Afterthought

Ciao tutti,

I just realised I completely forgot to tell you all about the gorgeous Christmas party my employers at Corporate English have thrown! There had been talk of a Christmas party for quite a while but nobody really knew what was going to happen until the last weekend before the start of Christmas break. As you may remember, the staff at Corporate English like to spoil their employees from time to time and after our bi-monthly teacher meetings they usually take us (the teachers) out for dinner and cocktails afterwards. This often means we end up in a very hip bar and dance the night away, while the company picks up the bill!

Obviously, the Christmas party had to top that. And it did! Firstly, partners were included in the invitation so this was a very nice way for Olaf to get to know my colleagues. Secondly, we went to a restaurant near Corso Como which was quite nice - we were actually the first ones there because nobody else was on time, which was quite strange and disappointing as being the first is NOT the fashionable thing to do - and got to eat our fill of a lavish primo and a succulent secondo - and obviously drank copious amounts of wine. It was a very nice evening and we were just a tad tipsy when we left the restaurant.

Obviously, our conversation topics had long since changed to booze, drugs and sex (if I have to hear the phrase 'getting your tits out' one more time I'm going to kill somebody!), so it was by then really time to really partying. And party we did! We went to 11 Store, a very cool and fashionable bar slash disco - although we didn't really know it existed before that evening, how's that for being fashionable?! - where the ONLY table in the middle of the bar was reserved for us. We toasted to the holidays with some lovely lush limoncello and cocktails and just started dancing, dancing and dancing. In the end, we went home far too late (because I had promised our guests Margo and Marieke that we'd be home by 1 a.m. at the latest), but hey, how often do you get to go to a Christmas party?!?!

Anyway, I'm really glad that we didn't have pay for this evening but am wondering how much they spent. It can't have been cheap! I really appreciate their gesture and understand and support their aim - having a good relationship with their employees and encouraging ties between those employees is very important to them and the attempt to make this heterogeneous group of people feel like something like a family is commendable - but it was quite unnecessary to spend this much. We might as well have gone to a regular bar around the corner and then we would have had an equally great time! But then again, I shouldn't complain. I'm just happy I've found this school! Aren't you all jealous?

I'm sorry if this post sounds like me bragging about my fantastic employer, that is not my objective. I just wanted to share this wonderful experience with you. Hope your Christmas parties were great too... As Olaf is in the kitchen working on Christmas and I'm surrounded by lovely scents that act as premonitions about tonight's dinner, I wish you all - once again - a merry Christmas and buon appetito!

Buon natale, Fe

Wonderful Christmas time

Ciao tutti,

Only two more days and Christmas will be here! Isn't it great?! It's going to be a perfect Christmas and we'll have a wonderful Christmas time!

Margo and Marieke's visit was wonderful! I hadn't realised how much I had missed Margo's friendly face, her humour, her hugs, her sweet disposition in general and our talks. We saw the sights, did some shopping, bought some lovely Christmas presents at the market, ate a huge pizza at la Padellaccia and of course went to La Fontanella where the girls showed us what drinking beer is all about...

Aren't they cute together?

Yeah, baby!

This is the way dykes drink beer!

Of course, we also went to see the Duomo, the Castello and Cimitero Monumentale. We had lunch at Corso Como and spent hours inside High-Tech - without buying anything! And of course we admired the photo exhibition in Via Dante. This really is an amazing exhibition - and it's totally free. It's called 'Italia - Emozioni dal Cielo' and features pictures of the most beautiful places in Italy, taken from the sky. I love this exhibition and I've spent many an hour there. Unfortunately, it's only going to be there until the end of the year, so what am I going to do with my free time then???

We had some lovely dinners and played some great games of Cafe International until very late at night, because it is just too addictive to stop!!! They left again on Tuesday because Marieke would get her university diploma that evening and would start her new job on Wednesday. Congratulations, Marieke, and good luck! Welcome to your professional life! As the lovely girls are also moving in together next month, I got them a poster of their favourite picture of the exhibition which will just look gorgeous in their new flat, I'm sure!

And anyway, Christmas break has started, work is over and done with, the shopping and groceries are pretty much done and Olaf is preparing himself for a couple days of work in the kitchen for our lovely 9 and 10 course Christmas dinners. I'm really looking forward to the arrival of my mother and her boyfriend on St. Steven's Day/Boxing Day/Second Christmas Day (whatever you want to call it), because I haven't seen them in a while and I'm certain we're going to have such a lovely time - and there's just something wrong with spending Christmas away from your family. Baby, it's cold outside, so I'm planning on staying in a lot, cuddling up on the sofa and watching some films. Santa Clause is coming to town and I'd really like to see Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, although I'm kind of hoping for a White Christmas to welcome the perfect year, so Let it snow! Let it snow! Let it snow!. I'm pretty sure we're going to be rocking around the Christmas tree, so come all ye faithful so we won't be lonely this Christmas! Run, Rudolph, run and bring the little Saint Nick to make this a Christmas to remember. We're going to put Frosty the Snowman (who we call Margaret) outside and wait for Father Christmas together. Olaf, spending Christmas with you really is my only wish this year. All I want for Christmas is you! So, Santa baby, hurry down the chimney tomorrow night!

Okay, so maybe I have been listening to too many Christmas songs, but that really isn't my fault. That's just what Christmas means to me! *Shit, this really is a nasty habit to break* So before you get too annoyed with this post, I'm just going to end this post now. We wish you a merry Christmas! *damn, I did it again!*

Ciao, Fe

The twelve days of Christmas

Ciao tutti,

This is going to be a very short post because I don't really have that much to say. This week has pretty much been work, work, work. Fortunately, all my classes were cancelled today so I had some time to rest, do some administrative duties and clean the house - preparation much needed for the arrival of Margo and Marieke, two of my friends from Nijmegen. Olaf was also working a lot this week, but has unfortunately still not been able to renew his permesso di soggiorno which is pretty frustrating for him (for his experiences and reactions, see his blog).

But there are also a lot of positive things going on. The weather is very nice, it's dry, not that cold (at least not as cold as I expected - I'm still wearing my autumn coat without a scarf!) and the skies are mainly blue. I love the December sun, it gives you that wonderful, completely unexpected warmth as it suddenly starts shining on you when you pass a corner or a tram moves out of the way. It makes me very happy... And, of course, the holiday season is approaching! Olaf's been working on Christmas dinner for weeks now and he has almost finalised the menu. We've both been enjoying the sights - the lights hanging over the naviglio elicit a magic reflection in the water and the balconies with plants completely covered in multi-coloured Christmas lights are a sight to be seen. Needless to say, we've been listening to Christmas music for about half a month now and it still doesn't bore me! Don't you all love Christmas?

