TRL Awards

20,000 people. One piazza. One night. Lots of lip-synching. A huge puddle of smelly water.

This is how I would describe the MTV Italia TRL Awards. And it probably gives you the (correct) impression that it was not as unforgettably awesome as I was expecting. Shouldn't you and I know by now to have low expectations?

Rob and I started our afternoon with some compulsory gelato at La Carraia. Then we headed to Piazza de' Pitti, her with her huge mechanical engineering textbook in tow (she's a genius if I haven't told you already), me with my never-ending Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets in Italian. After six pages, I was out like a lamp. (Speaking of English idiomatic expressions, I find that they're harder for me to access now. WTML?) Yes, I napped in Piazza de' Pitti, where I had done yoga all those many moons ago.

After I woke up and de-groggified myself, we headed home and got ready to have an aperitivo with our friends from school before heading to the battleground. We ate at Moyo, a popular lounge with a pretty good spread of appetizers. Rob and I ordered cokes for 5€ and when we got the bill I realized that I had found a loophole to the aperitivo system--a cocktail, which is the going rate for aperitivo, costs upwards of 7€ so I saved 2€! That's 3 flavours at La Carraia!

The show was slated to start at 9:00pm which in Italian time means after 9:30pm. We were there around 8:30pm and immediately started to wiggle our way through the crowd. It wasn't easy.

We were in the right-centre of the piazza, in between Americans, Italians with cigarettes, and other Italians. We could barely see anything. To my right was a huge blow-up doll brought by a bunch of (I assume) teenage guys. It amused me to hear people on their cell phones talking for their friends and using the blow-up doll as a landmark to find each other.

Right off the bat, the show started off anti-climactically. We were privy to over-talkative hosts, one of which was a young man dressed and made up as an old man, an array of lip-synching acts (most of which I had never heard of), and poor sound quality. My friends wanted to leave the madness around 10:30pm or so, and, I being the stubborn one that I can be, told them I was fine with sticking around on my own. I had hopes that perhaps it would be worth it. After they left, I hesitatingly made my way further and further up towards the stage. 

Catalin Josan, a namesake

Eventually I was pretty close to the presenters' podium--but to get there, I had to cross a fresh prankster-made swamp of gross smells. I should be grateful--had it not been smelly, I would have had a harder time getting closer to the stage. But the smell persisted throughout the evening and its odour was reawakened with each breeze or shuffle of people that made its way close to me.

Two very attractive Italians get prepped for the next award presentation

If I were to hypothesize, I would say that someone put manure into bottles of water and splashed the tainted water onto the ground. I may never know the answer though...and it's probably better that way.

The award show ended around midnight, and as I turned into an alley to make my way home I was greeted by the all-too-common stench of urine and sight of trash. Italian men quite often do their business on the street.

For those interested in the results of the award show, here's the site. Go crazy! The only band I saw that Canadians would know about was Dragonette, who "performed" Hello!


Today's word of the day is puzza. It is a noun meaning "stink" or "bad smell". I braved it for you in my role as investigative blogger.