Home is where the heart is

Ciao ciao,

Here I am again. I didn't have time to post anything during the heavy week I was telling you about - because it was crazy! - and after that I went to Nijmegen for the weekend. This was actually not as easy as it sounded, because the asshole Italians had of course planned an air traffic controllers strike on Monday and I couldn't afford to come back later as I get paid by the hour (the first available flight after that would have been on Thursday). I was quite close to crying that Friday afternoon, because I was really looking forward to seeing my friends and family again - and I was really tired from the week, which didn't make me feel strong, confident or decisive at all! I looked for some other weekends I could postpone my visit to, but, alas!, every Monday had the same problem. Seriously, why don't those evil Italians just realise that - even though I support the workers right to strike - enough is enough! You don't have to go on strike every two weeks to be taken seriously. And if you do, and you're not taken seriously, just give it up! Anyway, after a lot of deliberation and some tears, Olaf found a train I could take on Monday morning, which would cost me quite a lot of money (although of course not as much as missing all those lessons) but at least it would ensure my return to Italy on Monday. So, I went anyway.

And it was great. I am so glad that I went! I had been experiencing something a good friend of mine described as the expat's wives' syndrome. Apparently, it's quite common for partners of expats to get a backlash between 6 and 9 months after leaving their country to be with their partners. And although I am not the average expat wife - they are generally blond bimbo's who have absolutely nothing to do besides shopping and going to the gym and who don't have any friends except for other expat wives because they don't speak Italian (trust me, I've seen them!), whereas as I have a job, don't go to the gym, hardly ever go shopping, speak Italian and don't know any expat wives - I did come to Italy to be with Olaf. For those of you thinking I forgot one important difference between me and the average expat wives, yes, I realise that I am not a woman... it just seemed to 'duh' to mention. Well, to cut a long story short, I had been experiencing some doubts and had been wondering about whether or not I had made the right choice, whether or not I was happy here and whether or not I felt at home. The conclusion to the last question was that I do feel at home here in Milan and in our apartment and could definitely not go back to Nijmegen now, but that I do feel lonely here sometimes. The main reasons for this are that I usually don't feel very sociable after a full day of listening to students talk about whatever subjects they like and pretending to be interested in order to stimulate them to continue and that we usually have visitors every weekend. This means that I don't have a lot of time to make friends here and build on relationships. And when the only real friend I had made, Belinda, told me she was leaving to Belgium with her new husband, something snapped inside me and I started feeling really bad and alone. This situation has been resolved now but was the cause of some heavy weeks and some tensions between me and Olaf. But fortunately, we can talk about anything and when I finally mustered the courage to talk to him about it, we spent a night talking and crying. But that night helped a lot. The most important reason I felt so bad was that I kept it inside and didn't speak to him about it. Just talking about it was a load off my mind.

So, my trip to Holland was very important to me. When I went I expected to find a place I didn't belong anymore, which I hoped would make me realise Milan is definitely my home now. But the reality couldn't have been further from the truth. Nothing has changed, nothing at all. Of course, people have grown older a little, some of them have changed jobs, others have graduated in the mean time or are in the process of graduating, but in general the people there were still pretty much as they had been when I left. I felt very welcome and part of the different 'groups' again (my family, for instance, or my study mates). This disturbed me a bit the last time I went to Holland, but this visit it was different. The familiarity, openness and easy acceptance gave me confidence and fortified me. It felt like everybody was unconsciously saying that, if I ever decide I want to come back, I won't have to start all over again but that we can just pick up where we left off. This felt good, because I did feel bad about leaving a lot of people like that. I've always liked being the shoulder to cry on and being easy to talk to - oh yes, I reckoned myself to be the perfect little psychologist! - and found it difficult to leave especially those people who were going through some rough times. I mean, I don't delude myself that I'm more than I am, but I've always wanted to be there for people and to try to help them as best as I could, even if all I could do was listen. And the familiarity was extended even this far, people still weren't afraid to tell me what was bothering them or just to cry. Thank you for still wanting to share your life with me, even though I left you quite suddenly in pursuit of my own goals! But during this year, I've come to accept that people will always have problems and that it's not my responsibility to solve everything even though I might want to - and trust me, that's an important realisation for someone as self-centered as me! So this time, it was easier to leave. And even though this trip didn't have the expected result at all, it was good in a completely different way. My doubts are over and the knowledge that Nijmegen could easily be home again has given me my choice back. And after careful consideration, it turns out that I'm happy with the choice I have made and don't feel like changing it.

