Happy birthday to me!

Ciao tutti,

Guess what?! It's my birthday! Happy birthday to me, happy birthday to me, happy biiiiiiirthday dear Fedor! Happy birthday to me!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Anyone who'd like to wish me the same thing, please leave a comment. ;-) Well, as I'm not really celebrating today, there is really no reason to tell you how I'm spending it. Because I'm not doing anything, except for trying to get rid of my hangover. Wanna find out how I got it? Keep on reading or just skip to the end the text!

Life's going well. Not much to say really and I can imagine it gets boring to read the same things over and over again in every single post I publish. So, in order not to lose my precious audience - that is growing smaller and smaller as it is anyway - I won't bore you with phrases like 'I'm enjoying my work' and 'I've got interesting students'. The only interesting thing I have to tell about my job is that I'm in need of more work. Several of my courses are ending over the next few weeks and I suddenly realised I don't have any new ones to compensate for that. Need to work on that!

Moving on to happier topics, I finally managed to go swimming. I went at a time when they were actually open and I didn't have to wait at all, how amazing is that???? I'm not really happy about the time because it's at 9.30pm but at least I now know that there is at least one hour a week I can go swimming. It was really busy though, which I initially didn't really like because swimming with 12 people a lane in a 25 meter pool just isn't perfect. But on the other hand it forces you to get into a certain rhythm and makes sure you can't pause too long. So, in the end it didn't take me as long as I had calculated it would take and it was really good exercise. So, I guess we'll continue doing this.

Last weekend, my uni friend Fomsjk (Femke) and her boyfriend Ruud came over for a visit. They were the first visitors we had had in a long time, as the last ones were Bart and Tineke who visited us in August. We were definitely ready to open the hotel doors again, although I don't think we'll be as busy as last year. We had a lovely time, did the usual tour of Milan, ate a lot, drank well (but not too much) and played loads of games. I didn't win any of them, but I did enjoy original Cluedo, the Cluedo card game, Trivial Pursuit and Café International. Here are some pics:


On Thursday, Olaf left to go to a conference in Utrecht and my parents, my little brother and his girlfriend arrived to celebrate my birthday with me this weekend. My mother arrived early because she had been on holiday in Pisa before taking the train to Milan and this gave us a nice chance to catch up before meeting the others. Their plane arrived very late and we didn't have time to spend more time together than an hour of two because I had to go home relatively early in order to get enough sleep to be able to work the next day. They spent Friday sightseeing in the rain while I taught my last lessons and we went to La Padellaccia afterwards for some ginormous pizzas. I have to admit that - to my surprise and shame - I just wasn't able to finish my pizza. We finished that evening at the vineria and drank some really good wine.

Yesterday, we went to the city centre and my parents and I visited Cimitero Monumentale after that, while Ward and Machteld went shopping. Olaf came back that afternoon and we had dinner in a lovely restaurant where I had never been before. It was relatively cheap and the great thing about it was that drinks were included in the price and you could drink as much wine as you wanted!!! As we are proper Dutch people, I doubt they made a very big profit... We continued at our place for a lot more wine and I don't remember anymore at what time we went to bed, but it was a great night!! This is the reason I'm hung over today but at least I didn't have to do anything. My poor family had to catch their flight back home. I can only imagine how they must have felt...

And of course there were prezzies. Beautiful candle holders, Dutch St. Nicholas candy, a book and money to spend on a trip to a destination of our choice to visit another one of Hillman's wonders were much appreciated, but the most amazing gift of all was given to me by my beloved hubby. Olaf actually got me a vacuum cleaner, a proper Hoover! Hoove! Hoove! Hoove! (Yes, I know that I have to turn it on and not just make the sound, thanks Eddie...). I am such a housewife!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

XXX, Fe

I wanna go swimming!!!!!!!!!!!!

