Where Next? Travel with Kristen and Carol
Where Next? Travel with Kristen and Carol
Italy, Pavia - Travel with Alberto
In this episode we meet Alberto, a native to Italy, now living in Houston, TX and loves returning to visit Italy.
Alberto shares what it is like to live and visit northern Italy and tells us about inventors and scholars, including Einstein, that lived and studied in Pavia .
Alberto's YouTube Channel
https://youtube.com/@AVKStudio
Toys Photography IG
https://www.instagram.com/avkstudiousa/
Alberto's IG
https://www.instagram.com/albertvank/
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Kristen: https://www.instagram.com/team_wake/
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Hi, welcome to our podcast. Where Next Travel with Kristen and Carol. I am Kristen and I am Carol, and we're two long-term friends with a passion for travel and adventure. Each episode, we interview people around the globe to help us decide where to go next. In today's episode, we are visiting with Alberto from Pavia, italia, where he shares many hidden gems of this not-so-well-known Italian town. Enjoy, welcome, alberto to our podcast. Hidden gems of this not-so-well-known Italian town. Enjoy Welcome, alberto to our podcast. We're next. I think you said you actually listened to it as well.
Speaker 2:I've listened to a few episodes for sure.
Speaker 1:And you also do a podcast as well?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I have some projects going on on. I have a podcast inside my company is like something like a knowledge sharing podcast, something like that. And then I have my youtube project on the side, which is basically me playing with toys and my son and that's what we do.
Speaker 1:So those two projects for now is there certain specific toys that you play with?
Speaker 2:Yes, we are Lego fan. I think you can see in my background a wall of Legos.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:And Transformers and those things. So yeah, Wonderful. Toys from the 80s, toys I grew up with and I'm reintroducing to my son. So he's playing with the 30 years old toys and he loves it oh, that's fantastic one and how great so.
Speaker 1:Um, in the 80s toys, and you grew up with them, I know here in the. Us. Those were big transformers, legos, and it sounds like in Italy it was also.
Speaker 2:Yeah we have. We had big companies that were importing toys from Japan and from all over the world, so we were very active in Italy as well, and there's a big collectors scene in Italy too.
Speaker 1:Oh wow, that sounds a lot of fun.
Speaker 2:Yes, and expensive yes.
Speaker 1:Absolutely yeah, my son was a big Lego guy. We had quite a lot of legos.
Speaker 2:we've been to the museum you should know that I am sort of an atypical italian because I've left my country 10 years ago so I've lived abroad in malaysia, in the united states for more than 10 years now, but every time I go back I discover something new, one of those things that if you live in a place you get used to, and if you live in front of the Colosseum in Rome, you get used to it, even if it's a it's a wonder, right, but you get used to it. So every time I go back I sort of discover something new and I'm loving it. Italy is my vacation destination, let's put it in that way.
Speaker 1:And like in Colorado, we have like these gorgeous mountains that I look at every day and just like going to the kids' high school, I'm like wow, look at this view. And I think part of it's when I started posting stuff on Instagram like wow, this is actually, is really gorgeous. And I was numbers like oh my gosh, I can't believe that's amazing, and like I just kind of take it for granted.
Speaker 2:so absolutely that's very true, taking for granted things that are in front of your eyes is, I mean, I'll give you an example. I, I was living in Pavia, and I'll talk to you about Pavia in in a second. I was living in pavia. It was my, my, uh, my, the town that adopted me in italy, and, uh, I, I walked by every day next to a museum where all those crazy machine that belong to alessandro volta and nicola tesla were kept and all the inventions were, were, were, you know, were born the, the battery and all the, the things that those guys invented. And I've never visited the museum when I was living in there. I visited when I was living in malaysia. So how crazy is that?
Speaker 1:and where are you now? I am in west houston right now oh, okay, nice, yeah, and and uh, and due to to work-wise you're there, but I was curious also about because you stay in the summers. That's when I talked with you you were vacationing in Italy, and so I was curious how you know and you bring your family and you're there for a little while, right?
Speaker 2:How do you have?
Speaker 1:that set up? How long were you in?
Speaker 2:Italy. So me and my wife, we try to go back to Italy every summer and and to spend there as much as possible.
Speaker 2:Post COVID with the working remotely that is accepted. It's much easier for me to spend there a month working and we have a small place at the seaside so we just go there and she stays there with the kids for a long time. She could stay for two months and I go there for a few weeks and it's always recharging to do that. Yeah, italy has been my vacation destination for the past 10 years because I've lived three years in Malaysia and then seven in the United States, so I go back every summer or when I can. I sort of like Christmas here in the United States much more than in Italy. There's much more Christmas and I like the period that starts with end of November till Christmas here with all the crazy Halloween things which are new for an Italian. And now you can find Halloween in Italy, but it's something just the marketing part, because there's Halloween and we need to sell stuff. But here is really much something to enjoy with families and we loved it.
