, Alba launched its own palio, only staged with donkeys. The cheeky competition parodies the prestigious Palio di Asti, and also marks the launch of the annual Alba truffle fair.
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Chasing the Forbidden Dragon: Lyon’s Quartier Chinois

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We were in France, and by god, I was going to get some Asian food.

Before your jaw drops off in horror (sacre bleu!), let me back up for a minute and explain my mad logic. The UNISG masters students had arrived in Lyon, a land of fine haute gastronomie…and the third largest Chinatown in France (after two enclaves in Paris). At lunch, we had just gorged on a stunning French meal, accoutered with boisterous grand chefs, wine, and healthy doses of cream and butter. The University was allotting us a stipend of €15 for dinner, which does not go a long way in Lyon. Besides, I was itching for something chili and umami-laden. According to Wikipedia, Lyon’s Quartier Chinois could be found in the city’s 7e arrondisement. Our hotel clerk had marked “Le Guillotière” on the map, and armed with that knowledge, we set out to search for the best bowl of pho in Lyon. It might not have been French food, but it was at least French colonial food?

After wandering across the Rhône river, I saw a number of Moroccan restaurants, African barbers and veiled women. Hmm…it appeared as though we’d found an “ethnique” section of town, but not Chinatown per se. I craned my neck searching for ideographs, as we wandered further east and north from Le Guillotière. It was time to break out my expert Franglais. “Pardon monsieur, pouvez-vous me dire où est le Quartier Chinois?” Again and again, this question elicited quizzical looks and head scratching. “Er, le Quartier Chinois? Je ne sais pas…il y a un quartier chinois?” No one even knew of the neighborhood’s existence; it was as if we were trying to find Diagon Alley.
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