Update for Everyone VIII: He who laughs have the last laugh

[Battista Minola 1616]

Yesterday I watched a production of Romeo and Juliet put together by the late Gigi Proietti (RIP legend). I enjoyed it a lot, I had not been to a theatre in too much time. I had not been to this particular theatre ever. It is weird, Romeo and Juliet may well be the most overrated work of art of all time and one of the best nonetheless.

[Battista Minola 1616]

Today I met a Belarusian girl, which is a pretty odd coincidence given that just yesterday I was thinking again about when this August my father and I took up a Belarusian hitchhiker while we were on holiday in Croatia. I also knew a Belarusian guy in high school. Amazing number of them in my life!

[Battista Minola 1616]

ITALY WINS THE DAVIS CUP FOR THE FIRST TIME SINCE 1976!

I am not into tennis nearly as much as football (or even track and field, which also gave us some amazing moments two summers ago) but I am still joyful and amazed.

[Battista Minola 1616]

After almost 18 hours of train journey from La Spezia I and the two mad lads with me are finally in Vienna, my first impression of which is that it's very snowy.

[Battista Minola 1616]

My return train was cancelled and this crazy idea of a trip just took turns three times crazier. I guess I'll have something to talk about for the ages. In a waiting room right now.

[Battista Minola 1616]

Today I have slept inside a parked train, walked in a foreign city at 5:30 in the morning at some -3°C (definitely lower with windchill), had my new return train stopped so that I took an overcrowded replacement bus followed by a replacement train and it's not even noon. One of my friends also lost two pieces of clothing. The Austrian Alps covered in snow are absolutely stunning, though.

[Battista Minola 1616]

Making four posts in a row is a little gauche but what I have been chronicling is extraordinary enough. I am back in La Spezia after more trains, some eleven hours later than was originally planned (and this was very lucky). What a trip!

[Battista Minola 1616]

I will use my first post of 2024 to wish everyone here a happy new year!

[Battista Minola 1616]

Yesterday I visited an exhibit on Artemisia Gentileschi in Genoa (my first time in Palazzo Ducale). I also finally visited some of the Rolli buildings. It was great!

[Battista Minola 1616]

I have posted translations of mine from Quasimodo and Montale in the past. Here is a poem by Umberto Saba, La capra.

I spoke to a goat.
It was alone in the meadow, it was tied.
Sated with grass, soaked
in the rain, it bleated.

That unchanging bleat was fraternal
with my sorrow. And I answered, at first
in jest, then because pain is eternal,
has one voice and does not vary.
That voice I heard
moaning in a lonely goat.

In a goat with a Semitic face
I heard the complaint of every other evil,
every other life.

[Battista Minola 1616]

Happy 29th of February everybody! It's the first since I joined the forum.

[Battista Minola 1616]

Happy 25 April to all Italians, Portuguese, and opponents of dictatorship!

[Battista Minola 1616]

I actually know someone who has a relative still alive who was born when Taft (!) was President of the USA.

I have just learnt (with some delay) that she has since died. She lived to be one of the very oldest people in the country. RIP.

[Battista Minola 1616]

Leaving for Italy two weeks from today!

But, I had a weird question.  I was looking at average temperatures for Italy, and I noticed that Rome overall has very similar temperatures to Nashville.  However, there's one time of year where Nashville is dramatically warmer- April through June.  Do any weather nerds on here know why somewhere like Italy would be much slower to transition from spring to summer than somewhere like Tennessee- even if its summers are ultimately close to the same temperature by August?  September and October are also a bit warmer in Tennessee, while winters are a bit warmer in Rome.

Not complaining that it probably won't be 90 degrees when I'm in Italy, but I'm kind of curious why not.

Italy certainly has a smaller temperature gradient (and higher average temperatures at the same latitudes) than the Eastern USA because of the Gulf Stream and because it sits in the middle of an almost enclosed body of water; when you combine that with picking an American city significantly but not too much south of the Italian city you're comparing it to, funky results are to be expected. A nice comparison would be Rome and Chicago, since the two cities have shockingly identical latitudes. With that said I think what you're really getting at is that temperatures peak a bit earlier in the summer over there compared to here, which unfortunately I don't know the explanation for.

The other reason it probably won't be 90 degrees Fahrenheit when you're in Italy is that temperatures here tend to have much smaller short-term variation and anomalies (see point about Gulf Stream and sea mitigation) - as you'll have seen January is generally warmer in Rome but the record high January temperature is much higher in Nashville.

[Battista Minola 1616]

Yesterday I was casually walking by the harbour and ended up finding myself within a few metres of Matteo Salvini, who was in an open-air bar presenting his new book - lol - in front of a small crowd. Earlier in the day I also came across MEP Brando Benifei in the street and (although I only realized later) I was in the same room as government minister Nello Musumeci for a while. What a day...

[Battista Minola 1616]

Yesterday I was casually walking by the harbour and ended up finding myself within a few metres of Matteo Salvini, who was in an open-air bar presenting his new book - lol - in front of a small crowd.

I would've saluted him.

I prefer the suggestion of a friend who told me I should have yelled at him that he betrayed the Padanian cause.