Ciao tutti,

I don't understand Italians. Well actually, I don't understand Italians who work in swimming pools. I have been trying to take up swimming again ever since we got back from our holiday, but for some reason I just haven't been able to. It all started before we went on holiday when I tried to go swimming in early August. According to Italians, the middle of summer is a obviously good time to close all swimming pools, because - let's face it - who would want to go swimming when it's 35 degrees?!?!?! So they closed down the two pools closest to our house to do them up. Fortunately, I was able to go to an outside pool in August, but they naturally closed it on 1 September, because that's when winter started. Winter?!?! Yes, winter! Italians tend to think winter starts when summer holidays are over, so I was without a pool until the end of September. After that, when the pool I usually go to reopened, I was really excited and wanted to pick up my routine again. But they just don't want me to. Whenever I go, they're always closed. The first time they had some kind of private party going on so I wasn't allowed to enter. This disappointed me, but I didn't think much of it. The second time they were just randomly closed, which annoyed me quite a bit. However, one would think one would get lucky at some point, right? Wrong! This morning, Olaf and I got up really early to finally be able to go swimming. However, even though the website said they were open until 9h30, when we we got there it turned out they closed at 9h00, because it's obviously extremely important to get everyone out of the water 30 minutes before the first lesson starts... Don't even get me started on that!! To put it in the words of Lady Catherine de Burgh, 'I was quite put out!'.

Anyway, this minor inconvenience - which actually bothers me quite a lot because I have been growing a little belly during our holidays - life's going well. I'm having some problems digesting but I'm sure that will pass and having to teach English and Dutch is getting me a little bit confused language wise, but we can't expect life to be always easy, now can we? I'm enjoying my teaching and being back in Milan. I'm also really looking forward to having visitors again as we haven't had any since Bart and Tineke before we went on holiday. Femke and Ruud are going to be the first ones this weekend. Belinda is also going to be in town as of Thursday and I'm really excited to see her again!

Last weekend was nice though, our last weekend without visitors. Marta is in town and we had a lovely aperitivo with her and some friends of Olaf's last Tuesday and we saw them again yesterday evening. We went out for cocktails to say goodbye to her and to Björn, who left today to go to Germany to do an internship. Poor Olaf, nearly everyone from his year has now gone to work abroad for some time, well at least we've still got Idil! Last Saturday, Nina and Anto came over to enjoy Olaf's home-made sushi, which was lovely. We enjoyed ourselves immensely but had a little bit too much to drink though...

I don't have that much to tell, really. You know how life is, it just is. There are periods you do a lot of cool things worthy of mentioning, but there are also those weeks when nothing interesting happens. This is one of those periods. Will update soon with more news worth writing about.

XXX, Fe

Düsseldorf!

Ciao tutti,

Last weekend, we went to Düsseldorf in Germany to visit Stephanie, one of Olaf's uni friends. She and her boyfriend Henning came to visit us last year and we had such a blast that we decided to go and visit them in their new hometown. Unfortunately, Henning had gone off on his trip around the world (and who could blame him, seriously?!?!), so it was just the three of us. It was great! Even though we hadn't seen Stephie for almost a year, we immediately hit it off again, laughed a lot and enjoyed the city immensely. We were supposed to fly around 2 pm last Saturday but RyanAir apparently felt the need to change flight times so we didn't arrive until midnight. It shortened our visit a lot, but hey, at least we got to see Stephie! And I got to practise my German a little bit. Although I'm not too crazy about the Germans language and Germans in general, I realised that I do love their beer culture. They have these amazing breweries in the city, where you can just sit or stand outside on the street and have home-brewed beer, and nobody looks at you like you're a sad, stupid and lower-class alcoholic!!!

Here are some pictures:













I could tell you a lot about our weekend, but - as stated earlier - the pictures speak for themselves. Consequently, I leave you with a cordial 'Guten nacht!'

XXX, Fe

A morning in church and a weekend in Paris

Ciao tutti,

Come state? Io bene. Allora, last Thursday I unexpectedly found myself in church. How did this happen? Well, I was supposed to have a lesson at 9 am, but when I got there my student called and said she couldn't come. This meant that I had a lot of time to kill so I decided to go into town to try and find a travel guide for Paris, where we spent last weekend. When I got to the bookstore, however, it was still closed and wouldn't open until 10 am. This bookstore, however, is right next to Duomo and I realised I hadn't been in there for quite a while. So, I went in and immediately knew I had made the right choice. As it was really early in the morning on a weekday, there was hardly anyone there - no tourists and no locals either. I walked around the cathedral and admired the stained-glass windows, as I always do, and then I sat down. I just sat there and thought about a lot of things. It wasn't anything special really, but it was some time to myself I hadn't expected and sitting there in the empty, silent church created a perfect atmosphere for thinking. I was happily surprised. Now, mind you, I'm not talking about a religious experience or anything like that and the fact that I was in a church is completely irrelevant, but about the enormously beneficial effects some unexpected time to think and silence can have on you. It simply made me happy.