The whole city is preparing for the holidays. There's a big tree in the middle of the Galleria Vittorio Emmanuele II, Milan's monumental shopping area next to the Duomo, which glitters with Swarovski glass, dominates the view and takes one's breath away. Every shop is selling Christmas trees, decorations, songs, candy, panettone (Christmas cake), Santa suits and whatever you can think of that belongs to Christmas. And the people are a lot happier too. All the grim faces are starting to smile again, everyone's filled with anticipation for the holidays. Only one more week...

The advent calendar is already half finished, there's a tree proudly standing in the middle of our living room, there are Christmas lights singing songs off-key everywhere, there's an ugly decoration on the front door and there are already some presents underneath the tree. I can't wait to unwrap them... I hope you're all looking forward to it as much as I am!

Good luck with whatever you're doing this last week, I know the time before Christmas can be a bitch! See you soon,

Ciao, Fe

Where does the time go...?

Where does the time go? With the blink of an eye another month has passed and I haven't published a single thing on my blog. Man, my life must be boring if nothing interesting has happened to me for a month...

Fortunately, this is not the case. I've just been too preoccupied with other things to update my blog. It's not that you're not important, really, you're just... not that important! And, in addition, I'm trying very hard to build a real life and I don't want to become one of those people who's completely taken up with his computer and misses all the great things in life because of that. Oh, and I got myself a little computer virus which took me some time to erase!

Anyway, what have I been doing the past couple of weeks? Hmmmm, let's see! I spent a couple of days alone when Olaf was in Cordoba - where he had a great time by the way, although I do think he enjoyed himself much more than he actually learnt from the winter school and the lectures. But then again, getting to know new people, doing sightseeing, eating loads and drinking too much is a very important part of the academic world! We call it networking... Anyway, all this time I was alone and lonely in our little house. I was scared and homesick and actually considered killing myself out of sheer misery...

Well, no, just kidding. I loved finally having some time to myself. We'd been having so many visitors that I really needed some privacy, so Olaf's leaving for a couple of days couldn't have come at a more perfect time. I watched all the movies he doesn't want to watch and, for once, I was allowed in the kitchen! Although I naturally f**ked up everything I tried to cook because I hadn't been in a kitchen for such a long time! As it was a regular working week I didn't do anything special until the weekend. This was the weekend that my father came by and we had a lovely time again. We had some good talks, great food, wine, smokes and did a lot of sightseeing. As my father had a new digital camera, we acted VERY touristy! And to top that, we finally went to see the famous Last Supper by Leonardo da Vinci. As was to be expected, it was a total and utter disappointment and not worth the money it costs - the extortioners actually wanted E 8,- per person for 15 minutes! - but you can't live in Milan and not have seen it. If you don't know which fresco I'm talking about, here it is

Nothing very interesting happened the next couple weeks my after father left again. Olaf returned, of course, and worked pretty much consumed me. I've got a new extra job now. I'm the 'Hardware and Teaching Materials Coordinator' at Corporate English. This meant that had to do an inventory of all the additional audiovisual and reading material the school has, design and manage a signout system for the hardware, and sort out a lot old folders with teaching materials in order to make them easily available to all the teachers. Now that this is done, my weekly job is to develop new lessons to accompany our DVDs, magazines and newspapers so we'll always have lessons based on current events articles which all teachers can use whenever they like. This is kind of cool, because it means I get paid to watch DVDs and to improve my own knowledge of the news and current events (since I usually don't read the paper or watch the news). And besides this, I also got an offer from one of my students, the editing manager of the Milan branch of a large publishing house. She asked me if I wanted to become a trial reader of manuscripts they are considering to publish. They've got a large group of trial readers but they're mostly female, so I'm supposed to provide them with the male perspective... Well, we'll see what happens! Anyway, it doesn't pay much but it would mean that I'd get paid to read, and read things that are not even available to the public yet!

Last weekend Jorryt and Lilian, Olaf's friends from Groningen, came over and, since they'd already visited Olaf last year and had already seen Milano, we rented a car and went on a two-day road trip! We left quite early on Saturday and drove to Pisa through the Apennines, which is a beautiful piece of Italy. Although you're on the freeway, it seems like you're standing on a mountain side in a grassy meadow with no one around, because the road meanders through the mountains and there wasn't a lot of traffic. Afterwards, we arrived in Pisa where we made a lovely stroll to the central square with its church, baptistry and of course its famous campanile (bell tower), the Leaning Tower. After we had checked the tower on the list (the Tower being one of the wonders of the world was really our only reason for being there), we got in the car again and drove to the neighbouring town of Lucca. Lucca is a lovely well-preserved medieval city with its city walls completely intact. After having some lovely cocktails, a pizza and some more lovely cocktails, we turned in a bit drunk.

The day after we started our way back to Milan, but we didn't take the shortest route. We drove down to the Tuscan coast of Cinque Terre, where we visited three of the five Terre, old fishermen's villages built against the cliffs of the Tyrrhenian coast. It was sometimes really scary to get there, because the roads were really small and the hills very steep (the villages were only supposed to be reached by boat), but fortunately Jorryt is a very good driver. However, overcoming our fears and making it down to each village was completely worth it. The beauty of the towns is indescribable and it's a region I would definitely like to go back to some day. Here are some pictures

Aren't we cute?

I know it's tacky, but you can't go to Pisa and not take this picture...

Sitting on one of the machines the locals use to harvest the grapes from the rocky slopes...

Riomaggiore, one of the Cinque Terre

Manarola, another one of the Terre

Manarola again

Corniglia, perched on a rock high above the sea

A lovely sunset, observed from the little harbour of Vernazza

This week was a short week, as Thursday and Friday were a regional and a national holiday respectively. Thursday was Sant'Ambrogio, the feast of the patron saint of Milan, St. Ambrose (the famous church father), and on Friday it was the day of what Olaf refers to as "The Immaculate Collection, the day Madonna released her 'best of' album" - in reality it's the Immacolata, the day of the Immaculate Conception of Jesus by Mary (only seventeen days before he was reportedly born!). So on Thursday, we went to Oh Bej! Oh Bej!, a famous regional market traditionally held on Sant'Ambrogio with Belinda (who returned last weekend) and her friend Melina. I ended up making a day of it with them, because - while Olaf wanted to go to Arte sul Naviglio (a regular art exhibition around the corner from our house) and the Christmas market - I went to l'Artigiano at the fiera (fair). This was an exposition of hand-made objects and food from different countries from around the world, where we tasted some cheeses, some sausages, some candy and some beers. And I spent hardly any money, except to buy some Egyptian candy which I hadn't had since my last trip to Egypt in 2001...