So, I came back and went back to work, which was just the same boring stuff - boring to speak about, obviously, not to do. Belinda left for Kortrijk on Tuesday, only to return by car with Enrico on Thursday to move their stuff. So we went out for bye-bye drinks with them on Thursday night. This was fun and didn't last long - as we both had an early start on Friday - but unfortunately it ended badly. Belinda's purse was stolen from underneath her chair and this freaked her out because she thought her passport was in there. She's South African and has only just gotten her permesso di soggiorno based on her marriage to Enrico, but without a passport she wouldn't have been able to leave the country and go to her new home in Belgium. Fortunately, the passport turned out to be in their apartment and she's just missing some replaceable stuff.

My sister Mignon and her boyfriend Sander had already arrived on Wednesday for a long weekend. They wanted and needed some time to themselves at first so they spent two nights together in a hotel. This was the only way we could have done it because Italians don't celebrate Ascension Day (seriously, they celebrate these really weird Christian holidays nobody in the Netherlands has ever even heard of but they just ignore Ascension Day?!) and we had to work on Thursday and Friday. And we've agreed not to have visitors outside of the weekend because it takes up to much time and energy and our (mainly my) work suffers from it. So they got their time together and we got the time to work. I finished really early on Friday and went to get them at their hotel. And it was lovely. Because they had already walked around town on Thursday and had seen a lot of the sights, we could spend a significant part of Friday just lying in the park catching up, chatting and gossiping. Our nights were filled with food at Mas and La Padellaccia, booze and games, games, games, as we obviously had to introduce them to Cafe International...

On Saturday, we went to Como and had a look around this gorgeous place, which wasn't packed with tourists yet as it is still low season. We walked along the lake shore, admired the local Duomo and traversed the lake by pedalo (or "pedalò" in Italian and "waterfiets" in Dutch) where we indulged in some childish fun. We had a lovely time and unfortunately they had to leave again today because tomorrow's just another working day. So they left and we cleaned the house... And now we've got the evening to ourselves. So I'm going to leave you now with a cordial goodbye and some pictures.

Just look at that cute couple!

Me tough helmsman!

Captain Olaf

First mate Sander

Mignonneke is a quite a dish, isn't she?

For more pictures and some interesting home movies, see Olaf's web album: http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/ojdegroot/Como190507.

Ciao, Fe

I promessi sposi

Ciao tutti,
It's already been a week and a half since I last posted something and we are in dire need of an update by yours truly. After Liberation Day I worked Thursday and Friday, although most of my courses were cancelled and I had a lot of free time. On Friday, Marianne and Thijs arrived. Marianne is an old study mate and Thijs is her new boyfriend who I had only met once - very briefly - at my graduation ceremony. It was an interesting weekend. Seeing Marianne again was nice, because she was in Wales when I last came to Holland just after New Year's and we hadn't seen each other since last August. I had a little bit of trouble adjusting to Thijs, though. Let's just leave it at the fact that he's very young and still has a lot to learn about the world - although I suppose he disagrees as youths recently graduated from high school usually do (don't you all remember those days???).

Anyway, when they left, they unfortunately took the good weather with them as well. Last week it rained, rained, thundered, rained, rained, thundered and rained some more. And this rain was very much needed as well. The Italian government has recently declared a state of emergency because there isn't enough water. It has hardly snowed last winter and if we (Italians - I didn't even think of the consequences, I suppose I do consider myself to be Italian by now) continue our usage as we do now, there'll soon be a threatening shortage of water. As the Italian public transport system had announced a national strike on Friday, it goes without saying that it rained cats and dogs that day. As I was walking through this god-forsaken weather, I felt anger piling up inside me and when I found out - two-thirds of the way there - that the metro was working as usual I shouted, but was also very grateful. It's just unfair. It always rains when I have to walk because of a strike - e non mi piace!

