Week Five - Response to Thomas's Week 4 Reportage 1

Josh, Tyler, Sydney, and I sit outside the small pub that promised loud parties, beer, and plenty of English. So far we had seen one other customer and a street vendor enter the Lion's Den. The bartender comes out and tells us we can't be outside with glasses this late and we walk back inside and to the back of the pub. In the back corner of the pub is a door that leads into the Lion's Fountain, it's filled with American college students. We all groan once we see we didn't move far enough back in the pub when we first entered. American music blasts from the speakers, drowning out all other noise. I start to think the place might be a bit too American as another group of sorority girls makes their way in, more orange skin and bleached hair. Sydney finds a sharpie and leaves our mark on the ceiling, UWG joins the hundreds of other messages that are plastered on the walls of the establishment.

                                                                                                                             Thomas Bowden

In your workshop, we talked about reflection. This is a piece that could really benefit from that. You begin to took on it--"the place might be a bit too American." Keep going, keep digging. Is this place more comfortable for you in the foreign space? Or is there something about being surrounded by Americans while in Italy that feels oddly disconcerting? Why? Also, what about that mark that Sydney leaves on the wall? How is that functioning--what, exactly, is she reclaiming for all of you in this space that has already been Americanized? Does it mark ITALY with your American signature, or does it just add to the mass of America pulsating only within this club? Does it affect the outside in any manner (both the graffiti and the existence of such a place, where groups of English-speaking sorority girls dance to American music)?  Why did you seek out a place that “promised English” in the first place and can you join it alongside a more typically Italian/European experience you had? It might be interesting to juggle this with something totally different—like going up the mountain in the bird cage, something like that—and see what connections you can draw from there.