This weekend, we don't have any visitors so we are spending our time wisely buying Christmas presents, preparing Christmas dinner and writing Christmas cards. Next weekend, Margo and Marieke are coming over and we're going to have a blast! After that, Christmas will be here already! In the words of my boss, 'where HAS the time gone...' We've been playing Christmas music non-stop for two weeks now and I'm ready for the holidays. All the favourites are here again 'Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer', 'Santa Baby', 'Baby, it's cold outside', 'Frosty, the Snowman', 'Little Drummer Boy', 'Come, all ye faithful' and 'All I want for Christmas is you'. How can we spend the rest of the year without them... If you're not playing Christmas music yet, you should start now! There's no better way to get in the mood... Just two weeks more, hang in there! You can do it! It won't be lonely this Christmas!

Ciao, Fe

Latter days

I have now finally almost updated by weblog to the current date. So just one more quick post about last week and then you'll again know everything important that's happened to me the past month.

I'm getting a bit frustrated by my work, because they still haven't given me the amount of courses that I want. My reserves are running out and I want to start working full-time a.s.a.p. However, they keep promising me courses but then it turns out the client wants to change to the time and/or date which means I can't teach the course. This sucks, but it comes with the territory, I guess. My amount of courses is growing slowly but steadily, so I suppose I shouldn't complain. I'm just a bit sick of having to deliberate whether or not I really need to spend every single euro I spend (not that I've been doing it for that long, but I just hate doing it). Oh well, we'll see. It will be alright, but unfortunately not as fast as I want it to...

This weekend, Niels and Marielle, Olaf's brother and sister-in-law visited us and they left us again this morning. One of their main reasons for coming was relaxation, as they have been spending a lot of time on their lovely baby boy for the past year and were in need of a lot of rest, rest and rest. So we took things slowly, which was fine by us. We had some lovely dinners, saw some sights and got some good nights of sleep. We also had a lot of time to catch up. And, very importantly, they brought back my completely cured laptop! As they left quite early this morning, we had the whole day to ourselves and I've used today to answer a lot of emails and finally update my weblog. I'm very glad I got the chance to do this, because my blog is quite important to me as it is sort of a diary, a way to express my thoughts and an important way to communicate with all my friends and family far away. And, being the egomaniac that I am, I want you all to know what's going on in my life, even if you don't want to!

Next week, I'm going to be very, very alone. Olaf is going to Cordoba on Tuesday morning for a conference and winter school until Sunday. Also, my friend Belinda left for South Africa last Friday and she will be gone for a couple of weeks. Well, actually, I don't think I'm going to suffer that much but will enjoy my time watching the movies I can't convince Olaf to watch and spend time catching up with friends I haven't seen/talked to/emailed for a long time. And besides, my father is coming over for a visit this Friday and I've finally been able to reserve some ticket's for Leonardo da Vinci's famous fresco The Last Supper!

Have a nice Sunday evening, all of you, I hope to talk to you soon! We're going to a birthday aperitivo of one of Olaf's friends and hope to dazzle her with presents (as I'm pretty sure we will, since we were in charge of getting the presents for the whole group). After that, sweet dreams...

Ciao, Fe

Notes from a small island

Last weekend we made a little trip to England. Although it was a very good trip and we had a lot of fun meeting up with old friends again, the journeys themselves sucked majorly. Friday evening, we left Milan on the airport shuttle during rush hour and spent about two hours getting to the airport. Fortunately, nobody really gives a shit (or at the very least very little) about the new safety measures implemented to prevent terrorism in Italy, so we were in time for our flight after all. When we arrived at Stansted Airport, we were of course there at the only time of day when there isn't a bus to London every half hour, but had to wait for about two hours in the rain. By the time we did get to London it was 11 pm and OBVIOUSLY this means everything closes, even on Friday night. Fortunately, we found a little off-license supermarket not far from Marike's place and we created our own little party while Marike's fellow students started leaving the common room when we entered because 'it was so incredibly late already' and we were alone by 1 am.

On Saturday, we visited the British Museum and let ourselves be amazed by the Egyptian, Greek and Japanese sections. Especially the Japanese section, was very beautiful and instructive as I didn't know that much about Japanese history and culture. Afterwards we went semi-shopping in Oxford Street and treated the way too posh and way too expensive central London department stores as museums and admired the Christmas decorations. There's a lot one can say about the British, but they certainly do know how to make pretty shiny Christmassy thingies!!!

After that we took the train to Coventry to visit Matt and Anthony. We had a gorgeous dinner at a Lebanese BYO restaurant with them and of course drank far too much wine. According to Matt's calculations the next morning, we had finished 10 bottles of wine between the four of us. Well, that's only 2,5 bottles a person, isn't it? That's not very extreme... At least from my perspective! I've done worse than that! The next day we made a surprise trip to Oxford, a city neither Olaf nor I had ever been before. We didn't really do anything there, but we just walked around admiring the architectural styles of the old building and of course the local department stores with Christmas decorations! After a little dinch in a pub, we went back to Coventry (illegally traveling first class because coach was filled with people) and it was time for us to return to London (this time legally traveling first class because some English bitches had taken our reserved coach seats and the train manager couldn't be bothered to even come and take a look).

Back in London we met up with Marike again and went on a mad hunt for any place in London that would still serve us alcohol at 10.30 pm on a Sunday evening. We had to take the airport shuttle at three o'clock again, so it was really no use going to bed in the meantime. As it was also quite cold, warming ourselves with alcohol was the only solution and we really didn't feel like waiting outside for hours. We found one lovely restaurant near Covent Garden that would give us one bottle of wine but were not very subtle about us having to leave quite soon again. So, after having chucked down the bottle of wine and being chucked out of the restaurant, we went on the hunt again. Marike took us to a lot of pubs she knew and thought might be open until late, but we were completely unsuccessful until we found one place that was open for 24 hours a day. After some bottles of wine and nibblies, however, we were told that they wouldn't serve us anymore because they were going to close at 1 am. Apparently, these Londoners hadn't completely grasped the concept of a 24/7 pub. As we still had more than two hours to kill, Marike was sweet enough to offer to stay up with us and to take us back to her place again for a little repetition of our private party of two nights before. She lives in one of these very old dorm buildings with creaking floors and squeaking doors where there are always sounds you can't explain and people generally assume they are haunted. For this reason, being all alone at night in the common room amid all these sounds was kind of scary, but also exciting because it felt like being inside a horror movie! Anyway, after saying our goodbyes to Marike, we managed to find a taxi and went to the airport.

As our plane didn't leave until 6.30 am we decided that taking a little nap on the bus had refreshed us enough and that we would continue drinking at the airport. Amidst people desperately drinking coffee to stay awake, we had a lovely bottle of wine and slept like a rose on the airplane and on the bus back to Milan. Poor Olaf had to stay awake to go and give renewing his residence permit another try (which failed again, evil Italians!), whereas I didn't have to work until that evening and had already prepared those classes the week before, so I jumped right into bed. That morning, prompted by Marike, we realised that we hadn't taken any pictures that weekend, so unfortunately no pictures of rainy England on my blog.