Speaker 2:So because Thanksgiving too right, they don't have Thanksgiving, but they'd have christmas I mean, yes, thanksgiving is not something that you would celebrate in italy, because it would have no meaning for. For italy, no tradition, right, it's not. We got independent and we had a meal with, uh, with the people that lived here before.
Speaker 2:It's not such a big message right of togetherness. In italy we don't have that. However, I love cooking, so I've learned how to cook a turkey, and that was a you know something, a new tradition to pick up for me cooking a turkey every year at least once every year absolutely so.
Speaker 1:What? What are some of the italian? They have christmas, of course, but are there specific holidays that you grew up celebrating that you enjoy in italy?
Speaker 2:I think the two main holidays are easter and christmas. I was uh in, uh, you know, I was waiting for christmas the whole year, because it means, of course, presents and all that stuff. But, and the other big one was Easter, where the tradition is to have chocolate eggs with a surprise inside which would be illegal in the United States to have chocolate around, something non edible, non-edible, and that's why you don't find chocolate eggs here, because it's not something. They may import, uh italian ones, but it's illegal to do it in in the united states interesting.
Speaker 1:So what was on the inside?
Speaker 2:toys, I mean you spend a lot of money for an egg, you have an expensive toys or jewelry or, and from very cheap stuff to very expensive stuff, from, uh you know, grocery store eggs up to you know, I'll put a diamond inside the type of eggs. It's uh, but it's usually for kids. It's something for kids. Usually then you can use that chocolate thing to do many, many other things, but it's for kids is to find something inside the egg.
Speaker 1:Yes, okay, oh, that's fantastic. So walk me through your childhood, and then when you left Italy, and then when you started to come back.
Speaker 2:Oh, wow. So I was born and raised in Northern Italy, northwest Italy. I was born in Genova, which is one of the most important harbor and commercial town city in Italy, and then I have lived in southern Piemonte, in a small town called Sarezzano, very deep in history, like every small corner of Italy. Very deep in history, but nobody knows where it is, because it's like 14 families, 20 families, something like that, in a beautiful hill with a church on top that looks like a piece of the game of thrones, something like that, and it's in the hill. So where?
Speaker 1:exactly is it? What is it called again?
Speaker 2:It's called the Sarezzano. I'm going to type it because it will be impossible to to spell it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, okay.
Speaker 2:So only Google may know where it is. But it is a is a lovely place, it sounds exactly like you said.
Speaker 1:It S E A R E Z Z A N. It is a lovely place.
Speaker 2:It sounds exactly like you said it.
Speaker 1:S-E-A-R-E-Z-Z-A-N-O. Good yeah. Yeah, that's pretty straightforward, yeah.
Speaker 2:I moved to Pavia when I was growing up to attend college. So I've lived in Pavia since I was in my 20s until the day I moved to Malaysia, so probably 10 plus years. And then I moved to Malaysia because I started to feel I don't want to stay local. I want to go and want to see and go and see. I felt the urge to do so. You know, you have to remember that for the Italian mindset, the typical Italian I may I mean no offense to my country, but the typically male Italian will stay at home with family until he's 40 and then he will marry somebody that looks like a mother. That's the typical stereotype so I was the opposite of that.
Speaker 2:I wanted to get out from my household at 20. So I I sort of did that and I was, you know, doing small things and trying, trying to make it as a student I mean a broke student, obviously right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I see a couple of Povias in Italy, are you?
Speaker 2:near.
Speaker 1:Milan Are you on the ocean side, or on the Mediterranean or the Adriatic Sea?
Speaker 2:I'm on the Mediterranean side and the town is called Pavia, so P-A-V-I-A, and it's on the road between Milan and Genova.
Speaker 1:I'm looking at it right now.
Speaker 2:That is actually the first location I wanted to talk to you about because, look, if you, if you ask anybody who has been to Italy, especially Americans or tourists, they will go in the four main things, which are Rome, venice, florence, maybe Naples, and then Cinque Terre or Tuscan in general. So that is the main things to see, but there are so much, it's so much more that one lifetime would not be enough, and the only way to get to know what's that much more is to talk with the local, because, you know, as Italians, we don't go visit florence, venice and rome and that's it. We go everywhere, and there it's full of hidden gems everywhere. So my, my town, the one that I consider to be the town who adopted me, pavia, is a perfect example of this hidden gem, is a perfect example of this hidden gem.
