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