Mario Collavo's Wiki page

for Padova - Tulane excange

 

Hi, I'm a 23 year-old Computer Engineering student in Padova, where I attend lectures during the week.   On the weekends I work as a waiter in a restaurant in my home town Alano di Piave, a village in the province of Belluno, downstream from the Dolomiti mountains.   I don't have many hobbies because in Padova I don't have much time to spend for myself and in Alano there aren't many opportunities to do anything on the weekends because the village is small. My hobby is information technology and I practise with the Linux operating system everyday.   My father is Italian and my mother comes from Venezuela, but I have lived almost all my life with my Italian family. I have been to Venezuela twice, but the first time I was only four years old and I don't remember a lot about that journey!  The second time that I went there was last year, and I had the opportunity to meet the other half of my family!

This is a view from the window of my house in Alano

My bike and me!

I like to practice sports, and at present I practice cycling from spring to autumn (it's too cold to go out with the bike in winter!) and I work out at the gym all year round. I used to play soccer, swim and do athletics (especially middle distance running). I always wanted to play volleyball, but there wasn't a team in my village.   Here in Padova I like to go out with my friends on Wednesday: we meet at the square and we drink what we call "Spritz", which is made of wine, water and an aperitif called Aperol. We have a very good time when drink spritz!

 

 

Week 2 - 29.01.2008

 

Talking the first time with Brian was a good experience even if it was a bit chaotic, because we hadn't got ad organized talking exchange to do.

We spoke both in the Italian and English languages and often the questions and the relative answers were not in the same language.

 

  

 

I've learnt some things about Brian: he talked to me in English about his hobbies, he likes running with his bike like I do!

Brian is studying Chemical Engineering in Tulane, near New Orleans, but he cames from Panama City, situated in Florida, about 5 hr (travelling by car) east from Tulane. He goes back home about once in a month.

 

Brian has been in Italy yet, visiting Venice, Florence ad Arezzo.

 

I know in United States the University is organized in structures called "Campus" and these structures are very different from the Italian University structures. Brian said me that the Campus in Tulane is about 5 square chilometers large... and that it's one of the smallest Campus in the USA!

 

 

Week 3 - 12.02.2008 - Environment and recycling

 

After the stop due to the carnival of Tulane, Brian had a cold and a cough, so I asked him what do Americans say when somebody coughs or sneezes. He said me that you can say "Bless you" to the person who coughs or sneezes, but most people doesn't say it. Then I tried to explain him that here in Italy we use to say "Salute!" in such situation.

 

Then we talked about the topic of the day: environment and recycling. We started with an opinion exchange about the sadly famous situation of Naples. Brian explained me that in New Orleans the infrastructures for the garbage management have been damaged by the Katrina hurricane, moreover the recycling is not very popular there and the government doesn't promote and support these activities. He told me that the American people have to pay to the recycling and there are not laws to manage the recycling, but he is a diligent student and he is used to do recycling both at the University and at home.

 

Then we talked about the cars, that in United States are very expensive because the average cubic capacity is about 2.5-3.0 litres for cars and 4.5 litres for SUV, versus an Italian average of 1.6 litres for cars and 2.5-3.0 for SUV in Italy. We both agreed that the american engines are more than people need for a normal use.

Moreover, the have about 95% of gasoline engines against only 5% of diesel engines. Here in Italy instead the rate between diesel and gasoline engines is near to 1:1.

Only a couple of cars models in USA uses propane or methane combustible.

 

In the city they move by car, because public transportation is very slow. To move in the city bike is also used and there are bicicle paths to allow this.

 

This week the exchange had been positive and better organized, also because we had the questions ready in the wiki.

 

 

Week 4 - 19.02.2008 - Shows, the cinema and the theatre

 

This week we started to talk from the topic of the cinema. Brian told me he goes to the cinema about twice in a month. He know italian director and actor Roberto Benigni. Brian watched "La vita è bella" at the cinema, he watched also an other film by Benigni, "Jonny stecchino", but he watched it on the TV.

In New Orleans there are 4 cinemas, for a total of about 30 screens, cause there are 7/8 movie screens every cinema. New Orlean's population is about 300.000 people, so there is a cinema every about 75.000 people.

 

Brian listen mostly english music, for example Jimmy Buffer. He doesn't know opera, he only had been at a theatre stage play. I went to Opera once, it was last year in september, I went to arena theatre of Verona to watch Nabucco and I liked it very much.

 

Many american films are produced in Hollywood, California, from where came about 50 films every year. The main site for theatre stage plays is Broadway Street, in New York.