Speaker 2:It's a smaller version of Milan, without the traffic that's a way of describing it but it's much older than Milan. It's a Roman town that used to be called Ticinum and it's in that southern, western Lombardy corner. It's so dense of history, lombardy corner. It's so dense of history. It used to be the kingdom of Longbards, used to have there, in Pavia, their capital, same as the Ostrogothic kingdom, all the barbarians. They put there their capital, the Visconti. It was one of the kingdoms of Italy and the Visconti it was one of the kingdoms of Italy and the Visconti. There's a castle, there's a beautiful castle in the middle of the town and it's such a beautiful place.
Speaker 2:And the other main thing about Pavia is that in like 100 years before a guy from my town, cristoforo Colombo, discovered your land by mistake, we already had one of the first universities in the world. I'm talking about like 1300. And that was already a prestigious university at that time. And because of that, many important names in arts and music and theater and literature and poets they all worked and lived in pavia because of this important university. I'm talking about albert einstein. A young albert einstein was in pavia because his dad had a business there. There there was like a workshop named einstein garrone workshop and that's Einstein dead. He used to live there. Alessandro Volta discovered the battery in Pavia. Nikola Tesla was doing the experiment with the sparkles and the two poles, so I can go on forever.
Speaker 1:And even the town is interesting.
Speaker 2:I'll give you two more facts to think about. Town is interesting. I'll give you two more facts to think about. It's probably the only town in the world that still has untouched the roman sewer system untouched the day it was built, because it's such a perfect masterpiece of hydraulic engineering that it doesn't need to be changed or or or intervened for, and people all over the world come to this town to study it because they did it like thousands of years ago, and it's such a something.
Speaker 2:The other, the other thing to think about is that, because of the roman roots, pavia was designed following the city plan, the roman city planning, and the roman city planning is the modern idea of of good city planning. You have every roman military camp. They had a main road and another second main road as a cross cardo e decumano they are called in in latin and pavia is built around that and it creates a town like a grid. That grid type was multiplied in every roman town. New york is is built like a grid. When you think about the block. It comes from Roman city planning and Pavia is designed around two perpendicular streets. Those are just two things to think about from a town that is outside every type of tourist route ever. You won't go to Pavia until somebody tells you hey, go to Pavia.
Speaker 1:What's the name of the university? Does it still have the same name or is it?
Speaker 2:it's called the university, uh, universita degli studi di pavia. University of pavia is the translation, but the full legal name that you'll find on I don't know linkedin with this symbol and everything is universita degli Studi di Pavia.
Speaker 1:Excellent. So if you look at university and Pavia, you would find Absolutely. That one. Are there multiple universities there now, or is that still the one?
Speaker 2:So that's the name of what we called Lateneo, so the entire. It's like when you say, I don't know, mit or UCLA, it's the name of the entity. And then you have engineering, you have medical school, you have law school, art and whatnot.
Speaker 1:Wow, that's. The history is amazing. I've been to most of the main places, of course, well, rome, florence and Venice. I went to those three, and especially my time in Rome, and the history is unbelievable. But yeah, now Pavia just sounds amazing and I was curious in terms of what you did growing up there and what's kind of now how it looks. Do you go back to Pavia and stay there?
Speaker 2:Yes, because my mother-in-law has a property there. So that's where we are based in Italy when we land and then we drive to the seaside, but the main, my side of the family, still is from Sarezzano, so that small town, but it's one hour of roads, definitely not the cardo and decumano type of city planning. So we we stay in pavia because it's closer to the airport and it's just a more easy way to stay for a week or two where we're on the coast.
Speaker 1:Uh, you, you said seaside that you go to and stay.
Speaker 2:It's 30 minutes from Monte Carlo, so it's almost on the border with France, okay, got it.
Speaker 1:What's the city called?
Speaker 2:The city is called Imperia named after the river.
Speaker 1:Impero, which means empire. I'm looking, I see Monaco.
Speaker 2:this is how you write Imperia I M P E R I A. I can give you another fun fact about Pavia. Not so fun, actually, just an impressive fact. Do you remember that over the past three years we had um, we had a pandemic right?
Speaker 2:and it started somewhere right, and they say it started from italy, and that's maybe true. But one thing is true patient zero was brought to the hospital of Pavia because it's one of the main centers for disease control in Italy, where the study is more advanced. So it was not natural to bring it here, bring him there, and then it happened. What happened we don't know, but this is something, a piece of information.
Speaker 1:Wow, that's amazing. I do remember early on now that you mentioned that that Italy got hit really hard.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we will never know if it's true that there was a patient, zero whatever, we don't really care about, we just care that it's over. Yeah, but you know it's something more to think about.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, absolutely. So when you go there spend the summer, so is it? You said your wife stays there about two months or so, or?
