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

Luglio milanese

Ciao tutti,

It's time for another update and this one is going to be about people and how to spend a Milanese July. You see, it's hot, hothothothothothot, and I love it. So what if I can't seem to dry up all day? So what if I'm never presentable to clients anymore? So what if nobody really wants to take English classes and I consequently don't get to work much? It's summer and I'm in Italy. We've got clear blue skies, there's not a cloud in sight and the temperature is stable around 30 degrees Celsius. I've got enough time on my hands to go swimming, to lie and the park and read Homer (well actually, I haven't done that yet but I am planning to!) and get that suntan I so desperately want.

Work is all but finished. All courses that won't continue in September have ended by now and I have been substituting a bit to earn some extra cash but it definitely isn't a full-time job anymore. Which means I have loads of time to enjoy visitors and exactly those visitors are going to be the subject of the largest part of this post! Steef and Marieke finally arrived many hours later than planned but that didn't matter. We had been really excited and very proud to announce to them that the July sales would start that weekend which made us very happy to hit town on Sunday only to find out that... the sales wouldn't start until the Saturday after that! That was a bit of a disappointment but in the end we decided not to let this discourage us and to continue with our shop-a-thon as planned. I actually bought a lovely shirt to wear at Maartje and Edin's wedding in September (when Steef and I are going to be bridesmaid and pageboy, so we had to make sure we bought matching outfits) and another one for the summer at Zara. And it was a good thing I didn't wait until the sales started, because by the time I got to Zara the following weekend they were completely sold out!

It was Steef's second visit and Marieke's first so we also did some sightseeing. Evenings were filled with dinners at La Padellaccia and Mas and many, many games (I love Skip-Bo!). On Monday the three of us took the train to Como when Olaf had to work in order to join the sunshine from the lake but unfortunately it was cloudy and rained a little. Well, no harm done, because we had a lot of time to talk and catch up which was at least as important as Como. Here are some pictures.

Me and Marieke on the couch at home

Me and Steef

Marieke has such an amazing smile that we even look cute in black and white
I think Steef and I were pretending to be couple... so you can imagine the merriment!

The weekend after that my father came with his Barbershop quartet. Once every year the go to a random town to sing on street corners and see of they can earn some cash. And this year it was Milano, baby! They sang at the Galleria, in front of the Duomo, on Piazza Mercanti, inside the Castello and earned an amazing amount of 8 euros. It was a very lovely visit and I liked his friends a lot, even though I had been a bit worried about spending the weekend with 50 to 60-year-old men! We had some lovely food in the evenings and enjoyed the occasional bottle of wine...

And we also shot some little movies, here's an example

That Sunday there was a free concert at Piazza Duomo. We got to enjoy an interesting mix of Vivaldi's and Piazzolla's Four Seasons (both compositions were cut in parts and the seasons were paired together to emphasise contrast), while dying of mosquito bites and trying to soothe the pain with way to expensive bottles of beer...

That weekend the sales started but I didn't buy anything except for a pair of flip flops. That Wednesday it was notte bianca (when all the shops are open), but that didn't really yield any other positive shop results either. This weekend, Werner and José came to visit and they were well-prepared. They had studied nearly every single guide about Milan in existence and were able to tell me loads of things I didn't know yet. So, of course we had to go and discover. They didn't need much sleep so we spent two long days in the city meticulously investigating the Duomo (2,5 hours in total), the museum of Milanese architectural history through the ages in the Castello, Cimitero Monumentale, Pinacoteca Ambrosiana (where I had never been before), a bunch of churches and of course just walking around. It's always fun to have study mates around and being to indulge in those useless interests we were crazy enough to study for all those years. The nights were filled with the usual dinners at La Padellaccia, Mas and Wasabi (sushi aperitivo) and many games I should have won but didn't. Saturday night we went to another free concert at Piazza Duomo. This time it was Giovanni Allevi, a very gifted Italian piano player whose music was able to keep a square filled with smart-mouthed Italians silent... Here are some pictures of Werner and Jo

Aren't they cute? They are convinced they never look good on pictures but I must disagree!

This morning, the took a train to Bologna and are planning to camp their way back via Florence, Pisa and Lucca. Good luck, kids, may the force be with you! When they had left, I was feeling fat and lazy so I decided it was time for a work-out and I went to the pool. Of course, I was really tired and made a little mistake. Even though I was tired, I finished my routine in good time and to reward myself I allowed myself some time in the sun to work on my tan. So I took off my cap and goggles, put them in my locker, closed it and went outside. After I had been lying there for a while, I started thinking about going home and getting my things. And then I realised that the keys to the locker were still attached to my goggles! So there I was, standing in my swimsuit without access to my things! After fidgeting with the lock for a while I decided to cut my losses and do the shameful but right thing. I told the lifeguard what had happened and with a compassionate look he got his pair of 2-meter tongs. With an excruciatingly loud sound he cracked my lock in two, gave me a deservedly sarcastic smile and walked off carelessly swinging the tongs over his shoulder. I couldn't help thinking that he must do this at least 15 times a day... Who designs a lock you can close without a key, anyway?!

A presto, Fe