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....