Parties galore

Ciao tutti,

I realise it has been ages since I wrote anything and I apologise. It's not that I haven't had the time or that I've had a lot on my mind, really, at least not all the time, but I just didn't get around to it. Anyway, a lot has happened in the mean time and this mainly consists of guests and parties - aka nice things!

I've worked more than I expected to this month but I still didn't have a full schedule, so I've been getting used to the summer and making plans for July - when I'll only have a few classes and Olaf will obviously still be working. The end of my evening group courses for CTL was a particularly liberating event, because this means I now have my evenings off! I can finally go out for aperitivo during the week or spend my evenings relaxing at home instead of rushing in order to be able to eat, spend some quality time with Olaf, check my emails, maybe watch a short movie and still go to bed at a reasonably early time. To cut a long story short, I'm happy with all the time I've got. The prospect of earning practically nothing next month doesn't make me smiley-faced, however, but I've been trying to anticipate that over the year. I just hope I've saved enough. In order to make a little extra cash I've started a course with a private student (who is paying me considerably more than any of my schools have ever done!) and I'm taking part in Corporate English' new try-out, the English Conversation Special, a short low-intensity five-week course based on conversation. Students can sign up for this in order to playfully improve their English before going on holiday simply by talking to each other under the supervision of a teacher. Unfortunately, not many people have signed up for it so I'm just going to have to see how many classes I'll actually get to teach!

But on to the happier topics mentioned earlier: guests and parties. The weekend after Andrea visited, Olaf's friends Bard and Marlous came to grace us with another visit. This was his fourth and her second time in Milan, so we could relax and didn't have to do the mandatory tour. On Saturday, we went to Monza, a small Medieval town near Milan (it's actually more like a suburb now), a place we had been planning to go to for some time but had never had a chance to actually go and see (yes, that's the Monza where the Formula 1 circuit is). The town was very small, cute and had a lot of fresh air (I just don't realise how heavily polluted the air in Milan really is). We spent a substantial part of the afternoon relaxing in the famous and lovely Parco di Monza, getting a tan and watching babes (male babes, obviously!).

That weekend the party season started. Belinda and Enrico were back in town for a week and that Saturday evening Simona had invited us for an African dinner so we could all meet and catch up, which I enjoyed immensely. That Monday one of my CTL courses finished and my students took me out to a restaurant specialising in Argentinian meat - e mi è piacuto molto!!! On Tuesday, my last CTL course finished and those students also wanted to take me out to dinner but unfortunately we're still discussing a date and I'm not sure we're ever going to find one. Oh well, it's the thought that counts, right?

Last weekend, we finally got to organise a party of our own. We realised we had never had a party at casa nostra before and decided it was time. We called it our 'housewarming party', even though we've already been living here for eleven months - so we subtitled it 'summer celebration'. We invited all our colleagues and friends and prepared a lot of food. We had a great time, although the crowd was a little smaller than expected and got horribly, horribly drunk! We almost forgot to take pictures, here are just a few:

Björn, Idil and Mariangela

Nina and Marta

Paola

We of course enjoyed some lovely voddy melon...

Don't Nina and I look like a couple?!

In the end, drunk as we were, we decided to do something about the constant mosquito attacks we had been suffering all evening. So, the evening ended in a MOSQUITO BLOOD & GOREFEST!!!

... which we didn't appreciate that much the next morning.... but then again we had to clean anyway. Well, at least we didn't have to cook but could eat left-overs from the party for two days!

This week was quite relaxing. I finished some more courses and did a lot of overdue admin. On Monday, some CTL students who hadn't been able to do their tests could come in for make-up appointments and that more or less concluded my year with them. On Thursday, they organised an international aperitivo in English for all our students, but unfortunately only one of mine showed up. I didn't really mind as I wasn't getting paid anyway and I had a lovely chat with some of my colleagues I didn't know very well - while drinking beers of course. I actually found out two of my colleagues are gay (which makes us a very large minority seeing as there are only 8 or so people working there) and another one is actually Dutch - although hearing someone speak Dutch at CTL was a bit disconcerting...