Getting a bit rested was exactly what I need, because that evening my Dutch friends Maartje and Edin were arriving. Fortunately, they had already been traveling through Italy so they were quite beat themselves. We didn't really too that many exhausting things but just spent the time catching up and walking through Milan a bit. Tuesday evening, we did get a bit drunk, however... Here are some photos.

Doesn't Edin look like a gangster?

A gangster and his bimbo!

Aren't we cute?

Madonna! We stole this umbrella from Marike's apartment building. It's completely pink and has Japanese girls printed on it.

My lips are sealed...

More to come, I'm on a roll!

Ciao, Fe

B'day pictures!

Obviously, blogger didn't allow to post anymore pictures in my last post because it sometimes just does that for no reason, but here they are...

Enjoying ourselves immensely

Sexy move...

Sandwiching da Olaf!!!!!

Seriously, what is she going to do with that mouth?!?!?!

So, was Olaf cheating on me with Henning?

Oooh baby... Let's show those Italians how you're supposed to dance!

Inside joke...

Aren't Stephie and Henning cute together?????

My b'day weekend

Ciao tutti,
It has been a long time but today is update day! There is an account of my wonderful birthday below. But to start off with:

After many requests for photos of Fabrizio, our new beautiful hat-and-coat stand, voilà :


There is no way I would be able to live without my little dressboy anymore. He is just tooooo gorgeous!

Anyway, I didn't really know what to expect of my first birthday celebration in Milano. I've met a lot of people since I started living here, but not that many people I'd celebrate my birthday with. Additionally, I felt a bit strange because we had some visitors I didn't know very well. Stephie and Henning are twoGermann friends of Olaf's who I had only met once - and very briefly at that - in Groningen. As a result, I had decided not to celebrate my birthday that weekend, but to postpone it to a weekend when we wouldn't have any guests. Stephie and Henning turned out to be very lovely people, of course (and how could they not have been - being friends of Olaf's), and we had loads of fun. They are an incredibly sweet couple (see pictures). We did the Milano tour (Castello, Brera, Cimitero Monumentale, Duomo, High-Tech), took a lot of pictures and drank fair amounts of booze. We also discovered that the view from the roof of the Duomo is amazing at sunset...

The night before my birthday we went out for aperitivo with several study mates of Olaf's and when they (especially the girls) found out the next day would be my birthday, they decided we absolutely had to party that night. And this accidental birthday party was very, very lovely. I called my friends Belinda and Enrico and we started out with a couple of glasses of champagne at our place. Unfortunately, Nina and Antonio couldn't make it, because Anto has recently broken his leg playing football and isn't really able to move around a lot yet. However, we met up with Olaf's friend at Le Trottoir, the same place I went to after the last teacher meeting, and danced the night away while drinking some very tasty cocktails. It felt amazing, as if I was back in Dio and could do anything. I didn't hold anything back but partied like one should on one's birthday. When I recall all the steamingly hot sexy moves (male/female, male/male, male/female/male etc.) we showed the Italians present, it's a wonder they didn't throw us out...

However, as pictures speak louder than words...

Finally, the photos!

Arghhhh... It took me ages to get blogger to upload these pictures. Anyway, here they are, just as I promised!

We had a real good time!

Moeders (mama), however, preferred to watch and see what woud happen...

Jolien appeared to be able to handle her fucile...

But then again... it's always a mistake to give a girl beer!

Gotta run now, more updates about my birthday and the last few weeks will come shortly.

Ciao, Fe

The weekend of 10 visitors!

Ciao tutti,

I haven't posted anything for about two and a half weeks. You must have been thinking I had died or had an accident or something. Well, none of the above. I've just been quite unable to get hold of a computer for enough time. You see, I'm currently deprived of my own comp and have to use Olaf's but unfortunately he's rather obsessed and is very loath to let it go (I try not to call him an addict, but it gets harder every day...).

So what happened to my computer? Well, it's ill and currently recovering at the computer hospital in Holland. Seriously, how was I to know it would have an allergic reaction to the glass of sticky white bubbly I fed it?! I drink the stuff all the time! Anyway, the emergency team thought it was better to take custody of my baby away from me and put her in the care of a computer doctor in Holland. I suppose they thought that being a happy drinker (not an alcoholic!!!) made me an unfit parent... Fortunately, the damage isn't that great and she will be back by my side in two weeks. Diagnosis: permanent disfunctioning of several external sense organs. Prognosis: will be able to function perfectly again but will need prostheses for the rest of her life (external keyboard).

So, what has happened in the last two weeks of 'the emotional rollercoaster which I laughingly call my life' (Angelina Jolie in Playing by Heart)? Well, as you may have been able to deduce from my last post, we had some visitors. My mother, brothers and sister-in-law came to stay for the weekend and we had loads of fun. We drank too much, slept too little, ate a lot and even managed to see some sights. Of course, as different people have different desires, we often split up and let everyone do as he or she pleased. However, there is one thing that must be mentioned specifically: on Thursday we went to the awesome birreria La Fontanella (after having had ridiculously large pizza's at La Padellaccia - literally 'The Bad Pan' - before), where we of course had fucili - large glasses in the shape of an 18th-century rifle - and every single one of us became covered in beer in no time, and Olaf managed to smash two of these 50 euro glasses against each other. Fortunately, only one broke...

It's so easy to make boys happy...

(There will be some more pictures here, but I'm having some trouble uploading them)

On Saturday we were joined by Olaf's parents who finally arrived after a disastrous voyage from the Swiss border. Firstly, their telephone turned out not to work in Italy, secondly they got lost driving through Milan without a map and thirdly - to make matters worse - they had a flat tyre in the middle of Milan (che deja vu! Olaf and my father had a flat tyre with that car in Milan two months ago, even though those tyres are supposed to be indestructible! Can we smell litigation...?). But fortunately everything got sorted out in the end and they were finally able to start enoying their visit. For both my family as for Olaf's parents it was the first time they had visited us in Milan. We had some lovely meals and drinks and Olaf took his parents to see all the sights on Sunday. On that same day, our next two visitors arrived, Bard, Olaf's friend from Groningen, and his friend Marlous who we hadn't met yet. As a result, we were quite a large party that evening, so we just had to go to my favourite aperitivo place La Ringhiera (because that is the only place with enough space to accommodate large groups). And Marlous turned out to be a lovely girl! A bit strange and completely bonkers perhaps, but then again, so are we...

On Monday, my family and Olaf's parents left again and it was just the four of us until Wednesday. Unfortunately, I was already so tired I'm afraid I wasn't able to appreciate Bard's and Marlous' visit to the fullest nor did the copious amounts of alcohol and short nights have a very good influence on my teaching abilities. But this was to be expected. Even though I really like having visitors, 7 days in a row was just too much...