Speaker 2:so my wife tries to, because we want the kids to speak and and hear italian, right if they. We don't speak english at home for a reason because I still have this accent that is between borat and the godfather, so I don't want my kids to pick up that oh that's hilarious that's a good combo. I hope more the godfather rather than the Borat. But it's okay when I say very nice, it sounds a lot like Borat. It's's okay, it's exotic.
Speaker 1:Absolutely Exotic, yes, that's great. So when they go there and when you're there, or if someone was to go to any of these places, what can they expect? And if they wanted to even live there for a certain time slow travel, as we like to call it, it where you get to actually experience. What would they experience?
Speaker 2:So, first and foremost, pavia is one of the places on earth that has the worst climate ever possible ever, and for me it wasn't a big deal because I moved from Pavia to Malaysia, which is on the line of the equator, so it was as humid as a place can be and then I moved to houston very similar type of unforgiveness in term of of weather.
Speaker 2:So pavia is worse than houston and kual Lumpur together because to the heat and humidity it adds mosquitoes. I'm not talking about there are a few mosquitoes I'm talking about. You can't go out near a piece of grass or near a piece of water from June to September without being bit everywhere.
Speaker 2:So that's something to keep in mind. Is there horrible? So pavia and that type of italy. If you look at the well, there are the alps on top and then there's a flat land which is where the paw river runs across, so so that valley is called the Pianura Padana or Padanian Flat, because of that. All the humidity is there. It can't go up because there's the mountain and it can't go down because there's the Apennino, the other mountain. So it's just a bad place for weather.
Speaker 1:Okay. Does it get cold?
Speaker 2:Probably probably not in winter. It gets cold and foggy and windy and snow and sad snow by all means, especially when you go more on the north not maybe in pavia, but there's snow for sure Every year at least a few times and fog is the thing. Fog, fog, fog continuously. And then all of a sudden you got two or three weeks of good weather and then heat and mosquitoes start. So if you want to go live there, that is going to welcome you with a warm shower.
Speaker 1:So maybe, like May or April, is a good time to go.
Speaker 2:Perfect. If you are lucky enough, you get those two weeks where mosquitoes are not really. Hey guys, let's hang around together, then you're good to go. No, I'm kidding, it's just, it's not a welcoming place in terms of weather.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely so. What is the, in terms of industries or people, most?
Speaker 2:of the activities are in Pavia. Most of the activities revolve around the university.
Speaker 1:That's what I figured.
Speaker 2:Because of the size of the operation. And then you are less than 30 minutes to milan, so that's naturally the italian industrial capital. You are fashion, yes, but in general that's where all the businesses you know, the, the stock exchange and everything that. That's where everything is. You are less than one hour to Turin and less than an hour to Genova, so most of people would work or move towards those three directions for their commute.
Speaker 1:Got it and in those areas it's not as bad with mosquitoes and the weather as it is in pavia milano is the same, because it's just 30 minutes.
Speaker 2:Torino is much more north, so a lot better, but a lot cooler, colder, and genova is on the sea, so it's naturally much better, much better climate so what do people do in the summers?
Speaker 1:Do they go to the ocean?
Speaker 2:So they. Well, there's no ocean, by the way. The ocean is the Atlantic, so it's Portugal and France and that side. But they will go to the sea usually in Liguria, the town where Genoa is. I don't know if you guys have seen Luca the movie, the Pixar movie. It takes place in Alle Cinque Terre, a famous seaside location in Liguria, but that's a good picture of what Liguria looks like and the place where we have our small property looks exactly like the town in Lucca.
Speaker 1:I have not, didn't it just recently come out?
Speaker 2:Probably a couple of years, something like that. I have small kids, so we have Disney Plus on heavy rotation.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. I think Carol and I both went through that, but our kids now are late high school.
Speaker 2:I know Frozen very well.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Songs included yeah.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. I can imagine for sure Great movies as well. I know in Sweden they take off a month. Is there some sort of tradition that the Italians do as well?
Speaker 2:No, tradition that the Italians do as well. No, we do a sort of mid-summer celebration that is around or not around. It's the 15th of August. It's also called Ferragosto. That's probably when most of the businesses are either closed for those two weeks across Ferragosto or people will take off vacation. I would say that the main thing is we don't take a lot of long vacation, because with one hour driving and one night away, you have a new masterpiece every weekend. But you discover that only when you live abroad. When you live in Italy, you don't go visit with that. Oh, I want to go. This weekend I'll go here and that weekend I'll go there, because you don't feel the urge of doing so. That's why I enjoyed the fact that I go back and I rediscover something that I know. It is weird to describe it like that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, what kind of foods do? What are some of the meals you grew up with, your favorites?
Speaker 2:So there will be probably the need of an entire podcast to talk about food in Italy.
