As announced before, we went to Holland for a family weekend organised by my mum. It was wonderful. The weather was surprisingly good Friday and Saturday and we were able to take a walk through a nearby forest and some fields. We enjoyed the sunshine and each other's companies. Obviously, lots of alcohol was consumed and we also had our (Olaf's and mine anyway) first barbecue of the season. The evenings were spent playing board and card games and I am proud to say I won one of the round of the new trivial pursuit, although the new questions seriously damaged my confidence and made me feel like a complete nitwit for knowing absolutely nothing. Fortunately, the others weren't much better and that helped a little. I still prefer the 1987 version though, at least I know more than 50% of the answers belonging to the questions on that one. Of course, it was great to see everybody again, that goes without saying, and we had some good talks. I particularly enjoyed talking incoherent nonsense with my brothers and making stupid sex jokes. And then, there was Jolien (my soon-to-be sister-in-law), obviously the centre of attention as she is carrying the first scion of the new generation of Van Rijn's inside of her. At five months, her pregnancy is really showing and I am glad to be able to report that all is going extremely well. I can't wait for the baby to be born, and am looking forward to going back for Hascar and Jolien's wedding later this month. For pictures see Olaf's picture website: http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/ojdegroot/FamilyWeekendEtc/
This week was quite slow, as I had a lot of cancellations. This was just the still before the storm though, as we have been informed by Sky that all our group courses have to be finished by 1st July. At the moment, Sky has got three offices in Milan and as of July they are all moving to one new complex that is nearly ready. In order to prevent mix-ups booking rooms for the lessons, we are just going to have to study much harder. This is more easily said that done. I still have full schedule for a couple of weeks and don't have that much extra time, so it took us a while to figure it all out. So June is going to be very busy, but July will be incredibly slow. Oh well, at least that means I can start getting used to being on holiday somewhat earlier. Today is another one of the random days off that the Italian, la Festa della Repubblica (Republic Day), so I am at home sitting on my couch, writing emails, preparing lessons and relaxing before all hell breaks loose tomorrow. I was a little bit concerned because Olaf is pretty much going to be gone until the beginning of July, as he has got conferences and workshops all over the world, but I guess this is actually a good thing because I wouldn't have a lot of time for him anyway and will be probably be grumpy quite often. There's really just one thing left to do before he leaves tomorrow morning, we have to figure out where to go on holiday and book it!!! And then there is a free Andrea Bocelli concert at Piazza Duomo tonight and I am really looking forward to that.
Last Saturday, we went out for drinks at La Hora Feliz (where else!) with Louisa and Amanda and some other random people. To our surprise, there was a Dutch girl there who turned out to be a lot of fun. We enjoyed ourselves immensely, Irene and I shared loads of cigarettes and the evening progressed nicely to the point where we were all best friends and were discussing the most curious nonsense. On Sunday, we decided to leave Milan for the afternoon and went to Lodi, a small town South of Milan with a cute medieval centre. It was part of the duchy of Sforzas (the dukes of Milan) in the 14th and 15th centuries and city centres shows many examples and traces of typical Sforza architecture. Here are some pictures
We had an interesting experience here. Italian waiters and waitresses, who are not known for their efficiency in general, were brought to a new all-time low. We sat down for lunch at around 2.30 on the central piazza, expecting to pay a little bit more than we would elsewhere but couldn't really be bothered to find another place. There were about 6 people sitting on the terrace and they had 8 people to wait on them, so we thought we would be quite safe.
After 10 to 15 minutes of waiting, we decided to try to get the attention of the waitresses by waving and winking and after about 10 more minutes they finally noticed. When we asked for and got the menu (having been there for about 30 minutes now), it turned out that there were no prices next to the primi. So, we spent another 10 minutes trying to get our waitress' attention and when she finally came we asked her how much having lunch would actually cost. This is what she told us: 'Well, actually, I haven't worked here for that long so I don't know anything about the prices. I'll go and check with my colleague.' Obviously, when you start as a waitress you're instructions are pretty much this: 'Ignore as many customers as you possibly can, discuss the weather and TV programmes with your colleagues, walk around pretending not to see anything, don't smile and, most importantly, don't know anything!'.
After that, she came back with an older colleague who told us in an annoyed voice that the prices were inside the menus. When we showed her that they were not, she was taken aback, sighed deeply and said she didn't know anything about the prices of anything they sold. She would have to go to the cashier, debate with him, find out all the different prices and report back to us. In the end, we told her just to ask about the prices of the two primi we wanted (we were quite hungry by now) and she returned relatively fast after about 5 minutes. As it turned out, all primi were 9 euros - seriously, don't you think it would be useful to know things like this if you are working as a waitress during lunchtime???? Anyway, I ordered a pasta, Olaf had a panino and we decided we had earned ourselves a little prosecco. So, the prosecco and Olaf's panino arrived soon, but I had to wait for my pasta for another 15 minutes. If you ever go to Lodi, I suggest you find another place to have lunch at.
Anyway, the town was cute but nothing special, although I did manage to find the largest part of Ferroni's 'Storia della Letteratura Italiana' (7 volumes for 10 euros). Later that evening, I went running for the first time in ages and I'm still feeling my muscles. We topped the night off with a visit to the Irish pub to have a few beers with Gerry, Domenico, Gunesh and Giovanni.
So, tonight we're to Piazza Duomo for the Andrea Bocelli concert and I'll be working my ass off (and missing Olaf) for the rest of the week. There's one thing I am looking forward to though, Wednesday night Paola and I are going to the opera The Changeling (not at the Scala unfortunately). I'll let you know how it was!
Ciao, Fe
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