After we had cleaned up, had all said our goodbyes and had wished each other a very good summer, Stefano and I went to Peter's goodbye cocktail party. Peter (former director of studies at Corporate English) hasn't been able to get his permesso di soggiorno renewed and is forced to relocate to London for at least two years. I'm quite sorry to see him go, because I think he was a good manager and we worked well together. Anyway, while having some cocktails I realised I had completely forgotten to have dinner and started worrying about the rest of the night, although nothing happened - to me that is. At some point Veronica started acting weird because she had inadvertently got really drunk while suffering from a broken heart - and alcohol and broken hearts don't really combine very well. Caroline, Paola and I spent about an hour trying to get her into a taxi, but they wouldn't take her because she kept lying down on the pavement and the drivers even suggested to call an ambulance. In the end, we found a taxi that would take her and Caroline took her home. Paola and I didn't really feel like drinking and partying anymore after this and after saying our goodbyes to Pete we went home.

Yesterday, Moniquita (my Mexican colleague Monica, our Spanish teacher) invited us to her husband's birthday party aperitivo where I had some lovely Spanish food (Olaf suffered a little bit because everything contained meat but got by on nibbles with guacamole quite well) and where we met Caroline, Paola and a recovering Veronica (who had stayed home sick all day). After that, we rushed off to meet Olaf's study mates as the first year PhD students had finished their last exam and were celebrating that with lots of booze. We joined them for a little drinky-poo, because most of them are leaving for the rest of the summer quite soon and won't be back until September. We didn't stay out too little though, because we had to get up quite early this morning to clean the house because Stéphanie and Marieke are arriving today. They were supposed to arrive around noon, but unfortunately their plane has been delayed quite a lot. I hope they'll arrive soon because I'm really looking forward to their visit - especially, because summer sales are starting tomorrow and we need to shop till we drop!

I've also taken up swimming again which makes me feel really good. I haven't swum for years, but it's something you just can't unlearn. I still remember almost all the strokes (although I just can't get the hang of butterfly stroke anymore) and it's getting easier to get my breathing right every time I go. This is pretty much what has been going on in my life. As for plans for the summer, we won't go on holiday until 20th August, although we might make a little trip before that. So what am I going to do with my free time? You'll think I'm crazy but I'm actually going to study. I haven't read any Latin or Greek this year and I feel like it's slipping away from me. So, I've decided to start reading Homer's Iliad in Greek. My goal is to read all 24 books from the beginning to the end, we'll see if I make it...

Ciao, Fe

Uffa nien!

Ciao tutti,
You must be thinking that you must be dreaming to hear from me again, but it's true! I'm back but only for a short while. I don't have that much to say but came across some nice pictures on Facebook which I just have to show you! Scroll down for them.

Uffa nien sta weekend, this is Milanese dialect for 'I didn't do anything this weekend'. Olaf's friend Andrea was staying with us and while they were doing the tour I spent the greater part of the weekend on my own. I slept a lot, read in the park while getting a tan, did housework (being the little housewife that I am) and in the evenings we went out to La Padellacia and Mas. We had a lovely time discussing and grading the men we saw on the streets... And there were a lot of men as tourists have started to arrive in Milan and the terraces have opened so the nice ones can display themselves! It turns out that we have quite dissimilar tastes in men though...

Anyway, I promised you some pictures and here they are. Just to give you an impression of some of the people I've been mentioning but who I never had photos of until now:

Olaf, Andrea and me. Olaf thinks that I look really sexy in this picture, but I can only see my second chin...

Marta, Idil and me at Dominik's goodbye party

Me and Marta at Annaïg's birthday party

Bex, Emily and me (last teacher meeting Corporate English)

Nissrine and me (same night)

With Paola, my Italian teacher and - need I say - a babe!

Ciao, Fe

PS By the way, you need to see this. I found it on YouTube. It's a spoof of an American psychic called Miss Cleo. The voice you're hearing is hers...

Travesty

Ciao all,

Life has obviously gone on since my last post, so I thought it was time to write something again. As the year is ending and summer is approaching a lot my courses have finished or are finishing, so I have been busy with end of course tests. And besides this, it was scorching hot for a few weeks, which was absolutely lovely but also didn't make me want to do much except lying in the sun and getting a tan. Stefano, CTL's course manager, started at Corporate English to help out as well and he has been a nice addition to our team. It's always nice to have people around you who are nice and know what they are doing, so I'm very happy that he is now my colleague at both my companies!