As this was the week before my birthday, I of course got a lot gifts! Just to name a few:

• a router (from my inlaws), so we will finally be able to enjoy the comfort of wireless internet, that is, after we figure out how to plug it in...
• a towl rack (from my brothers and sister-in-law), which was much needed
• Fabrizio (from my mother and her boyfriend), a human-sized hat-and-coat stand in the form of a man. I actually think he looks a bit like Fido Dido. I promise, there will be a picture of him on my blog soon...
• A really cool corkscrew from High-Tech (from Olaf), which will hopefully finally bring our useless discussions about which kind of corkscrew is superior to an end... (aren't we pathetic?!)
• Loads of very sweet cards, emails, texts and e-cards. All of you who thought of me, thank you so much!
• Kanis & Gunnink coffee. Yummieieieieieieieieieie!!!!!!!!!!!

Talking about my birthday, there are a detailed report of the party and (hopefully) some photos coming up...

Ciao,

Fedor

Stress and anticipation

Today will be the beginning of a new era: the era of visitors. And to start off well, we'll be having eight of them over the period of seven days starting today. Of course, having visitors is great and I'm really looking forward to it, but it also takes a lot of time to prepare and create a programme for sightseeing, going out, food, sleep and so on... And of course the house has to be spick and span. But we're going to have such a great time!

The visitors arriving today are my mother, my brothers and my sister-in-law (although my brother and sister-in-law aren't actually married, girlfiend just sounds so lame, as if it's some random bimbo who is the flavour of the month, which she's not because she's way too cool and sweet). I'm really excited they're coming because I really want to show them my - our - new place, my new town and all the cool things you can do here. And of course I really want to talk to all of them again! You can only get to a certain kind of intimacy using msn or email, but it just doesn't compare to meeting face to face. Besides, it's my oldest brother's birthday today, so we're going to have ourselves a little party tonight!!!

On Saturday, we will be joined by Olaf's parents who are coming over for a quick two-day visit. As we haven't seen them about as long as we haven't seen my family, this will be a treat as well! On Sunday, Bard, one of Olaf's friends, and his friend Marlous are coming over, which means we'll be a party of ten that day! Sitting here in anticipation of all these people and all the attention I'm going to get (I can't help it, egomania is just in my blood! And what's wrong with wanting to be the centre of attention, eh?), I'm just feeling lucky... And that's a good note to end on!

Ciao, Fe

Alcoholic paupers doing some shopping

Owwkayyy *hips* zzzo zis is whap havvenedd zoday *hips*

Yesterday evening, we had a lovely aperitivo with my new-found friend Belinda and her fiance Enrico. It was great, although we were all a bit hesitant in the beginning because Olaf hadn't met Belinda yet and I hadn't met Enrico (and so obviously Olaf and Enrico hadn't met either). But afterwards we really hit it off and terrorized La Ringhiera with loud political discussions, domestic squabble and lots of laughter. After dinner, Olaf went home because he was tired from working all week, whereas I was up for a night out because my weekend had already started Wednesday evening because all my courses on Thursday and Friday had been cancelled. So Belinda, Enrico and I went to Bar Magenta where we had been told there would be a gathering of English-speaking people who would be eating and drinking there. Unfortunately, we had just missed them but we did find Belinda's and my teaching coordinator there who was just preparing to leave. We persuaded him to have another drink with us and in our conversation we found out an unexpected fact.

You see, Belinda and I had been speculating for a while what the relations were between the members of the management team of our school on a personal level- because it is obvious that there have to people who are sleeping with each other, even if it's just because it's fashionable to have affairs with one of more of your colleagues and unavoidable because of the soapy character of life - and we had come up with some (according to us) quite plausible theories. But then our coordinator turned out to be as gay as a Christmas tree! This was quite a shock to both of us and especially to me, because my gaydar is usually quite accurate and hardly ever fails. But he certainly is a new model espionage plane, because he just dove right under it! Anyway, it just proves that the possibilities for the new developments in the Corporate English soap (written and directed by the both of us, of course) have just been multiplied by factor gay! Che Days of Our Lives! At least it states clearly once again that camp isn't just a row of tents!

Anyway, after that I went home and naturally we slept late this morning. After this, we decided it was time to do some shopping. Last week, I received my first paycheck and Olaf his scholarship, so we had some money to spend. And as Olaf was experiencing a minor clothing emergency, we hit the town. As Saturdays are quite busy days for shopping and because Olaf and I shop in a completely different way and for completely different motives - he is too picky for his budget and shops with a specific idea in mind of what he wants to have and I have too many clothes anyway and just let myself be seduced by all the funky designs and shiny things - he didn't succeed at all. But I'm proud to say I brought home some lovely things I don't need at all!

After that we went to do our weekly groceries. These consisted of a box of beer, a bag of wine, some martini, some gin and some campari. Oh, and some cheesy thingies and vegetables as well. Fortunately, we know we're not alcoholics. We're happy drinkers! But when we got home we did make and unfortunate discovery: our wine rack is too small*! ;-)

Ciao, Fe

*Which of course doesn't mean we're not happy with it... Thank you so much, dear inlaws, it's great!

"No ham today"

It's almost like the song, except that the song was about milk and that my love hasn't gone away... So, actually it's not like the song... At all! But, whatever, the main thing is, there wasn't any ham. Do you have any idea what I'm talking about? No? I wonder why...

Last Sunday, we went on a trip to Parma, because on Sundays you have to take a trip. Seriously, it's like a rule, you don't stay indoors or in Milan on Sundays. You take your family, stuff them in your car or a train, drive out into la campagna (the country) or la montagna (the mountains) and enjoy a lovely day in the sun, the rain or the snow, as long you're away from Milan's polluted air. As we are desperately trying to blend in with the natives of this region, 'when in Milan, do as the Milanese', as Olaf is wont to say, we decided to join this weekly exodus and visited Parma.

Parma is gorgeous. It's so very sweet and very 'coogie, coogie, coo!'. Needless to say we both fell in love with it immediately and are planning to buy a house there once we retire. Here are some pictures.



Although Parma is a city famous for its prosciutto (parmaham) and its parmigiano (Parmesan cheese), we didn't eat any. I did have a lovely pasta with asparagus for lunch and I begged and begged and begged Olaf to spend the day eating and just eating, but he wouldn't let me. As a result I didn't have any prosciutto di parma or parmigiano in Parma. But I'll survive...

We also had another little breakthrough there, I think. Although Olaf is vehemently against us having pets and usually can't be reasoned with on this subject, we philosophized a lot about our future life including a hypothetical dog called Poes (just for the fun of it), Bello (to spike the Italians) or Lola ('Her name was Lola, she was a showdog'). He especially liked the name Lola, so who knows, we may have a dog after all... ;-)

Ciao, Fe

Work-related issues...

