Summer edition

Ciao all,

I have been completely incommunicado recently, but I am not going to apologise for it for a change. The rest of June and first week of July were extremely busy but July, 5th marked a welcome change to this lifestyle. My workload was cut in half and I suddenly had a lot of time on my hands. It took me a while to get adjusted to this and I was a little out of it for a few days. Fortunately, this passed as well and I have been enjoying the hot and surprisingly wet Italian summer ever since. Hence the reason for my not having written anything.

I had decided to take it slow, finish up the few things I still had to do at work and devote myself to some deserved (in my opinion at least, feel free to disagree!) rest and relaxation. I have been swimming a lot, getting my body in shape for summer, and think I have managed fairly well. And of course, one of the fringe benefits of swimming is that there is usually a secluded place to sunbathe as well and I took advantage of all those visits to the swimming pool to get myself a nice tan.

As far as activities are concerned, here is a nice little list:

- watching lots of movies (no, seriously, lots)
- rediscovering my love for the French language as well as that country's fascinating culture, i.e. watching French movies (I recommend 'Les Chansons d'Amour' by Christophe Honoré), listening to French music (Alex Beaupain, Edith Piaf) and trying to speak French with Sam
- Lunches in Brera (very decadently on weekdays!!)
- Typing out lots and lots of certificates for students who have recently completed courses at CE
- Lush and raunchy drinking bouts ending at 5am with unexpected house guests
- A Bollywood movie night
- Taking leave of Veronica (our course manager and a close friend), who has made the very difficult decision of leaving CE but will in the end be happier and better-off because of it
- Studying Italian (I have finally been able to pick up where I left off with Paola, yay!!!)
- Teaching Paola Dutch (although it is still unclear to me and the rest of the world why on earth she would want to!)
- Thinking and talking about the future of the company, mainly with Caroline, about our new organisational structure and my role now that Veronica has left
- Missing guests, by which I mean Andrea and a friend who came over for a Friday afternoon but I had to work and by the time I got home they had already left again
- Enjoying living by myself for a change (the second half of June, while Olaf while was still on his world tour)
- An amazing visit to Marike in London: talks until deep in the night, nostalgia (oh those good old days at the Koninginnelaan!!), having children, the future (how our children will get as rich as we want them to be), smoking lots of ciggies, a lovely visit to the National Gallery, coffee and cake in St. James' park, gi-normous glasses of wine for ridiculous prices in Covent Garden, lunch at La Bohème, fish 'n' chips at a pub (of course!), discussions about money vs. happiness vs. success, lovely plans for future holidays and of course 'That Face!', the amazing play with Lindsay Duncan we went to on a whim and that made us laugh until we cried, laugh again, pant, sigh, perspire, hold our breath until the very end and left us lost for words and air but infinitely impressed and satisfied. But next time, Marike, please make sure you stock up on wine!!!!
- Randomly meeting a Belgian on the bus from Stansted to London who turned out to live around the corner from my place in Milan. Bring on the beers and games of pool!
- Hascar and Jolien's wedding, at which I was asked to officiate as best man (Has had done me as well as Ward the great honour of asking us both). I will never forget Jolien's bursting out in hearty laughter as Hascar seriously said 'I do', laughter which slowly developed into tears of happiness. And nobody there suppressed their grins, as we all recognised her victory of persuading the man who said he would never ever marry. I think my speech followed by a pagan libation to celebrate and bless their marriage was received well... Thank you, Marike, for the input!!
- Enjoying Renee and Ejal's visit. There had never before, nor has there since been such a lovely afternoon in Parco Sempione. The cocktails were big (Más!), as were the pizzas (La Padellaccia!), and that freak rainstorm getting us wet through and through in 1 minute while on our way there have definitely made this a weekend I will never forget. Thanks for the pictures, they are lovely!
- Going to random concerts in the Arena and in Villa Reale. A jazz concert (or so we thought as it was part of the Milano Jazzin' Festival) which turned out to be the French band Justice, two DJs playing hardstyle dance music while in front of their tables there was a big shiny cross that lit up in accordance with the music. The Latvian Philharmonic Chamber Orchestra playing Tchaikovsky, which was beautiful though at times a bit boring - and we were annoyed because there were too many mosquitoes and we had forgotten our repellent!! And last but not least a lovely Cuban Jazz band, the Roberto Fonseca Group, playing absolutely inspired jazz with Latin influences that made it impossible not to love.
- Preparing physically and mentally for our great trip. Vaccinations, insurance, planning a route, booking local trains etc.... Phew!

