People don’t seem to surf the web much anymore. Maybe it’s too easy to find what you want, so you discover nothing. Sometimes efficiency, like over-planned travel, blinds you to possibilities.
Today, just for fun, I decided to try searching for Italian blogs that use Textpattern, a blog software alternative to WordPress that makes the process of writing a joy for me. I found two good ones.
Ecco Italia is, well, I’ll let them tell it:
Ecco Italy’s beautiful and unique location—in the Italian “peninsula” of Charlottesville’s European marketplace, The Main Street Market—is the perfect setting for language, food/wine and travel explorations and helps keep the passion for Italian culture alive between trips to the bel paese.
I like that they have a lingerie night, where they teach women the Italian words for fancy-schmancy underwear items. You never know when you’re going to need those words. Perhaps the security thugs at the airport are fondling your camisole a bit too strenuously and you want them to unhand it. Well, after a class or two, you probably can. Too bad it’s women only. I don’t know those words myself.
Then there’s Mestolando, an Italian cooking blog. Did you know the word ‘pesto’ derives from “the verb ‘Pestare’ which means to step on, or by extension to crush or grind.” Extensions are what they’re using here, because they make it in a blender. So new world. Anyway, you can watch it being made, because each recipe comes with a video embedded right in the page. Cool.
Mestonlando is a pretty site that shows off what textpattern can really do if you take the time to learn it. I’d rather look at lingerie ads, so I keep my pages beigely simple so I have more free time.