Ciao belli e belle,

How time flies! It has been almost two weeks since I wrote anything on my blog and you must be starting to think I'm neglecting you. Well, the truth is: I am! But for a good reason, I assure you. It's because I'm working progressively more. And being completely inexperienced in teaching and consequently needing a lot of time to get all my preparing done I've been quite absorbed. Another reason is that I'm not working in subsequent shifts, but for instance three hours on Monday night, one hour Tuesday morning, three hours on Tuesday night, one hour on Wednesday around noon and so on. This often means that I start my day quite early and finish after 9.00 pm without teaching any classes in between. This is pretty exhausting and I'm still trying to get in the right rhythm.

Fortunately, not all my classes have started yet so I have some time to adapt. When all my classes will have started, I will be teaching two group courses every evening from Monday until Thursday and have some individual and small group lessons during the daytime. And after that, there's always a Friday. I like my Fridays here. On Fridays I teach three classes at the law firm I taught my first classes at. I like these students a lot and I'm sort of starting to consider them as my favourites. I don't know why, probably because they responded very well to me when I got there the first time nervous as hell, wet all through because it was raining cats and dogs and there was a public transport strike and without a clue whether the lessons I had planned were any good... But that's just a thought. Anyway, they've captured my heart! Teaching them is really like the start of the weekend for me. There is also another cool feature about them: they cancel their lessons about every other week, which means I get the day off!

They say, 'practice makes perfect', and I still need to practise a lot. But I'm getting there and I'm learning a shitload of things about teaching on the way. 'Life is a lesson, you've learned it when it's through', well I think that goes for teaching too. When the time comes that I won't be teaching anymore, I'll know everything there is to know about it! But it's fun. It's a nice change from studying foreign languages in a very dry and academic way (which I love by the way, don't get me wrong!) and the theory of second language acquisition to actually having to do it. I've always taken having an interest in languages and a certain 'feel' for them for granted, but now I'm realizing that doesn't go for everybody. There are a lot of reasons why people study English, and it's usually not based on a personal inclination. People study English to get ahead in their careers, because they need to communicate with foreign clients, to work with English computer programmes or read and/or translate English publications. Often people are doing it merely because it is a professional requirement and they're being forced to by their superiors. This does not make my job very easy, but does keep it interesting and makes it a challenge!

Unfortunately, my work and my obsession of doing everything perfectly - being the perfectionist that I am - has also had some negative effects. I have a lot less time to spend with Olaf for instance, which is quite funny, ironically speaking, because he's doing his time-consuming Ph.D. and I actually moved here to be able to spend more time with him and now it turns out like a complete reversal of fortune that I am the one not having enough time for him! But we'll work that out somehow and we've still got the weekends. Another consequence of my being busy is that I have neglected my body. I haven't practised any sports for over a month and I'm becoming a regular Miss Piggy. Now, I know that there are people who still believe in the ancient tribal values that having a lot of meat on you means you're doing well in life and is actually a sign of health and wealth, but their opinion sucks! Being fat is a sign of laziness, clogs your veins which increases your chances of having a heart attack at age 40 significantly and means you haven't got enough money to go to the gym. Not wanting to seem like ones of those dimwits, I've recently taken up running. I hate running but as there's nothing else I can do by myself without having to pay for it, it will have to do for now.

Tonight, I'm having an aperitivo with my friend Belinda and her fiance, who I haven't met yet. I love the concept of aperitivo, they should have it all over the world. For those of you who don't know what it is, I'll give you a short description. Aperitivo is when you go out for a drink before having dinner. You drink a cocktail - which is horribly expensive - and get some free nibblies and appetizers with that. However, if you haven't got a lot of money, you can just use aperitivo as if it was meant for dinner. You buy the horribly expensive cocktail and then proceed to stuff your mouth with all the goodies you find at the free buffet. And mind you, these aren't just little nibblies. You can get different kinds of pasta, pizza slices, bruschette, salads, pieces of cheese and ham and lots of other things. It's more than enough to constitute a full dinner, and all this you get for free if you just drink a cocktail which costs between six and eight euros! And it's not just Italian food, you can also do Spanish tapas aperitivo and sushi aperitivo at some places. As a lover of the Italian kitchen and food in general, I usually leave almost unable to walk and supporting my belly with my hands. Maybe that's why I'm getting so fat.... Hmmmm..... *bling* (seeing the light)

Ciao,

Fedor

P.A.R.T.Y. weekend

Ciao tutti,

This has been a f*cking great weekend. It has been ages since I've partied for a whole weekend... Well, actually, it has been about a month but it feels like a long, long time. But fortunately the people in Milano know how to party. And I desperately needed to dance, drink and be merry!

On Friday night there was a teacher meeting at Corporate English and afterwards we went out for a lovely pizza. We were there for a couple of hours and it was a great occasion for me to get to know my colleagues. I especially liked my Spanish colleague, Monica. After a while it became obvious that the amount of wine one consumes is of direct influence on one's eloquence in a language one cannot speak very well. My Italian and Spanish really improved that night! After dinner we went to a bar for some drinks and afterwards (after a lot begging and pushing) we finally went dancing. People got drunk from all the cocktails and completely lost their sense of shame and apprehension. There was a live band which played current popular music and I got to shake my lovely behind as much as I loved. Monica shared my desire to dance and we really went at it. It's always good to have a friend one can be slutty with on the dance floor... And the cool thing is, even my bosses were there and they were drinking, dancing and acting slutty just as much as we were. It really didn't feel like we were colleagues, directors and subordinates but more like a group of friends. Mi piaceva!

Yesterday we went to Antonio's birthday party, which was very funny and interesting. We met some really stuck up Irish girls, who were twins by the way, and their brother who had completely lost his way. One of the girls had acually worked for The English Academy, the company I started teaching trial lessons with but decided I didn't want to work for, and we exchanged experiences. Apparently their method has changed quite a lot over the years, because they didn't use to believe in a full-immersion method to instruct new teachers. Anto and Nina were lovely: we had some drinks, ate far too much of the lovely snacks they had made, talked about a lot of nonsense and danced like we were back in Dio. We actually got quite drunk and because we had obviously missed the last tram (we left at 4.30 a.m.) we had to walk home. Personally, I thought it was only a twenty minute walk and Antonio agreed, but it turned out to be about a 1,5 hour walk! Or maybe it just seemed that way because we were drunk... Who can tell? At least, it gave us plenty of time to fight in a drunken manner and accuse each other of all kinds of things we don't remember now...

Anyway, we obviously didn't do anything today, except sleeping late (until 4.30 p.m.!), complaining about our headaches and watching movies. In brief, a perfect Sunday...

