The internet in Italy

So I've complained a lot about how terrible the internet connection in the dorm is (currently writing this from school.) For one of my classes I'm doing a paper about the Internet in Italy, and I was surprised to learn that only 42% of Italian households have Internet access (compared with almost 92% in the US).

Furthermore, there has been a lot of debate about freedom of speech on the Internet. It should come as no surprise that the Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's government (which has a virtual monopoly on television) has proposed at least 3 laws that would give itself more power in regulating the Internet: a law "compelling online broadcasters to to seek the same licensing agreements as broadcast television," a law banning anonymous internet posting, and a law that would allow "anyone feeling defamed by a blog post, forum thread, or status message on Facebook to request the author rectify the post within 48 hours" or face a 10,000 euro fine in addition to potential damages and legal costs.

Furthermore, Italy sued Google for not being prompt enough to take down a video (uploaded by a user) that showed an autistic boy being bullied by other boys. Certainly this is a terrible video to post on the internet, but holding Google responsible for the content posted by one of its users is simply absurd.

I love it here, don't get me wrong, but the politics and bureaucracy are hopelessly corrupt and misguided almost invariably. I could never live here for real.

Rage, venezia, love and hate

Went on my very first weekend excursion - Jimmy, Alex, Laura and I went to Venice for the weekend! It's like 5-7 hrs away and we took the night bus there and back. Aside from being freeeeezing cold (at least compared to roma where today it is still a balmy 75 degrees F) everything was just basically too beautiful for words. Luckily my camera battery died after one day there so the pictures that I do have are limited, and it's going to be a bit before I get them online (I'm the worst) but we had such a great time. But for all of its beauty, venezia is absolutely impossible to navigate- great for just wandering around, but if you actually have a destination, forget about it. So that's why I was raging for awhile, because we were cold and tired and had 4 hours til the train and no hotel room to stay in anymore.

At orientation we were taught about the different phases of adjusting to living in a foreign culture, and I've been having my first bouts of rage that were particularly intense getting lost in the tiny alleys of venice, but overall everything's going great. We got into rome this morning at 7 am and then went to a flea market that we'd heard about in trastevere. If you know me, you know that I love the thrifting, and this flea market was a dream come true. so much great stuff. A bag for 3 euro! 2 scarves for a euro a piece! a harmonica for 5 euro! a hat for 9 euro! oh man. looks like I know where I'll be spending all of my sundays from here on out.

-We wanted to go to the flea market last sunday but saturday night ended up staying at the discoteca until we missed THE LAST NIGHT BUS and had to kill an hour getting caffe at termini until the subway opened at 5:30! My first foray into the club district of testacchio was a riotous success and I look forward to much more of it

-Something new that I particularly love is a breakfast food called pizzetta, which is basically a pastry with sauce and cheese. I think I called it a piazzalle ("town square") when I went to pay though. But I know a bunch of verbs now and how to conjugate them in the present tense!

fall break is coming up soon so who knows where that'll take me. me and alex were thinking morrocco and somewhere in spain and/or paris. we'll see