Friday afternoon, I met up with Belinda and her family and friends from South Africa and Ireland who had come over for her wedding and showed them around town. I wasn't too impressed with Belinda's mum and brothers, but her Irish friend Miriam ('Blue Girl' - Even though she was the only one to appreciate my tour, I couldn't remember her name at first but could just remember she was wearing something blue) is lovely. Everybody was very anxious about the weather, because Belinda and Enrico had planned to have their wedding reception outside. Fortunately though, it was dry most of the day.

Saturday morning, the kids got married at a lovely city hall branch office next to the Giardini Pubblici ('Public Gardens', a large park in the middle of Milan) and I did my utmost to be the best Matron of Honour I could be - which just means I got to sign as witness. After that we drove to a rural area near Crema for the reception and, even though it rained for about 20 minutes, we were very lucky to be able to spend the rest of the day in the sun. And it only rained while we were eating outside under a cover so the rain didn't bother anybody - well, except for the odd child playing in the courtyard that is. The wedding was lovely, the two of them looked beautiful and most people had a great time. At around 6 pm, a lot of people left but a small group of us stayed to dance and sit around a campfire and have a chance to really talk and get to know each other. I think Belinda and Enrico really valued this part of the day most, because at this point they could stop feeling responsible and just start enjoying this day which was and always will be one of the most important days of their lives. We all got drunk, of course, and started dancing, knocking over bottles, having good conversations, joking around and spending a lovely evening. It's too difficult to describe everything that happened but let me just say that I had a great time. And so did Olaf, I think. We especially had some good laughs when Belinda's Christian fundamentalist friends Mike and Caroline got really drunk and went into a matrimonial crisis - which meant he went for a walk and fell asleep in the mud and she got into sexy dancing and started groping everybody, yours truly and his lover included. I didn't mind it at first until she got into my lap and started whispering how easy it was for her to combine being a Christian with sex - and how much she wanted dick... Anyway, we also met two lovely couples: Nicola (Italian) and Aniela (Flemish) from Verona, who I wouldn't mind seeing again, and Roger and Chiara (both Italians) who were a bit older but very entertaining and awakened my desire to go to Sicily by their description of what must be heaven on earth. Here are some pictures which will illustrate the day and the atmosphere much better than I can describe it.

Just before the official wedding ceremony, they look a bit nervous, don't they?

Belinda looks fantastic, doesn't she? This dress was the cause of a lot of excitement among the conservative Italian visitors...

Rushing by in a horse-drawn cart to make a grand entrance

Cutting the cake

Aren't they looking sexy while making this toast?

She's radiating, looking so happy and beautiful!

Enrico, Belinda, me and Melina

Melina was looking very nice

Belinda had actually made sure that we were seated across from a Flemish girl called Aniela and her Italian boyfriend Nicola. Simona, one of Belinda's friends a lovely - though crazy - Italian lady, just had to get in the middle. I was so surprised and delighted that we were actually able to speak Dutch yesterday!

Being a little drunk Olaf started taking pictures of Nicola, Aniela and me trying to find alternatives for 'Say, Cheese'... This is 'Say Radicchio'

Don't the kids look lovely together?

On Sunday, we slept late, cleaned our house and relaxed a lot. In the evening, we went to Mas for aperitivo with Enrico, Belinda, Miriam and Belinda's family. We couldn't let them go back to South Africa and Ireland without introducing them to the concept of aperitivo, now could we? Melina joined us later and we were very happy she came, because we wanted to find out whether she had 'gotten together' with Marco the night before - he's an Italian friend of Enrico's who gave us a lift back to Milan Saturday evening, who Melina got on with quite well and who she ended up alone in the car with after they had dropped us and Simona off. They would be a great couple, but unfortunately nothing happened. Well, that just means we're going to have to put some more effort into getting her a boyfriend...

Today, my working week started and it started heavily. As two of my colleagues are on holiday, the rest of us need to cover a lot of courses and I'm working about 35 hours this week. Well, at least this'll liven up my paycheck this month. I've got an early start tomorrow, so I'm wishing you all goodnight and sweet dreams now. And for those in Nijmegen, I'll see you all in 4 or 5 days.

Ciao, Fe