Ciao,

Fe

How to become a working girl in Milano

In the previous posts I have described some aspects of my moving to Milano: the paperwork to get a permesso di soggiorno, the (for me relatively few) hours of waiting in line, Italian corruption, the advantages of being a teacher of English and of course our gorgeous new casa. This means I have almost finished telling about my experiences in Italy up to now except for my job hunt. So, if you're interested in a short lesson 'how to become a working girl in Milano', read on!

I started sending out CV's in May, when I was still living in Holland. As writing and constructing a CV truly is a science worthy of its own university professor and I didn't know shit about it back then, I obviously did not receive any response to those. This depressed me a lot, because I had hoped to have a job before I took the big step and was sort of counting on that. However, after some experiences in the CV writing process and the making of the necessary changes, I emailed my first CV's worthy of an answer in late July and early August. However, as the complete city of Milano shuts down for the summer during August, I still did not get any replies. This made my stay in Milano quite the holiday for the first few weeks. Olaf and I hadn't seen each other for five of six weeks, so we were really happy about having the possibility to spend a lot of time together. I went to several hotels to ask for a job and sent out some more CV's, but obviously this wasn't a full-time job. This meant I read a lot, got a tan, visited all the sights and cuddled a lot with Olaf. We also went to Rome for a few days, which was as great as it sounds and made me - being a classical scholar - feel like heaven for a short time (for pictures, see Olaf's weblog).

A few days before we were leaving for Holland for my graduation ceremony and goodbye party I had my first interview for a job teaching English. I was very nervous, miscalculated the distance I had to go, had to run the last hundreds of meters and consequently arrived as wet as our kitchen after I've done the dishes. Fortunately, the man conducting the interview wasn't Italian but British, which meant appearances were not as important as they could have been. On the whole, it went quite well and he was very positive and said he would call me in September. I didn't really believe that I would get the job and it wasn't the greatest job imaginable, but it did make me see a light at the end of the tunnel (as I had been pretty much convinced nobody was going to hire me because of my lack of experience) and motivated me to continue my search.

We were in Holland for a week at the end of August and had a great time. We visited loads of friends and family, drank far too much and had some great parties - among which of course my graduation and goodbye party, which rocked!!! All of you who were there, thank you so much for being there, it was great! I may not have had the time to talk to every single one of you as long as I wanted, but it certainly was great seeing you all. During this week I received one phone call and two emails from Milano inviting me for job interviews - all for jobs teaching English - with three different companies. When it was time to return to Milano, Olaf and my father drove Olaf's father's van to bring all our stuff and I flew back. Afterwards, we spent a great weekend getting all our shit - and boy, we've got a lot of things - in order and celebrating our first visitor (my father). Thanks again, Theo, for all your help, we really couldn't have done it without you!! I was really happy and proud to be able to show my father my new city and we had a lot of fun, great meals, lovely wines and beers and some good talks.

My father left early on Monday morning and then it was immediately time for me to get to work, as I had two job interviews that day. These interviews were at two different schools: The English Academy and Corporate English. Incredibly but true, both schools hired me and I started teaching trial lessons for The English Academy the next day. On Wednesday I had my third interview, at CTL (Cinque Terre Lingue), and I was hired again. I now found myself in the fortunately relaxing position of having too many jobs and being able to choose which schools I wanted to work for. I made my choice based partly on a gut feeling and partly on my previous experiences. The English Academy was a very good and respected school and paid very well, but they were quite formal and believed in a kind of full-immersion approach for new teachers. I didn't get any training or feedback, but they just put me in front of a class and said 'teach, become confident and learn from your own mistakes'. On the other hand, my job interviews with Corporate English and CTL were not only successful but also fun. I just felt at home with both of them and so I decided to quit working for The English Academy. The company I had my first interview with in August also called me recently, so in the end I was actually hired by four schools. And I hadn't actually made that much of an effort!!!

Since then, I have attended teacher training sessions, have observed lessons and have been brushing up on my knowledge of English grammar. Two weeks ago, I started teaching my first lessons at Corporate English and next week I will teach my first lessons for CTL. I don't have that many hours of teaching a week yet, but I'm hoping this will increase next month. I suppose it's a good thing to start off slowly, but I'm going crazy because I haven't been very productive for almost three months now. This is starting to get on my nerves and I'm ready for one of more new projects (I really hate doing nothing, boredom is the greatest evil in this world). I still have to learn a lot about teaching, but I think it is going quite well. And what better way to learn than to actually do it, eh?

Working is also a very good way of meeting new people. Not the students of course, I need to keep my relationship with them professional, but I'm talking about my colleagues. I met a very cool, nice and certifiably crazy woman from South Africa (just the way I like my friends) called Belinda, who is just starting with Corporate English just like me. We hit it off quite well when we had teacher training together. Everybody at Corporate English is really cool, by the way. Yesterday evening I went to my first (bi-)monthly teacher meeting. The schools organizes these evenings to exchange information and stimulate the contact between the school and the teachers and between the individual teachers. After this we went out for a pizza and some drinks, completely paid for by the school. Afterwards we went dancing and it ended up becoming a great but late night filled with music, cocktails, beers, drunk people, live music, playing rugby with women instead of rugby balls and many, many laughs. Consequently, I'm quite happy with my job situation. I'd just like to have some more work to do. But all in good time...

Ciao, Fedor

Some more casa nostra...

And here are some more pictures from our casa:

Our bathroom where we spend hours and hours every day to do our hair...

The living room
The living room from the other side

And finally the lovely view from our window: the beautiful but at ungodly hours extremely loud and irritating church of the Holy Canal Mary (Chiesa di Santa Maria al Naviglio)

If you want to see more, I am afraid you're going to have to visit me at some point. And you know what? If you do, you can not only see my house, but you can also see me! How does that sound? ;-)

Ciao, Fedor

Casa nostra

This post is about our new apartment. It's not very big but very beautiful, recently renovated and cozy. It's exactly the right place to be 'burgerlijk', like we are - there is absolutely no way to translate this Dutch word into English without having to describe it by a complete sentence, like 'gezellig'. To clarify its meaning in English it literally means 'civilian', as it does in Dutch, but in this the following meaning is implied: 'dull and uninteresting, the way couples and families get when they settle and get a very regulated life'. And I love it!

Anyway, I promised to post something about our casa and, as actions speak louder than words, here are a few photographs:

The little door

The view from inside our courtyardThe gallery with its typically Milanese railings
The dining room
The dining room from the other side with the mezzanine where we sleep
The petite kitchen

In the beginning was the blog!

So, after this incredibly planned and polished opening post it is now time to get to work. 'In the beginning was the was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning' (Gospel of 'John' 1:1-2), and write that god I shall. This blog is about me, about my experiences in the world and, more specifically, in Milan, Italy. The language I write in is English, because, although I'm settling quite well in this country, I'm still getting used to the change of language. As I am as of now a teacher of English and as my English is still a bit rusty, filling this blog with my daily experiences and everything that I ponder is good practice. And additionally, I must admit that I also find the increase of possible readers quite exciting. However, I have this misplaced pretentious notion of my own literary prowess which will most probably make this blog one of the most unreadable ones on the web. But hey, as long as I'm having fun, eh?