In USA the TV is watched by cable TV, which is a pay tv, meaning that you have to pay to watch TV. There are only a couple of free channels transmitted by antennas and are local channels.

Here in Italy there are 6 national free TV channels and several local free TV channels, all broadcasted by electromagnetic waves, so you need to have an antenna to receive them.

Brian said me that in USA the TVs are not controlled, except on nude scenes. I told him that here in Italy TVs seems to be hardly controlled and that the italian TVs information is biased.

 

Reality is very popular in USA, there is a reality called Real World and I think there is also the reality Big Brother, but it might have a different name in USA.

Realities are very popular also in Italy, many TV reality programs were born in the last 7 years. I can remember Grande Fratello, L'isola dei famosi, La fattoria, Il ristorante, Music Farm, La pupa e il secchione, Uno due tre stalla, Wild West, Amici di Maria de Filippi.

I think almost all these programs are examples of trash television.

 

 

Week 5 - 26.02.2008 - Politics, government and elections

 

This week we talked about the politics, first of all I learnt that in USA the parliament consist of the Senat and the House of Representatives, the equivalent of Italians Senato and Camera.

In november in USA there are going to be new elections to elect the new president of USA. A president in USA can be rielected once, after that he can't run for president anymore.

About 40 percent of people who are in the parliament are women, a good rate if we compare it with italian parliament in which there are 154 women on a total of 952 members of parliament, that means 16,1 percent of the total.

 

Brian said me that you have to be a member of a political party to vote. You haven't to pay for this membership, not as in Italy, where you have to pay tens of euros to be a member of a political party.

 

In USA the Candidate's political views are shown on internet, that seems a good way to show these ideas to the population, because there are 217 millions of internet users in USA (reference: PuntoInformatico, 17/03/2008) on a total population of about 302 millions people (reference: wikipedia.org). In addition there are debates between candidates on TV during presidential elections.

 

I know by Brian that americans does not really trust in politics. This is a pretty common problem involving nations around the world.

In Italy, as I wrote before, there are 950 members of the parliament while in USA they are only 530. That's an huge waste of money for Italy because the perception (but I think it's not only a perception) about politics is that they does not well their job but they earn a lot of money to do this.

 

Brian told me that in USA there could be about 2 millions of politicians, distributed in the whole territory. I have recently read that in Italy there are about 3,3 millions of publics employees, that is about the 5% of the whole italian population. I don't know what part of them are politicians, but I think it's an huge number the same!

 

 

Week 6 - 04.03.2008 - A multicultural society

 

This week the topic was about the cohabitation of people with different cultures.

I've learnt that in USA children of different cultures attend the same classes, like in Italy. But the separation is expressed by neighbourhood, that is people of different cultures live in different neighbourhoods. In USA the rights for free educations are guaranteed, that is there are not racial requirements to enter in a school. But each school has own rules about admittance test scores, that is that's not difficult to enter in a good school if anyone has the merit.

 

In USA there is not a connection between immigrants and crimes, because most immigrant people go to USA to improve their conditions lawly and honestly.

There are anyway people who go to USA illegally: there is an illegal going from the southern frontier with Mexico. These people are usually searching for jobs easy to find, such as jobs in farms.

Here in northern Italy an immigrant usually find worse jobs than an italian, such as worker in a farm or in a factory or home builder. On the contrary legal immigrates in USA do the same jobs of american people.

 

I asked to Brian what is the meaning of Meltin Pot and he answered me that it is the idea of thinking that all the different cultures in America can be together, so foreign cultures can be blent with americans and in this way actually immigrants become americans.

 

You have to have job skills to enter in USA as immigrant. Usually people who enters USA with a job skill have a company of reference. You can enter in USA also as a political refugee, but there are not many people who uses this option and the last political refugee who Brian knows was related to Fidel Castro.

 

I asked Brian how are italian immigrants considered. I was surprised because I thought that italians was considered as related with mafia, but they are not considered thus. Brian told me that italians are considered sleazy, because the biggest prejudice is to consider italians as latin lovers.

 

An USA immigrant takes 5 (or 10? I don't remember... :( ) years to become an USA citizen and gain the right to vote.

 

Brian's girlfriend has italian mother and now is studying in Florence, so Brian is going to come to Italy soon to visit her!

When I asked Brian if he likes Italy, he told me: "I'm biased, but I like italian culture!" :) I told him to advise us when he'll come in Italy, so we can meet and drink some spritzs together!!!

He answered me the last week, saying that he is coming to Italy in the second half of may!

 

 

 

Week 7 - 11.03.2008 - Video Skype

It was exciting to see on the screen the people I phone-talked with until this week! I was very happy to do it!

 

 

 

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