The Wednesday after Mignon and Sander left, there was a teacher meeting at Corporate English. As I have told you before, this is usually just an excuse to - after the necessary hour or so of getting updated on everything that's happening and exchanging teaching experiences to learn from each other - go out, have dinner and get drunk, completely paid for by the boss. I had to work at CTL until 21h30 that night, so I joined them for cocktails. It was lovely to see everyone in a social setting and to meet my new colleagues (as Corporate English has been expanding a lot), even though this was the night of the champion's league final between AC Milan and Liverpool. Because AC Milan won, the city obviously went crazy. There were people shouting and blowing their horns all night which on the one hand sort of diminished our quiet evening out, but on the other hand increased the atmosphere immensely. I am no football fan, and if I were I certainly wouldn't support AC Milan, but it is nice to see people this excited and laughing all the time. Maybe there's something about football I just don't get after all... Anyway, I had to get up early the next morning so I said my goodbyes around 1 o'clock to get my much needed five hours of sleep. The others stayed out until 4am though and judging by their faces the next day, I was very happy I had made the wise decision. It was hard enough to fall asleep as the italiani di merda didn't stop shouting and honking until late.

That Friday I went to the theatre to see a rendition of Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew by Propeller, an all-male English theatre company. It was hilarous, as the male and female roles were both played by men which of course incited a lot of laughter and comic situations. Combined with the fact that the play is a comedy anyway, I of course laughed my head off! Although the play is not considered by everyone to be completely politically correct (in the end the shrew is tamed and transformed into a goodly little housewife who obeys her husband in everything he asks of her), I thought it was nice - though a bit harsh at times. The important thing is to remember that the whole thing is a play within a play designed to entertain a drunken madman, so it's not to be taken seriously but as a malicious joke played on the drunk guy, which makes up for a lot even if Shakespeare doesn't make clear that the play is, in fact, meant as a joke.

That Saturday Olaf's mother Ingrid and her friend Hennie arrived and we spent some lovely days together. Unfortunately the temperature dropped phenomenally and it rained all the time, so the visit wasn't as optimal as it could have been. However, we made the best of it and amused ourselves with food (La Padellaccia and Mas on the weekend and Olaf took them to Wasabi on Monday when I had to work), drinking, games (Uno rocks!), Cimitero Monumentale, High-Tech and of course the antiques market on Sunday, which was one of the main reasons they had chosen that weekend.

The week after that it rained, rained, rained and was cold, too cold if you ask me - although the Milanese didn't seem to mind. I mean, not that I was disproportionally cold, but it's just not the kind of weather I moved to Italy for. Anyway, last weekend was another free weekend, meaning without guests. On Friday evening we went to Dominik's goodbye party (Dominik is a visiting student at Bocconi and one of Olaf's friends) and on Saturday we didn't do anything. We slept really late and decided not to go out that evening because it was raining - even though it was Notte Bianca (or "White Night", which means all the shops were supposed to be open). We just stayed in, cleaned our house and watched movies that evening. We also finally had time to plan and book our holiday, so we spent some lovely hours on that! It turned out that the prices of all the flights to Russia had gone up which took it out of our price range to go there as we had been discussing for a while. So, this is our itinerary: on 20th August, we're flying to Bucharest in Romania from whence we'll take the train into the Ukraine (possibly via Chisinau in Moldova) to Odessa, Kyiv and Lviv and will end up near Krakow in Poland. From there we'll take a plane to Holland on 3th or 4th September where we'll stay until 10th. So, for anyone who's interested, we'll be in Holland again very soon and will stay for almost a week!

On Sunday, we went to Cimitero Monumentale because there were a lot of arty performances. The weather turned out to be lovely and it was an unexpectedly very hot day. We saw a jazz choir, some theatrical dance (the performers of which might have been presenting existing statues at Cimitero, but we're not sure) and waltzing on stilts between the graves, which gave it all a magical effect. And as has been said many times before, by me as well as other people, there is no way that words can be as powerful and comprehensive as words, so please just look at the pictures. I hope you'll be able to catch some of the magical and mysterious atmosphere:

The jazz choir which was amazing

A couple of theatrical dancers pretending to be.... well, zombies was all I could thing of!

Another theatrical dancer working herself into a sweat imitating what seemed to be a bull scratching its hooves on the ground in preparation of attack

It's amazing how the waltzers could coordinate to dance the familiar patterns while being on stilts

It wasn't just a dance but also a little show, with mock sword fights and balloons

Olaf has got me hooked on Facebook, which is like Hyves but a more mature version, and although I haven't gone as bonkers as he has about it, it is most definitely a nice way to communicate with friends who are far away. After writing the rest of this post, I had a short interview with my boss at CTL who wants to talk to me about extending my contract and 'making it a bit more definite' and we're meeting two weeks from now, which has put me in a good mood!

Ciao a tutti e buonanotte, Fe

PS By the way, if you've ever wanted to chat with God, try to ask her some questions at http://www.titane.ca/igod/, it's hilarious....