The first subject I should write about is of course Italy, about how I like the country and the Italian people. It would be a mistake to start with the usual bitching foreigners living in Italy habitually express, because starting off with negative statements isn't very attractive nor is it particularly appropriate or true in my case. Besides, I haven't lived in this country long enough to be able to prioritize the most rewarding bitch subjects. No, my first experiences with Italian weather, food, people, law, and the completely ineffective way of government and administration have on the whole been very good. All the excruciatingly painful and time-consuming steps of going through the process of getting the necessary paperwork done in order to become a resident, find a job and get insurance - which I know have driven other people insane because of the inefficiency and unfairness of the system - have not been major problems for me. Ergo, I have no problem with the Italian system.

It took me only two hours to get a codice fiscale (something like a social security number but not completely the same), less than three hours to obtain my permesso di soggiorno (residence permit), less than a day to find a job and less than half an hour to get health insurance. 'And why would it take more time and effort? This already seems like quite a hassle', you might ask and would be right in doing so since I moved here from Holland which is an EU country just like Italy. You would be wrong, however, to assume that it is always this easy. Getting your codice fiscale means getting up at an ungodly hour to get in line outside the Agenzia dell'Entrata (Agency of Entrance), waiting a long time before the office actually opens, getting in line to get a form and a ticket and then waiting for hours and hours until it is finally your turn and you get your codice. This should take the better part of a day. However, I was there in August and since there is no one in Milan in August, I was very lucky. With your codice fiscale you can start looking for a job. Looking, not actually getting one yet. Because as long as you don't have a permesso di soggiorno, you are not allowed to work - and as long as you don't have a job, you don't get a permesso di soggiorno.

However, being a teacher of English does have its advantages. There appears to be an enormous shortage of English teachers in Milano, because everywhere I applied I was hired instantly, even though I'm not a qualified teacher at all. But I will discuss my new employment in a later post. What is important is that you can get a permesso di soggiorno with a declaration from your future employer stating that they will hire you as soon as the government gives you your permesso. However, this is usually not all you need. You may need to show that you have health insurance in the country you come from, that you have enough means of support (copy of your creditcard), the receipt from the booking of the hotel room you stayed in the very first night you were here, a statement from your regular baker that you really are one of his customers, a T-shirt with the text 'I *heart* the pope' printed on it, that you know all the words of the translation of the Italian anthem in Venetian dialect or a certificate proving that you are related to the neighbour of the sister of the grandmother of the family doctor of the regular grocer of the intimate friend of the brother of the assistant of the caretaker of Berlusconi's cat. Fortunately, I didn't need any of those things, but my passport, codice fiscale, declaration from my future employer and some photographs were quite enough to get me a permesso for the period of five years.

Five years? Most people just get one for one year - or maybe two - but never five, not the very first time. Everybody else has to go back to get his permesso renewed every year, but not me. This is a very effective action of the Italian government, because not only do I save time and effort by not having to come back every year but I was also done in under three hours. This is quite remarkable, since the experience at the questura (police station) where one gets one's permesso is like the one at the Agenzia dell'Entrata. Except that it is supposed to be much, much worse. On average, it takes about two days to get your permesso, but people have been known to have to return five or more times (Olaf, for instance, has been to two different questura offices to try to get his permesso renewed (and waited in line there) and was finally told to come back in October). Unless of course if the man who owns the store where you buy your cigarettes is an acquaintance of a friend of a friend of a friend of a friend of a police offer, because in that case you can obviously get an appointment and don't have to stand in line.

With your permesso di soggiorno you can go to the Ufficio Communale, the local municipality, to register. This takes a few hours of filling out forms and waiting, but when it's your turn you come to the counter where the bored employee tells you everything is in order and that within a few weeks a police officer will come by your house to check whether or not you really live there. When the police officer has checked this and is satisfied that you do, you have to wait about three months until your carta d'identita (identity card) is ready with which you can get the free health insurance. Although the police officer hasn't come to my house yet and the three months have not even started yet, we decided to take our chances. I had absolutely no trouble registering for ASL (the free health insurance), even though I didn't have my carta d'identita yet.

So all is well and the paperwork almost done (I will have to go and pick up my carta d'identita at some point) and I am very happy about that. Next post will be about casa nostra and will have pictures! Ciao, Fe

And in the beginning god created the heavens and the earth...

Where to begin? When writing a theological text about the beginning of everything while trying to persuade your readers/listeners that the god you advocate is the one who set it all in motion, this is not a very hard thing to do. You simply start with the beginning of creation by your omnipresent and all-powerful god. But what when you're starting somewhere in the middle? You can't just start telling the things that happen to you, you have to create a beginning. In such a case one has to open with a bang, with a very beautiful description or a famous appropriate quote. However, it seems all the good ones have been taken.

It would be so easy if my life was a fairytale, because then I would be able to start with the sadly underestimated but in reality marvelously devised traditional opening sentence 'Once upon a time..' (or, as I am in Italy, 'C'era una volta...'). But my life is not a fairytale, fortunately, because then I would probably be a cliche and no one would bother reading what I have to say. So it's a good thing that my life is not a fairytale, but unfortunately this happy fact does not diminish my stress about finding an appropriate beginning.

I could start at my own beginning, 'To begin my life with the beginning of my life, I record that I was born (as I have been informed and believe)...' But to make matters worse, this has also been done before by no one less than the impressive and witty but sadly sometimes also dull, tedious and sleep-invoking Charles Dickens in his David Copperfield. As I have no wish to be accused of plagiarism nor have any intention of comparing myself with a widely recognized and admired literary genius, it would not be wise to publish here my own disgustingly imperfect version of one of his products of superb inspiration.

No, I am afraid I do not possess the skill and knowledge to think up a beautiful, singular, perfect, one-of-a-kind, wildly inspirational and inimitable beginning of my own. There is, however, one author who has written the perfect beginning appropriate for a story starting in medias res and that is Robert Jordan. Please ignore the references to the fictional history and geography of the story he is about to tell, but think about the notion that time is immeasurable and repetitive and that there are many beginnings. That is what tickled my fancy.

'The Wheel of Time turns, and Ages come and pass, leaving memories that become legend. Legend fades to myth, and even myth is long forgotten when the Age that gave it birth comes again. In one Age, called the Third Age by some, an Age yet to come, an Age long past, a wind rose in the Rhannon Hills. The wind was not the beginning. There are neither beginnings nor endings to the turning of the Wheel of Time. But it was a beginning.'