Speaker 2:Or there is maybe Absolutely but I would say that every italian in the world has his or her passion for pasta, where there is a different sauce, where there is a different type. I would guarantee that if you ask to an italian what is alfredo, they will not know, because alfredo is not something that is italian. It's more, more an invention of probably americanization of food, which is fine. People like it. Of course, we have pasta with cheese, which is a very simplification of alfredo. But I will give you a very quick reference Whenever one of your supposed to be Italian meal has more than three ingredients, I guarantee it's not Italian, because Italian cooking is made of simplicity, is not made of things to be shocking good because of their look or their presentation, is more about having back backyard and a backyard with your veggies and cooking, and nobody will tell you uh, a good restaurant in Italy?
Speaker 2:Because people don't go to the restaurant, people cook at home and the best restaurant is probably their grandma. Their grandma house is that's the best restaurant. We go out to eat pizza because something that is impractical to do every time you want right. So going out for pizza is very popular and, of course, because of the globalization, you out for sushi. You go out for things that you don't cook, but for the most part, no Italian will go out to look for a pasta, unless they are on vacation. That's a different story. But there's a lot more about cooking, and you know, reusing ingredients, reusing ingredients A lot of dishes were born by reusing ingredients.
Speaker 1:I love that. That's my specialty. Like what's in the refrigerator, I'm going to make something I don't know.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, I have leftover rice.
Speaker 1:That's all I know.
Speaker 2:And then I have there's some chicken.
Speaker 1:Somehow we have something. We're going to go teriyaki peanut Italian no, not Italian with rice.
Speaker 2:Okay. So let me ask you something. When you say I'll go Italian, what is in your mind?
Speaker 1:Basil, basil, pesto, basil, yeah, tomatoes, parmesan.
Speaker 2:It's all good.
Speaker 1:Mozzarella cheese.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:There's going to be like chicken with red sauce and mozzarella on top and then maybe, maybe, maybe, some pasta, or just, yeah, pasta with some vegetables and chicken usually, and vegetables too. It's interesting because I actually, when I was in italy, I remember here near san francisco, the italian food and they have like oil and vinegar and fresh breads and then are really just right out of the oven and you dip them and soak them up in the olive oil and the balsamic vinegar or whatever. And then I went to italy and they had none of that and it was like a dry bread strick and I was like where's?
Speaker 2:the. It is a, it is very true. The other. Let me give you another cold shower. Yeah, garlic, garlic bread does not exist. Okay, we don't put garlic on everything. And just because there's garlic, it doesn't make it italian oh right, that's also, I think of italian.
Speaker 1:And what about um lasagna too? I make lasagna 10 minutes, so lasagna.
Speaker 2:I do my own lasagna from scratch. That's one of the thing I love to cook the most. But, for example, I don't put mozzarella. There's no mozzarella on real lasagna, while I have seen here everywhere adding mozzarella on lasagna. Mozzarella goes on pizza and mozzarella goes on caprese, but we don't put mozzarella everywhere. So that's why there are some icons that became italian here. When I say here, with all the respect, I say united states, but not necessarily it means true italian, which doesn't mean it's bad yeah, the buffalo mozzarella, that caprese right, is that yes?
Speaker 1:absolutely it's like that's something to die for right now.
Speaker 2:Yeah that's why I have my, my small vegetable garden here on the back, and mostly I have basil, because I make my own pesto and I use basil to cook, to, to put the sauce for my pizza. I'm'm a pizza maker. I love making pizza. It's my specialty, because there's no pizza that I like. I know what's the real deal and I don't like what I find here.
Speaker 1:And the pizza. In Italy would you say it's thin bread, right, it's not like the puffy it depends where you go.
Speaker 2:So you have the Neapolitan pizza, which is the pizza if you ask Ne napolitan pizza, which is the pizza if you ask napolitan pizza lovers, obviously, which is very tall crust and very thin in the middle.
Speaker 2:It's uh it's made of hours and hours of slow growth and fermentation. And then you have a pizza that is called Romana, which is more into square and all much, much thicker. And then there's pizza Ligure, which is all very thin, so it depends where you go. But what they all have in common is quality in the ingredients. What they all have in common is quality in the ingredients.
Speaker 2:There's this movement in Italy which I would ask you to write it down that is called the slow food. It's the opposite of fast food. So every corner of Italy has something typical some dessert, some oil, something that you can find only there. Dessert, some oil, something that you can find only there. And with the globalization of small papas and mama shop disappear because you have the big grocery stores, those small realities are deemed to disappear until you have something like this slow food group or initiative that protects the flavors that are deemed to disappear. So you have these slow food. I'm sure there's marketing around it. For sure it's like putting organic on everything and painting green. So it's healthy. So there is some marketing. But through that slow food thing you can taste something out of the ordinary.
Speaker 1:That sounds good slow food thing, you can taste something out of the ordinary.