But it's all done now. And tomorrow we are finally leaving for India!!! I am so looking forward to that! Tonight we will have a final aperitivo (at La Hora Feliz) with a few friends who are still in Milan (most people have already left on holiday or family visits), but fortunately Louisa, Jen and Flora are still here. I hope I will be able to update this blog while we are there but I can't promise anything.

Happy holidays everyone!!!

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

Sweaty Summer

Ciao tutti,
After Slutty Summer, Naughty Summer and Summer does Sydney, it is now time for a new porn classic: Sweaty Summer. Well... I hope you didn't get your hopes up too much while reading the title of this post, because you're not going to find much porn here, unfortunately... Not that there isn't any, obviously, but well... uhmm... that's private... - I'm beginning to wonder why the hell I started talking about this subject. It must have been my mind running wild randomly associating ideas after writing the title... Oh, whatever, just skip this paragraph, will you?

Anyway, what I wanted to say is that it's still as hot as Satan's fire island paradise in what I have recently seen someone describe as Milano Rock City. That's actually quite a good description. Living in this city makes one feel like one is standing barefoot on a level rocky plain that's been in the sun for hours and hours and is consequently too hot to walk on without being able to see any shade for miles... So we keep sweating, sweating and sweating some more. Every movement is too much and just a slight change of posture can be the source of an unstoppable outburst of sweat from every single pore in my body as if that movement had been the final crack in the Aswan Dam. But then again, I'm not complaining. It's a good reason not to wear clothes that often. I'm not working more than an hour a day anymore, so I've got a lot of time to lie in the park, exercise in the swimming pool and just get a tan - which is coming along nicely by the way.

The week after Werner and Jose left, we went to Marta's goodbye party at Slice Cafe. Marta is one of Olaf's colleagues and a lovely girl. She has been a visiting student for the past two years, but is now going back to her native Portugal to finish her PhD. We're going to miss her terribly as she is always the life at parties, incredibly funny and just fun to hang out with in general. She's one of Olaf's friends I actually like a lot. The party was really nice and at this great bar I had never been before. The aperitivo at Slice Cafe was awesome, the pasta was to die for and there was an enormous choice of side-dishes. So, we lost a friend but gained a new place to take visitors to!

That Thursday I went to a colleague's birthday party somewhere on the outskirts of Milan, literally overlooking the farmland at the edge of the city. It was an Arab/Cypriot themed party and we were supposed to come dressed accordingly, but Stefano, Elke and I decided not to comply. Phaedon (the birthday boy), a Cypriot colleague at CTL, had prepared a wonderful dinner which I enjoyed immensely. Unfortunately it was just too hot. The apartment didn't have air conditioning and we were burning up and left after we had spent two excruciating hours there just out of politeness. We didn't really get to talk to Phaedon because he was in the kitchen all the time, so in the end the party was kind of a disappointment. Well, at least we ate well... And Stefano told me he had read something about a Belgian restaurant in Milan! A Belgian restaurant! Can you imagine? A Belgian restaurant in Milan?! I couldn't even think of any typically Belgian food besides french fries (frietjes!) and chocolate and of course Belgian beers! So we had to check it out that weekend and the four of us went that Saturday. The restaurant turned out to be lovely and Olaf actually overcame his fear of mussels (which are worryingly called 'cozze' in Italian (pronunciation 'kotse')), which was a definite reason for me to opt for something different. I had an enormous 'stinco di maiale' or pig's shin. Well, actually it was more like an entire pig's leg. Oh well, it was very good I enjoyed that immensely - and some bottles of Kriek as well, obviously!