Friday evening, we went out to dinner with Simona. She wanted to try an Indian restaurant nearby and we happily complied, but the food and the cocktails turned out to be rubbish, unfortunately. That's too bad, because Indian food can be amazing when cooked well. After that disappointing experience, we decided to make up for it by downing some bottles of vino at our local vineria. And that's exactly what we did...

Anyway, Saturday was when our latest little adventure started. Because we both hadn't seen all the wonders Paris has to offer (Eiffel Tower, Louvre, Versailles (www.hillmanwonders.com)) and Olaf and I will have been together for 3 years by the end of this month, we decided to spend some money on a weekend in Paris. And it was lovely, although two days was really way too short to enjoy everything. We arrived Saturday afternoon and by the time we had checked into our hotel the sun was already nearly down - it's so strange to think we've already passed the autumnal equinox even though summer has only just ended, isn't it? Anyway, we jumped into a metro to get to Montmartre to see the Sacré-Coeur (church) and the Moulin Rouge. After that we had a lovely dinner in a small bar where we had a gorgeous goat cheese salad and a very tasty bottle of rose (Italians really can't produce good rose!).

We spent Sunday at Versailles where they made us pay a preposterous amount to get into the castle and a ridiculous extra fee to be able to enter the gardens just because they had decided to turn the fountains on (seriously, 9 euros per person for a bit of water?!?!). But then again, I suppose that's what you should expect when you go on a Sunday and the weather is good. The castle itself is not worth the entrance fee though, but if you ever get to Paris, go and see the gardens. They're amazing! Afterwards, we took a metro to the city centre and were just in time to see the Notre-Dame before it closed. Subsequently, we were very tired and decided to take a walk across Ile-de-St-Louis and then back along the north bank of the Seine to Hôtel de Ville. That night we ate at a lovely Vietnamese restaurant across the street from our hotel and spent the rest of the evening in bed playing Celebrity, Celebrity while drinking cheap rosé.

On Sunday we got up really early to avoid the queue for the Louvre and we managed admirably. We spent 6 hours in there and still only saw a few sections (some Italian and French paintings because we immediately ran to the Mona Lisa to be able to get a good look at it, Mesopotamia, Iran, the Levant and Egypt). By then it was already 2.30pm and we just did some highlights of the other sections (Venus de Milo and some Italian Romantic sculptures). I would have loved to do the Greek and Roman sections and especially the rest of the sculptures section as well, but we just didn't have the time. We also wanted to see Père-la-Chaise, Paris' famous cemetery, because we had heard so much about it. People always compare it to our Milanese Cimitero Monumentale and it was time we found out for ourselves whether the comparisons were true or not. In the end, the two cemeteries turned out to be completely different. Cimitero Monumentale is very ostentatious, pompous and bombastic, obviously made by people wanting to show off how much money they possessed, whereas Père-la-Chaise is very silent, solemn and grey. It's not the graves that are important but the people who are buried there. At Cimitero Monumentale all the graves are of international nobodies who want to be admired after their deaths, whereas the deceased at Père-la-Chaise have known fame and simply want a quiet place to rest. We the graves of several famous people: Edith Piaf, Sarah Bernhardt, Georges Bizet, Georges Enesco, Oscar Wilde and of course Jim Morrison's disappointing little resting place - I suppose you have to be a real admirer to be impressed by that simple piece of stone. I must admit we failed to find Molière, La Fontaine and Chopin though, something I consider as a personal failure.

In the end Olaf saw two more wonders of the lists (Versailles, Louvre) and I could just add the Louvre to mine, which gives him a score of 28 and me one of 26. But that's ok, I'm sure I'll catch up with him someday. And now it's back to work as usual. But not before showing you some pictures of Paris:

The Sacré-Coeur by night

The real Moulin Rouge (or rather, a modern replica)

An overview of the garden at Versailles

Me imitating a plant in the shape of an amphora, don't ask...

Apollo's pond in his own grove

An amazing golden statue of the leader of the giants who, as legend has it, rose up against Zeus' rule of heaven and were punished by being buried under the Earth

The Orangerie at Versailles

Me inside a circle of Renaissance marble columns

An interesting statue at Père-la-Chaise

Père-la-Chaise

Oh well, this weekend it's off to Düsseldorf, I hardly have time to work....

XXX, Fe