Speaker 2:That sounds like well. And also, I can't forget, I almost forgot gelato is gelato. Yeah, don't make me start on that. I was waiting for it, though I was waiting for it. That's the best food so I will give you the point in there there's no egg inside gelato. If there's egg, it becomes a cream, so it's a nice cream. So real gelato no eggs true, real hardcore gelato no eggs. No milk, no milk.
Speaker 1:Wait in what type of gelato?
Speaker 2:fruit. For example, there's no milk in every fruit gelato, while you know ice cream, strawberry ice cream. There's milk, egg and and whatnot.
Speaker 1:So that's, that's a difficult different thing yeah, I had no idea we would open up this gem of food right yeah, well, we also heard I don't know who we're talking to, but about in italy that they don't like and there's no amazon prime. There's no. This instant, you know, kind of goes along with this slow movement. You know, buy local, no uber. None of this instant america lifestyle. Is that true? Through most of it, no, it's it's very far from true.
Speaker 2:So amazon prime, yes, everywhere people leave because of amazon prime. Absolutely uber. There's no uber because the task the taxi driver lobbies is very strong, but it's inevitable that a form of independent cab system will be imported somehow. They just need to decide who has to make money out of. That is as simple as that. It is very americanized, very much americanized. I grew up listening to hip from Compton, california and from New York. I grew up with that dream to go to the United States and leave the hip hop culture and all that. And you know, growing up, then you change but that's what I was, what I believed into.
Speaker 2:I used to be a DJ with my turntables and listening to that type of music and culture.
Speaker 1:Yep.
Speaker 2:Very Americanized.
Speaker 1:Yep, actually, nwa was from Torrance, where I grew up.
Speaker 2:Wow.
Speaker 1:And I was very close to Compton. I had my car broken into in Compton but I was in that whole scene and yeah, I did a lot with the hip-hop rap stuff. It was fun, um, but I had no idea italy had that as much.
Speaker 2:Oh yes it's as I said, it's very americanized, as opposed to the, the and you were absolutely right, carol as opposed to the attempt on the slow, slow living. Definitely, but on the contrary, there's the fast pace of living which is the dominant sentiment, probably yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 1:What does it? Uh, what's affordability in in italy and the places um? You know pavia?
Speaker 2:or others.
Speaker 1:I know I'm sure, like Milan and others, are probably just as expensive as the US, I'm assuming.
Speaker 2:If not more.
Speaker 2:I think, Milan in terms of renting a place. I mean, you have to keep in mind that everything is shrinked Okay, and I believe that if I look at California, even California is shrinked compared to Texas. So at the next level of shrinkage and you get Italy, you can probably load an Italian car on the back of a Texas truck. So everything is smaller. So the cost of living on a much smaller apartment, much, much smaller apartment to your eyes would be outrageous, right, I know, six thousand euro for something that is, I don't know, 50 square meter that's in san francisco it's unbelievable how small that is, but definitely the cost of living, the taxation pressure is insane.
Speaker 2:It's all about a very unsuccessful political management. That is not these or the one before is decades of unsuccessful political management and therefore, with sadness in my heart, I don't want to live in Italy at all. That's not a good place to live. It's a good place as a tourist, it's a good place to learn something, but it's not a good place to live. That's why I never thought for a second. I want to go back and reestablish myself there, and that's further away from my desires.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there, and that's the further away from my desires. Yeah, the someone traveling there. I usually off kind of things that you know you could look up. You know rome and florence and venice, you know, but uh, but anything unique um to visit or experience or do and also maybe even like a typical day.
Speaker 2:Let's make it simple, right? Because if I give you the name of a microtown with something superb, but outside completely your possible route, I will not do you a favor. So, let's talk about a location that you may or may not have seen, but is so dense of significance and and culture that I should think should be visited as often as florence and rome and whatnot, and it's the city of turin all right we call it torino, so it is the probably fourth or fifth largest town in Italy, with Naples, milan, rome and Florence.
Speaker 2:But what's special about Torino is that it was the first capital of the Republic of Italy and it has been for many years the capital of the Italian kingdom. So it's a town that it's so elegant and good looking and just is a masterpiece of architecture, and that is the first level of amazement that you would leave. And then you add the industrial part, which is all the historical mechanical engineering, fiat and all the manufacturing comes from there. And then you add Torino is the birthplace of chocolate, solid chocolate.
Speaker 2:So there's, a tradition that goes a century back of chocolate makers. In Torino you have those boutiques where you will probably spend less at Rolex than in that chocolate boutique, but it's an experience that is unmatched everywhere, oh wow. And then there's the second most important Egyptian museum in the world after Cairo. That would be okay. It's just another town, like in Italy, you have many.