Last Wednesday Olaf and I went to Corporate English's summer celebration at Bar Bianco in the middle of Parco Sempione. It was amazing. After some initial confusion about where our table actually was, we were labelled as VIPs, ushered upstairs and found our table right next to food and the dance floor. As Caroline (the boss) was paying, we obviously drank too much and had loads of fun. I got to dance with all my colleagues who all thought I was looking hot (Yeah! Swimming three times a week is finally paying off!) and hadn't seen me dance before. Most of you have seen me dance before and already know that I've got some actually stunning moves and am admired wherever I go (Oh yeah, I rule!!! ;-) ), but they hadn't yet. And the more booze we had, the sluttier the dancing got, so you can imagine the bacchanal that night ended in - which Olaf didn't get to experience anymore because he went home quite early. All my colleagues are from Britain, Australia, Canada etc so they know how to party and we sort of decided to show those Italians what slutty dancing really is... I'm still waiting for the pictures! Caroline actually got quite excited and suddenly decided that 'my shirt needed ripping' and then proceeded to do exactly that. Something like that had never happened to me before and I was baffled for a couple of moments - apparently with an appalled face because Caroline's face immediately changed as she realised I wasn't amused... Well, I wasn't really angry but just stupefied, but that was enough for her to spend 5 minutes on the floor searching for my buttons and promising to sew them back on again.

Anyway, that sort of marked the end of the evening for me. When I had said my goodbyes and given Paola a big hug as she has just gone on a study trip to Kenya for a month, I had obviously just missed the last tram so I had to walk back. Which was fine because it had cooled down a little bit and gave me chance to sober up a bit, although I was afraid of getting arrested for public nudity or something... So, when I got home I put my shirt and the buttons in a plastic bag and handed them to Caroline the next day declaring with a smile that I hadn't washed it yet and that it might smell a bit dodgy (as I had been dancing in it all night and it was sweaty as hell), but that this was her deserved punishment.

That night Werner and José came back to sleep at our place for another night because they were flying back to Holland from Bergamo last Friday. So, we took them out to our new favourite place, Slice Cafe. We had some lovely cocktails, gorgeous food and a nice discussion about the teacher training programme at Radboud University which Werner has already finished and José is starting in September. After that, we went back home and played an interesting game of macchiavelli. They left Friday morning and we spent our weekend relaxing, not moving more than we had to. Last night, we went to a restaurant we had spotted a couple of days ago with Nina and Antonio who we hadn't seen for a long time. It was a lovely restaurant, the pizzas were nice and it was great to see them again, although we had to wait for an hour to get a table. We slept late this morning and have just finished cleaning our house which has turned me into a splashing sweat monster, so I'm quite happy to just sit here and tell you about my life.

Just two more days of work until my holiday starts on 1st August. What does one do with five weeks off? - Especially, since I've already been having a lot of free time because I haven't been working much lately. I can't remember ever having a holiday as long as that. When I was still in university I always worked during my summer breaks and just took time off to go on holiday abroad. Fortunately, Stefano and Elke have invited us to come and visit them in Toscana for a couple days and Belinda and Enrico want us to come with them to house on Lago Maggiore so our weeks will be quite filled. Which is a good thing, because I was really worried about what I was going to do until 20th August when we leave for Romania. Even my pools are closing, which amazes me. Who has ever heard of swimming pools closing in summer? Apparently, Italians think nobody uses indoor pools in summer are closing them all so I'm forced to swim in outdoor pools. This sucks, because I need the markings on the ceiling to make sure I don't hit my head against the side of the pool and outside pools are mainly play pools. They don't have lanes and there are always people jumping, playing and swimming in directions they shouldn't be swimming in so they're always blocking my passage! And let's not forget about the distraction of beautiful people in sexy swimwear walking around the pool or relaxing in the sun all the time...

As you can see, my life is obviously horrible...

Bacio, Fe

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