Sunday markets

Just 2 days back, I went to Cagliari's famous Sunday morning market. In Italy, when they say 'market', you're not to expect a fish or vegetable market. Or any wet market of a kind. When my housemates told me they're going to this 'Sunday market', I happily grabbed my grocery bag and followed them out, in need of fresh groceries myself.

But what they headed for was more of a bazaar. A night market. Or a 'pasar malam' as we would call it back in Malaysia. Only thing it starts in the morning.

And you can find almost anything in this weekly Sunday bazaar. Where Italians (and also non Italians) open stalls to sell their unwanted belongings. Imagine a big garage sale.

As you would expect from any garage sale(if you have been to one), you'll find heaps of stalls selling off used clothes, books, jewellery, some antique collection, and also some unimaginable-just-pure-junk.

But also more typical in Italy and probably some other European countries, you find undrank alcohols and paintings. Nice paintings in fact.

You even find kids selling off their toys, where I spotted some Pokemon card collection that made me reminisce my own collection now collecting dust somewhere.

I even found a grown man selling Barbie dolls. Naked ones.

And unwanted chickens

And even an unwanted baby.

But other than that, you have in this bazaar what appears to be normal people making a living selling their fruits and vegetables which they reaped off their plantation to sell at a very cheap price.

I went home buying a 1kg bag of fresh tomatoes which cost only 1€. Which was the only thing I bought.

That's more than I could eat but well, one must protect himself from prostrate cancer.

Best salsa sauce in the world.

Undoubtly one of the best salsa sauce I've tasted! Calve!

A few weeks ago I was warming my tummy with chips before having a meal with the Malaysians in Italy.

Then we opened a new sauce that he bought, which he bought to use in his cooking.

I tried them and tasted heaven.

The company that produced this sauce is owned by Unilever. It will definitely be in my list of things-to-bring-back-to-Malaysia. That is if it is not detained at customs.

How does it taste like?
I really can't explain, but its so well blended with spice, tomatoes, peppers and herbs, that everytime I think of it my mouth waters.

And it goes best with these salted chips

And these chips. They are only 80 cents for this big packet.

Together they make my Romeo and Juliet.

I'm going to grow fat.

I bought a bottle and brought it back so my housemates can try. My Lithuanian housemates went crazy and each bought a bottle for themselves.

Sometimes I get tempted to just drink it. I'm geting crazy. There must be drugs in it.

Number One

Whoever wants, I'll bring some back to Malaysia. =)

Home sweet home in Italia

The problem with many Italian houses which I have observed is the minimal lighting. Not sure if electricity  is generally high, but how do you live with one little light bulb each to illuminate your room, kitchen, toilet and hallway? 

Beware the shadow!

It reminds me of my ol' dad's home where the toilet was also only lit with a teeny yellow lightbulb. Bad enough it had to be small. It had to be yellow making the surroundings look extra dim and your own elongated shadow bouncing on the wall like mr. slender.

So when I had to search for a new place, I had the option to choose between living with a bunch of Italian girls, or a bunch of International students under the same scholarship as me. I chose the International students. Lighting of the house played a part in my selection.

Not all my housemates

From the picture above, you can tell that there was only one source of lighting. But al least it was bright and white.

But lighting was only one deciding factor. I was tempted to pick the Italian girls after observing some friends who also lived with Italians and had major improvements in their Italian fluency.

"And who would say no to Italian girls?"

 Though picking the language was important, more important was network(all other factors aside). And I couldn't give that up. 

Choosing International students did not disappoint. Upon moving in, my 2 housemates, German Pierre(left) and Italian Ruben(right) cooked up a small feast and had some party.

These men love to cook

In Italian dishes, you always have bread. And cheese and salami.

And almost always assorted pickles and olives.

And yes, tomato always. 

Say no to prostate cancer

Yay to more biscuit and bread! 

I'll have to say I haven't eaten unleaven bread aside from partaking it on Sundays.

And wash it all down with wine!

Or otherwise, you can do it with water. Right from the tap.

I find it extremely convenient to just drink from here. No cup required. And no expensive water filters or gas to boil it first.

And these are my jolly housemates. 2 dudes, and 2 Lithuanian dudettes. 

I get authentic Italian pasta a lot thanks to our Italian housemate.

And now we shall have a look at the Italian home.

When directing people to my place, there is one good landmark to observe. As you go along this street of shops, you will see

An arch.

And you can't miss the beautiful-colourful graffiti wall.

Up a little slope

One left turn

A little walk, and there you have it. The building I live in.

Of course, nice looking apartments need nice looking walkways. And though it is autumn, in Italy everything is still green.

And Italian apartments always has a buzzer where you buzz/talk to the person living up there, and they'll unlock the door for you. Like some condos in KL too.

One floor, 2 units

And once you're inside, you can choose to use the stairs

Or the small elevator that varies with apartments

Second floor is where my flat is, and you'll see this extravagant door that every unit has.

Open that door, and there is another door! 

 Door-ception

I love my current room. Its so big I have no idea what to fill it with. And there's so many cupboards that I can choose to hide in if playing hide-and-seek.

I always have things on my bed

Then there's the balcony.

Yea. Thats a sofa!

 And my balcony overlooks an ancient ruin that used to be a villa around the time of Jesus. Which is approximately 2000 years old. Crazy thing is you need to pay 2 euros to see the ruins when you can get a birds eye view from my balcony. I should start pulling visiting tourists up to my balcony and charge a small fee.

Word that it belonged to Julius Ceasar

Then we have an average Italian kitchen

A bathroom with a bathtub and a window to enjoy the view while pooping.