Speaker 1:that's where torino has something and so that's to the west of milan. Am I looking at the right place?
Speaker 2:northwest, yes, northwest. Here's the thing. Somebody said that torino is the most mysterious and esoteric town in the world, and and there's a reason for it, and we go into the legends here, right. So you may want to follow that or not, but it's one of those locations that you visit if you are really into magic and ghosts and symbols. Architecture, for example, if you look for La Grande Madre, the Great Mother in Turin, it's a very strange church. That is the start of this esoteric itinerary in the town.
Speaker 2:They say that under the church the Holy Grail is kept. They say that if you look at the various statues, there are many symbols and many indications of where all the magic stuff is. And then there's centuries and centuries of masonry and secret societies, history. They said that Torino, together with Londrara and san francisco, is the triangle of black magic, of dark magic, and at the same time, torino, together with paris and leon, is the triangle of white magic. So in torino you have this.
Speaker 2:I mean, if you believe it, it's just something cool. You go there, you buy a book, magic about torino, and you are just um, you just never want to leave Because every time you walk there's something. Oh, that symbol, there's a door in the royal palace that is called the door of the devil. They say that the devil has trapped inside somebody who summoned him without a reason, that there's this door, that you don't want even to look at it because it's too scary, and all these things in this town that is outside the tourist route but is so dense of things to see and to live that literally it's worth to spend a week there and just get lost around wow, would.
Speaker 1:So. Would you fly into Milan, or is there a flight starting to Turin? Now you fly to.
Speaker 2:Milan because the international airport. But here's the other thing the international airport is Milan, but it's almost an hour from Milan. So it's sort of halfway between Milan and Turin.
Speaker 1:Oh, okay, so then you could go to Milan, Turin, Pavia maybe Genoa, because Genoa sounds pretty easy.
Speaker 2:You can cover that triangle or that square in probably 10 days and you'll love it.
Speaker 1:Oh, I never even considered that. So this is amazing. And is it a little bit less expensive, since it's not on the typical tourist? No, torino is really expensive oh, okay absolutely expensive oh okay, do they have the mosquitoes too?
Speaker 2:less, because it's a sort of uh is. You can see the alps on one side and you can see the flat, uh, the flat, the pianura padana on the other side, so is is a very good looking place. I you should definitely go there and it's. It's. The former is the formal royal town, so it's built like pavia with all the grid, so you're very walkable and uh the grid, so you're very walkable and, uh, it's just a place that you should, you should visit.
Speaker 1:Okay, sounds incredible. Yeah, I'm wondering also like uh, so would you say, like, what's your number one favorite? I guess I'm thinking what's your number one favorite spot and I don't know why. What's your number one favorite dessert, which I don't know if I should say that, because dessert is easy tiramisu oh, oh, yes, I love tiramisu.
Speaker 2:It's always like so different everywhere you go absolutely, and I I made one hell of a tiramisu ah, yes, okay, we're going to texas, yeah and gelato, obviously, but you have proper gelato in the United there are.
Speaker 2:There are a few places where they do proper, good gelato and it's about the ingredient and it's about the passion and a favorite place. Probably there's no place like home, so I would be, I will be boring, but my homes, pavia and Sarezzano, are my favorite places, are the places where I go when I go back and where I want my kids to build memory on.
Speaker 1:It looks like I looked at some pictures of Pavia and still like there's so much like art everywhere and absolutely statues and old buildings and churches, so I feel like, yeah, there's a church dedicated to saint augustine the philosopher, which is buried there, and so you have a thousand years of history there as well wow, wow, that's really really neat.
Speaker 2:But I gave you two towns, pavia and Turin, that are less than an hour one to the other, and I think that you can probably spend two and a half three days in both, and it will be worth every minute.
Speaker 1:When you say Turin, but is it Turin or Torino?
Speaker 2:Torino is the Italian version. Okay, so got it. This is how you write it. It's small, it means small ball, and that's why the soccer team in Torino, the original soccer team in Torino, is not, what you may think, juventus, which is the one, the famous one, but the original soccer team is called Torino Calcio. What you may think Juventus, which is the one, the famous one, but the original soccer team is called Torino Calcio, and that's the first soccer team in the world ever built, ever founded.
Speaker 1:Oh, really, so it started in Italy.
Speaker 2:Yep, so much history. Professional team professional team, an organization meant to do professional sport in soccer oh, that's fantastic.
Speaker 1:So I see like the Alps are on the west of that.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:So it's just gorgeous Behind the Great Mother.
