TRL Awards in Trieste

Ah MTV...thank you so much for providing an unparalleled night of entertainment. Piazza Unitá d'Italia was full of live Italian pop music, snappily dressed VJs (Video Jockey's for anyone who grew up before Carson Daly was and then ceased to be a household name), thousands of screaming teenage girls, and a surprising amount of babies in strollers.

The performers performed, the crowd cheered, and jokes were made.  Being an MTV, pop-culture driven event there was a lot of English infused into the dialogue, and some of the performing artists didn't speak Italian themselves, which always made for a nice awkward moment when the Italian VJ would say to the Norwegian singer, "May I kiss you?!  I have to kiss you!" before leaning in for Baci on both cheeks.

As alway,s Italian idioms dominated, and I particularly enjoyed the frequent use of "Che bordello," which translates literally to "what a whorehouse," and was a great compliment to the screaming fans, in this sense meaning something to effect of "you guys are fucking crazy!"

My friends and I soon grew weary of bad Italian rap, commercial breaks, and award recognition for people like Hillary Duff over people like Beyoncé...an absolute travesty, so we moved out to the pier and shared some drinks and a full view of Piazza Unitá with other international students. When the ceremony and concert ended, we found an outdoor bar and made a bit of a bordello of our own.  Below is the intro to the awards and above is a shot I snapped from the pier.