And a smaller bathroom with a smaller bathtub, a washing machine, and a window to do the same thing.

And that completes the tour on my current homey apartment =)

Parla(speak) Italiano?

Today, my Malaysian buddies and I were walking to the student canteen to grab lunch. Very cheap food and hot girls and guys horde the area.

I promised myself I'd make an entry on the student canteen one day.

Sneak peek of more to come

 They call the student canteen here mensa. Literal translation for canteen. Not the High IQ international society that would come to mind first or also be the first thing to pop up when googled.

If you still don't know what mensa does, they love quizzing themselves with more-than-the-average-person-would-know things. There is a lot of satisfaction in figuring out their quizzes. Such as one below.

Find three non-US cities in these sentences:

“Steven, I centered the whole trip on your wishes.

It is base logic to blame me.”

“The Second World War saw much destruction.”

The answers are Venice in Italy, Basel in Switzerland, and Warsaw in Poland. If you've never heard of Basel, then you would understand why you, like me, are not mensa material.

All the brains and they name it after something so similar to what a woman faces

Forgetting mensa as the genius club and just thinking of it as canteen, the new Italian word you just learned, my friends and I were hungrily rushing to the canteen for lunch when we crossed a road without using the zebra crossing.

Normally in Italy, when you step onto the zebra cross, the cars will eagerly slow down and eventually stop for you to pass (no matter how fast they're speeding)

But also normally in Italy, the people are very expressive in their speech. So on this day, jaywalking got us an agitated female driver that gave us the sign (which Indians would perceive as "let's eat")

Not that I would have minded if she had also wanted to express that literally JK! XD

But joking with my friends about the sign languages reminded me of a picture I saw in my professor's office earlier in the morning which also was an old joke that I came across a few years back.

I can imagine myself sounding a similar version to the Italians when I speak in English.

For a better understanding of the accent and how it'll sound like, you can watch the video below. 

An old joke that I used to laugh to which now I can experience first hand and relate to =)

I wasn't kidding

In addition to my huge luggage that I lugged from Malaysia, I brought with me a box.

Christmas came early!

Milan airport insisted that I wrap the box up during the transit flight. For that, they charged me 9 Euroes for it. Just to wrap in green plastic and stick a cheapo TrueStar sticker on it! And all because I told them it contained food items. (Malaysia didn't even care)

To everyone back in Malaysia whom I told that I would probably be missing Malaysian spices, I wasn't kidding on bringing some safety precautions.

Oh praise the Lord! Christmas DID come early!

That's one box of some of my favourite unhealthy food items. The Italy-Malaysians eyes lit up when I opened the box of wonders. The spices we got from the Arab shops here in Italy still pale in comparison to some of ours.

So for that, we cooked another dinner. Its cheaper than eating outside after all. I let them cook while I wash.

Our potion of life

And voila! The magic was done. We had for dinner ;

Some seriously spicy tom yum soup!

Fried fan mushrooms

And some freshly cooked assorted vegetables with prawns

Albeit the spiced up tongue, we could not have slept better that night.

Sardinian beach - best in europe

So on this saturday morning(my second in Italy), the Malaysians decided to meet up with some other Asians and head to the beach. Sardinian beaches are acclaimed for its beauty and people come from around Europe to enjoy the sand, water, sun, naked chicks, and everything else there is to enjoy at the beach. But on this day(saturday), there were not many people. And no 'birthday suited' guests. Or as my Malaysian friends put it "orang tanpa seurat benang". They only flock to the beach on Sundays. That's when most shops around Sardinia close.

Being on an island, it is of no surprise to see large ships like these

From our apartments, we were joined by Filipino Helen(middle), and Laos Anoi(right-most) at the bus stop.

Buses in Sardinia are as frequent as it can get. People rely on it a lot here. There are also quite a lot of cars, but otherwise, you see people walking around.

I wanted to be iron man =(

2 Bus rides later, we find ourselves on the beach.

Joining us also is Indonesian Lisna (second from right)

So this is the beach. 

Nice blue skies, clear blue waters with pretty decent waves. And the water is always cool, which is refreshing during summer. And add fine soft sand to that. So nice you just want to make out on it. Like this couple.

Better than our bed at home

Other than that, you have the regular beach-goers that go for a good tan.

Sun tanning in action

Sardinian beach is so relaxing your just want to lie there, maybe read a book(like all the old folks) or laze under the sun. 

Those people living by the beach, really lucky people

Or just stand there and stare into the horizon.

And if you know how to surf, lucky you.

I watched him doing it for a while and it seemed like so much fun. 

Few of us dudes then went to swim out into the chilling waters until it started drizzling. Then, cold and wet we went to get some ice cream. 

You don't just say no to ice cream.


For lunch, we had some kebab. On the way to the shops, I came across this mannequin donning this suit. This, apparently, is Sardinian traditional clothing.

I thought it'll have more resemblance to a Sardine

Walkways around the shops are narrow, and the shops are also petite.

Umbrella as protection against rain, and pigeon poo poo

These were lunch

Kebab

Tandoori Chicken

Fried Rice

They then brought me to the Arabic store where they got these!

The magic ingredients

 Magic Rice

We then wasted 10 euroes on one of these.

My first purchase on something which is a non-necessity

Then we went back home and slept most of the day.

Hugss me

This is by far one of the most important things I brought to Italy. It served as a bolster-pillow since I'm crashing at the Malaysian's place and don't have a proper pillow yet.

And finally for a little picture before I end.

Ciao!