Speaker 2:You can see the Alps In front of the Great Mother, you can see all the bridge and you go into the town. You can see all the bridge and you go into the, into the town and that's where they say the legend of the holy grail starts, because the great mother looks at the town and it's uh, it looks at. The other interesting thing about torino you can look for it is called mole antoneliana, which is difficult, I need to write it, and this molly antoneliana is a is a bell tower. Basically inside there's the cinema museum of cinema making, of filmmakers, but the, let's say, the esoteric version of the story is that that is an antenna built to broadcast magic, blah, blah, blah, something.
Speaker 1:It's very cool to read about those things when you are there this is great okay, so I have a quick rapid fire question will be really rapid because we already answered a bunch of them.
Speaker 2:So the popular religion there yeah, catholic christian catholic church okay we have the, we have the Pope, we have the boss there, that's the religion the only one, obviously that's the main one, the popular, okay like it or not, you end up having a Christian education immediately right, and we already talked about some favorite foods, but what would you typically have for breakfast there?
Speaker 2:I would say a croissant, a croissant a brioche and a coffee, a small coffee, no eggs or nothing like that. I mean not typically. Not typically. There's no wrong, nothing wrong. I love having eggs in the morning. There's nothing wrong with that. Typically, not typically. There's no wrong, nothing wrong. I love having eggs in the morning. There's nothing wrong with that. This is not typical. If you eat eggs in front of somebody at 7 am, they will call the cops.
Speaker 1:And if you have a cappuccino after dinner, same yeah.
Speaker 2:I have an anecdote of a colleague of mine, a really good friend of mine. He's from India and he was visiting Italy for work and he went in the afternoon to a cafe and he asked for a cappuccino and the barman said no, you're not having a cappuccino at this time. If you want, I can give you a macchiato. And he said isn't it like coffee and milk? Yes, but cappuccino is in the morning and macchiato yeah. And I said is it? Isn't it like coffee and milk? Yes, but cappuccino is in the morning and macchiato is in the afternoon.
Speaker 2:okay, okay, I hope I summarized the barman mentality when in rome yeah, you get what you get okay um, and then music.
Speaker 1:What's the you know popular? Well, it sounds like you were listening to hip-hop when you were a kid, so you get a lot of western music there and there's still a lot of traditional, like there's traditional music.
Speaker 2:But you usually don't listen to traditional music until you are very mature. It's uh I mean young generation are obviously influenced by whatever goes on MTV or, in the main, now it's all the social Facebook, youtube and Spotify but back in the days it was whatever was going through the mainstream. And then you get in love with the genre and I was doing hip hop. I was buying vinyls and records and I was going around to play my my vinyls in parties and clubs, things like that okay, gotcha, all right.
Speaker 1:Is there any surfing nearby? Where would you go to surf?
Speaker 2:or you got to go way to, like sicily or something so liguria, where I, where I told you my, my small property on the seaside, is that's where you will have some of the bigger waves. I'm sure there are other places, but I'm not. I'm no surfer, I'm no expert, so what comes to mind is that that area of liguria, savona, imperia, liguria, savona, imperia. There are specific areas where more waves are expected. Most of the surfing in Europe is in Portugal, because the Atlantic Ocean has higher waves.
Speaker 1:Okay, all right, and the money we're in the Euro there.
Speaker 2:We have no money.
Speaker 1:That's why we are in the Euro. That's why you don't want to live there. We have no money.
Speaker 2:That's why we are in there. We have no money, no, but the culture with money. So this is the other thing. You will laugh at this, probably so the culture with money. You will never buy something you can't pay in full. That's what we are brought up with. That's why having that's having that is something that I have. I've never seen my grandfather or my father having any kind of debt in his life living houses yeah, because we inherit homes that were built to last.
Speaker 2:we inherited homes that are 150 years old and they are as beautiful and functional as they were when they were built. They are maintained, but my house in Katy I have already changed windows. It was built four years ago, so I don't think my family in two generations has changed windows. My dad, when he comes here he knocks on the walls. They are made of wood and Drywall, drywall, yeah, thank you. And he says how much did you pay for this thing? The number is crazy.
Speaker 2:A bunch of holes through it. Yeah, so there is this thing with money. We would never, ever ever had payments on a credit card ever. We buy things, we. We buy things with a loan. We buy a car with a loan, we buy a home with a loan, a mortgage. Definitely those are the only type of that. We will never had a credit card debt whatsoever. If you cannot buy something, you don't buy it it's just the mentality. I do the same but it's not the norm.
Speaker 1:It's not the norm no, yeah, at least here yeah oh yeah, okay, well, thank you so much. You're so funny, I love it thank you, thank you thank you this would be great.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much for joining and it's so fun. Bye, bye, bye. Thanks for listening. If you enjoyed the podcast, can you please take a second and do a quick follow of the show and rate us in your podcast app and if you have a minute, we would really appreciate a review. Following and rating is the best way to support us. If you're on Instagram, let's connect. We're at where next podcast. Thanks again, bye.
